Public–private partnerships for nature-based tourist attractions: the failure of Seal Rocks

In 1998, the Seal Rocks Sea Life Centre opened on Phillip Island, Australia. It was a public–private partnership, with a privately funded tourist attraction built on a government-owned protected area. Almost immediately it was beset by problems and court action found in favour of the private developer, who was awarded $A37 million in damages, with ownership of the centre returning to the state. This article fills a gap in the literature examining public–private partnerships by considering this failed venture. It is a qualitative case study, analysing the 2003 appeal court judgement in the case and newspaper accounts from 1995 to 2004. Our findings highlight that deficiencies with the drafting of commercial contracts for public–private partnerships may limit the environmental and economic benefits that are being sought by governments through these arrangements. In this case, the application of a “best efforts” clause was critical, as it required that priority was given to the commercial success of the project over environmental and planning concerns. Furthermore, the development was a centralised decision made by the state government, affording very little input from local parks management and community stakeholders. Such a court finding has important ramifications for future developments of partnership agreements in nature-based tourism.     

Tourists’ happiness: are there smart tourism technology effects?

The purpose of this study is to develop a research model demonstrating tourists’ value-seeking processes through the tourism services and travel experiences of a destination. The model suggests that tourist happiness is assessed by tourists’ perceived experiences, which are formed by two motivational values: smart tourism technology (STT) and destination value. Despite a large quantity of research attention on destination tourism, the relation between tourists’ destination experience and STT has been less enthusiastically studied. Therefore, this study proposes to test an integrated model with attributes of STTs and destination values that contribute to tourists’ life happiness. The results of this study, from a survey of 191 foreign tourists in Seoul, South Korea, indicate that tourists are likely to put more value on what they perceived from their destination travel experiences than what they perceived from their experiences with STT services when they evaluate their overall happiness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

黑龙江旅游网络关注度时空演变特征研究

探究黑龙江旅游网络关注度时空演变特征对黑龙江旅游业良性发展具有重要意义.利用百度指数获取2011—2018年全国和分地区黑龙江旅游网络关注度逐日搜索指数数据.从时间分布、空间分布、时空集聚3个方面研究其演变特征.研究表明:2011—2018年全国黑龙江旅游网络关注度年际变化总体呈现上升趋势,月际变化呈"W"形;2011—2018年31个省区市黑龙江旅游网络关注度空间差异较大、季节性影响显著;东部地区黑龙江旅游网络关注度偏高,西部地区黑龙江旅游网络关注度的季节差异最明显;东部地区内的黑龙江旅游网络关注度差异性最小,西部地区内差异性最大;黑龙江旅游网络关注度具有正空间自相关,部分东部、中部地区表现为高高集聚,多数西部地区表现为低低集聚.     

Evaluating the efficiency of Korean festival tourism and its determinants on efficiency change: Parametric and non-parametric approaches

Local festivals may leverage local specialties and various historical, cultural, and artistic resources throughout their respective regions to attract tourists, inducing positive economic impacts. In this study, this paper is a first attempt to analyze the relative efficiency of local festival tourism by using parametric and non-parametric approaches with the data from local festivals held in Korea from 2015 to 2018. We also deal with the efficiency determinants of each typology of festivals by employing a truncated regression with double bootstrapping. Results showed that the leading sources of inefficiency were primarily embedded in pure technology inefficiency, while the principal operational drivers posed different effects depending on the typology of festivals. These insights have important practical implications for the local festival organizing committees and operators in Korea and are helpful in developing tailored operational strategies to maximize the efficiency among different typologies of festivals.     

Travel information online: navigating correspondents,consensus, and conversation

Travel information exists in paper guides, word of mouth, and countless websites. Organizing a trip has never been more accessible and simultaneously riddled with doubt. Professional journalists produce travel journalism while often anonymous reviewers on TripAdvisor provide their commentaries, and in between, there are blogs, wikis, tourism boards, vendors, and a host of other information sources available. How does the twenty-first-century tourist make sense of all of this information? Through a study of tourists in Paris, this study seeks to understand the methods and strategies that they employ in order to identify trustworthy and useful information. Interviews with a sample of travellers reveal that each person has his/her own unique process guided by their personal motivations, but they also share several practices along the way. This research reveals that tourists ultimately exhibit a multistep process of verification using both professional and non-professional sources. No one type of author or website appears to be a unique or singular influencer when it comes to primary or trustworthy sources. These findings will lead to larger discussions about destination management and transparent practices among information providers.     

Financing the sustainable management of Rwanda's protected areas

Rwanda's Nyungwe National Park is a biodiversity hotspot with the most endemic species in the ecoregion and the highest number of threatened species internationally. Nyungwe supplies critical ecosystem services to the Rwandan population including water provisioning and tourism services. Tourism in the Park has strong potential for financing enhanced visitor experiences and the sustainable management of the Park. This paper explores quantitatively the economic impacts of adjustment in Park visitation fees and tourism demand as a source of revenues to improve Park tourism opportunities and ongoing operations and maintenance. The methods developed in this paper are novel in integrating the results of stated preference techniques with a regional computable general equilibrium modelling approach to capture multisectoral, direct, indirect and induced impacts. Such methods have strong potential for assessing revenue generation alternatives in other contexts where park managers are faced with the need to generate additional revenue for sustainable park management while facing diminishing budget allocations. Results of this analysis demonstrate that adjustment of Park fees has a relatively small impact on the regional economy and well-being when compared with a strategy aimed at generating increased tourism demand through investment in improving the visitor experience at Nyungwe National Park.     

Seeing history: a visual assessment of the historic-grounding of Old Western tourist towns

Despite the significant role that the visual plays in the experience of tourism, few studies have specifically examined the visual appearances of heritage tourist destinations. This study sought to analyze how historically grounded the visual appearances were of two heritage tourist towns in the state of Arizona: Tombstone and Jerome. These towns were both mining towns that experienced historic booms during the days of the American Old West and survive today as tourist destinations. This study utilized a detailed visual comparison of historic and contemporary town photographs in order to assess the relative historic-grounding of building exteriors and streets. It also incorporated the findings of interviews with tourists and town residents regarding their perceptions of visual historic-grounding. Study findings offered a means to assess and compare visual historic-grounding. Additionally, they suggested that while visual historic-grounding was important to visitors, it was one of several factors influencing their perceptions of the town's historic appearance: visual appeal, personal reflections, engaging activities, and previous visitor expectations of the American Old West (often grounded in filmic-representations) worked together to visually communicate a general impression of history within each town.     

大数据下“互联网+冰雪旅游”产业融合发展对策

十九大报告指出:"要推动互联网、大数据、人工智能和实体经济深度融合"。首先,分析大数据对冰雪旅游产业发展的作用;调查"互联网+冰雪旅游"产业融合现状,分析出现的问题;提出大数据背景下"互联网+冰雪旅游"产业融合发展对策是构建冰雪旅游大数据分析中心,实现精准营销;强化政府主导和支持力度,均衡市场发展;培养复合型旅游专业人才,提升创新能力;创新市场运营模式,增强融合动力。     

出口经验能助推对外直接投资吗?--基于中国与“一带一路”沿线国家宏观数据的实证研究

以"一带一路"沿线45国2003~2014年数据为样本,实证检验了出口经验能否提升对外直接投资。研究结果显示,出口经验显著提升中国对"一带一路"沿线国家的直接投资。在基准模型的基础上,引入公共治理、能源禀赋和地理区位与出口经验交互项的实证结果还显示,出口经验对直接投资的促进效应随着东道国治理水平提升而提高,对陆上丝绸之路国家的作用显著低于海上丝绸之路国家,而能源禀赋并未直接或间接通过出口经验对直接投资产生作用。这些研究结论说明,企业在不确定性外部环境下进行对外直接投资时,倾向于通过建立出口学习曲线并依此进行直接投资决策。     

区块链技术在旅游业中的应用价值与场景探析

目前,随着大众旅游需求的不断升级,“到此一游”的踩点式旅游模式已经逐渐变得不再风行,体现旅游者兴趣差异化的品质旅游比重正在提升。在“互联网+”发展背景下,区块链技术具有透明度高、数据可溯源、不可篡改、可追踪性等众多卓越优点,可对旅游业中无法提供差异化供给、商家信用低、价格不明确、旅客维权难、基础设施管理差等困局逐一突破,推动旅游业向智慧化、透明化方向发展,对营造一个信用良好、发展健康的旅游交易市场氛围颇有裨益。论文简要介绍了区块链的基本原理,剖析区块链在旅游业的应用场景,从而讨论区块链+旅游的实际意义,为未来相关的研究提供借鉴。