Using surveys of business expenditure to draw inferences about the size of regional multipliers: a case-study of tourism in Northern Australia

Abstract

Using data from 429 different tourism enterprises operating in 47 different postcodes across Northern Australia, this paper provides an empirical illustration of a novel 'short-cut' to estimating the size of multipliers associated with specific businesses in rural areas – termed business-level multipliers (BLMs). The estimates are mapped across space and regressed against several variables including: type of enterprise, number of employees and remoteness of region in which the business is operating. The results show that business spending patterns vary more by 'remoteness' than by the type of enterprise.