Tourism Policy Makers Research Articles

The sister cities program and tourism

This research attempts to examine the extent to which the Sister Cities program, affects local tourism. The theoretical model presented here argues that for both countries to benefit from that program a mutual compatibility must be met. The compatibility requirements suggested are same size category and mutual cultural environment that includes political, religious, and ideological agenda. Empirical testing has found that the most beneficial coupling method, in terms of the number of tourists and the length of time they spend, was the same sizes method (Big-Big and Small-Small), with an emphasis on Big-Big, which was found to be the best coupling method. The model designed here, and the empirical results may assist tourism policy makers to design a more efficient Sister Cities engagement policy for their country.

Tourist Attraction and Points of Interest (POIs) Using Search Engine Data: Case of Seoul

Points of interest (POIs)—areas with a concentration of places that attract people—are important urban planning and tourism policy targets. This study aims to determine the points of interest of urban residents by analyzing big data from search engines to reveal the physical characteristics of POIs. To achieve this, POI data were collected in three city centers in Seoul using a South Korean dominant portal site that includes a search engine. The most popular POIs were determined by using GIS search engine analysis frequency, and correlation and regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relation between POIs and urban elements. The results revealed different POI trends in each city center. While POIs were concentrated in old, narrow streets with small attractions and mixed-use construction near Seoul City Wall (historic downtown district), they also formed around notable architectural landmarks in the newly developed Yeouido and Yeongdeungpo areas. This study found that tourism attraction took different forms in old and new areas, demonstrating that citizens are interested in both historic downtown areas and new areas, as traditional urban theorists suggest. Thus, urban planners and tourism policy makers should consider specific spatial contexts with search engines.

Sustainable tourism and economic growth nexus in Kenya: policy implications for post-Covid-19

Purpose: The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused an unprecedented socio-economic impact. It has also raised our awareness of the role sustainability needs to play in our economic activities. This study investigated how sustainable tourism has contributed to economic growth in Kenya. Research Methodology: Eviews 10 software was used to analyze the time-series data. Drawing on data from 1995 to 2020, Johansen co-integration, Granger causality, and regression approaches were used. Results: The study found out that tourism employment and GDP are positively connected to economic growth in Kenya. The causality was unidirectional from economic growth to tourism contribution to GDP and employment, with a long-run linkage of the study determinants. Limitations: Since this research used the secondary sources of data, similar studies in the future may concentrate on the primary data sources to investigate the relationship between tourism employment and economic advancement. Contribution: At the new normal in the post-Covid-19 period, the study suggests that legislators and tourism policymakers should focus on the policies aimed at promoting sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism should be managed following the three pillars of sustainability. Keywords: Development, Domestic, Moderate, Regional, Scenario

The political economy of backpacker tourism: explorations of tourism actors’ embeddedness in Colombia

ABSTRACT Located in a broad Political Economy approach, this paper presents a new conceptual framework, based on Ferguson (2011) and Mosedale [2011. Thinking outside the box: Alternative political economies in tourism. In J. Mosedale (Ed.), Political economy of Tourism: A Critical perspective (pp. 93–108). Routledge], to assess the reciprocal relationship between tourism development and the power relations of the main actors within the backpacker tourism sector: backpackers; businesses catering for them; and tourism policy makers. We explore how these power relations change through the actors’ social, cultural and political embeddedness. An ethnographic multi-method approach was applied to the under-researched Latin American context with fieldwork conducted in Salento, Colombia. The analysis demonstrates that power inequalities exist concerning knowledge, financial and social power that did not seem to be diminished by backpacker tourism development. We further found that social and cultural embeddedness informed the political embeddedness of the actors. Our findings have important implications for policy makers addressing power inequalities in tourism.

Social connectedness and tourism demand

ABSTRACT This study employs a new measure of social connectedness, based on Facebook friendship links, to investigate the relationship between social networks and tourism demand. Using a standard gravity model and a sample of 39 destination countries and 167 origin countries, we document a positive, and highly significant, relationship between social connectedness and tourism demand. The results remain robust when we control for factors that may affect tourist flows between countries. Our findings bear important implications for tourism policy makers and professionals in their effort to attract visitors from origin countries.

Motivators of attendance at eco-friendly events

This study identifies the factors that attract U.S. residents to eco-friendly events. To achieve our research objective, we obtained data (N = 1,115) from a cross-national, web-based survey distributed to consumers 18 to 65 years of age living in the continental United States. The questionnaire was comprised of five multi-item summated rating scales adapted from the research literature: (1) environmentalism importance; (2) event motivation (push and pull factors); (3) event values; (4) event retention; and (5) sociodemographic information. Data analysis was performed using the SAS® Enterprise MinerTM version 14.1. It identified four intrinsic push factors: “social status promotion,” “making a connection with the environmentally knowledgeable people,” “self-remediation,” and “learning about up-to-date environmentally sustainable products and practices.” There was one extrinsic pull factor: “location.” The findings can help tourism policy and decision makers, planners, marketers (e.g., destination marketing organizations, convention and visitor bureaus), and academic specialists in destination management and marketing.

Tourism clusters and peer-to-peer accommodation

This study examines the importance of tourism clusters in peer-to-peer accommodation. Based on a rich dataset of 112,748 Airbnb listings in Florida, one of the top U.S. tourism destinations, this study uses geographically weighted regression to explore the spatially heterogeneous effects of tourism clusters on Airbnb performance across individual counties (intraregional clusters) and neighboring counties (interregional clusters). The results indicate that overall tourism clusters, especially in the industries of accommodation and food services, lead to superior Airbnb performance, but the tourism clusters-Airbnb performance relationship varies across industry and region, confirming the existence of intraregional and interregional clusters. These findings can help Airbnb hosts and tourism policymakers in other regions implement localized tourism industry strategies for maximizing Airbnb performance.

Alignment of tourism investment to the SDGs in Jamaica: an exploratory study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to ascertain the level of alignment of tourism investment in Jamaica with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and their economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts on the country.Design/methodology/approachThis study is interpretive, combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods. This comprises primary data; collected from interviews of tourism policy makers and experts; and analysis of secondary research data on tourism investments made by government agencies and other organizations that generate and/or provide official statistical data. Interviews are conducted in a semi-structured, open-ended format that enable respondents to provide insights and expound on ideas shared.FindingsThe findings reveal that some SDGs have greater alignment with some of the targets of the SDGs than others. The results proffer a possible reason for this; this could be owing to the priorities of the Ministry of Tourism as it relates to investment in tourism development – investment in improved infrastructure is high on the priority of the Ministry, and therefore reflects better alignment to SDG 9, which relates to infrastructure.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides a backdrop from which to assess Jamaica’s investment activities in furtherance of inclusive and sustainable tourism. The findings also inform decision makers – whether they continue on the current trajectory, or in facilitating adjustments to enable tourism investments to better align with the SDGs. The main limitation lies in the fact that the research findings may only be transferable and generalized to the extent that other jurisdictions bear similar macroeconomic characteristics to Jamaica.Practical implicationsThis study lends itself to opportunities for future research in other similar small island developing states. It also contributes to the body of knowledge on investments that work to further the aims of the SDGs and provides a base from which to conduct further research.Social implicationsThe social implications of tourism investment closely align with SDGs including tourism that is more inclusive and sustainable; that reduces income inequalities; that is beneficial to all Jamaicans, whether directly or indirectly; and that contributes to the development of human capital.Originality/valueThis study evaluates investment alignment with the SDGs in relation to Destination Jamaica. No previous work has been done to explore this relationship; hence, this research is pivotal in informing decision makers and continuing research in this area.

Community-Based Tourism and Destination Attractiveness: From Theory to Practice

Community-based tourism (CBT) is an approach for tourism development that highlights the active participation of the community as a producer, owner, decision-maker in the tourism development of a destination. It has been considered as a sustainable tourism development orientation because it creates employment and increases income for local communities, making them more aware of the responsibility to preserve and enrich their local tourism resources. However, one of the crucial indicators of the sustainability of a CBT venture is commercial viability which is mostly influenced by destination attractiveness to the tourists. Firstly, this paper aims at identifying core attractive attributes from which CBT is frequently developed. A case-based study is carried out on thirty documented successful CBT practices in many parts of the world. From that, this paper points out five types of core attractive attribute of the destination on which CBT can be developed. Then, this paper will discuss how CBT can make a destination more attractive. Finally, the paper will suggest some actions for tourism policymakers of a CBT destination. Keywords: community-based tourism, destination attractiveness, sustainable tourism, core attractive attributes, community participation DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/49-04 Publication date: May 31 st 2020

The Tourism Competitiveness of Districts and Cities Possesing a National Park in Indonesia

Indonesia has comparative advantages of tropical ecosystem, wealth tourist attraction nature, the diversity of culture, living culture peculiar and demographic dividend to participate in tourism. The comparative advantages in accordance with this tourist’s behavior in the experience economy era where the tourists are seeking a tourist destination that has an authentic, such as a diversity of culture and the natural environment that is distinctive. However, this comparative advantage does not correlate with the trend of the increasing number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia. It shows that there were problems in a tourism competitive advantages and knowledge related to competitiveness of tourism inadequacy. This motivates to the need for a study in measuring the effectiveness of competitiveness tourism-based ecotourism in the tourist destinations in Indonesia. This study evaluates the competitiveness of tourism in the areas which have a national park in Indonesia on providing guidelines for tourism policy makers in Indonesia. We use travel and tourism competitiveness index by using data which has been available in the government and non-government institutions. We further employ clusters and dimensional scale to analyze the data. The results found that the average score of competitiveness of tourism indicates the index of 3 – 4. In summary, the tourism competitiveness in the area which have a varies national park can be classified into 5 clusters of tourist attractions based on characteristics of tourism competitiveness. They are health and hygiene, environment indicator, price competitiveness and purchase power parity.

Tourism and climate change: evaluating the extent of policy integration

Climate change poses complex challenges and addressing these requires increasing integration across policy domains. This research developed a framework to assess policy integration between the tourism and climate change domains by examining coverage, scope, materiality and alignment. A database of 101 policy documents was compiled, representing 61 countries over 17 years. Only 37 documents covered the tourism-climate nexus substantially, suggesting climate change has not yet become a priority for tourism policy makers. Considering that tourism makes considerable contributions to and is substantially impacted by climate change, the observed gaps in tourism policy need to be addressed. The paper concludes with some minimum expectations for policy integration, including examples of good practice, and suggests that more effort is required to achieve climate change policy integration in tourism.

Contribution of Chinese and Indian tourism to Australia: A comparative econometric study


 
 
 Under the current widespread economic integration of new international trade theory, the world’s two most populous countries, China and India, have achieved high growth, reducing poverty, increasing income and living standards and, as a result, provided good sources of much needed income-generating tourism to international destinations in recent years. The trend in rising tourism including education from China and India to Australia is exponential, and particularly important where the country’s geographical, cultural and educational quality attributes are internationally key attractions. Appropriate studies of this trend and economic outcomes, with robust and reliable empirical findings for credible analysis have been inadequate to date. The project addresses this gap by proposing to investigate the economic contributions of China and India’s tourism to Australia, and their determination for strategic international policy analysis. Significantly, this is done from an economic integration framework, which is also the expenditure (as opposed to production or income) perspective of the United Nations System of National Accounts 1993/2008. A multi-simultaneous equation model of endogenous Australian growth and Chinese and Indian tourism determination is developed. The model novelly incorporates gravity theory and classical consumer demand contributors, Ironmonger-Lancaster commodity attributes and Johansen policy impact add-and sub-factors explicitly in the economic integration framework, and is estimated by system methods with official economic and tourism 1992-2016 data. The findings will provide appropriate and much needed evidence-based inputs on the major economic integration contributors to Australia’s growth, Chinese and Indian tourism causality to key stake-holders such as tourism policy-makers, analysts and operators for international strategic policy analysis and practical implementation.
 
 

Information Source Before Travelling and Choice of Traveling Mode

The ability to attract tourists is crucial for the success of tourism firms in Malaysia. This has therefore raised a major concern on which information sources tourists use when making choices on their traveling mode as well as the destination. It is on this basis that tourism operators; tourism providers and managers of tourist destinations are particularly concerned with which information source or media to use to attract tourists to tourism destinations. This study investigates the relationship between information source before traveling and choice of traveling mode among Arab tourists coming to Malaysia. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design with convenient sampling technique to generate questionnaire data from 358 participants who are mainly tourists from three major tourism attraction centers in Malaysia. The questionnaire data was analysed using multiple regression analysis technique to determine the relationship between information source and choice of traveling mode among Arab tourists coming to Malaysia. First, the overall findings show that information source before traveling among Arab tourists coming to Malaysia is significantly related to the choice of traveling mode. Further findings revealed that both tourism service providers and tourism information centers sources but not travel agent source are significantly related to the choice of traveling mode among Arab tourists coming to Malaysia. The study concludes that the choice of traveling mode among Arabs coming to Malaysia is mainly determined by tourism service providers and tourism information centers sources of information and not travel agent source of information. The outcomes of the study have significant managerial implications for tourism operators, tourism providers and managers of tourist destinations as well as tourism policy makers in Malaysia.

Vietnam’s sustainable tourism and growth: a new approach to strategic policy modelling

The paper introduces a new approach to develop a model of endogenous tourism and growth for Vietnam and, estimated by official national accounting data, provides credible inputs for strategic policy analysis. The country is a major transition high-growth ASEAN economy and a WTO member with successful opening up policies since its Doi Moi (Renovation) reform in 1987. Significantly, due to these policies and its natural, historical and cultural attractions, Vietnam has also been receiving in recent years increasing tourist inflows with substantial contribution to its national income. In spite of these developments, appropriate and rigorous studies of Vietnam's tourism and impact on growth have been very limited. The paper addresses this gap. As a significant innovative feature, the study is carried out appropriately from an economic integration growth framework, which is also the expenditure (as opposed to conventional production or income) perspective of the United Nations System of National Accounts 1993/2008. The model is a multi-simultaneous equation model of Vietnam's endogenous growth and tourism determination. It explicitly incorporates gravity theory and classical consumer demand contributors, Ironmonger-Lancaster new commodity attributes and importantly Johansen policy impact add- and sub-factors in its specification. The model is then estimated by system methods with official 1997–2017 economic and tourism data from the World Tourism Organisation and other international agencies. The research will advance the literature and the findings will provide useful new, appropriate and evidence-based causal insights on the determination and contributors of tourism to Vietnam's growth. Recommendations will be made for key stake-holders such as tourism policy-makers, academic analysts and tourism operators for strategic policy analysis and practical implementation. The approach is of the economic integration modelling class and generic, and has wide applications in the field.

Residents’ Attitudes toward Impacts of Tourism: A Case Study of Langkawi, Malaysia

This paper presents findings from a study that was undertaken to investigate residents’ attitudes toward the impacts of tourism in Langkawi Island, Malaysia. In order to gain reliable results for the use of Langkawi policy makers and tourism planners, a standardized instrument for measuring residents’ attitude was developed and used in the study. The findings revealed that residents tend to perceive impacts that benefit them as positive impacts of tourism. The findings also indicated that residents tend to perceive impacts of tourism, either positively or negatively depending on how much they would affect their personal lives. The more dependent they were on the positive impacts of tourism, the more supportive they were toward tourism development. Thus, the findings do not support Doxey’s Irridex Model. Finally, the study suggested that for a long-term purpose of achieving sustainable tourism development, Langkawi tourism planners and policy makers should conduct several campaigns and tourism workshops for the residents. Accordingly, this would gain residents support for tourism development on the island.

The impact of information technology on energy saving in hotel companies

Tourism is today one of the largest and most dynamically developing sectors of the world. However, the growth of tourist spending and the increasing number of tourists, contributes not only to the economic prosperity of a country, but also to energy consumption. Hotel companies are one of the largest energy consumers, and information technology (IT) is an effective source of solutions for monitoring and improving energy efficiency. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between information technology and energy consumption in hotel companies. The empirical research was conducted using the interview method in hotels in Kvarner. The results confirmed that there was a link between information technology and energy savings. The significant savings can be made by using an energy monitoring information system. The results of this paper can provide guidance to tourism policy makers, i.e. private and public businesses in the sector of tourism. Information technology helps hotel companies to dynamically manage information and affect business competitiveness, and helps hotel managers to make the right decisions and investments.

Attitudes of local people towards community based eco-tourism in the Sundarbans

Tourism especially nature based tourism is increasing throughout the world day by day. The Sundarbans Reserve Forest (SRF) in Bangladesh is a suitable place for developing tourism. The purpose of the study was to find out the attitudes of local people’s towards community based eco-tourism (CBET) in the Sundarbans. The study was carried out by a questionnaire survey with purposive selection based on diversity of occupation and sex in that area. A 5- point rating Likert scale was used to measures the local people’s attitude towards community based eco-tourism. Most of the people of the study are poorly based on income and depends on the forest as well as are fisherman among male and housewife among women. Natural beauty of this area, scope to watch wildlife, tourist security, house or eco-cottage quality, toilet and bathing facilities are favorable as well as communication and infrastructure facilities are an obstacle for developing CBET here. CBET will increase alternative job opportunities and income as well as it will reduce disturbance of forest and illegal harvesting according to the respondents. Forest Department is cooperative and tourists are more conscious now than before. People are now satisfied with CBET and keen to involve with this. This research is important for tourism policymakers in Bangladesh for their decisions.

Visit Nepal Year 2020: Some Imperatives

Tourism is one of the fastest-growing socio-economic sectors of our times. It is also one of the linchpins of Nepalese economy. The purpose of this paper is to overview the tourism development trend in general, and Visit Nepal 2020 in particular, and discuss some ideas which are helpful in addressing current needs of tourism development in Nepal, and also serving as an asset base for future interventions. In this paper, we first analyse the tourism development trend, both global and national, to present the tourism scenario we have thus far created, and, setting aside the preparations done so far for undertaking soon-to-be-launched Visit Nepal year, discuss a few management thoughts which have strategic importance in making the tourism year more effective. This call-to-action paper offers a range of last-minute pointers for tourism policymakers and practitioners, in the context of effecting Visit Nepal 2020, that are more likely to impact and, to some extent, guide the future directions of the tourism industry in Nepal.

Dampak Pariwisata Terhadap Kondisi Sosial Budaya Masyarakat di Banda Aceh

Various conditions are force the tourism development in Banda Aceh, one of them is tsunami wave in 2006. The condition of the people of Aceh who had been in a bad political and security with the presence of military operations and prolonged conflict, affected the way the Aceh community interacts with migrant (tourists). The study of the impact of tourism on socio-cultural is important to ensure that tourism development in Aceh does not disturb the sustainability of the socio-cultural aspects. The interaction between tourists and local people in Banda Aceh has a social and cultural impact. The socio-cultural impact of tourism development can be seen from the preservation of local culture such as traditional dances, Aceh's cultural history, preservation of various historic buildings in Aceh. While the negative impact of tourism on socio-cultural conditions can be seen from the response of local communities to the existence of tourism such as the emergence of conflicts of interest among stakeholders, and social problems such as gambling and prostitution. Some of part of the communities who think that tourism development is against Islamic law is become a challenge for tourism policy makers in Aceh. To anticipate this, it is necessary to change the strategy in developing tourism in Aceh. The community needs to be involved in determining policies and decisions related to tourism in their area.

Investigating visitors’ perception of smart city dimensions for city branding in Hong Kong

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the perceptions of visitors in terms of multiple aspects of smart cities to allow wise decisions to be made about smart tourist destinations by municipal governments and tourism authorities.Design/methodology/approachThis study takes a sample of inbound visitors (n=205) from Hong Kong as an empirical questionnaire-based survey on visitors’ perceptions of these smart city attributes, which are collected from literature, and framed in Cohen’s Smart City Wheel.FindingsThis paper identifies the distinctive factors for branding Hong Kong as a smart city. The results from the factor analysis identify four factors for determining what a smart city is from the perspective of visitors, namely, the quality of a smart society: energy consumption in an urban environment, smart city governance and smart city livelihood. The first two factors further become the determinants of a successful smart city brand considered by visitors, which contribute to their locational decisions and thus the strategies and policies of smart destination branding.Research limitations/implicationsThe results obtained can serve as insights for tourism policy makers and destination marketers when considering significant information and communication technology, or other smart and sustainable attributes for city branding (e.g. Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2014; Marine-Roig and Anton Clavé, 2015), as well as common investment and resource allocation for shared benefits in similar metropolises.Practical implicationsThe smartness factors represent important dimensions of urban smartness as prioritized areas for further development, innovation and marketing of tourism industries and enterprises in Hong Kong, as a mature urban destination incorporating the branding of a proposed smart district as a strategy of urban development.Originality/valueSmart urban development and tourism development have increasingly become inseparable, especially when visitors utilize cities as tourist destinations but share other urban resources and spaces with local citizens. Unlike the development of smart tourist attractions, smart tourist destinations should have a wider scope of smartness. A smart tourist destination may carry similar and overlapping characteristics of smart cities, which may be interpreted by visitors and may eventually affect their perceived image of a city.