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International audience; The tourism sector has voluntarily undertaken several initiatives to boost customer confidence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in the hotel industry, three different strategies have been implemented: sending no COVID-19 safety signal; sending a moderate signal through a charter; or sending a strong signal through a label. This study aims to identify the main drivers of the hotels’ choice among these strategies and to analyze the influence of their choice on price setting. We estimate a system of three equations (hotel pricing, star rating, COVID-19 safety signal) on a sample of 418 rated hotels in the Hauts-de-France region. Results support three main findings: 1) star rating positively correlates with COVID-19 certification; 2) COVID-19 certification has a strongly negative impact on hotel prices; 3) star rating moderates positively the effect of COVID-19 certification on prices. Furthermore, error terms between the star rating level and COVID-19 certification equations are strongly correlated. Hence unobserved common factors play a role in the adoption of these quality signals. Our findings are consistent with the idea that managers implementing safety signaling strategies are more worried about recovery speed after lockdowns.

Does a country need good institutions to use tourism as an economic development activator? From a sample of non-organisation for economic co-operation and development countries, this article aims to assess the feasibility of tourism-led growth in different institutional settings. The results not only suggest that a tourism shock is good for gross domestic product growth but that inclusive institutions enhance the ability of a country to convert tourism into growth. It also emphasises that beyond tourism that remains a major transmission channel for growth, inclusive countries largely benefit from growth in their neighbouring countries. They are more able to import economic growth from abroad.

The literature on short-term rental emphasises the heterogeneity of the hosts population. Some argue that professional and opportunistic hosts differ in terms of their pricing strategy. This study highlights how differences in market perception and information create a price differential between professional and non-professional players. Proposing an original and accurate definition of professional hosts, we rely on a large dataset of almost 9000 properties and 73,000 observations to investigate the pricing behaviour of Airbnb sellers in Corsica (France). Using OLS and the double-machine learning methods, we demonstrate that a price differential exists between professional and opportunistic sellers. In addition, we assess the impact of seasonality in demand on the size and direction of this price differential. We find that professionals perceive a higher degree of market power than others during the peak season and it allows them to enhance their revenues.

Many regions and countries seek to develop their tourism industry as a strategy for economic growth. A growing body of research supports the hypothesis of tourism-led growth. This paper contributes to the existing literature in two ways. First, it proposes a new mechanism for sustained tourism-led growth, emphasising the crucial importance of the market segment in which a tourist destination wishes to operate. Second, it shows how a destination that is experiencing stagnation can temporarily boost its performance and improve its long-term welfare by reorienting the supply from a highly price-sensitive mass tourism product towards a more selective one of the luxury tourism. This change in focus is discussed in the light of the experience of two Spanish archipelagos. The empirical results obtained highlight the evident success of the reorientation strategy in one of these cases. The model provides theoretical support for the implementation of tourist product restructuring policies in economies that are reliant on tourism.

International audience; The literature on the peer-to-peer hospitality market largely assumes that Airbnb hosts are loyal to the platform. However, similar to hoteliers, Airbnb hosts have access to various platforms to diversify their distribution channels. In cases where hosts significantly diversify their distribution channels, they should be considered rather as professional competitors mimicking hoteliers. Proposing an original image-recognition approach to obtain a proxy of the number of platforms used by Airbnb hosts, this paper assesses the probability that a home-sharer practices multichannel distribution. Drawing on a sample of more than 3900 hosts from the region of Corsica in France, we show that a multichannel distribution strategy is commonly adopted. Furthermore, a significant fraction of small hosts uses three or more channels.

In a context in which the tourism industry is jeopardised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and potentially by other pandemics in the future, the capacity to produce accurate forecasts is crucial to stakeholders and policy-makers. This paper attempts to forecast the recovery of tourism demand for 2021 in 20 destinations worldwide. An original scenario-based judgemental forecast based on the definition of a Covid-19 Risk Exposure index is proposed to overcome the limitations of traditional forecasting methods. Three scenarios are proposed, and ex ante forecasts are generated for each destination using a baseline forecast, the developed index and a judgemental approach. The limitations and potential developments of this new forecasting model are then discussed.

The influx of non-local buyers into the land market is commonly held responsible for the exclusion of local buyers through price. We study the seaside farmland market in Corsica. A massive price ga...

International audience

No effort has been made to connect good governance and the performance of the tourism industry at the country level. We take a first step to provide empirical evidence of this positive effect. Based on a data set of 100 countries between 2002 and 2012, the impact of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) on the tourism industry is analyzed, controlling also for demographic, economic and environmental factors. Using a dynamic panel data approach, we highlight the role played by good governance in explaining differences in countries’ tourism performances, measured here as inbound tourism expenditures per inhabitant. We also observe that the impact of WGI is even higher among low-openness countries.

The aim of this contribution is, focusing on the case of Corsica, to quantify the identity value of local production. Apart from the nutritional, healthy and organoleptic features of local products, from the consumer point of view, their consumption tends to develop a sense of belonging to the place it is produced in: in other words, it is not just food, but it is also an experience allowing individuals to connect with local heritage. For instance due to the originality of the techniques or the quality of the employed ingredients. One can say that both material and immaterial local patrimony are transferred to the product, increasing consumers' willingness to pay and therefore its market value. It is precisely this identity value that we would like to isolate and estimate combining a choice experiment method with a geographical qualitative approach. To this end, a geographical survey has been undertaken. It aims to identify typical consumption profiles depending on the link between the consumer, the place and the product. This survey is complemented with an econometric analysis in order to identify consumers' motivations and measure the related values., Ce texte propose d'explorer la valeur identitaire des produits de terroir à partir de l'exemple de la Corse. Dans ce contexte territorial particulier, la demande touristique tendrait à valoriser fortement la représentation de conservatoire d'authenticité que renvoie l'île. Au-delà des qualités nutritives, sanitaires et organoleptiques des produits, les touristes chercheraient à s'immiscer dans le territoire et à opérer une rencontre avec la culture locale. C'est précisément cette « sur- » valeur patrimoniale investie par les touristes que nous cherchons à mesurer. Pour cela, une enquête géographique a été conduite de façon à mettre en évidence différents profils de consommateurs en fonction de leurs liens aux produits et au territoire. Celle-ci est complétée par une analyse économétrique devant conduire à identifier et classer les motivations des consommateurs et à mesurer quantitativement les différentes valeurs.

International audience

International audience

International audience

International audience

In this paper, we build a standard model of optimal growth, with exogenous population growth and technical change, for an economy specialised in tourism. Assuming that the production of tourism is pollution generating and that tourists are pollution adverse, we establish propositions regarding long-term growth and sustainability of tourism. We show that mass tourism only is associated with high growth rates and that in general, mass tourism is not sustainable. To sum up, our model shows that high growth sustainable tourism does not actually exists.

International audience

The aim of this paper is to answer a simple question: Are fluctuations, and especially temporary slow-downs or decline, in frequentation always harmful for a tourism destination? I propose a simple theoretical model for a nature-based destination, in which the willingness to pay (WTP) of a tourist for the destination depends on the environmental quality of the destination. I hypothesize that, at some points in time, there exists a rational economic incentive to experience a decrease in frequentation for a while in order to let the stock of natural assets regenerates since the fall in environmental quality is associated with a lower willingness to pay for the destination. Then I use a sample of 80 seaside hotels of Corsica to show that the WTP of tourists for a night-stay positively depends on environmental quality. Results indicate that a deterioration of the environmental quality of the destination would reduce the willingness to pay for a nigh-stay in Corsica of more than 25%. It tends to confirm my initial hypothesis since if the environmental quality of Corsica falls rational hotel owner should ask for a limited and temporary slow-down in frequentation so that environmental quality and the WTP reach again a higher and more profitable level.

As tourism is becoming one of the most important sectors of the world economy, the number of small islands trying to develop a competitive tourist activity is increasing and this strategy appears as growth enhancing. In most cases, it relies on the environmental quality of the destination, but also on lodging infrastructures and related services that tourists deserve in order to enjoy a good experience. This paper explores the intertemporal trade-off between investments and environmental quality preservation needed to ensure tourism profitability in the long run. It highlights the possible cyclical evolution of environmental quality, tourist infrastructures, investments and visitor numbers, considering both the central planner and the market solutions.

While tourism is becoming one of the most important sectors of the world economy, the number of small islands trying to develop a competitive tourism sector is increasing (Logossah, 2004; Shareef, 2003). Observers have to recognize that an important part of these Small Island Tourism Economies (SITE) is successful. Lanza and Pigliaru (2000) showed that seven out of the fifteen fastest growing countries between 1985 and 1995 were tourism countries3 and that most of them were SITE as St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda or Cyprus. Marques (2003) showed for example a strong correlation between the level of GDP and tourism receipts for the region of the Caribbean. SITE are said to have some kind of absolute advantage in the production of tourist goods because of their natural endowments, and it implies that tourism is often seen by policy makers as the easiest way out to the “small island problem” (Crusol et al. 1989). Nonetheless tourism must not be thought of as a panacea, as a study realized by the World Bank and the Commonwealth secretariat pointed out in 2000. In fact, even though tourism provides welfare gains (Copeland, 1991, Nowak, Sahli, 1999, Sinclair 1998) and constitutes a good engine of growth (Hazari and Sgro, 1995, Lanza et al. 2003), it may also generate static and dynamic perverse effects. Recent literature has widely explored negative economic consequences of tourism

The aim of this paper is to study the optimal allocation of land between tourism and agricultural activities. In order to achieve this objective, an original method is implemented using both standard tools of economics and multiagents system simulation tools. The whole approach constitutes an original transdisciplinary tool for the exploration of virtual experiments.

As tourism is becoming one of the most important sectors of the world economy, the number of small islands trying to develop a competitive tourist activity is increasing and this strategy appears as growth enhancing. In most cases, it is built on the environmental quality of the destination but also on lodging infrastructures and related services that tourists deserve in order to enjoy a good experience. This paper explores the inter-temporal trade-off between tourist investments and environmental quality preservation needed to ensure population revenues in the long run. It highlights possible cyclical evolution of environmental quality, tourist infrastructures, investments and tourist frequentation.

The influx of non-local buyers into the farmland market is commonly held responsible for the exclusion of local buyers. We study the case of the seaside farmland market in Corsica between 1998 and 2008. Rather than the exclusion of locals, the data show a massive price gap between non-local and local buyers. In order to assess the reality and magnitude of this price gap, we first estimate standard hedonic price models, while controlling for omitted variable bias using an innovative method recently proposed by Oster (2017). Beyond the estimation of standard hedonic price models, we show that the estimation of a general potential outcome model allows to capture more finely the observable and non-observable heterogeneity related to the preferences of non-local and local buyers. Our findings emphasize that, although willing to pay high prices due to their specific preferences, non-local buyers can coexist with local buyers, who pay significantly lower prices.