THE tourist sector: the italian experience

by Alfonso Marino

This work takes into account a theoretical discussion about the relationship between the private and public sectors with specific reference to Italy. It argues that three contexts are important, namely the ‘task’, ‘normative’ and ‘organisational’ environments. The second part of the paper reports some findings from research in progress. This describes the attitudes of Italian staff working in the public sector of tourism to the issue of the relationship between the public and private sector. South Italian managers rank motivational factors highly, while north Italian managers seem more concerned about issues of co-ordination and the quality of service provision.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PERCEPTION OF RISK AND THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS OF TRAVEL OF FRENCH TOURISTS: THE CASE OF EGYPT

by Tare Sayed Abdel Azim

This exploratory study was conducted  in order to investigate  the impact of socio-demographic variables “age, sex, familial situation, qualification, profession, income per capita”, international tourism experience, and tourism experience in Egypt on the decision making process of travel under the effect of the risk factor “terrorist attacks of last April,2006, in Sinai, Egypt». For this purpose, a two decision making process probabilities have been estimated by the ordinal logit model.

IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF ECOTOURISM THROUGH ADVANCING EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF GREEK ECO-TOUR GUIDES: THE ROLE OF TRAINING IN ENVIRONMENTAL INTERPRETATION

by Constantina Skanavis & Christos Giannoulis

In Greece, environmental interpretation is in its infancy as an academic field. In particular, there are no nature guides or specific conservation objectives, and there is no professional training for non formal environmental educators and/or interpreters. The ultimate scope of this paper is to reveal the necessity of integrating environmental interpretation in the training of Greek Ecotour guides.The focus is based on developing abilities which could enable Greek Ecotour guides to communicate and interpret the significance of the environment, promote minimal impact practices, ensure the sustainability of the natural and cultural environment, and motivate visiting tourists to evaluate the quality of life in relation to larger ecological or cultural concerns. The rationale underpinning this objective is that by providing accurate and effective interpretation of ecotourism sites as well as monitoring and modelling environmental responsible behaviour, the outcome will be to promote positive impacts of tourism and alleviate negative ones Local community will be encouraged to participate in environmental management of ecotourism settings. Furthermore, connecting ecotourism commitment to returning benefits, particularly economic and employment ones to local communities, it stresses that training local people to be interpretive guides, helps achieving not only ecological sustainability but also economic sustainability. Once trained, guides may encourage conservation action amongst both tourists and the local community.

FOUR WHEEL DRIVE TOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR REMOTE AREAS

by Andrew Taylor & Dean Carson

Desert areas account for around 70% of Australia’s landmass but are home to less than 3% of the population. The economies of many desert areas have been described as marginal or peripheral. Tourism is an important economic activity for desert destinations and one sector, four wheel drive tourism, has been gaining increasing attention. This paper examines the spending patterns of four wheel drive visitors to desert regions of the Northern Territory of Australia and compares them to non-four wheel drive leisure visitors for a five year period from 2000 to 2004. In addition to assessing the amount of expenditure (overall and per day), the research investigates whether there were differences in expenditure items and the dispersal of expenditure among destinations. This information can help inform decisions about levels of investment for attracting the four wheel drive market which might be justified, and the types of product opportunities that might arise from a growing market.

Causality between economic growth and tourism expansion: empirical evidence from Trentino - Alto Adige

by Juan Gabriel Brida, Andrea Barquet & Wiston Adrian Risso

This paper investigates the causal relations between tourism growth, relative prices and economic expansion for the Trentino-Alto Adige/Sudtirol, a region of northeast Italy bordering on Switzerland and Austria. Johansen cointegration analysis shows the existence of one cointegrated vector among real GDP, tourism and relative prices where the corresponding elasticities are positive. Tourism and relative prices are weakly exogenous to real GDP. A variation of the Granger Causality test developed by Toda and Yamamoto is performed to reveal the uni-directional causality from tourism to real GDP. Impulse response analysis shows that a shock in tourism expenditure produces a fast positive effect on growth.

RECREATION IN THE AREA OF RIVER ARDAS: THE VIEWS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PUPIL

by Evangelos Manolas, Stylianos Tampakis, Stergios Gkaintatzis & Soultana Mavridou-Mavroudi

River Ardas in Greece is an area of outstanding natural beauty and used as a recreation area. Each year the area is visited by people of all ages. Children visit the place either with their school or with their parents. It is important therefore to study their views about the river as a recreation area. The children asked were pupils of the 5th and 6th grade of the elementary schools of the region. These pupils completed a questionnaire in their classrooms. Almost all of these children had visited the area before. The majority of the children declare satisfied from their visit in the area and assess the landscape positively. However, most of the children have a less positive view about the provided recreation services. The majority of them also think the river constitutes a danger to their safety as well as the safety of the other children. Through the use of hierarchical loglinear analysis it becomes obvious that the pupils who declare from totally to very satisfied regarding their visit in the recreation area of Ardas also find that the provided recreation services range from very good to good. The same pupils also believe that that the river constitutes from very small to fair danger to their safety and visit the place more than five times a year. In addition, the pupils who visit the area more than five times a year think that the river constitutes from very small to fair danger to their safety. Most of the pupils think that the diversity of plants ranges from big to very big while the diversity of animals ranges from small to very small. There is a need for improved infrastructure in the area, e.g. observatories, so that pupils can discover the wild animals that live there. The love of the children for animals becomes obvious from the fact that they do not wish the prohibition of pets in the place. Most of the pupils like the idea of camping in the area with their parents but the idea of doing so with their fellow pupils is even more popular. The children think that their parents would find it easier to grant permission to them to camp in the area if they themselves accompanied their children and not if their children did so together with their fellow pupils. Through the test of independence it becomes obvious that the will of the children to camp in the area depends on the will of their parents.

UNDERSTANDING TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: A REPRESENTATIONAL APPROACH

by Elina Meliou & Leonidas Maroudas