The impact of a new airport on international tourism: the case of Ragusa (Sicily)

Airports play a crucial role in connecting places and boosting local economic development; notwithstanding this, empirical evidence on the subject is relatively limited. This paper estimates the impact of a new airport in Ragusa, in southeastern Sicily, on international tourism flows in the area, using a synthetic control approach. Connecting by air a relatively peripheral and isolated area of Sicily with a high tourism potential has made it possible to increase by about one fifth the number of nights spent by foreign tourists (for over 5,100 additional nights), generating €434 thousand more in tourist expenditure per month.