nep-tur New Economics Papers
on Tourism Economics
Issue of 2014‒03‒30
three papers chosen by
Laura Vici
Universita' di Bologna

  1. Climate Amenities and Adaptation to Climate Change: A Hedonic-Travel Cost Approach for Europe By Salvador Barrios; J. Nicolás Ibañez Rivas
  2. Time is of the Essence: Adaptation of Tourism Demand to Climate Change in Europe By Salvador Barrios; J. Nicolás Ibañez
  3. Is Participation in Tourism Market an Opportunity for Everyone? Some Evidence from Italy By Cristina Bernini; Maria Francesca Cracolici

  1. By: Salvador Barrios (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission); J. Nicolás Ibañez Rivas (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission)
    Abstract: We investigate the impact of climatic change on welfare in European regions using a hedonic travel-cost framework and focusing on tourism demand. Our hedonic price estimations combine detailed hotel price information with tourism-specific travel cost estimations for each pair of EU region. This approach allows us to estimate different valuations of climate amenities depending on time duration of holidays. In our analysis of adaptation to climate change we therefore consider holiday duration as variable of adaptation. Our findings suggest that the rise in temperature in preferred destination choices during the summer season (i.e. southern EU) is likely to yield significant welfare losses. As a result European tourists are more likely to spend shorter (and more frequent) holidays and to diversify their destination choices in order to mitigate these losses.
    Keywords: Climate Change, Hedonic Prices, Travel Cost, Tourism, Europe
    JEL: L8 Q5
    Date: 2014–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.20&r=tur
  2. By: Salvador Barrios (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission); J. Nicolás Ibañez (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission)
    Abstract: This study analyses the potential impact of climate change on EU tourism demand and provides long-term (2100) scenarios accounting for adaptation in terms of holiday duration. Our long-term projections for tourism demand are based on hedonic valuation of climatic conditions combining hotel price information and travel cost estimations. This approach allows us to analyse together the climatic aspect of recreational demand and its travel cost dimension and thus to draw alternative hypotheses regarding the time dimension of tourism demand. We derive alternative scenarios for adaptation of holiday in terms of holiday frequency and duration. We find that the climate dimension plays a significant (economically and statistically) role in explaining hedonic valuations of tourism services and, as a consequence, its variation in the long-term are likely to affect the relative attractiveness of EU regions for recreational demand. In certain cases, most notably the Southern EU Mediterranean countries climate condition in 2100 could under current economic conditions, lower tourism revenues for up to -0.45% of GDP per year. On the contrary, other areas of the EU, most notably Northern European countries would gain from altered climate conditions, although these gains would be relatively more modest, reaching up to 0.32% of GDP on an annual basis. Overall our results suggest that the change in holiday duration appears to be more beneficial than the change in the frequency of holidays in view of mitigating the cost of climate change for the tourism sector. These two time dimensions of adaptation are likely to be conditioned by broader societal and institutional factors, however.
    Keywords: Tourism demand, Climate change
    JEL: L8 Q5
    Date: 2014–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.19&r=tur
  3. By: Cristina Bernini (Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy); Maria Francesca Cracolici (Department of Economics, Business and Statistics, Italy)
    Abstract: Exploring the main determinants of tourism participation at national and international level, the paper investigates if there are differences in tourism consumption behavior among Italian families which reflect disparities in their standard of living. To achieve this a Heckman model has been used on a huge sample of Italian households over the period 1997-2007. Results show that participation in the tourism market is strongly affected by the personal characteristics of individuals and that tourism consumption is an income sensitive good. The analysis reveals that tourism is generally a luxury good reflecting the disparities in the standard of living among Italian families. We have found that participation in the tourism market is affected not only by economic constraints, but also by cultural and territorial factors.
    Keywords: Tourism Consumption, Income Elasticity, Household Characteristics, Domestic and International Travels, Standard of Living
    JEL: D10 C23 C24 L83
    Date: 2014–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.17&r=tur

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