Airport Infrastructures and Tourism. A Choice Experiment for a Comparative Evaluation of the Siena Airport Project

The goal of this work is to contribute to the debate on and the understanding of the relationship between air transportation and tourism development. More specifically, it aims at unveiling whether investment in new transport infrastructures always boosts tourists' flows. A survey allows to analyse a case study, i.e. the proposed enlargement of the Ampugnano airport, a local airport close to Siena, an important cultural and tourist small Italian city. The novelty is to implement a choice experiment to elicit tourists' preferences towards alternative multi-modal accessibility systems and a wide range of variables characterizing the trip. In particular, we investigate whether variables other than cost, duration and distance come into tourist utility functions and affect their decisions. Considering the increasing importance that environmental quality plays in the choice of destination, particular attention was paid to the environmental impact of alternative investments.