Chrysanthi Balomenou (p), Eleni Gaki, Panoraia Poulaki, Maria Lagou

José Cadima Ribeiro

Regional tourism disparities in Greece

Tourism is an economic and social activity that plays a significant role in boosting the economy and can be used to achieve desired regional outcomes. Tourism sector has been remarkably resilient in recent years, even during the financial crisis, and is therefore used by tourism policy makers to reduce regional disparities. In Greece in particular, its significant role is revealed by its contribution to the economy, where, in 2019 the Total Contribution to GDP was 20.8% and the Total Contribution to Employment was 21,7%.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the tourist inequalities in the 13 administrative regions of Greece through various techniques and indicators of regional science (e.g. Diaspora and Concentration Measures, Gini Factor, Hotel Density Index, Defert Index, Location Quotient, Specialization Coefficient, Tourist Density, Tourist Occupancy, Tourist Intensity Ratio, Tourist Penetration Index, Average Annual Employment in Tourism) and the identification of factors influencing the regional tourism development model, in order to assess the situation before and after the financial crisis so as to formulate a strategic and policy framework for achieving balanced tourism development.
The resulting conclusions from the investigation of this issue can lead to the establishment of a framework for regional tourism policy, which is expected to contribute to the qualitative formation, enrichment and diversification of the Greek tourist product in order to overcome the structural problems that fuel the tourist inequalities.
Keywords: Tourism development, regional inequalities, financial crisis, Greece

Smaranda Pantea (p), Ioana Ortan, Madalina Zamfir

Chrysanthi Balomenou

Voucher programs have emerged as key policy instruments for supporting sectors hit by the COVID-19 crisis, like tourism, and for addressing a range of emerging social issues. Despite high policy interest, there is limited econometric evidence on their effectiveness in addressing these problems. We provide evidence on the impact of holiday vouchers on the development of the domestic tourism sector, based on a legislative change which made mandatory the provision of holiday vouchers for public employees in Romania in 2018. Public sector employees represent 19% of all employees and, for the most part, had not received holiday vouchers since 2009. This provision led to a sudden, eight fold, increase in the value of holiday vouchers issued. We estimate the effects of this policy on firms in eligible accommodation and travel agency sectors using difference-in-difference methods and data on holiday voucher payments from the three issuing units and administrative data on the balance sheets of the firms in eligible sectors. We find that this program had large effects on revenues and smaller, but significant effects, on employment of the exposed firms. The benefits were widespread in the economy, but differed across regions. In the most touristic regions, the provision of holiday vouchers mainly increased firms’ revenues, while in the other regions it increased both revenues and employment.

Oum El Hanae El Kraid (p), Oumaima Waaziz, Iham Najib, Eduardo Haddad

Smaranda Pantea

In this paper, we assess the systemic impacts of tourism activities in the different regions of Morocco. The country faces strong regional concentration in terms of the contribution of tourism to the national GDP. According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Marrakech occupies the first position in terms of internal tourist flows, showing an average contribution of 23.7% (2002- 2013), while its overall share in arrivals reached 30.7%. Tourism contributes to the Moroccan economy, particularly to the economic diversification of activities and has strong links with other sectors. Moreover, tourism activities may contribute to reducing regional inequality and providing employment opportunities. In this context, we will use an interregional input-output model that incorporates data from the latest national surveys done in Morocco in order to compute different dimensions of tourism multiplier effects. This intersectoral and interregional analysis will allow us to investigate the benefits of promoting tourism in some peripheral regions with potential to be attractive destinations for tourists.

José Cadima Ribeiro (p), Laurentina Vareiro, Paula C. Remoaldo, Isabel Cristina Monjardino

Oum El Hanae El Kraid

The tourism industry has been increasingly looked as an essential component of development processes, especially in the case of some low-density territories, including islands. By its turn, looking to the quality of tourists’ experiences and, thus, to the success of a destination, one has to convey that residents play a fundamental role. In this research, a cluster analysis was used to segment the Azores Archipelago (Portugal) residents into clusters according to their perceptions of the impacts of the tourism industry. The clustering procedure analysed 950 data observations from a residents` survey applied in 2018 by SREA (Regional Statistics Service of Azores). The analyses revealed the existence of three clusters: the Optimistic, integrating the large majority of the respondents; the Moderately Optimistic; and the Unconvinced. The results achieved follow what is common to find in the empirical literature, namely when we are dealing with emergent destinations. Regional and national authorities must be aware of these results when designing their policies, namely in the pursuit of a sustainable development strategy for the Azores.