An econometric assessment of the impact of ecotourism on regional economic development

Abstract

This article provides an econometric assessment of the relationship between ecotourism-related activity and regional economic development in Uzbekistan. Because official regional statistics do not report ecotourism turnover separately, the 2024 growth rate of accommodation and food services is used as a proxy for the tourism-demand transmission channel. Real gross regional product growth serves as the dependent variable. A cross-sectional OLS model for 13 regions is estimated using heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors. The results indicate that a one-percentage-point increase in tourism-service growth is associated with approximately 0.22 percentage points higher real GRP growth. The coefficient is statistically significant at the 5% level, although the model explains a limited share of regional growth variation (R²≈0.17). The findings support the view that ecotourism can contribute to local economic development through employment, household income and service-sector spillovers, but more disaggregated panel data are required for causal inference.