Santiago de Compostela, España
In this paper we analyse the economic impact of tourism in the economy of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEB) at regional level. We focus in those eight countries from Central and Baltic Europe that became members of the European Union in year 2004 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), plus Romania and Bulgaria which joined later in year 2007. The share of this group of countries, on hotel tourism of the European Union, has increased during the period 2000 to 2007 although the intensity of tourism per one thousand people is yet clearly below EU27 average. The econometric model shows the positive impact of tourism on employment in market services.