Does high-speed rail matter for tourism? Evidence from Italy

This paper uses a provincial panel data 2002–2019 to evaluate the effects of high-speed rail infrastructure on tourism density in Italy. Difference-in-difference with multiple time periods method is employed to determine the impact of high-speed on the treated provinces, while sources of destination heterogeneities are interacted with the treatment variable to explore differences between coastal and heritage destinations. Findings suggest a positive effect of the policy towards overall tourism density; nevertheless, results' effectiveness is limited to heritage destinations, unlike coastal ones. Moreover, the disaggregation by type of accommodation between hotel and complementary facilities leads to varying results, where the latter are in general more significantly affected by the high-speed rail policy, except for heritage destinations, in which effects on hotel tourism density are prevailing.