On nature’s shoulders
2017
The use of counterfactual methods in the evaluation of policy interventions has been
accepted today as the best approach in the estimation of a program’s performance. However,
the simplest evaluations are often quite demanding in terms of the resources and the time
needed to be implemented. In this article, we study the economic impact of a tourism media
campaign launched in Nazare, an old fishing community on the west coast of Portugal, to
make big waves visible to the world. The campaign provided the required “informational
media infrastructure” that created the public awareness necessary to boost tourism in the
region. To measure the economic impact of that campaign on the local economy, we show how
a counterfactual analysis can be implemented using regional statistical data on domestic
and international tourist arrivals. We show how the method can be adapted to account for
the presence of potential spillover effects that may have occurred, as neighboring
municipalities could also have been affected by the intervention. We further compare the
estimated impact on revenues with the costs incurred by the local municipality in the
marketing campaign. Based on our empirical findings, we discuss policy implications to the
municipalities in the region.
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