In the mature aviation system of today, it is difficult to establish new hubs that focus solely on transfer traffic. This paper identifies a new type of hub—a natural tourism hub—one at which an airline and the surrounding metropolitan area can simultaneously benefit from a transportation hub and accompanying tourist destination, respectively. The study aims to identify existing airports for these stopover locations that are located on highly trafficked international flight routes. Using Iceland as an example, this country’s success in optimizing its stopover location to promote tourism and gain airline passenger demand is examined. The analysis is carried out by implementing a k-means clustering algorithm on total distance added for stopover locations, as well as flight leg symmetry to identify existing airports that are geographically located in an optimal stopover path for international routes across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and between Europe and East Asia. Airports in the clusters that minimize total added distance are then observed, and the clusters are ordered based on how symmetric the two flight legs of a stopover journey at an airport in that cluster tend to be. In addition, three airports near the top of this list are analyzed as potential stopover locations. In using this algorithm, not only is it possible to forecast which hubs may become major tourist destinations, but also to identify how airlines can shape people’s perception of their location as a tourist destination.

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New Jersey voters approved legalized gambling for Atlantic City in a 1976 referendum, making it the second state after Nevada in 1931. The state explicitly leveraged the city's regional monopoly, which it held from 1978 through 1992, on casinos east of the Mississippi River as an economic development strategy to revive the blighted seaside resort town. The literature on the economic development effects of casinos suggests that sparsely populated areas without nearby competing gambling venues tend to benefit the most. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I model the economic impact of casino legalization on the Atlantic City Metropolitan Area (Atlantic County, NJ) across five-, ten-, and fifteen-year treatment horizons. I find a significant positive impact of legalized casinos on personal income and housing prices for only the five-year treatment horizon, and significant positive impacts for payroll employment and wages across all three treatment horizons.