Page 413 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 5

A first evaluation of the relationship between High Speed Rail (HSR) and the tourism sector in Turkey: The cases of
two Turkish cities

2. Literature on HSR and tourism

Tourism-related service sectors play an important role in the regional development of the
European Union countries. HSR service has a role in increase in tourist travel, and tourism and
service sectors are therefore directly affected (Lumsdon and Page, 2004). Among different
kinds, urban and business tourism and in-situ tourism (parks, etc.) appear to be the main
types of tourism likely to benefit from an HSR service, when the station is located inside the
destination. Compared to car journeys, traveling by HSR allows passengers to get to their
destination faster while being able to relax and at the same time, avoid road congestion and
the increasing difficulties associated with accessing the heart of the city. Compared to air
travel, it also saves the time lost in travelling between the airport and final destination. In
fact, all forms of forms of tourism in the city could benefit from HSR services; but, tourism
forms outside cities (i.e. green tourism or mountain tourism) often benefit less from HSR,
unless inter-modality issues are managed to reach their destinations without significant time
losses.
Ex-post identified impacts of HSR on tourism can be positive as well as negative or inexistent
(see Table 1 and Table 2). Positive impacts (expected or realized) can be listed as widening the
tourism markets (increasing the number of tourists, tourism trips, occupancy rates, foreign
arrivals, tourism revenues, etc.), improving the accessibility of the destinations (increasing the
winter-sport tourism, urban tourism, business tourism). It can also reinforce the competition
between tourist destinations (which can be positive or negative). For example, in Spain, Urena
et al. (2009) argued that large intermediate cities served by HSR such as Zaragoza and in
particular Córdoba were experiencing an increase in urban tourism and business tourism. This
was confirmed by Alonso and Bellet (2009) in the case of Zaragoza. Similarly Todorovitch et al.
(2011) reported that tourism had grown by 15% annually in Lleida. Guirao and Campa (2015)
also reported how HSR was important for tourism in Toledo: over thirty percent of weekday
HSR ridership was linked to tourism mobility. But a recent report in Spain suggested that “the
positive impacts of HSR on the number of visitors, the number of nights spent at destination
and/or hotel occupancy rates were mostly restricted, at best, to larger cities, but in most
cases the impacts are minimal or even negative” (Albalate et al., 2015).

An increase in tourist movements was mentioned in big cities in Taiwan (Cheng, 2009) as
well in Chinese cities such as Wuhan (Wang et al., 2012), Qufu (People’s Republic of China,
2014), and Ningbo (Zhao, 2012). Provinces served by HSR in China “were likely to have
approximately 20% more foreign arrivals and 25% more in tourism revenue than provinces
without such systems” (Chen and Haynes, 2012). Seeking theoretical foundations of the main
impacts of HSR on China tourism, Wang et al. (2012) are using the gravitational and the iso-
tourist line models with integrating the time–space replacement mechanism. They identified
three kinds of impacts: i) an enlargement and a transformation of tourism market space,
ii) intensification of the market competition on a larger scale, and iii) a redistribution of
tourism centres.
On the other hand, HSR may have negative impacts (expected or realized) such as decrease
in overnights stay and tourist revenues. In France there is no growth in small cities and for
winter-sports tourism. A reduction in the average length of stay and in the number of nights
spent in a city is likely to occur because HSR opens up the possibility of same-day round
trips. As an example, in Le Mans in France, the arrival of HSR has contributed to reducing the
duration of events and, conversely, to promoting non-residential events, i.e. fewer events
lasting several days but more one-day events. In this city, the average length of stay decreased
a few years after the arrival of HSR. Furthermore, events had an average duration one day
shorter than that generally encountered for national conferences in France in the mid-1990s
(Amiard, 1997).

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 411