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.     

United States international tourism policy

This article describes the key mechanisms in the United States for tourism policy-making. It points out the importance of tourism policy and planning for the orderly growth of tourism in the future. The important features of the National Tourism Policy Act of 1981 are presented. The article concludes by suggesting the policy role of the United States Government in furthering tourism interests within the context of international economic and trade policy.     

The impact of the age discrimination in employment act on employee benefit plans in the United States

United States legislation, culminating in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act 1967, and its amendments, are discussed in terms of their effect on personnel policies generally and employee benefit plans in particular. The article seeks to explain both general principles and concrete applications of the Act and suggests approaches towards avoiding confrontation with Federal agencies in personnel policy and practice.     

Dynamic relationships between tourist arrivals,immigrants, and crimes in the United States

This paper investigates the dynamic relationships between tourist arrivals, immigrants, and crimes in the United States (U.S.) from 1984 to 2013. Our findings affirm the social structural perspectives (i.e. Merton's Strain theory and Social Disorganization theory), which contain a popular perception about the immigration and crime that they both go hand in hand. Results of bivariate analysis revealed that immigrants admitted by Europe, Mexico, and North America to U.S. are positively correlated with key crimes. Tourist arrivals positively influence crime rate only in short-run, which affirms the Opportunity Structural perspectives (i.e. Routine Activity and Hot Spot theories). Furthermore, immigrants positively influence tourist arrivals, which supports the Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) empirical perspective. Therefore, concerned authorities can focus on environmental design initiative in concerned areas (i.e. immigrants' communities and tourists' cities). Furthermore, future research and implications are discussed.     

An empirical analysis of the influence of macroeconomic determinants on World tourism demand

This paper considers three econometric models to determine the relationship between macroeconomic variables and tourism demand. Tourism demand is measured by the inbound visitor's population and also by on-the-ground expenditures. The database is an unbalanced panel of 218 countries over the period 1995–2012. There is evidence that an increase in the World's GDP per capita, a depreciation of the national currency, and a decline of relative domestic prices do help boost tourism demand. The World's GDP per capita is more important when explaining arrivals, but relative prices become more important when we use expenditures as the proxy for tourism demand. We cannot reject the hypothesis of a relative prices unitary elasticity of expenditures. Additionally, we have partitioned our data by income level and by Continent. Results are robust in the first partition, but less robust in the second, although the main conclusions still hold. Finally, we draw policy implications from our findings.     

The spatial and temporal resilience of the tourism and outdoor recreation industries in the United States throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

Accurately quantifying industry resilience is essential to devising effective recovery strategies. Previous research into industry resilience has either quantified the concept with single metrics aggregated across large geographies (e.g., visitation) or used metrics comparing the relative concentration of an industry within a region to the national average (e.g., location quotients). The former set of metrics prohibits spatially targeted recovery efforts while the latter fails during national crises. We propose the measurement of tourism and outdoor recreation industry resilience to COVID-19 based on growth rates in employment, wages, and establishments using publicly accessible time-series data on all counties in the United States. We use these indicators to characterize the spatio-temporal patterns of industry resilience across the country. The indicators can serve as a useful reference for diagnosing and monitoring industry resilience as well as developing targeted policies, programs, and promotion efforts that facilitate more localized response efforts.     

The Cittaslow philosophy in the context of sustainable tourism development; the case of Turkey

This paper studies the Cittaslow (slow city) philosophy in terms of sustainable tourism development (STD); and in this context research was undertaken for the case of Turkey. Cittaslow, a movement rooted in STD philosophy, aims to encourage the development of tranquil cities already known for their historical, natural, socio-cultural, and touristic features and the intention is to offer a significant contribution to systematic and rapid implementation of STD on a global scale. This paper, which makes a particular study of the practice of STD in Turkey, offers new candidate cities (Uzungöl, Hasankeyf, Safranbolu, Ürgüp, and İznik) and, thus, endeavours to contribute to the spread of STD throughout the whole country. In this study, above-named cities were found to be particularly good candidates for Cittaslow membership. In addition to these: Tatvan, Midyat, Alanya, and Fethiye were also found to be potential Cittaslows even though they fail to meet the population criterion.     

Tourists' spending and adherence to shopping plans: The case of the christmas market in Merano,Italy

The present paper investigates the determinants of tourists' expenditure by categorizing tourists based on their mental budgets. Individuals can be divided into three categories based on the difference between their mental budget and actual expenditure: underspenders, on-budget spenders, and overspenders. Estimation of the empirical model is performed based on data collected through a survey of visitors to the Christmas Market in Merano, Italy during Advent in 2011. The estimation is performed with the Heckman estimator, ordered probit selection rule, and linear regression. We find that the spending patterns of visitors belonging to the three identified categories differ significantly. Analyzing visitors’ expenditure based on the proposed categorization allows us to identify category-specific factors and develop management strategies for each category. The managerial and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.     

Productivity growth and income in the tourism sector: Role of tourism demand and human capital investment

This paper proposes a model for the demand for tourism in the context of a developing country. The parameters of the model are a tourist sector characterised by monopolistic competition, where human capital is the main factor of production and hotels have market power. Additionally land use is marked by demand from both agricultural and tourism sectors. From the household side, a simplified OLG approach is developed to consider consumption, human activity and the number of children. A dynamic framework is therefore identified to investigate the long-run consequences of increasing labor productivity and lowering the fertility rate. If the supply-side policy leads to economic growth, the tourism led growth hypothesis is theoretically confirmed. It is concluded that an increase in labor productivity generates positive growth effects only if the demand for tourism is elastic, otherwise negative results arise.