Keith G. Debbage

OLIGOPOLY AND THE RESORT CYCLE IN THE BAHAMAS

Abstract Markusens “profit cycle” and the influence of oligopoly are applied to Butlers notion of the resort cycle. The stagnation and decline associated with the latter stages of the resort cycle can be explained by industrial organization and the oligopolistic position of the major suppliers. The study area of Paradise Island (Bahamas) appears to be a clear example of how the corporate strategies of a major supplier can dramatically influence the resort cycle process. Resorts subjected to long-term oligopoly can experience eventual declines in the number of visitors because of an emphasis on market share and competitive stability, at the expense of innovation and diversification.

Post-Fordism and flexibility: the travel industry polyglot

Abstract Theorists argue that leisure and travel-related activities have become increasingly commodified, reflecting the broader evolution of a postmodern culture of consumption. This paper argues that these developments have produced a travel industry complex characterized by a polyglot of varying production processes, each placing a premium on flexible forms of accumulation. Focusing on certain key sectors of the travel industry, the paper examines how, partly because of new information technologies, each element of the travel industry polyglot appears to have been affected by flexible-based production strategies such as the externalization of ancillary services, the development of interfirm strategic alliances, and sophisticated product differentiation through brand segmentation. The paper ends with a call for in-depth empirical investigations to help develop a superior understanding of how flexible production techniques affect the various components comprising the travel industry.

Spatial Behavior in a Bahamian Resort

The purpose of this study is to understand better the spatial behavior of tourists visiting spatially confined resort destinations. Based on a time-budget study of the intradestination travel patterns of 795 tourists visiting Paradise Island (Bahamas), the travel behavior of tourists was found to be heterogeneous. The spatial equivalent of the allocentric tourist seemed more likely to venture beyond the Paradise Island resort area during their stay. Only the psychocentric tourist seemed reluctant to leave the island under any conditions. In the context of international resort tourism, the space-time constraints are found to be more important than the socioeconomic descriptors in explaining the different typologies of spatial behavior.

The geography of air passenger volume and local employment patterns by US metropolitan core area: 1973–1996

The purpose of this paper is to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists between administrative and auxiliary employment levels and air passenger volume for the top 50 urban-airport complexes in the United States from 1973 to 1996. The goal of this paper is a fairly modest one — to refine and expand the current literatures focus by conducting a broader investigation of the links that exist between air passenger volume and employment levels within local economies. Based on data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the US Census Bureau County Business Patterns, the major findings of this paper were that the correlation between administrative and auxiliary employment and enplaned passenger volume over time are statistically significant at the 1% level.

AIR TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN-ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE US CAROLINAS

The theoretical agenda of this paper is to bring airports and airline operations more squarely into the mainstream of the urban and regional development literature. The paper examines the spatial and temporal patterns of air passenger flows by airport in the US Carolinas. An emphasis is placed on articulating the linkages that exist between airport operations at the local level, the structural composition of the regional economy, and the competitive strategies of the airline industry. Particular attention was paid to administrative and auxiliary employment levels because it is a knowledge-based producer service that tends to seek out markets that offer high levels of air service connectivity to other places. A major finding in this paper is that those US Carolina airports that experienced significant gains in air passenger volume (e.g., Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham) tended to experience comparable gains in the employment levels of administrative and auxiliary workers, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

Urban Form, Air Pollution, and CO2 Emissions in Large U.S. Metropolitan Areas

In this article we explore the relationships between urban form and air pollution among 86 U.S. metropolitan areas. Urban form was quantified using preexisting sprawl indexes and spatial metrics applied to remotely sensed land cover data. Air pollution data included the nonpoint source emission of the ozone (O3) precursors nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the concentration of O3, the concentration and nonpoint source emission of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from on-road sources. Metropolitan areas that exhibited higher levels of urban sprawl, or sprawl-like urban morphologies, generally exhibited higher concentrations and emissions of air pollution and CO2 when controlling for population, land area, and climate.

The international airline industry: globalization, regulation and strategic alliances

Abstract International air passenger traffic has grown rapidly in recent years. This paper hypothesizes that while economies of scale and scope are inducing global consolidation of the international airline industry, it is the ongoing reform of the imperfectly competitive, regulatory environment and the fledgling international strategic alliances recently negotiated by various carriers that will ultimately determine the fate of the globalization process. The most competitive air carriers will emerge in countries that most successfully manage the transition from the restrictive bilateral system to ‘open skies’ multilateralism.

Airport Runway Slots: Limits to Growth

The United States–European Union market accounts for approximately 25% of all international tourist arrivals worldwide, and is arguably the busiest market in the world. This paper argues that landing slot policy and the manner in which airport capacity is allocated among airlines across the north Atlantic is likely to underpin the future geographic structure of the tourism industry. By analyzing the historical evolution of slot policy, this paper attempts to enhance the extant literature on how government authorities allocate scarce airport resources. The paper concludes by arguing that various slot reform proposals need to be adopted to make airports more “elastic” when managing origin-destination tourist flows.

The Geography of Non-Earned Income in the Piedmont Megapolitan Cluster

In this article we identified factors that may have contributed to spatial and temporal trends in non-earned income (NEI) within the 121-county Piedmont Megapolitan Cluster (PMC). We also assessed the impacts of the Great Recession on NEI, focusing on differences in NEI among metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties between 2007 and 2011. NEI exhibited a strong core-periphery relationship, with core urban counties, and those with research universities, exhibiting a higher proportion of NEI from dividends, interest and rent (DIR), and a lower proportion of NEI from public transfer payments (TP). The percent of the population with a bachelor’s degree was the dominant predictor of high ratios of DIR to TP at the county level. The Great Recession resulted in a reduction in DIR and an increase in TP among most PMC counties; however metropolitan counties experienced the most significant gains in TP.

Non-farm proprietorship employment by US metropolitan area

Purpose The entrepreneurial process is a result of an interaction between an individual entrepreneur and the surrounding entrepreneurial ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether US metropolitan areas with disproportionately high shares of entrepreneurs are systematically linked to particular attributes of the entrepreneurial support system? Design/methodology/approach In this paper, non-farm proprietorship (NFP) employment data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis is used as a dependent variable proxy for entrepreneurship. NFP data are widely used in the entrepreneurship literature. Data on all independent variables were obtained from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the Bureau of Labor Statistics by metropolitan area and subject to a stepwise linear regression analysis. Findings The relative share of NFP employment by metropolitan area exhibited a strong positive relationship with percentage of employment in finance, insurance and real estate, median age, percentage of Hispanic population and median home value. It is argued that the combination of significant predictors captures both out-of-necessity self-employment (e.g. low-skilled Hispanic and aging populations) and a self-employment of opportunity (e.g. access to capital). Practical implications Public policies focused on nurturing entrepreneurial ecosystems must account for these divergent explanatory frameworks when attempting to encourage NFP employment. Originality/value The paper has an explicit spatial context that tends to be overlooked in the traditional entrepreneurship literature. The focus on out-of-necessity versus opportunity-based entrepreneurship, and how it is shaped by some key predictors at the metropolitan scale, is a relatively new angle.