• General
  Information
• Entrepreneurship
  And Innovation
• Industry &Higher
  Education
• Outlook On
  Agriculture
• South East Asia
  Research
• Tourism
  Economics

Editorial coverage

Tourism Economics, published quarterly, covers the business aspects of tourism in the wider context. It takes account of constraints on development, such as social and community interests and the sustainable use of tourism and recreation resources, and inputs into the production process. The definition of tourism used includes tourist trips taken for all purposes, embracing both stay and day visitors.

Articles address the components of the tourism product (accommodation; restaurants; merchandizing; attractions; transport; entertainment; tourist activities); and the economic organization of tourism at micro and macro levels (market structure; role of public/private sectors; community interests; strategic planning; marketing; finance; economic development).

Core subject areas:

• forecasting
• public policy (strategies, fiscal and other intervention policies)
• economic development
• market structures and competition
• sources of capital provision
• labour economics (quality and productivity issues)
• business aspects of marketing
• private and public sector interaction
• economic appraisal at sector and project level
• mathematical modelling
• developments in the components of the product
• structure of the tourism industry (including such issues as ownership, corporate size, international operations, etc)
• regional economic effects of tourism developments
• analysis of international data on tourism, such as WTO statistics
  

Submissions - Notes for authors

Please send papers to Professor Stephen Wanhill, c/o IP Publishing Ltd, 258 Belsize Road, London NW6 4BT, UK.

Length and presentation of contributions

 Papers will normally be about 5,000 words long. However, this is by no means inflexible and substantially shorter or longer papers will be considered where appropriate. Research notes and shorter report-style pieces will also be considered (1,500-2,000 words).

Submissions should be double spaced, printed on one side of the paper, and two copies should be sent. An electronic version is not required for the initial submission, but authors of accepted papers will need to supply a disk with their final draft. Electronic versions should be in Word.

The title page should contain full names and addresses of the authors, their professional status or affiliation and the address to which correspondence should be sent. As this page will not be forwarded to referees, the title of the article (without authors) should be repeated on the first page of the text.

An abstract should be provided, comprising 80-100 words. Between 3 and 6 keywords should appear below the abstract, highlighting the main topics of the paper. The text should be organized under appropriate cross-headings (not numbered paragraphs) and where possible these should be not more than 800 words apart.

References should follow the Harvard system. That is, they should be shown within the text as the author's surname (or authors' surnames) followed by a comma and the year of publication, all in round brackets: for example, (Smith, 1998). At the end of the article a bibliographical list should be supplied, organized alphabetically by author (surnames followed by initials - all authors should be named). Bibliographic information should be given in the order indicated by the following examples:

• Articles: Knapman, B., and Stoeckl, N. (1995), 'Recreation user fees: an Australian empirical investigation', Tourism Economics, Vol 1, No 1, pp 5-15.
• Books: Manning, R.E. (1999), Studies in Outdoor Recreation: Search and Research for Satisfaction, Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, OR.
  

Notes should be numbered consecutively in the text and typed in plain text at the end of the paper (not as footnotes on text pages).

Tables and illustrations should be presented separately at the end of the text.

Prior Publication

Articles are received on the understanding that they are original contributions, and have not been published officially, either in print or electronic form, or submitted for publication elsewhere. In this respect, ‘discussion’ or ‘working’ papers, conference presentations and proceedings are not considered to be official publications, unless they have been formally deemed so by conference organizers, or presented as edited works through recognized publishing channels. If in doubt, authors are asked to draw the attention of the Editor to any prior dissemination of the paper in their letter of submission.

Refereeing

All papers, other than research notes and reports, will be subject to a 'double blind' review - i.e. the anonymity of both authors and referees will be maintained throughout the refereeing process. There will be a minimum of two referees for each paper. Papers by authors who are not academics (such as submissions from industry) will also be subject to review before acceptance, but their distinct nature and aims will be fully taken into account.

Copyright

Unless otherwise indicated, submissions are received on the understanding that they are original contributions,, and have not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. The editor reserves the right to edit or otherwise alter contributions, but authors will see proofs before publication. Authors will be asked to assign copyright, where possible, to IP Publishing Ltd. Relevant authors’ rights are protected.

Editorial Board

Editor: Stephen Wanhill, Professor of Tourism Economics, University of Limerick, and Emeritus Professor of Tourism Research, Bournemouth University, c/o IP Publishing Ltd, 258 Belsize Road, London NW6 4BT, UK.

Special Advisers

• Professor John Fletcher, International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research,
  Bournemouth University, UK
• Professor William C. Gartner, Tourism Center,
  University of Minnesota, USA
• Professor Sang Mu Kim, Department of Tourism Management,
  Keimyung University, Korea
• Professor J. Mazanec, Institute of Tourism,
  Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria
• Professor Lindsay W. Turner, School of Applied Economics
  Victoria University, Australia

Editorial Advisory Board

• Professor Eugeni Aguiló
  Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain
• Professor Esteban Bardolet
  Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain
• Professor Carlos Pestana Barros
  Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Professor Tom Baum
  Strathclyde Business School, UK
• Professor Eberhard Bischoff
  University of Wales Swansea, UK
• Professor Adam Blake
  Bournemouth University, UK
• Professor Jim Deegan
  University of Limerick, Ireland
• Dr Sarath Divisekera
  Victoria University of Technology, Australia
• Professor Larry Dwyer
  University of New South Wales, Australia
• Professor Peter Forsyth
  Monash University, Australia
• Professor D.C. Frechtling
  The George Washington University, USA
• Dr Twan Huybers
  University of New South Wales, Australia
• Professor Carson L. Jenkins
  University of Strathclyde, UK
• Professor Brian King
  Victoria University, Australia
• Dr Peter Morrell
  Cranfield University, UK
• Professor Richard R. Perdue
  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
• Professor J.R. Brent Ritchie
  University of Calgary, Canada
• Professor Christopher Ryan
  University of Waikato, New Zealand
• Professor Andrea Saayman
  North-West University, South Africa
• Dr Mondher Sahli
  Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
• Professor Egon Smeral
  Austrian Institute of Economic Research and University of Innsbruck, Austria
• Professor Haiyan Song
  Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, PR China
• Dr Brian Terry
  Terry & Partners, UK
• Professor John Westlake
  Prince of Songkla University, Thailand

Vol 16 No 2 June 2010

Back to Top

Title: Productivity growth and sources of technological change in travel agencies

Author(s): Laurent Botti, Walter Briec, Nicolas Peypoch and Bernardin Solonandrasana

Abstract: This paper proposes a procedure for analysing tourism productivity. The procedure is based on the Luenberger productivity indicator for estimating and decomposing productivity change into efficiency change and technological change. The authors expand the procedure and further decompose the process of technological change to study the sources of bias within it. Therefore, a clearer and more enlightening view emerges of the productivity of travel agencies. The Portuguese travel agency sector is used as an application. Some managerial implications are developed.

Back to Top

Title: International arrivals in the Canary Islands: persistence, long memory, seasonality and other implicit dynamics

Author(s): Luis A. Gil-Alana

Abstract: This study models international monthly arrivals in the Canary Islands using different time- series approaches that enable an examination of the degree of persistence of the series. The author focuses on long memory processes at the long-run or zero frequency, at the seasonal frequencies and at both simultaneously. A forecasting experiment is also conducted and the results indicate that the model with two differencing parameters seems to be the most adequate specification for this series, being non- stationary with respect to the two components and mean reverting with respect to the seasonal structure.

Back to Top

Title: Persistence change in tourism data

Author(s): Jorge M.L.G. Andraz and Paulo M.M. Rodrigues Abstract: The authors apply recently proposed persistence change tests to inbound tourism series in order to evaluate whether their properties have changed over time. By using quarterly series of the number of overnight stays in hotel accommodation and similar establishments in the Algarve, from 1987:01 to 2008:03, they gathered evidence of persistence change in all series. In particular, a change from I(1) to I(0) was detected for some countries, while for others the direction change was not clear- cut. These results have implications from a policy perspective and shed light on the generally accepted conviction that policy decision processes should not ignore the fact that, in general, tourism inbound series display mean reverting behaviour, being only temporarily affected by external shocks.

Back to Top

Title: Coping with externalities in tourism: a dynamic optimal taxation approach

Author(s): Stefan F. Schubert

Abstract: The paper studies optimal taxation (subvention) when tourism is associated with ‘multiple externalities’, using a simple dynamic model of a small open economy specializing completely in the production of tourism services and populated by a large number of intertemporally optimizing agents. Depending on the volume of tourism production, the externality can be either positive or negative. The study shows that the first best optimum, achieved by a central planner recognizing the externality, can be replicated in a decentralized economy by using a time-varying tax rate. This ensures (i) that the steady state of the first best optimum is reached and (ii) that the speed of convergence to steady state is socially optimal.

Back to Top

Title: Hotel quality appraisal on the Internet: a market for lemons?

Author(s): Marta Fernández-Barcala, Manuel González-Díaz and Juan Prieto-Rodríguez

Abstract: Potential guests have difficulties in obtaining reliable ex ante assessments of hotels because of the adverse selection problem. Consumers now have a new source of information about hotel quality: information providers on the Internet. The key issue is the degree of reliability of this information. Two types of Internet information providers can be distinguished: those that also sell the assessed services (‘sale Websites’) and those that do not sell services (‘advice Websites’). The former obtain their income via fees, while the latter obtain theirs via advertising (number of hits). It is argued that the information on advice Websites is more reliable than that on sale Websites because the latter suffer from a misalignment of incentives arising from the inverse relationship between income/reward and the quality of the report. Our results show that sale Websites (fee financed) provide an assessment of the quality of their hotels which is on average 7% higher than the equivalent assessment of advice Websites (advertising financed). This difference increases significantly with the hotel category, with up to a 9% increase for five-star hotels. It is also shown that there are systematic differences in the quality appraisal between these two types of information providers. The main implications for tourists and hotel managers are outlined.

Back to Top

Title: A microsimulation model for e-services in cultural heritage tourism

Author(s): Eveline van Leeuwen and Peter Nijkamp

Abstract: Tourism is on a rising curve from both policy and research perspectives. This paper presents new research advances on individual tourist behaviour and motives, with particular reference to the role of e-services in cultural heritage tourism. An innovative tool adopted here is (spatial) microsimulation modelling (MSM). This method is used to offer a micro-based picture of the motives and behaviour of the total tourist and resident population concerned, including their preferences and personal characteristics. MSM is a novel but hitherto little used scientific tool in the behavioural analysis of cultural heritage tourism, mainly because of the lack of detailed and consistent (spatial) information on tourist flows and their characteristics at an urban scale. MSM is a powerful tool: one of its advantages is its ability to link existing databases and information, so as to provide new behavioural insights at the meso-level of research. To trace the motives, preferences and spatial behaviour of tourists empirically, advanced micro-based research techniques are needed. In this empirical application to tourist flows in the city of Amsterdam, the authors use factor analysis and ordered logit models as the foundation stones for the design of MSM. The empirical model is then applied to the use of e-services by tourists in Amsterdam who wish to enjoy the cultural heritage of the city.

Back to Top

Title: Portugal’s Minho–Lima region as a tourist destination: tourism operators’ attitudes towards its management and promotion

Author(s): José Cadima Ribeiro and Laurentina Cruz Vareiro

Abstract: The success of tourism development depends on the capacity of a region’s tourism agents to establish and sustain networks, involving both private-sector companies and the public sector. Creating an attractive destination able to compete with others that are better positioned and consolidated requires cooperative behaviour among the various agents involved. This behaviour will facilitate both external and internal competition, which in turn will assure better product quality, continuous product renewal, a strong offer of unique experiences and the efficient use of endogenous resources. In this paper, the authors discuss the results of a survey of restaurant owners and of interviews conducted with the main institutional agents concerned with tourism promotion and the economic development of the Minho–Lima region. Such an approach, the authors argue, can be valuable in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the area in question with regard to future tourism development. The authors work from the premise that the commitment of tourism agents constitutes a precondition for the success of the strategy to be defined. This is especially applicable to Minho–Lima, which to date has suffered from an absence of commitment and coordination on the part of those agents.

Back to Top

Title: Assessing tourism supply quality using formative indicators: implications for destination management

Author(s): Tanja Dmitrović and Vesna Žabkar

Abstract: Perceived tourism supply quality influences a visitor’s satisfaction with a particular destination as well as his or her post-visit behaviour. It is therefore an important source of a destination’s competitive advantage. To identify those destination attributes that are the most influential in forming visitors’ quality perceptions, the authors conceptualize tourism supply quality as a formative (as opposed to a reflective) construct. The conceptual model is validated empirically on three destination samples using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results show that relevant destination attributes are destination-specific, while the hypothesized relationships between destination attributes, overall destination quality, visitor satisfaction and behavioural intentions are largely supported. In addition, formative measurement models are found to have larger explanatory power than reflective measurement models.

Back to Top

Title: Tourism development in Madeira: an analysis based on the life cycle approach

Author(s): António Almeida and Antónia Correia

Abstract: This paper identifies Madeira Island’s growth stage in accordance with Butler’s life cycle model. Life cycle analysis is pursued using an econometric approach over an extended period, from 1976 to 2006. The results suggest that Madeira is about to enter the stagnation phase. The industry’s development since the 1970s was found to conform to Butler’s model, but in its own way. In the case of Madeira, the island’s positive image and the time span within each of the life cycle stages challenge the traditional life cycle model, suggesting rather that the maturity stage may persist indefinitely.

Back to Top

Title: Does destination image influence the length of stay in a tourism destination?

Author(s): Luiz Pinto Machado

Abstract: This paper analyses the relationship between the image of a destination and demand duration, focusing specifically on Madeira. A seemingly unrelated discrete-choice duration model is adopted, with data from a questionnaire survey undertaken in 2008 on a sample of homeward-bound foreign individuals departing from Madeira’s Funchal Airport. The paper discusses the policy implications of the research findings.

Back to Top