Barriers to local residents’ participation in community-based tourism: lessons from Houay Kaeng Village in Laos

This study aims to identify the barriers to local residents’ participation in the process of community-based tourism planning and development in a developing country. Focusing on the case of Houay Kaeng Village in Sayabouly Province, Laos, a qualitative exploratory study was conducted by adopting in-depth interviews with the various levels of local community’s members. The key barriers to local community participation identified in this research include: (1) low education levels and lack of knowledge about tourism; (2) poor living conditions and lack of financial support; (3) busy daily routine and lack of time for tourism participation; (4) local community’s perception of tourism as a seasonal business with low income; and (5) power disparities, institutional disincentives and local’s distrust in authorities. The results suggest that only a small number of the local residents in the village were satisfied with their current and on-going participation expressing their strong willingness to continue in participating in the process of tourism planning and development, whereas a large group of the residents were not willing to do it at all in the future. The paper further discusses implications for the government and communities in regard to community-based sustainable tourism development

The influence of community factors on the engagement of residents in place promotion: Empirical evidence from an Italian heritage site

The engagement of community residents in place promotion is increasingly recognized as desirable for ensuring effective and reliable communication with tourists. The study investigated the effects of community factors on residents' engagement in the promotion of an Italian heritage site. Community commitment, environmental attitudes, and perceptions of the effectiveness of existing place marketing communications were found to be decisive in influencing residents' engagement in the promotion of the Amalfi Coast. The paper helps to shed light on collaboration in place promotion, thus enriching the debate on the ambassadorship role of residents and suggesting useful insights for policy makers/destination management organization

Marketing a tourism industry in late stage decline: The case of the Isle of Man

Qualitative interviews in the Isle of Man uncovered local perceptions of a tourism industry in late stage decline. Social impacts of decline are pronounced including facilities loss, cultural changes and a heightening of perceived peripherality: which taken together undermine local identity. Tourists are welcomed as they help to affirm the pride residents have in their island in creating a more active atmosphere, provide social interaction opportunities and to combat negative stereotyping. Thus findings emphasise the diverse, unique and persistent benefits of tourism in the Isle of Man, despite its decline. Destination marketing recommendations are therefore made to better address the experiences and desires of communities experiencing decline

Impacts of the global economic crisis on cyprus tourism and policy responses

This study examines the impacts of the global economic crisis on Cyprus tourism and the pertinent policy responses. A qualitative approach was adopted by conducting eight semi-structured interviews with tourism authorities and suppliers/professionals. Findings indicated the main impacts of the crisis on Cypriot tourism: lack of competitiveness, decreased visitation/revenues, inadequate quality and escalated pricing. Furthermore, findings identify three types of policy measures: (i) immediate response measures; (ii) foreign investment in tourism; and (iii) diversification of the tourism product and quality improvement. The study highlights the need for Cyprus to develop a comprehensive tourism planning framework. It is suggested that crisis plans of small island states should be developed upon a holistic framework that leverages their destination capitals

The role of place image dimensions in residents' support for tourism development

Understanding residents' perceptions of tourism impacts and their level of support for its development is considered vital for the sustainable development of tourism. Despite the plethora of factors examined as determinants of residents' attitudes toward tourism, the role of residents' place image has been under-examined. This study developed a model examining the relationships between residents' place image dimensions, perceived tourism impacts and support for development. Findings suggest that two (physical appearance, social environment) out of the four place image dimensions identified in this study exercise a significant effect on residents' attitudes toward tourism. The theoretical and practical implications to the formation of planning and development programs for tourism are discussed

The impact of residents' informedness and involvement on their perceptions of tourism impacts: The case of Bled

The tourism development debate includes many studies on how residents perceive positive or negative tourism impacts, based on sustainability, as understood by a three-pillar concept. However, so far studies were very limited in addressing certain requirements for sustainable tourism, such as informed stakeholders’ participation and cooperation – which represent the subject of this study. The survey that was undertaken follows previous ones in using the established three-pillar sustainability concept in order to define impacts of tourism. Further, it adds to tourism research by surveying informedness and developmental involvement. A four-dimensional informedness–involvement tourism grid is used to segment residents and their perceptions on tourism impacts in each segment are analysed. The model is empirically applied to the Slovenian lake and mountain destination of Bled. The findings confirm that highly informed and highly involved residents had better perceptions of tourism than all other groups, whereas those residents who were lowly informed and lowly involved had more negative perceptions of tourism. The survey contributes by expanding knowledge on resident perceptions of tourism by adding in the aspects of informedness and involvement. The proposed model can be applied to any destination to help manage residents’ opinions and consequently their support for tourism development

A survey of the metazoan parasite assemblage of snoek, Thyrsites atun (Euphrasen, 1791), off South Africa with an assessment of host-parasite relationships and potential biological tags

Parasites are a ubiquitous but often unseen, unacknowledged and understudied component of biological communities. However, their roles in structuring ecosystems, their influence on the evolutionary history of host species and their potential applications are slowly being uncovered. The snoek, Thyrsites atun, is a nomadic predator native to the cold coastal waters of the southern Hemisphere. Being a major target of the South African inshore line-fishery, the snoek is a socioeconomically important species whose ecological significance in the southern Benguela should not be underestimated. This study aimed to survey the metazoan parasite community of snoek off South Africa, assess host-parasite relationships and evaluate the potential of parasites as biological tags for stock structure studies. Examination of 210 snoek (FL 411 - 1040 mm) revealed them to be host to 16 parasite taxa. These included 9 new host records (Tentacularia coryphaenae, Caligus coryphaenae, Caligus dakari, Corynosoma australe, Nothobomolochus fradei, Hatschekia conifera, Bolbosoma vasculosum, Rhadinorhynchus cadenati, Digenea sp.) and 4 new locality records (Molicola uncinatus, Pseudoterranova sp., C. dakari, B. vasculosum). A further three cosmopolitan taxa (Anisakis sp., Kudoa thyrsites, Hepatoxylon trichiuri) as well as Caligus zei were also recorded

Studies on the diversity and distribution of marine ichthyoparasites in Southern Africa

Parasites are a vital component of ecosystems. However, their contribution to the functioning and structuring of ecosystems has historically been overlooked worldwide. In South Africa, marine ichthyoparasitology has a long history but research has largely been confined to taxonomic studies and the literature pertaining to marine ichthyoparasites is highly fragmented. This situation makes it difficult to gauge advances in marine parasitology, identify knowledge gaps and hampers our understanding of their ecological roles in the marine environments of Southern Africa as well as their use as tools in fisheries science. This thesis aims to explore the diversity of metazoan marine ichthyoparasites reported from Southern African waters and to examine their inter- and intraspecific distribution in marine fishes. A review of two centuries of parasitological literature, 1818 to 2017, revealed that 378 marine ichthyoparasites have been recorded off South Africa and included taxa from six phyla: Acanthocephala (12), Annelida (6), Arthropoda (210), Cnidaria (11), Nematoda (6) and Platyhelminthes (133). The parasites formed 723 unique host-parasite pairs with 269 host taxa spread across the classes Actinopterygii (186), Elasmobranchii (80), Holocephalii (2) and Myxini (1). Host species with the most diverse parasite assemblages were species of commercial significance, namely Thyrsites atun (20) followed by Merluccius capensis (17). The dominance of arthropods and platyhelminthes, which together accounted for 90.7% of the parasites found, reflects the interest and expertise of local and foreign researchers who have worked in South Africa. The parasite assemblage of selected commercially significant fish species was used to assess the degree of interspecific similarity in parasite community structure and identify the drivers of ichthyoparasite community assembly in the Southern Benguela. The examination of 554 specimens comprising six fish species (Brama brama, Chelon richardsonii, Merluccius capensis, Merluccius paradoxus, Sardinops sagax and Thyrsites atun) caught off the South African west coast revealed that they hosted 41 metazoan parasite taxa. These included 10 new host records and five new geographic records. Thyrsites atun and C. richardsonii had the most speciose component communities being infected by 17 and 14 taxa respectively. Multivariate analyses revealed that host habitat and identity in conjunction with the host specificity of ectoparasites influenced the community structure of ectoparasitic assemblages. Larval endoparasite community structure, on the other hand, differed between inshore and offshore habitats. Within the offshore habitat, further variation in endoparasite communities were driven by the host species‘ position in the food web, its trophic ecology and its vulnerability to potential final hosts of larval parasite taxa. A survey of the metazoan parasites of snoek (Thyrsites atun) caught in the Southern Benguela (n = 262) and the Northern Benguela (n = 87) revealed 18 taxa comprising 12 new geographic records for the Northern Benguela. A generalised additive mixed model (GAMM) indicated that infracommunity richness of snoek was determined by host size. Multivariate analyses revealed an ontogenetic shift, driven by an increase in the prevalence and infection intensity of trophically transmitted taxa (Anisakis sp., Corynosoma australe, Hepatoxylon trichiuri, Molicola uncinatus), in infracommunity structure as well as in the long-lived larval parasite assemblage. A ‗Random Forest‘ analysis selected Anisakis sp. and M. uncinatus as potential biological tags for assessing the population structure of snoek in the Benguela ecosystem. GAMMs with binomial and Tweedie error distributions were used to respectively assess the prevalence and abundance of both selected taxa in relation to host traits, seasonality and region of origin. The analyses demonstrated that anisakids were more prevalent and abundant in snoek caught in the Southern Benguela while M. uncinatus were more prevalent in snoek from the Northern Benguela. The spatial differences in infection levels of both parasite taxa suggest the presence of two snoek populations in the Benguela ecosystem. The information collected, collated and presented in this thesis has enabled an assessment of the present state of marine ichthyoparasitology off Southern Africa. Although the work uncovered a diverse ichthyoparasite fauna, it also revealed a bias towards particular parasitic taxa. The study highlighted a need for wide-ranging parasite surveys not restricted to certain host or parasite taxa in order to improve our knowledge of marine ichthyoparasite diversity in South Africa. The thesis also provided the first assessment of the drivers of parasite community assembly in the Southern Benguela and demonstrated that host ecology and the characteristics of the parasites played an important role in determining their distribution and interspecific distribution. Geographic differences in snoek parasite distribution patterns which reflect ecological variations across ecosystems have also proved useful to inform fishery management

Service quality and customer satisfaction: The moderating effects of hotel star rating

This research contributes to customer satisfaction knowledge with regard to accommodation in South Africa whose star grading differs. A multi-group analysis and an importance-performance map analysis by means of PLS-SEM allow us to differentiate between service quality performance scores and their influences on customer satisfaction across accommodation with a different star grading. The two most important predictors of satisfaction with one-star and two-star category accommodation are the accommodation infrastructure and the employee expertise. Both predictors were found to have relatively low levels of performance. Safety and security and room quality are two significant determinants of satisfaction with three-star establishments, although they under-perform with regard to safety and security. In respect of four-star and five-star accommodation, waiting time and customer interaction, both of which have an above average performance scores, influence customer satisfaction. We provide specific guidelines for managerial interventions to improve service quality and guests’ satisfaction for each grading category

Evaluating Exchange Rate Value at Risks models for fourteen African currencies

The global foreign exchange market is undoubtedly the world's biggest market with huge trading volume, surpassing other markets including equities and commodities. This study focuses on exchange rate modelling where we perform an empirical study to evaluate models which can be used to identify a common Value at Risk (VaR) model for fourteen African currencies. The descriptive statistics of our data reveal the salient features common to financial time series which are non-normality, high kurtosis, skewness and presence of heteroscedasticity except for one currency, the central African CFA Franc. The latter is excluded from the modelling exercise. We make use of GARCH, GJR-GARCH and FIGARCH to model volatility using four distributions: normal, student-t, GED and skew-t. Unconditional EVT and dynamic GARCH-EVT methodologies are also used for volatility modelling; both with static (S) and rolling windows (R). Results show that static window shows a better performance than rolling window. Unconditional EVT is seen to overpredict VaR and dynamic EVT is not among the best models. The GARCH (33.3%) and GJR-GARCH (38.5%) models produce better forecasts with a dominance for GJR-GARCH models. Despite the data being skewed, the normal distribution gives better forecast. We also observe that GARCH-S-Normal is suitable for Southern African Development Community (SADC) and FIGARCH for East African Community (EAC) countries. A geographical combination reveals the use of GJR-GARCH for Northern and Western African regions and GARCH-S-Normal for South African region. Despite not finding a unique model for all countries, it is interesting to note that different regions/communities can adopt a common Value at Risk model for forecasting purposes. Our results provide a full validation of the models under the different backtesting methods and thus could be implemented at the practitioner’s level