The development, rationale, organisation and future management of public sector tourism in Scotland

Scotland is a small country, part of a small island on the edge of Western Europe, yet it has a very large tourist organisation (with about 750 staff) relative to other countries - how can this be? Scotland is different from the rest of the UK; it has its own education system, separate judicial and legal systems, and these, along with the Church, have helped to mould Scotland’s identity. Scotland is not an independent state so does not have direct membership of the United Nation nor its affiliated organisations. In 1999, the UK government devolved limited authority and power to the new Scottish Parliament, including judicial authority, education, health and industrial development – including tourism. Scotland, with a population of just over five million, has always looked outwards and innovation has long been part of Scottish culture. So can Scotland also take a lead in developing a new management structure for delivering tourism in Scotland in the 21st century

A review of the constraints, limitations and success of Homecoming Scotland 2009

The aim of this review is to provide insight and analysis of a government tourism initiative within the geographic context of Scotland. It highlights the centrality of public-private partnership and the catalytic role of key government agencies in channelling investment, energies, events and marketing effort for a nationally focused tourism theme of Homecoming Scotland 2009 (HS09). The review also delves below the public relations veneer of many such activities to uncover the political debates and controversies, and the wider issues that may have detracted from the degree of success achieved by the initiative

Introduction to CyberWarfare: Offensive and Defensive Software Technologies Minitrack

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The Use of YouTube as a Tourism Marketing Tool

YouTube started as a social media tool, but is now evolving into a marketing communications tool. The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of YouTube as a tourism-marketing tool from the viewpoint of tourism organizations and tourists. Developing its theoretical base from the perspective on how tourists recognize images, a review of 320 European tourism videos on YouTube concluded that many organizations failed to understand that media produced for traditional marketing outlets (TV, cinema) cannot be transferred directly to YouTube. The study also highlighted the growing power of the individual consumer in tourism marketing, as reflected in the dominance of tourism videos produced by real tourists rather than by official tourism organizations. The study concluded that while YouTube was useful as a promotional/ communications tool, more research is required to understand how the YouTube generation filter, select and use tourism information in their trip planning

Cyber Deception Architecture: Covert Attack Reconnaissance Using a Safe SDN Approach

Significant valuable information can be determined by observing attackers in action. These observations provide significant insight into the attacker’s TTPs and motivations. It is challenging to continue observations when attackers breach operational networks. This paper describes a deception network methodology that redirects traffic from the compromised Operational Network (O-Net) to an identically configured Deception Network (D-Net) minimizing any further compromise of operational data and assets, while also allowing the tactics, techniques, and procedures of the attacker to be studied. To keep the adversary oblivious to the transfer from the O-Net to the D-Net, we employ a sophisticated and unique packet rewriting technique using Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology that builds on two other strategies. This paper discusses the foundational strategies and introduces a new strategy that improves behavior for our described scenarios. We then provide some preliminary test results and suggest topics for further research

Draining the Water Hole: Mitigating Social Engineering Attacks with CyberTWEAK

Cyber adversaries have increasingly leveraged social engineering attacks to breach large organizations and threaten the well-being of today's online users. One clever technique, the "watering hole" attack, compromises a legitimate website to execute drive-by download attacks by redirecting users to another malicious domain. We introduce a game-theoretic model that captures the salient aspects for an organization protecting itself from a watering hole attack by altering the environment information in web traffic so as to deceive the attackers. Our main contributions are (1) a novel Social Engineering Deception (SED) game model that features a continuous action set for the attacker, (2) an in-depth analysis of the SED model to identify computationally feasible real-world cases, and (3) the CyberTWEAK algorithm which solves for the optimal protection policy. To illustrate the potential use of our framework, we built a browser extension based on our algorithms which is now publicly available online. The CyberTWEAK extension will be vital to the continued development and deployment of countermeasures for social engineering.Comment: IAAI-20, AICS-2020 Worksho

Behind the Curtain: Guest Suicides in Hotels and Tourist Attractions

There is an unwillingness by managers and owners in the tourism industry to acknowledge that suicides take place on their premises, and this along with the industry's reluctance to recognise that their guests' emotional baggage is not discarded at the entrance to tourism premises, has limited the exploration of suicides in hotels and attractions as a research topic. The aim of this paper is to investigate suicides by tourists at hotels and tourist attractions, with the objectives of: (1) exploring the impact of suicides on housekeeping staff, (2) discussing the management's responses to suicides, and (3) investigating whether design changes to the physical and service environment could prevent suicides. Following a literature review of suicides in both hotels and tourism attractions, a postal survey of housekeeping staff, along with in-depth interviews with their managers in two capital cities was undertaken. The paper concludes that, while some changes could be incorporated in the design of facilities, from a human resources perspective there is a clear need to better understand the impact of suicides on staff both directly and indirectly involved, and that more pre and post suicide staff training and support could be provided. However, because of the anonymity provided by tourism facilities they will always be attractive to those who are intent on committing suicide. The paper concludes by outlining some areas for possible further research, particularly in order to gain a better understanding of the motivation for such acts on tourism premises, and their psychological impact on staff.div_BaMpub2199pu

From Leisure to Pleasure: Societal Trends and Their Impact on Possible Future Scenarios for UK Rural Tourism in 2050

With the relative recent growth of rural tourism, there is a need to understand better both the long-term societal changes along with possible future advances in technology, to ensure that rural destinations are more aware of their consumer's future tourism expectations. Existing future rural tourism studies tend to focus on the relatively short-term (in terms of future studies timescales) and often assume that the future will be a reflection/extension of today, and lack any understanding of how possible future scenarios options may influence the future development of rural tourism. The objectives of this study are 1: To explore the major social trends that are likely to influence the future of rural tourism in the UK by 2050, and 2: To examine two possible rural development scenarios resulting from such trends. Through an exploration of both futures and tourism futures literature, a number of issues will be developed over two periods: the near and to some extent the known future scenario (next 10-20 years) and the far future scenario (20-40 years). The debate/discussion about these scenarios is framed within the context of both societal trends and future technology developments and their possible impacts on the rural tourism recreation experience. In terms of the future of rural tourism, there is likely to be a shift from functional leisure activities such as walking/hunting to experience/pleasure focused activities. We may also see the development of segregated/ protected/exclusive rural tourism areas that are only available to elite tourists who can afford to pay for the experience. For the great majority of tourists, driven by land use conflicts, labour and land shortages, they may expect to see an increase in the use of technology to deliver the future rural tourism experience, but this rural experience may be in an urban environment.div_BaMBeames, S. (2012) Eat, Play Shop: The Disneyization of Adventure. LSA International Conference: Learning, Living, Learning. Edinburgh. CNN. (2012) World's Top Economies in 2050. CNN.com blogs. Durie, A.J. (2006) Water is best: The hydro's and health tourism in Scotland 1840-1940. Edinburgh: John Donald. Evandrou, M., Falkingham, J., Rake, K., Scott, A. (2001) The dynamics of living arrangements in later life: Evidence from the British household panel survey. Population Trends Vol. 105, 37-44. Hay, B. (2012) The birth, death and rebirth of tourism. Professorial Lecture at Queen Margaret University. Inayatullah, S. (2002) Questioning the future: Futures studies, action learning and organizational transformation. Tamsul: Tamkang University. Juergen, M. (2011, June 21) Do the Robot. Entrepreneur. Khannia, A. & Khannia, P. (2011) Technology will take on a life of its own. The Future is Now: A Foreign Policy Special Report. Lindgren, M. & Bandhold, H. (2003) Scenario Planning: The Link Between Future and Strategy. New York: Palgrave McMillian. Lyons, D. (2011, 25 July) Who Needs Humans. Newsweek. Marinetti. F. (1909) Futurist Manifesto. Mondadori. Middleton, V.T.C. (2007) British Tourism: The Remarkable Story of Growth. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. ONS. (2011) Annual Abstracts of Statistics. Volume 145: 2009 Edition. Pearson, I. (2011) The 2030 Future of Sleep Report. London: Travelodge. Pimlott, J.A.R. (1947) The Englishman's Holiday: A Social History. Faber & Faber, Harvester Press. Roberts, L & Hall, D. (2001) Rural Tourism and Recreation: Principles to Practice. Oxon: CABI Publishing. Schwartz, P. (1999) The Art of the Long View. New York: Doubleday. Toffler, A. (1970) Future Shock. New York: Batman. Towner, J. (1996) A Historic Geography of Recreation and Tourism in the Western World 1540-1940. Chichester: Wiley & Sons. UNWTO. (2011) Tourism Towards 2030 Global Overview. Madrid: UNWTO. Warne, D. (2011, July 7) Inside The Hotel Room of the Future. Australian Business Traveler. Walter, A. (2012) What's Eating Google. Sunday Times, 29th July. Williamson, A.M & Shaw, G. (1988) Tourism and Economic Development. London: Printer. Yeoman, I. (2012) 2050 - Tomorrow's Tourists. Bristol: Channel View Publications.pub3105pu

Twitter Twitter - But who is listening? a review of the current and potential use of Twittering as a tourism marketing tool

EdinburghThis paper investigates the use of twittering as a tourism marketing, tool from the perspectives of destination marketing organisations (DMO), hotels and the consumer. Twittering is a social networking tool and, as with all such tools - especially one that has existed only since 2006 - its use is still evolving. This study had initially two objectives: to review the current use of twitter by DMOs and by hotels, but during the course of the research sufficient information was obtained from both these organisations to add a third objective, the perceived use of twittering by tourists. Using twitter as the survey instrument, in mid 2009 over 400 hotels and DMOs were contacted about their use of twitter as a marketing tool, both now and in the future. The results suggest that because twitter is the new kid on the social networking block and as its development is still evolving, both organisations and consumers are struggling to understand its full potential. Although it remains open as to twitter's effectiveness as marketing tool, two questions still remain - can a organisation be real friend, and the much bigger question - who is actually listening? The paper concludes that twittering provides a voice for the consumer to learn and to share common experiences, and outlines some issues that require further research.div_BaMpub1500pu