Planned Tourism Development in Quintana Roo,Mexico: Engine for Regional Development or Prescription for Inequitable Growth?

In the 1960s the isolated tropical forest enclave of Quintana Roo was targeted by the Mexican Government to serve as the cornerstone for launching what is now considered to be one of Mexico’s most successful economic development strategies – Planned Tourism Development (PTD). This paper commences with a brief review of the role of state-driven PTD in Mexico’s national economic development agenda. Government discourse surrounding the Cancun project emphasised tourism as a mechanism for promoting ‘regional development’through creation of backward linkages to other economic sectors – notably agriculture and small industry – to benefit the region’s marginalised Mayan peasant population. Based on research in Quintana Roo, this paper contends that while PTD has generated profit for the Government, transnational corporations and entrepreneurial elites, it has failed to achieve backward linkages that may have improved conditions for the region’s impoverished rural population. Employing a case study approach, the paper illustrates the failure of PTD to stimulate balanced regional development, while analysing PTD’s role in reinforcing existing relations of domination and subordination to produce new patterns of uneven development and inequity within Quintana Roo.     

Passenger waiting time in an airport and expenditure carried out in the commercial area

A methodology to estimate the relationship between the expenditure in the commercial area of an airport and the passenger waiting time to board is developed. It shows that the more time spent in the airport, the greater consumption by passengers. This functional dependence is analysed for the travellers who travel for holiday purposes and of those who do so for business. As an example of application of this methodology the results shown are obtained from Asturias Airport (Spain).     

Segmentation and motivation of foreign tourists in world heritage sites. A case study,Quito (Ecuador)

This paper presents an analysis of the current relationships between three fundamental constructs in the decision-making process of the visitor – motivation, satisfaction and loyalty – of a tourist destination World Heritage Site like the city of Quito, Ecuador. The results demonstrate the existence of three motivational dimensions among foreign visitors to visit the city: firstly cultural, secondly circumstantial and finally hedonic-gastronomic. Additionally, and tending to the motivational schemes, four types of foreign visitors have been identified: a hedonic-gastronomic cultural tourist, a hedonic-gastronomic tourist, a circumstantial hedonic-gastronomic cultural tourist and an alternative tourist. The reasons or motives of the visit reveal that only the hedonic-gastronomic dimension discriminates significantly as far as the degree of perceived satisfaction and loyalty declared by the visitors are concerned.     

Smartphone addiction: psychosocial correlates,risky attitudes,and smartphone harm

Smartphone use has brought convenience to users, although its excessive use and addiction might also have negative consequences. Using a representative sample of 526 smartphone users in Spain, the present study analyzes smartphone extensive use and addiction as well as its relationship to smartphone harm. Self-reported and scanned data were obtained from users and their smartphones. Multivariate linear regression analyses showed that higher levels of smartphone extensive use were found for female respondents, those high on general propensity to risk, neuroticism, and low on conscientiousness, openness, or social support. Multivariate binary logistic results showed that general propensity to risk and low social support were predictive of smartphone addiction. The combination of high smartphone extensive use and low social support was positively and significantly related to the existence of smartphone harm as well as higher levels of risk attitudes toward smartphone use. These results might indicate that when low social support is coupled with an extensive smartphone use, respondents not only show a more positive attitude toward risky behaviors while using their smartphone but, also, a greater level of harm is found in their terminals.     

Accounting for Accountability and Management in NPOs. A Comparative Study of Four Countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, the USA and Spain

Financial and non–financial information are developing issues in the NPO field. Countries such as Canada, the UK, the USA and Spain have recently updated their accounting systems for NPOs through the implementation of full accrual basis to enhance their accountability and the usefulness of accounting information for decision–making purposes. The information provided by accrual accounting will be incomplete until performance indicators are developed. The performance indicators are essential for making budgets, for planning and forecasting, for evaluating the financial needs, for carrying out benchmarking with other NPOs or governmental entities, and for explaining the welfare activities realised to donors.     

Comprehensive Trade Agreements: Conditioning Globalisation or Eroding the European Model?

Trade dynamics within the EU are presently pushing it towards deepening globalisation through bilateral comprehensive trade agreements which establish far-reaching rules that govern the bilateral trade relationship. The European Commission has defended these agreements as a vehicle through which to promote world trade in accordance with European values and norms. However, the theory of fiscal federalism and the principle of subsidiarity tell us that one should not centralise decisions at the supranational level which are better taken at the national or regional level when there are different preferences among countries or regions. Consequently, member state and regional competences ought not to be perceived as a mere obstacle to swift trade deals. Rather, they can provide an important checks and balances function with regard to whether EU trade policy is truly working to condition globalisation according to European values and preferences.     

Dynamic of foreign direct investment in the states of Mexico: An analysis of Markov's spatial chains

The aim of this investigation is to analyze the evolution of the spatio-temporal distribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) across Mexican states. The literature that analyzes foreign direct investment in Mexico is numerous and diverse; however, it is argued that the analysis of the spatio-temporal distribution of FDI conditioned to spatial interaction effects in Mexico is still absent. In this sense, by applying the spatial Markov chain approach as proposed by Rey (2001), we found a divergence process in the FDI inflows among Mexican states that seem to get stronger over time. In particular, during the period from 2006 to 2013, the process of divergence toward higher-FDI inflows quantiles occurs among states spatially associated with neighbors in lower-FDI quantiles.     

Bank involvement with SMEs: Beyond relationship lending

The “conventional wisdom” in academic and policy circles argues that, while large and foreign banks are generally not interested in serving SMEs, small and niche banks have an advantage because they can overcome SME opaqueness through relationship lending. This paper shows that there is a gap between this view and what banks actually do. Banks perceive SMEs as a core and strategic business and seem well-positioned to expand their links with SMEs. The intensification of bank involvement with SMEs in various emerging markets is neither led by small or niche banks nor highly dependent on relationship lending. Moreover, it has not been derailed by the 2007–2009 crisis. Rather, all types of banks are catering to SMEs and large, multiple-service banks have a comparative advantage in offering a wide range of products and services on a large scale, through the use of new technologies, business models, and risk management systems.