AN INPUT OUTPUT MODEL TO QUANTIFY THE BENEFITS OF TOURIST AIRPORTS ON REGIONAL ECONOMY

Abstract

Airports are widely recognized as having a considerable economic and social impact on their surrounding regions. These impacts go far beyond the direct impact of an airport’s operation, extending also to the wider benefits that air service accessibility brings to regional business interests. Airports provide essential infrastructure to support regional social and economic growth. According to ACI, airports are major economic assets offering significant economic returns and benefits. A growing literature on this subject highlights the difficulties to calculate the effects of airports. This paper deals with the estimation of benefits of tourist
airports on regional economy. The methodology approach is based on an input-output model that - estimates the key categories of effects from tourist airport operations. Conventional wisdom is to present a well-organized modeling framework, appropriate for planners, mana gers and decision makers in order to quantify the effects of tourism airports on regional economies. The application is a new airport on the island of Crete in Greece, one of the most attractive tourist destinations in southeast Mediterranean.