Traveling with a disability: More than an Access Issue

People with disabilities have the same needs and desires for tourism as others. However, travel in a context designed primarily for people without disabilities poses unique challenges. A qualitative study was conducted employing indepth interviews and focus groups to explore the tourism experiences of individuals with mobility or visual impairments. The results revealed that they experience five different stages in the process of becoming travel active: personal, re-connection, tourism analysis, physical journey, and experimentation and reflection. Better understanding of these stages will facilitate more awareness of the tourism needs of people with disabilities.     

Influence ratio: An alternate means to assess the relative influence of hospitality and tourism journals on research

This paper proposes an alternative metric to assess the relative influence journals have on research by using an influence ratio measure. Hospitality and tourism journals are used as a case study. Influence ratio enables a suite of journals to be evaluated through the calculation of a score for each journal that reflects the share of citations and the share of papers it produces against all citations and all papers in the set. A higher influence ratio score signifies that a journal is proportionately more influential, for it generates a greater share of citations than the share of papers published would suggest. The study evaluated three sets of hospitality and tourism journals (17 hospitality, 41 tourism and a combined set of 54 hospitality and tourism journals). The study illustrates the efficacy of using the influence ratio metric. A small number of journals in each field play a disproportionately strong influence in informing scholarship, with a long tail of relatively less influential journals observed.     

Information for Policy Design: Modelling Participation in a Farm Woodland Incentive Scheme

Incentive schemes which use farmers and landowners as agents of policy are now the main driving force for modifying the countryside environment. Nevertheless, policy-makers lack quantitative models that describe farmers' response to schemes, and specifically their entry decisions. This paper examines the benefits from modelling entry decisions with and without additional information generated through surveys of participants and non-participants. It uses logit models to predict the probability of entry into a farm woodland incentive scheme, initially using only those explanatory variables that are available to policy-makers from the annual farm census. The model performs well in identifying those factors pre-disposing farmers to entry. The potential gains from enhancing the information set by incorporating lifestyle and other variables not recorded in the census are examined. The cost of additional surveys, and their small sample size compared with the census, casts doubt on the value of such an approach which may reduce rather than enhance predictive power.     

Accounting students and cheating: A comparative study for Australia,South Africa and the UK

This paper reports the results of a study of accounting students in three countries who self-reported on their propensity to engage in cheating behaviour when presented with specific rewards, risks and penalties. The professed behaviour examined is indicative of the ethical values held by persons aspiring to the accounting profession and is relevant to the design of their educational experiences. Empirical results show marked differences across the three countries, in the ethical propensities of respondents. In all cases, there is cause for concern, that professed unethical behaviour in the university environment might be replicated in the workplace.     

International insolvency law in the Netherlands: The pre-draft of title 10

In November 2007, in the Netherlands, the Insolvency Law Committee published a pre-draft for a new Insolvency Act, to replace its present Bankruptcy Act of 1896. One of the most interesting renewals the Committee has presented is Title 10, which contains provisions concerning “International Insolvency Law”, containing 35 articles, divided over five chapters. In this Article the English translation of the draft for Title 10 is presented, preceded by an introduction of these provisions. The Dutch Minister of Justice has introduce a consultation period which is open until September 15, 2008. Any comments to improve the present pre-draft are welcome: info@bobwessels.nl. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

UK Trade Performance and the Role of Product Quality, Innovation and Hysteresis: Some Preliminary Results

This paper seeks to explain the apparent contradiction in the UK's manufacturing trade performance over the past two decades: on the one hand, the early 1980s witnessed a substantial contraction in manufacturing employment along with a considerable surge in imports and decline in UK exports; on the other hand, UK trade performance, particularly exports, seems to have improved in the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s. The paper shows that the substantial, but temporary , appreciation of sterling in the early 1980s caused permanent damage to both the UK's trade performance and industrial base; and that the UK's relative investment performance, via its hypothesised impact on product quality, helps to explain the subsequent improvement in UK trade performance since the mid‐1980s.     

Monetary Cooperation in Europe and the Problem of Differential Productivity Growth: an argument for a ‘two-speed’ Europe

Cointegration analysis of a productivity-modified purchasing power parity relation supports the hypothesis that—in the long run—the nominal exchange rate adjusts to accommodate different national rates of productivity growth in the traded goods sector. Accordingly, in the long run, an absence of exchange rate flexibility combined with productivity growth differentials is likely to generate an intractable adjustment problem. Because Germany and France display a similar evolution of productivity, this analysis supports their participation in monetary union, whereas a markedly different pattern of productivity growth in the UK constitutes an argument against membership. In passing, we find empirical support for Michael Porter's hypothesis that continuous devaluation can reduce the rate of productivity growth. This also has implications for UK membership.     

Reviews

Social Europe. European Commission 1996: SOCIAL EUROPE: PROGRESS REPORT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MEDIUM-SOCIAL ACTION PROGRAMME 1995-97 (Supplement 4/96).

SOCIAL EUROPE: WORK AND CHILDCARE -A GUIDE TO GOOD PRACTICE (Supplement 5/96). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Spatial planning. Healey, P., Khakee, A., Motte, A. and Needham, B. (eds) 1997: MAKING STRATEGIC SPATIAL PLANS: INNOVATION IN EUROPE. Basingstoke: Taylor and Francis, £14.95 paper.

Competing cities. Jensen-Butler, C., Shachar, A. and Weesep, J. (eds) 1997: EUROPEAN CITIES IN COMPETITION. Aldershot: Avebury, £55.00 cased.

Evaluating the City Challenge. Robinson, F. 1997: THE CITY CHALLENGE EXPERIENCE. Newcastle: Newcastle City Challenge West End Partnership Ltd, £15.00 paper.