Pakistan tourism industry and challenges: a review

Travel and tourism has great association with other industries in the national economy making major indirect earns and also enhances foreign investment, opportunities of trade, investments in private, local development, and public infrastructure. Pakistan has rich potential of tourism due to its rich culture, geographical and biological diversity, and history. Tourism has developed as an instrument for creating considerable economic gains. The country has various tourist destinations at Swat, Malam Jabba, Behrain, Kalam, Shangla, Balakot, Kaghan, Naran, Ayoubia, Murree, Chitral, Gilgit Baltistan, Hunza, and Neelam valleys, other mountainous ranges, and historical and archaeological sites. Pakistan has great potential and offers diverse opportunities for tourists, such as trout fishing in the glacial water of Gilgit Baltistan and Swat rivers, Shandur Polo traditional tournament, paragliding, rock climbing, and trekking in northern areas, Jeep and camel safari in the Cholistan desert, Wild Boar hunting, and crabbing in the Arabian Sea.     

Acquiescence and conflict in exchanges between inbound tour operators and their overseas outbound partners: A case study on Tanzania

Achieving partner acquiescence is critical in interfirm exchanges because it allows the focal firm to achieve its desired outcomes. Using a case study on dyadic relationships between inbound tour operators in Tanzania and their overseas outbound partners, this paper investigates the effect of partner irreplaceability and distributive fairness on acquiescence, and the subsequent effect that acquiescence has on conflict. The case study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling on data collected from 129 dyadic relationships. Results show that partner irreplaceability and distributive fairness are positively associated with acquiescence, which in turn reduces conflict. The effect of distributive fairness on acquiescence was found to be larger than that of irreplaceability. In addition, the direct effect of distributive fairness on conflict, although not hypothesised, was found to be significant. This emphasises the importance of distributive fairness, and its role as a possible buffer to conflict in less acquiescent exchanges.     

Effects of different dimensions of corporate social responsibility on corporate financial performance in tourism-related industries

Although the stakeholder framework proposes the multidimensionality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Clarkson, 1995), previous research has yet to investigate the relationship between certain dimensions of CSR and corporate financial performance (CFP) in tourism-related industries. The purpose of this study was to disaggregate CSR into five dimensions based on corporate voluntary activities for five primary stakeholder issues: (1) employee relations, (2) product quality, (3) community relations, (4) environmental issues, and (5) diversity issues, and examine how each dimension would affect financial performance among firms within four tourism-related industries (airline, casino, hotel, and restaurant). While all CSR dimensions were proposed to have positive financial effects, results revealed that each dimension had a differential effect on both short-term and future profitability and that such financial impacts varied across the four industries. The findings can provide tourism managers with insights into which dimensions of CSR activities would improve their companies’ financial performance.     

Tourism and economic growth nexus revisited: A panel causality analysis for the case of the Mediterranean Region

Tourism is perceived as an important source of foreign exchange that is used for financing economic growth. This study offers a modern approach to tourism-led growth and investigates the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth in the European, Asian and African countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. The study uses panel data for the period 1998–2011, and adopts a panel Granger causality analysis developed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) to assess the contribution tourism makes to economic growth in each country. The results indicate that the direction of causality between tourism and economic growth depends on the country group and tourism indicator. Furthermore, the European countries are better able to generate growth from tourism in the Mediterranean region.     

基于社区参与的海口市旅游业循环经济发展

旅游业在海口市国民经济中具有重要贡献,循环经济对于海口市这样一个既需要促进经济高速增长而资源又相对稀缺的海岛型城市的发展具有重要的指导意义。海口市旅游业循环经济建设不能只是市场和国家的结合,必须是包括社区在内的三个组织的结合。     

Short-haul city travel is truly environmentally sustainable

With rising interest in and concern about climate change and environmental sustainability, and the significance of the tourism industry worldwide, the impact of tourism-related activities and behaviors on the environment has become a key area of research. In particular, transport related to tourism has come under scrutiny for its contribution to the ecological footprint of tourism of a destination, mostly accounted for by the dominance of air travel. This study contributes to research in this area by identifying the types of travel situations in which tourists make environmentally friendly choices about travel modes and, consequently, which types of tourism destinations should seek to develop and promote in order to minimize the environmental impact of the tourist sector on both an individual destination and global scale.     

Facilitating public participation in tourism planning on American Indian reservations: A case study involving the Nominal Group Technique

Tourism is frequently cited as a tool by which American Indians can strengthen the economies of their reservations. However, successful tourism development on such reservations requires effective tourism planning, and effective tourism planning requires public participation in the planning process. The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) has proved to be a useful group process in the tourism field but its application to tourism planning on American Indian reservations has been unexplored. This article helps to fill this knowledge gap by reporting on an NGT workshop conducted on the Lake Traverse Reservation of the Sisseton–Wahpeton Oyate (people, nation) in North and South Dakota, USA. Rich information on tourism development possibilities for three lakefront properties was obtained. Possible success factors are discussed and suggestions for conducting similar future workshops on American Indian reservations are advanced.     

Visitor perceptions of crime-safety and attitudes towards risk: The case of Table Mountain National Park,Cape Town

This paper investigates tourist perceptions of crime-safety and attitudes towards risk whilst visiting Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) in Cape Town in June and July 2008. The study examined survey data of 303 domestic and international tourists during their visit to TMNP. A linear regression analysis revealed that although visitors had concerns about their personal safety they are still likely to return to TMNP and recommend it to other people. In addition, visitor attitudes towards risk did not influence perceptions of crime-safety and its effect on their intentions to revisit or recommend TMNP. The results also show that respondent's individual characteristics such as age, nationality, and purpose of visit influenced their perceptions of crime-safety. Perceptions that TMNP is unsafe tended to increase with respondent's age. Respondents on holiday were more likely to perceive TMNP as safer than those on business or visiting friends and relatives. The study's findings add to the literature by offering more insight on tourist perceptions of crime-safety and attitudes towards risk and their impact on tourist behaviour. Various tourist-crime prevention measures to enhance visitor safety at national parks are also recommended to the tourism industry and law enforcement agencies.     

关于转变张家口旅游业发展方式的思考

面对发展的新形势和新要求,张家口旅游业必须要抓住机遇,转变观念,将发展旅游业提升为国家战略;必须要抓服务要素建设,转变方式,构建大产业格局;必须要扬长避短,转变思路;必须要抓住旅游产业发展的节点抓创新,转变方法,提升旅游产业整体发展水平。     

A round trip on decentralization in the tourism sector

Although the performance of the tourism sector has been investigated extensively, the effects of institutional governance have largely been unexplored. This study uses a quasi-natural experiment setting owing to differences in tourism policy devolution between special and ordinary statute Italian regions. Using panel data for the period 1995–2010, we first assess the efficiency of each region by a smoothed bootstrapped Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and an order-m frontier estimator. Next, we adopt a difference-in-difference strategy and a fully non-parametric approach to assess whether decentralization affects the performance of regions as tourism destinations. We find that regions affected by decentralization worsened their performance, compared to unaffected regions. The results are robust to different estimators and empirical specifications.