The purpose of the study was to develop an optimum market-positioning model for the special interest tourism market to support arts festivals in South Africa (SA). Three subareas were deemed essential for the model, namely determining which attributes contribute to the success of three arts festival scenarios, comparing the different arts festival packages as a tourism attraction and then combining these subareas to develop a model enabling future researchers and marketers to present a successful arts festival in South Africa. The three main arts festivals in South Africa, at Potchefstroom, Grahamstown and Oudtshoorn, were studied. Screening questions followed by judgmental and quota sampling were used to select only like-minded respondents from festival attendees on a scenario basis. In personal interviews the data were collected and then analysed using conjoint analysis and game theory. Conjoint analysis was used in a linear regression model with individual ratings for each product. The average of the r-squares in this study was 0,83, indicating a good fit between data and model developed. Then these results were used in the game theory, comparing the three arts festival scenarios to identify the most successful tourism attraction. A different combination of attributes gave each of the three festival scenarios an optimum market position in its own niche market. The study contributes to the existing body of positioning knowledge, specifically in the festivals and events domain. It also adds value as this model can be applied to other festivals in South Africa and also to other business sectors. / Transport Economy, Logistics and Tourism / D. Com. (Tourism Management)

Despite there being general agreement that SMEs are valuable in the global and South African economy to aid in creating jobs and in growing the economy, few benefits accrue to these enterprises as they endure a number of challenges which make them unsustainable. This research aimed to investigate the sustainability of SMEs in Tshwane townships, with an aim to design a framework that could be used by other SMEs that intend to enter the tourism industry, to ensure that they are sustainable and can contribute towards the expansion of the South African economy. The primary data was collected through a questionnaire, which was used to obtain information on Tshwane township tourism SMEs, as a way of detecting whether they were sustainable or not. The results indicated that the Tshwane township tourism SMEs were very small enterprises created by owners who were passionate about the tourism product. These enterprises have not been able to grow and employ more people but have provided employment and survival income for the owner and, in some cases, two additional people. SMEs face various challenges relating to sustainability, one of the main challenges being financial stability. SMEs are therefore unable to play their intended role in the creation of employment as well as in contributing to the economy as a whole. In an attempt to assist the owners and/or managers of SMEs to fulfil their roles, an SME framework was developed in the course of the present research. This framework comprises a step-by-step guide that asks all the relevant questions aimed at getting to know the business and culminating in a range of recommendations that could assist in making these SMEs sustainable. / Entrepreneurship and Supply Chain, Transport, Tourism and Logistics Management / M. Com. (Tourism Management)

[pt] Esta tese é composta por três capítulos que enfocam o crescimento da China como um experimento quasi-natural de forma a avaliar os efeitos de choques de comércio exterior sobre a economia política da política comercial e sobre a dinâmica do mercado de trabalho e desigualdade de salários no Brasil. No primeiro capítulo, utilizamos evidência sobre diferenciais de exposição a esse choque da China entre mercados de trabalho locais para estimar seu efeito em indicadores do mercado de trabalho brasileiro, em particular em medidas de desigualdade de rendimentos. Primeiro, encontramos que o choque de demanda por exportações diminuiu a desigualdade de salários no setor de bens comercializáveis, sobretudo por meio do componente entre firmas da dispersão salarial, e apresentamos evidências de que essa redução parece causada por uma mudança no comportamento das firmas, e pode estar relacionado com uma redução no prêmio salarial de firmas exportadoras. Em seguida, estimamos um modelo baseado em Helpman et al. (2016), e exploramos diferenças setoriais no choque de demanda externa para realizar exercícios contrafactuais que corroboram a hipótese de que esse choque pode explicar parte da redução agregada no prêmio salarial de firmas exportadoras e na dispersão de salários. No segundo capítulo, desenvolvemos uma versão do modelo dinâmico de Caliendo et al. (2019) de modo a estimar os efeitos do duplo choque da China na dinâmica setorial do emprego no Brasil. Mostramos que ambos os choques levam à contração da maioria dos setores de manufaturas, e expansão da maioria dos setores de serviços, mas os efeitos de equilíbrio geral dos choques são modestos, especialmente quando comparados a um contrafactual alternativo no qual a produtividade brasileira nos setores primários aumenta. Estendemos o modelo para incluir dois tipos de trabalho, de alta e baixa qualificação; resultados apontam para efeitos distributivos pequenos, mas consistentes com resultados em forma reduzida obtidos no primeiro capítulo. No capítulo final, construímos uma base de dados inédita sobre características de associações setoriais brasileiras, com o intuito de investigar se os setores com maior capacidade de organização política são capazes de obter maior proteção contra competidores estrangeiros. Usamos variação na penetração de importações como uma medida da necessidade de proteção comercial, e para lidar com a endogeneidade nessa medida usamos um instrumento baseado no choque de importações da China. A evidência sugere que setores com maiores sindicatos patronais são capazes de obter maior proteção comercial, em particular por meio de licenciamento não-automático; as estimativas sugerem que esse efeito é mais alto quando a penetração de importações aumenta mais intensamente, o que é interpretado como um aumento na necessidade de medidas de proteção. / [en] This thesis consists of three chapters, all of which focus on the rise of China as a quasi-natural experiment in order to assess the effects of foreign trade shocks on the political economy of trade policy and on the dynamics of labor markets and earnings inequality in Brazil. In the first chapter, we use evidence on the differential exposure across local labor markets to this China shock in order to estimate its effect on Brazilian labor markets outcomes, in particular on measures of income inequality. First, we find that the export demand shock has decreased wage inequality in the tradables sector, mostly through the between-firms component of wage dispersion, and provide evidence that this reduction seems driven by a change in wage-setting behavior of firms, and may be linked to a reduction in the wage premium of exporter firms. We then estimate a model based on Helpman et al. (2016), and explore sectoral differences in the foreign demand shock to run counterfactual exercises that support the hypothesis that this shock can explain part of the aggregate reduction in the exporter wage premium and in wage dispersion. In the second chapter, we develop a version of the dynamic trade model by Caliendo et al. (2019) in order to estimate the effects of the dual China shock on the sectoral dynamics of Brazilian employment. We show that both shocks lead to a contraction in most manufacturing sectors, and an expansion in most services sectors, but the general equilibrium effects of the shocks are modest, especially if compared to an alternative counterfactual in which Brazilian productivity in primary sectors increase. We then extend the model to include two types of labor, skilled and unskilled. Results also point to small distributional effects of the China shock, but consistent with reduced-form evidence obtained in Chapter 1. In the final chapter, we build a novel dataset on Brazilian trade associations’ characteristics in order to investigate whether industries with higher capacity of political organization are able to obtain more protection from foreign competitors. We use variation in import penetration as a measure of the need for trade protection, and address endogeneity on this measure by using an instrumental variables strategy based on the China import shock. Evidence suggests that industries with larger employer unions are able to obtain more protection, particularly through non-automatic licensing; the estimates suggest that this effect is higher when import penetration increases more intensely, which is interpreted as increased need for protective measures.