Immigration and international inbound tourism: Empirical evidence from Australia

Immigration can potentially influence tourism flows. However, in spite of the vast number of studies on tourism demand modelling, the immigration-tourism linkage has not received much attention in the empirical literature. This paper seeks to address this gap. A dynamic demand model is developed and estimated using data from 1980 to 2008 for the 15 main markets of Australia. The explanatory variables included are income, own price, price of a substitute destination, airfare and immigration. The estimation results empirically establish the connection between immigration and inbound tourism. The short run and long-run immigration elasticities generated are 0.028 and 0.09 respectively. Additionally this paper demonstrates that omission of prices of substitutes affects the value of the own price elasticity of demand. The results have implications for future research and for stakeholders who can improve the efficiency of their planning exercises by taking into account additional information on immigration trends.     

Remodeling international tourism demand: Old theory and new evidence

The purpose of this study is to advance the tourism demand theory by excluding simultaneous effects of exchange rates and prices in empirical models, formulating an alternative pricing modus operandi consistent with recent research in the area, and demonstrating the efficacy of the use of an industrial production index (IPI) as a proxy for income. A panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) method is employed to estimate the inbound tourism demand for Turkey. Study findings suggest that the inclusion of exchange rates and prices, as mutually exclusive components, can be misleading; the IPI is not a good proxy for income; and country-specific coefficients need to be analyzed to accurately explain determinants of tourism demand for countries in the panel.     

Flight availability and international tourism flows

This paper analyzes the effect of flight supply on international tourism flows between 20 Italian regions and 24 European countries, observed half-yearly from 1999 to 2010. We find that low-cost carriers have a prominent role in attracting international tourism flows. Our estimates suggest that an additional round-trip flight operated by a low-cost carrier generates about 74 arrivals and 248 overnight stays in hotels or similar facilities; in the case of a full-service carrier these figures decrease to 29 and 97, respectively. These findings are relevant for the current debate on the drivers of tourism development.     

The impacts of immigrants and institutions on bilateral tourism flows

In this paper, we use data on recent bilateral tourism flow from 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries to 52 middle-to low-income countries for the period 1995–2010 to determine whether immigration, trade and institutional quality play a role in driving OECD nationals to visit immigrant-source countries. Except for the African countries, the results show that immigrants residing in OECD countries have a positive advertising effect for their home country, inducing tourism flows from OECD countries. We also find that the quality of institutions, along with freedom and civil liberty indices, are important in selecting tourism destinations. A massive 8% of the variation in tourism flows can be accounted for by these factors. These results hold for the subsample and the whole sample with two exceptions: European and African destinations. We posit that this feature of the data exists because European (African) countries are so similar to each other, and small differences in the indexes do not matter at the top (bottom) of the distribution. By controlling for gravity and macroeconomic stability variables, we also show that the trade flows between countries, among other factors, play a crucial and stable role on tourism flows. Dynamic panel data estimation is used to account for the influence of repeat visits and support our findings.     

Adding character: The role of destination mascots in tourism development

This study explores the use of destination mascots in tourism development. It steps away from the traditional investigation of yuru kyara by focusing on a wider range of anthropomorphic messengers. By mapping the historical trajectory of mascots, the researchers isolate a special subcategory of anthropomorphic characters: destination mascots. Destination mascots are introduced as a new tourism construct and a distinct type of marketing activity. This paper aims to develop and promote the term destination mascot in tourism literature. It describes the many facets of destination mascots and catalogues five distinct functions mascots can carry out for their destinations: mascots as place identity markers, cultural constructs, bonding tools, social engagement tools, and information carriers. Supplemented with multiple examples from past and present literature, this study deepens and broadens our understanding of mascot culture. It brings into view many avenues that invite further exploration.     

Modelling and forecasting the demand for Hong Kong tourism

The main objectives of this paper are to identify the factors which contribute to the demand for Hong Kong tourism with the aid of econometric models and to generate forecasts of international tourism arrivals to Hong Kong for the period 2001–2008. The general-to-specific modelling approach is followed to model and forecast the demand for Hong Kong tourism by residents from the 16 major origin countries/regions and the empirical results reveal that the most important factors that determine the demand for Hong Kong tourism are the costs of tourism in Hong Kong, the economic condition (measured by the income level) in the origin countries/regions, the costs of tourism in the competing destinations and the ‘word of mouth’ effect. The demand elasticities and forecasts of tourism arrivals obtained from the demand models form the basis of policy formulations for the tourism industry in Hong Kong.     

Progress in tourism management: A review of website evaluation in tourism research

This paper reviews tourism studies published from 1996 to July 2009 that pertain to methodological approaches to website evaluation. The paper analyzes the initial work and continues up to recent developments in website evaluation. In general, prior research can be divided into five evaluation approaches: counting, automated, numerical computation, user judgment, and combined methods. The strengths and weaknesses of each method are examined. Research gaps and opportunities for future studies are discussed.     

Eco-efficiency and its determinants at a tourism destination: A case study of Huangshan National Park,China

This study creates a comprehensive evaluation index system, including undesirable outputs and a Slacks-Based Measure-Data Envelopment Analysis model, to analyse the characteristics and evolution of eco-efficiency at an individual tourism destination. This study also empirically identifies the determinants of eco-efficiency. Huangshan National Park, one of the most iconic and highly visited national parks in China, was chosen as the study site. The study results indicate that eco-efficiency has improved continuously. Pure technical efficiency is higher than scale efficiency, while eco-efficiency is more relevant to scale efficiency than to pure technical efficiency. The evolution of eco-efficiency undergoes four stages: an initial inefficient stage, a rapid growth stage, a mature efficient stage and a downside risk stage. Moreover, tourism development, industrial structure and technical level have significantly positive impacts on eco-efficiency, but investment level displays the opposite trend. Environmental regulation emphasizing waste control does not effectively promote eco-efficiency. Finally, theoretical and practical contributions of the findings are discussed in the context of eco-efficiency at a tourism destination. For instance, an eco-efficiency analysis of a destination should treat the tourism destination as a macro-scale system with complex evolutionary rules and should combine this perspective with theory, such as the tourist area cycle of evolution proposed by Butler in 1980.     

The effects of the military in politics on the inbound tourism: evidence from Turkey

In this paper, we analyze the effects of the military in politics on the number of tourist inflows from 71 countries to Turkey for the period from 1984 to 2014. We use the fixed-effects and the random-effects as well as the dynamic generalized methods of moments estimations. We find that a lower level of the relative military in politics (the difference between the source country and Turkey) positively affects the tourism inflows to Turkey. Specifically, one standard deviation reduction in the index of the relative military intervention in politics in Turkey leads to almost 7% increase in the tourism inflows.     

A piecewise linear approach to modeling and forecasting demand for Macau tourism

In this paper, we construct and use a piecewise linear method to model and forecast, on a monthly basis, the demand for Macau tourism. Data over the period January 1991–December 2005 and a seasonally adjusted series for tourism demand are used. The study examines 4 forecasting horizons ranging from 6 to 24 months in advance. Mean absolute percentage errors and root mean square errors are adopted as criteria for evaluating the accuracy of the forecasting exercises. Finally, the forecasts of piecewise linear model are compared with those of autoregressive trend model, seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average and its arch-rival fractionally integrated autoregressive moving average models. The piecewise linear model is more accurate than the three benchmark models tested and the improvement is practically significant.     

Demand elasticity estimates for New Zealand tourism

Demand elasticities for New Zealand tourism are estimated for 16 different international visitor segments. Segments are differentiated by origin, purpose of visit, and travel style. Elasticities for both international visitor arrivals and on-the-ground expenditure per arrival are estimated for each segment using time-series data. In general, on-the-ground consumption per arrival is more price sensitive than number of arrivals, and Asian market segments are found to be more price sensitive, both in terms of arrivals and on-the-ground expenditure, compared to international visitors from other regions. An application of the results is presented giving the total effect of exchange rate changes on expenditure by international visitors in New Zealand, and management implications are discussed.     

Smart governance for heritage tourism destinations: Contextual factors and destination management organization perspectives

The sustainable development of tourism is a major concern for destination management organisations (DMOs) in heritage tourism. Smart tourism advocates claim that technologically-driven innovations can help DMOs to optimise tourism development by addressing issues such as carrying capacity, stakeholder management and community involvement. This study enhances the understanding of smart tourism governance (SG), showing how contextual factors affect DMO perspectives of SG. A mixed-methods approach was used to investigate heritage tourism destinations in the United Kingdom. The results demonstrate that well-established DMOs do not perceive SG as potentially beneficial, as they already perform well in many areas in which SG promises improvements, such as citizen engagement, decision-making, and stakeholder engagement. Despite this, this research highlights the aspects of SG that these destinations can take advantage of as social inclusion, environmental performance and the provision of citizen-centric services. All of these can help heritage tourism destinations to optimise their tourism development. This research additionally demonstrates the effect of contextual factors, such as the level of public-sector support for tourism and the growing influence of non-tourism stakeholders in destination management, on DMO perceptions of SG and makes recommendations for how developments in the use of SG by DMOs can be made, in light of these.     

Beyond the glass ceiling: Gendering tourism management

This article considers how Acker’s (1990, 2012) framework of gendering processes can be a tool for the analysis of women managers’ careers in tourism organisations. Twenty-four women top-level managers in hotels and travel businesses were interviewed. The analysis of gendering processes in the organisations where these women work revealed that hidden discrimination is more pervasive than overt discrimination. Three main gender subtexts underlie these gendering processes: the notion of the ‘ideal’ unencumbered worker and assumptions of women’s greater family-orientation; the expectation that women are less competent than men; and male homosocial ties and exclusionary practices. It is concluded that Acker’s framework can be a good tool for de-legitimising subtle and normalised forms of discrimination in tourism organisations.     

Forecasting international city tourism demand for Paris: Accuracy of uni- and multivariate models employing monthly data

The purpose of this study is to compare the predictive accuracy of various uni- and multivariate models in forecasting international city tourism demand for Paris from its five most important foreign source markets (Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and US). In order to achieve this, seven different forecast models are applied: EC-ADLM, classical and Bayesian VAR, TVP, ARMA, and ETS, as well as the naïve-1 model serving as a benchmark. The accuracy of the forecast models is evaluated in terms of the RMSE and the MAE. The results indicate that for the US and UK source markets, univariate models of ARMA(1,1) and ETS are more accurate, but that multivariate models are better predictors for the German and Italian source markets, in particular (Bayesian) VAR. For the Japanese source market, the results vary according to the forecast horizon. Overall, the naïve-1 benchmark is significantly outperformed across nearly all source markets and forecast horizons.     

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.     

Implications of a long-term increase in oil prices for tourism

It is expected that global oil prices will increase in the future. Assessing the overall economic impacts on tourism is difficult, as oil price rises will be concomitant with global changes in other commodity prices, exchange rates, and incomes. A general equilibrium perspective is therefore presented in this paper. The model couples a global general equilibrium model with a purpose-built CGE model of New Zealand, which focuses on describing tourism supply and demand in some detail. The results indicate a decrease in real gross national disposable income of 1.7% for a doubling of oil price and a 9% reduction in the real value of tourism exports. As a result of segment-specific price increases and differing income and exchange rate effects and elasticities, the reduction in demand for tourism in New Zealand by 18 segments differs substantially. The greatest reduction in demand is observed for tourists from the United Kingdom.     

Off-season tourists and the cultural offer of a mass-tourism destination: The case of Rimini

This paper assesses the potential implications on off-season tourism of enhancing the cultural offer of Rimini, a popular Italian seaside holiday destination hosting about 12 million overnight stays per year. Since more than 9 million of these stays are concentrated in the summer season, in the last 20 years. Rimini has been undergoing a policy of seasonality smoothing, which mainly pivots around business and cultural tourism. This assessment has been carried out through discrete choice experiments submitted to a sample of about 800 tourists who visited Rimini outside the summer months. Since tourism can be viewed as a composite good, which overall utility depends on how the component characteristics are arranged, the choice experiments allow to disentangle the importance and the willingness to pay of tourists for different attributes of the holiday. The choice model incorporates a number of possible changes to actual tourism features (which are also the subject of public debate), including them in hypothetical alternative “holiday packages”. The conditional logit analysis of the choice experiments can highlight any synergy or trade-off between cultural and business tourism. Results suggest that business and leisure tourists share many features related to the use of the territory, while there are important trade-offs between these two groups and cultural tourists. Since business tourists have a higher willingness to extend their stay, a softer budget, and their demand is also complementary to the demand of summer tourists (Brau, Scorcu, & Vici, 2009), from the destination point of view investing in this market segment would be the best option. Although a “second best”, however, cultural tourists share with the local population of Rimini many aspects of the demand of territory (Figini, Castellani, & Vici, 2009). Hence, cultural tourism can play a fundamental role in the intermediate season as a tool for smoothing seasonality, to diversify investments and to give value to the city’s cultural heritage.     

Progress in tourism demand research: Theory and empirics

To explore recent progress in tourism demand research, we comprehensively survey current studies in the leading tourism and hospitality journals, asking six evaluative questions about the scientific merits of the studies and three explorative questions about emerging areas in the literature. The examination identifies potential flaws and their consequences in the field of tourism demand. A theoretical foundation is recommended for future tourism demand studies with a view to reduce bias in the empirical analysis of tourism demand. Several emerging areas of analysis in the field of tourism demand are recognized and discussed. Our study provides critical insights that will enable future tourism demand research to generate more reliable, impactful information than in the past.     

Chaos, crises and disasters: a strategic approach to crisis management in the tourism industry

This paper outlines and discusses a strategic and holistic approach to crisis management for the tourism industry. It notes the growing importance of crisis and disaster management for the tourism industry before exploring the definitions and nature of crises and disasters. The paper then proposes a strategic approach to their management from proactive pre-crisis planning through strategic implementation and finally evaluation and feedback. A discussion of crisis and disaster management literature and studies conducted in the tourism field are also introduced. It notes that although crises and disasters cannot be stopped their impacts can be limited by both public and private sector managers. The paper concludes that the understanding and subsequent management of such incidents can be vastly improved through the extension and application of crisis and disaster management theory and concepts from other disciplines, coupled with the development of specific tourism crisis management research and frameworks.