Low cost airlines and international tourism demand. The case of Porto's airport in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

It is widely argued that low-cost carriers (LCCs) lead to an increase in tourism demand. However, there is no conclusive evidence when the airport is located in a region with large diaspora and outbound tourism. To gain insight into the relationship between LCCs and international tourism demand, we analyse whether a causal relationship exists between the number of international LCC passengers at the Porto airport and international tourism demand in the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion using a vector autoregressive model. We evaluate the dynamics of the impacts of the LCC international passengers on international inbound tourism demand in a tourism demand model framework. The main findings are that the number of LCC international passengers has a positive influence on the number of nights spent by international guests in hotels and similar establishments and that the calculated monthly average injection of money into the economy is between 3 and 4.1 million € for North Portugal and between 1.4 and 2 million € for Galicia (Spain).