Cultural Offer and Distance in a Spatial Interaction Model for Tourism

Culture is more and more considered as an important driver of tourism. However, it is critical, for policymakers, to evaluate the potential returns from investments in culture and generally cultural offer, in particular in multiregion settings with a potentially inefficient distribution of cultural offer. Our paper focuses on the role of distance (between the tourist’s origin and destination regions) in mediating the tourism impact of cultural offer. This research question is investigated by means of a spatial interaction model, applied to the case of Italian domestic tourism. We find that distance indeed matters: a destination’s endowment in culture appears to be more attractive for long-distance tourists, while an origin region’s endowment seems to dinsincentivate long-distance trips to a greater extent.

Keywords: cultural offer, domestic tourism, spatial interaction model, distance, spatial competition

JEL Classification: C23, L83, R12, Z10

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Patuelli, Roberto and Mussoni, Maurizio and Candela, Guido, Cultural Offer and Distance in a Spatial Interaction Model for Tourism (September 30, 2014). Economics and Business Letters, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2014, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2503426