AN ASSESSMENT OF THE COMMUNITY SUPPORT FRAMEWORK (CSF) FUNDING TOWARDS THE TOURIST SECTOR: THE CASE OF GREECE

The main purpose of this paper is to construct indices of tourist development in the case of 51 prefectures (nomoi, NUTS III regions) of Greece and use them for the evaluation of tourist-regional policy. The paper is based on the development of a composite Regional Tourist Development Index that takes into account all aspects of tourist consumption. Our analysis shows that regions with relatively higher tourist development indices received relatively more funds from the Community Support Framework, compared to regions with lower tourist development indices. This finding is in contrast with the European cohesion policy, which aims at convergence between different member states and regions.