The Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) is organising the 13th international workshop in the field of regional economics in honour of Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and member of WIFO's Scientific Board. This event aims at bringing together researchers from various fields of economics working mainly at the regional level to discuss ideas and exchange knowledge. Glyn Wittwer of the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) in Melbourne will serve as our keynote speaker for the workshop. Glyn is a regional dynamic CGE modelling expert. He has played a major role in developing databases for several country-specific versions of TERM (The Enormous Regional Model), a "bottom-up" multiregional CGE model developed at CoPS. His list of projects includes modelling of the impacts of major dam and transport projects, drought and water trading, flood, hypothetical plant disease scenarios, productivity scenarios, wine tax scenarios, major mine construction projects, industry closures and the aftermath of civil disruption.

In order to make the importance of tourism for the regional economy in Austria tangible, Statistics Austria and WIFO have compiled Tourism Satellite Accounts (R-TSA) for eight provinces on behalf of the respective provincial governments or provincial tourism organisations. In an online workshop for journalists, the main results for the base year 2018 as well as a first estimate for 2019 on the spending volume of tourists, the value added of tourism in the individual provinces and the contribution of tourism to regional employment will be presented. The key figures represent the level before the COVID-19 pandemic and will thus be able to provide information in the future on the effect the crisis had on tourism in the various regions of Austria.