Assessment of tourism’s contribution to the economy of a country or a region is extremely complicated because of the nature of tourism. A tourism satellite account (TSA) is a major recent contribution in this area. It involves building a specific tourism account in the context of a national account. After more than 20 years of development, the current trend in TSA research is to refine and implement the method. This paper summarizes the methodology developments of TSA and explores the feasibility of adopting a TSA in municipal area. Thus, it discusses the TSA system from a municipal perspective. Because it is a new topic, a qualitative method is adopted by using a case study in Suzhou, China. The paper discusses and provides a definition of TSA from varied perspectives. It also provides a technical framework for a municipal TSA, illustrates the driving forces and institutional attitudes behind the development of such a TSA, and examines the limitations and advantages of the TSA methodology in a municipal context.

A persistent trend in the tourism field is the emergence of different types of niche markets. One niche form of heritage tourism that has gained popularity in Scotland since the Millennium, is ancestral tourism. Ancestral tourism is defined as choosing to travel to a host country based on one’s ancestral origins and genealogical interest. This paper traces the nature and importance of ancestral tourism for Canadian Scottish descendents in Ontario, Canada. Based on a social constructivist and multiple methods approach, the ancestral tourism initiative was reviewed within the perspectives of both the demand and supply side. The demand side findings revealed that Canadian Scottish descendents identified with and participated more in their social heritage at the local level, than in their personal heritage in the homeland. The degree to which the descendents were involved in Scottish heritage and ancestry was dependent on a variety of factors such as the emigration date of the respective ancestor, life-changing circumstances, and external stimulants. The majority of Canadian Scottish descendents were characterized as supplementary ancestral tourists and revealed that traveling to Scotland, for an ancestral tourism experience, would be one of many motivations for traveling to the homeland. Supply side findings characterized ancestral tourism as being “embryonic and full of potential”. A few challenges for those involved in the facilitation and marketing of the ancestral tourism experience were also highlighted. Characteristics associated with the ancestral tourism product were diverse and the changing nature of the genealogical resources utilized by descendents was reviewed. A shortfall of marketing the ancestral tourism initiative to only international visitors was examined, despite healthy promotional efforts such as the “Ancestral Tourism Welcome Scheme”. Key recommendations for parties interested in the ancestral tourism initiative included increased coordination among stakeholders at a regional level, increased funding and functioning capacities for the volunteer sector, re-examining current marketing strategies to include the domestic level, expanding marketing activity in the Canadian context, and maintaining ancestral tourism as a modest and “intimate” trend.

Regional disparities, most notably of the 'heartland-periphery' pattern, have been a distinctive feature of Canadian urban geography throughout the industrial era. New regimes of economic prosperity, recessions, and restructuring in the post-industrial era coupled with demographic fluctuations have added new and accentuated divisions and disparities creating an increased gap between cities that are growing and not growing. Under these conditions, it seems realistic to expect that no-growth cities might begin to develop distinctive planning strategies centered on a theme of decline or no-growth scenarios. However, this has not been the case. The City of Greater Sudbury is located in North-eastern Ontario and is best known across Canada for its original resource-based ‘boom’, its unsustainable mining practices and subsequent decline. The 21st-Century City of Sudbury has since evolved into a more balanced regional centre. Nonetheless, the population of the City has been fluctuating over the last 30 years, experiencing decline, slow growth, and no-growth scenarios. The first phase in the research establishes the documentary record of Sudbury’s decline alongside remedial initiatives undertaken at the federal, provincial, and local levels in the general attempt to kick start growth locally and remediate decline. The second phase in the research investigates how those involved in planning and economic development at the grassroots level deal with no growth through key informant interviews with planners, economic developers, consultants, and politicians. The research findings document the contradictory perceptions that surround planning in no-growth locales and further explore the challenges and opportunities associated with no growth urban areas. It concludes with a discussion of what might constitute alternative criteria for a new model of planning and development capable of generating more realistic economic and planning policy and strategy considerations for no growth urban areas and Northeastern Ontario.

Economic development in the declining Maritime Provinces has proven to be an intractable problem over the last 70 years. Efforts have ranged from capitalist industrial resource extraction to worker-owned producer co-operatives. Yet, throughout its many variations, these initiatives have done little to secure the long-term economic security of Canada’s most marginalized rural communities, such as those on the western coast of Cape Breton Island. Efforts toward this end during the closing decades of the twentieth century, up to present date, have applied market-led development strategies paralleling trends in the increasingly fluid global market economy. This local economic development approach, it is argued, reinforces economic dependency established during the last century’s staples commodity extraction, even as it attempts to reduce it and promote communities’ unique socio-cultural values, through ‘local ownership’ of integration into the market economy. An analysis of conventional approaches to economic development and ‘local ownership’, that focuses on two communities in rural western Cape Breton, demonstrates this point. Several alternatives to conventional economic development are considered, with a particular emphasis on the two Cape Breton communities.

Cultural clusters with an agglomeration of heritage and historic assets represent national or local history, culture and tradition. Hence, they often become distinctive urban tourism resources supplying multifunctional places for tourists to visit and enjoy. However, the designation of a cultural district by government is not merely a strategy for the preservation of cultural assets and tourism development because a variety of stakeholders, with divergent goals and objectives, are usually involved in the process of converting cultural resources into marketable products. The number of tourists to Insadong, a representative traditional cultural district in Seoul, Korea, has increased rapidly in the last decades with many issues and problems. Insadong is a place where Koreans and foreigners alike experience Korean tradition and it is a unique area where the atmosphere combines both the historical and modern in the centre of the city. The area is also multi-functional, offering a mix of history, entertainment, cuisine, shopping etc. for a mixed clientele. This area has a long history as a cultural business district which was organically generated, but numerous issues and changes have occurred in relation to the commercial development and policy of government. Since this area gained fame as a tourism destination after it was designated as a cultural district, it also encountered problems like rising rental fees, change of space use, modifications in the items for sale, and destruction of small traditional art-related shops, which created the traditional atmosphere. This study examined the policies of the public sector and the role of the private sector in the development of Insadong through examining the government’s assessment and perspectives, the NGO’s perspectives and the entrepreneurs’ situation and expectations for business. Through analyzing crucial events, NGO’s activity, and the initiation of government policies, my research reveals dramatic change under the impact of tourism and government policies, as well as recent problems that have occurred at the cultural district. This study also examined aspects of heritage tourism in an evolving culture cluster in a major city. To the author’s knowledge, this type of research has not been undertaken previously in Korea and is rare in Asia. However, it is difficult to generalize from a case study. Thus, there is a need to undertake similar studies elsewhere to determine if what has been observed in Insadong is unique or if it is an example of a phenomenon that can be observed in other places.

The study contributes to the growing literature on the role of social economy enterprises on rural vitality, by examining the relationship between credit union activity and community population growth in rural Canada. A preliminary qualitative inquiry indicated that while most of the business policies and practices of a chartered bank and a credit union are similar, a credit union, in addition, extended non-traditional lending to their clients in the form of micro-lending and also participated actively in community development lending. Following the preliminary qualitative investigation, the impact of credit unions was examined using spatial regressions models in seven provinces in Canada using data at Consolidated Census Subdivisions (CCSs) level data to represent communities. Motivated by the potential role of credit unions as community based financial institutions, the quantitative analysis modeled credit unions as potentially reducing transactions costs for local businesses.<p> Regression results indicated that the presence of credit unions was statistically significant and positive in our most parsimonious models including only natural amenity factors, agglomeration measures and other social measures as explanatory variables. However, in the full model with economic variables added the credit union dummy lost its statistical significance. A possible interpretation is that the credit union dummy is an inadequate representation of credit union activity. More complete, high quality, quantitative data to reflect their activities in the community may have produced different results.<p> Recent credit union mergers are designed to increase their capacity and efficiency in providing services to their members. However, these new trends could aggravate the principal-agent problems. As credit unions become more bank-like though mergers, individual branches may lose their links with their local communities and their ability to perform their traditional functions.

In the 1970s, discussions began regarding the settlement of outstanding land claims from First Nations, the settling of Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE). The Office of the Treaty Commissioner (OTC) was developed to facilitate intergovernmental agreements with First Nations bands. This endeavour created discussions that led to the signing of the Treaty Land Entitlement Framework Agreement (TLEFA) in 1992. Lands purchased through TLE can be leased, creating revenues for the First Nations band. Those revenues can then be used to facilitate economic development and wealth creation for the band. It is through this access to capital that First Nations are starting to break their financial dependency on the Crown. It has been almost two decades since the signing of the TLEFA, and one can begin to measure the economic impact TLE has had for First Nations communities. Muskeg Lake Cree Nation (MLCN) is one such band that has been deemed successful, both by themselves and by outsiders, in the area of economic development. Success depends on a community developing an economic model that incorporates Aboriginal cultural values. By doing so, a cultural-oriented confidence is created, and this confidence can help foster economic success. The framework for this study is based around the Harvard Project on Indian Economic Development and its basis for economic success being founded on a community having confidence in their business model as it fits with their worldview. The methods employed in this study include a survey of primary and secondary documents in the area of TLE/TLEFA, and in economic development related to First Nations bands. Interviews were conducted with those involved in the signing and the overseeing of the TLEFA. Archival materials have been made available courtesy of Roy Romanow during his time as Attorney General for Saskatchewan. The research demonstrates that First Nations bands can break their financial dependency with the Crown through economic development strategies that are congruent with the First Nations cultural values.

This paper is analysing the development of municipal waste amounts in theSwedish municipality of Växjö. The cause of the analysis were decliningwaste amounts in the second half of 2008, which was a rather atypical developmentsince in the years before, a steady growth could be observed.Therefore, the Waste management department in Växjö raised the questionif and in what way the economic downturn that Sweden is currently undergoingcould affect the waste amounts. This is the central question I try toanswer in this paper. To pursue a systematic analysis, I start with a theoreticalsection on how waste is generated in societies, how waste is managed inSweden and which factors influence the development of municipal waste.Aim of this section is to give a theoretical assessment on how the economicdownturn could affect the actual waste amounts. Then, an empirical analysisof Växjö’s municipal waste amounts is conducted. This is done by timeseries modelling of monthly amounts, by using the ARIMA methodology.The models then are tested on structural breaks that could be attributed to aneconomic downturn. Finally, the waste amounts for the next twelve monthsare forecasted.

As in many least developed countries the farmers in Laos are heavily dependent on subsistence based agriculture production for their livelihood. A key for increased welfare for the rural population inLaosis to increase their profits of small scale farmers and generate a higher income per capita. One possible way to increase the profits and income for smallholder farmers may be to convert in to organic rice production for the export market, since the international market for organic rice is growing, consumers are prepared to pay a premium prise for organic products and conditions for organic rice production are favourable in Laos. Organic rice farming has grown in Laos during the last decade as greater volumes of organic rice are produced and exported. Organic rice is mainly produced by smallholders in donor projects or by contract farmers supplying contract farming companies. In this thesis I try to determine the causes behind this structural transformation by incorporating evolutionary economic theory (Schumpeter, 1911; Dahmén, 1950 and Marmefelt, 1998) which focuses on entrepreneurial innovations and creditors as the basis for changes in the economy. By performing a Dahménian transformation analysis of the transition from conventional- to organic rice production within the development block around rice production in Laos, I try to determine the transformation pressure causing the transformation to take place. Emphasis is in particular given to the role of contract farming in this process. I investigate to what extent the contract farming firm can be regarded as a Schumpeterian banker, a concept introduced by Marmefelt (1998), that can coordinate the development block around rice production by providing credits to the entrepreneurs within the development block. The analysis shows that two types of transformation pressures are likely to have caused the farmers to convert to organic rice production. First of all it is likely that the relatively higher price paid for organic rice (42 percent higher than conventional rice) has convinced farmers to make the transition. This type of transformation pressure can be seen as a market pull type, as it originates from an increased demand in the international market, which in turn increases the relative price for the product. The analysis further shows that a production method innovation had taken place by the introduction of new inputs, made available by the contract farming firm. This has led to an increased productivity which, combined with the premium price, generated higher profits for the organic contract farmers. The production method innovation can be seen as a market push type of transformation pressure originating from the supply side. In this thesis I argue that it is unlikely that the transformation would have occurred without the involvement of the contract farming firm. On their own, farmers did neither have the means to grow the organic rice, nor the proper market channels to process and sell the organic rice on the international market. I argue that the contract farming firm’s ability to facilitate price signal information from the international market to farmers, provide access to the new market thru market links, and provide credits for new inputs as well as technical assistance essentially made the transition to organic rice possible. However the analysis also shows that the contract farming firm had a limited ability to fulfil its role as a coordinator in the evolvement of the organic rice production, in terms of a Schumpeterian banker, because of limited abilities to solve bottlenecks in the value chain. The reason for this is mainly limited financial resources to finance complementary investments in other parts of the development block.

Since its establishment as an emerging area of research in strategic management over a decade ago, business model research has had little consensus towards adopting a single definition or common language for this rapidly growing management concept.  However, strong agreement as to the relevance of value creation within organizations underlies existing business model literature. Moreover, applications of business model frameworks outside the private sector have been limited. Recent literature has identified business model innovation and design as a critical tool in effective implementation of organizational strategy, and empirical research in business models from new and alternative perspectives may reveal linkages between strategic management issues and effectiveness in creating value in public and citizen sector organizations.  Nevertheless, existing academic literature has not yet explored applications of traditional business model frameworks within a public sector context, nor has the need for empirical research linking the business model concept with public sector management been addressed. The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of how business models can be defined, redefined, and applied in city economic development agencies for application as a strategic public management tool. An analysis of how the business model of a prominent city economic development agency has been employed and how value is created within this model will be undertaken.  This empirical study also aims to determine conceptual linkages between business model applications in city economic development and to contribute a theoretical foundation towards development of future research.   Given the multi-faceted applications of the business model concept, the authors have conducted exploratory research targeting the application of current business model concepts and frameworks to a city economic development agency representing an influential global center of finance and commerce, the City of New York. The significance of conducting empirical studies on city economic development agencies is due to the influence in which these organizations have on industrial cluster growth, national economic competitiveness, and citywide and regional transformation. In considering this context, The New York City Economic Development Corporation is the primary economic growth engine for the City of New York, and strives to create and deliver value to citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders of New York City.   Findings from this study suggest that economic development professionals have not adequately clarified the term ‘business model’ for promoting common language between strategists, project managers, consultants, and executives to support strategic business model design within city economic development agencies.  The authors conclude that equally relevant to framing and applying theoretical foundations grounded in the business model concept, is the identification of value-creating activities within economic development agencies and development of citizen-focused value propositions.  This empirical study aims to define, clarify and explore the former, while calling upon a need for future research of the latter.