This paper analyses the empirical relationship between growth, country size and tourism specialization by using a data set covering the period 1980-2003. It finds that tourism countries are small and grow significantly faster than all the other subgroups considered in the analysis. Tourism appears to be an independent determining factor for growth: controlling for initial per capita income and for trade openness does not weaken the positive correlation between tourism specialization and growth. Another finding of the paper is that small states are fast growing only when they are highly specialized in tourism. In contrast with some previous conclusions in the literature, smallness per se is not good for growth.