This study provides new evidence on the impact of tourism grants for service-standard improvement on tourism firm performance. Small matching grants provided to firms in two economically different regions are considered. We study additionality caused by the grants in the performance indicators of firms while taking into account regional heterogeneity and differing tourism demand. In the context of tourism firms in Croatia, we estimate the causal effect via a matching difference-in-differences estimator. We find a positive effect on tourism firm sales, value-added, capital, and labor in the region with higher tourism demand but not in the one with lower tourism demand. A cost–benefit analysis suggests that, in more developed regions, the benefits of the grant scheme for tourism outweigh the grant’s direct costs.

这项研究提供了有关旅游补助金对改善服务标准对旅游公司绩效的影响的新证据。考虑提供给两个经济不同地区的公司的小额补助金。我们在考虑区域异质性和旅游需求差异的同时，研究了企业绩效指标中的补助金造成的额外性。在克罗地亚的旅游公司中，我们通过匹配的差异中差异估计量来估算因果关系。我们发现，旅游需求较高的地区对旅游公司的销售，增值，资本和劳动力有积极影响，而旅游需求较低的地区却没有。成本效益分析表明，在较发达的地区，赠款计划对旅游业的好处大于赠款的直接成本。