Does Infrastructure Alleviates Poverty in Developing Countries?

Infrastructure has largely been ignored in the assessment of poverty in developing countries. This paper attempts to make some contribution in the establishing the ingredients to alleviate poverty by exploring the impact of infrastructure on the urban poor in sample of 20 developing countries, over the period 1980-2005. The results from the static fixed effect and also the dynamic GMM model both reveal that transport and communication infrastructure are indeed an efficient tool in fighting urban poverty. Panel causality analysis also validated the results. Hence the main policy concern is how to improve access of the urban poor to such an asset.Urban Poverty, Infrastructure, Developing Countries

Tourism and economic growth: African evidence from panel vector autoregressive framework

Using a panel vector autoregressive model this paper investigates the dynamic and endogeneous contribution of tourism to output based on a sample of 40 African countries for the period 1990 - 2006. Results from the study confirm tourism to be an important ingredient of African development although private investment, openness, and human capital remain the main drivers. Further analysis reveals the existence of a reverse causation from national income to tourism development, thus confirming both tourism-led economic development and economic-driven tourism growth. Tourism is also observed to enhance private investment and the presence of bicausality between private investment, education, and income level is observed

A comparative analysis of tourism destination demand in Portugal

Tourism has experienced different levels of development in the different regions of Portugal. To frame this development, in this paper dynamic panel data models were estimated with the objective of explaining the evolution of international overnight stays in each region. Secondary data from 2000 to 2011 was used. The analysis includes the main tourism source markets for Portugal, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Spain. The tourism literature suggests that, among others, the main determinants of tourism demand are income (GDP), household consumption, unemployment rate and the harmonised consumer price index. Per capita income, unemployment rate and final household consumption were identified as the most shared explanatory variables in each tourism region. However, in some regions, the high elasticity with respect to per capita income was confirmed, suggesting that tourism is a luxury good. It is observed that, although significant, the explanatory power of these variables varies according to the origin and the destination region considered. Findings suggest heterogeneous behaviour of the main international tourism demand by region. Furthermore, results also suggest some implications for public and private tourism authorities. Stakeholders can update the analysis, trends and forecasts of international tourism demand, put forward in the National Strategic Plan for Tourism for the period from 2013 to 2015, by taking into account the different macroeconomic variables that help explain international overnight stays in each region of Portugal. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Do marketing promotion efforts in the tourism industry really matter? The case of Mauritius

Research on the determinant of international tourism has so far neglected tourism promotion efforts as a potential factor in the tourism demand equation. Moreover the few studies focused exclusively on developed country cases and till now no studies have been undertaken for small island states for which tourism accounts significantly to their economies. Research works have also failed to adequately investigate the time series properties of the data. The paper thus attempts to fill in the above gaps in and add new insights to the literature by focusing on the contribution of tourism promotion efforts on tourist arrival for the case of the small island state of Mauritius using an ARDL approach. Analysis of the results reveals that tourism marketing and promotion is indeed a significant element, though as not as sizeable as other classical ones, in the tourism equation

Transport Capital as a Determinant of Tourism Development: A Time Series Approach

Little serious research has been undertaken into the significance of transport as a factor in destination development despite being acknowledged by many writers. The paper aims at identifying and quantifying the factors that made Mauritius attractive to tourists and also to more importantly to investigate the importance transportation capital in the overall destination’s attractiveness. The novelty of this paper is that is extends a classical demand for international tourism function to include a proxy of public capital stock which has been decoupled into transport and non-transport infrastructure, and also uses co-integration analysis to model the determinants of tourism for a small island economy case. Results from the analysis show that transport capital stock of the country has been contributing positively of the number of tourist arrival in both short and long run. Tourism infrastructure is reported to be a more important ingredient than transport in the tourism equation. Non transport infrastructure, though having a positive sign, was however found to be insignificant. The study thus highlights the importance of transport capital in adding to the value of service and experience received by tourism

Transport Capital as a Determinant of Tourism Development: A Time Series Approach

Little serious research has been undertaken into the significance of transport as a factor in destination development despite being acknowledged by many writers. The paper aims at identifying and quantifying the factors that made Mauritius attractive to tourists and also to more importantly to investigate the importance transportation capital in the overall destination’s attractiveness. The novelty of this paper is that is extends a classical demand for international tourism function to include a proxy of public capital stock which has been decoupled into transport and non-transport infrastructure, and also uses co-integration analysis to model the determinants of tourism for a small island economy case. Results from the analysis show that transport capital stock of the country has been contributing positively of the number of tourist arrival in both short and long run. Tourism infrastructure is reported to be a more important ingredient than transport in the tourism equation. Non transport infrastructure, though having a positive sign, was however found to be insignificant. The study thus highlights the importance of transport capital in adding to the value of service and experience received by tourism

Does Infrastructure Matter In Tourism Development?

This paper investigates the significance of infrastructure as a factor in destination development. The classical demand for international tourism function is extended to include a proxy for infrastructure. An application involving the island of Mauritius is presented whereby total tourist arrivals as well as arrivals from Europe/America, Asia and Africa are modelled. The  findings show that tourists are sensitive to the infrastructure of the island, particularly those from Europe/America and Asia. Tourism infrastructure, income of tourists, distance, and relative prices are important ingredients in their own respect in the tourism demand equation.Keywords: Infrastructure, Tourism, Dynamic Panel dat

Capital Structure Influence on Construction Firm Performance

The interconnectedness between capital structure and firm performance is a topic of high interest among scholars and management alike. The scholars tend to unveil the why segment of the relationship, while the management looks into the how side to promote capital structure policy which can optimise the firm performance. While many studies have looked into this relationship across multiple industries and spanning across decades of data, the current study trains its lens on Malaysian public listed company companies which operate in the construction sector, and with data window between 2010 to 2014. This specific sector was chosen for their high gearing which renders firms to relatively high insolvency exposure emanating from interest rate fluctuations. The five-year timeframe was selected to isolate potential data contaminations streaming from global financial crisis which winds down in 2009. Financial data of the company were extracted from Bloomberg Terminal based on a pre-prepared list of Bloomberg tickers. A total of 225 observations were recorded in this study. Using Tobins Q as a proxy for firm performance, this study finds a mixed result where short term debts ratio indicates a significant negative effect, while long term debt ratio presents a non-significant influence. Explanations on this output are therefore discussed in this paper

Tourism and Economic Globalization: An Emerging Research Agenda

Globalization characterizes the economic, social, political, and cultural spheres of the modern world. Tourism has long been claimed as a crucial force shaping globalization, while in turn the developments of the tourism sector are under the influences of growing interdependence across the world. As globalization proceeds, destination countries have become more and more susceptible to local and global events. By linking the existing literature coherently, this study explores a number of themes on economic globalization in tourism. It attempts to identify the forces underpinning globalization and assess the implications on both the supply side and the demand side of the tourism sector. In view of a lack of quantitative evidence, future directions for empirical research have been suggested to investigate the interdependence of tourism demand, the convergence of tourism productivity, and the impact of global events

Integrating destination attributes, political (in)stability, destination image, tourist satisfaction, and intention to recommend: a study of UAE

Very limited attention has hitherto been paid to political-specific issues that may significantly guide the successful formation of destination image. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the interrelationships between destination attributes, political (in)stability, destination image, tourist satisfaction, and intention to recommend, to build a conceptual framework of the drivers and outcomes of destination image. Twelve hypotheses (null and alternative) were developed and examined, using a sample of 829 tourists visiting the UAE. Results show that tourists' evaluation of the destination attributes and political (in)stability act as antecedents of perceived destination image. Furthermore, political (in)stability and destination image have a strong effect on tourist satisfaction and intention to recommend. The current study enhances current theorizations by examining the merits of political (in)stability in models of tourists' intention to recommend. From a practical perspective, the study presents significant implications for destination marketers