'Location, Location, Location’ — The Relative Importance of Country, Institution and Program: A Study of Tourism Postgraduate Students

Competition in the higher education sector has led to an increase in studies examining student motivations for study and satisfaction with their overall education experience. While there is a growing body of literature focused on undergraduate students, few studies have addressed postgraduate student motivations for studying tourism. To address this gap, a study of tourism postgraduate students studying at the School of Tourism, The University of Queensland (UQSoT) was implemented. This article explores the relative importance of location, institution and program focus as motivators for undertaking postgraduate studies in tourism

A water-use model for the tourism industry in the Asia-Pacific region: The impact of water-saving measures on water use

The Asia-Pacific region is a hot spot for population and tourism growth, both key drivers of water demand. Already, more than 75% of countries in this region are experiencing water stress. The management of water is becoming increasingly pressing, including for the tourism industry. Yet there has been little research into the predictors of water use in tourism in the Asia-Pacific region and opportunities for water saving. Therefore, this article develops both total and per guest night water-use models to determine the drivers of water use in accommodation in the Asia-Pacific region, delves into the differences between regions, and assesses the effectiveness of different water-saving measures. The results suggest geographical differences in water use that are influenced by climate zone and pool facilities. Importantly, the per guest night water-use model indicates that there are economies of scale to water use and that low/dual-flush toilets can significantly conserve water. © 2014, © The Author(s) 2014

The role of economics in tourism postgraduate research: an analysis of doctoral dissertations completed between 2000–2010

While economics was one of the first disciplines to inform tourism research its contribution to tourism postgraduate research remains relatively undiscovered; in addition there has been an apparent decline in the influence of economics on tourism research. This research examines the contribution of economics to a subset of tourism doctoral dissertations completed in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, providing insight into how economic theories and methods have helped shape the field. Based on a content analysis of 118 tourism doctoral dissertations produced between 2000 and 2010 the most common concepts or theories informing tourism economic theses were impact theories, tourism demand and political economics, with quantitative methods dominating. Further research is still needed to determine the consequences of the declining influence of economics on tourism research, scholarship and practice

Framing in a contested space: media reporting on tourism and mining in Australia

The last decade has seen Australia\u27s economy undertake a significant transformation, with a rapid resurgence in mining. The high exchange rate that has arisen as a consequence of this boom has resulted in a number of other Australian industries becoming less competitive, leading to a two-speed economy. For the tourism industry, the result has been declining visitation, with some commentators attributing this decline directly to the mining boom. This paper explores how the media frames tourism- and mining-related issues regarding the current mining boom in Australia by undertaking a content analysis of 265 online newspaper articles relating to tourism and mining in Australia. The impact of mining on the tourism sector was frequently identified as a key issue, with the rapid expansion of mining increasing competition for labour, resources and infrastructure, as well as having the propensity to destroy certain tourism products. Journalistic techniques, such as hedging, were found to be prevalent in the media reporting, potentially leading to confusion surrounding key issues relating to tourism and mining in the public forum. Future research should seek to explore strategies that could be used by government and businesses to build sustainable, resilient regions through tourism and mining

Strategic issues in the Australian tourism industry: A 10-year analysis of national strategies and plans

Predicting future events, trends and issues that may affect the tourism industry is not an exact science. Already the 21st century has seen a number of significant, radical and unexpected events, including September 11, SARS and, more recently, the worldwide economic downturn and natural disasters, such as earthquakes and cyclonic activity. Within this increasingly volatile global landscape, more than ever there is a need for the tourism industry to embrace a disciplined, structured and continuous approach to identifying and monitoring future trends and issues to inform policymaking and strategic planning. Yet in Australia it has been claimed that a preoccupation with marketing and short-term tactical planning, at the expense of long-term, strategic thinking, has led to limited planning perspectives for tourism. To explore these claims, this paper reports on a content analysis of 28 Australian national-level tourism strategic planning documents across a 10-year period (2000–2009 inclusive)

Developing and testing a suite of institutional indices to underpin the measurement and management of tourism destination transformation

Economic, social, and environmental transformation of destinations as a consequence of tourism has been observed and studied extensively within the tourism literature. Transformation theory has evolved as a tool for understanding structural economic, social, or environmental change, which is driven by institutions. There is an emerging body of research that has sought to identify the institutional aspects of the tourism transformation process. Despite this, there has been limited development of tools that can measure institutions, inhibiting the development of long-run decision-making models that governments can use when developing policies for tourism destination development. As a result this research contributes a suite of institutional indices that can be used by tourism managers and planners to monitor, evaluate, and benchmark the tourism industry's institutions. Drawing from the organizational change literature, the proposed indices focus on competition, management processes, data and research capabilities, collaboration efforts, benchmarking processes, learning ability, and agility and adaptability. This research is an important step in developing combined structural and institutional models that will contribute to the development and implementation of decisionmaking tools to assist destinations seeking to achieve long-term sustainable tourism transformation

Tracking the concept of sustainability in Australian tourism policy and planning documents

In the current climate of intense turbulence, tourism must transform to a more sustainable development platform. Yet it remains unclear how the concept of sustainability is embedded at different levels of government policy and planning, and how this has evolved over time. This paper identifies the concept of sustainability as it is articulated in 339 Australian tourism strategic planning and policy documents published between 2000 and 2011. The paper examines the extent to which the concept of sustainable tourism is evident in the discourse of Australian tourism strategic planning documents at the national, state, regional and local levels, as well as the balance of the discourse in relation to sustainability objectives. The results show that the frequency of occurrence of sustainability as a concept has slightly increased in strategies over the past decade. At the same time, there has been a shift in the conceptualisation of sustainability, with thinking evolving from nature-based, social and triple bottom line concepts toward a focus on climate change, responsibility, adaption and transformation