Tourism industry and its impact on economic growth of five GCC countries

Purpose: This paper's primary motive is to analyze the tourism-growth nexus for the five GCC countries. Approach: By incorporating panel and individual country-based study data for the period 2000–2018. All the concerned variables integrated into the first differenced form. Findings: Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test reveals that no causality found among any factor tested with economic growth, although dual causation is present among tourism growth and tourism expenditure. Limitations: Our study is confined to a particular region as well, as it based on ordinary least square techniques does not implement the same for other regions of the World Originality: Our results are expected to guide policymakers to design appropriate policies that boost the tourism industry to promote sustainable tourism in GCC countries.