Travel and tourism competitiveness index: The impact of air transportation,railways transportation,travel and transport services on international inbound and outbound tourism

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of air transportation, railways transportation, travel and transport services on international inbound and outbound tourism in a panel of 19 tourists - oriented countries, over a period of 1990–2014. By applying principal component analysis, the study constructs travel and tourism competitiveness index for inbound and outbound tourism. The main constructs of inbound tourism index include international tourists' arrival, tourism receipts, receipts of passengers' transports items and travel items while the constructs of the outbound index include international tourists' departure, tourism expenditures, and expenditures for passengers transport and travel items. The result of panel Fully Modified OLS (FMOLS) regression shows that the presence of air transportation, railways transportation, and trade openness positively affect inbound tourism index, while travel and transport services negatively affect tourism competitiveness index. The causality results confirm the bidirectional relationship between inbound tourism, air transportation, railways passengers carried, trade openness and travel and transport services, while there is a unidirectional causality running from inbound index to railway goods transported, from air transport freight to trade factor, and from travel services to air transport freight. Outbound tourism index confirmed the bidirectional causality relationship with air transportation, railways transportation, and travel and transport services, while the causality running from outbound index to trade factor, from air transport passenger carried to travel services, and from railway goods transported to trade and transport services, which support the unidirectional causality relationship between them. The variance decomposition results show that air transportation freight is the contributor that largely influences inbound-outbound tourism, while railways passengers carried and trade openness has the least share to influence inbound and outbound tourism index for the next 10-year period. The impulse response function indicates that air transportation, railways transportation, trade openness and travel services will positively impact on inbound truism while travel and transport services will positively affect outbound tourism for the next 10-year period. The study concludes with the importance of transportation sector that deem desirable to promote tourism worldwide. The concentration of different modes of transportation including air transportation, railways transportation, and travel and transport system would helpful to advance international tourism.     

A cointegration analysis of bilateral air travel flows: The case of international travel to and from the United States

Demand for international air travel has risen over the past decade causing international visitation to the US to reach a record high in 2012. This paper assesses the dynamic impacts of GDP, exchange rate, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on bilateral air travel flows between the US and its 11 major travel and trading partners. An autoregressive distributed lag modeling approach is employed to estimate short- and long-run relationships between variables. Long-run results demonstrate foreign GDP as the major determinant of demand for inbound travel to the US and US GDP is a crucial factor affecting demand for outbound travel from the US. These findings support a strong linkage between economic growth and demand for international air travel. The real exchange rate has relatively little impact on the bilateral air travel flows. The US dollar appreciation against foreign currencies is found to reduce demand for inbound travel to the US, while having mixed effects on outbound travel from the US. In the short-run, economic growth tends to be a primary factor influencing international travel flows to and from the US. The 9/11 market shock has a detrimental short- and long-run effect on the bilateral air travel flows, implying that the impact of 9/11 is prolonged in international air travel markets.     

Elasticities of demand for leisure air travel: A system modelling approach

In this study, the UK outbound demand for leisure air travel has been examined using a demand system which takes into account the ways in which the expenditure on air fares interacts with both the expenditure on non-fare components of travel abroad and with expenditure on domestic leisure. The findings suggest that there is a strong link between total consumer expenditure and expenditure on air travel with the expenditure elasticity greater than one but that, considered in aggregate, the demand for air travel is moderately inelastic with respect to air fares alone. However, the findings also show that interactions between air travel expenditure, other costs of travel abroad, as well as expenditure on leisure activities in the UK, involve sizeable cross-price elasticities.     

Travel,roads, risks and volunteers

International volunteers often travel to destinations (low- and middle-income countries) that carry a greater chance of being involved in a road-related injury and a possible fatality. Within this cultural exchange, tourists move from safe roads and cars to those that are potentially unsafe. Is this all part of the adventure of volunteering or should the tourist industry take some responsibility? This paper highlights the intersection between tourism and road injury and fatality risks (as pedestrians or in vehicles) with special attention to the longer term volunteer traveller. Social science theory underpins some of the discussions around risk and travel. A brief consideration of the international road traffic death and injury crisis and the emergence of the recognition that this impacts upon tourist safety is explored as backdrop to discussions. Tourism relies upon the ability for people to travel in and around the countries they travel to, often taking on the local travel arrangements prevalent in their destination. These local travel arrangements enable leisure tourists to explore their destination and volunteer travellers to live and work as locals. Is it time to consider and further the research on road risks as a growing feature of tourism?     

Social inequalities in travel behaviour: trip distances in the context of residential self-selection and lifestyles

In recent years, the framework of ‘classical’ objective determinants of travel behaviour – such as transport systems, generalised travel costs, life situation and the built environment – has begun to make way for the introduction of subjective elements including attitudes, lifestyles, and location preferences. This paper presents findings from an empirical study of trip distances travelled for three purposes (work, maintenance, leisure). The study was conducted in the region of Cologne, and the analysis is based on structural equation modelling. The results indicate that, in general, neither lifestyles nor location preferences have a strong impact on trip distances, except for leisure activities: here lifestyle has the strongest impact of all variables studied. Maintenance trip distances are significantly affected by the spatial setting in which people live, indicating the relevance of the built environment for this travel segment.     

The impact of the Internet on human activity–travel patterns: analysis of gender differences using multi-group structural equation models

The widespread use of the Internet for conducting various types of activities may be leading to considerable change in people’s activity–travel patterns. Past studies, however, have left many issues unaddressed. Using an Internet-activity diary dataset and multi-group structural equation modeling, this study examines the complex interactions between different types of Internet and physical activities, with a special focus on gender differences and Internet maintenance and leisure activities. The results indicate that the impacts of Internet activities on people’s activity–travel patterns are significantly different across gender. In general, Internet use for maintenance purposes has a greater impact on women’s activity–travel in the physical world, while Internet use for leisure purposes affects men’s physical activities and travel to a greater extent. Further, breaking Internet activities down into different categories reveals some hidden patterns that would not have been detected if these different types of Internet activities were lumped together as a single category.     

Price,people, location,culture and reputation: determinants of Malaysia as study destination by international hospitality and tourism undergraduates

This study aims to examine why international hospitality and tourism (H&T) undergraduates (IHTUs) travel to Malaysia for higher education and what factors influence their choices. In-depth interviews were conducted with IHTUs studying in six different private higher education institutions. Thematic analysis found five noble factors: price, people, location, culture and reputation. Our findings can assist Malaysian private institutions in better meeting IHTUs’ expectations and reinforcing their loyalty to the institution. Our results can also be useful to improve the quality of the H&T educational systems in Malaysia and simultaneously facilitate the country’s greater aim of becoming a knowledge-based economy and retaining sufficient skilled labor for the H&T industry. Moreover, the results of this study can be effectively used when inventing strategies for the development of international education tourism in Malaysia.     

Tourism destination preferences of low-cost airline users in the East Midlands

Increasing demand for air travel, associated with the boom in low-cost airlines, has assisted tourism growth. Expanding opportunities from regional airports underpin an increased propensity to fly. This paper examines European tourism destination preferences and price sensitivity to fly by population segment from an air travel household survey in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. Of the eight typical low-cost airline destinations presented to respondents cultural locations such as Rome are preferred. Weekend break leisure trips are particularly attractive to those in employment. Price sensitivity, suggests that increasing financial pressures will have an impact upon growth, however demand for an annual holiday is important, particularly for families.     

A case study: The impact of low-cost carriers on inbound tourism of Saudi Arabia

This study investigates the impact of low-cost carriers (LCCs) on Saudi Arabia's tourism demand. It also provides an understanding of the relationship between air transport development and tourism development in the Gulf region. The Box–Jenkins SARIMA-X models were employed to model and forecast international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia, using monthly international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia from July 2010 to December 2015. The forecasting models were significantly accurate, with lower values of MAPE, MAP, and RMSE. The findings suggest that an increase in airline capacity, religious travel, and airline competition are associated with the increasing international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia. This also indicates that there is a positive relationship between air transport development and tourism development. Further aviation liberalisation in the Gulf region is discussed to give opportunities for the region's LCCs to increase their share of the increasing air travel demand, thereby enhancing tourism development.     

The indirect effect of the built environment on travel mode choice: A focus on recent movers

Many studies have demonstrated that the built environment has a strong impact on people's travel mode choice. However, the built environment also influences elements such as travel distance and car ownership, which might be the true predictors of which travel modes are chosen. In this study, we analyse the effects of changes in residential neighbourhood on changes in travel mode (for commute trips and leisure trips), both directly and indirectly through changes in car ownership, travel distances and travel attitudes. This study applies a structural equation modelling approach using quasi-longitudinal data from 1650 recently relocated residents in the city of Ghent, Belgium. Results indicate that the built environment has strong direct effects on active leisure trips and car use. However, distance (for car use) and attitudes (for active travel) were found to be important mediating variables. In sum, the effect of the built environment on travel mode choice might be more complex than commonly assumed as it partly seems mediated by travel distance and travel attitudes.     

Have the major forces driving leisure airline traffic changed?

Here, we examine the major forces that are driving leisure airline traffic to assess whether these have changed in recent years. Initially this is undertaken by considering global patterns of airline and tourism demand and then by a more detailed investigation of the UK situation. The research indicates that airline demand is becoming less sensitive to income changes and also that the share of income spent on air travel is not showing much growth. Both of these suggest that airline demand may be becoming more mature, with growth being increasingly driven by price reductions rather than income changes. Moreover, evidence from the UK shows that changing customer preferences, and subsequent industry developments to accommodate these, appear to be having a significant impact on the demand for different types of leisure air trips.     

Unpacking business tourism mobilities in sub-Saharan Africa

As considerable numbers of people in emergent world tourism regions engage in independent business travel, meeting, incentives, conferences and exhibitions tourism or practices of informal business tourism the theme of business mobilities merits greater attention in the evolving tourism scholarship of these regions. This article interrogates existing scholarship and research issues pertaining to understanding evolving tourism mobilities specifically in the emerging tourism region of sub-Saharan Africa, where, arguably, more than in any other region of the global tourism economy, the topic of business mobilities merits high priority attention. For sub-Saharan Africa as a whole a growing weight of evidence suggests that business tourism flows – domestic and intraregional – account for a larger share of tourism movements than leisure tourism. In interpreting the complex flows of business mobilities in the African continent it is necessary to go beyond dominant Northern conceptions of what constitutes a business tourist and in particular to understand the activities of the informal-sector business tourist. A useful start point for unpacking business tourism mobilities is to differentiate and apply a typology of international formal-sector tourism, international informal-sector tourism, domestic formal-sector tourism and domestic informal-sector tourism.     

An approach to imputing destination activities for inclusion in measures of bicycle accessibility

This paper proposes a new method to estimate bicycle accessibility for various trip purposes based on a massive dockless bike-sharing dataset in Shanghai, China. Specifically, a Dirichlet multinomial regression topic model (DMR model) is applied to identify bicycle trajectories' trip purposes, simultaneously considering arrival time and drop-off location. Based on obtained trip purposes, we estimate impedance functions using a negative exponential function. Finally, based on estimated impedance functions, two cases of bicycle accessibility for two different purposes - restaurant and hospital - are presented in Shanghais central area. The results show that almost 90% of bicycle trips are less than 30 min or 5 km. Although the difference between the impedance functions between various trip purposes is not significant, we find that trip purposes of “Work and School” have the highest travel impedance for bicyclists. Cyclists in Shanghai accept longer bicycle travel times for leisure (e.g., shopping) than for commuting (e.g., work or school).     

Freedom of movement for all? Unpacking racialized travel experiences

In today’s world, more people have the means and opportunities to travel freely compared to the past. Yet, the freedom of movement and the right to travel are far from being globally recognized as human rights. For some, the freedom of movement is overshadowed by one’s race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and so on. When travelling across or even within borders, members of some groups may encounter discriminatory actions in the form of xenophobia, racism, and more recently, islamophobia. Increasing regulations and heightened security inevitably affect international tourism and travel. Drawing on our own travel experiences as tourists and tourism scholars of different racial backgrounds, we use this paper to explore the intersections of racism and tourism. Implementing innovative and improvisational methodologies, we unpack and interrogate the discourses that underpin racialized travel experiences. Our collective debriefings have been re-storied to further illuminate the importance of race in shaping tourism experiences, contributing to the lived frustration and discrimination at the borders and beyond. The insights gleaned from our experiences will contribute to the existing literature of tourism politics, and the discourse of racialized identities in travel and tourism.     

Forays into the backstage: volunteer tourism and the pursuit of object authenticity

Volunteer tourism is a form of travel that combines traditional leisure pursuits with opportunities to volunteer in an organized fashion. The popularity of volunteer tourism stems from many factors, but the one motivation that appears in virtually every study is a desire for object authenticity, defined as the authenticity of toured objects, people, and settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by object authenticity in the motivations and experiences of volunteer tourists in the province of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Based on interviews with 62 volunteers and 15 directors, managers, and staff members from volunteer tourism organizations based in Chiang Mai, this paper argues that volunteer tourists conceive of object authenticity both as a package of cultural stereotypes focused on authentic people, and as authentic backstage settings where ‘real’ Thai reside. Aside from demonstrating that the desire for object authenticity is the central motivation for international volunteers in northern Thailand, this study indicates that the pursuit of object authenticity is complicated by language barriers, the potential staging of authenticity on the part of locals, and the need to balance familiarity with alterity in the carefully selected ‘voluntourscapes’ in which volunteer tourism takes place.     

A mobilities approach to tourism from emerging world regions

Increasing numbers of people from the emerging world regions, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East engage in tourism practices at domestic, intra-regional and long-haul international scales. In this article, we deploy an innovative application of the mobilities approach, which we argue moves beyond the Eurocentrism implicit in modernist tourism studies, in a comparative analysis of tourism in and from these regions and those in the ‘West’. Our analysis opens up the systematic study of tourism in emerging world regions in terms of the mobilities paradigm, and concludes: one, travel had a multiplicity of origins in societies in the emerging regions, but most did not possess an equivalent emic term to ‘tourism'. Two, tourism at domestic and intra-regional levels tends to be entangled with other discretionary mobilities, whereas the long-haul level is more differentiated. Three, the development of domestic discretionary travel in emerging regions can be represented by four overlapping ‘mobility constellations’. Four, there are significant historical differences between the regions in their long-haul mobility constellations, although their kinetic hierarchies are all still steep. Five, forms of movement and associated practices of discretionary travellers from the emerging regions and Western countries became increasingly similar under the impact of socio-technological, economic and cultural globalisation. Six, differences between the emerging regions, particularly Asia, and the West are most salient on the emic level of representations of international travel: the specific cultural motive forces for tourism do not centre on authenticity-seeking, but are instead bound up with prestige and markers of modernity.     

Impact of economic policy on international tourism demand: the case of Abenomics

Since the 2008 global financial crisis and resulting recession, many countries have been following unconventional monetary policies. Little information is known on how these policies may influence tourism demand. This study starts to fill this gap by investigating the impact of the Japanese economic policy known as Abenomics on South Koreans’ travel to Japan, the largest inbound market for Japan. Per capita gross domestic product, relative prices, and exchange rates are significant determinants of Japanese inbound tourism. As these variables have been influenced by Abenomics, one can infer that Abenomics is associated with a significant increase in tourist arrivals from South Korea. Findings highlight the importance of government economic policy in stimulating international tourism demand through its impact on the economy.     

Exploring the factors influencing the travel motivations of US medical tourists

Medical tourism (also called medical travel, health tourism, or global health care) is a term initially coined by travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly growing practice of travelling across international borders to obtain health care. In the past decade, the attempt to achieve better health while on holiday through relaxation, exercise, or visits to spas has been taken to a new level with the emergence of developing countries as destinations for medical tourism. It has grown dramatically in recent years primarily because of the high costs of treatment in rich countries, long waiting lists, the relative affordability of international air travel, favourable economic exchange rates, and the availability of well-qualified doctors and medical staff. Keeping in mind the rapid growth of this industry, a study was conducted to shed light on the importance of different factors that influence the travel motivations of US medical tourists to international destinations.     

Demand for leisure air travel and limits to growth

This paper discusses methodologies for analysing the existence of limits to growth of leisure air travel and defines the concept of demand maturity. It considers the air market as one of a number of inter-related travel markets and applies these concepts to a UK case study. The paper concludes that the UK air international leisure travel market is only at the early stages of maturity; whilst the overall leisure travel market seems to be much nearer to full maturity. This means that if UK air travel is still to experience healthy growth rates, it must be at the expense of the growth of some other UK travel market.     

Palestine's International Visitors Barriers: Case Studies of Bethlehem and Ramallah

This study investigated the demographic characteristics, the travel experiences and the intentions to revisit of international tourists to the cities of Bethlehem and Ramallah, which are located in Palestine. The study conducted a survey to collect data from 293 international visitors, 8 years after the second Palestinian uprising called ‘intifada’ began. The results revealed that the majority of the foreign tourists were Europeans who traveled for religious and spiritual purposes. Moreover, most of the tourists were willing to revisit Palestine. This study resulted in a comprehensive understanding of tourism characteristics under the current political circumstances of Palestine, leading to significant implications for tourism policy‐makers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.