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.     

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.     

Modeling domestic holiday tourism demand in Australia: Problems and solutions

An econometric model is very useful for understanding the underlying relationship between tourism demand and economic variables such as income and travel prices. However, a long time series horizon of data is essential to run an econometric model that is consistent with economic theory. Although time series data on the number of domestic trips and visitor nights in Australia are available since 1978–79, breaks in the time series in different years have made it difficult to estimate a domestic holiday demand model. It is because the data series in different periods are not directly comparable. In this study, a simple data adjustment technique has been used to obtain comparable data series. Among several econometric demand models, a single equation multivariate time series demand model in a double log linear functional form was found to be the most appropriate and practical model to estimate and analyze the demand parameters of domestic holiday travel in Australia. However, the model with variables in level terms was observed having the “spurious regression problem” which has been corrected using the cointegration and error correction mechanisms. The estimated income and price elasticity of domestic holiday travel demand are consistent with economic theory and therefore can be used for forecasting and other purposes.     

Assessing the experiential value of heritage assets: A case study of a Chinese heritage precinct,Bendigo, Australia

Destination managers often wish to utilise heritage assets to create memorable visitor experiences, yet there is a paucity of research aimed at understanding how these experiences might be perceived and valued for tourism purposes. This article uses a cultural tourism potential audit tool to evaluate the experiential value of a collection of Chinese heritage assets in the regional city of Bendigo, Australia. The tool was expanded to include analysis of the type of experience, categorising them as either peak or supporting. Findings suggest that some of the heritage assets had high or moderate experiential value, with a few forming the basis of peak tourist experiences. Other heritage assets, whilst high in experiential value, are best conceptualised as supporting experiences. Through the aegis of a heritage precinct, both types of experience may collectively attract tourists, provided they are integrated with a meaningful and appealing narrative.     

International academic impact of Chinese tourism research: A review based on the analysis of SSCI tourism articles from 2001 to 2012

Between 2001 and 2011 Chinese authors published over 838,000 articles in SSCI rated journals, second only to authors in the United States. However Chinese tourism academics lagged behind their counterparts in obtaining such publications, with only 157 papers in the Thomson Reuters SSCI listing for tourism and hospitality. However in recent years the numbers of Chinese authored publications have significantly increased. The paper argues that access to SSCI ranked publications is important for Chinese tourism academics because (a) it helps inform the world of developments in Chinese tourism, (b) it is a recognition of the standards of Chinese research and a means of improving Chinese research and (c) it provides a motive for international collaboration between Chinese researchers and their counterparts.     

Modeling Tourist Flows to Indonesia and Malaysia

Summary

The purpose of this study was to examine the major factors that influence the flow patterns of tourists from six important tourist-generating countries to Indonesia and Malaysia. The primary determinants included in the demand models were income, prices, and time trend. Two models that employed different indicators for the price variable were estimated; one with exchange rates in addition to relative prices, whereas the other included only an exchange rate adjusted-relative price variable. Annual time-series data covering the period 1980 to 1997 were used for estimation. The results generally indicated that the factors provide reasonably good explanations for the demand for Indonesian and Malaysian tourism. The measure of thejoint effect of the changes in exchange rates and relative prices also seems to be a better indicator for the price variable for both destination countries. The study has important marketing implications for the tourism industries in Indonesia and Malaysia.     

Visiting friends or relatives?

Visiting friends and relatives (VFR) contributes significantly to tourism activity and revenues, accounting for about 48 percent of domestic travel in Australia. Implicit in most discussions of VFR travel is that it represents one homogeneous market. This paper examines this assumption and demonstrates – based on data from 67,024 domestic and international tourists to Australia – that this is not the case. The profile of people visiting friends (VFs) differs significantly from that of people visiting relatives (VRs). This finding has major implications for tourism marketing which need to target VFs or VRs in distinctly different ways, rather than generically marketing to VFR travellers.     

Global Financial/Economic Crisis and Tourist Arrival Forecasts for Hong Kong

This paper examines the impact of the global financial/economic crisis on the demand for Hong Kong tourism by residents of 10 major source markets for the period 2009–2012. To capture the influence of this crisis, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ADLM) is used to calculate the demand elasticities, and four scenarios (ranging from the most pessimistic to the most optimistic) are created to examine the possible impacts of changes in source market income levels and the price of tourism on the demand for Hong Kong tourism in these markets. The demand elasticities reveal that the economic conditions in the source markets are the most significant determinants of demand for Hong Kong tourism. In the most pessimistic scenario, total tourist arrivals to Hong Kong are projected to reach 27.6 million in 2009 and 26.0 million in 2012, whereas in the most optimistic scenario, these numbers are 30.7 million in 2009 and 33 million in 2012. In all of the scenarios, tourist arrivals from the long-haul markets are expected to suffer more losses relative to the short-haul markets during the 2009–2012 forecasting period. The forecasts also indicate that the market shares of the source markets will change slightly over this period, with Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan constituting the dominant markets for Hong Kong tourism.     

Factors Influencing Chinese Students’ Behavior in Promoting Australia as a Destination for Chinese Outbound Travel

The importance of Chinese students in Australia has been largely neglected in the tourism development and place branding of Australia. This study explores the factors that influence Chinese students’ word-of-mouth behaviors, as well as other behaviors influencing Australia as a tourism destination. Following a literature review, a taxonomy of word-of-mouth behaviours is proposed in terms of the way information is communicated. “Place attachment to Australia”, “place attachment to China”, and “place satisfaction in Australia”, are proposed as the key factors that influence such behaviors. Using structural equation modelling, the authors find that “place attachment to Australia” and “satisfaction” with Australia are positively related to different behavior outcomes including Chinese students’ word-of-mouth, intentions to recommend Australia as a tourism destination, and willingness to help Chinese tourists to create satisfying experiences in Australia. Based on these findings, the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Modelling the interdependence of tourism demand: The global vector autoregressive approach

This study develops a global vector autoregressive (global VAR or GVAR) model to quantify the cross-country co-movements of tourism demand and simulate the impulse responses of shocks to the Chinese economy. The GVAR model overcomes the endogeneity and over-parameterisation issues found in many tourism demand models. The results show the size of co-movements in tourism demand across 24 major countries in different regions. In the event of negative shocks to China’s real income and China’s tourism price variable, almost all of these countries would face fluctuations in their international tourism demand and in their tourism prices in the short run. In the long run, developing countries and China’s neighbouring countries would tend to be more negatively affected than developed countries.     

The moderating effect of cultural congruence on the internal marketing practice and employee satisfaction relationship: An empirical examination of Australian and Taiwanese born tourism employees

The role of internal marketing on building employee satisfaction has been empirically established. More than 200 internal marketing studies are evident in the literature yet few consider the role of an employee's own cultural background with no quantitative exploration to date. In response to this gap in the literature, this research seeks to understand whether cultural congruence (the degree to which an organisation meets an employee's cultural needs) moderates the internal marketing practice and employee satisfaction relationship in a culturally diverse work setting. A sample of 458 valid responses was received from English and Traditional Chinese online and face to face surveys of tourism employees in Australia who were both Australian and Taiwanese born. The data were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group analysis. The results confirmed the positive internal marketing and employee satisfaction relationship. Further, this research contributes both applied and theoretical outcomes with empirical evidence establishing that cultural congruence can further strengthen the internal marketing and employee satisfaction relationship. Limitations and future research directions are outlined.     

Australian Tourism Education

SUMMARY

An appraisal of Australian tourism education is undertaken by pursuing its historical development and the key issues of teaching locations, generic skills and graduate attributes, educator competence, human resource planning and how to assess performance. It is argued that Australia, when considered as a case study in the global context of higher tourism education, occupies a distinctive and relatively successful niche. The distinctiveness derives from both its late entry into the field and the status-oriented context in which it has grown. The success is characterised by a strong research-education nexus and the consolidation rather than loss of the degree offerings over time.     

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.     

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.     

Assessing the importance of international tourism for the Turkish economy: A social accounting matrix analysis

The international tourism sector has grown rapidly in Turkey since the 1980s and Turkey ranks among the top ten countries in terms of tourist arrivals and receipts. Previous studies on international tourism in Turkey are partial equilibrium studies which emphasized the importance of the sector for foreign exchange earnings, employment creation, and economic growth. The social accounting matrix (SAM) modeling approach is superior to partial equilibrium analysis as it takes into account intersectoral linkages. This paper analyzes the contribution of international tourism to the Turkish economy using two SAMs for 1996 and 2002, respectively. Two analyses are conducted using the SAM impact model: (i) sectoral comparison of GDP elasticities, and (ii) SAM impact analysis of international tourism on output, value-added, and employment. The results show that the GDP elasticity of international tourism is relatively low and the impact of foreign tourist expenditures on domestic production, value-added (GDP), and employment in Turkey are modest. The results imply the possibility of leakage of foreign tourist expenditures out of the economy.     

Assessing preferences of potential visitors for nature-based experiences in protected areas

Visitor experiences have been identified as critical for the sustainable management of tourism destinations. However, researchers have given limited attention to how to measure visitor preferences for different, newly proposed experiences, especially in nature-based tourism contexts. This paper aims to capture potential visitors' preferences for nature-based visitor experiences that would alleviate pressure on the iconic summit of Mount Warning, Australia. Findings reveal a preference for passive rather than active experiences. Consistency between the four measurement approaches used was high. Future studies should consider adopting multiple measures to underpin evidence-based management that informs the design of nature-based tourism experiences.     

Tourism growth and income inequality: does Kuznets Curve hypothesis exist in top tourist arrival countries

This study examines the relationship between tourism and the income inequality in top 43 tourist arrival countries by using the data over the period of 1995–2015. We have applied advanced econometric techniques which include cross-sectional augmented IPS (CIPS) unit root test, bootstrap co-integration, Pedroni co-integration, fully modified ordinary least squares, and heterogeneous panel causality technique. The results confirm that all the variables are co-integrated in the long run. The result also shows that the tourism has a positive effect on income inequality in full and the region-wise sample. Furthermore, the Kuznets curve hypothesis is also tested and found its existence. This concludes that if the examined countries increase their tourism revenue this will help them to reduce income inequality. This study gives valuable policy implications for the government and the policy-makers.     

A tourism demand function for the Okanagan,BC

This study examines the relative importance of the existing determinants of tourism demand in the Okanagan. Because national coefficients cannot be used intercnageable with regional coefficients, it is hypothesized that the values of the Okanagan demand elasticities are likely to be lower than that of the Province and the nation. Five major markets for Okanagan tourism with identified and separate regressions run to determine the relative importance of the determinants of demand for Okanagan tourism with respect to these markets. Empirical results indicate that national coefficient will tend to overestimate the regional coefficient values. Contrary to the results of other studies for the nation as a whole, the exchange rate and travel cost did not seem to be significant determinants of Okanagan tourism receipts.     

Chinese Student Travel Market to Australia: An Exploratory Assessment of Destination Perceptions

ABSTRACT

Chinese students form the largest international student travel market for Australia and approximately a quarter of Australia's international student enrollments are mainland Chinese. Despite the significance of the market, little is known about Chinese student travelers. This study offers an exploratory assessment of the perceived image of Australia in the Chinese student market. Through a self-completion questionnaire, data regarding the pre- and post-arrival perceptions of Australia were collected from Chinese students on the Gold Coast. The study identified natural scenery/attractions and agreeable environment/climate as the strengths of Australia. Historical attractions and shopping related opportunities were the weaknesses of Australia as a tourist destination. A factor analysis was performed on both pre- and post-arrival perception data. Different structural patterns emerged from the two sets of data suggesting a modification effect of actual experience on the destination perception. The results also suggest that destination marketers should emphasize the general environment in Australia when marketing to the Chinese student market.     

Dynamic heterogeneous panel data analysis of tourism demand for Singapore

The objective of this study is to investigate tourism demand for Singapore using heterogeneous dynamic panel estimation methods. A binary variable representing the operation of Integrated Resorts (IRs), as well as income and real exchange rate, are included as determinants of tourism demand growth. Using seasonally adjusted and actual/raw quarterly data of 16 origin countries, our study shows that the pooled mran group (PMG) estimator is able to provide consistent and efficient estimates of long-run relationships between tourism demand and the determinants. The PMG results show that the long-run income (price) elasticity is positively (negatively) significant, with an elasticities range between 0.915 and 3.05 (?0.275 and ?0.34). In addition, the study reveals that the IRs contribute to tourism demand growth, especially in attracting tourists from Asia. In the long term, tourism demand by the Asian markets is less income-sensitive than that of the non-Asian counterparts.