Sustainable Economy and Sustainable Employment: Approaches to Measuring Sustainability in Regional and Local Labour Market Monitoring, Publisher: Rainer Hampp Verlag, Editors: Christa Larsen, Sigrid Rand, Alfons Schmid, Rolf Keil, pp.411-439, Sep 1, 2014
In the increasingly competitive world tourism market, tourism destination competitiveness has bec... more In the increasingly competitive world tourism market, tourism destination competitiveness has become a major challenge for many destinations. The paper extends the Richie and Crouch (2000) model and develops a set of indicators of destination competitiveness particularly focused on the various dimensions of sustainability. The objectives of the paper are: to test the validity of the model applying it to a unique dataset of 610 Italian destination of excellence, displaying the findings of a Principal Component Analysis performed on the indicators; to understand if sustainability issues have a certain role in the competitiveness of a destination; to analyse if education, training and skills of the personnel may in some way influence the performance of a tourist destination.
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Papers by Gianluca Goffi
Circa 800 sono state le donne occupate marchigiane che hanno risposto a domande sui loro percorsi lavorativi, la vita familiare e domestica, la cura dei figli, l’assistenza agli anziani. Tutti aspetti che sono risultati fondamentali per decidere il tipo di partecipazione al mercato del lavoro o quale forma di impresa realizzare per dare espressione alla convinzione che il lavoro dà autonomia, riconoscimento, sviluppo di sé in relazione agli altri: quello delle donne porta altro lavoro a donne e uomini in un circuito virtuoso di valorizzazione di risorse culturali e sociali oltre che economiche.
Il libro si propone di dare risposte e indicazioni concrete per le policy in grado di valorizzare risorse nascoste, conoscenze inespresse, propensioni da dispiegare.
Le opportunità sono da una parte quelle di diversificare l'offerta balneare attuando al contempo una politica di branding e di comunicazione efficace e, dall'altra, di attrarre risorse, investimenti e flussi turistici nell'entroterra. L'ottica strategica della soddisfazione del cliente richiede a monte un sistema di offerta di qualità, al quale dovrebbero partecipare le imprese turistiche, con un orientamento al marketing e un rinnovamento delle strutture. Per studiare questi temi è stato somministrato un questionario ad un campione rappresentativo di strutture ricettive. In questo volume trova compimento un percorso di studio già avviato. La situazione di tali aree è simile a quella di tante altre in Italia: è per questo che le considerazioni proposte possono conservare la loro validità oltre l'ambito strettamente locale.
La prima fase ha prodotto un rapporto presentato l'8 marzo 2008, ma il dato statistico puro, riferito ad un mondo così complesso, non può che fornire una prima fotografia, suggerire delle direzioni da percorrere. Per questo la seconda fase è stata cruciale: la realizzazione di interviste ad un campione rappresentativo di disoccupate iscritte al Centro per l'Impiego. Si è cercato di capire, quali fossero le loro condizioni, i percorsi lavorativi, le intenzioni, i desideri e le criticità. Sono stati quindi indagati anche gli aspetti più importanti della condizione femminile: la vita familiare, il lavoro domestico, la cura dei figli e l'assistenza agli anziani; un'analisi solo sul mercato del lavoro avrebbe colto soltanto alcune sfaccettature della situazione. L'ultima fase - l'intervista ai testimoni qualificati e il focus group con le parti sociali - è servita per approfondire alcune tematiche ed ottenere indicazioni per la condivisione di un percorso comune.
Il volume, oltre che su problematiche legate al mondo del lavoro e di tipo conciliativo, spazia anche sull'immigrazione, sull'imprenditoria femminile, sul rapporto fra donne e povertà. Si è voluto cioè offrire un quadro del mondo femminile quanto più completo. Ciò che ne deriva non fa che confermare che nel mondo del lavoro, della "buona" occupazione e nella società c'è bisogno di sempre più donne. Ma per accendere il motore del lavoro femminile e attivare questo fondamentale moltiplicatore dell'economia assumono un ruolo fondamentale i servizi, in modo da permettere alla donna di trovare il tempo per sé, per il lavoro e per la famiglia: la realizzazione in ognuna di queste sfere va di pari passo con le altre.
Conoscere per capire: è quanto cerca di fare questo volume, realizzato dopo una lunga attività di ricerca condotta sul territorio presso le imprese, gli enti e i soggetti protagonisti dell'economia dai quali sono scaturite indicazioni tanto molteplici da essere difficilmente riassumibili.
L'analisi delle potenzialità e dei limiti di questa realtà economica mostra un territorio con un ampio margine di evoluzione, a patto di affrontare alcuni vincoli di fondo che ne frenano le dinamiche. Tra essi, vi è in primo luogo il capitale umano che fa capo al lavoro e all'imprenditoria, la cui formazione e il cui sviluppo non possono essere lasciati al caso se si vuole perseverare nelle scelte di qualificazione dei prodotti e dei servizi; scelte che danno mostra di operare con efficacia sui mercati internazionali, fra l'altro in un settore esposto alla concorrenza come quello calzaturiero. Ma l'economia del Piceno e del Fermano non è fatta solo di calzature, made in Italy tradizionale e turismo balneare: quello che occorre saper fare è trovare le sinergie giuste tra produzioni tipiche e nuove domande, tra settori nuovi e strutture urbane ereditate dalla storia, tra il mare e le differenti vocazioni d'offerta turistica della zona.
communities (Boluk, Cavaliere, & Higgins-Desbiolles, 2019). The study aims at analyzing how
sustainable tourism is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and whether sustainable tourism has an impact on
the living standards of poor and vulnerable local communities. Rio de Janeiro was chosen as the
applied case since it is plagued with widespread urban poverty, greater income inequality, and high
criminality levels (Motte-Baumvol and Nassi, 2012; Frisch, 2012; Imas and Weston, 2011; Riccio
et al. 2013; Oosterbaan and van Wijk, 2015; Kerstenetzky and Santos, 2009; Lacerda, 2014;
Szwarcwald, Andrade, and Bastos, 2002). The research is part of a large study about sustainable
tourism in developing countries (Goffi, Cucculelli, and Masiero, 2019). Tourism stakeholders
including hotel managers, tourism scholars, travel agency managers, tour guides and public
tourism managers were surveyed in Rio de Janeiro. A total of 306 valid questionnaires were
received. Respondents were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert scale more than twenty attributes
related to the sustainability of local tourism development, and four indicators useful to measure
the socioeconomic impact of tourism on poor and vulnerable communities (improvement of living
standards, social impacts, effects on local businesses and on local employment). Mean values and
standard deviations were determined for each attribute. Subsequently, a principal component
analysis (PCA) was applied to reduce the number of attributes, and the resulting components were
used as independent variables in an ordered logit model. The four indicators mentioned above were
used as dependent variables. The results show that all the sustainability attributes were low rated
by the respondents and, among them, the ones related to clean and efficient public administration
received the lowest rating (2 or below). The attributes associated with sustainable tourism policy,
destination management and environmental sustainability also received a low rating (<3).
Moreover, the findings show that all the components resulting from the PCA have a positive impact
on the four indicators measuring the socioeconomic impact of tourism on poor and vulnerable
communities in Rio de Janeiro. The results indicate that the tourism industry in Rio de Janeiro is
not sufficiently focused on sustainability, and that sustainable tourism has a role in improving the
living standards of the poor and vulnerable local communities. Empirical evidence suggests that it
is no longer possible to continue carrying out isolated policies on tourism sustainability, and that
a new model of sustainable tourism that favorably affects the local socioeconomic development
should be implemented.
questionnaire has been designed including items related to the sustainability of the vacation, and submitted to package tourists in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, receiving 307 responses. A descriptive statistical analysis and an importance-performance analysis has been
performed. Findings show that package tourists demonstrate a high interest in sustainability, even more than in classic features of the holiday. Results also highlight that more efforts should be made to move towards more sustainable business practices in all areas of business, concentrating on the environmental preservation, promotion of local culture an interactions with locals, avoiding tourists “enclavization” within the hotel area.
Mass package tourism is one of the main causes behind the ecological problems of many coastal destinations. It was initially considered incompatible with the notion of sustainability, but it is now recognized as potentially being able to incorporate more sustainable policies and practices. The first essay introduces a set of sustainability practices in package tourism and tests their role in explaining the competitiveness of a “sun and sand” tourism destination. The essay presents the results of research undertaken in Dominican Republic, one of the world’s leading markets for mass sun and sand tourism. A survey questionnaire was designed including items related to the sustainability of the vacation, and submitted to package tourists. To reduce the large set of items to a smaller one, a principal component analysis (PCA) is performed. Then, the relationship of dependency between the dependent variables measuring destination competitiveness and the components resulting from PCA is analysed by performing a regression analysis. The empirical result shows that sustainability is positively associated to the competitiveness of the tourism destination. It supports the hypothesis that sustainable tourism development is not only good for preserving the local ecosystem, but also for improving destination competitiveness.
It is well established that tourists’ overall satisfaction is partially determined by the assessment of different attributes. Although there is wealth of literature on the growing interest of tourists for an intact environment and authentic culture, a direct test on the relationship between sustainability of package tourism and tourists’ satisfaction has never been performed; therefore, the second essay is aimed at examining whether there is a relationship with: i) overall tourists’ satisfaction; ii) intention to rebook. A principal component analysis was performed to reduce the large set of variables regarding the sustainability assessment to a smaller one; then, the relationship of dependency between the two dependent variables and the components resulting from the PCA is analysed by estimating two ordered logit models. Empirical results show that a sustainable offer could improve customers’ satisfaction and increase their fidelization. The essay is also aimed at understanding if package tourists are aware of sustainability issues and demanding more sustainable travel experiences. Hence, a descriptive statistical analysis and an importance-performance analysis were performed.
Competitive pressures, changes of consumer preferences, new distributions channels and technological innovations have produced a change in the characteristics of tourism packages. Tour operators have progressively recognized that tourists have become increasingly aware of sustainability issues. Some tour operators have started to undertake corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in order to avoid the menace of being seen as irresponsible firms. Studies on CSR in tourism to date have largely focused on hotels rather than tour operators.
In the third essay, an empirical study was conducted with a sample composed by 204 tour operators worldwide, for a better understanding of the CSR initiatives in the tour operating business. This study proposes and tests a framework to assess CSR understanding and implementing by tour operators. A questionnaire has been designed listing the most relevant dimensions of what is currently referred as CSR practices in tour operating business. Through a principal component analysis and a subsequent binary logistic regression analysis it was tested if there is a relationship between CSR practices and profits’ growth. Empirical evidence supports the relevance of CSR practices as a determinant of profits’ growth. Moreover, sustainability seems to embody visions and values of most of tour operators interviewed. No insurmountable obstacles on adopting CSR initiatives have been detected.