Transforming competitiveness into economic benefits: Does tourism stimulate economic growth in more competitive destinations?

This research note investigates the impact of a destination's competitiveness upon tourism's contribution to economic growth using a cross-section with 131 countries. Destination competitiveness is measured with the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, while tourism's contribution to economic growth is measured with the growth decomposition methodology. Results reveal that destination competitiveness has no statistically significant impact on tourism's contribution to economic growth. Tourism policy implications and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Tourism and economic growth nexus revisited: A panel causality analysis for the case of the Mediterranean Region

Tourism is perceived as an important source of foreign exchange that is used for financing economic growth. This study offers a modern approach to tourism-led growth and investigates the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth in the European, Asian and African countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. The study uses panel data for the period 1998–2011, and adopts a panel Granger causality analysis developed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) to assess the contribution tourism makes to economic growth in each country. The results indicate that the direction of causality between tourism and economic growth depends on the country group and tourism indicator. Furthermore, the European countries are better able to generate growth from tourism in the Mediterranean region.     

Sunk costs and travel cancellation: Focusing on temporal cost

Tourism products differ from ordinary retail products in terms of the spatial and temporal separation between the purchase and experiencing the product. Despite its importance, temporal separation has not drawn much attention in tourism research. The main objective of this study is to understand the effects of temporal sunk costs on potential travelers' cancellation intentions, in addition to monetary sunk costs. The results of this study suggested the possibility that temporal costs can be converted into monetary costs, but the conversion relationship may not be linear. This study also indicated that travelers' intentions to cancel a travel product decreased as the temporal and monetary sunk costs increased. Further, prior experience moderated the relationship when temporal sunk costs were involved, suggesting that repeat visitors' intentions to cancel their reservations are more influenced by temporal sunk costs than first-time visitors. Further discussion and implications are provided in the main body of this paper.     

Impacts of seasonal patterns of climate on recurrent fluctuations in tourism demand: Evidence from Aruba

This study estimates the effect of seasonal patterns of pull and push climate elements (rainfall, temperature, wind, and cloud coverage) on recurrent fluctuations in tourism demand from the United States (USA) and Venezuela to Aruba. The seasonal patterns were first isolated from the series using the Census X-12 decomposition method, after which the analysis included panel data unit root testing, panel data regression, and Euclidean distance calculation. The results show that both pull and push seasonal factors of climate were relevant in determining the seasonal variations in tourism demand from both countries. The study derives two theoretical propositions: (1) climate is a significant push and pull factor affecting tourism demand; and (2) tourism demand and climate are bounded by intertemporal climate constraints.     

Carbon dioxide emissions generated by energy consumption of hotels and homestay facilities in Taiwan

In the field of the tourism, hotels and homestay facilities account for considerable amounts of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. This study presents an investigation conducted on the CO₂ emissions from four types of hotel in Taiwan. According to the results, the average CO₂ emissions of international tourist hotels, standard tourist hotels, general hotels, and homestay facilities are 28.9, 19.2, 12.5, and 6.3 kg-CO₂/person-night, respectively. Hotels with higher service levels produce higher average CO₂ emissions per person-night. Analytical results indicate that increasing stays at hotels with low CO₂ emissions (such as homestay facilities and general hotels), accommodating more guests together per room, and enhancing energy usage efficiency, can effectively reduce hotel CO₂ emissions without reducing the total number of guests. The results of this study may be applied to CO₂ reduction programmes for tourists, hotel enterprises, and contribute toward the formulation of government policy in Taiwan.     

The antecedents of memorable tourism experiences: The development of a scale to measure the destination attributes associated with memorable experiences

Providing visitors with memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) is important for achieving success in the highly competitive tourism marketplace. To support destination managers, this paper developed a scale instrument that conceptualizes the attributes of destinations associated with MTEs. Following a rigorous scale development procedure, this study identified a 10-dimensional construct that affects MTEs. The data support this dimensional structure of the attributes of destinations affecting MTEs and the internal consistency and the validity (i.e., content, construct, convergent, and discriminant) of the scale. The theoretical and managerial implications of the study's results are discussed.     

Work environment and atmosphere: The role of organizational support in the creativity performance of tourism and hospitality organizations

In this study, we developed and tested a new model of how organizational support affects the organizational work environment and atmosphere that facilitates creativity. A field study of 320 employees showed that organizational support was positively related to the work environment for knowledge sharing, motivation, procedural justice, and promotion. Further, the work environment plays a mediating role between organizational support and employee creativity. These measures of an organization's environment of procedural justice are related to employees’ motivation and knowledge sharing, which predict employees’ promotion.     

Drivers of Taiwan’s Tourism Market Cycle

This paper examines the business cycle of tourism market (BCTM) in Taiwan. It begins by studying the BCTM based on a Markov regime-switching (MRS) model. The MRS model reveals strong evidence of a regime-switching BCTM with two distinct regimes: a high-growth regime (HGR) and a low-growth regime (LGR), over the period from 1st quarter of 1969 to 1st quarter of 2011. The second step is to examine the driving forces of the BCTM. Specifically, the study identifies the factors that cause the tourism market to stay in the high-growth regime (HGR). Test results show that the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP), growth rate of exports, and inflation rate are significant drivers of the BCTM in Taiwan.     

Bibliometric studies in tourism

This study evaluates bibliometric studies in tourism, depicts emerging themes, and offers critical discussions for theory development and future research. To achieve this aim, 190 papers with bibliometric analyses from leading hospitality and tourism journals were selected and critically analyzed. The research findings reveal that bibliometric articles published in these journals significantly increased after 2008. However, systematic review studies emerged as the major group, and relatively few studies utilized evaluative bibliometric and relational bibliometric studies. Study results suggest that paucity still exists, particularly in relational bibliometric studies in tourism. This is one of the first studies in this area that offers critical discussions and suggestions related to theory development and future research in this research vein.