Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
competitive threat, which would cause the airlines of States B and C respectively to lobby
their government not to allow the rights to be issued. However, if State A has beyond or
intermediate rights of its own that it can offer either State B or Country C for their airlines,
these may be seen as contributing to the balance of opportunities for the airlines of State B
and Country C. One result is that tourist fl ows from State A to State C may potentially be
af fected negatively if negotiations fail to fi nd an agreement. This may have detrimental effects
on State C's tourism sector. While visitors from State A may be able to fl y from State A to
State B on Country A's airline, in the absence of fi fth freedom air rights their beyond journey
would have to be with an airline of State B (or Country C, assuming both have exchanged
third and fourth freedoms). Such services may or may not have interline or baggage agree-
ments, thus risking seamless fl ows.
In the example above, State C's tourism sector is thus shaped by the legality of access fl ow
and air rights. In other instances, the granting of fi fth freedom access can be used explicitly
to encourage inbound tourist arrivals. For example, as New Zealand is comparatively liberal
in its granting of fi fth freedom access, one consequence is that it has exchanged rights that
allow South American airlines beyond rights (to Australia, in practice) and Asian airlines to
use Australian ports as intermediate points. Doing so ensures that access is not limited solely
to airlines willing to undertake non-stop services from their home countries. Broadly
speaking, these issues encapsulate the policy responses needed by governments around the
world that would align with growth strategy in the wider economy, including tourism
(Banister and Berechman, 2001; Forsyth, 2006).
Some agreements may restrict foreign carriers from accessing certain airports in a specifi c
country. These are often larger airports (associated with larger urban areas with signifi cant
market catchments) where a national carrier may already serve multiple foreign points, and
thus there may be protectionist reasons to limit foreign access. Where access is granted, the
numbers of seats fl own in a week by a foreign carrier may be restricted. Such restrictions can
thus have obvious implications for tourism, but two in particular stand out. First, they may
limit consumer choice in carriers to larger ports, thus pricing and service and product delivery
may approach monopolistic levels (although presumably there exist few, if any, restrictions on
another
national
carrier establishing services). Second, the inward fl ow of arrivals is limited to
the network reach of the national carrier, thus potentially shaping inbound tourist profi les to
those markets which presumably derive the greatest utility from choosing the national carrier
to travel to a particular country.
The move towards open skies - implications for tourism mobilities
The restrictive nature of foreign carrier access as outlined above is increasingly being recog-
nised as rather limiting from the perspective of economic competitiveness. As a result, there
has been an increase in liberal 'open skies agreements' in the past few decades. Open skies
agreements generally allow for relatively unfettered access between two countries, but may
also remove most restrictions on capacity, tariffs and frequency of service. The two primary
areas of focus, however, tend to be market access (i.e. liberal air rights) and ownership/control
provisions (i.e. the extent to which foreign carriers must have substantial ownership and
effective control in their designating country). As one might expect, there are gradations of
the degree of liberalness that can feature in open skies agreements. More liberal open skies
agreements may even allow for multiple designations of airlines, thus allowing more than one
carrier of a state to initiate services. It may also allow for a loosening of the rules of designa-
tion. Whereas it was common for designated airlines to be majority owned and controlled in
