The Role of the Forest Recreation Industry in China’s National Economy: An Input–Output Analysis

Forest recreation not only enables directly creates impacts on the entire tourism industry but also indirectly creates effects on other industries composed in an economic system via inter-industrial interdependence, such as backward and forward linkages or interactions. However, due to the lack of data available, few studies have been made exclusively for evaluating the impacts of forest recreation on the economy in a national dimension. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the economic impacts of the forest recreation industry. Using an input–output modeling approach, the industrial linkage and a cluster of economic multipliers are estimated based on new input–output tables for 2012, 2017, and 2018 that includes the forest recreation industry. The results indicate that, first, both the forward and backward linkages caused by forest recreation show rising trends over the analysis periods and the backward linkages are stronger than forward linkages. Second, the economic contribution of forest recreation has been strengthened, although the multipliers have shown a downward trend. The total output impact in 2018 is calculated to be $838.187 billion, with a total added impact of $352.713 billion. Furthermore, forest recreation could create over 18 million jobs with an average annual growth rate of 15.73%, which are mainly in the catering, accommodation, and retail industries with low skill requirements. Finally, policy applications are proposed to provide reliable and useful information for future planning and investment decision associated with the forestry and ecotourism industry.