Does having the right visitor mix do the job? Applying an econometric shift-share model to regional tourism developments

Abstract

This paper is the first to apply an econometric shift-share model to tourism. The approach allows us to isolate the growth contributions of changes in regional touristic attractiveness from those induced by the structure of visitors, but does not share the caveats of the conventional shift-share approach. Our application to regional tourism in Austria reveals important results: First, differences in long-run performance between regions are mostly related to idiosyncratic changes in the tourist appeal of individual regions rather than a result of more or less favourable structures of visitors. Second, none of several megaevents during the period observed seem to have left prolonged positive effects on the tourism performance of the host regions. And third, performance appears uncorrelated with tourism intensity of a region. Thus, from a policy and destination management perspective, tourism authorities and local suppliers should mainly focus on upgrading the permanent destination attractiveness rather than investing too much effort into landing mega-events or targeting the visitor mix towards promising source markets. AbstractThis paper is the first to apply an econometric shift-share model to tourism. The approach allows us to isolate the growth contributions of changes in regional touristic attractiveness from those induced by the structure of visitors, but does not share the caveats of the conventional shift-share approach. Our application to regional tourism in Austria reveals important results: First, differences in long-run performance between regions are mostly related to idiosyncratic changes in the tourist appeal of individual regions rather than a result of more or less favorable structures of visitors. Second, none of several mega-events during the period observed seem to have left prolonged positive effects on the tourist performance of the host regions. And third, performance appears uncorrelated with tourism intensity of a region. Thus, from a policy and destination management perspective, tourism authorities and local suppliers should mainly focus on upgrading the permanent destination attractiveness rather than investing too much effort into landing megaevents or targeting the visitor mix towards promising source markets.

Competitiveness in the visitor economy: A systematic literature review

“…Recent studies on regional competitiveness in the visitor economy include: Karakitsiou et al (2020) study of regional efficiency and competitiveness using data envelopment analysis (DEA) in the context of the hotel and restaurant sector in Greece. Adopting a different technical approach, Firgo and Fritz (2017) used the econometrics shift-share model to disentangle the regional visitor mix and regional components of attractiveness in analysing tourism development. They spatially and structurally disaggregated industry levels by regions in Italy and infer red that the region-specific attractiveness dominates the effects on regional tourism development and growth rather than the competition for tourists that visit the regions.…”

“…This contrasts with the World Economic Forum's (WEF) broader macroeconomic definition as 'the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine a country's level of productivity' (Schwab, 2018: 43). At a different scale, tourism destination competitiveness came to be understood in terms of competitive advantages based on the price and non-price components of tourism offerings (Firgo and Fritz, 2017). The WEF (2019) defines the competitiveness of travel and tourism as 'the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable development of the Travel and Tourism (T&T) sector, which in turn, contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country.'…”

“…This contrasts with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) broader macroeconomic definition as ‘the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine a country’s level of productivity’ (Schwab, 2018: 43). At a different scale, tourism destination competitiveness came to be understood in terms of competitive advantages based on the price and non-price components of tourism offerings (Firgo and Fritz, 2017). The WEF (2019) defines the competitiveness of travel and tourism as ‘the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable development of the Travel and Tourism (T&T) sector, which in turn, contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country.’ A destination’s competitiveness, however, not only directly affects visitor numbers and income but also indirectly affects tourism and hospitality businesses such as hotels, tour operators, destination management organisations, airlines and other tourism-related industries such as retailing (Ritchie et al, 2000; Tsai et al, 2009).…”

Domestic tourism demand in the North and the South of Europe in the Covid-19 summer of 2020

“…There are several methodological approaches for analysing changes in regional tourism flows. One popular approach is the shift-share analysis that is commonly used in the field of regional economics (Firgo and Fritz, 2017 ; Costantino et al 2021 ). The advantage of this approach is that it does not require the formulation of an econometric model with its underlying assumptions.…”

Mapping post crises the European job growth in travel agencies and tour operator reservation services

“…Dogru and Sirakaya-Turk (2017) improved the SSA method with the Shift-share regression for measuring the tourism industry's performance in a South Carolina in the USA. Shi et al (2007) in Jiangsu Province and Firgo and Fritz (2017) in Australia applies a spatially extended SSA and a modified dynamic shift-share model to analyse the spatial competitiveness of international tourism in in comparison with its neighbours. Traistaru and Wolff (2002) apply SSA on employment data at county level, counting 89 regions for Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania for the period 1990-1999.…”