We examine the direct and indirect economic contribution of tourism in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by estimating output, income, and value-added multipliers, along with backward and forward linkage indices, for 18 industries using the 2023 input–output (I–O) table. Tourism-driven sectors—such as accommodation and food services, transport, and trade—demonstrate extensive inter-industry connections, reflecting their pivotal role in propagating demand across upstream suppliers and downstream consumers. Tourism-related spending generates strong indirect effects across manufacturing, utilities, logistics, and cultural services, boosting production, income, and value creation economy-wide. For the first time in the UAE context, normalized linkage spread indices are adopted to measure the distribution of backward and forward linkages, providing nuanced insights into the depth of inter-industry interdependencies. The results indicate that tourism underpins economic diversification, reinforces structural resilience, and contributes to sustainable, service-oriented growth, highlighting its strategic importance in the evolution of the UAE’s non-oil economy.
Valadkhani et al. (Wed,) studied this question.