THRESHOLD EFFECT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE ON TOURISM SECTOR DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM TOP 10 AFRICAN DESTINATIONS

Tourism has become an information-intensive business that heavily relies on ICT to provide information and conduct transactions for consumers of touristic products and services. Thus, ICT infrastructure would play a major role in the development of the tourism sector. This paper aims to investigate the threshold effect of ICT infrastructure on tourism sector development in top10 African tourism destinations including ; Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda. To do so, a double panel threshold regression model utilized over the period 2004 to 2017. The empirical results revealed a new perspective that there is a double-threshold effect of ICT infrastructure on the development of tourism sector, indicating a non-linear effect of ICT infrastructure on the development of tourism sector in top 10 African tourism destinations. More specifically, the empirical results reveal that ICT infrastructure weakly and positively derives the number of intentional tourism arrivals and international tourist receipts when the level of ICT infrastructure is less or equal to the first threshold, while it strongly and positively derives the number of intentional tourism arrivals and international tourist when the level of ICT infrastructure is less or equal to the first and second thresholds. Thus, this paper provides important implications for policy makers, in that maximizing the benefits from information technology in developing tourism sector can be achieved when its level between certain critical threshold values.

The well-being impacts of tourism: Long-term and short-term effects of tourism development on residents’ happiness

Well-being is considered one of the highest values in human life. Although previous studies have discussed the tourists’ well-being outcomes, the impact of tourism on residents’ happiness has received less empirical attention in tourism research. This study aims to explore the effects of tourism development on residents’ happiness in a group of countries by using panel data analysis. The results demonstrate that tourism arrivals negatively influence residents’ happiness in the short term and have positive effects on residents’ happiness in the long term. These findings contribute to describing the well-being impacts of tourism, differentiating between long- and short-term outcomes, and providing recommendations for destination management and tourism authorities.

Air connectivity for leisure tourism the way forward

International tourism arrivals by air account for almost 60% of all tourism arrivals. Despite the spectacular increase in air connectivity there are distinct differences between connectivity types, with direct and indirect connectivity, airport connectivity and hub connectivity. Tourism destinations are impacted by the air connectivity type that is available in their nearby or serving airport. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the tourism dynamics resulting from the emerging transformations in air connectivity, and the implications on international air travel. Increased air connectivity is linked to economic growth and development, however direct air connectivity has been driving both tourism and air transport industries. The introduction of new aircraft which can fly longer and more economically is likely to transform direct connectivity and hub connectivity at the same time. Airline business models have evolved over the last 20 years and it is highly likely that this transformation will continue to unfold since the market and the passengers’ needs are constantly evolving. Implications for airlines and destinations will be discussed, outlining the trends which are dominating the industry in terms of connectivity and its relation to tourism destinations.

A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT THE EVOLUTION OF ROMANIAN TOURISM, AT THE BORDER BETWEEN THE MILLENNIA (1989-2019)

During the last 30 years we have witnessed major changes in tourism worldwide due to a lot of factors. Changes in political situation in Eastern Europe open a lot of countries to international tourism. Changes in air transport made more accessible some overseas or island destination. The increase of general welfare boosted the demand for tourism and the stability of the socio-political environment sustains a steady upward trend in international tourism arrivals. Looking back at Romania’s tourism we see a period with major structural changes and some major turning points. A brief evolution of the sector is presented with an emphasis on the most important years. The most important regulations are presented in this paper together with their impact on Romania’s tourism sector. To show a more accurate image we include main statistical information about this topic demonstrating that tourism is an important part of Romanian economy.

Maldives will manage militancy and virus risks

Significance The attempted assassination involved a remote-controlled device, signalling new capabilities among local militant groups. Separately, the Maldives has recently had a sharp rise in its COVID-19 outbreak, although daily new cases are now on a broadly downward trajectory. The country reopened its economically vital tourism industry in July 2020 following a pandemic-related shutdown. Impacts Recently imposed restrictions on inbound travel from other South Asian countries may cause tourism arrivals to fall this month. Islamist groups will focus on state targets in any further attacks that they plan. The ruling party, of which Nasheed is the president, will struggle to accelerate the reform agenda that it champions.

THE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

The COVID -19 pandemic made 2020 a devastating year for the tourism industry. To stop the spreading of the virus the restrictive measures such as lockdowns, have affected many economies, from which tourism suffers directly and greatly. The purpose of this study is to analyze the state of tourism at the international level and tourism in the Republic of Serbia during the pandemic, by examining the tourist arrivals and overnight stays in 2020. At the international level, the loss in tourism arrivals and receipts experience even the leading regions in tourism. Also in Serbia, there is a noticeable decrease in foreign tourist arrivals and overall tourist arrivals in 2020.

Collaboration and technology for more sustainable and responsible tourism marketing

Vulnerable is how we are nowadays. In fact, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is neither time limited nor spatially contained. But like many other natural disasters, the pandemic brought calamities and inequalities (Shklar, 1990), threatens the environment and raises a problem of precarity that is no longer limited to the poor and dependent as contagion patterns have no boundaries (Forester & McKibbon, 2020). So even more than revealing the vulnerability wealthy countries are facing, the pandemic forces us to recognize our progressively more interdependent lives in a globalized world and the responsibility to safeguard the planet. Economies all over the world were hindered by Covid-19 but tourism was completely devasted by this pandemic. In the first five months of 2020, international tourism arrivals decreased by more than half and some $320 billion dollars in exports from tourism were lost. Overall, some 120 million direct jobs in tourism are at risk (WTO, 2020). The current situation recalls emergency status for countries that depend on tourism and for minorities that may find in tourism a driver to social integration, empowerment and income. The Covid-19 crisis offers opportunities to rebuild tourism in a safe, equitable and sustainable way. To that end technology, partnerships and sustainable and responsible practices are strategic.

ARE SHOCKS TO TOURIST ARRIVALS IN MOROCCO PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY?

The main goal of this paper is to examine whether shocks had a permanent or temporary effect on international tourist arrivals in Morocco for its top 8 source countries. For this purpose, we apply the Harvey, Leybourne and Xiao (2008) linearity test and the linear tests and non-linear unit root (Elliott, Rothenberg, & Stock, 1996; Hepsag, 2019; Kruse, 2011; Lee & Strazicich, 2004). The results show that the series with linear characteristics are tourist arrivals from UK and USA and those with non-linear characteristics are tourist arrivals from Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Germany. The unit root tests reject the null hypothesis of a non-stationarity in tourist arrivals from all countries except the Germany. The implication of these findings is that the shocks had a temporary effect on tourism arrivals from 7 markets to Morocco. Therefore, Morocco's tourism sector is a sustainable industry as external shocks have not had long term disruption in the flow of tourist arrivals.

The food import: International tourism nexus in Croatia: An application of the ARDL and NARDL approach and causality

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between food import dependency and the international tourist arrivals in Croatia during the period spanning 1969-2018. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on the above hypothesis by detecting the causality between foods imports represented as various food products and international tourism arrivals, that suit as a proxy for tourism consumption. The study method was able to capture symmetries in the relationship between some food import products and tourism, known as autoregressive-distributed lags, but not for all imported food items designed for this study. Since an asymmetric analysis, in such cases, requires the use of nonlinear models, we use nonlinear models and find evidence of asymmetric cointegration. For almost two decades before the global COVID-19 crisis, we conclude, Croatia's food imports grew rapidly, and these imports appear to be mainly driven by exports of services linked to pervasive tourism expansion.

Determining Terrorism Proxies for the Relationship with Tourism Demand: A Global View

This study examines the determinants of the relationship between terrorism and tourism, by testing different proxies to assess both the frequency and the severity of terrorist activity. The methodological approach includes implementing Principal Component Analysis into four different sets of possible proxies for terrorism in order to examine their relationship with international tourism arrivals over the period 1998-2018. The dataset includes world tourist flows and terrorist incidents anywhere in the world in order to avoid regional effects. The empirical results show that all candidate proxies exhibit a long-run, negative relationship with tourism, while there is also an impact of tourism on terrorism, with conflicting directions between the short run and the long run. The findings suggest that increased terrorist activity may cause destination substitution in the short run but will have adverse effects in the long run. In addition, authorities should be prepared for a rise in terrorist incidents during periods with increased tourist flows. Finally, research on terrorism should take into account the qualitative characteristics of terrorist activities.