‘It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission’: tourism development in an unregulated town

This study describes the state of a Costa Rican community as it is affected by tourism development. It suggests reasons for the current state of affairs and offers potential solutions to remedy this town's issues. By gathering data on location through the use of interviews with business owners, the issue of individual development versus community development is exposed. It provides a glimpse into the concept of group dynamics and collective action (or the lack of it), and offers some understanding about collective development in unregulated communities. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Gay’ tourists and host community attitudes

Despite the growing interest in tourism by gay men, there is little evidence (other than journalistic) of host communities' views towards such tourists. This paper describes a study of such views in a small Mexican beach destination popular with gay tourists. The village is also popular with heterosexual visitors and is known for nude bathing and drug consumption. Interviews were undertaken with a number of residents and revealed disapproval of the gay tourists. This was attributed by residents to overt sexual behaviour, and although there was no evident homophobia, it is postulated that this underlay the attitudes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Domestic tourism destination choices — a choice modelling analysis

Tourism destinations compete with each other to attract visitors. Although international tourism has received a lot of attention, domestic tourism remains the mainstay for many destinations. To inform the basis on which destinations compete, an understanding of the determinants of destination choices is required. In this paper, the discrete choice modelling method is applied to investigate the determining factors underlying the short‐break holiday destination choices of prospective tourists from Melbourne, Australia. The results from an estimated nested logit model indicate the relative importance of a number of destination and trip attributes and respondent characteristics. The model results are used to simulate the effects on destinations' market shares resulting from various changes in attributes and tourist characteristics. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding ASEAN tourism collaboration — the preconditions and policy framework formulation

Intergovernmental collaboration in tourism among ASEAN nations has received little attention in the literature despite the significant contribution that tourism makes in the region. This paper helps improve our understanding of the phenomenon by providing empirical evidence that explains the preconditions that gave rise to ASEAN tourism and the formulation of its policy framework. It is suggested that, to truly realise the vision of economic integration and sustainable tourism development, continuous efforts are required to establish, promote and protect the common interests of member countries. Policy‐makers should also strive for a good balance between pragmatism and mechanism when implementing policies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A critical comparison of tourism policies of Hong Kong and Singapore — an avenue to mutual learning

This study examines how mutual learning can potentially enhance the destination competitiveness and sustainability of Hong Kong and Singapore. By comparing the recent tourism policies of the two city states, and by interviewing key government officials, major industrial players, academic experts and representatives of international tourism organisations, it was found that both governments can learn from each other in various aspects. The Hong Kong government can learn from its Singapore counterpart the recognition and proactive support it provides to the industry, its visionary leadership, and its eagerness to learn. At the same time, the Singapore government can learn from Hong Kong in promoting entrepreneurship within the tourism industry. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Culinary tourism strategic development: an Asia‐Pacific perspective

Many destinations view their food and cuisine as a market niche. Operating within the Asia‐Pacific perspective, this study analyzed the key success factors in culinary tourism based on resource‐based theory in seven benchmark countries to identify the structure of promotional strategic development in culinary tourism. The methodology primarily involved in‐depth interviews and document analyses. The results identified four key success factors: (i) identifying and effectively using culinary tourism resources; (ii) evaluating governmental principles for promoting culinary tourism; (iii) adopting marketing strategies to promote culinary cultural sectors; and (iv) constructing educational environment for culinary culture and tourism. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding the meaning of the ‘journey’ to budget travellers

The purpose is to construct a hermeneutic understanding of the significance of the journey to budget travellers. Narrative interviews were gathered from budget travellers. This research confirms the complexity, holistic reflections and personal travel history associated with the journey. The participants' narratives indicated the primacy of personal authenticity instead of cultural authenticity. The sight became a landmark to distinguish the destination, participants' geographical placement and some of their travails on their journeys. The nomothetic significance of the journey involved the meaning themes of personal development and liminal encounters and meaning factors of styles, visual cues and problem solving. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.     

Tourism product and service innovation to avoid ‘strategic drift’

Dealing with change in the external environment creates substantial challenges for tourism managers. Given the complexity of strategy formulation it is difficult for managers to analyse all aspects of their environment or establish precise objectives, consequently business strategies tend to be characterised by small strategic adjustments or ‘incrementalism’. However, these marginal adjustments of strategy within an organisation's existing culture may lead to strategic drift reflecting strategies that are inconsistent with changes taking place in the external environment. The paper begins with a brief overview of the global trends that comprise the remote environment of tourism organisations. It argues that the standard response of tourism organisations to changes in the remote environment can be characterised as ‘strategic incrementalism’. The paper also addresses the concern that strategic incrementalism can give rise to ‘strategic drift’. In the face of changing global trends the paper explores some of the barriers that must be overcome, discussing seven areas of importance on which managers can focus to assist them to avoid strategic drift. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Passports to pleasure’: credit cards and contemporary travel

This paper explores the relationship between credit cards and contemporary travel. The credit card has transformed the way in which travel‐related experiences are produced and consumed. Production‐related activities within both the travel and credit card industries have, in certain ways, become rationalised, systematised and more co‐ordinated. As a result, credit cards are widely accepted by travel providers around the world. The credit card has also altered travel‐related consumption; in particular, pleasure travel and hedonism have become more accessible to a broad proportion of the population in many Western countries. This tension between rationalised production and pleasure‐driven consumption underpins the travel industry and, more broadly, contemporary economies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Human resources development and sustainability — the case of Indian tourism

The goal of sustainability oriented tourism development requires a number of human resources development (HRD) strategies aimed at the tourism industry personnel, host community and the tourists, and underpinned by concepts and practices of sustainability. Sustainability based ‘work culture’, ‘professional ethics’ and operational practices are basic to sustainability in tourism. Indian tourism, despite its immense potential, has seen tardy development, and shortcomings in the HRD domain have been one of the reasons for this below par performance. This paper suggests a comprehensive and strategic approach to HRD, catering to the training and education needs of Indian tourism at various levels for the major target groups. The paper also identifies the pressing issues confronting HRD in Indian tourism and potential strategies to address them within the context of sustainability. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Germany’s changing airport infrastructure: the prospects for ‘newcomer’ airports attempting market entry

Despite fluctuations for economic or political reasons, the number of passengers and volume of cargo carried by air is growing quickly, leading to a shortage of airport capacity in some European regions with few slots available at some hubs. This problem has accelerated the trend towards an increase in airport capacity for larger aircraft everywhere, a process which started in the UK and is now continuing throughout Europe, especially in Germany. Apart from development at the hubs, however, many small airports have also been enlarged, former military airbases have been converted to civilian use, and new runways are to be built in areas away from centres of population. These changes have occurred within a short period of time. In Germany, the number of available airports with runways over 1800 m will have doubled in a period of 10–15 years.     

Surveying the ‘empty land’ in selected South African landscape postcards

This paper adds to the discourse around picture postcards by looking at a number of South African postcards and photographs from about the 1940s to the 1970s wherein the object of the gaze is the supposedly empty landscape. These postcards simultaneously reveal and conceal the political and social realities of South Africa at that time by only showing white people gazing at the land. It is argued that the accessible and portable nature of postcards made them an ideal medium by which white peoples' relationship with the land was rehearsed and enacted during a decisive period of South African history. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Migration and inbound tourism: an Italian perspective

This paper investigates the impact of migration on Italian inbound tourism flows in a dynamic panel data framework. Arrivals, expenditure and nights from 65 countries are analysed for the period 2005–2011. The migration variable is defined at both origin and destination in order to assess the pushing and pulling forces. Estimates were performed using both aggregated flows and flows disaggregated to separate the visiting friends and relatives (VFRs) from two non-VFR categories, namely holiday and business. The results suggest the presence of a strong migration-tourism nexus, which clearly goes beyond VFRs. Moreover, the effects of the different determinants vary according to the way in which the tourism market is segmented and, within each segment, to the way in which tourism demand is measured.     

Developing Rural Tourism: the PAT Program and ‘Nong jia le’ Tourism in China

Despite the fact that the last three decades have witnessed the rapid development of rural tourism (RT) in China, which is being promoted by the Chinese government as an important new type of tourism due to its special role in revitalizing China's rural economy, there is still little knowledge about the economic impacts of RT on Chinese rural communities in terms of socio‐economic development and regeneration. Accordingly, this study represents an attempt to address this issue by examining the Poverty Alleviation through Tourism program and ‘Nong jia le’ (Happy Farmer Home) tourism within the Chinese context. The findings not only confirm the widely held importance of RT, as expected, but also identify the problems and challenges relating to the sustainable development of RT in the future. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.