Forecasting turning points in tourism growth

Tourism demand exhibits growth cycles, and it is important to forecast turning points in these growth cycles to minimise risks to destination management. This study estimates logistic models of Hong Kong tourism demand, which are then used to generate both short- and long-term forecasts of tourism growth. The performance of the models is evaluated using the quadratic probability score and hit rates. The results show that the ways in which this information is used are crucial to the models’ predictive power. Further, we investigate whether combining probability forecasts can improve predictive accuracy, and find that combination approaches, especially nonlinear combination approaches, are sensitive to the quality of forecasts in the pool. In addition, model screening can improve forecasting performance.     

Destination Image of Taiwan From the Perspective of Hong Kong Residents: Revisiting Structural Relationships Between Destination Image Attributes and Behavioral Intention

Destination image plays an important role in how tourists make their travel and purchase decisions. This study examines the perceived image of Taiwan as a travel destination from the perspective of Hong Kong residents. The Hong Kong outbound tourism market is important for Taiwan. Using a self-completed questionnaire, this research examines the destination image of Taiwan among 213 Hong Kong residents. The results indicate that affective image is a stronger predictor of travel intention than cognitive image. Affective image also plays a mediating role in the relationship between cognitive image and behavioral intention. Hence, affective image is an important intangible quality for today’s destinations.     

资本市场开放与股权资本成本——基于沪港通、深港通的实证研究

本文基于沪港通和深港通研究资本市场开放对中国内地股权资本成本的影响。研究发现,受政策风险和市场环境等因素所限,沪港通在初始阶段并未对沪市公司的股权资本成本产生显著影响,但随着政策进一步完善、市场逐渐稳定和交易不断活跃,其对股权资本成本的降低效果于实施两年后开始显现;深港通建立在沪港通的制度基础和运行经验上,其在开通后显著降低了标的公司的股权资本成本。本文还进一步分析了资本市场开放影响股权资本成本的竞争渠道和信息渠道,发现深港通对股权资本成本的降低作用主要集中在投资者竞争程度较高,或是公开信息质量较高、信息不对称程度较低的股票样本。     

Gazing at hotel guests: Deconstructing elements of the host-gaze

This study identifies key elements of the so-called host-gaze by investigating how Hong Kong hotel employees view guests emanating from a key source market - India. Front office and housekeeping staff evaluated their interactions with guests, particularly in the case of those from India. The researchers identified four elements of the host “gaze”, namely: (1) Initial Gaze; (2) Communication Gaze; (3) Customer Behavior Gaze and (4) Distinguishing Gaze. The authors reveal that though the gaze empowers employees to exercise control over their behaviors, manipulative behaviors increase the likelihood of workplace deviance. Drawing on the principles of emotional labor, the researchers affirm the importance of cultural and emotional intelligence for the professional demeanor and development of hospitality employees.     

Heritage tours and trails on foot in Hong Kong: towards a typology that crosses the tourist-local divide

Hong Kong's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 initiated intense interest in cultural heritage on the part of divergently positioned actors, including activists, the state, and entrepreneurs. Heritage walking tours have proliferated, providing a wide range of examples suitable for comparison. This article develops a typology of heritage trails and tours in order to consider how they are situated in relation to the tourist economy and local context. Theoretically it builds on insights in new walking studies and debates in tourism and heritage studies on the ‘tourist-local divide.’ The article relies on qualitative research conducted in Hong Kong, including participant observation and interviews, and a review of various secondary sources. The typology distinguishes between government-generated, market-oriented, and community-based heritage walks. Three key issues are discussed: the ways that tours and trails develop, how they engage with official and unofficial heritage places, and how they reference urban issues including state-led urban renewal and redevelopment. The article argues that, while walking in general is a format that is suited to both tourist and local visitor engagement, some trails and tours reinforce dominant narratives of heritage and urban space, while others challenge them.     

Twenty years of Hong Kong and Macao under Chinese rule: being absorbed under ‘one country,two systems’

This paper examines the implementation of ‘one country, two systems’ (1C2S) in the two former Western colonies, Hong Kong and Macao, as a policy innovation in managing inter-governmental relations of a large, diverse country like China. 1C2S embodies internal tensions because the Hong Kong and Chinese governments have multiple and often incompatible goals. After 20 years, these two special administrative regions (SARs) of China are gradually being absorbed.     

香港科技创新发展研究--基于2018-2021年香港财政预算案

香港特别行政区第五届政府自任职以来展现出致力推动本地科技创新发展的强大决心并投入大量资源和精力。本文以本届香港特区政府发布的4份财政预算案为基础,采用定性研究方法对其进行解构分析,从特区政府角度考察香港科技创新发展政策的侧重点及当前发展趋势。研究发现,本届特区政府在支持香港有关科技创新发展政策上侧重于关注资金投入、平台建设、人才培养、企业研发及STEM教育5个方面,逐步形成以发展自身优势科研领域,打造智慧城市,争夺全球科技人才,引领经济转型升级为主的科技发展趋势。最后,针对香港目前面临的发展困局,提出了推动政策落实、融入粤港澳大湾区建设、打造国际化平台等推动科技创新长远发展的政策建议。     

香港工业政策变迁的理论分析——兼论对珠江三角洲地区工业政策转变的启示

目前,世界经济正处于后工业经济向知识经济转型的重要时期。在这一关键时期,如何最大程度地发挥工业在国民经济中的作用,对各国的经济发展与产业转型都具有决定性的影响,而工业经济的发展在很大程度上取决于一国工业政策的方向和内容。本文以20世纪80年代以来香港工业政策的变迁为例,探讨了工业政策在香港经济转型中的静态和动态影响,并通过对香港工业政策变迁经验的探讨,对我国珠江三角洲地区工业政策的未来发展方向和重心提出自己的几点看法。     

Object-based,multi-sensor habitat mapping of successional age classes for effective management of a 70-year secondary forest succession

Multi-temporal change detection over decades including the pre-satellite era is challenging due to the different image types available over time, and this explains the scarcity of long-term studies of vegetation succession which can play a pivotal role in the restoration of biodiversity in regenerating forests. This study describes a semi-automated, object-based habitat classification method for change detection of tropical forest succession since 1945. The study uses a set of black and white aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images which differ in quality and resolution, to investigate forest successional patterns and their implications for informed ecosystem and land rehabilitation management. For optimized habitat boundary delineation from black and white aerial photographs and panchromatic satellite images, three levels of hierarchical image object primitives were created. The minimum object sizes of 50 m², 500 m², and 1000 m² maximized inter-object and minimized intra-object variability according to the scale of habitat patches and imagery used. Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) provided additional Grey-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) textural features of segmented objects which helped to incorporate knowledge-based rule-sets into the final habitat classification which was done manually. Results show accuracies for grassland greater than 94%, monoculture plantations were distinguished from natural forest with 95% accuracy, and isolated mature stands of natural forest achieved 75% accuracy. Consideration of multi-date images increased the accuracy of distinguishing between mixed plantations and natural forest as well as between shrubland and young secondary forest. The resulting maps of vegetation structure at five time periods from 1945 to present gave new insights into the ecological processes of secondary forest succession. These include the surprising rapid rate of natural forest regeneration, at an annual rate of 7.7% from 1945 to 2014, and an even faster rate of 11% during a period when hill fires were controlled. The last areas to succeed to forest are those which are still, or at some time have been under exotic mono-cultural plantations. This suggests that long term protection from hill fire would be a better option for assisting natural succession in the landscape than plantations, which are both costly, and act as barriers to natural succession. Overall, with more than 92% mapping accuracy, the method can be adapted for other multi-temporal, multi-sensor studies as it enables inclusion of spatial theories by dividing the satellite image into time-consistent geographic entities according to the scale of target objects and image resolution. The accurate maps of forest cover patches at different successional stages can also help in site specific management of the recovering forest, such as introduction of shrub seedlings to bridge bottlenecks in seed dispersal according to shrub density and dispersal distances for forest birds. Late successional tree species can also be introduced in areas where only early successional species are present after 50 years of succession.     

Comparing the price of sin: Abnormal returns of cross-listed casino gaming stocks in the Hong Kong and US markets

While a number of hospitality researchers have investigated hospitality stock returns, few examine the stock returns of casino gaming companies. In finance, these stocks are often termed as ‘sin’ stocks. The purpose of this study is to compare the stock returns of cross-listed casino gaming stocks in Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges. Four pairs of casino gaming stocks are currently cross-listed in both exchanges, allowing for comparison. The cross-listing sample consists of 3138 firm-day observations from January 2009 to December 2013. Preliminary analyses, using time-series regression, show that the average daily returns and standard deviations of casino gaming stocks are much higher than market indices in both jurisdictions. Most importantly, casino gaming stocks listed in Hong Kong exchange have a significantly higher abnormal return than their cross-listed counterparts in the US. The reason may be due to cultural issues. These findings will have meaningful implications to investors of casino gaming companies.