Search

Income is a relevant factor for explaining outbound tourism demand. However, when working with regional- or country-level data, it is difficult to disentangle the role of income in stimulating tourism travelling from other factors that correlate with greater income levels. This paper exploits a natural experiment from Spanish Christmas Lottery to estimate the causal effect of income shocks on outbound tourism. We leverage the staggered and quasi-random assignment of lottery winnings across Spanish regions to estimate the elasticity of outbound annual trips and expenditure to windfall gains. Using difference-in-differences with the amount of lottery prizes as an indicator of treatment intensity, we show that lottery winnings per capita increase both the annual number of tourism trips and expenditure per capita. This effect operates during the first 2 years following the draw, which is likely explained by bandwagon and income multiplier effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second-home tourism is a popular tourism activity by which people spend leisure time away from home at second residences. Given the budget constraint, savings from not having to pay for the accommodation might produce expenditure reallocation effects on other items. This paper examines the differences in expenditure between tourists who stay at market accommodations versus those at second homes considering distinct categories. Using microdata for around 37,000 tourists in Spain travelling in the summer periods of 2017, 2018 and 2019, we estimate Craggit-type regressions to study potential reallocation effects in recreational activities, bars and restaurants, and other items including purchases at supermarkets and goods for personal care. We find that tourists at second homes spend significantly less in bars and restaurants, tourism activities and other items. There is no evidence of reallocation effects in expenditure at destination, suggesting that the economic contribution of second-home tourism is lower than typically assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates whether college students change their beliefs about the social, economic, and environmental effects of tourism activities after receiving educational training. In particular, our goal is to examine if economic instruction affects their views about the impacts of cruise tourism development. We conduct an experiment with students majoring in tourism enrolled in a compulsory course on tourism and transport at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain). We administer a survey before and after the course in three academic years that involve the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. We find that students become more concerned about the negative impacts of cruise tourism, with significant shifts in their agreement with the environmental externalities and price surges associated with cruise tourism. Furthermore, they become more supportive of the setting of a tourism tax per passenger, but agree less with the idea that governments should economically incentivise the arrival of more ships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the changes in the expenditure–price elasticities of foreign tourists in the summer periods of 2019, 2020, and 2021. We first develop a theoretical characterization that combines microeconomic, loss aversion, price inequality and precautionary savings theories. Next, exploiting microdata for more than 34,000 foreign tourists visiting Spain, we estimate OLS and quantile regressions to empirically examine the expenditure elasticities with respect to the prices of transport services, leisure activities and bars and restaurants at the destination (17 regions). We find that (i) the expenditure–price elasticity of transportation (leisure activities) increases (decreases) during the pandemic, whereas that of bars and restaurants remains unchanged, (ii) foreign tourists are comparatively less expenditure–price elastic at high expenditure levels in transportation and bars and restaurants, and (iii) expenditure–price elasticities are highly heterogeneous depending on the origin country. Managerial and theoretical implications of the findings for firms' pricing strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many empirical studies in tourism research use primary or secondary survey data. Generally, non-response is not random in the target population, so sampling weights are required to adjust for endogenous sampling. However, it is yet unclear in which situations survey weights should be applied. This paper proposes two simple tests to detect whether weights are truly needed. The relevance of weighting for correct inference and how to perform the tests are illustrated using two case studies that employ large-scale survey microdata on travel habits by European residents from the Flash Eurobarometer. First, we investigate the correlates of travel frequency paying attention to the role of age. Second, we study cross-country heterogeneity in the factors that motivate European citizens to consume peer-to-peer accommodation services. Our findings have important implications for research practice, and the proposed tests can be easily applied in case studies to detect the need for sampling weighs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding couple instability is a topic of social and economic relevance. This paper investigates how the risk of dissolution relates to efforts to solve disagreements. We study whether marital locus of control (a noncognitive trait that captures individual's perception of control over problems within the couple) is associated with the prevalence of relationship instability in the past. We implement a list experiment using the count‐item technique to a sample of current real‐life couples to elicit truthful answers about couple break‐up intentions in the past at the individual level. We find that around 44% of our sample has considered to end their relationship with their current partner at least once in the past. The intention to break‐up is more prevalent among those who score low in marital locus of control, males, low‐income earners, individuals with university studies, and couples without children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas the drivers of tourist satisfaction with a destination have been largely studied, we know little about whether the serial order of the destination in multi-destination trips plays a role in explaining satisfaction. Based on a large longitudinal data set and using ordered probit models, we show that tourists are systematically highly satisfied with those destinations visited later within a multi-destination trip. This finding is conditional on a large set of controls and individual random effects. Interestingly, length of stay at each destination, age and travel party size are found to be significant mediators of the relationship between the serial order of the trip and satisfaction, partially counterbalancing recall bias. The results provide evidence of recency effects in tourist satisfaction recall and have important implications for the interpretation of tourist satisfaction studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As on‐field success is nowadays the main objective of European soccer clubs, good management needs to extract the highest sport success from the squad talent at hand. Because teams differ in their quality, performance needs to be compared with the best practice of comparable units. One remarkable source of heterogeneity across teams is the squad composition, which can produce gains from diversity together with communication costs. The paper studies the efficiency in sporting performance of soccer teams, paying attention to how the number of foreign players relates to productive inefficiency. Using data for 146 teams in the top 5 European leagues during 10 seasons, we estimate a double heteroskedastic True Random Effects Stochastic Frontier team production function. We find that (i) the number of passes, ball recoveries, and shots from the penalty area improve team efficiency, and (ii) a higher number of foreign players increase inefficiency. Our findings suggest that gains from squad diversity might be offset by communication costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies use the hedonic pricing method to uncover consumers' willingness to pay for accommodation characteristics in the hospitality industry. In most empirical applications using cross-sectional data, implicit prices might be biased if omitted time-invariant variables correlate with observed attributes. This paper proposes a set of diagnostic checks to inspect the potential bias in the estimates through exploiting repeated information for the same accommodations. Due to the limitations imposed by standard fixed and random effects panel regressions, we advocate for the use of Mundlak and Hausman–Taylor estimators. The proposed methods are applied to a study of Airbnb hedonic prices in Ibiza using a 14-month time window. In doing so, we document a novel finding: Superhosts set lower prices conditional on time-invariant quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-term residential vacation rentals (RVRs) have increased their popularity in recent years. Local governments have introduced different regulatory changes to control their supply growth. This paper evaluates a policy intervention in a Northern Spanish destination that has reduced the bureaucratic procedures to officially open a RVR since 2016. We compare the evolution of accommodation growth of RVRs with that of tourist apartments exploiting a panel data set of 78 municipalities between 2013 and 2019. Using difference-in-differences, we provide evidence that the easing of the administrative procedures increased the number of establishments and bed places in RVRs by 5 and 26 units, on average, per municipality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]