Tourism Destination Preferences: A Longitudinal Analysis of Consumer Decision Sets

There have only been a small number of applications of consumer decision set theory to holiday destination choice, and these studies have tended to rely on a single cross sectional snapshot of research participants’ stated preferences. Very little has been reported on the relationship between stated destination preferences and actual travel, or changes in decision set composition over time. The paper presents a rare longitudinal examination of destination decision sets, in the context of short break holidays by car in Queensland, Australia. Two questionnaires were administered, three months apart. The first identified destination preferences while the second examined actual travel and revisited destination preferences. In relation to the conference theme, there was very little change in consumer preferences towards the competitive set of destinations over the three month period. A key implication for the destination of interest, which, in an attempt to change market perceptions, launched a new brand campaign during the period of the project, is that a long term investment in a consistent brand message will be required to change market perceptions. The results go some way to support the proposition that the positioning of a destination into a consumer’s decision set represents a source of competitive advantage.

An investigation of nucleation events in a coastal urban environment in the southern hemisphere

The occurrence of and conditions favourable to nucleation were investigated at an industrial and commercial coastal location in Brisbane, Australia during five different campaigns covering a total period of 13 months. To identify potential nucleation events, the difference in number concentration in the size range 14-30 nm (N14-30) between consecutive observations was calculated using first-order differencing. The data showed that nucleation events were a rare occurrence, and that in the absence of nucleation the particle number was dominated by particles in the range 30-300 nm. In many instances, total particle concentration declined during nucleation. There was no clear pattern in change in NO and NO2 concentrations during the events. SO2 concentration, in the majority of cases, declined during nucleation but there were exceptions. Most events took place in summer, followed by winter and then spring, and no events were observed for the autumn campaigns. The events were associated with sea breeze and long-range transport. Roadside emissions, in contrast, did not contribute to nucleation, probably due to the predominance of particles in the range 50-100 nm associated with these emissions.

New particle formation and growth at a remote, sub-tropical coastal location

A month-long intensive measurement campaign was conducted in March/April 2007 at Agnes Water, a remote coastal site just south of the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast of Australia. Particle and ion size distributions were continuously measured during the campaign. Coastal nucleation events were observed in clean, marine air masses coming from the south-east on 65% of the days. The events usually began at ~10:00 local time and lasted for 1-4 hrs. They were characterised by the appearance of a nucleation mode with a peak diameter of ~10 nm. The freshly nucleated particles grew within 1-4 hrs up to sizes of 20-50 nm. The events occurred when solar intensity was high (~1000 W m-2) and RH was low (~60%). Interestingly, the events were not related to tide height. The volatile and hygroscopic properties of freshly nucleated particles (17-22.5 nm), simultaneously measured with a volatility-hygroscopicity-tandem differential mobility analyser (VH-TDMA), were used to infer chemical composition. The majority of the volume of these particles was attributed to internally mixed sulphate and organic components. After ruling out coagulation as a source of significant particle growth, we conclude that the condensation of sulphate and/or organic vapours was most likely responsible for driving particle growth during the nucleation events. We cannot make any direct conclusions regarding the chemical species that participated in the initial particle nucleation. However, we suggest that nucleation may have resulted from the photo-oxidation products of unknown sulphur or organic vapours emitted from the waters of Hervey Bay, or from the formation of DMS-derived sulphate clusters over the open ocean that were activated to observable particles by condensable vapours emitted from the nutrient rich waters around Fraser Island or Hervey Bay. Furthermore, a unique and particularly strong nucleation event was observed during northerly wind. The event began early one morning (08:00) and lasted almost the entire day resulting in the production of a large number of ~80 nm particles (average modal concentration during the event was 3200 cm-3). The Great Barrier Reef was the most likely source of precursor vapours responsible for this event.

Waterfalls : resources for tourism

While very few waterfalls may be regarded as tourism destinations, many are attractions. This paper discusses waterfalls within the theoretical frameworks developed by economists and geographers in the field of recreation and tourism. Examples are drawn from various parts of the world, including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, with Jamaica examined as a case study. Here, as in many tourism areas, although visitors usually choose their destinations for reasons other than the appeal of waterfalls, these landscape features play important roles as attractions. Often associated with ecotourism, waterfalls help to diversify the tourism product and spread the benefits as well as some of the associated problems of tourism to less developed areas.

AITPM Email Newsletter Volume 0904, April 2009: Presidents Message

President’s Report Hello fellow AITPM members, A few weeks ago we saw another example of all levels of Government pulling together in real time to try to deal with a major transport incident, this time it was container loads of ammonium nitrate falling off the Pacific Adventurer during Cyclone Hamish and the associated major oil spill due to piercing of its hull off Moreton Bay in southern Queensland. The oil spill was extensive, affecting beaches and estuaries from Moreton Island north to the Sunshine Coast; a coastal stretch of at least 60km. We saw the Queensland Government, Brisbane, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast Regional Council crews deployed quickly once the gravity of the situation was realised to clean up toxic oil on beaches and prevent extensive upstream contamination. Environmental agencies public and private were quick to respond to help affected wildlife. The Navy’s HMAS Yarra and another minesweeper were deployed to search for the containers in the coastal area in an effort to have them salvaged before all ammonium nitrate could leach into and harm marine habitat, which would have a substantial impact not only on that environment but also the fishing industry. all of this during the final fortnight before a State election.) While this could be branded as a maritime problem, the road transport and logistics system was crucial to the cleanup. The private vehicular ferries were enlisted to transport plant and equipment from Brisbane to Moreton Island. The plant themselves, such as graders, were drawn from road building and maintenance inventory. Hundreds of Councils’ staff were released from other activities to undertake the cleanup. While it will take some time for us to know the long term impacts of this incident, it seems difficult to fault “grassroots” government crews and their private counterparts, such as Island tourism staff, in the initial cleanup effort. From a traffic planning and management perspective, we should also remember that this sort of incident has happened on road and rail corridors in the past, albeit on lesser scales. It underlines that we do need to continue to protect communities, commercial interests, and the environment through rigorous heavy vehicle management, planning and management of dangerous goods routesincluding rail corridors through urban areas), and carefully considered incident and disaster recovery plans and protocols. I’d like to close in reminding everyone again that AITPM’s flagship event, the 2009 AITPM National Conference, Traffic Beyond Tomorrow, is being held in Adelaide from 5 to 7 August. SA Branch President Paul Morris informs me that we have had over 50 paper submissions to date, from which a very balanced and informative programme of sessions has been prepared. www.aitpm.com has all of the details about how to register, sponsor a booth, session, etc. Best regards all, Jon Bunker

A method of lines approach for modelling saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifiers

The equations governing saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers are complex. Backward Euler time stepping approaches are often used to advance the solution to these equations in time, which typically requires that small time steps be taken in order to ensure that an accurate solution is obtained. We show that a method of lines approach incorporating variable order backward differentiation formulas can greatly improve the efficiency of the time stepping process.

Augmenting competitiveness of cities through tourism planning : the role of collaborative decision support systems

Many cities around the globe are now considering tourism facilities and their remarkable revenues in order to become competitive in the global economy. In many of these cities a great emphasis is given to the cultural tourism as it plays an important role in the establishment of creative and knowledge-base of cities. The literature points out the importance of local community support in cultural tourism. In such context, the use of new approach and technologies in tourism planning in order to increase the community participation and competitiveness of cities’ cultural assets gains a great significance. This paper advocates a new planning approach for tourism planning, particularly for cultural tourism, to increase the competitiveness of cities. As part of this new approach, the paper introduces the joined up planning approach integrated with a collaborative decision support system: ‘the community-oriented decision support system’. This collaborative planning support system is an effective and efficient tool for cultural tourism planning, which provides a platform for local communities’ participation in the development decision process.

Creativity, culture and tourism : the case of Istanbul and London film industries

During the last decade many cities have sought to promote creativity as a driver for economic growth. They have done this by encouraging specific sectors of creative industries. This paper focuses on the film industry as one of these sectors which also has a high level of interaction with place. Film industry, has had an important role in incubating the creativity potential. It can be a powerful magnet for creative people, fostering indigenous creativity and attracting outside talent, and might thus contribute to the formation of creative cities. This recent research suggests that the film industry has positively effect on tourism by increasing place recognition through the locations used in films and for cities that host film festivals. Film festivals provide events, workshops and experiences that allow visitors to express themselves through interaction with the place and its living culture. This paper examines the importance of creative industries for both urban development and sustainable tourism. To explore the relation between creative tourism, culture and the film industry and its effect on successful tourism planning this paper presents the preliminary findings of case studies of the film industry in Beyo

How relevant is tourism research

One of the definitions of the term myth is ‘an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution’ (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/myth). Before we are criticized for suggesting such an irreverent thought might apply to tourism academia, readers must recognize that organizations and industries often operate using shared collective myths (see Meyer and Rowan 1977). Institutionalized rules and processes function as myths that provide legitimacy. The question of interest in this paper is not in the context of the quality of tourism academic research output, which is addressed by other papers in this research probe section. Rather, of importance is enhancing understanding of the extent to which our collective knowledge, legitimized through publishing in peer reviewed academic publications, is proving of value to industry stakeholders, an axiom that appears to be largely unquestioned and unproven.

Australian student reactions to U.S. tourism advertising : a test of advertising as public diplomacy

A study among Australian college students gauged their reactions to a television commercial produced for the U.S. Commerce Department to bolster sagging tourism numbers among international visitors. In addition to using traditional measures applied to tourism advertisements, the student also concluded items to measure attitudes toward the U.S. government and its people Pre- and post-viewing results indicated that while the Hollywood-movie-themed commercial was not well received by the Australian students as a tourism message, it did result in more favorable attitudes toward the U.S. government, though not the U.S. people. The findings lend partial support for the potential of tourism advertising efforts to exert a "bleed-over effect" in terms of their contributions to overall attitudes toward a country, regardless of whether viewers plan to visit the country whose travel advertisements they see.

Australian student reactions to US tourism advertising : a test of advertising as public diplomacy

A study among Australian college students gauged their reactions to a television commercial produced for the US Commerce Department to bolster sagging tourism numbers among international visitors. In additional to using traditional measures applied to tourism advertisements, the study also included items to measure attitudes toward the US government and its people. Pre- and post-viewing results indicated that although the Hollywood-movie-themes commercial was not well received by the Australian students as a tourism message, it did result in more favourable attitudes toward the US government, although not the US people. The findings lend partial support for the potential of tourism advertising efforts to exert a 'bleed-over effect' in terms of their contribution to overall attitudes toward a country, regardless of whether viewers plan to visit the country whose travel advertisements of which they see.