Have Australia's tourism strategies incorporated climate change?

Tourism is widely acknowledged as a key contributor to climate change, but it remains unclear how the tourism industry has been planning for climate change in practice. This paper conducts the most comprehensive critical review of Australia's tourism policy and planning documents to date. The paper explores the complex challenges posed by climate change to tourism and how tourism policy has been adapting over a 15-year period. Drawing on a longitudinal data-set of 477 Australian tourism policy and planning documents at the national, state, regional and local level, this research analyses the strategic discourse on climate change using content analysis and bibliometrics. The findings reveal opportunities, challenges and strategies for the tourism industry to contribute to the sustainable management of climate change. Opportunities include developing more “green” products, while strategies include establishing and/or participating in collaborative climate change schemes and strengthening dialogue surrounding climate change to aid the implementation of sustainable practices. Future research should consider the broader policy-making environment, such as the stakeholders, power and interest dynamics when analysing tourism strategies in relation to climate change.     

Cross‐cultural tourist behavior: An analysis of tourist attitudes towards the environment

In a cross‐cultural tourist behavioral study, skiers from three different countries were surveyed in order to understand their environmental awareness and knowledge. The contingent valuation method (CVM) was also used to discover their willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for environmentally‐friendly skiing products. The results point to a general lack of knowledge and even confusion amongst skiers about environmental issues pertaining to skiing. However, skiers say they will be more likely to visit a resort that is environmentally‐responsible. Use of the CVM indicated a strong correlation between WTP and the cost of the holiday, level of income and level of environmental conscience. The majority of skiers would pay more for a “greener” ski resort, but significant differences in responses were found between the three cultures. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The Participation of Children,Adolescents, and Young Adults in Nature-Based Recreation

This investigation considers the participation of children, adolescents and young adults in nature-based recreation. We draw upon the recreation narratives of forty-seven adult recreationists in the activities of tramping, angling, hunting and mountaineering, obtained from in-depth interviews. In particular, the study considers the transitions from childhood through adolescence to young adulthood, and examines how our participants maintained their participation, or alternatively, disengaged from their activity over this period. The paper provides empirical support for the role of family, and early exposure to nature based recreation in fostering enduring participation. Failing this, the role of school, club and outdoor organizational support and mentoring, right through to tertiary study was highlighted. We also identify a critical role for unstructured outdoor play for young children in nature. The paper discusses challenges for this, and for mentoring, in both formal and informal senses, as pathways into nature-based recreation in an increasingly risk averse society.     

Cruise infrastructure development in Auckland,New Zealand: a media discourse analysis (2008–2016)

The deployment of mega cruise ships is putting pressure on ports to redesign or construct new infrastructure. However, there is limited research which considers the media discourse surrounding this development over a longitudinal period. The aim of this paper is to explore how the media portrays the cruise infrastructure debate in the complex and highly contested political environment of Auckland, New Zealand. Thematic analysis was used to determine the most salient themes found in 103 published articles. Results revealed the media shaped the debate, focusing on a volatile political environment characterised by distrust, a lack of transparency and differing objectives among key stakeholders. An outcome of this research is a rich, in-depth case study of cruise infrastructure development presented through the lens of media discourse. Future research should focus on the perceptions of decision-makers, stakeholders and the community using hedging and framing to probe the media discourse surrounding cruise infrastructure development.     

Estimation of house price differential of urban tree cover: an application of sample selection approach

Hedonic valuation of urban forest amenities tends to assume that these attributes are exogenous to sample selection, which might render the estimated results misleading. This article intends to estimate the house price differential of urban tree cover by considering the sample selection issue. The main hypothesis is that houses with high tree cover generates higher utility to consumers, and thus leads to higher house price, ceteris paribus. It may attribute to the fact that consumers self-select into purchasing houses with high- or low-density tree cover based on some unobserved systematically different characteristics. As a result, estimates from sample selection models confirm the hypothesis that purchasing a house with high-density tree cover leads to a positive price differential compared with the low-density tree cover in Napa, Los Angeles, and that buying a low-density tree cover house results in negative price differential in Napa, Los Angeles.     

Lender Steering in Residential Mortgage Markets

In this article, we examine the incentives for lenders to steer borrowers into piggyback loan structures to circumvent regulations requiring primary mortgage insurance (PMI) for loans with loan‐to‐value ratios (LTV) above 80%. Our empirical analysis focuses on propensity score‐matched portfolios of piggyback and single‐lien loans having the same combined LTV based on a full set of observed risk characteristics. Our results confirm that mortgages originated with the piggyback structure have much lower ex post default rates and faster prepayment speeds than corresponding PMI loans. We also find a significant causal effect of interstate banking deregulation on the growth of piggybacks in these years, confirming that the ex post performance gap is primarily driven by lender steering on the supply side and not by borrower self‐selection. We then perform a number of tests to explore different origination and execution channels of mortgage steering.     

Performance implications of store format diversification for international retailers

Abstract

International retailers face formidable tasks in trying to replicate, or improve upon, their home country success abroad. Their market-seeking efforts sometimes require strategic diversifications of their store format portfolios capable of serving customers in different host countries. In this study, we examine whether the degree of store format diversification helps improve the performance of international retailers. We also assess the possible moderating effects of three factors—internationalization speed, political distance, and cultural distance—on this relationship. Utilizing 2001–2015 panel data for 19 retailers originating from several home countries and operating in multiple host countries, we employ a fixed effects model to examine the hypothesized relationships. Our results show that the performance of international retailers is influenced negatively by store format diversification. This relationship is moderated by internationalization speed and political distance, but not by cultural distance.     

Cost-benefit analysis of single-family foreclosure alternatives

Over the last ten years, single-family mortgage lenders have become more aware of the financial benefits of finding alternatives to foreclosure for borrowers who default on their mortgage obligations. In this article, expected costs of foreclosure alternatives are parameterized to solve for minimum probabilities of borrower success necessary to make pursuing them profitable for lenders. These break-even probabilities are found to be very insensitive to changes in a variety of factors, including interest-rate environments and time horizons. Simulations are performed across house-price-deflation scenarios, loan-to-value ratios, and post-default cure rates. Stochastic processes are introduced through time distributions for foreclosure processing, property disposition, and house-price appreciation.     

Global economic effects of the EU Common Agricultural Policy

Among distortions in international agricultural trade, those imposed by the European Union (EU) are the most disruptive. Under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU has switched from being a large net importer of agricultural products to a large exporter. This has greatly altered world agricultural markets, imposing substantial costs on the EU itself and efficient agricultural exporters in the rest of the world. We show how the CAP has affected world agricultural markets and present estimates of the associated costs. First we assess the aggregate costs broken down by various product categories. Next we provide a specific example of one product, sugar.     

Host–guest authentication of intangible cultural heritage: a literature review and conceptual model

ABSTRACT

Cultural tourism and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) play a key role in tourism worldwide, and are especially important for communities in developing countries, due to the demand for authentic experiences. This article provides a review of existing literature on the authenticity and authentication of ICH. The review reveals scholarly inquiry has evolved from external-expert ‘cool’ authentication to direct host–guest on-site or ‘hot’ authentication whereby tourists participate in the process of determining authenticity. Further, existing models for authentication of ICH have focused only on either a guest’s or host’s perspectives with little attention to the inevitable mutual interaction of the host and guest in the authentication of ICH. Mutual authentication can enhance the tourist experience and improve community empowerment. This paper develops a conceptual model of the mutual (host–guest) authentication of ICH, incorporating both hosts’ and tourists’ perspectives. The model has application in ICH based tourism and emphasizes power relationships between the host and guest, and community empowerment across political, social, psychological and economic domains. Future research is needed to test and validate this conceptual model.