Begoña Guirao

High speed rail effects on tourism: Spanish empirical evidence derived from China's modelling experience

Abstract China and Spain are currently among the top tourist destinations, coming third and fourth place in the 2014 world ranking of tourist arrivals, behind France and the US. Tourism is crucial for the economies of Spain and China, and both countries have the longest high speed rail (HSR) networks in the world. What role has HSR infrastructure played in the development of tourism in both countries? Little research has been done to date, even in Europe, to estimate empirically how tourism indicators are affected by new HSR lines. In 2012 a multivariate panel analysis by Chen and Haynes was applied to 27 Chinese regions, and confirmed that emerging high speed rail services (during the period 1999–2010) had significant positive impacts on boosting tourism in China. No similar empirical tool has ever been tested in Europe. The aim of this paper is to analyse and validate this tool when applied to the Spanish context, and to develop a comparative analysis with the Chinese case study. The methodology is applied to 47 Spanish provinces during the period 1999–2015, and the results clearly reveal a positive but lower-value link (compared to China) between the increase in certain tourism outputs (foreign arrivals and revenues) and HSR network construction. However, further research is needed into the models limitations, namely the availability of suitable tourism indicators in the official databases, the HSR explanatory variables considered, and the ability to detect “circular cause-effects” between HSR and tourism.

Should Implications for Tourism Influence the Planning Stage of a New HSR Network? The Experience of Spain

Transportation and tourism are two closely linked economic activities and the scientific common view is that promoting transportation infrastructure may contribute to the development of tourism industry. But in the case of the building of new HighSpeed Rail (HSR) lines, their extremely high construction costs require empirical evidence (at least at the planning stage) that certain economic activities, like tourism, are reinforced. The aim of this paper is to assess empirically the effects of HSR on tourism in Spain, using a ranking model of city pairs, in order to establish a better way of allocating financial resources for public investments. There is practically no literature on empirical methodologies to assess the effects of new HSR on tourism and the current literature on tourism demand is dominated by econometric models using a single-equation time-series based approach, where the reduction of the travel cost generated by transport infrastructure can be considered. In this paper, the new proposed methodology is tested by application to 1,176 city pairs in Spain, a country with over 20 years of operating experience and the longest HSR network in Europe, where tourism represents more than 10% of the GDP. Results clearly show that the implementation of a tourism variable in the model offers a more effective approach for determining the implications of tourism on HSR demand and should be taken into account by policymakers in the HSR planning process. Finally, studies at local level demonstrate that future research is needed to complement this planning stage methodology.

The Assessment of the HSR Impacts on Spanish Tourism: An Approach Based on Multivariate Panel Data Analysis

Abstract Literature review shows that little research has done so far to estimate how tourism indicators are affected by new High Speed Rail (HSR) lines. In 2012, a multivariate panel analysis developed by Chen and Haynes was applied to the Chinese regions to quantify the HSR impact on tourism output. The Chinese experience confirmed that, during the period 1999-2010, emerging high speed rail services did have significant positive impacts on boosting tourism in China. Since them, no similar empirical tool has ever been tested in Europe. The aim of this paper is to analyze and validate the suitability of this tool to assess empirically the effects of HSR on Spanish tourism during the period 1999-2014, and to enhance the abovementioned model with a tourism database. With more than 20 years’ HSR experience, and operating the longest HSR network in Europe (2,900 km), Spain offers a good scenario for this model application because Spanish tourism sector represents 10.2% of its gross domestic product (GDP). Results clearly show that there is a direct linkage between the evolution of certain Spanish tourism outputs and the construction of the HSR network. However, authorś recommendations include future new research on some variables limitations like the type of tourism output considered or the consideration of alternative explanatory indicators.