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- Market segmentation and their potential economic impacts in an ecotourism destination: an applied modelling study on Hokkaido, JapanPublication . Neuts, Bart; Romão, João; Nijkamp, Peter; Shikida, AsamiIn a heterogeneous tourist market, segmentation is a valuable marketing tool to focus attention on the most advantageous clusters of visitors. In an ecotourism destination, the attractiveness of tourists may be defined by their ecological awareness, but also their (potential) economic impact, since there is a need to balance ecological sustainability and economic viability. This article proposes a model-based latent class analysis of visitors' preferences and choices in order to identify different demand clusters in the Shiretoko Peninsula, Japan. The method yields four distinct clusters, each differing in motivations, information search and activities undertaken. We also describe how our approach can be used to make informed decisions about management strategies on tourist heterogeneity in order to maximize benefits for the local economy.
- Special issue: Spatial and sectorial impact studies in tourismPublication . Romão, João; Nijkamp, PeterThis special issue is focused on the heterogeneous impacts of tourism in contemporary economies and societies, a question that is achieving increasing attention as tourism becomes a more relevant economic activity, with continuous rates of growth in terms of number of travellers, its economic dimensions and also the negative impacts on the environment, congestion or inflationary processes at the destination place. Assuming a broad perspective on the tourism impacts, 12 articles were selected from more than 70 candidate papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Advances in Tourism Economics (organized in 2014 by the Portuguese Association for Research and Tourism Development, in Lisbon) and at the special session on ‘‘Tourism and Spatial Dynamics – Growth and Resilience’’, organized at the 55th Congress of the European Regional Science Association (Lisbon, 2015). With authors and empirical studies from different parts of the world (e.g. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, China and Japan), all articles in this special issue develop advanced and rigorous methodological tools and provide relevant policy or managerial implications for the tourism sector.
- Cultural heritage appraisal by visitors to global cities: the use of social media and urban analytics in urban buzz researchPublication . Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Romão, J.An attractive cultural heritage is an important magnet for visitors to many cities nowadays. The present paper aims to trace the constituents of the destination attractiveness of 40 global cities from the perspective of historical-cultural amenities, based on a merger of extensive systematic databases on these cities. The concept of cultural heritage buzz is introduced to highlight: (i) the importance of a varied collection of urban cultural amenities; (ii) the influence of urban cultural magnetism on foreign visitors, residents and artists; and (iii) the appreciation for a large set of local historical-cultural amenities by travelers collected from a systematic big data set (emerging from the global TripAdvisor platform). A multivariate and econometric analysis is undertaken to validate and test the quantitative picture of the above conceptual framework, with a view to assess the significance of historical-cultural assets and socio-cultural diversity in large urban agglomerations in the world as attraction factors for visitors. The results confirm our proposition on the significance of urban cultural heritage as a gravity factor for destination choices in international tourism in relation to a high appreciation for historical-cultural amenities.
- Impacts of innovation, productivity and specialization on tourism competitiveness - a spatial econometric analysis on European regionsPublication . Romão, J.; Nijkamp, PeterTourism is clearly a place-based activity, while in many advanced economies it is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based activity, with a high potential for the development of practice- and place-based innovation strategies. This study analyses whether and how regional systems of innovation influence the competiveness of tourism destinations in Europe. Impacts of both traditional production factors (physical and human capital), productivity, specialization and other contextual variables - related to the territorial capital of each region - on regional tourism performance of 237 European regions (NUTS 2) are analysed over a period of 8 years, using advanced techniques for spatial econometric analysis. The results reveal lower levels of productivity in those regions where tourism services are more labour intensive, while regions where education, innovation and productivity demonstrate higher levels are those where gross value added in tourism is less important for the regional economy. Policy implications are discussed, taking into consideration the principles for smart specialisation strategies in European regions and the possibility for cross-border regional cooperation. This work also confirms the research potential of spatial econometric analysis - and in particular spatial autocorrelation techniques - for tourism studies.