Tourism policy and residents' well-being in Cyprus: Opportunities and challenges for developing an inside-out destination management approach

The paper explores how Cyprus can increase its competitiveness, sustaining its magnitude and attractive attributes, and ensuring residents’ well-being. The study evaluates the suitability of an ‘inside-out’ planning approach to island tourism development. Eleven interviews were conducted with tourism policy-makers and stakeholders complemented by documentary analysis of official policy sources.Findings indicate that Cyprus tourism policy addresses only indirectly residents’ well-being, and therefore a policy re-orientation focusing on local prosperity is needed. It is proposed that an ‘inside-out’ approach stemming from the kind of development that locals want for improving their quality of life can foster islands’ socio-cultural revitalisation. An ‘inside-out’ approach can redirect Cyprus tourism policy to focus on alternative forms of tourism such as rural/special interest tourism. However, to reconfigure its tourism product, Cyprus should remedy the ‘top-down’ and bureaucratic planning processes that create challenges for the sustainable development of tourism. The adoption of an ‘inside-out’ approach can enable‘bottom-up’ decision-making by empowering residents to partake in local communities’ tourism planning intending to improve life quality. Broadly, these conditions need to be further examined within the context of small island destinations in order to find the means for implementing their repositioning/rebranding driven by a local focus aimed at enhancing residents’ wellbeing

Marketing for Sustainable Tourism

The aim of the Special Issue is to discuss the main current topics concerning marketing for sustainable tourism with reference to territories (i.e., tourism destinations, protected areas, parks and/or natural sites, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, rural regions/areas, etc.) and tourism enterprises and/or organisations (i.e., destination management organisations, hospitality enterprises, restaurant enterprises, cableway companies, travel agencies, etc.). In destinations where natural resources are pull factors for tourism development, the relationships among local actors (public, private, and local community), as well as marketing choices, are essential to develop sustainable tourism products. To this end, the Special Issue encourages papers that analyse marketing strategies adopted by tourism destinations and/or tourism enterprises to avoid overtourism, to manage mass sustainable tourism (as defined by Weaver, 2000), and to encourage and promote sustainable tourism in marginal areas or in territories suffering lack of integration in the tourism offer. Special attention will be given to contributions on the best practices to manage territories and/or enterprises adopting sustainable marketing strategies

Sustainable Business Models in Tourism

We invite you to read the Special Issue on business models in tourism, in the context of considering the principles of sustainable development. It is a collection of 14 articles published in a Special Issue of Sustainability MDPI in 2019–2021. The dynamic changes taking place in the world economy, social life, and the natural environment force entrepreneurs to change their business models. This also happens in the tourism business. The SARS-COV2 virus pandemic has increased the need for change. It is necessary to offer managers modern management tools that cover the broadest possible scope of integration of the elements of the conducted business activities, at the same time adjusted to the specificity of the market and needs of the natural environment in which the enterprises managed by them operate. This book, formulated in the light of the presented needs, aims to use the concept of business models and sustainability business models in the context of a tourism enterprise adapted to the existing conditions of tourist and spa activities

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2022

This open access book presents the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 29th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER2022 conference, which will be held on January 11–14, 2022. The book provides an extensive overview of how information and communication technologies can be used to develop tourism and hospitality. It covers the latest research on various topics within the field, including augmented and virtual reality, website development, social media use, e-learning, big data, analytics, and recommendation systems. The readers will gain insights and ideas on how information and communication technologies can be used in tourism and hospitality. Academics working in the eTourism field, as well as students and practitioners, will find up-to-date information on the status of research

Knowledge Dynamics in Innovation Biographies : a Methodological and Spatial Perspective

The dissertation at hand analyses knowledge dynamics in innovation proc-esses from a methodological and spatial perspective. By applying a micro-level and process-based view, it contributes to recent research about knowl-edge creation in innovation. This is implemented with the novel research approach of Innovation Biographies that enables to empirically study the time-spatial unfolding of knowledge in innovation processes. The thesis follows three aims:  To analyse the nature of knowledge dynamics in innovation processes from idea to implementation according to content, actor constellations and the related micro-geography.  To explicate the research approach of Innovation Biographies and to embed it into the wider methodological array of economic geography, by assessing the value-added of its results in relation to other empirical ap-proaches that analyse knowledge generation and social interaction in in-novation.  To study sectoral innovation specifics within tourism and construction by analysing the mutual influence of knowledge dynamics and the geo-graphical and social context in concrete innovation processes, and by in-terpreting findings in light of the sectors’ particular distinctions. The essential finding contributing to the first aim is that knowledge combinations from different sectors and scales have had decisive influence on the analysed innovation processes. High-tech knowledge was combined with low-tech knowledge; production structures of the automotive industry influenced those of prefabricated houses, football clubs of the German Bundes league cooperated with tourism actors, etc. The geography of knowledge dynamics revealed a multi-scalar scope, even if impact of different scales varied according to sectoral and socio-spatial contexts in which innovation emerged and gained momentum. Furthermore, in contrast to mainstream assumptions, the actor networks of the innovations were only to a limited extent based on previously existing trustful relations. Networks have rather been constituted by a mixture of actors known and unknown to the innovating organisation in order to account for the arising novelty. Referring to the second aim, findings revealed that the micro-level approach of Innovation Biographies provides substantially enriched insight into knowledge creation, its dynamics and time-spatial patterns of innovation. Thus, Innovation Biographies offer a relevant and complementary perspec-tive as compared to other research approaches in economic geography. Through a specific combination of interviewing techniques, network analy-ses, and visualisations, it is possible to reconstruct the generation of knowl-edge in innovation creation from idea to implementation. However, draw-backs, e.g. concerning the fuzziness of the precise beginning and end of an innovation process and strong reliance on cooperation of interview partners remain. As to the third aim, knowledge dynamics and innovation behaviour in tour-ism and construction are heavily influenced by spatial distinctions of the sectors’ production structures. In tourism, the density of competitors causes massive competition and frequent imitation of innovation. Two types of in-novation strategies counteracting competition have been elaborated. The first is labelled “assimilation”, the second “distinction”. In the former strat-egy, proximate actors are involved in knowledge generation. By incorporat-ing actors that otherwise could be potential competitors, a lever is installed that prevents imitation. Within the latter strategy, competitive advantage is achieved through the incorporation of knowledge from actors located in other countries. Utilising internationally sourced, for others not easily acces-sible knowledge, allows innovators to develop unique services that cannot be immediately imitated by others. The construction sector is characterised through strongly localised, tempo-rary, project-based structures that result in renewed knowledge generation in every new building project and therewith in costly repetitive actions. Cur-rent innovation strategies, therefore, strive to overcome spatial constraints and project-based structures, e.g. through prefabrication or service-orientation. These innovation strategies are crucially shaped by knowledge combinations

Landscape and Tourism, Landscapes of Tourism

Landscape is central to tourism. It is key to the development, marketing/promotion, and consumption of tourism destinations, to triggering and sustaining tourism markets, and to enticing tourist dreams, fantasies, and behaviors. From ‘sight-seeing’ practices—at the basis of all tourism activities—landscape figures prominently all the way to the overall spatial planning and management of a destination for tourism development. The intertwined relationship between tourism and landscape comes with a series of costs and benefits, in the context of tourism landscapes. Landscapes of tourism reflect and stage recreational trends, multifunctional livelihood systems, conflicts and opportunities for employment and income generation, as well as human, cultural, and natural resource management and use. This Special Issue aims to enhance the interdisciplinary scientific dialogue on these issues and challenges, while highlighting their range and significance for tourism and the landscape, in terms of theory, empirical practice, approach, policy, ethics, and future prospects. Some of the questions posed for consideration here are: What are landscapes of tourism, for whom and how/why? What is the role of the landscape in tourism promotion, attraction, and experience? How does tourism affect the landscape? What lessons do the history and geography of tourism have to offer to tourism landscape stewardship? How may we best plan for and manage the landscape in the context of various forms of tourism growth and spread, at various scales? Scholarly advances in the past few decades have steadily built on a diverse—but spread-out and not adequately connected—bibliographical basis for future research. Much remains to be understood and exchanged as landscape and tourism—two highly complex and multifaceted scientific areas—come together in the scope of this Special Issue in a variety of ways across time, space, and culture

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2022

This open access book presents the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 29th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER2022 conference, which will be held on January 11–14, 2022. The book provides an extensive overview of how information and communication technologies can be used to develop tourism and hospitality. It covers the latest research on various topics within the field, including augmented and virtual reality, website development, social media use, e-learning, big data, analytics, and recommendation systems. The readers will gain insights and ideas on how information and communication technologies can be used in tourism and hospitality. Academics working in the eTourism field, as well as students and practitioners, will find up-to-date information on the status of research

Competitiveness and strategic change : a longitudinal study of the interactions between tourism industry and air Seychelles 1970 to 2007

In studying organisational change in Air Seychelles, the context, content and process of change together with the interconnections of the airline and the tourism industry in Seychelles through time is explored. The literature review shows that the substantive issues of interest to this study, contextualism as a theory of methods in management research, requires a case based research in particular with regards to the following gaps in the literature: the integration of inner and outer perspectives on sustaining competitive advantage, and conceptual insights on how strategy links firms and their environment. The study adopted a contextual and processual framework to build a theoretical perspective of competitive advantage. The study contributes to the field of strategic management and tourism development in Seychelles in the following ways: firstly, the development of a contextual and processual framework to explain the transformation of firms over time; secondly, the development of an understanding of the historical context of the tourism industry and its interactions with other sectors of the Seychelles economy; thirdly, developing an understanding of how Air Seychelles developed its resources and capabilities to sustain competitive advantage; fourthly, linking change processes and action to performance and in a sense developing an understanding on strategy implementation of strategic management practice in Air Seychelles. The study sheds some light on strategy formation and implementation at the firm level, and the dynamics between the firm and the industry. The findings suggest that firms respond opportunistically to external discontinuities in a dynamic environment - the entrepreneurial leadership of a firm prepares and support managers to operate under conditions of great uncertainty and ambiguity and allows them to behave opportunistically.Graduate School of Business LeadershipD.B.L