Optimal Tourism Development

The early days of tourism development had a naïve vision of tourism’s impacts on society in terms of economic, social, and environmental benefits. Time has passed, and we have learnt lessons regarding the success and failure of tourism development. Mass tourism development has pros and cons and is not necessarily the optimal development model. Alternative development strategies should be contemplated. This Special Issue deals with different topics concerning optimal tourism development. Destination management requires further understanding of different issues, such as carrying capacity, income-based optimal supply size, identification and development of optimal market niches, and adaptation or environmental protection strategies. Tourism planning is concerned with the role of economies of agglomeration, i.e., the advantages of spatial clusters vs scattered development. Additionally, support for and investment in innovation, accessibility, and mobility are relevant nowadays. From the stakeholders’ perspective, it is relevant to discuss ways of cooperating and sources of conflicts among different sectors and actors, governance and incentives for sustainable tourism practices, and equity and economic distribution of benefits. Finally, the development of methodological tools for the assessment of optimal tourism development is necessary for policy making, in particular the development of methods that are capable of integrating economic, environmental, and social criteria

Using user-generated content to explore the temporal heterogeneity in tourist mobility

In tourism studies, new means of data collection are opening up opportunities for disclosing hidden mobility patterns. This paper aims to analyze and model the tourist flow networks for different lengths of trip on urban scale, using user generated content (UGC) data collated from an open tourism web service. The textual UGC data, with high spatial and temporal resolution, is utilized to construct three tourist flow networks in response to length of trips. Social network analysis and a revised spatial interaction model are deployed for exploring the temporal heterogeneity in the tourist movements. This empirical study from Nanjing city has further confirmed the power law of distance decay in intra-urban tourist mobility. Furthermore, the research reveals temporal variations with length of trip. The paper highlights the role of time in the tourism study through incorporating a temporal dimension into the analyses and taking advantage of the availability of new data

Spatiotemporal trends and factors influencing online attention for China’s tea industry

In the context of the “Internet plus” era, the study of tea industry online attention is a new perspective in research on the tea industry and an opportunity for the sustainable and high-quality development of this industry. Based on the Baidu index, this paper obtains web attention data from 2012 to 2021, analyzes the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of online attention using the seasonal concentration index and geographic concentration index, and quantitatively discusses the influencing factors using correlation analysis and GeoDetector. The results show the following: The interannual change in China’s tea industry online attention shows “rapid growth, high level of stability, slow decline,” the monthly distribution has an intense concentration, mainly in March-April and October, and the interday distribution of attention peaks on weekdays. The spatial distribution shows an intense geographical concentration, with an overall trend of “light concentration first, then light dispersion.” The migration trajectory of the center of attention is tilted toward the southwest. Economic development status, residents’ income, the natural environment of tea growing, the leisure time of followers, and the price level of tea are the essential factors affecting the of the tea industry online attention. In contrast, the other factors we have chosen have a weaker impact on online attention compared to the few factors just mentioned

Agglomeration and performance in Norwegian tourism

PhD thesis in Hotel and tourism managementNatural-based attractions are central for Norwegian tourism. Northern lights, rugged arctic landscapes, fjords and mountains, rural areas with culture landscapes are all part of the Norwegian experience. However, Norwegian tourism businesses, particularly in rural areas, struggle to gain profitability. High-cost level and seasonality impose challenges to tourism firms. As the attractions are mainly nature-based and located along the coast, the country is also a thriving destination to cruise tourism. The growth in cruise tourism is mostly due to increased competitiveness of cruises relative to other modes of travel, food, and accommodation services. For the fjord and coastal destinations, cruises bring in large volumes of tourists to the benefit of many tourist suppliers, but they also compete with onshore services. Moreover, the tourism experience relies on construction of a seamless product – as opposed to many other industry sectors, competitiveness goes beyond intra-market concerns, as each firm in the tourism agglomeration rely on its collective competitiveness. Since production and consumption is geographically localized, the limited product range is a disadvantage to many rural destinations. Rural destinations may also be more prone to seasonal variations, since unlike urban destinations they do not benefit from wider market segments and activities in the off season. This thesis sheds light on these issues by recognizing the external effects that arise from geographically localized production. Market characteristics on the supply and demand sides spill over to other firms in the same area and to adjacent areas. The availability of register data on tourism firms, accompanied by refined regression techniques enables spatial analysis of tourism development. In the context of cruise tourism, a spatial econometric model is applied to investigate the effect of cruise tourism on onshore HORECA (hotels, restaurants, cafés, and similar) firms. The results indicate modest, but significant and positive effects of cruise tourism on demand of onshore firms. Urbanization is of particular relevance to tourism because of the localized nature of production, as well as of the implications of product range on competitiveness. Our results are in line with the presumption that population growth is strongly associated with decreased seasonality. Moreover, seasonal variations, approximated by sold guest nights, is detrimental to revenue of accommodation firms. Attractions in the off season appear more promising than prolonging the peak season, which is supported by the finding that areas that have seized the opportunity of developing skiing tourism have found a successful remedy to revenue deterioration. The external effects of revenue management decisions should not be neglected; first, we see empirically that hoteliers respond to falling demand in the off season not by dropping prices, but rather by allowing the occupancy rate to fall. Secondly, as we find that diversity of tourism firms associates strongly and positively with firm survival, more refined pricing decisions, that also encompass a broader destination-specific perspective is called upon

Spatio-temporal Modelling of Accessibility to Train Stations for Park and Ride (PnR) Users

Accessibility has been of critical importance to physical planning over the past 60 years. This study mainly focuses a spatial methodology framework to understand measure and model the Park and Ride (PnR) users’ accessibility to train stations, specifically including the characteristics of catchment areas, directional accessibility to train stations, spatial modelling of train stations’ catchment areas, and spatio-temporal modelling of accessibility to train stations

Visa restrictions and economic globalisation

States have a general interest in facilitating the cross-border mobility of people in order to benefit from economic globalisation. Yet, mainly due to security concerns, most governments grant visa-free mobility only very selectively. Drawing on a new bilateral visa policy database covering up to 194 destination and 214 origin countries over the 1995 to 2013 period, our analysis finds that the introduction of a visa restriction by a destination country for citizens from a particular origin country deters tourism inflows by more than 20 percent. Visa restrictions also reduce bilateral trade and foreign investment, but to a smaller extent than previous studies have suggested. Exploring heterogeneity across countries, we find visa restrictions to be economically most harmful for poorer countries. We further find that some of the deterred flows in tourists, goods and services, and capital are redirected to other visa-free destination

Development of a Multi-Region Input-Output Database for Policy Applications

Countries face different problems depending on factors such as geographical position, climate, wealth, political regime, and natural resources. Given this diversity, it is important that economic, social, and environmental assessments utilise regionally detailed and comprehensive information. However, when examining a particular type of assessment, studies (in most cases) are usually conducted without any regional or sectoral specificity due to the difficulty of creating an inter-regional modelling framework at sub-national levels. A fundamental tool for identifying specific economic characteristics of regions (either global or within a nation) is a multi-region input-output (MRIO) system. Through the understanding of regional economic distribution, sectoral contribution, and inter-regional supply chain network, input-output (I-O) based assessments are capable of providing a comprehensive picture of regional economic structures. However, the creation of an MRIO system is a time-consuming task that requires skill in handling the complexity of data compilation and reconciliation. To this end, finding an alternative method for creating an MRIO database in the most efficient way is necessary. In this thesis, I developed new MRIO databases that utilised virtual laboratory technology: IndoLab, TaiwanLab, SwedenLab, and USLab , and also took part in developing the JapanLab. I then demonstrated the use of these new facilities for addressing research questions surrounding employment multipliers in Indonesia, economic impacts due to natural disasters in Taiwan, regional consumer emissions in Sweden, and the responsibility for food loss in Japan. In addition, I presented the application of a new dataset in the global MRIO database for assessing the carbon footprints of global tourism sectors