The tourism and economic growth enigma: Examining an ambiguous relationship through multiple prisms

This paper revisits the ambiguous relationship between tourism and economic growth, providing a comprehensive study of destinations across the globe which takes into account the key dynamics that influence tourism and economic performance. We focus on 113 countries over the period 1995-2014, clustered, for the first time, around six criteria that reflect their economic, political and tourism dimensions. A Panel Vector Autoregressive model is employed which, in contrast to previous studies, allows the data to reveal any tourism-economy interdependencies across these clusters, without imposing a priori the direction of causality. Overall, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis seems to prevail in countries which are developing, non-democratic, highly bureaucratic and have low tourism specialization. Conversely, bidirectional relationships are established for economies which are stronger, democratic and with higher levels of government effectiveness. Thus, depending on the economic, political and tourism status of a destination, different policy implications apply

Sentiment, mood and outbound tourism demand

We investigate spillover effects from sentiment and mood shocks on US outbound tourism demand from 1996 until 2013. We use the Index of Consumer Sentiment and Economic Policy Uncertainty Index as proxies for sentiment and the S&P500 as a proxy for mood. We find a moderate to high interrelationship among sentiment, mood and outbound tourism demand. More importantly, sentiment and mood indicators are net transmitters of spillover shocks to outbound tourism demand. The magnitude of spillover effects sourced by sentiment and mood is time-varying and depends on certain socio-economic and environmental events. Our results have important implications for policymakers and travel agents in their efforts to predict tourism arrivals from key origin countries and to plan their tourism strategy

Museums as supportive workplaces: an empirical enquiry in the UK museum workforce

Museums’ vibrancy and viability are heavily dependent on supporting the development and well-being of talented and dedicated people. Although issues of organisational culture and good management have gained increasing importance for the sector, there is little empirical research on how leadership and day-to-day work conditions in museums shape workers’ job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Framed through organisation theory, this paper draws on survey data from UK museum staff and volunteers to examine the role of transformational leadership in driving workforce job satisfaction and organisational commitment outcomes, as mediated by key job resources and demands. Our findings show that where a transformational approach to leadership effectively communicates a shared organisational mission there is a positive impact on worker attitudes. Practical measures are suggested on how museum leaders can achieve such outcomes by inviting worker participation in decision-making, promoting a sense of task significance, highlighting impact on museum beneficiaries and reducing role ambiguity