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The present paper offers an integrated conceptual framework to jointly analyze demand and supply of agritourism firms and aims to identify motivations along with perceptions of externalities that influence the choice of a firm over another. On the supply side, a cluster analysis identifies homogenous groups of agritourism firms. On the demand side, a factor analysis is run on a set of motivations and environmental externalities and a probabilistic model estimates the determinants that influence the likelihood to choose 1 type of firm over the other. The results show that traditional and genuine food, culture, and authenticity are elements that determine the choice of 1 firm over another. A further contribution of this paper is the identification of environmental externalities as determinants of the attractiveness of a firm. From a marketing perspective, linking demand to supply is essential to determine product development strategies capable of satisfying actual and potential customers. Several strategies are proposed to different types of agritourism firms to attract and retain customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, few studies have explored the relationship between tourism inflows and city taxes. This study investigates how the introduction of a city tax impacts on both national and international tourism demand by using the synthetic control method. The case study is based on a panel of Italian municipalities, for the time span 2006-2011. Results from estimations with the synthetic control method show that the introduction of a visitor tax leads to a decline in domestic tourism demand. In contrast, there is no effect on international tourism inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically investigates the impact of changes in consumer preferences on labour reallocation across the Italian economic sectors. For this purpose, coherent sectoral time series of consumer preferences and labour units are constructed from Italian national accounts and consumption expenditure data. In line with recent firm-level evidence, empirical findings indicate a positive and significant effect of preference changes on labour reallocation. Results are robust to several econometric specifications, different procedures to elicit preference changes, as well as the introduction of time-varying price coefficient and sector-specific effects of total consumption expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines residents' perceptions of a wide set of externalities exerted by the development of cruise tourism. The research involved data collection in two ports located in the two largest Mediterranean islands, Sicily and Sardinia, during the summer peak of the cruise season 2011. These two cruise destinations are especially interesting as they are characterized by a distinct life cycle. The empirical findings show that the two groups of residents have statistically equal perceptions on cruise activity in their destination. A correspondence analysis shows that residents have an overall positive attitude on the development of cruise tourism with respect to social, cultural and economic impacts. Nevertheless, they also feel that cruise activity has a negative impact, especially on the environment. Heterogeneity in occupation is explicitly taken into account. These findings provide directions for local policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analysed the demographic, socio-economic and banking-specific determinants that influence the choice of credit cards. A multinomial logit model was run on a recent portfolio of banking customers based in Italy. The model incorporates the type of credit cards as the dependent variable and a set of explanatory variables. The empirical results provided useful insight into the structural characteristics of the card payment system and offered a microeconomics perspective to analyse consumers' behaviour and preferences. Overall, women, older people, residents in the centre of Italy and secondary card owners are more likely to acquire a classic card. Gold cards are preferred by older customers, whereas younger clients have a higher probability to choose a revolving card, which is also preferred by the residents in the North-east. The analysis on the continuous variables highlighted that Italy can be regarded as a 'conservative' market with room for credit card upgrading and expansion into more sophisticated products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between tourist demand and supply is investigated employing four time series models. To test for Granger causality a bivariate vector autoregression framework is used. Empirical results from each model are derived for the island of Sardinia (Italy) over the time span 1955 to 2004. The first model suggests supply is demand-driven; the second model implies a bi-directional Granger-causal relationship between demand and capacity. The third and fourth models indicate demand is quality-driven. This empirical finding implies that an environmental conservation policy may be feasible without compromising the number of tourists visiting Sardinia and hence its economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]