Its called the A380 effect -- when a city introduces the world's biggest passenger plane -- the impact on business and tourism development is substantial. Two cities Los Angeles and Birmingham in the English Midlands share their experiences.

On the U.S. West Coast - Los Angeles likes to call itself the Western capital of the United States and Eastern capital of the Pacific Rim and Northern capital of Latin America. So it invested heavily at its airport LAX to become the biggest A380 airport on the continent. And the payoff for the city is remarkable.

Stephen Cheung, President, World Trade Centre Los Angeles

"We know that every single year when you have daily non-stop overseas flights coming into Los Angeles it generates hundreds of millions of dollars in economic growth and economic activities and with the A380 the capacity increases and so we have even more people coming so I am sure that number is even higher than before." 

Los Angeles is considered the entertainment capital of the world and going through a building rush to handle the rising tourism numbers. At the same time its gearing up to bid for big sporting events like the Olympics in 2024 so the A380 is playing a key role to meet those goals.

Stephen Cheung, President, World Trade Centre Los Angeles

"Currently last year we had 44.5 million visitors coming from all the world and also domestically. And they spend billions and billions of dollars each single year and fill our hotels. So with the construction boom that is happening in Los Angeles we are expecting to add 4000 rooms just next year when it comes to hotel rooms. So we need the A380 to bring more passengers here that will be able to utilise these resources that we are creating and building." 

Birmingham in central England doesn't have the same international profile as LA but that is about to change big time. Thanks to new investment at its airport - in March Emirates launched a daily A380 service to Dubai. It means the city which has gone through a massive make over is now able to open up and attract tourists from across the Middle East and Asia. 

Katie Bentley, Marketing Birmingham

"The A380 has increased our daily capacity by 15% between the Midlands and Dubai and its also widened out our links across the globe so as well as Dubai we have links to the Middle East India and China which is great for our tourism because we are able to target new markets and bring new visitors to the city." 

Birmingham has a great industrial heritage and today a thriving entrepreneurial spirit - with the youngest urban population in the UK. With daily A380 services it makes the city even more competitive and business friendly.

Katie Bentley, Marketing Birmingham

"So the A380 service helps to position Birmingham on a global scale and make us an even more desirable location for businesses and investors. We have more start up businesses in Birmingham than any other UK city outside the capital last year and our foreign direct investment is at an all time high so it massively increases the appeal of Birmingham across the world."

Officials in both cities point out there is another A380 impact that is less visible but maybe just as important. Prestige - they are part of a very select group of global cities connected by the airplane and that generates a highly positive feel good factor that every ambitious city on the move wants to capture. 

Gary Toebben, President, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

"The image of a community is in part determined by its airport and the airlines that serve that airport. And we are very proud of the fact that so many of our airlines use A380s because it provides exactly the kind of quality of service that I know their passengers want and that our customers and residents here want to fly on when they take a long flight overseas."

Katie Bentley, Marketing Birmingham

"Its great to have the A380 here in Birmingham. It puts us in a really exclusive group of about 50 cities around the world, places like New York, Singapore and LA who have the service and now we have it in Birmingham so it's really really good for our tourism and our businesses."

Contributed by Airbus S.A.S.