Abstract:
The tourism sector is a very important sector in the Sri Lankan economy. The main objective of this
study is to find out the relationship between economic growth and total indirect tourism
employment. To achieve the objective, long-run relationships between variables were estimated
through the ARDL test, and to estimate a short-run relationship between variables the error correction
model has been used. Gross domestic product and total indirect employment of tourism are used as a
variable in this study. The periods 1977 and 2019 annual data were analyzed with E-views-10
statistical package. ARDL bound test has proved that co-integration occurred between variables
in this study. Further, according to the analytical results, a long-run positive correlation was obtained
between economic growth and total indirect employment in the tourism sector in Sri Lanka. In the short
run, there were no relationships between economic growth and total indirect employment in the tourism
sector. So, the Sri Lankan government should develop dynamic policies to promote the tourism sector in
the long-run period.
