Willingness to pay: Who are the cheap talkers?

The purpose of this paper is to determine who is willing to pay (WTP) for a greener event by applying a Contingent Valuation (CV) approach together with an experimental design. To identify the cheap talkers a survey was conducted at the Wacky Wine Festival in South Africa, were 474 respondents participated. Using a Heckman two-step approach, the results confirmed that the decision to contribute depends on behavioural and motivational factors, while the amount is income-dependent. The extent of cheap talking is significant, with a 50% deviation in stated and revealed behaviour. Besides cheap talkers, another category is identified, namely “ethicals”, who contribute their voucher to the tree planting project without indicating that they are willing to pay.     

Advancing destination image: The destination content model

Knowledge of the mental representations that individuals hold about tourist destinations are important to understand their intentions. These mental destination representations have often been investigated by applying the concept of destination image. This study argues that the extant literature is often rather atheoretical and lacks operational rigor. These are major shortcomings which undoubtedly hinder the development of academic and managerial insights. In response, this study draws on contemporary psychology to develop the destination content model, comprising three informational components held in individuals‘ minds about destinations. The present study further outlines preferable methods and measures for each component, thus aiding researchers to investigate mental destination representations.     

A quantile regression analysis of tourism market growth effect on the hotel industry

This study used the quantile regression method to investigate how inbound tourism market growth proxied by the growth rate of total foreign tourist arrivals (GTA) affects the growth rate of sales (GS) and financial performance of hotel firms in Taiwan. The ordinary least squares estimation results of panel regression test revealed that GTA significantly affects GS, but has no significant effect on financial performance (proxied by hotel equity return). However, quantile regression tests revealed new and interesting results. GTA has a significant effect on GS at the different quantiles of GS. In comparison, although hotel equity return was not significantly related to GTA at the median and high quantiles, the effect of GTA on hotel equity return was statistically significant at the low quantiles. These results suggest that the effect of GTA on hotel equity return is asymmetric and state-dependent, conditional on the distributions of hotel equity return. The study further identified that GTA has a significant influence only on equity returns of hotels with a small size.     

社会交往、旅游情境对旅游需求的影响研究--基于春节“黄金周”的实证分析

以往关于消费者需求行为的研究多基于传统经济学框架的设定展开，认为影响消费者旅游需求的主要因素包含收入、目的地吸引力、交通等，普遍忽视了消费过程中的社会交往和具体情境。文章在理论分析的基础上，提出了若干命题，将消费者收入、社会交往和旅游情境等因素纳入旅游消费者需求的模型中，提出了若干研究命题。依据2014年春节“黄金周”旅游需求调研数据，采用排序选择模型验证了相关命题的正确性。计量结果表明，个人经济因素对我国消费者春节“黄金周”旅游需求影响较小，家庭结构、同伴等社会交往因素是影响其旅游需求的重要因素；我国消费者对于春节“黄金周”出游过程中遭遇的拥堵、旅游市场混乱等旅游情境问题具有一定的容忍度，但是，严重供需失衡导致的旅游情境问题依然对其旅游需求产生了显著的影响。     

Online Customer Experience and Its Relationship to Repurchase Intention: An Empirical Case of Online Travel Agencies in China

The study reported here examines the relationship between flow experience and repurchase intention by focusing on the joint mediating effects of loyalty. Data were taken from a survey of shopping experiences, at online travel websites, of 325 customers in China. The results show that flow experience has a significant effect on repurchase attention. Moreover, interactive speed, skill, challenge, perceived control, telepresence, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use are positively related to flow experience. Lastly, the findings show that loyalty, to some extent, acts as a mediator between flow experience and repurchase attention.     

Insurance ratemaking using a copula-based multivariate Tweedie model

The Tweedie distribution, featured with a mass probability at zero, is a convenient tool for insurance claims modeling and pure premium determination in general insurance. Motivated by the fact that an insurance policy typically provides multiple types of coverage, we propose a copula-based multivariate Tweedie regression for modeling the semi-continuous claims while accommodating the association among different types. The proposed approach also allows for dispersion modeling, resulting in a multivariate version of the double generalized linear model. We demonstrate the application in insurance ratemaking using a portfolio of policyholders of automobile insurance from the state of Massachusetts in the United States.     

The Government Transformation Programme of Malaysia: a successful approach to public service reform

The 2009 Malaysian Government Transformation Programme (GTP) could be useful as a model for reform given its positive impact on improving public services in targeted key result areas. This paper assesses the GTP's approach in the context of the wider debate on whether reforms should be based on best practices or whether they should be diagnostic or problem-solving in approach. The GTP's success was largely the result of blending both approaches. The GTP experience in Malaysia provides a number of insights and lessons for delivering intelligent reforms quickly and effectively.     

吉林省农业生态旅游功能分区研究  谢 璐

随着我国城镇化进程的不断加快,生活在喧嚣都市的人们越来越向往恬静的田园风光,农业生态旅游业作为一种新型农业生产经营形式与旅游活动项目应运而生,并且越来越受到相关学者与政府的重视.文章以吉林省农业生态旅游为研究对象,分析了农业生态旅游的发展现状,指出其发展存在生态环境破坏、 基础设施落后、 管理水平较低、 产业链条较短等问题;综合考虑吉林省地形地貌特征、 气候特征、民俗风情等因素,考虑不同区域农业经济、 社会、 生态及文化的相似性与差异性,对其进行地理空间分区,大致分为东部长白山农业生态旅游功能区、 中部松辽平原农业生态旅游功能区、 西部松嫩平原农业生态旅游功能区,同时探究了各功能区的差异性特征;针对各功能区不同特征提出"政府调控-市场调节"相互配合、"农业-旅游业"相互耦合、"经济-社会-生态"相互协调、"以点带面"互联互动、"省内-省外"互学互助等发展建议,以期为当地农业生态旅游的发展提供借鉴,为促进吉林省农业生态旅游业的可持续发展提供参考.     

基于DPSIR-TOPSIS的城市绿色转型评价及实证——以太原市为例

基于DPSIR模型,构建了包括驱动力、压力、状态、影响和响应5个方面的城市绿色转型评价指标体系,并将熵权法与TOPSIS法相结合确定指标权重。基于该评价指标系统,对2006—2014年太原市的绿色转型状况进行了评价与分析。结果表明:虽然太原市的绿色转型水平逐渐提高,但是整体效果处于一般水平,转型状况不太理想。     

Travelers' switching behavior in the airline industry from the perspective of the push-pull-mooring framework

We tested the applicability of the push-pull-mooring (PPM) migration theory to travelers' airline selection in order to clarify their switching behavior. Based on the extensive review of the literature and open-ended survey, we identified the constituents of four push, three pull, and four mooring factors. A field survey was conducted at an international airport in South Korea, and a total of 529 complete responses were used for data analysis. Our results showed that the PPM model comprising the second-order factor structure provided an acceptable representation of the observed variables in a comparison with the first-order construct model. Results of the structural analysis also indicated that all PPM categories directly affected switching intention. In addition, mooring dimension had a significant moderating effect on the relationship between pull category and switching intention. However, no moderating effect of mooring factor on the relationship between push factor and switching intention was found.