Global Story in International Management Contexts
Tricky Tourism
For the second blog assignment, tRIple A chose to tell a global story that concerns tourism globalization and its impact in International Management contexts.
First of all, a description of our global indicator (GI) will be done, then this GI will be linked to the globalization process in general. Finally, we will uncover some tricky truths about tourism by explaining how the global indicator informs international management in the global context.
Definition of Tourism
To begin with, we should first define what tourism is. You certainly think that the tourism is simply the fact to travel. But the definition is much more complex. There are moreover many definitions. The one that we are going to retain is one issued by The World Tourism Organization: Tourism is defined as “the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for no more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes.”
Therefore, it is clear than tourism has a direct impact on the national revenue for all of the "touristic" countries. At the first glimpse, we may say that tourism globalization creates work opportunities, new industries, and several investments to serve and raise nations performance and cultures, also distributes their history, civilization, and traditions.
The Global Indicator
After some researches, we all agreed that the pertinent global indicator that we are going to use would the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city.
Basically it is possible to define our global indicator as “the number of individuals who travel to a country other than the one in which they have their usual residence, but outside their usual environment, for a period not exceeding 12 months and whose main purpose in visiting is other than an activity remunerated from within the country visited”.
Method of calculation
The number of inbound tourist per year and per city is known thanks to border statistics like the police, immigration, and supplemented by border surveys. But the calculation method can differ across countries. Then, for some countries, number of arrivals is limited to arrivals by air while for others, to arrivals stating in hotels.
Difficulties and Biases
It appears though that it is difficult to compute this global indicator and to have a real estimation since the calculation method differs upon the country. It would be very difficult and restrictive to impose only one calculation method for all the country around the world!
We have to figure that the data on international tourists is the number of arrivals, not the number of people traveling. One person visiting the same country several times during the year is counted each time as a new arrival. Then, the same person visiting several countries during the same trip is counted each time as a new arrival.
Moreover, not all of the data are completed and many countries fail to submit their statistics on time.
For example, Barcelona and Rome just give statistics on arrivals stating in hostel. New York and Antalya do not precise if their calculations include visitors who are staying less than 24 hours…
For example, Barcelona and Rome just give statistics on arrivals stating in hostel. New York and Antalya do not precise if their calculations include visitors who are staying less than 24 hours…
The 10 most visited cities in the World
To gain on clarity in our story, we decided to restrain our subject and limit our linkage between our global indicator and the top 10 most visited cities in the World.
Indeed, we wondered what is magnetic with those cities? What is done (and by whom) for those cities that create a unique worldwide "identity" and thus make them so attractive around the world? In other words, what is really influencing the tourism rate (our global indicator) in the top 10 most visited cities in the World?
We found many different rankings due to the various collection methods that depend on the countries. However, even if all the rankings were different, the same 10 cities were always quoted.
Based on a 2010 ranking released by The WTO, the current top 10 most visited cities are:
How the globalization process allowed to our global indicator to increase over time.
The link between the globalization and the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city.
The characteristics of globalization help improve tourism in many different aspects. Economically speaking, tourism would help push the economy to improve as a whole. For example, with tourism becoming increasingly popular, foreign investment in hotels and tourist attractions to attract more visitors would help the economy group in a couple of ways, such as job employment for the construction of hotels, etc. Not only would foreign investment increase, global players and strategic alliances would help the economy rise as well.The demand for services such as air companies, hotels and tour operators would attract many businesses in the market, yet again increasing the productivity of the economy. These are very specific improvements in the economy, broadly speaking, the increase in the market of tourism would increase global competition of holiday resorts overall, companies competing would also help boost the economy.
Other than economic benefits, globalization help in technological terms as well for tourism. Companies competing in this competitive arena would boost their services such as allowing services like global booking systems online, and standardized technologies in transport systems. Globalization's linkage to tourism also help in political terms, the rise in demand for tourism services increase importance of international tourism organizations. The increased amount of inbound tourists would also create the necessity for global coordination and regulation of passenger circulation, all these terms help the government to revise their political policies. Many of the forces and consequences of globalization will benefit tourism and the service sector. Overall, technology, information and the reduction of boundaries have created new forms of service companies, not only large trans-national corporations, but small companies can also take advantage of the benefits such as international communications, and marketing positions.
How the global indicator informs international management in the global context
How terrorism, diplomatic, economic (...) relations between countries affect the number of inbound tourists per year and per city
«Tourism […] is often described as a «fragile» industry in that demand for travel is highly susceptible to numerous shocks such as wars, outbreaks of deadly contagious diseases, incidents of terrorism, economic fluctuations, currency instability, energy crises and so on. »[1]
Thus, from one year to another, the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city can vary a lot. For instance, the September 11 attacks in United States, more especially in New York City and Washington DC, made the tourism in New York City plummeted. Few days after the catastrophe, the hotel occupancy fell below 40% [2]. In addition of the economic effects, the financial markets suffered from the attacks. Gold prices went up from 215.50$ to 287$, the currency trading of the United States dollar fell sharply against the other currency.
These lead to a «crisis in consumer/investor confidence»[3]. The government had to take actions to reassure the financial system. For instance, « the Federal Reserve entered into or expanded existing agreements with the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of
England to swap dollars for foreign currency in order to support foreign financial
institutions operating in the United States»[4]. In addition, many resources were used to reinforce the country’s security procedures. For instance, the visa application procedures for higher risk travelers (Muslims) became more complicated[5]. The number of visas delivered to Iran and Iraq dropped by 39% and 40% respectively[6]. This highly contributed to the decrease in the number of inbound tourist arrivals.
How International Organizations affect the number of inbound tourists per city and per region
«A tourist destination is a complex of attractions, equipment, infrastructure, facilities, businesses, resources, and local communities, which combine to offer tourists products and experiences they seek». [7] NGOs and International Organizations can influence the number of inbound tourists visiting our 10 cities by promoting certain aspects. Indeed, in Thailand, the Tour Operators’ Initiative for Sustainable Tourism Development or TOI (an international alliance of tour operators engaged in advancing the UN goal of sustainable development) and the World Wide Fund for Nature or WWF ( support biodiversity conservation in areas of high-volume tourism) «are focusing on improving waste water treatment, training hotel and resort staff, and ensuring that fragile areas and endangered species (like turtles) are protected [8]». Another example is the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites contributing a lot in attracting tourist in certain areas, such as The Palace and Park of Versailles, a suburb of Paris[9].
How strategic partnerships influence the number of inbound tourists per city and per region. What are the impacts of this influence?
What also explain the magnetism of our ten cities are undoubtedly the creation of strategic partnerships that greatly influence the development and attractiveness of some destinations. A strategic alliance, which may take on various forms (franchising, management contracts, joint ventures and acquisition[10]), is defined as “an agreement between two or more individuals or entities stating that the involved parties will act in a certain way in order to achieve a common goal.”[11] The strength of strategic partnerships lies in the fact that they can rapidly take advantage of the brand recognition of several multinational firms.
Concretely, largest hotel companies, tour operators and the air travel industry collaborate to offer a touristic “product” that is aimed to be the most complete and consistent possible in order to satisfy tourists. For those companies, the possibility of profits and gains is huge: for instance, in most all-inclusive package tours, about 80% of travellers' expenditures go to the airlines, hotels and other international companies.
No lone participant can pretend to take the entire charge of looking after visitors and organizing the touristic development of a destination in an integrated way. Moreover, all big lead firms, whether they are hotels, tour operators or air companies, have a very important coverage in our top ten destinations. Thus, we assume that this pooling of actions proves to be essential, in a context of globalization, for destinations to be boosted.
For hotels alliances, Knowles (2001) mentions Four Seasons Hotels, which used the strategic partnerships with Regent International Hotels Ltd. (the group of most important luxury hotels in Asia) to take over the management of hotels in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Sydney. In this way they obtained the results, which would have taken them far more time without the partners.
How the private sector is involved? What is hidden in the involving of the governments and the relationships they have with the lead corporations?
Tourism is a big business for the private sector and for governments alike. Given the fact that “any country with still-pristine areas of forests, beaches, mountains, and parklands or with ethnic tribes and other unique rural cultures” has something to market in the global economy, it becomes clear that even the public sector of a country can influence on the number of inbound tourists per year per city.
The first case scenario is when governments decide by themselves to create “lax trade environments” in order to attract the tourism industry, lifting restrictions that are applied to other industries and offering many incentives.
As Alexander Goldsmith explains that “Free Trade Zones (FTZs) are regions that have been fiscally or juridically redefined by their ‘host country’ to give them a comparative advantage over neighboring regions and countries in luring transnational corporate activity. Indeed, most of the FTZs share the following characteristics: lax social, environmental, and employment regulations; a ready source of cheap labour; fiscal and financial incentives that can take a huge variety of forms, although they generally consist of the lifting of customs duties, the removal of foreign exchange controls, tax holidays, and free land or reduced rents.]”
So far, the travel industry benefits greatly from these FTZs. The concerned cities have seen their tourist flow increase consequently. For instance, among our top 10 most visited cities, some of them belong to a FTZ.
For instance, Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, a free economic zone located in the Jebel Ali area at the far western end of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, near Abu Dhabi. Another good example of that is the entire city-state of Singapore, which is located on the heavily trafficked Straits of Malacca, and essentially made its entire territory into a free trade zone early on in its independence.
The tricky part appears when it becomes clear that wealthier organizations in the tourism network often have political influence. This is the second case scenario possible.
In fact, when a well-established foreign firm chooses a site or area to develop business activities, it may influence not only the operations of local firms but also the local or regional authorities in different ways. For example, a large investor may oblige the authorities in a potential area of the investment to comply with certain conditions or even change local law before going ahead with the development. Or else, developers may want the government to improve the airport, roads and other infrastructure, and possibly to provide tax breaks and other financial advantages, which are costly activities for the government.
As a consequence, “corporations might have become dominant governing institutions, often exceeding governments in size and power”.
Concrete examples for our top 10 cities are challenging to find, but most of our findings revealed that this situation of corporations overstepping governments mostly occurs in countries that depend the most of the tourism; in Asia for instance.
[6]http://marquette.academia.edu/LouiseCainkar/Papers/555496/Post_9_11_domestic_policies_affecting_US_Arabs_and_Muslims_A_brief_review
[11] http://www.investorwords.com/4772/strategic_alliance.html
Knowles, T., Diamantis, D., El-Mourhabi, J. B. 2001, «The Globalization of Tourism and Hospitality: A Strategic Perspective. London: Continuum»
Evans, N. 2001. «Alliances in the International Travel Industry: Sustainable Strategic Options? International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration 2 ».
McLaren D., June 2003, « Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel », Second Edition, Kumarian Press, Inc., Bloomfield.
Knowles, T., Diamantis, D., El-Mourhabi, J. B. 2001, «The Globalization of Tourism and Hospitality: A Strategic Perspective. London: Continuum»
Evans, N. 2001. «Alliances in the International Travel Industry: Sustainable Strategic Options? International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration 2 ».
McLaren D., June 2003, « Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel », Second Edition, Kumarian Press, Inc., Bloomfield.
Dear Tr.I.ple A,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this very informative second blog! I found your topic very interesting and your global indicator very fitting for an international management context. I appreciate the fact that this indicator is quite difficult to calculate due to the differing methods of each country.
The factors influencing the amount of tourists in a country were especially insightful, such as the free-trade zones. I truly learned that there is more than the face value of a country – I expected factors such as: the city’s portrayal in the media, the city’s total expenditure on tourism advertisement and marketing, or the city’s number of touristic attractions. I would have tried looking for positive correlations among these factors. For instance, looking at the first factor of portrayal in the media, perhaps look at popular media outlets (blockbuster movies, tv shows, magazines) and determine the amount of times the city is mentioned. Though I expect that this would be a lot of work, it would have been most interesting!
I think you could have further improved your blog by providing insights about the future of the global tourism industry. Research from the UNWTO's Tourism 2020 Vision shows that international arrivals are expected to reach nearly 1.6 billion by the year 2020, with the top three regions forecasted to be Europe (717 million tourists), East Asia and the Pacific (397 million). They are followed by the Americas (282 million), followed by Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. (http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html). These forecasts can represent global trends which could impact international management in the future.
Thank you once again for your blog!
I agree with most of the materials mentioned in the blog post. Indeed, inbound tourist arrival is definitely a significant globalisation indicator, which would demonstrate the power of globalisation, such as the ease of travelling between countries (visa-free entry for certain countries ie Singaporeans can enter China for up to 14 days without visas, thanks to good bilateral ties between the two countries), lower cost of flights/hotels compared to the past due to these strategic alliances with hotels and airline companies as well as the strong support rendered by the host countries (who contributed to the tourism campaign of that particular country eg Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia).
ReplyDeleteFurther, tourism has always seemed to be a booming industry and a major source of revenues for many countries that thrive on tourism alone, such as Singapore, Dubai, etc. So with the perks brought about by globalisation, more people would be willing and tempted to travel overseas, especially when tempted by cheaper travel packages, ‘touristy- states’ (eg. France’s Paris, America’s New York City and South Korea’s Seoul). Further, globalisation also leads to popularity of hollywood films and Korean dramas all over the world. Thus as a result of these shows, which heavily depicts picturesque sceneries and breathtaking environments, people would also be enticed to consider visiting these places for their vacations.
All in all, using inbound visitors is certainly a clever way of measuring the extent of globalisation in the country. The more popular the country is, the higher the number of inbound tourist will be. Hence, France is on top of the list as more and more people are constantly flocking over to Paris to experience Parisian lifestyles or even to see the famed Eiffel Tower. This number is only expected to rise further, as the government is trying to encourage more people to visit the country by using other languages at their public transport systems, such as at the metros or bus stops.
Hi triple A!
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you presented your indicator. the fact that you considered not only the economical aspects, but also the International Organizations and terrorism and diplomatic relations, was very interesting.
While reading your blog i just haven't seen many references to the cost of living in a city. I know that for most of the people who spends few days in a town this wouldn't matter too much, but for the visitors that decide to spend months in a place I think it would.
So I tryed to find the most expensive cities in the world and Paris for example in the last two years jumped from the 17th place to the 3rd one, without being downgraded in the most visited cities ranking!
This is very interesting: is it because it takes a long time (more than one year) for tourists to realize that the prices have substantially changed? Has there been a particularly strong campaign from Paris to attract new tourists, or is it just the commonly known charm that Paris has that keeps drawing people's attention?
It would be interesting to know the reason why sometimes slightly changes in some variables can cause huge shift in people's behaviour, or why sometimes it's the opposite of that (for Paris for example the number of tourists changed only by 0.4 milion).
For whoever wants to see the bases of my argument, here you have the links!
Most expensive cities in 2010/2011:
http://www.finfacts.ie/costofliving.htm
Most expensive cities in 2011/2012:
http://top10marvels.com/top10-most-expensive-cities-in-the-world
Rankings for the top ten most visited cities in 2011:
http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/2011/04/18/top-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world/
Hey triple A
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think you made a good choice in taking tourism, and especially the number of inbound tourists, as a global indicator for globalization. I also see the relevance for management since many different countries and cultures come together in order to work together and improve their offerings or establish FTZs.
However, I would have liked to see some numbers that clarify and illustrate your findings. I know you said it is hard to find some, but you could have for example given us the yearly amount that those 10 cities spent for tourism, including advertisement, government subsidies, etc. For me that would have been interesting to see, especially whether and by how much this amount has increased over time. Further you could have shown some figures relating to the number of tourists in those cities over the years as a substitute. Overall, in my opinion you improved your work, your second blog is more informative and more detailed than your first one. Good job!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think your team has done a comprehensive work by telling us how to calculate the indicator and the limitations of your work. Also, it is good that your team focus on macro aspect like how the international organizations affect the number of inbound tourists.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think your team can talk more about the micro aspect which is directly related to your indicator like how the changes of international management attitude affect the number of inbound tourists. In my opinion, it is worthwhile to talk about it. It is because instead of using the traditional way to management internationally like using long term assignment (sending an expatriate to host countries for many years), there are more and more companies using new ways to manage global employees. For example, there is short term international assignment which is defined as a temporary internal transfer to a foreign subsidiary of between one and twelve months duration. Also, the frequent flyer assignments are also common. Frequent flyers have to fly to different countries frequently to monitor host countries operation. Moreover, it is not rare that there is rotational assignment that the expatriates have to commutes from their home base to a post in another country on weekly or bi weekly basis. (Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise, 2007) All these new forms of management increase the chances of travelling by businessmen and therefore reveal that new attitude towards international management leads to an increase of number of inbound tourists.
I hope my suggestion is useful for you.
Reference
David G. Collings, Hugh Scullion, Michael J. Morley (2007) Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise p.204-206
Dear tr.I.ple A, I think you did a very good job in presenting the tourism as the indicator of globalization. Your flow is clear and the content is informative. I think providing the table of the top 10 most visited cities is helpful to demonstrate the globalization trend. My suggestion is that you can search more information on it. You can search for the ranking of most attractive cities in previous years and have a comparison with those released in 2010. If there are some differences, you can think of the possible reasons and prove it with references. For example, you can invest on why Bangkok is one of the popular cities in recent years? Is it because under globalization, people are more open to get to know more about south-east asian culture? Or is it because of the advertisement in the mass media is very successful all over the world?
ReplyDeleteMy another suggestion is that you can give some recommendations to the management of multinational companies doing the travelling business. For example, China has a huge market on tourism especially in recent years when people’s standard of living boost year by year. Many people have traveling plans in their public holidays and annual leaves. However, different age groups have various requirements and expectations. The youth search for the cheapest ways and would like to explore by themselves, while most of the old prefer going with groups. Management should investigate on people’s preferences and provide the most suitable services such as cheap tickets and hotel booking system, automatic translators, nice tour guide and so on. In a nutshell, I believe more description on how management should behave in a global context will contribute to the completeness of this blog.
Hope these comments can be helpful for you!
Hi Triple A,
ReplyDeleteI find the topic discussed on tourism as a global indicator rather interesting. Tourism is indeed a main player in a country’s extensive source of revenue. It has allowed people from around the world to learn & embrace cultures, marvel at local iconic monuments and strengthen relations and maybe even bilateral ties. One such example which saw tourism strengthen bilateral ties in South East Asia could be seen in the case of Singapore and Malaysia http://www.stbpassport.com/archives/114.htm Through the above illustration we saw how tourism contributed to both country’s expansion and building of infrastructures to spur the tourism revenue.
As I read through the blog I could see how the team cover and highlight tourism against perspectives for us as an audience to draw parallels to the various issues. I personally feel the team could better streamline the discussed topics towards two topics with a much deeper depth of discussion. For example:
1. How strategic partnerships influence the number of inbound tourists per city and per region.
2. How are governments involved in the growth of tourism?
Using the above questions, zooming in on strategic partnerships in particular, tourism has saw strategic partnerships not only prevalent among countries but also among Multinationals (MNCs). MNCs are quick to plant themselves in a strategy of co-branding. Taking Singapore as an example, when Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Singapore which was completed in 2010, the likes of VERTU, Burberry, Tag Hauer, Louis Vuitton, Channel and Universal Studios were quick to establish their presence on these sites as they were a hit with an expected influx of tourist around the world. It was the first time in Singapore’s history that two casinos open its doors on the very shore of a developed nation. (http://www.marinabaysands.com/Singapore-Shopping/The-Shoppes-By-Category/), (http://www.etravelblackboard.us/article/98362/universal-studios-singapore-grand-opening-day-set-for-28-may-2011).
The other aspect of strategic partnerships also gave rise to strong partnerships among travelling agencies and its e-commerce partners. We see the aggressive marketing of Groupon, Zuji, Expedia, Agodo.com and even World Ventures offering hotels deals or airplane tickets at irresistible deals. But something about World ventures business model has interestingly gave rise to the tourism industry and a personal residual wealth generation. It combines a frontal product selling of travel packages and a Multi- level marketing business model strategy. (http://jeremiahkoh.worldventuresdreamtrips.com/new/?cobrand_id=). This has definitely influence the influx of tourist among various countries and also created amass of wealth among the locals in these nations.
Secondly the participation of governments towards tourism does not only lie in infrastructures but also in job creations, this means employment rates would be up. In the tourism industry, its vital force is the front line service staffs that serves and meet the needs of customers. Therefore, the quality of supply for such employments must be of a distinguish level of standard so that it attracts both MNCs and big branding attractions corporations (Universal studios/Disneyland) to set up their base of business in the country. With all this factors in place, tourism is set to peak and rise at a continuous rate and thus we see the strengths of tourism flourishing in a nation.
Hi trIPle A
ReplyDeleteAs earlier debaters I have to agree with the fact that this topic is interesting and tourism as a globalization indicator. I agree that the constantly increasing tourism all over the world is a consequence of the world globalization although I’m not sure that a large tourism industry necessarily is an indicator of globalization for a particular country. Therefore I think it depends on how one define global indicators.
Hence I would like to raise the question regarding how well tourism works as an indicator of globalization. When comparing the statistics presented in the blog with the KOF Index of globalization, which ranks the world’s most globalized countries, it’s hard to find conformity between the two. Rather there is a clear deviation, which makes me wonder whether it is as black and white as proposed. According to KOF the 10 most globalized countries in 2010 were:
1. Belgium
2. Austia
3. The Neterhlands
4. Switzerland
5. Sweden
6. Denamark
7. Canada
8. Portugal
9. Finalnd
10. Hungary
The KOF index intends to measure globalization through factors such as economical, political and social. Although these findings should probably be regarded with a slight critical approach since all of the countries mentioned above are European countries. More over they are countries with smaller population, which means that the statistics probably are measured relative to population or other factors. USA is in place 27 on the list and China is placed 63rd which is suspicious. Although even if this index wouldn’t be completely accurate I think it’s important to compare different statistics in deciding global indicators. It’s interesting to see that countries with large tourism industries might not be the most globalized countries. Also countries whit strong cultures and traditions and conservative beliefs seems to be more interesting to visit than more integrated countries that are similar to other countries.
Another fact I would like to highlight is the tourism-industry and the effects in local economies. It is true as it’s proposed in the blog that tourism bare many positive effects in countries with large tourism industries as it creates job employments etc. Although some of the negative aspects are not mentioned. One problem is that much of the global hotel-industry is funded by foreign investors that might reinvest revenues elsewhere and gain more revenues than local hotels and companies. There is an exploitation going on in the tourism-industry that I believe creates disadvantages for developing countries in there globalization. Also there are dangers associated in being dependent on the tourism-industry.
Finally it’s a very interesting topic that I believe can be further explored, discussed and researched.
Ref:
http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/
http://worldpoliticsblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/belgium-the-most-globalized-country/
Hello, team Triple A,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your effort put in this blog. I would say that I like its style: the global indicator is well-defined and specific; the structure is well-organized with clear title and subheadings; the APA format of books and journals is clear. All these really make me easier to follow and understand what you said.
There are two parts in this blog that I am interested most. Firstly, it is about the table of the top 10 most visited cities in the World. As a hongkonger, I am surprised that a small place like Hong Kong can be one of the top ten in the world. As you mentioned in the blog, I also wonder ‘what is the magnet with those cities?’. I suggest that you can answer the questions by choosing one or two top ten city(ies) as example(s) to talk about.
Take Hong Kong as an example. If visitors are here for business, the magnet of Hong Kong includes well-developed financial system (which is one of the top three financial centers in the world according to the research of CityofLondon in 2010), infrastructure (which is further developing according to the ‘Ten Major Infrastructure Projects’) and special relationship with China. If visitors are here for travel, the name of ‘food paradise’ and ‘shopping center’ should be attractive. If visitors are here as an exchange student, most likely, one of the magnet includes the convenience of travelling to other Asian countries, like Singapore, Malaysia, Mainland China and so on.
Secondly, it is about the link between the globalization and the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city. You mentioned that globalization help improve tourism in many different aspects and you took economic, political and technological aspects as examples. I do want to add one more – educational aspect. Because of globalization, many people are aware of the importance of having knowledge and skills regarding tourism. Hence, there are many tourism management courses offered or many tourism school built around the world, like school of hotels and tourism management in the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, and Institute for Tourism Studies in Macau. The tourism experts would be then beneficial to tourism industry in return.
That’s all I want to share. Thank you for reading.
References:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E5%8D%81%E5%A4%A7%E5%BB%BA%E8%A8%AD%E8%A8%88%E5%8A%83
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/or_candy/article?mid=1095&l=d&fid=23
Hi trIPle A
ReplyDeleteI like your idea very much as selecting tourism as global indicator. It is close to our daily life, we all have some experiences and can develop our own insights when we read your article. Especially I like your last part of this article to explore some tricky facts of global tourism, which are less discussed.And your arguments lead me to think from different angle of globalization and tourism, which benefited me a lot.
I also appreciate that your article is quite precise. For example, you define the concept of "tourism" clearly at the very beginning, indicate what ratio you will use to measure this GI and explain why you will use it, and state clearly the calculation method and potential bias, which all make this article very precise and reliable. I will learn from you in the future when writing my own research papers.
But I think you still have room for improvement, for example to research previous years'data about the hot tourist cities (maybe it's difficult), and to discover whether there's a trend of people's favorite traveling destinations? And what are some major factors that have led to the change? And whether there are new emerging factors which are vital for global tourism? And based on these observations, maybe we can predict the future trend of global tourism and next hot tourism cities in the world.
Thank you for your excellent work again!
Adeline
Dear tr.I.ple A
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your wonderful insight of tourism as a global indicator. Being interested in the top 10 most visited cities based on a 2010 ranking, I have found some updating data of the top 10 most visited cities based on a 2011 ranking. The following are the ranking:
Top 10 most visited cities in the world based on a 2011 ranking :
1.Paris (France) 14.8 million international visitors per year
2.London (England) 14 million international visitors per year
3.Bangkok (Thailand) 10.2 million international visitors per year
4.Singapore (Singapore) 9.7 million international visitors per year
5.Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) 8.9 million international visitors per year
6.New York (the USA) 8.7 million international visitors per year
7.Dubai (the United Arab) 7.6 million international visitors per year
8.Istanbul (Turkey) 7.5 million international visitors per year
9.Hong Kong (China) 7 million international visitors per year
10.Shanghai (China) 6.7 million international visitors per year
Most of the top 10 cities are the same except for Antalya in Turkey and Shanghai in China. As for Shanghai, it did not in top 10 cities in 2010, but it was in top 10 cities in 2011. The reason will not be discussed here since it might be in the 11th most visited cities in 2011 and it ranked to 10th because of the disappearance of Antalya. What most interests me is the disappearance of Antalya in the top 10 cities in 2011.
As I did some research, I knew that there have been surprising changes in tourism statistics in Antalya with the start of the 2011 tourism season. While the number of German and Israeli tourists in the on the decline, Russian and Iranian tourist skyrocketed in 2011 compared with that in 2010. Germans used to be Antalya’s biggest customers, but the numbers decreased a lot. The biggest reason for the decreasing was the decline of its country’s economy. On the contrary, Russian tourists increased significantly, and the reason was that Turkey and Russia were set to formally abolish visa requirement since then. As for the decline of Israeli tourists, the reason was their sector representatives cited worsened their political ties between two countries. But Iranian tourists were pleased with Antalya since they shared similar cultures and proximity.
From the reasons of increasing and decreasing tourists, we can see that tourism as a global indicator, it is influenced by many elements. While globalization influences the development of a country, it also influences the communication of one country to another, thus influences the status of tourism between two countries. Therefore, the diplomatic relations between two countries also affect tourism in a large degree.
Reference:
http://www.tourism-review.com/travel-tourism-magazine-antalya-tourism-industry-boosted-by-russians-and-iranians-article1521
http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/2011/04/18/top-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world/
Hello Triple A=]
ReplyDeleteI like the topic of tourism which you have set as the global indicator. This blog really enrich my knowledge about the top ten most visited cities in the World. It’s a pity that my geographical knowledge is really poor and I even don’t know the location of some cities like those in Turkey!
Anyway, I enjoy reading the blog and I did agree the point that you have mentioned. The point is “tourism brings benefits to the countries because more foreign investment in hotels and tourist attractions to attract more visitors” Like China, which has become a popular choice for tourists and this attracts international corporation to invest there. Eg. InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG)which has already owned 160 hotels in China, for example, Crowne Plaza and InterContinental etc, will launch a new hotel brand in China and continue to expand the business in the whole Asian Pacific area.
The representatives of InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) claimed that because of the trend of hotel industry in China is optimistic so the new hotel brand is totally tailor-made for the China market in order to gain profit. Also, he added that some anonymous brands have already received 12 management contracts for running the hotel business in secondary and tertiary cities in China. (洲际新酒店品牌将重点在中国二三线城市发展,世界饭店协会, http://www.whaunion.com/news/pnews.asp?pid=542)
You have mentioned that “developers may want the government to improve the airport, roads and other infrastructure which are costly activities for the government. And corporations might have become dominant governing institutions, often exceeding governments in size and power.” But sometimes, the government will carry out the above even without being pressured by the developers. Like, the Beijing government, they have set up a tourism board to handle the tourism stuff. And the tourism board mentioned over twenty policies to motivate the tourists to visit Beijing. Some of them are mentioned here. The first one is launching large scale projects such as theme parks and resorts. The second one is facilitating the transport network in the suburb, among the tourist spots and to ensure the road safety of the passengers.
And the third one is that “smart card for transport, accommodation, dining and shopping” will be invented in order to provide convenience to the visitors. (北京市人民政府关于贯彻落实国务院加快发展旅游业文件的意见, Beijing Tourism, http://www.bjta.gov.cn/xxgk/zcwj/zfgz/343190.htm)
All in all, I enjoy reading this blog and the topic is very interesting.
Hi Triple A, I very much enjoyed reading about the Tourism Global indicator. When reading this I had one thouht throughout, the top three cities listed in your top 10 list are; Paris, London and New York are all huge business hubs and a substantial number of the travellers to these cities will be there due to business. However due to the recent lobal downturn and advancements in technoloy firms are cutting down on business travel as an expense. (travelmole.com, 2008) With services such as video calling on Skype being offered for free and with the increasing cost of fuel companies are much less likely to send people to a meeting in these business hubs and therefore the number of visitors to these cities will decrease.
ReplyDeleteThis means that in coming years purely leisure tourist destinations could rise up the list while cities like London and New York lose many visitors. This could mean that in the future this "Top 10 cities" list could provide a much less accurate picture of a cities involvement in globalisation than it once did.
Reference:
http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?id=1132258
First of all, well done on another vey interesting and detailed blog. I think that your chosen topic is a brilliant one. I will explain later on how I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, however I wanted to quickly say how your structure is excellent. The small introduction which explains the layout of your blog helped me to easily find certain sections that I wanted to read and further review, such as how Tourism impacts on International Management.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point on how Tourism can be a country's main source of income and how it can help it grow economically, politically and socially. For example the Caribbean islands all rely heavily on this, which has led to there being a stable population of over 227 million people (http://www.acs-aec.org/Trade). From the further research that I have done, and after analysing peoples comments above, I also found that the numbers you present as to the most visited cities in the world to be true. However the BBC argues that the US has the second most visitors per year, at 60 million people in 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15824562).
I think that your definition into Tourism is a good one too. Although the one you have used is used by many, I wanted to find my own, and from various academic articles, I found the following to be useful one which might be better one to use, "Tourism is the temporary, short-term movement of people to destination outside the places where they normally live and work and their activities during the stay at each destination. It includes movements for all purposes" (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517707001719). Although definitions are needed, I do not think that you need more than 1, and it appears that you give several, which all recognise the similar factor that individuals will travel away from their usual environments.
I do not however agree with some of your findings, in particular your point about foreign investment helping 'Group the economy together.' Often government, such as the case in Dubai, will have spent billions of dollars on tourism attractions within the country. Examples would include the man made and palm shaped islands, the Burj Khalifa Hotel and also the Ski Slopes within the Mall of the Emirates (www.nakheel.com). I do not agree with you when you say that different calculations are needed for each country and city to estimate the most visited places in the world. Murphy (2008) argues that when conducting such research with large numbers, the best way to achieve accuracy and fairness is for there to be a standardised format used.
Although it has its obvious economic benefits, I do not believe Tourism has brings quite as many advantages as you claim it does. On occasions, too much Tourism can mean a foreign invasion of holiday goers which will upset the local population. For example this is known to have happened in Marbella, Spain. Tourism can also cause many problems, such as when foreigners do not know the rules and regulations of the country they are visiting and can have a run in with the law. Countries can also face scrutiny over their own tourism laws. Dubai did not allow the professional women tennis player, Shahar Peer to enter the country to play and go on holiday because of her nationality.
All of your research though is really good, in my opinion. There are some areas that could be looked into in more detail. For example you could look into how many people arrive in major cities such as New York, Hong Kong, Paris and London and how long they stay there for and whether they are remaining there for business purposes or pleasure. Another are that could be looked into is the more Macro level of tourism, the countries which are visited the most.
A really enjoyable read and good job. Well done.
Tr.I.ple A, you did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce) Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from this website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
Tr.I.ple A, you did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce) Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from this website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
Triple A! Thanks very much for your great work! Well done! I did enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your idea that globalization helps in technological terms for tourism. Use Hong Kong as an example, as all of us know, the largest income in HK is from the tourism. So, the tourism industry has been an important part of the economy of HK. That's why HK government keeps improving the service to attract more people to come to HK.
They put much effort on it to promote HK as Asia's premier international city for all visitors. So, HK can be one of the hot tourist cities in the world. Most of the companies try to boost their services in order to compete with the countries which are around HK. As a result, the consequences of globalization will benefit tourism and the service sector in HK. It really helps the development of HK's economy.
Moreover, I agree with the terrorism, diplomatic, economic relations between countries would affect the number of inbound tourists per year and per city. Use China as an example, like 2008 Chinese milk scandal, the bad image of the produced is built. That's definitely decrease the number of tourism to China. This leads to a crisis in consumer all over the world. So, the Chinese government has to take actions to reassure the financial system. However, it is very hard to change their bad image in a short period of time. They need to put much more effort on it to change the image of China and Chinese in the mind of the foreigners.
Tr.I.ple A, you did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from this website (2) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
References:
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism
(2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce
Tr.I.ple A, you did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from (2) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
References:
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism.
(2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce.
Tr.I.ple A, you did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from website Wikipedia (e-commerce) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
References:
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism.
(2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce.
You all did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from website Wikipedia (e-commerce) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
Hi Triple A,
ReplyDeleteGreat global indicator! I think in general, tourism is a great indicator of the development and globalization of our world because the increase in ease of traveling is a good telltale of advancing services and technology. There are many advantages of tourism being a global indicator, but I think you must also consider the disadvantages of tourism and how it may also be detrimental to globalization.
You say that governments push to promote tourism and that in some economies, tourism is the primary driver; however, there are times when overdevelopment of the tourism industry can lead to the downfall of a city. For example, Las Vegas’ main economic drivers are tourism, gaming, and conventions, but since the failing economy in 2008, foreign investors have abandoned their developments in Vegas, leaving empty lots that have remained unchanged in the past 3 years. What does this mean for the economy? In 2010, Las Vegas reported a shed of 10,700 building-sector positions, which is a 20% decrease in its construction jobs base. This is said to correlate to an additional 2 job losses in other areas of the construction supply chain per single construction job loss. Though this is an improvement to the 30%-plus losses in Vegas for 2008 and 2009, this greatly affects the employment rate in a city where construction once consumed 12.1% of the city’s job base. The same story can be said America’s East Coast tourist city, Orlando, Florida. So my question to you is: how much should governments and corporations regulate the development of a city? As it stands now, LV is in quite a pickle because of the push for tourism by these forces, and as a result many MNCs and residences of LV have left the city.
Secondly, tourism can be detrimental to globalization when we look at the growing cruising industry. It is estimated that in 2012, there will be 20 million passengers aboard cruise ships. Though cruises offer excursions at their ports, rarely do the profits benefit the local community. It is also becoming more common for cruise lines to create their own island paradises, removing the tourists from regular ports. Also, more often than not, when cruise ships do disembark at a port, the cruise line strikes deals with local big companies at the detriment to local small companies. Cruise ships are also notorious to being detrimental to the environment.
So though tourism is a good indicator of globalization, it is influenced by many factors (as you have stated in your entry), and its effect on other industries and economies can actually slow globalization should the tourist industry ever turn sour.
Hope this gives you another perspective on your topic! Cheers!
http://www.responsibletravel.com/copy/how-responsible-are-cruise-liners
Thank you for an interesting blog tr.I.ple A, I appreciated reading about tourism as a global indicator. It is probably indeed true that tourism is a sign of globalization; people in a globalized world have larger incentives to travel. Your global indicator is however a quite difficult one to measure, just as you mention, and I therefore think it was a good idea to focus on the ten most visited cities. I would however have appreciated a bit more discussion about what you think combines these ten countries and in what way they differ from each other. The ten countries on the list are indeed very different from many aspects in my opinion. If you for example look at the top three cities on the list (Paris, London, New York) I don’t believe that they are on the list for the same reasons as for example Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. The first ones mentioned are there to large part because of historical reasons and people have traveled there a lot for a long time, probably regardless of globalization and they will “always” stay on the list if nothing unexpected happens.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that you mention terror, diseases and other possible reasons for a drop in the tourism. You could also mention for example nature disasters. When the tsunami in 2004 occurred in Thailand this led to a large drop in the tourism there (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4375815.stm), probably to large parts only a psychological effect in people’s heads and fear of it happening again. Also, it would have been interesting if you would have had a discussion about what you believe about the future and if tourism will still work as a global indicator. What do you think will be the determining factors when it comes to tourism? This could also be interesting for you to discuss. Ones again, thank you for interesting reading!
It is impressive to use tourism as global indicator and its implication to MNCs strategic partnership. In Hong Kong, the joint promotion between Ocean Park, Ngong Ping 360 and Hong Kong Wetland Park is the most well known strategic partnership in tourism industry. Tourists having visited any one of the three eco-attractions can retain and present the admission ticket to enjoy a 10% discount on admission when visiting the other two partner attractions. [1] The joint promotion generates greater revenue for the 3 natural eco-attractions because the package is very attractive to mainland individual travelers and local citizens. Ocean Park, which positions as environmental conservation and education theme park is strengthened by this partnership. By joining the partnership, Ngong Ping 360 gains publicity from the iconic attraction of HK, Ocean park in short period of time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it comes to a question that how MNCs manage the negative impact or effects brought by their partners. Take Ngong Ping 360 as example, a cabin plunged 50 metres to the ground in 2007. Although nobody is injured, this incident was published in The Sydney Morning Herald [2]and BBC News [3]. The reputation of Hong Kong tourism, not to mention Ocean Park is affected. In Feb 2012, the cable car service was halted for as long as two hours, stranding passengers, because of “slight vibrations” from one of the bearings. [4] The corporate images of its partners were severely damaged. This typical incident reflect potential froblems faced byMNCs in the strategic partnership. It’s worthwhile for tRIple A to investigate how the managerial implication of strategic partnership to MNCs in tourism industry. For instance, the way MNCs respond and manipulate its partners’ operation including the service quality, the facilitates, as well as the future planning to minimize the hazardous impact of partnership.
Reference:
[1]http://www.oceanpark.com.hk/html/en/footer/corporate-information/press/press.php?id=328
[2] http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/cable-car-plunges-50m-to-ground/2007/06/12/1181414269959.html
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6744353.stm
[4]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/hong-kong-s-ngong-ping-cable-car-to-stay-shut-for-two-months.html
It is impressive to use tourism as global indicator and its implication to MNCs strategic partnership. In Hong Kong, the joint promotion between Ocean Park, Ngong Ping 360 and Hong Kong Wetland Park is the most well known strategic partnership in tourism industry. Tourists having visited any one of the three eco-attractions can retain and present the admission ticket to enjoy a 10% discount on admission when visiting the other two partner attractions. [1] The joint promotion generates greater revenue for the 3 natural eco-attractions because the package is very attractive to mainland individual travelers and local citizens. Ocean Park, which positions as environmental conservation and education theme park is strengthened by this partnership. By joining the partnership, Ngong Ping 360 gains publicity from the iconic attraction of HK, Ocean park in short period of time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it comes to a question that how MNCs manage the negative impact or effects brought by their partners. Take Ngong Ping 360 as example, a cabin plunged 50 metres to the ground in 2007. Although nobody is injured, this incident was published in The Sydney Morning Herald [2]and BBC News [3]. The reputation of Hong Kong tourism, not to mention Ocean Park is affected. In Feb 2012, the cable car service was halted for as long as two hours, stranding passengers, because of “slight vibrations” from one of the bearings. [4] The corporate images of its partners were severely damaged. This typical incident reflect potential froblems faced byMNCs in the strategic partnership. It’s worthwhile for tRIple A to investigate how the managerial implication of strategic partnership to MNCs in tourism industry. For instance, the way MNCs respond and manipulate its partners’ operation including the service quality, the facilitates, as well as the future planning to minimize the hazardous impact of partnership.
Reference:
[1]http://www.oceanpark.com.hk/html/en/footer/corporate-information/press/press.php?id=328
[2] http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/cable-car-plunges-50m-to-ground/2007/06/12/1181414269959.html
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6744353.stm
[4]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/hong-kong-s-ngong-ping-cable-car-to-stay-shut-for-two-months.html
It is impressive to use tourism as global indicator and its implication to MNCs strategic partnership. In Hong Kong, the joint promotion between Ocean Park, Ngong Ping 360 and Hong Kong Wetland Park is the most well known strategic partnership in tourism industry. Tourists having visited any one of the three eco-attractions can retain and present the admission ticket to enjoy a 10% discount on admission when visiting the other two partner attractions. [1] The joint promotion generates greater revenue for the 3 natural eco-attractions because the package is very attractive to mainland individual travelers and local citizens. Ocean Park, which positions as environmental conservation and education theme park is strengthened by this partnership. By joining the partnership, Ngong Ping 360 gains publicity from the iconic attraction of HK, Ocean park in short period of time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it comes to a question that how MNCs manage the negative impact or effects brought by their partners. Take Ngong Ping 360 as example, a cabin plunged 50 metres to the ground in 2007. Although nobody is injured, this incident was published in The Sydney Morning Herald [2]and BBC News [3]. The reputation of Hong Kong tourism, not to mention Ocean Park is affected. In Feb 2012, the cable car service was halted for as long as two hours, stranding passengers, because of “slight vibrations” from one of the bearings. [4] The corporate images of its partners were severely damaged. This typical incident reflect potential froblems faced byMNCs in the strategic partnership. It’s worthwhile for tRIple A to investigate how the managerial implication of strategic partnership to MNCs in tourism industry. For instance, the way MNCs respond and manipulate its partners’ operation including the service quality, the facilitates, as well as the future planning to minimize the hazardous impact of partnership .
Reference:
[1]http://www.oceanpark.com.hk/html/en/footer/corporate-information/press/press.php?id=328
[2]http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/cable-car-plunges-50m-to-ground/2007/06/12/1181414269959.html
[3]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6744353.stm
[4]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/hong-kong-s-ngong-ping-cable-car-to-stay-shut-for-two-months.html
51812106 (Denise Law)
ReplyDeleteYou all did a great job in illustrating how global indictor–the number of inbound tourist arrivals are affected by the international management, such as private sectors and MNCs, etc.
The technological advance is somehow an issue affecting the number of inbound tourists per city and region in a negative way. On one hand, the rapid development of e-commence affects people travelling to other countries. Different and diversified items or products could be traded online through online retailer store such as Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, Groupon and so on. Thus, people may enjoy online shopping rather than the real shopping from other countries, which is a threat that one of the purposes for tourists to travel-go shopping will decrease gradually. On the other hand, the widely use of video conference by business people to communicate with their overseas business partners, staff and clients may also influence the mobility of businessmen. So, to some extent, the use of technological tools decreases the necessity for part of tourists travel overseas and it may affect the number of inbound tourists.
Besides, for the evidence of globalization process, I believe that it is necessary to find out the 2011 ranking or the previous data for comparison which help indicating the globalization process. The first table from website Wikipedia (e-commerce) shows the international tourist arrivals changes of most-visited countries form 2010-11, which is better to illustrate the globalization. Hope it is useful.
Hi Tr.I.ple A!
ReplyDeleteNice article with a nice indicator, thanks! I really enjoyed reading it.
I agree with you for all of the elements that you emphasized but I think first that there are not just benefits for countries experiencing high tourism but also some negative aspects or just changes that would need to be covered.
- concerning the culture: people may tend to change some of their values or at least some of their ways of thinking mostly by opening themselves to tourists.
- concerning the employement: due to the growth of the tourism, inhabitants tend to change their studies. They would certainly study more tourism, sociology and of course English (or other languages...). Employement in the services sector would naturally rise in sort of that at the end it might turn out be risky: with a larger concentration in one sector, risks are higher when something threatening happens (i.e Iceland were concentrated in the banking sector and experienced bankruptcy because of the financial crisis; decrease of the tourism after the tsunami in Sri Lanka/Thailand...).
- concerning the architecture of the city/the landscape: some historical sites are renovated, some new tourism areas are built...etc. There might even be some standardization of the landscape because of the infrastructal adaptation for tourism.
Secondly, I thought about another thing that could explain how some cities turned out to be a greater destination for tourism. I actually mostly supposed that the implantation of low cost airlines or new airports would help the tourism growth (emxample of Sabah in East Malaysia: http://www.eturbonews.com/17788/sabah-rises-further-malaysia-tourism-thanks-air-connections).
Hope it will help and that my ideas are relevant!
Hello Triple A,
ReplyDeleteI like the structure of your analysis, you chose a good indicator and the 11 points of focus you went through gave significance to your arguments. It is good that you used external viewpoints from literates and made clear links from their citations to your blog. I especially like the connection drawn between globalization and the global indicator of your choice, as you mention the technological and government policy aspects that increased the rate of tourism and the ease at which privat and business individuals can move from one location to another. I agree that Free Trade Zones have an effect too, but maybe you overstated the economic benefits in this regard, as certainly not every traveller makes tourism choices depending on this feature.
One constructive complaint I would like to make is that you should watch out for typos and more generally for the quality of the english you employ, I have seen quite a few sentences where you missed the connecting word like
"the pertinent global indicator that we are going to use would (!!!) the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city."
This does make the reading less fluent and clear, so read over your finished blog with a little more care.
But all in all this was very informative and well set out.
I hope my comment can be of help to your next blog.
Hi Triple A,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your informative and enjoyable article. It has given me further insight into the tourism industry as a playmaker within the globalization context.
As some people have already mentioned, I commend your choice of tourism as a global indicator. This is because basically nothing is as strongly correlated to globalization as tourism is. In my opinion globalization IS tourism, just on a much grander multinational scale, and much more permanent.
This is because a developed tourism industry shares some of the fundamental prerequisites with globalization. These prerequisites include political stability and freedom, freedom of mobility (obviously), friendly relations with foreign countries, open market economies, ect. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that some of the top ten economically free countries overlap with the top ten most visited countries.
The top ten economically free countries are;
1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. Mauritius
9. Ireland
10. United states
As presented by the "2012 Index of Economic Freedom".
I do not think that the method of calculating the tourist activity rate matters much, because although they might differ in relation to each other I am sure that the methods stay consistent within itself.
I found the point on the role that governments and big businesses play on tourism intriguing, and especially the the massive influence that the tourism businesses have on local governments. Although I am no expert on the matter, I have trouble initially believing that these businesses have enough sway to change laws and dwarf governments. Although you have stated that examples were hard to find and are more prevalent in Asia, I could not help but notice that half of the countries on your top 10 list were Asian countries (Namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Turkey). So although this could indeed be a valid point, it seems to me at this moment that it just an exaggerated assertion.
On my last point, I would like to encourage you to explore further on the environmental implications of tourism. You have mentioned the protection of turtles and such in highly visited areas, but to what extent should countries be allowed to defile their natural scene to generate tourist revenue? Is long term global sustainable, especially on the local level? Where is the point where tourism does more harm than good, and should be discouraged?
I think that these are all relevant issues you could explore with regard to globalization and tourism.
Once again, thank you for the enjoyable article. Good job.