To what extent can models and concepts described in The Geography of Transport Systems by Jean-Paul Rodrigue explain the relatively low traffic numbers at Mostar International Airport?

Despite clear tourism, migration and business potential, and its relative historic success. the International airport of Mostar is recording historically low traffic numbers during the late 2010s. The aim of this essay is to analyse the potential for air traffic at Mostar International Airport(regarded as OMO in further text for brevity) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and identify the potential demographic, economical, political and other factors responsible for the lack of commercial success at this airport. The book The Geography of Transport Systems will be used as a guide as it is one of the most valuable books in contemporary transport geography providing us with models and concepts which can be used to detail analyse the transportation sector of the city. The author will aim to review specific concepts from this book, which are relevant to the research question and adapt them to the case of OMO while trying to identify whether they offer a clear explanation of the problem faced by OMO. In order to bolster the data from official sources, the author has done surveys among citizens, temporary residents and tourists of Mostar, gaining first-hand data needed for the analysis of certain factors.

Mostar is a town in Herzegovina region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, positioned on a midpoint between Sarajevo, the country's capital, and the Adriatic sea. The city is situated in a valley between high hills, surrounded by beautiful landscapes, with the Neretva River flowing through it. It has a population of around 105,000 people, being one of the largest cities in the country and is an important cultural and economic centre. Mostar's economy is largely based on tourism, agriculture, and industry, with the city attracting visitors with its Old Town and historic architecture, and being home to several large factories, including an Aluminium factory and a hydroelectric power plant. In 2019, the estimated number of tourists in Mostar exceeded one million (Pogled.ba,2019), while in 2022, CNN included Mostar in its list of the 10 most beautiful towns in Europe, causing the number of visits to raise considerably. The city has a Mediterranean climate with hot summers and mild winters and receives an average of 738 mm of precipitation per year. Mostar International Airport, located in the village of Ortiješ, 10 km southwest of Mostar, serves the city and the surrounding region.

Mostar International Airport opened for civilian domestic air traffic(inter-Yugoslavian) in 1965. In 1984 OMO was the official alternative airport for the Sarajevo International Airport during the Winter Olympic Games, acquiring the status of an international airport. The record number of 86,000 passengers was recorded in the year 1990, after which the airport has seen a long period of struggle under war and change in the political system.

Despite the promising traffic numbers prior to the Yugoslavian war, in 2019, the airport has seen only around 35% of the passengers it had 30 years before

Considering everything so far mentioned in this essay, the research question that will guide this work is: To what extent can models and concepts described in The Geography of Transport Systems by Jean-Paul Rodrigue explains the relatively low traffic numbers at Mostar International Airport?

The Geography of Transport Systems, a textbook by Jean-Paul Rodrigue, offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field of transportation with an overview of its concepts, methods, models, theories and areas of application.

The chapter of interest for this work is 6.5: Airport Terminals, which includes a variety of models and theories behind the location of an airport. The aim of this part of the work is to review those crucial for explaining the success of an airport and putting them in the context of OMO.

In this essay, the author will aim to consider all factors described in The Geography of Transport Systems, and while considering data collected through research and the data from secondary sources, descriptively determine to what extent particular factors apply to the context of Mostar, customizing their role in the model. In addition, the author will propose several essential factors not included in The Geography of Transport Systems, which will, combined with reviewed factors from the book, result in a location-specific model for OMO. This is essential due to the fact that even though The Geography of Transport Systems is a very reputable source, it mostly provides general models applicable to the Western world. Therefore, the author will aim to adopt everything useful from these models, but will not hesitate to critically discredit certain elements of them due to local (in)applicability.

Apon reviewing multiple sources of data, the author has decided to conduct surveys in order to carefully consider each local factor's effect on traffic at OMO.

The data has been collected through stratified convenience sampling. It's is a type of non-probability sampling method in which the population is divided into different groups or strata based on some characteristic (such as age, gender, income, etc.), and a sample is then drawn from each stratum using convenience sampling. In this way, it aims to increase the representativeness of the sample by ensuring that each stratum is adequately represented. The convenience aspect comes from the fact that the sample is selected based on the availability and accessibility of the individuals, rather than using a random selection process. In this case, research participants have been divided into 2 stratas: residents and tourists in Mostar, which represent different types of potential travellers at OMO:

Residents of Mostar, including those permanently living in the city and those residing temporarily(more then one year) for purposes of school, short-term work, volunteering etc, have filled out an online questionnaire. In order to achieve as unbiased results as possible, the questionnaire has been made accessible by being available in languages spoken in Mostar(Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian) and English. It has been distributed using social media and QR code stickers around the city. The biggest potential errors in this particular survey are identified to be volunteer bias(self-selected participants causing non-representative results) and age conventionality(conformity to norms, values, and expectations associated with age group).

The survey for the second strata, tourists, was performed in the Old Town area of Mostar. The survey was conducted in person in English, and potential biases probably have roots in the language barriers and selection bias. As the sample was based on who was available and willing to participate at the time of data collection on the streets, it may not be representative of the population of tourists as a whole. The author has noticed that some of the foreign tourists haven't been comfortable speaking in English and therefore did not agree to participate in the survey.

Apart from primary data, the secondary data has mostly been adopted from Mostar's airport reports and other official sources. The author has reviewed the archive of OMO's reports, and the relevant data will be included in this essay.

Factors Impacting Airport Traffic are an essential set of characteristics of the airport and the area that it's serving and therefore are key variables while determining the airport's potential success in terms of traffic(Rodrigue, 2006). This part of the work will review factors described in the Geography of Transport Systems.

Rodrigue argues that "The traffic handled by an airport is directly influenced by the population, the income, the commercial intensity, and the level of touristic activity of the city it serves." This factor is the most comprehensive one, and it requires a multi-layer investigation of demand itself.

The essential value to be considered while evaluating this factor is the catchment area of an airport. This is the geographic area from which an airport can reasonably expect to draw commercial air service passengers. In the case of Mostar, this area is estimated to have the following size:

1) The green area includes the city of Mostar and smaller towns reachable within 60 minutes of driving from OMO.
2) The yellow area includes the region reachable within 90 minutes of driving.
3) The red area includes a wider region reachable within 120 minutes of driving.

Another important consideration is the tourist activity of the city and its surroundings. Below, there is a table of the nights officially reported in Herzegovina-Neretva canton:

Important thing to consider is that majority of the nights are not reported, as the city charges a touristic tax to renters, so these numbers do not represent the actual touristic activity in the city. An estimation that Mostar's tourist organization gave in 2019 was over 1 million of foreign guests.

The map shows that the majority of the tourists in Mostar came from EU countries, indicating the greatest market potential there. The significant exceptions are China, South Korea and the USA, which account for a total of 16.4% of all travellers. This suggests that having flights to EU hubs that serve these intercontinental destinations would be beneficial as there would be high demand for both P2P and transfer itineraries, which will be furthered examined.

There are evident differences between the data collected by the author and the official data when it comes to the countries where most tourists come from: While the official data shows that Italy and Poland have the greatest numbers of their citizens registered as tourists in Mostar, Germans overtake them in author's survey. The reason for that probably lies in the fact that Polish and Italian people usually choose to travel using travel agencies who are obligated to report the touristic stays in the city, while Germans tend to book their stay directly with the hosts.

The main conclusion that could be drawn from the data above is that the biggest demand is for cities in Poland, Germany and Italy, which are primary key markets. They are followed by China, UK, France, USA and these will be later referred to as secondary key markets.