Tourism-conservation enterprises for community livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in Kenya

Tourism-conservation enterprises (TCEs), such as eco-lodges, are a relatively new strategy of the African Wildlife Foundation for enhancing community livelihoods and wildlife conservation in wildlife-rich areas outside state-protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa. This article investigates the extent to which TCEs succeed in meeting these objectives by focusing on two enterprises in Kenya: the Sanctuary at Ol Lentille and the Koija Starbeds. Empirical data were gathered between October 2010 and March 2013 through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, literature review and document analysis. Both TCEs demonstrated significant contributions to employment, education, healthcare and security. Compared with the Starbeds, the Sanctuary realised a much larger conservation area and more pronounced biodiversity recovery. The analysis showed that the contribution of TCEs to livelihoods and biodiversity conservation depends on the nature of the partnership arrangement, as well as the local, national and international contexts in which they operate.     

Ethnocentric tendencies amongst arts audiences

• According to empirical research, the most regular consumers of art are well-to-do, well-educated members of the social elite who, as a socio-demographic group, would not be expected to exhibit ethnocentric tendencies. Yet, curators of arts institutions and art critics have long been concerned that ethnocentrism does exist amongst visitors to museums and art galleries. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the ethnocentric tendencies of arts audiences in Hungary (where, allegedly, individuals are more inclined to exhibit ethnocentric bias) and England (where the opposite is said to be true). The research examined whether ethnocentrism significantly impacted upon perceptions of artworks from (i) a visitor's own country, (ii) a culturally similar and (iii) a culturally dissimilar country. Intentions to attend art exhibitions featuring artists from these countries were then explored. The empirical analysis confirmed that individuals who exhibited ethnocentric tendencies did in fact overvalue the quality of artworks from their home country. Moreover, ethnocentrism within the Hungarian (but not the English) sample had a significant impact on intentions to visit particular types of exhibition.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of spatial ability extra tasks (SAET): problem solving with spatial intelligence

Quality & Quantity - Spatial ability contributes to performance in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Spatial skills and creativity are required for engineering studies....     

The influence of artistically recreated nature on the image of tourist destinations: Lanzarote's art,cultural and tourism visitor centres and their links to sustainable tourism marketing

Can distinctive natural assets in tourist destinations be artistically recreated and used to improve destination image and attract more visitors? This paper analyses the formation of the tourist image based on artistically recreated local nature icons, and shows how those images can enhance the overall destination image. It focuses on the island of Lanzarote, a destination with its development based on promoting an environmental image founded on the creation of a network of multifunctional, high-quality art, culture and tourism centres exhibiting artistic recreation of its unique environmental assets. The methodology utilizes a questionnaire (n = 453) structural equations modelling approach in which the overall image of the destination is directly dependent on the image of the environmental conditions and indirectly influenced by the image of the artistically recreated centres. Results show that the destination's image is significantly grounded on the image of the art, culture and tourism centres using art based on Lanzarote's natural assets. They suggest that destinations have relevant opportunities to artistically enhance natural assets to improve their tourist image and marketing, that quality multi-functional visitor centres can be important within a sustainable tourism policy, and part of the emerging breadth of approaches taken by sustainable tourism marketing.     

Transition in Importance of Service Sector in Indian Economy: 1968–69–1993℃94

The importance of service sector in terms of its share in national income/GDP has been growing progressively in Indian economy throughout the post independence period. The objective of this paper is to make an assessment of the importance of the service sector which accounts the value added originating from service sector in total value added produced, needed directly and indirectly to produce gross output in Indian economy during the period 1968–69 to 1993–94. For this purpose, an index of vertical integration has been constructed which provides a dimension-free measure of the multiplier of each industry on the value-added originating from the service sector to total value added. Empirical part of this study shows that Trade, Other services, Electricity, Railway Transport Services, Chemicals and Construction played a role of key sector in terms of importance of Service sector as input for their production throughout the study period of the Indian economy. They provided strong stimulus to the economy by inducing greater value addition to service sector. In general, services industries appear to be the highly growth- inducing sector in so far as it helps higher value addition to other industries.

     

FLY‐BY‐NIGHT BUILDERS IN HARBIN AND SHANGHAI

This paper examines residential property development in the Chinese cities of Harbin and Shanghai in 2001–07. It reveals that development firms generally only built one residential development during the study period, which contrasts with the situation in most developed countries, where large, established firms engage in numerous projects. This finding appears to contradict theories on economies of scale, brand names and reputation. It is argued that institutional failure may be largely responsible for the business practices observed.     

Corporate responsibility and corporate personhood

In this paper, I consider the claim that a corporation cannot be held to be morally responsible unless it is a person. First, I argue that this claim is ambigious. Person flags three different but related notions: metaphysical person, moral agent, moral person. I argue that, though one can make the claim that corporates are metaphysical persons, this claim is only marginally relevant to the question of corporate moral responsibility. The central question which must be answered in discussions of corporate moral responsibility is whether corporations are moral agents or moral persons. I argue that, though we can make a case for saying corporations are moral agents, they are not moral persons, and hence, we can hold them responsible. In addition, we need not treat them the way we would be obligated to treat a moral person; we needn't have the same scruples about holding a corporation morally responsible as we would a moral person. Rita C. Manning is Lecturer at California State College, San Bernardino. She has published in Southern Journal of Philosophy and in Informal Logic.