Assessing the impacts of aviation liberalisation on tourism: Some methodological considerations derived from the Moroccan and Tunisian cases

At a time when the liberalisation of air transport is increasingly being promoted as a means to induce the growth of the tourism business, it is striking that there is little evidence to suggest that such liberalisation has indeed led to a growth in tourism. Furthermore, the evidence is usually restricted to the impacts of sole low-cost airlines on tourist destinations newly served by such airlines. In contrast to various ideological or naïve statements, this paper shows that assessing the relationship between liberalised air markets and trends in tourism is challenging. On the transport side, aviation liberalisation is rarely considered as a dimension that can be measured accurately; similar protected markets are not considered for comparison; and trends in charter flights are neglected. On the tourist side, broad definitions of so-called tourists are usually considered and include immigrants visiting their home country; nights spent are neglected, despite a possible trend in declining length of stay; and substitution between places is usually disregarded, as are the long-term effects.     

The relationship between remittances and macroeconomic variables in times of political and social upheaval: Evidence from Tunisia's Arab Spring

If Tunisia is hailed as a success story with its high rankings on economic, educational, and other indicators relative to other Arab countries, the popular 2011 uprisings underscored the fragility of its main economic pillars, including those of tourism and foreign direct investment. This paper examines the economic impact of migrants’ remittances, which are expected to exhibit relatively countercyclical behaviour during periods of intense upheaval. This study is novel in its methodological approach, which is used to pinpoint the dynamic effects of remittances on key macroeconomic variables within an unstable framework. The analysis reveals that the effect of remittances on Tunisia's economy has varied over time. Prior to the Arab Spring, remittances had a short‐term negative influence on economic growth, varying effects on domestic investment and positive impacts on consumption. In considering the post‐Arab uprisings, positive and strong impacts of remittances on growth and consumption are found in the long run while negative and moderate investment effects of remittances are shown over the short and medium term.     

Threshold Effects on the Relationship Between Inflation Rate and Economic Growth in Tunisia

Using an econometric technique suggested by Hansen [(2001). The new econometrics of structural change: Dating breaks in U.S. Labor productivity. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15, 117–128], this paper studies the inflation–economic growth nexus in the case of Tunisia for the 1993-01–2012-11 period. The results show that there is one inflation threshold value that does exist for Tunisia. This evidence strongly sustains the view that the relationship between inflation rate and economic growth is non-linear. The estimated threshold regression model suggests that a threshold value of inflation rate below 3.48% fosters economic growth. In addition, above this threshold level, there is a statistically significant negative relationship between inflation rate and economic growth. These results have important implications to policy-makers who should pay attention to the inflation phenomena. Therefore, a new policy that takes into account such a threshold should be set up.     

The politics of transnational accountability policies and the (re)construction of corruption: The case of Tunisia,Transparency International and the World Bank

This study explores the intersection between accountability policies and anti-corruption measures. Transnational actors define acceptable governance and implement accountability policies on the assumption that corruption is a problem endemic to developing countries. Such accountability policies influence and help constitute transnational geographic and social spaces. However, the impacts of such assumptions and the resultant policies on developing countries and their citizens have not been widely investigated. This study uses a critical discourse analysis of the case of Tunisia before and after its 2011 revolution, to explore the politics and vested interests specific to anti-corruption policies promoted by transnational actors. The study’s contribution is twofold: Firstly, we identify the highly fungible character of the emanant cycles of Western-driven corruption discourses, and indicate their consequences in Tunisia. Secondly, we propose a future research agenda towards non-exploitative anti-corruption and accountability policies.     

When the Past Poses Beside the Present: Aestheticising Politics and Nationalising Modernity in a Postcolonial Time

This article focuses on the Tunisian government's tourist promotion policies during the 1990s. It takes a Deleuzian perspective, using the notion of crystalline narration developed by the author of The Time-Image. I will emphasise the idea of coalescence between past and present as revealed in the advertising images of the period where heritage objects appear among other contemporary objects.

In fact, I will draw on a corpus of short films and commercials produced by the Tunisian tourism bureau to be broadcast both inside and outside the country. My analysis will focus on the ways in which actors in the fields of politics and tourism use these objects for media purposes, targeting both Tunisians and foreign tourists to whom they strive to hold up a crystal-image of Tunisia. This image is shored up by a political discourse put forward by a state that wishes to appear both to its citizens and to others as reconciling past and present. The crystal metaphor evokes a narrative mode in which heritage is likened to the glittering of scattered crystals and Tunisian identity seems to emerge from the ‘mists of time’ with sparkling refractions on ‘tips of the present’.     

Aromatic and Medicinal Plants of Tunisia: A Market Study

World demand for aromatic and medicinal plants (AMP), as well as the essential oils and extracts from these plants have been expanding because of their diversified and extensive usage. Demand for essential oils and plant extracts is driven by food flavoring industries, cosmetic and fragrance industries, and demand for industrial solvents. The principal consumers of all market classes of essential oils are the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. There are ten essential oil crops that account for 80% of the world market for essential oils. Based on the global AMP market demand, this article mainly addresses the “constraints on” and “opportunities for” expansion of this sector, which were ascertained through meetings with Tunisian AMP exporters and processors, literature reviews, and by collating responses to the Tunisian Exporter Marketing Survey. Based on these inputs, recommendations have been formulated to help capitalize Tunisia's comparative advantages to overcome the constraints and maximize opportunities.     

Efficiency Measurement With Unbalanced Panel Data: Evidence from Tunisian Textile,Clothing and Leather Industries

This paper is concerned with the estimation of stochastic frontier production functions with unbalanced panel data when unobservable firm efficiency levels are related to explanatory variables. We use the weighted-means Instrumental Variables method acknowledged to R. Gardner (1998) which is a modification of the Hausman-Taylor (1981) procedure adapted for unbalanced panel data. The estimation method is used to examine technical efficiency in Tunisian textile, clothing and leather (TCL) industries during the period 1983–1994. Further, we assume a Translog production frontier where input uses are expressed in efficiency units and adjusted for the age of capital and types of labor. Firm-specific time-invariant technical efficiency is obtained using Schmidt and Sickles (1984) approach. The results suggest that the Instrumental Variables method produces more accurate estimates of the unknown firm level technical efficency. Mean efficency scores resulting from the MHT method is of 66.5%.     

The relationship between tourism receipts,real effective exchange rate and economic growth in Tunisia

The objective of this paper is to analyse the role of tourism in the Tunisian economic growth. We used a trivariate model of real gross domestic product (GDP), real international tourism receipts and real effective exchange rate to discuss the relationship between tourism and economic growth. By using annual data for Tunisia for the period of 1970–2007, our results reveal that there is a cointegrating relationship between tourism and economic growth. In addition, our results for the Granger causality test indicate that tourism has a positive impact on GDP growth unidirectionally. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.