Lluís Prats

How Tourism Destinations Evolve: The Notion of Tourism Local Innovation System

The analysis of tourism destinations as territorial agglomerations, that is, industrial districts and clusters, has been given attention in this journal in recent years. In these analyses, tourist companies closely situated in a territory or space are claimed to benefit from available shared resources. These papers, however, do not focus on the key role that innovation and the relationships among actors have on the evolution of tourism destinations. In trying to close this gap, we use the notions of system of innovation and social network analysis, and apply them to the tourism industry, to introduce the Tourism Local Innovation System (TLIS) model. This model can be used to assess the innovation capacity of tourism destinations and, also, to design relational network structures that favour innovation. Finally, by using social network analysis methods to draw a destinations relational network map, we present the case of Costa Brava Centre (Mid-Costa-Brava) — the most visited destination in Catalonia, which at the same time is the most visited region in Spain — as an actual example of TLIS.

Tourism destination zoning in mountain regions: a consumer-based approach

This paper puts into question the conventional way of delineating tourism destination borders in terms of taken-for-granted administrative boundaries. Despite the fact that the literature on destination boundaries advocates for conceptual frameworks where customers’ consumption patterns play a more fundamental role, instances of actual attempts of structuring tourism geographies into ‘new tourism areas’ are scant, and instances of zoning on the basis of visitors’ consumption patterns are absent. A method for identifying alternative and more effective consumption-based tourism zones that combines geographical information system and hierarchical cluster analysis techniques, and that relies on time distances between attractions, is thus proposed, and implemented in the case of the Pyrenees mountain region. As a result the region is restructured into nine new tourism zones, which, compared to the original destinations, are more uniform in size and have a higher correlation index between attractiveness and accommodation intensity; they also have different levels of cross-border intensity and are very similar to historical regions; and the more they differ from the original destinations the higher their attractiveness, which supports the effectiveness of the new zoning technique. Four types of tourism zones ranging from higher to lower tourism intensity are also identified.

The Free Time Allocation and its Relationship with the Perceived Quality of Life (QoL) and Satisfaction with Life (SWL)

Abstract The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the Free Time Allocation with the Perceived Quality of Life (QoL) and the Satisfaction with Life (SwL) in Greece. A samp le of 353 respondents showed that the Paid Labour is a very important factor in explaining the perceived QoL, followed by the active leisure and to a lesser degree by the passive leisure. The satisfaction of Life appears to be influenced more from the perceived QoL and to a lesser degree from the time allocation and leisure.

Heritage tourism clusters along the borders of Mexico

This article seeks to find potential heritage tourism clusters in border areas. Literature about tourism destinations is essentially focused on administrative-bound areas, while little attention has been paid to functional regions. The research is based on a methodological exercise to contribute to this debate by analyzing the case of three border regions between Mexico, the USA, Guatemala and Belize, respectively. These borders have never been static but have changed throughout history, to the present day situation. It is argued that these changes have implications for the potential development of heritage tourism. The results identify a number of cross-border clusters and corridors in these areas with different levels of tourism underdevelopment, mainly because of political or legal restrictions. The results of this study contribute to an improved understanding of borderland heritages and cross-border regional clusters in the context of tourism.

Innovation as Institutional Change. A Complexity Approach

Over the past few decades, the literature on innovation management has focused on explaining how to be innovative in one’s own organization. Even though there is a variety of prescriptions, a key question in all of the perspectives relates to how manageable the innovation process is.

The perceived value of accessibility in religious sites – do disabled and non-disabled travellers behave differently?

Purpose This study aims at exploring whether there are differences in behaviour between people with special access needs and those who do not have these needs at a religious destination. In particular, a comparison is made between the role and structure of the perceived value of accessibility and its effect on satisfaction and loyalty. Design/methodology/approach Data are collected using a self-administered questionnaire (n = 523). Information on perceived value of accessibility, satisfaction and loyalty is subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to ensure the reliability and validity of the three components. Structural equation modelling is used to test the hypothesized relationship between these constructs. Findings The weight of the items of the perceived value of accessibility is different between the groups analysed and its effects on satisfaction and loyalty are higher among people with access needs. Research limitations/implications Results imply that the perceived value of accessibility may be a determinant in predicting satisfaction. Thus, any study addressing the role of accessibility in a destination should take this factor into consideration. At the same time, from a practical point of view, ensuring accessibility will also benefit destinations in providing better experiences. A clear limitation of this study is the use of a convenience sample. Originality/value Religious tourism and accessible tourism have been treated as two separate issues in academic literature. However, curative shrines are sites where religious tourism and accessible tourism naturally merge. Hence, the originality of this article lies in its focus on accessible tourism in these religious sites.

Destination Image Versus Risk Perception

The literature on destination image and risk perception studies was reviewed to provide tourism researchers with a summary of the key cognitive attributes identified in both literatures. A content analysis was conducted, and the main findings revealed an overlap between the attributes assessing each concept in terms of cognition. This is due to the fact that image studies tend to describe the attributes of tourism destinations positively, whereas risk studies tend to adopt the negative version of them. Theoretical implications and suggestions for future research studies are discussed.

THE PERCEIVED IMAGE OF BARCELONA BY SHORT BREAK TOURISTS

The National Academic Depository of India is a crystallized vision. The depository was conceptualized to digitalize academic awards offered by educational institutions at one place. The depository can eliminate the need to store awards in physical form. It can verify the awards issued by different organizations to different individuals. The secure digital depository is a good remedy to fake and forged certificates. The concept of academic depository is very similar to the concept of financial securities. The concept of depository was tried out with the help of academic awards of one examination body in India. The pilot was completed successfully. In order to become fully functional, the depository has to overcome a few challenges with respect to academic diversities in terms of duration of courses and equivalence. The Legislation on academic depository is being drafted to take care of these challenges. Besides that, the NAD is begetting with many other new kinds of uses and possibilities. The NAD may open up new roles for the educational institutions as well such as to prepare reports for teachers from examination data on teaching learning gaps rather than just labeling students. Academic Depository is a pioneering effort of its kind in the world.The Annual Report is a good mean of describing the situation of a company to all the stakeholders although it is difficult to compare Annual Reports coming from different entities. A process of harmonization of European accounting standards was started in order to bring Annual Reports into line and it is currently being carried out through the adoption of IFRS standards. Once Annual Reports have been created adopting a common accounting standard, the very next step is to code them using the same IT language. If a common computer language is selected, Annual Reports or other documents can easily be compared without recoding and retyping them. The starting point of this process is the definition of an appropriate taxonomy to be used by both those drafting and reading the documents. The process of adopting an appropriate set of accounting standards, selecting the related taxonomy and, finally, drawing up documents using a new business language, called eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) leads companies to produce sound, meaningful and clear documents that greatly improve sharing of useful information. Moreover, the adoption of IFRS standards and XBRL encoded statements provides a set of measures for building sound and widely accepted models. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the changes to income statement presentation and the new concept of financial performance that emerges as a result of the adoption of IFRS and XBRL language. The drawing up of the Income Statement by XBRL may improve the financial performance measurement and disclosure with many benefits for all the stakeholders.The low quality of primary and secondary education in most Latin America countries is a well-known problem. As a response to this reality, the private educational market has been steadily growing in those countries. These private schools, in general, offer a higher quality and personalized education for the students that can afford it. The main selling point of these institutions is access to better resources: better teachers, technologies, materials and pedagogical methods. This difference in education quality creates a problem once students from public schools reach university. This IGUAL project will generate learning solutions (combination of e-learning software, pedagogical methodologies and learning materials) to facilitate the assimilation of new knowledge and the development of new skills even when the student has deficient background knowledge and/or underdeveloped required skills. The solutions that this project will provide have the potential to be used by all students in the Latin AmericanThe relationship between teacher and student is of extreme importance, especially as the latter is going through a delicate period in his life require planned to meet the requirements of the positive relationship in education and influence the psyche and personality and then impact in the community beyond. The most important characteristic of human from other organisms other being a social being by nature it affects and is affected at the same time by culture, traditions and customs of the society, and in this context says sociologist (role Chaim): * it when he speaks of human society is the one who speaks.The author in her article focuses on the issue of long-term unemployment and poverty, which often results in interdisciplinary problems. It is a problem of the whole society, which needs to be constantly looked into and it also constantly needs the elimination of the outside world´s effects on it. The aim of this work is to highlight the seriousness of this problem, the need for its elimination, with emphasis on the confrontation between scientific disciplines and their connections.

Motivation and attachment to a diving destination: The case of Medes Islands (Catalonia, Spain)

Motivations and place attachment constructs have been previously used as antecedents of behavioral intentions regarding a destination. Nevertheless, previous studies investigating behavioral intention models have paid little attention to the influence of motivations on place attachment and the influence of place attachment on behavioral intentions within the same structural model. This article develops an integrated model to investigate these relationships. Data were collected from recreational scuba divers in Catalonia, Spain. The results suggest that personal escape and personal seeking are the main motivations, and these factors influence place dependence and place identity. Other findings indicate that place dependence influences behavioral intentions more than place identity. In addition, the level of involvement in the activity moderates the links between constructs in some of the relationships.

Analysing Accessible Tourism in Religious Destinations: The Case of Lourdes, France

Accessible tourism and religious tourism are normally treated separately. Even so, curative shrines can be defined as places where these two types of tourism are especially co-habitual. Behaviour of both religious tourists (Battour, Battor, & Bhatti, 2013; Nolan & Nolan, 1992; Rinschede, 1992) and of people with special access needs (Burnett & Baker, 2001; Figueiredo, Eusebio, & Kastenholz, 2012) has been analysed before. However, the behaviour of visitors with special access needs in religious sites has not been analysed yet. This study aims at exploring whether there are differences in motivations and perceived value of tourists with special access needs and those without at these destinations. Findings suggest: (1) there is significant difference in the perception of religious sites and hospitality services between the two groups of the sample; (2) the dimensions of the perceived value are structured differently; (3) there are significant differences in motivations, mostly related to the self, between the two groups; (4) the dimensions of the motivations have different structures between the two groups. Both managerial and theoretical implications are discussed