Regional destination attributes that attract domestic tourists: the role of man-made venues for leisure and recreation.

This paper examines the influence of man-made attractions for leisure and recreation on domestic tourists' preferences amongst regional destinations, and the moderating role of these attractions on the negative effect of distance on tourists' choices. A mixed multinomial logit model is employed for 368 cities in Colombia grouped into 28 provinces. Factor analysis is utilised to identify the latent variable that groups several man-made attractions for leisure and recreation. Results show that domestic tourists' choices of a regional destination increase as the number of man-made attractions for leisure and recreation rises, although there is taste heterogeneity between tourists explained by their city of origin. Findings also show that the decline in domestic tourists' preferences for a regional destination due to increases in travel distance can be lessened through the construction and/or enhancement of man-made venues for leisure and recreation in the destination; a strategy that can serve to reduce monetary poverty in distant destinations that have attributes to attract tourists.

Economic growth, economic complexity, and carbon dioxide emissions: The case of Colombia.

This paper aims to validate the hypothesis of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for Colombia, introducing the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) into the analysis as a differentiating element of production volumes. We use a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to corroborate if there is a long-term relationship between the variables covering the period between 1971-2014. Also, we test the robustness of the results using three different techniques: Dynamic Least Squares, Fully Modified Least Squares, and Canonical Cointegration Regression. The results show that for a developing country like Colombia, the EKC does not exist, and does not yet benefit from increases in economic complexity. Arguably, the country has several hurdles to overcome before achieving the environmental benefits of increased product sophistication. Some of them could be related to the country's own productive and institutional rigidities, which opens the space for public policy intervention.