The artistic and cultural activities have not only a key cultural and social value, but also an undeniable economic impact. Indeed, it is a fact that the cultural sector represents a productive branch which is growing in importance. The cultural factor is frequently used as a key element for regional and/or economic development. In this vein, this article aims to estimate the economic impact of Salamanca 2002 as the European Capital of Culture, using the methodology provided by the impact studies in two stages: first, through estimating private spending generated by the event's cultural tourism; and second, through calculating the overall economic impact, including the private spending on cultural consumption, public spending directly related to the cultural programme, investment in new equipment and facilities, along with the estimate of the multiplying effects on the overall regional and national economies.

The article involves a study along the line of performance analysis of tourist destinations, yet taking the regions as territorial units and cultural tourism as a tourist flow to be explored. The aim of this study is therefore to evaluate the technical efficiency of regions in attracting greater flows of cultural tourism considering their own cultural resources available in the medium term. The analysis will be carried out at a regional disaggregation level in Spain, and one hypothetical production function will be designed to link cultural resources and demand. We adopt a two-stage procedure to evaluate regional efficiency as cultural destinations: first, measuring performance by non-parametric methods; and second, analysing how other external variables might determine these efficiency ratios. In this case, we consider indicators representing reputation, accessibility, the omnivorous nature of cultural tourism as well as the scope to the regional cultural sector. The findings of this research have implications for economic development and regional disparity analysis and may also prove to be of potential interest vis-à-vis economic policy.