Making Santorini: reflecting on the past, imagining the future

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Lichrou ◽  
Lisa O’Malley ◽  
Maurice Patterson

Purpose Strategic analyses of Mediterranean destinations have well documented the impacts of mass tourism, including high levels of seasonality and landscape degradation as a result of the “anarchic” nature of tourism development in these destinations. The lack of a strategic framework is widely recognised in academic and popular discourse. What is often missing, however, is local voice and attention to the local particularities that have shaped the course of tourism development in these places. Focusing on narratives of people living and working in Santorini, Greece, this paper aims to examine tourism development as a particular cultural experience of development. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted narrative interviews with 22 local residents and entrepreneurs. Participants belonged to different occupational sectors and age groups. These are supplemented with secondary data, consisting of books, guides, documentaries and online news articles on Santorini. Findings The analysis and interpretation by the authors identify remembered, experienced and imagined phases of tourism development, which we label as romancing tourism, disenchantment and reimagining tourism. Research limitations/implications Professionalisation has certainly allowed the improvement of quality standards, but in transforming hosts into service providers, a distance and objectivity is created that results in a loss of authenticity. Authenticity is not just about what the tourists seek but also about what a place is or can be, and the “sense of place” that residents have and use in their everyday lives. Social implications Local narratives offer insights into the particularities of tourism development and the varied, contested and dynamic meanings of places. Place narratives can therefore be a useful tool in developing a reflexive and participative place-making process. Originality/value The study serves the understanding of how tourism, subject to the global-local relations, is a particular experience of development that shapes a place’s identity. The case of Santorini shows how place-making involves changing, multilayered desires and contradictory visions of tourism and development. This makes socio-cultural and environmental challenges hard to resolve. It is thus challenging to change the course of development, as various actors at the local level and beyond have diverse interests and interpretations of what is desirable for the place.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Natasha Siahaan ◽  
Putu Wuri Handayani ◽  
Fatimah Azzahro

PurposeIn the context of social media (SM) use, self-disclosure (SD) behaviour meets users' social and emotional needs, but it is also accompanied by risks that can harm users. This paper aims to identify the factors that influence users' SD behaviour on SM in Indonesia, using a comparative analysis based on age groups.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted on 2,210 respondents who were active SM users in Indonesia. Data were processed and analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling with AMOS 24.0 software.FindingsResults indicate that, in the overall age group data, factors such as use of information (UI), trust, privacy control (PC), interactivity, perceived benefits (PB) and perceived risks (PR) influence users' SD behaviour. This research also found differences in the characteristics of SD behaviour between age groups.Originality/valueFindings from this study can help SM service providers to evaluate the credibility and reliability of their platforms to encourage user retention.


Significance The new rules follow a stand-off between Twitter and the central government last month over some posts and accounts. The government has used this stand-off as an opportunity not only to tighten rules governing social media, including Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and LinkedIn, but also those for other digital service providers including news publishers and entertainment streaming companies. Impacts Government moves against dominant social media platforms will boost the appeal of smaller platforms with light or no content moderation. Hate speech and harmful disinformation are especially hard to control and curb on smaller platforms. The new rules will have a chilling effect on online public discourse, increasing self-censorship (at the very least). Government action against online news media would undercut fundamental democratic freedoms and the right to dissent. Since US-based companies dominate key segments of the Indian digital market, India’s restrictive rules could mar India-US ties.


M/C Journal ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Caldwell

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is in the midst of significant change as a result of budgetary pressures from the government and the challenge of the oncoming digital age. Lack of funding and dwindling resources have forced the ABC to shut down many of its regional services and to outsource many of its formerly in-house productions. However, there do appear some ways in which the ABC might meet, as the rhetoric goes, "the challenge of the digital era". Traditionally, the role of the ABC has included the provision of comprehensive coverage of, and service for, the whole of Australia, including regions that would be economically unfeasible for commercial operations to penetrate. Recently, however, budgetary cuts have eroded this role substantially, with the axing of state based current affairs and the cessation of Radio Triple J's planned expansion into regional Australia. The Internet has provided a potential, if problematic, stop-gap solution, through the launch of the ABC's online news service. Internet based news solutions have few of the production-end overheads of the television service. There are no expensive studio set ups, no presenters, no cameras, just text that can be quickly keyed into the system and formatted for instantaneous, non-linear delivery. I should note at this point that currently, this "delivery" is in the passive sense of the word: users must search out the content and download it onto their machines. In Internet jargon, this is called "pull" technology. New technologies being developed promise to "push" the content automatically and directly to a user's computer. The ABC's implementation, taking advantage of all these benefits, is text-based, comprehensive, updated constantly, and easy to use. Currently, however, delivery of Internet-based content is tied to the existing phone network, and with most Internet service providers based in state capitals, regional Internet access is hindered by the cost of long-distance calls. The potential exists, nonetheless, for the ABC to achieve truly national coverage by methods that bypass existing structures. The planned shift by Australian TV networks to digital transmission has the potential to enable new possibilities for public broadcasting. A digital infrastructure could allow information and programming to be cheaply produced at the local level, then recompiled centrally and redistributed across the country. The convergence of computer and television will enable a greater variety of content to be sent to the home -- and, possibly, sent back out again in an altered form. Such a transformation of the way we experience television may well alter the concept of public broadcasting beyond recognition, if not render it obsolete. However, these possibilities, although reasonable given projected advances in technology, so far largely remain fantasy due to the debate over regulation between the Federal government and the commercial networks. It remains to be seen whether the ABC will be able to take advantage of the new opportunities. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Nick Caldwell. "Looking to a Digital Future: Thoughts on the New ABC." M/C Journal 1.1 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.media-culture.org.au/9807/abc.php>. Chicago style: Nick Caldwell, "Looking to a Digital Future: Thoughts on the New ABC," M/C Journal 1, no. 1 (1998), <http://www.nedia-culture.org.au/9807/abc.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Nick Caldwell. (1998) Looking to a digital future: thoughts on the new ABC. M/C Journal 1(1). <http://www.media-culture.org.au/9807/abc.php> ([your date of access]).


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ecem Ince ◽  
Deniz Iscioglu ◽  
Ali Ozturen

Purpose Sustainability concept exists in the soul of the Cittaslow (slow city) philosophy. This protest movement is mainly based on the philosophy of sustainability by promoting the “slowness” perspective and the concept of sustainable development at the local level. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts of Cittaslow (slow city) philosophy on support for sustainable tourism development in North Cyprus. In this context, this research study is concentrated on the influences of Cittaslow practices on support for sustainable tourism development with dimensions in terms of socio-cultural, economic and ecological aspects. Design/methodology/approach This study was based on a quantitative research approach to observe the significant effects and meet the objectives. The data were collected randomly by self-administrated questionnaires from residents who are living in the slow cities (Yeni Bogaziçi, Mehmetçik, Lefke, Geçitkale and Tatlisu) at North Cyprus. Findings The partial least squares approach to the structural equation model was used to analyze the data. The research results were discussed the critical issues and consequences in the management of slow cities. Originality/value The slow city concept is a very significant movement that emphasizes the importance of local differences and sustainability. There is a lack of knowledge about the effects of Cittaslow membership and efforts on sustainable tourism development in North Cyprus. The critical factors and implications were pinpointed for enhancing sustainable tourism development in slow cities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Wharton Kaye-Essien

PurposeThe object of this paper is to understand how central–local relations and internal technical characteristics contribute to performance reporting delays at the local level in a Global South context.Design/methodology/approachThe paper develops and tests four propositions using a combination of secondary data analyses and semistructured interviews with 30 local government officials.FindingsThe findings indicate that delays in performance reporting are generally high in pre-election years because leadership commitments at the local level largely shift toward national politics (campaigning for re-election of the president). Additional reporting delays were found to be the result of low financial capacity to maintain appropriate data collection and management systems, lack of highly trained monitoring and evaluation experts at the local level and lack of sanctions for noncompliance.Research limitations/implicationsThe fact that some types of Districts (large municipalities and metro areas with access to large financial resources) were excluded from the analysis induces some bias to the findings. The choice of 30 out of a total 260 local governments limits the analyses to only 12% of views and perceptions of local government reporting delay. Additionally sourcing responses from a few monitoring and evaluation (M&E) personnel out of hundreds of mid- to upper-level employees limited the breath of discussions that could have resulted from a broader study.Practical implicationsThe results of this paper suggest that any attempt at imposing sanctions on late reporting may not be very successful since national party politics, which lie outside the control of municipalities, is one of the main factors that drive reporting delay. Rather than imposing sanctions, government should consider incentivizing the reporting process. On the other hand, since internally generated funds (IGF) and the M&E team are factors that lie within the control of the municipality, any attempt to decrease reporting delay should first focus on improving local revenues and strengthening municipal M&E capacity building.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the existing literature by offering directions for approaching performance reporting delay in two ways. First, it emphasizes central–local relations as an important political determinant of performance reporting delay. Second, it explores reporting delay in Ghana's local governments and therefore provides useful insights from a Global South perspective.


2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-201
Author(s):  
Mandeep Kaur ◽  
Tina Vohra

Purpose The paper aims to attempt to identify the attributes that women look for in their financial advisor and to examine if the choice of attributes of a financial advisor among women investors in Punjab is the same across demographics. The understanding of the attributes that women want in their financial advisor will help the financial advisors to be mindful of the opportunities and the challenges they have to face while working with women investors. Studying the impact of demographics on the choice of the investment advisor would enable the service providers to provide women with services relevant to their unique and individual situations. Design/methodology/approach A pre-tested, well-structured questionnaire was constructed and administered personally, and the responses of 200 women investors were analyzed. The sum of the ranks assigned by women to various attributes determining the choice of a financial advisor was used to find out the most preferred attribute on the basis of which women choose their financial advisor. The Kruskal Wallis test was used to analyze the impact of demographics on the choice of the respondents. Findings The results of the study brought out that the friendliness of the financial advisor, and the quality of advice provided by them are preferred attributes determining the choice of a financial advisor. Along with this, the results also state that the preference for the attribute friendliness and quality of advice is not the same across age groups. The choice of attributes also varies according to the marital status of the respondents. Practical implications The current study will contribute toward a greater understanding of the attributes which are considered important by women while choosing their financial advisor. The study will help the financial advisors to cater to the needs of their women clients. Moreover, the study will also benefit women by bringing about a positive change in the attitude of the financial advisors in favor of them. The greater sensitization of the financial advisors toward their women clients would lead to greater stock market participation among women, thereby benefitting the society. Originality/value The paper is an attempt to identify the attributes that women look for in their financial advisor and to examine if the choice of attributes of a financial advisor among women investors in Punjab is the same across demographics or not. Therefore, the study contributes to the understanding of the investment behavior of women.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Azwindini Isaac Ramaano

Purpose Musina municipality is one of the driest regions in Limpopo Province, South Africa. It is, like many rural communities within the country, a low-income area. Nonetheless, being embedded within the tourism-orientated landscape of the Vhembe district in Limpopo, it possesses the potential for community-based tourism. This study aims to review the perception and application of tourism development policy in the Municipality using primary and secondary data. The study discovered poor enforcement of tourism development policy paired with a substandard knowledge of sustainable and responsible tourism principles. Consequently, the negative environmental impacts of tourism activities had exacerbated. The study recommends a need for improved policy implementation and strategies to advance local communities’ livelihoods while also managing natural resources.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Mahmudul Alam ◽  
Ala Eldin Awawdeh ◽  
Azim Izzuddin Bin Muhamad

PurposeThis study aims to explore the challenges and prospects of using e-wallets in Malaysia, and what it means for businesses and customers. Suggested here are strategies to leverage the strengths and opportunities as well as overcome the weaknesses and threats. Suggested here are strategies to leverage the strengths and opportunities as well as overcome the weaknesses and threats.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyses the e-wallet phenomenon using a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to assess Malaysian business development. It is supported with findings from the literature and secondary data. The relevant secondary data were collected from Bank Negara Malaysia and the World Bank.FindingsThis study shows that e-wallets in Malaysia have still not achieved their purpose but there is huge potential to do so. The SWOT analysis identified several strengths (e.g. financial incorporation, easy to access, protection and safety, simple for other accounts to connect to, product and consumer service management, quick to implement/administer), weaknesses (e.g. lack of infrastructure and the “tapping” of devices already cornered by the mobile phone market, opportunities (e.g. eliminating fraud, better customer service, promotion/loyalty that can be built into customer experience) and threats (e.g. attacks from viruses, frequent inquiries whether multiple wallets can be used by clients, the concerns of reckless spending behaviour of the e-wallet users).Research limitations/implicationsThis study is crucial for assessing the current situation and the prospects of e-wallets in Malaysia. This study also offers significant insights for policymakers and e-wallet service providers to develop appropriate strategies to enhance e-wallet services in Malaysia.Originality/valueThis paper is the first of its kind to integrate a SWOT analysis and the rapid development of the e-wallet market in Malaysia. Hence, the findings could broaden our knowledge on the fintech industry and enable firms to participate in the e-wallet market.


Subject Tourism outlook. Significance Tourism accounts for about 10% of global GDP and jobs, when direct, indirect, induced and catalytic effects are considered. The pandemic and associated travel restrictions have severely hit tourism and its business ecosystem. Social distancing will be enforced where possible until there is a vaccine or effective treatment, with major economic and social ramifications. It potentially threatens the wide accessibility of tourism. Impacts Mass tourism will become more expensive and could even be constrained by government policy. Tourism service providers will have to restructure their revenue management models to achieve higher yields with fewer customers. Destinations will rebrand to promote the benefits of lower tourist numbers; health-related infrastructure investment will grow. Sectors associated with tourism, such as construction and travel insurance, will need to adapt their business models carefully.


Author(s):  
Aida Ciro ◽  
Merita Toska

The tourism sector in Albania has been upheld as a government development priority and a promising window for overall local economic development. Although these ambitions have started to shape the governance of the sector, the inherent challenges on a governance level have meant that most of the tourism development on a local level is being led by local initiatives and the private sector service providers. These initiatives are often fueled by entrepreneurial drive and are sustained by a network of local community actors, giving rise to applied models of sustainable tourism development, as shown by numerous agritourist enterprises emerging across Albania. Through a case study approach, this chapter will focus on the role entrepreneurial eco-systems rooted in local communities can play in the development of sustainable tourism models in Albania.


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