O impacto das concessões de aeroportos no turismo em capitais brasileiras: estudo de caso para os aeroportos de Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, Recife e Porto Alegre

Abstract

The concession of airports in Brazil has become increasingly common, transferring responsibility from the public sector to the private sector with the aim of improving the quality of services provided to passengers. This may lead to increased use of these services and potentially impact tourism in those regions. Based on this, the present study aims to analyze whether these concessions have indeed had a significant impact on tourism in the Brazilian cities where these conceded airports are located. Using data from the period between 2010 and 2023, the main objective is to investigate whether concessions to private entities have resulted in significant changes in tourism indicators in these cities. To do so, five airports located in Brazilian capitals were analyzed: Galeão International Airport (Rio de Janeiro), Pinto Martins Airport (Fortaleza), Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães Airport (Salvador), Guararapes/Gilberto Freyre Airport (Recife), and Salgado Filho Airport (Porto Alegre). The variables used for the analysis were: passenger traffic at the airports, hotel occupancy rates, and the arrival of international tourists by air. The methodology applied in the study was divided into two parts. First, a preliminary visual inspection of the variables was conducted individually, followed by the application of the Chow Test, which allows for the identification of structural breaks at known points in time. This was done to verify possible structural breaks in tourism indicators in the year of the concession and the year following it, in order to assess the effects of the concession on the tourism indicators of the analyzed cities. The results show that the concession of these airports may have generated significant impacts on these variables, as structural breaks were found in the year following the concession for one airport, in both years for two airports, while no structural breaks were found for the remaining two airports in any of the analyzed years. However, since the Chow Test is not capable of identifying the specific cause of the break, it is not possible to conclude whether these breaks were caused by the concession itself or by other external factors. This makes it impossible to determine whether the concession of these airports truly caused impacts on the tourism indicators of these cities. This study contributes to the debate on public policies in the tourism and transportation sectors and seeks to fill a gap in the academic literature on this topic.