The COVID-19 pandemic will exert a devastating and destructive impact on the South African tourism economy with its ramifications felt countrywide. Nevertheless, the negative local impacts of the ...pandemic will be particularly harsh for those parts of South Africa where tourism is a critical sector in the local economy. The objective in this article is to identify the tourism spaces of vulnerability in South Africa. Use is made of the IHS Global Insight data base for 2016 to analyse at a local authority scale the most vulnerable localities to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indicators used to isolate tourism spaces of vulnerability are total tourism spend; tourism spend as a proportion of local GDP; domestic and international tourism (trips and bednights); and, leisure, business and VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travel. The analysis discloses those local authorities that are the most vulnerable to the downturn/collapse of tourism as a whole as well as to the hollowing out of specific forms of tourism, namely domestic as opposed to international travel, leisure as opposed to business or VFR travel.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 had a profound impact on the tourism economy, underscoring the critical importance of assessing and analyzing tourism economic resilience. Traditionally, ...prior research predominantly focused on constructing evaluation systems based on three dimensions: Risk preparedness capability, Restoration capability, and Reorganization and modernization capacity. In this study, we take an innovative approach by incorporating urban network thinking and establishing a tourism economic network, while introducing the dimension of “The rationality of network structure.” To comprehensively understand the dynamics of tourism economic resilience, we divided the period from 2018 to 2021 into three distinct phases: Stable period, Pre-shock period, and Shock period. This division allowed us to conduct comparative research that highlights the variations in tourism economic resilience across these different time frames. Additionally, we employed advanced methods, such as kernel density estimation and the GTWR model, for empirical analysis of tourism economic resilience within the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster. The results of our research unveiled that Chengdu and Chongqing both demonstrate a remarkable level of resilience within their tourism economies. However, given their status as the “dual core” of the Chengdu-Chongqing city agglomeration, they are inherently more susceptible to significant fluctuations when confronted with shocks. The spatial pattern of tourism economic resilience is characterized by prominent wings on both sides, a North-South balance, and a central region with vulnerabilities. The predominant evolutionary patterns are marked by multi-level stabilization, moderate growth, and moderate decline. Ziyang is an exceptional region within the broader growth zone, and its reduced risk preparedness capability has led to an overall decline in tourism economic resilience. Furthermore, key influencing factors, including the economy, infrastructure, and ecological environment, exhibit significant spatial heterogeneity. In conclusion, our study offers valuable insights into researching tourism economic resilience under external shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings can be instrumental in guiding policymakers as they develop effective strategies to bolster tourism economic resilience.
Despite extensive and active research on network structures in tourist destinations, literature on the spatial network structure of the tourism economy in urban agglomeration is limited. Taking Urban ...Agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (UAMRYR) as the case study, this study aims to examine the characteristics associated with the spatial network structure of the tourism economy by adopting the tourism economic gravity model and social network analysis (SNA). The main conclusions are as follows. The spatial network structure of the tourism economy in UAMRYR was loose, with limited adequate tourism economic connections and collaboration among various plates. As the three core cities, Wuhan, Changsha, and Nanchang not only had more tourism economic connections among other cities but also acted as an intermediary and a bridge between the spatial network structure of the tourism economy. To sum up, the findings of this study could be applied to formulate scientific policies to promote spatial integration and tourism economic cooperation in urban agglomerations.
•The Brexit is a political crisis that affects consumer decisions.•Research has focussed on economic effects, while missing social-psychological ones.•We explore how consumers’ decision change ...between a hard and soft Brexit scenario.•Trust in government is thereby lowering perceived uncertainty.•We found strong country differences for the effect of the Brexit scenarios.
For several years, the Brexit has been an ongoing political crisis with high uncertainty that nonetheless affects us in many ways. Until now, the academic debate has mainly emphasized the political, economic and legal consequences, while disregarding the social-psychological effects of the crisis. This article examined the relationships between trust in UK and EU government and perceived uncertainty, and how these relationships affected consumers’ choices (i.e., travelling decisions). We assessed these relationships in a two-country Brexit field experiment (UK and Germany; N = 1,228) confirming moderation by country differences, where trust in one’s own government has a weaker impact. In turn, the soft and hard Brexit scenarios moderated these country differences: for the British sample, the effect of trust in the EU government is stronger for a hard Brexit, while Germans showed a reversed and counterintuitive structure for trust in the UK government.
World Heritage inscription denotes recognition of cultural and natural properties that have outstanding universal value. This paper contributes to the debate on the tourism impact of WH inscription ...with prefectural city data from China. The difference-in-differences framework shows that WH inscription does not promote tourism in terms of tourism revenue and tourist arrivals, which is consistent under various robustness checks. Heterogeneity analysis finds a negative effect of World Heritage inscription on domestic tourism revenue in the developed eastern region, over time, and for World Cultural Heritages, caused by the inscription to properties involving multiple cities. The empirical results suggest that World Heritage inscription in China plays more roles in protecting inscribed properties than developing tourism from them.
•This paper identifies the causal effect of World Heritage on tourism.•China's prefectural city-level data and difference-in-differences method are used.•World Heritage inscription does not promote regional tourism.•The evidence is highly consistent under various robustness checks.•Heterogeneity effects on domestic tourism revenue are observed.
•Developing and extending Bourdieu’s theory of fields and capital into tourism.•Maps the practices between the informal/formal economy in Thailand.•Demonstrates the relational structures of capitals ...in the tourism system.•Advocates informal entrepreneurship as presenting opportunities not just challenges.•Makes policy recommendations for inclusion and development of the informal economy.
This article examines the types of capitals possessed by informal tourism entrepreneurs and locates their value within the field relations that orders their contribution to the tourism system. Bourdieu’s theory on fields and capitals was applied to ethnographic narrative accounts of stakeholders in tourism in Chiang Mai, Thailand to assess these roles. Informal entrepreneurs have limited access to resources and their perspectives are excluded from academic debates and policy initiatives. The paper identifies the dynamism, positive social capital, flexibility, and symbolic capital of informal entrepreneurs. These are related to the field conditions that determine and structure their contribution to tourism destinations. The analysis reveals the importance of collaboration between informal entrepreneurs and other stakeholders, concluding with recommendations for policy makers.
With the improvement in living standards, people’s demand for tourism has changed, and the form of tourism has developed from general sightseeing tourism to leisure tourism, vacation tourism, and so ...on. At the same time, the tourism market has also upgraded from price competition to service competition, from product diversification to model innovation. How to construct and improving the tourism industry system and promoting the development of the tourism industry is the key to the development of the regional economy. In light of the environmental changes faced by the development of the tourism economy, this paper discusses the main reasons for the development of the tourism economy in Japan.
While modern transportation infrastructure such as high-speed rail (HSR) is expected to facilitate great benefits to the tourism industry, the main mechanism of such impact is attributed to HSR can ...enhance accessibility by shortening travel time among cities. However, as it is people rather than HSR that have an impact on the tourism economy, the accessibility in the tourism context should include factors associated with demand. Moreover, given that the urban population, economic income, and HSR network in developing countries like China are still in a stage of rapid growth, it is necessary to assess the accessibility dynamically. As such, we created an indicator named HSR network hybrid accessibility based on the tourism scenario, which incorporates the spatial-temporal contraction effect of HSR and the tourism demand, to dynamically estimate the accessibility of the HSR network. The difference-in-differences method is applied to investigate the impact of the HSR network on the tourism economy of prefecture-level cities in China. We provide the evidence that on average, HSR network hybrid accessibility promotes domestic tourism revenue and the number of domestic tourists of prefecture-level cities respectively. Compared with previous research models, the proposed indicator of accessibility has better explanatory power than traditional measures. The findings highlight that a coordinated policy should be implemented to maximize the accessibility generated by the HSR network and ensure that tourism is facilitated in specific cities.
•A new accessibility measurement named HSR network hybrid accessibility is introduced.•The new indicator incorporates the spatial-temporal contraction effect of HSR and the tourism demand.•We use longitudinal data to better characterize the dynamics of accessibility.•The new indicator has better explanatory power than traditional measures.•Provides insights for policymakers on the synergistic development of the HSR network and the tourism economy.
At present, scholars hold two opposite views on the spatial impact (i.e., positive and negative impact) of high-speed rail (HSR) on tourism economy. To better explore the spatial impact of HSR on ...tourism economy, this paper uses the difference-in-differences (DID) to empirically test the causal effect of HSR and tourism economy, specifically by using the panel data of cities in Northeast China from 2010 to 2018 as research sample. On the whole, empirical results show that HSR has become an important factor in promoting the development of tourism economy. The impact of HSR on tourism economy in different years indicates that with the continuous promotion of HSR, the effect of HSR-driven tourism economy has become increasingly evident. On this basis, this paper classifies cities according to different types and finds that compared with ordinary prefecture-level cities, central cities are more affected by HSR. Compared with cities with high abundance of tourism resources, cities with low abundance of tourism resources are more affected by HSR. Therefore, current article is convinced that while seizing the opportunity of HSR, cities should actively avoid the negative impact brought by the development of HSR and truly promote the balanced development of regional tourism.
•We provide a broader understanding of the issue of HSR and tourism economy through detailed data and quantitative evidence.•Taking Northeast China as an example, the positive effect of HSR on tourism economy in underdeveloped regions is verified.•The impact of HSR on the tourism economy in Northeast China is heterogeneous.•The findings provide support for synergistic HSR planning and tourism development.
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