Abstract
The organizing and scientific committee of the Quantitative Approaches in Tourism Economics and Management (QATEM) workshop dedicates this special focus to the loving memory of our colleague and friend, Professor Melville Saayman.
This special focus presents a selection of best papers presented at the 6th QATEM workshop held at the University of French Polynesia (Tahiti, France), and co-organized by the University of Perpignan Via Domitia on June 14 and 15, 2018. The conference was supported by the GDI (EA 4240), CRESEM (EA 7397) laboratories, and by the International Association for Tourism Economics. QATEM 2018 is the sixth event under a workshop series, providing an opportunity for gathering, analyzing, and debating state-of-the-art academic research on this theme.
Following a rigorous reviewing process, the guest editors accepted four papers for this special focus. These articles make a substantial contribution in tourism economics and tourism management.
In the first paper, Miho Fukui and Yasuo Ohe investigate the impact of social media on the recovery process of a tourism destination following a negative exogenous shock. Specifically, this study analyzes the role of Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami that affected Japan in 2011. The study shows that the impact is mixed depending on the nature of tweets. The ones related to cultural and natural heritage positively affect the recovering process of tourism destinations.
In the second paper, Vincent Dropsy, Christian Montet, and Bernard Poirine estimate a gravity equation to measure the sensitivity of bilateral tourism flows. Focusing on small island destinations the findings emphasize demand specificities. The distance, gross domestic product, and price elasticities are higher for islands. Furthermore, the study shows that a common language or colonial past has a greater impact on tourism flows for islands.
In the third paper, Gil Montant analyzes the determinants of revenues in the French Polynesia’s hotel industry. The author compares the results of two econometric estimations, underlining the prominent role of exchange rate on hotel revenues. The appreciation of the French Polynesian currency on foreign exchange market is then considered as an important threat for the hotel sector.
In the fourth paper, Botti, Petit, and Zhang propose an innovative approach to analyze the optimal portfolio of tourism destinations. The authors adopt a two-step procedure relying on both mean-variance and multi-criteria methods, and using French Polynesia as a case study.