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.

Economic growth, transport accessibility and regional equity impacts of high-speed railways in Italy: ten years ex post evaluation and future perspectives

“…Willigers and Van Wee, 2011 for the case study in Netherlands, Ibeas et al, 2012 , Moyano et al, 2018 for the case study in Spain, Cao et al 2013 for the Chinese case study), tourist attraction (e.g. Masson and Petiot, 2009 , Albalate and Fageda, 2016 , Campa et al, 2016 , Guirao and Campa, 2016 , Moyano et al, 2016 , Pagliara et al, 2017c , Pagliara and Mauriello, 2020 ) and wider economic impacts (e.g. Guirao et al, 2017 , Vickerman, 2018 , Preston and Wall, 2008 , Graham and Melo, 2014 , Connolly et al, 2014 ).…”

High-Speed Railway and City Tourism in China: A Quasi-Experimental Study on HSR Operation

“…High-speed rail (HSR) construction has been one of the most remarkable moves taken by the Chinese government in the past 10 years [1], and the tourism industry, which is strongly tied to transportation infrastructure [2], is absolutely correlated with HSR. Previous studies have shown that HSR is viewed as an important tool for the central government to reshape the spatial economy across regions, and it is closely and unquestionably associated with the local development of China; "HSR hot" (Gao Tie Re) brings major changes to tourism development across Chinese regions [1].…”

The Relationship between High Speed Rail and Tourism

“…Moyano et al [10] pointed out that nearly half of the Spanish cities have HSR services, which are efficiently connected to Madrid. Spain even has an ongoing issue, as it carefully considers the impact of the new HSR route plans on the tourism industry (Guirao and Campa [11]). Campa et al [12] pointed out that tourism data from 47 provinces in Spain from 1999 to 2015 showed that HSR services have significantly positive impact on the promotion of tourism.…”