1 Determinants of Airport Efficiency A Case Study of A Tourism Receiving Country
This study aims to examine the causal relationship between airport operation (including their capability and efficiency) and regional tourism development in New Zealand for the period of 2010 2016. We first estimate the efficiency of New Zealand's airports using window SlacksBased Measures Data Envelopment Analysis (window SBM DEA) and then examine its relationship to local tourism (proxied by the number of guest arrivals) and airlines capacity (proxied by the total available seat kilometres) using a two step Tobit regression (2STR) approach. The impacts of factors such as regional characteristics (e.g. GDP, centre status) and external events (e.g. the Global Financial Crisis 2008, the Christchurch earthquake 2011) are also considered. We find that local tourism development can boost up airport efficiency, while the positive impact of airline development on airport performance is not statistically clear. The examination of external factors such as regional GDP or earthquake further suggests that the councils and decision makers can influence regional airports via the development of their regions.