Using a network data envelopment analysis model to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of cultural tourism promotion in Taiwan

The importance of tourism promotion has been discussed throughout past studies, and the consequences of ineffective promotion have also been investigated. While tourism promotion is a topic of interest to many researchers, performance measurement used to assess the effectiveness of tourism promotion is a topic seldom discussed. The purpose of this study is to develop an approach based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate performance for tourism promotion. The main difference compared with previous DEA models is the evaluation of multiple efficiencies in a single DEA implementation, and the assessment of overall efficiency in a ratio index. In the assumption of variables, we use cultural tourism promotion as a foundation in formulating the empirical evaluation, and we test the proposed model by using data across 20 regions in Taiwan.     

Tourism product development and the changing consumer demand: A case study of Kenya

Kenya is an important tourist destination in Africa accounting for over 6% of the total international tourist arrivals to the continent. However, in recent years Kenya's tourism industry has been experiencing problems of poor performance and continuing decline in the number of international tourist arrivals. This study examines the main characteristics of the country's tourism product vis‐a‐vis the changing trends in global tourism market demands. It is argued that the underlying cause of the recent poor performance of the tourism industry relates to the nature of the country's tourism product. Over the years, Kenya has been offering a limited tourism product that is based on beach and wildlife tourism. Also, the marketing of Kenya mainly depends on overseas tour operators who mainly sell inclusive tour packages. Thus, the form of tourism product that is offered by Kenya has not responded to the recent changes and trends in international tourism market demands. Post‐modern tourists, particularly tourists from developed countries, are increasing becoming aware of the negative impacts of mass tourism and are increasingly looking for alternative tourism products that provide a deeper and more meaningful experience. Thus, if Kenya is to rejuvenate its tourism industry there is need for the country to provide a diverse alternative tourism product which is more appealing to the post‐modern tourists.     

On the empirical relationship between tourism and economic growth

This paper studies the dynamics of economic growth and tourism evolution for 80 countries during the period 1995–2016. The variables representing economic and tourism growth are growth rates of per capita GDP and international tourist arrivals per inhabitant respectively. Using the concept of economic regime, the paper introduces a notion of distance between the dynamical paths of different countries. Then, a Minimal Spanning Tree and a Hierarchical Tree are constructed to detect groups of countries sharing similar performance. The two main clusters we find can be interpreted as two groups of countries with high and low performance in the tourism sector and are coherent with the business cycle. The evolution of such clusters shows three main stylized facts: certain countries move across clusters; the low performance cluster tends to span, while the high performance one tends to be (more) compact; the distance between the two groups increases in time.     

Australian Tourism Education

SUMMARY

An appraisal of Australian tourism education is undertaken by pursuing its historical development and the key issues of teaching locations, generic skills and graduate attributes, educator competence, human resource planning and how to assess performance. It is argued that Australia, when considered as a case study in the global context of higher tourism education, occupies a distinctive and relatively successful niche. The distinctiveness derives from both its late entry into the field and the status-oriented context in which it has grown. The success is characterised by a strong research-education nexus and the consolidation rather than loss of the degree offerings over time.     

Strategic orientation and performance of tourism firms: Evidence from a developing country

This study investigates whether tourism firms in a developing country, namely Turkey, which adopt one of the four strategic orientations of Miles and Snow (1978), differ based on their financial and non-financial performance. The study results show that there is a difference in both financial and non-financial performance based on the strategic orientations followed by tourism enterprises. Generally, prospectors were found to outperform defenders, whereas analyzers showed a comparable performance to prospectors. The findings of this study imply that in developing countries, tourism businesses may be indifferent when choosing between these two strategies based on their internal characteristics since they yield similar financial results. Specific factors and developments in the macro environment and company-specific factors seem to affect tourism firms' strategic orientation as well as their performance. Better understanding and closer analysis of such factors can help improve the performance of tourism businesses in developing countries. Further research using both perceptual and objective measures is needed to confirm the present results to better assess possible differences in performance among strategic orientations in some other developing countries.     

Monitoring tourism flows and destination management: Empirical evidence for Portugal

We propose the use of a tool recently introduced by Gayer (2010), known as the “economic climate tracer”, to analyze and monitor the cyclical evolution of tourism source markets to Portugal. Considering the period 1987–2015, we evaluate how tourism to Portugal has been affected by economic cycles. This tool is useful as it clearly illustrates the evolutionary patterns of different markets, and allows us to identify close relationships with economic fluctuations. We found that German tourism plays a leading role, since its movements are followed with delays by tourism flows from other countries, and exhibits higher resilience to shocks. Also, domestic and Spanish tourism have both displayed less irregular behaviors than tourism from other source markets. On the contrary, tourism from the Netherlands and the UK, have displayed irregular patterns, which demonstrates the urgency to diversify tourism source markets to reduce the country's vulnerability to external shocks and economic cycles.     

The concept of smart tourism in the context of tourism information services

Smart tourism has become increasingly popular in mainland China. Different types of events and activities have been classified as smart tourism, leading to the misuse of the term. What, then, is smart tourism? How to define it? Although researchers have defined the term, there has not been any consensus on a widely accepted interpretation. The definition provided by this study emphasizes smart tourism as an individual tourist support system within the context of information services and an all-encompassing technology. This paper compares the characteristics of both traditional tourist information services and those incorporated in smart tourism. Based on the concepts, recommendations are provided and future research/industrial directions are discussed. For the Chinese tourism market, smart tourism represents a new direction implying a significant influence on tourist destinations, enterprises, and also tourists themselves.     

The establishment of a rapid natural disaster risk assessment model for the tourism industry

At the current time, the Taiwan government is aggressively promoting projects, such as the so-called “Double Tourist Plan”, designed to encourage the development of the sightseeing related business. Operators in the tourist industry hope to construct facilities at or near scenic areas, which, given their special geography, are often adjacent to the mountains or the ocean. Unfortunately these are also the areas that most often experience natural disasters. This has a negative impact on the tourism industry. The centralization of tourist facilities, leading to the gathering of large numbers of visitors during the holiday seasons, can place people in danger. In other words, tourism operators in the Taiwan region face a high risk of natural disasters. It is difficult to assess such risks. Most of the existing models for catastrophe risk assessment consume huge amounts of time and are costly to use, so are more commonly applied for assessment at high-value facilities (such science-based industrial parks), rather than by the tourism industry, where economic factors are of greater concern. It is necessary to develop a simple and rapid assessment method that will allow ordinary business owners to carry out comprehensive risk analysis of tourist facilities. Thus, in this study, we explore various theories related to different kinds of natural disaster risk analysis mechanisms, with the goal of establishing a rapid risk assessment model suited to the tourism industry that can be used to quickly analyze disaster-forming characteristics and risk weaknesses in local regions. Furthermore, we incorporate an expert weighting process for assigning weightings for natural disaster risk index assessment. This method can help tourism asset owners prepare for the worst, and be capable of responding appropriately if and when such an event occurs. Good planning can effectively reduce the loss and risks associated with natural disasters and allow recovery work to commence sooner.     

Customer engagement with tourism social media brands

In tourism, customer engagement has been found to boost loyalty, trust and brand evaluations. Customer engagement is facilitated by social media, but neither of these phenomena is well-researched in tourism. This research contributes in two ways. First, we validate the Customer Engagement with Tourism Brands (CETB) 25-item scale proposed by So, King & Sparks (2014) in a social media context, and offer an alternative three-factor 11-item version of the scale. Second, we replicate their proposed structural model, and test our alternative model, to predict the behavioural intention of loyalty from engagement, and to test customer involvement as an antecedent to engagement. Ultimately, we propose a customer engagement scale and a nomological framework for customer engagement, both of which can be applied in both tourism and non-tourism contexts. Managers of tourism brands on social to better assess the nature of customer engagement with the parsimonious 11-item scale.     

Performance of French destinations: Tourism attraction perspectives

In this paper, we assess and compare the performance of French tourism destinations, using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) two-stage procedure, where in the first stage the efficiency score are calculated, and then followed in the second stage by a bootstrapped truncated regression model. In the context of France such analysis takes an additional importance, especially as the country is expected to face a decrease in its tourism competitiveness. A discussion in terms of D-attraction and E-attraction is also proposed and policy recommendations are derived.     

Tourism forecast combination using the CUSUM technique

Forecast combination in tourism has emerged as an important research area due to its relevance to tourism decision making. This paper further investigates the impact of forecast combination on forecast accuracy by applying a quadratic programming approach to determine the combination weights for individual forecasts. In particular, we introduce three novel ideas which have not been found in previous tourism forecasting studies. First, we introduce a quality control technique, CUSUM, to determine the time for updating the weights. Next, we develop a hybrid method (using quadratic programming) to combine the forecasts to reduce forecasting errors. Thirdly, we investigate whether different performance measures yield different results. Thus, instead of comparing different weighting methods using only one performance measure, we introduce several indicators for performance comparisons. The empirical results suggest that the controlled weighting method both saves time in updating the combination weights and improves the overall performance of the combined forecasts. The method is also easy-to-implement and should be used to improve forecasting accuracy in practice.     

Relevance and Quality in Australian Tourism Higher Education

Abstract

Partnerships between educators and industry professionals can facilitate students' tourism career opportunities. Considering this, a mail-out questionnaire was undertaken to assess the attitudes and perceptions of tourism educators (n = 56) and tourism professionals (n = 100) on tourism education issues. Results indicated that one-quarter of professionals believe university tourism majors provide graduates with a competitive advantage and both groups consider tourism/hospitality, marketing and management as important business majors. Competencies in logical thinking, social interaction, tourism knowledge and concepts, and generic skills are also considered important by both groups with specific workplace competencies and professional experience considered relatively less important by educators (p < .05). In conclusion, communication networks jointly facilitatedby academicsand industry are recommended.     

Reducing tourism's threats to biodiversity: effects of a voluntary sustainability standard and training program on 106 Latin American hotels,lodges and guesthouses

The tourism industry can negatively affect wildlife, plants and natural ecosystems through habitat destruction, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources and visitor impacts to sensitive ecosystems. One approach to mitigate such threats is the application of voluntary sustainability standards, supported by training of tourism enterprises and verified by external audits. The Rainforest Alliance standard defines 78 criteria (requirements) for sustainable environmental, social and business practices, and has been adopted by over 600 tourism enterprises – including hotels, lodges and tour boats – in 12 countries. We examined the performance of 106 hotels in six Latin American countries against 29 of the sustainable tourism criteria most directly related to biodiversity conservation. Independent audits were used to assess hotel performance at baseline followed by a repeat assessment after training, about two years later. Mean conformance with the 29 biodiversity criteria increased significantly during this interval, from 44% to 58%. Improvements were greatest for businesses in the lowest third of performance at baseline (laggards) and smallest for hotels in the highest third (leaders). The results indicate that a voluntary sustainability standard and training program can serve both to recognize existing good actors and to drive incremental improvement in enterprises that were previously less sustainable.     

Modelling Australian domestic and international inbound travel: a spatial–temporal approach

In this paper Australian domestic and international inbound travel are modelled by an anisotropic dynamic spatial lag panel Origin-Destination (OD) travel flow model. Spatial OD travel flow models have traditionally been applied in a single cross-sectional context, where the spatial structure is assumed to have reached its long run equilibrium and temporal dynamics are not explicitly considered. On the other hand, spatial effects are rarely accounted for in traditional tourism demand modelling. We attempt to address this dichotomy between spatial modelling and time series modelling in tourism research by using a spatial-temporal model. In particular, tourism behaviour is modelled as travel flows between regions. Temporal dependencies are accounted for via the inclusion of autoregressive components, while spatial autocorrelations are explicitly accounted for at both the origin and the destination. We allow the strength of spatial autocorrelation to exhibit seasonal variations, and we allow for the possibility of asymmetry between capital-city neighbours and non-capital-city neighbours. Significant temporal and spatial dynamics have been uncovered for both domestic and international tourism demand. For example we find strong seasonal temporal autocorrelations, significant trends and significant spatial autocorrelations at both the origin and the destination. Moreover, the spatial patterns are found to be most significant during peak holiday seasons. Understanding these patterns in tourist behaviour has important implications for tourism operators.     

The why,how, and what of public policy implications of tourism and hospitality research

We synthesized policy implications of tourism and hospitality research by reviewing 12,269 articles published in 10 leading journals from 2012 to 2021. The most common rationale for policies (i.e., the why) is market failure, while the most typical role of policies (i.e., the how) is to create incentives. In addition, policies are typically hybrid and include suggestions for formal and informal institutional setups (i.e., the what). Because our review revealed that only 114 articles (i.e., 0.93%) included the why, how, and what of actual policies, we offer a theory-based research agenda on policy-making focused on making tourism and hospitality more inclusive and focusing on evolutionary dynamics, providing an understanding of the impact of crises and contemporary solutions, focusing on resilience and institutional complexity, and addressing the actors and time dimension. Our results, combined with those of our suggested research directions, will benefit organizations and society and simultaneously enhance the perceived societal value-added, contributions, and stature of tourism and hospitality research.     

Paths to success: Benchmarking cross-country sustainable tourism

Given the complexity of the issues surrounding the concept of sustainable tourism, the current paper tries to provide a unified methodology to assess tourism sustainability, based on a number of quantitative indicators. The proposed methodological framework (Sustainable Tourism Benchmarking Tool – STBT) will provide a number of benchmarks against which the sustainability of tourism activities in various countries can be assessed. A model development procedure is proposed: identification of the dimensions (economic, socio-ecologic, infrastructure) and indicators, method of scaling, chart representation and evaluation on three Asian countries. This application to three countries shows us that a similar level of tourism activity might bring on different sorts of improvements to implement in the tourism activity and might have different consequences for the socio-ecological environment. The heterogeneity of developing countries exposed in the STBT is useful to detect the main problem that each country faces in their tourism sector.     

Modelling and forecasting the demand for Hong Kong tourism

The main objectives of this paper are to identify the factors which contribute to the demand for Hong Kong tourism with the aid of econometric models and to generate forecasts of international tourism arrivals to Hong Kong for the period 2001–2008. The general-to-specific modelling approach is followed to model and forecast the demand for Hong Kong tourism by residents from the 16 major origin countries/regions and the empirical results reveal that the most important factors that determine the demand for Hong Kong tourism are the costs of tourism in Hong Kong, the economic condition (measured by the income level) in the origin countries/regions, the costs of tourism in the competing destinations and the ‘word of mouth’ effect. The demand elasticities and forecasts of tourism arrivals obtained from the demand models form the basis of policy formulations for the tourism industry in Hong Kong.     

Overcoming information asymmetry in tourism carbon management: The application of a new reporting architecture to Aotearoa New Zealand

Responding to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate commitments are urgent priorities facing many governments. Meeting these commitments will require new industry management architectures that align measures of progress (economic, environmental, human and social) with government structures, datasets, and reporting. Comprehensive emissions quantification and reduction targets for tourism must be a part of this new architecture. In this paper we propose a comprehensive Tourism Carbon Information System (TCIS), comprising four essential information components: national tourism carbon footprint, the carbon-economic linkage, drivers and decarbonization progress, and benchmarking. The TCIS is then tested and applied to Aotearoa New Zealand (2007–2013) to track tourism carbon performance and its decarbonization speed, compared to the national average across sectors. This critical information sheds light on future growth in tourism relative to the national greenhouse gas inventory and establishes the required mitigation trajectory for destinations to move onto a sustainable emissions pathway.     

An earthquake disaster management mechanism based on risk assessment information for the tourism industry-a case study from the island of Taiwan

Although progress has been made in assessing risks in Taiwan, there remains a need to undertake risk assessment for the Taiwanese tourism industry. Although the conventional rules of thumb usually adopted by the insurance industry for damage assessment may be adequate in normal circumstances, this is not feasible for rare incidents for which there is very little reference material. One such example is earthquake damage. The average period of occurrence of major earthquake in Taiwan is about a hundred years, which makes it impossible to precisely assess average losses. In addition, earthquakes are not like some disasters (such as typhoons or epidemics) for which one can receive early warning. Thus, in this study, we seek to provide a practical mechanism for earthquake disaster risk assessment and management for the tourism industry, focusing on insurance and prevention. The primary objective is to integrate the relevant earth sciences, engineering and insurance data with the concepts of disaster risk management, taking into consideration the characteristics and sources of earthquake-related risks. In short, we develop an earthquake disaster assessment model to apply to risk management in the tourism industry. The practicality of the model is demonstrated with some examples related to the hotel industry in Hualien, Taiwan, an area plagued by frequent earthquakes. The results clearly show the efficacy of the proposed disaster assessment models for the tourism industry.     

Segmentation by motivation for rural tourism activities in The Gambia

In The Gambia, as in many other African countries, rural areas rarely profit from the turnover earned in the country's tourism sector. In academic and political literature, however, rural tourism is frequently identified as a diversification strategy that may trigger local economic development in remote communities. To promote rural tourism development, further knowledge is required to understand why tourists are motivated to engage in distinct tourism market segments. In this study, survey data was collected from 450 tourists in The Gambia using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was constructed to identify the key characteristics and motivations of tourists so that the significant market segments could be categorized and the (latent) tourist demand for rural tourism activities could be gauged. This study identified four distinct segments of tourists in The Gambia: heritage & nature seekers, multi-experiences seekers, multi-experiences & beach seekers, and sun & beach seekers. Drawing on our key findings, we conclude by identifying a development path that could diversify Gambia's tourism sector. The development path would also include event-based rural tourism initiatives that align with the motivations of the identified market segments and may additionally benefit rural communities by reducing economic leakage rates.