Book review of Hitz, M., Sigala., M., & Murphy. J, (Eds). Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2006

This volume represents the proceedings of the 13th ENTER conference, held at Lausanne, Switzerland during 2006. The conference brought together academics and practitioners across four tracks, which were eSolutions, refereed research papers, work-in-progress papers, and a Ph.D workshop. This proceedings contains 40 refereed papers, which is less that the 51 papers presented in 2005. However, the editors advise the scientific committee was stricter than in previous years, to the extent that the acceptance rate was 50%. A significant change in the current proceedings is the inclusion of extended abstracts of the 23 work-in-progress presentations. The papers cover a diverse range of topics across 16 research streams. This reviewer has adopted the approach of succinctly summarising the contribution of each of the 40 refereed papers, in the order in which they appear...

Book review : Frew, A.J., (Ed). Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2005. New York: Springer Wien

This volume represents the proceedings of the 12th ENTER conference held at Innsbruck in 2005. While the conference also accepts work-in-progress papers and includes a Ph.D. workshop, the proceedings contain 51 research papers by 102 authors. The general theme of the conference was eBusiness is here—what is next? and the papers cover a diverse range of topics across nine tracks. This reviewer has adopted the approach of succinctly summarising the contribution of each of the papers, in the order they appear....

Review: "Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2003" edited by Frew, A.J., Hitz, M., & O’Connor, P.

"This volume represents the proceedings of the 10th ENTER conference, held in Helsinki, Finland during January 2003. The conference theme was ‘technology on the move’, and the 476pp. proceedings offer 50 papers by 108 authors. The editors advise all papers were subject to a double blind peer review. The research has been categorised into 18 broad headings, which reflects the diversity of topics addressed. This reviewer has adopted the approach of succinctly summarising each of the papers, in the order they appear, to assist readers of Tourism Management in judging the potential value of the content for their own work..." -- publisher website

Conference report: Lights, Camera, Action : Spotlight on Tourism in the New Millennium. 31st Annual Travel and Tourism Research Association Conference.

The 31st TTRA conference was held in California’s San Fernando Valley, home of Hollywood and Burbank’s movie and television studios. The twin themes of Hollywood and the new Millennium promised and delivered “something old, yet something new”. The meeting offered a historical summary, not only of the year in review but also of many features of travel research since the first literature in the field appeared in the 1970s. Also, the millennium theme set the scene for some stimulating and forward thinking discussions. The Hollywood location offered an opportunity to ponder on the value of the movie-induced tourism for Los Angeles, at a time when Hollywood Boulevard was in the midst of a much needed redevelopment programme. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce speaker Oscar Arslanian acknowledged that the face of the famous district had become tired, and that its ability to continue to attract visitors in the future lay in redeveloping its past heritage. In line with the Hollywood theme a feature of the conference was a series of six special sessions with “Stars of Travel Research”. These sessions featured: Clare Gunn, Stanley Plog, Charles Gouldner, John Hunt, Brent Ritchie, Geoffrey Crouch, Peter Williams, Douglas Frechtling, Turgut Var, Robert Christie-Mill, and John Crotts. Delegates were indeed privileged to hear from many of the pioneers of tourism research. Clare Gunn, Charles Goeldner, Turgut Var and Stanley Plog, for example, traced the history of different aspects of the tourism literature, and in line with the millennium theme, offered some thought provoking discussion on the future challenges facing tourism. These included; the commodotisation of airlines and destinations, airport and traffic congestion, environment sustainability responsibility and the looming burst of the baby-boomer bubble. Included in the conference proceedings are four papers presented by five of the “Stars”. Brent Ritchie and Geoffrey Crouch discuss the critical success factors for destinations, Clare Gunn shares his concerns about tourism being a smokestack industry, Doug Frechtling provides forecasts of outbound travel from 20 countries, and Charles Gouldner, who has attended all 31 TTRA conferences, reflects on the changes that have taken place in tourism research over 35 years...

Corporations Act 2001 s 459G : application to set aside statutory demand

The application before the court in Millerview Constructions Pty Ltd v Palmer Plumbing Pty Ltd [2008] QSC 005 raised a significant question regarding the appropriate construction of s 459G of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act). The decision emphasises the importance of ensuring that any application to set aside a statutory demand must be served in a timely way on the creditor at the creditor’s address for service as stated in the statutory demand, or in strict compliance with another manner authorised by the Act.

Critical Factors of Promoting Market Demand of Sustainable Housing in Australia

Strong regulatory pressure on environmental issues and the improved public awareness will continue to influence the market demand for sustainable housing in the coming years. Despite this potential, the voluntary up-take rate of sustainable practices is not as high as expected within the new built housing industry. This is in contrast to the influx of emerging building technologies, new materials and innovative designs as seen in office buildings and exemplar homes built worldwide. One possible reason for this is that key stakeholders such as developers, builders and consumers do not fully understand and appreciate the tangible and mutual benefits of sustainability in their professional and business activities. This situation warrants the study of a multifaceted strategy that integrates the needs of multiple stakeholders. This research investigates multiple factors that affect key stakeholder’s benefits in sustainable housing implementation. Drawing insights from a quantitative study on a questionnaire survey and a qualitative study of in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the Australian housing industry, 11 critical factors of driving market demand for sustainable housing were unearthed. Their inter-relationships were identified with the aid of Interpretive Structural Modelling. The study concludes with a hierarchical model that amalgamates the strategies for the decision making of key stakeholders.

Smart grid-demand side response model for optimization air conditioning

The growing demand of air-conditioning is one of the largest contributors to Australia’s overall electricity consumption. This has started to create peak load supply problems for some electricity utilities particularly in Queensland. This research aimed to develop consumer demand side response model to assist electricity consumers to mitigate peak demand on the electrical network. The model developed demand side response model to allow consumers to manage and control air conditioning for every period, it is called intelligent control. This research investigates optimal response of end-user toward electricity price for several cases in the near future, such as: no spike, spike and probability spike price cases. The results indicate the potential of the scheme to achieve energy savings, reducing electricity bills (costs) to the consumer and targeting best economic performance for electrical generation distribution and transmission.

Beyond demand management : the value of sharing electricity information

Technologies such as smart meters and electricity feedback are becoming an increasingly compelling focus for HCI researchers in light of rising power prices and peak demand. We argue, however, that a pre-occupation with the goal of demand management has limited the scope of design for these technologies. In this paper we present our work-in-progress investigating the potential value of socially sharing electricity information as a means of broadening the scope of design for these devices. This paper outlines some preliminary findings gathered from a design workshop and a series of qualitative interviews with householders in Brisbane, Australia, regarding their attitudes towards electricity feedback and sharing consumption information. Preliminary findings suggest that; (1) the social sharing of electricity feedback information has the potential to be of value in better informing consumption decisions, however; (2) the potential for sharing may be constrained by attitudes towards privacy, trust and the possibility of misinformation being shared. We conclude by outlining ideas for our future research on this topic and invite comments on these ideas.

Walking the Coleridge Way : using cultural tourism to change perceptions of Somerset after the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001

This paper explores one of the ways in which the Somerset region in the United Kingdom, devastated by the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001, is trying to free itself from recurring negative representations and create more positive images of the area. After the epidemic projects were sought that would promote a more positive image and draw tourists back to the area. One of these projects drew on literary tourism to reinvigorate the site. A Walking and Bridle trail called the ‘Coleridge Way Walk’ has been implemented to take the images of the area from ones of disease and dirtiness to ones of Romantic longing. The Coleridge Way Walk uses past imaginings to re-energise the area. This energy, in part, comes from ‘re-imagining’ the site through past imaginings. The Coleridge Way Walk uses the past to create future direction for the once tainted area.