Abstract

Local commercial fishing is often claimed to attract tourists to coastal communities. We investigate the impact of local fishing on tourism demand, measured as overnight stays, in Sweden. Using municipal-level data for the period 1998-2015, we perform a quantitative analysis using ordinary least squares (OLS) as well as panel-data methods that take unobserved heterogeneity between municipalities into account. A statistically significant positive relationship is found between fishing and overnight stays when OLS is used as the estimation method. The relationship is also found to be stronger on the west and south coasts of Sweden, regions where the fishing cultural heritage is particularly recognized. However, when using panel-data methods that introduce fixed effects for municipalities, we are not able to find a stable significant relationship between fishing and tourism. We therefore find it difficult to claim that fishing promotes tourism, at least when tourism is measured as overnight stays.

Keywords

Fisheries; harbors; overnight stays; tourism

Published in

Marine Resource Economics
2021, Volume: 36, number: 2, pages: 111-131
Publisher: UNIV CHICAGO PRESS

SLU Authors

• Andersson, Anna

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Blomquist, Johan

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Waldo, Staffan

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all


UKÄ Subject classification

Economics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/712819

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/111310