Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The effects of World Heritage Sites on domestic tourism: a spatial interaction model for Italy

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Geographical Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Culture is gaining increasing importance in the modern tourism industry and represents a significant force of attraction for tourists (both domestic and international). Cultural tourism allows destinations and regions to expand their customer base, diversify their offer, extend the stay of the tourist, and reduce seasonality. Great efforts are made, by national governments and regions, in order to obtain official designation regarding the relevance of their historical/cultural attractions, for example through UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites (WHS) list. Such an aspect seems particularly relevant for a country like Italy, which has a high number of entries in the WHS list and where regions take an active role in promoting tourism. Using an 12-year panel of domestic tourism flows, we investigate the importance of the regional endowment in terms of WHS from two perspectives: (a) by separately estimating the effects, on tourism flows, of WHS located in the residence region of tourists and in the destination region; and (b) by taking into account potential spatial substitution/complementarity effects between regions due to their WHS endowment. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is offered to evaluate the spatial extent of the latter.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The UNWTO also derived different categories of tourism by combining the three basic forms of tourism: ‘internal tourism’, which comprises domestic tourism and inbound tourism; ‘national tourism’, which comprises domestic tourism and outbound tourism; and ‘international tourism’, which consists of inbound tourism and outbound tourism.

  2. Further specifications in the literature have used population (Linnemann 1966) in order to capture size effects.

  3. ‘Cultural heritage’ is defined in Article 1 of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (adopted by UNESCO in 1972) as monuments, groups of buildings and sites that are of ‘outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science’ and form the ‘aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view’.

  4. A further (binary) variable simply indicating a relationship of spatial contiguity (shared border) between the origin and destination regions could be employed, if it is of interest to parcel this component out from the average effect of distance. We choose not to follow this approach, so to maintain the most general estimate for distance deterrence.

  5. One would prefer to use regional power-purchasing-parity (PPP) price indices to account for relative consumption prices. However, such indices are not available from the Italian National Statistical Agency and have been computed only in one study (ISTAT, Unioncamere, Istituto Tagliacarne 2010). Additionally, the FE estimators used in this paper would render the long-run levels of relative price irrelevant (they are absorbed into the FE), so that only short-run inflation trends would be identified (as for the variable used here).

  6. The variable for the share of coast unsuitable for bathing should ideally be complemented by a variable for the length of the coast, in order to account for landlocked regions. As for other time-invariant variables (e.g., indicator variables for regions bordering with other countries), it is not possible to include them in our models (unless interacted with time-varying variables), as their effect is accounted for by the FE.

  7. When a contiguity rule is applied to define proximity, two regions are defined as neighbours if they share a border. In rook contiguity, the common border has to have length greater than zero, while in queen contiguity, common borders of length zero are allowed as well.

  8. Internal distances are computed as \( \sqrt {{{\text{area}} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{\text{area}} \pi }} \right. \kern-0pt} \pi }} \) (see, e.g., Leamer 1997; Nitsch 2000).

  9. Because the implementation of a panel spatial filtering model is not the main focus of this paper, we refer to Chun and Griffith (2011) and Lionetti and Patuelli (2009) for methodological and implementation details.

  10. Alternatively, we could hypothesize \( T_{2.2}^{\prime \prime } (k) < 0 \). We consider the case of the intersecting functions more interesting, and we limit ourselves to discussing the latter.

  11. The results concerning GDP and population are stable independently of the number of contextual variables added to the basic framework of the spatial interaction model (supply and demand size variables and distance as a deterrence variable). Only if the individual FE are excluded from the model GDP and population appear with the usual (expected) coefficient values between 0 and 1, which leads us to assume that in our panel specifications the ‘size’ effects are picked up by the FE.

  12. A sensitivity analysis testing polynomial specifications for the distance term shows that a cubic specification provides slight fitting advantages (for example, in terms of BIC). The negative-positive-negative signs for the three terms of the polynomial suggest that a destination’s distance from the tourist’s residence region becomes a positive tourism reinforcing factor only after a certain threshold (after which the destination appears to be ‘exotic’), and up to a second threshold level, after which the distance deterrence effect again becomes dominant.

  13. Our results might not carry over to international tourism.

References

  • Alzua A, O’Leary JT, Morrison A (1998) Cultural and heritage tourism: identifying niches for international travellers. J Tour Stud 9(2):2–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson JE (1979) A theoretical foundation for the gravity equation. Am Econ Rev 69(1):106–116

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson JE, van Wincoop E (2003) Gravity with gravitas: a solution to the border puzzle. Am Econ Rev 93(1):170–192

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arezki R, Cherif R, Piotrowski J (2009) Tourism specialization and economic development: evidence from the Unesco World Heritage List. IMF, Washington, DC (IMF working paper 09/176)

  • Armstrong GWG (1972) International tourism: coming or going: the methodological problems of forecasting. Futures 4(2):115–125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ashworth GJ, Tunbridge JE (1990) The Tourist-Historic City. Belhaven Press, London New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Baier SL, Bergstrand JH (2009) Bonus Vetus OLS: a simple method for approximating international trade-cost effects using the gravity equation. J Int Econ 77(1):77–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barry K, O’Hagan J (1972) An econometric study of british tourist expenditure in Ireland. Econ Soc Rev 5:143–161

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker GS (1996) Accounting for tastes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Blacik L (2007) A critical assessment of the impact of World Heritage Site designation in sub-Saharan Africa (ISP Collection Paper 150)

  • Bond D, Cohen B, Schachter G (1977) The spatial distribution of tourism demand and exchange rate variation: OECD European countries. Tour Rev 32(1):13–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bové Sans M, Laguado Ramírez R (2011) Image destination analysis for Tarragona’s cultural heritage. Paper presented at the The Economics and Management of Leisure, Travel and Tourism, Rimini

  • Buckley R (2004) The effects of World Heritage listing on tourism to Australian national parks. J Sustain Tour 12(1):70–84

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burger M, van Oort F, Linders G-J (2009) On the specification of the gravity model of trade: zeros, excess zeros and zero-inflated estimation. Spatial Econ Anal 4(2):167–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calantone RJ, Di Benedetto CA, Bojanic D (1987) A comprehensive review of the tourism forecasting literature. J Travel Res 26(2):28–39

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Candela G, Figini P (2012) The economics of tourism destinations. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carr EAJ (1994) Tourism and heritage: the pressures and challenges of the the 1990s. In: Ashworth GJ, Larkham PJ (eds) Building a new heritage: tourism, culture, and identity in the New Europe. Routledge, London, pp 69–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Cellini R (2011) Is UNESCO recognition effective in fostering tourism? A comment on Yang, Lin and Han. Tour Manag 32(2):452–454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cellini R, Cuccia T (2013) Museum and monument attendance and tourism fow: a time series analysis approach. Appl Econ 45(24):3473–3482

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chun Y, Griffith DA (2011) Modeling network autocorrelation in space–time migration flow data: an eigenvector spatial filtering approach. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 101(3):523–536

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colwell PF (1982) Central place theory and the simple economic foundations of the gravity model. J Reg Sci 22(4):541–546

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crampon LJ, Tan KT (1973) A model of tourism flow into the pacific. Tour Rev 28(3):98–104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuccia T, Cellini R (2007) Is cultural heritage really important for tourists? A contingent rating study. Appl Econ 39(2):261–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de la Mata T, Llano-Verduras C (2012) Spatial pattern and domestic tourism: an econometric analysis using inter-regional monetary flows by type of journey. Pap Reg Sci 99(2):437–470

    Google Scholar 

  • Dean A, Morgan D, Tan TE (2002) Service quality and customers’ willingness to pay more for travel services. J Travel Tour Mark 12(2–3):95–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dhariwal R (2005) Tourist arrivals in India: how important are domestic disorders? Tour Econ 11(2):185–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Di Giovine MA (2009) The heritage-scape: UNESCO, world heritage, and tourism. Lexington Books, Lanham

    Google Scholar 

  • Di Lascio FML, Giannerini S, Scorcu AE, Candela G (2011) Cultural tourism and temporary art exhibitions in Italy: a panel data analysis. Stat Method Appl 20(4):519–542

    Google Scholar 

  • Dritsakis N (2004) Cointegration analysis of German and British tourism demand for Greece. Tour Manag 25(1):111–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drost A (1996) Developing sustainable tourism for World Heritage Sites. Ann Tour Res 23(2):479–484

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards AD (1976) International tourism development: forecasts to 1985. Economist Intelligence Unit, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Eilat Y, Einav L (2004) Determinants of international tourism: a three-dimensional panel data analysis. Appl Econ 36(12):1315–1327

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fotheringham AS (1983) A new set of spatial-interaction models: the theory of competing destinations. Environ Plan A 15:15–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frey BS, Steiner L (2011) World Heritage List: does it make sense? Int J Cult Policy 17(5):555–573

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fujii ET, Khaled M, Mak J (1985) An almost ideal demand system for visitor expenditures. J Transp Econ Policy 19(2):161–171

    Google Scholar 

  • Fujii ET, Khaled M, Mak J (1987) An empirical comparison of systems of demand equations for tourist expenditures in resort destinations. Philipp Rev Econ 24(1–2):79–102

    Google Scholar 

  • Gamboni D (2001) World Heritage: shield or target? Conservation 16(2):5–11

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardini A (1998) L’Analisi della Domanda e della Produzione di Servizi Turistici. CLUEB, Bologna

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerakis AS (1965) Effects of exchange-rate devaluations and revaluations on receipts from tourism. Staff Papers Int Monetary Fund 12(3):365–384

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall CM (2006) Implementing the World Heritage Convention: what happens after listing? In: Leask A, Fyall A (eds) Managing World Heritage Sites. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, pp 20–34

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hall CM, Piggin R (2001) Tourism and World Heritage in OECD countries. Tour Recreat Res 26(1):103–105

    Google Scholar 

  • Haynes KE, Fotheringham AS (1984) Gravity and spatial interaction models. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills

    Google Scholar 

  • Herbert D (2001) Literary places, tourism and the heritage experience. Ann Tour Res 28(2):312–333

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ISTAT, Unioncamere, Istituto Tagliacarne (2010) Le Differenze nel Livello dei Prezzi al Consumo tra i Capoluoghi delle Regioni Italiane. ISTAT Unioncamere Istituto Tagliacarne, Rome

  • Keum K (2010) Tourism flows and trade theory: a panel data analysis with the gravity model. Ann Reg Sci 44(3):541–557

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khadaroo J, Seetanah B (2008) The role of transport infrastructure in international tourism development: a gravity model approach. Tour Manag 29(5):831–840

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim S-I, Fesenmaier DR (1990) Evaluating spatial structure effects in recreation travel. Leis Sci 12(4):367–381

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leamer EE (1997) Access to Western markets and Eastern effort. In: Zecchini S (ed) Lessons from the economic transition: central and Eastern Europe in the 1990 s. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, pp 503–526

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Leamer EE, Levinsohn J (1995) International trade theory: the evidence. In: Grossman GM, Rogoff K (eds) Handbook of international economics, vol III. North Holland, Amsterdam Oxford, pp 1339–1394

    Google Scholar 

  • LeSage JP, Pace RK (2009) Introduction to spatial econometrics. CRC Press, Boca Raton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Li M, Wu B, Cai L (2008) Tourism development of World Heritage Sites in china: a geographic perspective. Tour Manag 29(2):308–319

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Light D (2000) Gazing on communism: heritage tourism and post-communist identities in Germany, Hungary and Romania. Tour Geogr 2(2):157–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lim C (1997) Review of international tourism demand models. Ann Tour Res 24(4):835–849

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linnemann H (1966) An econometric study of international trade flows. North-Holland, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Lionetti S, Patuelli R (2009) Trading cultural goods in the era of digital piracy. University of Lugano, Lugano (Quaderno della Facoltà di Scienze Economiche 09/07)

  • Lowry IS (1966) Migration and metropolitan growth: two analytical models. Chandler, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Malamud B (1973) Gravity model calibration of tourist travel to Las Vegas. J Leis Res 5(1):13–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Markwell S, Bennett M, Ravenscroft N (1997) The changing market for heritage tourism: a case study of visits to historic houses in England. Int J Herit Stud 3(2):95–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massidda C, Etzo I (2012) The determinants of italian domestic tourism: a panel data analysis. Tour Manag 33(3):603–610

    Google Scholar 

  • McAllister DM, Klett FR (1976) A modified gravity model of regional recreation activity with an application to ski trips. J Leis Res 8(1):21–34

    Google Scholar 

  • McIntosh AJ, Prentice RC (1999) Affirming authenticity: consuming cultural heritage. Ann Tour Res 26(3):589–612

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meskell L (2002) Negative heritage and past mastering in archaeology. Anthropol Q 75(3):557–574

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mossetto G (1994) The economic dilemma of heritage preservation. In: Peacock A, Rizzo I (eds) Cultural economics and cultural policies. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 81–96

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Nicolau JL (2008) Characterizing tourist sensitivity to distance. J Travel Res 47(1):43–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nitsch V (2000) National borders and international trade: evidence from the European Union. Can J Econ 33(4):1091–1105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pierret F (2011) Some points on domestic tourism. http://unwto.org/en/opinion/some-points-domestic-tourism

  • Pocock D (1997) Some reflections on World Heritage. Area 29(3):260–268

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pöyhönen P (1963) A tentative model for the volume of trade between countries. Weltwirtsch Arch 90:93–100

    Google Scholar 

  • PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP (2007) The costs and benefits of World Heritage site status in the UK: case studies. Department for Culture, Media and Sport, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Research Consulting Ltd, Trends Business Research Ltd (2009) World Heritage Status: is there opportunity for economic gain? Lake District World Heritage Project, Kendal

  • Santos Silva JMC, Tenreyro S (2006) The log of gravity. Rev Econ Stat 88(4):641–658

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saunders PR, Senter HF, Jarvis JP (1981) Forecasting recreation demand in the upper Savannah River Basin. Ann Tour Res 8(2):236–256

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sen A, Smith TE (1995) Gravity models of spatial interaction behavior. Springer, Heidelberg

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shackley ML (1998) Visitor management: case studies from World Heritage Sites. Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheldon PJ, Var T (1985) Tourism forecasting: a review of empirical research. J Forecast 4(2):183–195

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soares JO, Neves J, Fernandes F (2007) The impact of World Heritage classification on the development of tourist destinations: the Sintra case study. Paper presented at the Advances in Tourism Economics, Vila Nova de Sto André

  • Swart WW, Var T, Gearing CE (1978) Operations research applications to tourism. Ann Tour Res 5(4):414–428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thorsell J, Sigaty T (2001) Visitor human use in World Heritage natural sites: a global inventory. Tour Recreat Res 26(1):85–101

    Google Scholar 

  • Tinbergen J (1962) Shaping the world economy: suggestions for an international economic policy. Twentieth Century Fund, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO (2011) World Heritage List. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list

  • UNESCO (2012) The World Heritage Convention. http://whc.unesco.org/en/convention#Benefits-of-Ratification. Accessed 19 Apr 2012

  • UNWTO (1994) Recommendations on tourism statistics. statistical papers. UNWTO, New York

  • UNWTO (2011) Facts and figures: information, analysis and know-how. http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html

  • Uysal M, Crompton JL (1985) An overview of approaches used to forecast tourism demand. J Travel Res 23(4):7–15

    Google Scholar 

  • van der Aa BJM (2005) Preserving the Heritage of humanity? Obtaining world heritage status and the impacts of listing. Ph.D. thesis, University of Groningen, Groningen

  • VanBlarcom BL, Kayahan C (2011) Assessing the economic impact of a UNESCO World Heritage Designation. J Herit Tour 6(2):143–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vietze C (2008) Cultural effects on inbound tourism into the USA: a gravity approach. Friedrich Schiller University and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena (Jena Economic Research Papers 2008 - 037)

  • Wilson AG (1967) A statistical theory of spatial distribution models. Transp Res 1:253–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson AG (1970) Entropy in urban and regional modelling. Pion, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Witt SF, Witt CA (1995) Forecasting tourism demand: a review of empirical research. Int J Forecast 11(3):447–475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang C-H, Lin H-L (2011) Is UNESCO recognition effective in fostering tourism? A comment on Yang, Lin and Han: reply. Tour Manag 32(2):455–456

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang C-H, Lin H-L, Han C-C (2010) Analysis of international tourist arrivals in China: the role of World Heritage Sites. Tour Manag 31(6):827–837

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang J, Jensen C (2007) Comparative advantage: explaining tourism flows. Ann Tour Res 34(1):223–243

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Roberto Cellini (University of Catania) and two anonymous referees for useful comments, as well as session participants and seminar attendees at: the 2011 NECTAR Conference (Antwerp), the 51st European Congress of the Regional Science Association International (Barcelona), the Fifth European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics (Dublin), the SNSF International Exploratory Workshop on ‘Advances in the Statistical Modelling of Spatial Interaction Data’ (Lugano), the 2nd International Conference on the Measurement and Economic Analysis of Regional Tourism (Bilbao), the Toulouse School of Economics of the Université Toulouse 1 Capitole (Toulouse), the Workshop on ‘The Economics and Management of Leisure, Travel and Tourism’ (Rimini), and the Workshop on ‘UNESCO World Heritage: Economic and Policy Issues’ (Turin).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Rimini Campus, via Angherà 22, 47921, Rimini, Italy

    Roberto Patuelli & Maurizio Mussoni

  2. Department of Economics, University of Bologna, piazza Scaravilli 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    Guido Candela

  3. The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Rimini, Italy

    Roberto Patuelli & Maurizio Mussoni

Authors
  1. Roberto Patuelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maurizio Mussoni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Guido Candela
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roberto Patuelli.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 6.

Table 6 Correlation matrix
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Patuelli, R., Mussoni, M. & Candela, G. The effects of World Heritage Sites on domestic tourism: a spatial interaction model for Italy. J Geogr Syst 15, 369–402 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-013-0184-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-013-0184-5

Keywords

JEL Classification

Search

Navigation