Does social contact lessen perceived cultural distance? Evidence from tourist–host social contact

2016-2017 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journal201804_a bcm

Analyzing the Economic Sustainability of Tourism Development: Evidence from Hong Kong

Despite increased concerns about the negative economic impacts of tourism on host communities, insufficient attention has been paid to assess tourism economic sustainability. This paper aims to develop and validate a framework for assessing economic sustainability from the perspective of local stakeholders. In-depth interviews with 12 major stakeholders and a telephone survey with 1839 Hong Kong citizens were conducted. The tourism economic sustainability construct consisted of three dimensions: economic positivity, development control and individual welfare. The reliability and validity of the dimensions were confirmed by the data of sub-samples. The links between socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes toward tourism economic sustainability were evaluated. This paper enhanced our understanding of tourism economic sustainability by expanding the measurement from the macro level to micro level. Using the study setting in Hong Kong, it transcends previous analysis by providing a context to learn from ongoing controversies about the effects of tourism on host community

Net exchanges of CO2, CH4, and N2O between China's terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere and their contributions to global climate warming

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): G02011, doi:10.1029/2010JG001393.China's terrestrial ecosystems have been recognized as an atmospheric CO2 sink; however, it is uncertain whether this sink can alleviate global warming given the fluxes of CH4 and N2O. In this study, we used a process-based ecosystem model driven by multiple environmental factors to examine the net warming potential resulting from net exchanges of CO2, CH4, and N2O between China's terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere during 1961–2005. In the past 45 years, China's terrestrial ecosystems were found to sequestrate CO2 at a rate of 179.3 Tg C yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (62.0 Tg C yr−1, 264.9 Tg C yr−1) while emitting CH4 and N2O at rates of 8.3 Tg C yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (3.3 Tg C yr−1, 12.4 Tg C yr−1) and 0.6 Tg N yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (0.2 Tg N yr−1, 1.1 Tg N yr−1), respectively. When translated into global warming potential, it is highly possible that China's terrestrial ecosystems mitigated global climate warming at a rate of 96.9 Tg CO2eq yr−1 (1 Tg = 1012 g), substantially varying from a source of 766.8 Tg CO2eq yr−1 in 1997 to a sink of 705.2 Tg CO2eq yr−1 in 2002. The southeast and northeast of China slightly contributed to global climate warming; while the northwest, north, and southwest of China imposed cooling effects on the climate system. Paddy land, followed by natural wetland and dry cropland, was the largest contributor to national warming potential; forest, followed by woodland and grassland, played the most significant role in alleviating climate warming. Our simulated results indicate that CH4 and N2O emissions offset approximately 84.8% of terrestrial CO2 sink in China during 1961–2005. This study suggests that the relieving effects of China's terrestrial ecosystems on climate warming through sequestering CO2 might be gradually offset by increasing N2O emission, in combination with CH4 emission.This study has been supported by NASA LCLUC Program (NNX08AL73G_S01) , NASA IDS Program (NNG04GM39C), and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) 973 Program (2002CB412500)

Tourist typology in social contact: An addition to existing theories

Tourist-host social contact, as a unique type of social contact, is not getting sufficient attention in tourism academia considering its remarkable impacts on tourists’ travel attitudes, behaviors and long-term perceptions. The objectives of the current study are to explore the dimensions of tourist-host social contact and to contribute to the theory of tourist typology according to their dynamic nature in tourist-host social interaction. Forty-five in-depth interviews were conducted to generate insightful information. The software of NVivo 10 was applied to examine and code the transcripts. As a result, six dimensions were adopted to describe tourist-host social contact, which are purposes, determinants, activities, intensity, impacts and attitudes. Five types of tourists were pinpointed and theoretical and practical contributions of the study were discussed

Dream Destination: A concept of perception of leisure travellers

This exploratory study adopted grounded theory approach to investigate the concept of dream destination and its perception by travelers. The data were collected through three methods: Online travel forum, in-depth interview and focus group. Triangulation of data collected from the above three methods were used to establish the trustworthiness of the study. Based on the iteration of data analysis, the dream destination was classified into six categories and the conceptual framework of dream destination was generated