Search Results (6)

This study investigates the impact of cultural openness on intertemporal consumption behavior in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, using panel data from 14 countries spanning 2010 to 2022. Unlike prior research that primarily focused on lifestyle shifts or product preferences, this study explores how cultural globalization influences the trade-off between present consumption and future savings, as captured by the consumption-to-savings ratio (LCESR). Cultural openness is operationalized using the Cultural Globalization General Index (LCGGI), and its effect is analyzed alongside key control variables including Internet penetration, real GDP per capita, inflation, and tourism. To address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity, this study employs the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, supported by robustness check models. The findings reveal a significant positive relationship between cultural openness and LCESR in both the short and long run, indicating that increased exposure to global cultural flows enhances consumption tendencies in the region. Internet penetration and inflation negatively affect saving behavior, while GDP per capita shows a positive effect. Tourist arrivals exhibit limited influence. This study also highlights the importance of historical consumption behavior, as the lagged dependent variable strongly predicts the current LCESR. Robustness checks confirm the consistency of the results across all models. These insights suggest that cultural openness, digital infrastructure, and macroeconomic stability are pivotal in shaping consumption/saving patterns. The results carry important implications for financial education, digital consumption governance, and cultural policy strategies in the MENA region and similar emerging markets undergoing rapid cultural integration. Full article

The impact of tourism on economic growth is a subject of interest to researchers as well as policy makers. Numerous studies have explored this relationship, often arriving at varying conclusions depending on the methods employed. Most of these studies, however, assume a symmetric relationship between tourism and economic growth. In this study, the Hatemi-J asymmetric causality test was used to test for short-run asymmetric causality between tourism receipts and economic growth in Turkey for the period 1990–2023, and unidirectional causality was found between the increase in tourism incomes and economic growth and between the decrease in tourism incomes and economic contraction. Additionally, the hidden co-integration test was applied to examine the asymmetric relationships between them in the long run, and the results reveal that an increase in tourism revenues provides resilience to the economy by mitigating contraction during economic downturns. This study contributes to the field by addressing the interaction of tourism and the economy in Turkey from an asymmetric perspective and by revealing previously unobserved relationships. The results provide partial support for the tourism-led growth hypothesis. In the long term, it is recommended that policymakers design tourism strategies aimed at enhancing resilience to economic shocks, thereby also strengthening the national economy. Diversified markets and products, well-structured incentives, and sustainable tourism practices are key elements in achieving this goal. Full article

Even though tourism (both domestic and international) is one of the main triggering factors of human mobility worldwide, some of its forms are unexplored. This can be partly linked with the lack of reliable data and obstacles related to data processing and interpretation. Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) allows us to identify various forms of tourism that are undetectable through traditional data sources such as accommodation statistics. Using MPD, not only same-day tourists but also the real time mobility patterns of tourists among various destinations can be revealed, and even hidden (i.e., unobserved) forms of tourism can be detected. However, despite the obvious benefits of such data, very few comprehensive studies exist to date on the processing, and interpretation of MPD in tourism research. In this paper, a case study is presented on the challenges and opportunities of processing MPD from raw to good quality researchable data offering a baseline tool for MPD-based research in the field of tourism. With the methodology introduced in this paper, it is possible to provide a more accurate picture of tourist flows regarding unobserved tourists, including same-day visitors. Full article

The purpose of this study was to determine how political instability influences inbound tourist flows in Ukrainian cities, performance of tourism-related businesses, and tourism-based profits in general. This study allows us to present the impact of various events on the tourism economy in Ukraine; however, the available secondary data with the unobserved component model procedure detection give only a general overview of the situation. Thus, interviews were conducted with experts, including managers of accommodation facilities, employees of municipal tourism development departments, and researchers investigating tourism. Interviews with experts revealed opportunities, threats, and future scenarios of tourism in Ukraine in the face of five years of political instability. The results support previous findings that political instability reduces tourist traffic over the short term. On the other hand, the interviews with experts representing major province cities have shown different results for the long-term perspective. Cities with developed tourism sectors in areas away from the place of conflict are beneficiaries of political instability. Disadvantaged are cities that had their tourist flows based on the citizens of the aggressor’s country—the Russian Federation. Cities that are underdeveloped in terms of tourism did not experience a significant impact of the political instability in eastern Ukraine. Full article

Rock art paintings present high sensitivity to light, and an exhaustive evaluation of the potential color degradation effects is essential for further conservation and preservation actions on these rock art systems. Microfading spectrometry (MFS) is a technique that provides time series of stochastic observations that represent color fading over time at the measured points on the surface under study. In this work, a reliable and robust modeling framework for a short and greatly fluctuating observation dataset collected over the surfaces of rock art paintings located on the walls of Cova Remigia in Ares del Maestrat, Castellón, Spain, is presented. The model is based on a spatially correlated spline-based time series model that takes into account prior information in the form of model derivatives to guarantee monotonicity and long-term saturation for predictions of new color fading estimates at unobserved locations on the surface. The correlation among the (spatially located) time series is modeled by defining Gaussian process (GP) priors over the spline coefficients across time series. The goal is to obtain a complete spatio-temporal mapping of color fading estimates for the study area, which results in very important and useful information that will potentially serve to create better policies and guidelines for heritage preservation and sustainable rock art cultural tourism. Full article

It is difficult to identify, but there is a type of harassment grounded in gender stereotyping in the context of tourism. It would be useful to discover the hidden relationships between gender harassment and certain beliefs about women as travellers, tourism professionals and sex objects in the field of hospitality. Methodologically, a survey was carried out reaching a sample of ±684 units by means of a convenience sampling procedure. The measuring instruments consisted of a structured questionnaire divided into two kinds of Likert beliefs scales comprising general statements and statements related to tourism. The survey respondent data were also gathered as regards sociodemographic characteristics. This paper presents empirical evidence to identify the causal factors of gender violence by considering general and particular stereotyping in tourism. Firstly, by performing three exploratory factor analyses, three female stereotyping dimensions were labelled in the field of tourism (occupational sexism, ambivalent sexist discrimination, and sex as a commodity), as well as three general prejudices about women (dysfunctional romantic relationships, ethically challenged presumptions, and aesthetical manners conventions) and the gender harassment factor. Secondly, a linear regression analysis was carried out to demonstrate that both general stereotyping related to a broader “life” framework and sectorial prejudices in tourism cause gender harassment. Finally, this research proves that general stereotyping determines sectorial prejudices in the field of tourism. The practical implications could be to enhance gender equality and combat gender harassment by revealing unintentional and unobserved prejudices that occur in a general life setting and in the tourism sphere against women as neglected professionals, under the subtle and ambivalent condition of travellers, and even as objects of consumption. Full article