Abstract

International audience; HSR and tourism: what can we learn from the past 50 years?Important investements in High Speed Rail (HSR) lines have been carried out all over the world since the opening of the first line in 1964. The analysis of the wider effects brought by these systems has been the core of major publications in the literature with the objective of investigating the benefits of the investments themselves.One aspect, less treated but of great interest, is the impact of HSR systems on the tourism market. Indeed, for an optimal assessment of this impact, some variables should be taken into account: firstly, how many tourists would not have gone to a given destination had the HSR not existed? Secondly, what are the characteristics of the tourists choosing to visit a destination served by a HSR line and what is the duration of their journey? ? Thirdly, do visitors spending justify the returns on investment?Some studies confirm that there is an impact, for example during the period between 1999 and 2010, the emerging HSR services did have significant impacts on boosting tourism in China. Provinces with HSR services were likely to have approximate 20% additional numbers of foreign arrivals and 25% greater tourism revenues than provinces without such systems (Chen and Haynes, 2012). But other authors show that it is not always the case in all the served cities (Todorovitch et al., 2011) and sometimes, a decrease of the journey has also been observed (Delaplace et al., 2014).The objective of this contribution is to show, through a literature review of studies carried out ex-post, that the effects are not systematic, since they depend on the implementation of the HSR service and on the characteristics of the places served. Indeed, if the HSR allows, in some cases, the increase in the number of tourists, a decrease of the length stay might follow. Some of the main findings of the scientific literature over the past 40 years are that the changes of accessibility of a destination served by a new HSR link is not the only element playing a role in tourism dynamism. It is necessary to take also into account the way HSR systems improve the image of the destination itself and the way they contribute to the coordination of the local stakeholders.

Abstract

International audience; The objective of this paper is to analyse the factors influencing tourists’ choice of a destination and the role of High Speed Rail (HSR) systems in this choice. The methodology proposed consists in analysing two capitals in Europe, i.e. Paris and Madrid where HSR services are important, to investigate the factors influencing holidaymakers in choosing these cities, and the role of HSR in this choice. The main outcome of this paper is to show that several factors influence the choice of a tourist, like the presence of architectural sites, the quality of promotion of the destination itself, the presence of events, and also HSR services. However we found that the HSR system has affected the choice of Paris and Madrid in a different way. Concerning the French case study, HSR is considered a real transport mode alternative among tourists, therefore HSR is chosen to reach Paris as well as for revisiting it. On the other hand, Madrid is chosen by tourists irrespective on the presence of HSR, while HSR is chosen for reaching cities close to Madrid. Data collected from the two surveys have been used for a further quantitative analysis. Models have been specified and calibrated to identify the factors influencing holidaymakers to revisit Paris and Madrid and the role of HSR in this choice has been highlighted. Document type: Conference object

Abstract

International audience; Today, rail stations tend to be considered as nodes but also as places within an area. In this respect, different types of shops and services can be present in rail stations. High Speed Rail services tend to increase the importance of the train station as a place. Our aim is to show that in some cases, some firms extend the role of the station as a place by using high speed train stations to provide temporary offices inside them. Thus the role of the station as a place is transformed in a place to work for mobile workers, a kind of third-place. This is the case of Regus, which is the world's leading provider of flexible workspaces all over the world, supporting over 1 million customers everyday. The objective of this contribution is to identify the characteristics of the clients of the temporary Regus offices in the Naples HSR station and the role of HSR in this context. For this purpose, a recent survey has been employed, interviewing clients using Regus offices. Data concerning the clients have been collected, such as socio-economic characteristics, transport mode chosen to reach Naples and the Regus services used. Document type: Article