Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/235425 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 9055
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Tourism accounts for around one tenth of global GDP. We analyze the impact of entertainment media in drawing tourists to filming locations (media multiplier ) and, in turn, the effect of tourism on local economic development (tourism multiplier ). To assess the media multiplier, we employ a triple-difference empirical strategy exploiting the staggered international release across the EU of Inspector Montalbano, a TV series set in four municipalities of Sicily, a region of Italy. We find that the series release led to a fourfold increase in the number of tourists and boosted tourist expenditure by a factor of 2.5. Furthermore, we provide evidence of positive spillovers in nearby municipalities. To estimate the tourism multiplier, we exploit the interaction between the filming locations and the time-varying share of countries in which the series was aired, to instrument total tourist expenditure at the municipality-time level. Our results show that a 10% increase in total tourist expenditure translates into an increase in municipal income of 4.7%. The paper suggests that both entertainment media and tourism can be powerful tools to boost economic development.
Subjects: 
media
tourism
economic development
JEL: 
L82
L83
O12
Z32
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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