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

Abstract

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 High-Speed 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.