The tourism industry is currently the worldûs
largest and most diverse business sector since it
serves as a primary source for generating revenue,
employment, private sector growth, and infrastructure
development for many countries. Researchers have
argued that tourism development not only stimulates
the growth of the industry, but also triggers overall
economic growth (Lee and Chang, 2008). Hence,
enhancing economic growth by promoting the
tourism industry has become an important economic
development strategy in most developing countries
(Chen and Chiou-Wei, 2009). This belief is consistent
with one of the three relevant hypotheses regarding
the relationship between tourism development and
economic expansion—namely, the tourism-led
economic growth hypothesis, the economic-driven
tourism growth hypothesis, and the reciprocal causal
hypothesis.