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on Tourism Economics |
| By: | Reis, Jose Guilherme; Varela, Gonzalo |
| Abstract: | Entering and successfully surviving in export markets is a costly process for firms. The process involves learning about the existence of foreign demand,"discovering"production costs of exportable goods, building up reputation, succeeding in product branding to reduce competitive pressures and to be constantly upgrading quality standards to better serve demanding international clients, and remaining competitive vis-à-vis other players in the global marketplace. This paper argues that tourism can help alleviate some of these costs by providing a relatively inexpensive platform for cost-discovery and by acting as a low-cost"in-house"trade fair, accessible to all domestic producers. The analysis combines product-level data on world and Nepal's exports (both for goods that are related and unrelated to tourism) with Nepalese data on tourist inflows and expenditures and macro indicators on relative prices. For tourism-related goods, the analysis reveals a positive association between tourist inflows from given destinations and their expenditures, with future merchandise exports to those destinations. Instead, for goods a priori unrelated to tourism, the data reveal no connection between tourism flows and future exports. The results suggest spillovers from tourism into merchandise export performance and diversification and would imply that there are gains from cooperation between tourism and export promotion agencies. |
| Keywords: | Tourism and Ecotourism,Trade Policy,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Free Trade |
| Date: | 2013–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6669&r=tur |
| By: | Yongjie Ji; Joseph A. Herriges; Catherine L. Kling (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD)) |
| Abstract: | The task of modeling the recreation demand for geographically large sites, such as rivers and beaches or large parks with multiple entrances, is often challenged by incomplete information regarding the access point used by the individual. Traditionally, analysts have relied upon convenient approximations, defining travel time and travel distances on the basis of the midpoint of a river or beach segment or on the basis of the nearest access point to the site for each individual. In this paper, we instead treat the problem as one of aggregation, drawing upon and generalizing results from the aggregation literature. The resulting model yields a consistent framework for incorporating information on site characteristics and travel costs gathered at a finer level than that used to obtain trip counts. We use a series of Monte Carlo experiments to illustrate the performance of the traditional mid-point and nearest access point approximations. Our results suggest that, while the nearest access point approach provides a relatively good approximation to underlying preferences for a wide range of parameter specifications, use of the midpoint approach to calculating travel cost can lead to significant bias in the travel cost parameter and corresponding welfare calculations. Finally, we use our approach in modeling recreation demand for the major river systems in Iowa using data from the 2009 Iowa Rivers and River Corridors Survey. |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ias:cpaper:13-wp540&r=tur |