A comparison of three economic impact models for applied hospitality and tourism research

This study examines the differences between three economic impact models: the capacity utilization model (CUM), Regional Economic Models, Inc (REMI) and the impact analysis for planning (IMPLAN) model with a view to providing insights into their applicability for hospitality and tourism educators and researchers. Four databases have been used to compare the results concerning total output, income and employment. The results were most dissimilar for the ‘income’ variable. The difference in income lies in the fact that the three models estimated income in three different ways. The CUM estimated ‘payroll’, REMI estimated ‘disposable personal income’ and IMPLAN estimated ‘value added’. Due to the different income measurements, REMI’s income estimates were the highest, while the CUM’s were the lowest. This study does not strive to recommend one economic impact model over another; however, it does examine the behaviour of the respective models concerning various data sets and describes the underlying characteristics of the models.