In the present study we analyze the relationship between tourism and human development for a selection of 63 countries from 1996 to 2008. Findings confirm that, on average, tourism is positively associated with human development. By decomposing the effect of tourism on each human development indicator, we find that literacy rate appears to be the most affected. This result suggests that the impact of tourism in the host country is much broader respect to the purely economic effect. Furthermore, it suggests the need of further investigating the relationship between human development and tourism.