Author(s)

Á. Matias

Abstract

Tourism economics are still fighting for international academic recognition. This is not surprising considering that the increasingly economic significance of tourism has not yet been accompanied by a parallel development of its theoretical framework. This paper aims to make a further contribution to the theoretical foundations of the emerging subject of tourism economics. Considering the existence of very specific characteristics on tourism goods, tourism analysis requires a non-standardized treatment from economic science, frequently using less usual instruments – as is the case for economic geography. Given the relevance of distance on tourism consumption, we argue that gravitational models can be used to explain tourism flows in general, and the ones towards the Portuguese territory in particula

Keywords