Linking tourism, retirement migration and social capital

A general trend in the study of international retirement migration has been the increased attention paid to the social contacts and network connections of the migrants in both the destination and the origin areas. These studies have examined the extent to which migrants build social relationships with their neighbours and the host society while also maintaining social links with their countries of origin, addressing the central role that leisure travel plays in sustaining increasingly dispersed social networks and maintaining the social capital of these networks and of the individuals involved in them. Using a case study approach to examine British retirement migration to Spain, we explore the relevance of transnational social networks in the context of international retirement migration, particularly the intensity of bidirectional visiting friends and relatives (VFR) tourism flows and the migrants’ social contacts with friends and/or family back in their home country. Building on the concept of social capital and Putnam's distinction between bonding and bridging social capital, we propose a framework for the analysis of the migrants’ international social networks. The results of a study conducted based on a sample of 365 British retirees living in the coast of Alicante (Spain) show both the strength of the retirees’ international bonding social capital and the role of ‘VFR's travel and communication technologies in sustaining the migrants’ transnational social practices and, ultimately, their international bonding social capital. It also provides evidence for the reinforcing links between tourism-related mobility and amenity-seeking migration in later life.

Capital humano y turismo: rendimiento educativo, desajuste y satisfacción laboral

El capital humano es un elemento clave para el logro de objetivos en términos de competitividad y crecimiento del sector de turismo en España. En este trabajo se utilizan datos muy recientes (procedentes de la Encuesta de Calidad de Vida en el Trabajo, ECVT) para abordar tres aspectos fundamentales en su análisis: el rendimiento educativo que los trabajadores obtienen a cambio de la inversión que realizan en su formación reglada; la medición de los niveles de desajuste entre dicha formación y los puestos de trabajo que ocupan, y su relación con el salario; y, por último, el análisis de diversas dimensiones de la satisfacción laboral y de la relación que se establece entre ellas y la sobre-educación de los trabajadores.

MINLP Optimization Algorithm for the Synthesis of Heat and Work Exchange Networks

This paper introduces a new optimization model for the simultaneous synthesis of heat and work exchange networks. The work integration is performed in the work exchange network (WEN), while the heat integration is carried out in the heat exchanger network (HEN). In the WEN synthesis, streams at high-pressure (HP) and low-pressure (LP) are subjected to pressure manipulation stages, via turbines and compressors running on common shafts and stand-alone equipment. The model allows the use of several units of single-shaft-turbine-compressor (SSTC), as well as helper motors and generators to respond to any shortage and/or excess of energy, respectively, in the SSTC axes. The heat integration of the streams occurs in the HEN between each WEN stage. Thus, as the inlet and outlet streams temperatures in the HEN are dependent of the WEN design, they must be considered as optimization variables. The proposed multi-stage superstructure is formulated in mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), in order to minimize the total annualized cost composed by capital and operational expenses. A case study is conducted to verify the accuracy of the proposed approach. The results indicate that the heat integration between the WEN stages is essential to enhance the work integration, and to reduce the total cost of process due the need of a smaller amount of hot and cold utilities.