Road accidents and tourism: the case of the Balearic Islands (Spain)

The increase of tourist activity for many destinations and their increased mobility within host countries has implied a rise in tourism associated externalities with vehicle crashes being the most common cause of injury for tourists. Within the transport literature, the number and variations in the amount of accidents has been related to a large set of determining variables, including weather conditions, socio-economic characteristics, exposure, physical characteristics of the road and a variety of dummies which try to capture effects such as safety laws and seasonal variations. However, the presence of tourism has been neglected. Using the case study of the Balearic Islands, the present study estimates the role of tourism in determining the number of accidents on a daily context, using the set of variables suggested by the literature and incorporating a daily measure for the stock of tourists at a host destination. Results show how tourism can be associated to a significant amount of the accidents that take place in the Balearics.