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The purpose of this paper is to understand what was important to managers of businesses in desert Australia, and in particular, what they needed for the businesses to be successful.

There were two studies. In Study 1, 88 managers of business in remote desert Australia were interviewed. In Study 2, 112 managers who had business in regional desert Australia participated in an on‐line survey.

In both studies, the respondents claimed that their businesses were reasonably successful. In Study 1, the interviewees said that making a living and seeing the business grow were important indices of success. In Study 2, customer/client satisfaction was the strongest indicator of business success. Factors such as safe and all‐weather roads, internet/e‐mail access and reliable power supplies were important to this success. The importance to business success of a number of leadership behaviours was also identified.

Future research needs to encourage a larger number of managers to participate. In addition, suppliers and customers of the businesses need to be included.

This is the first study in which managers were included, because normally, only owner‐managers are involved. It is also the first study of its kind to be undertaken in desert Australia.

Arid ecosystem covers one third of the Earth's surface and is the home town of majority of the population of the world. This ecosystem is also important because it has significant roles in land and water resources management. However, due to anthropogenic land use activities or shifting climate conditions, the features of the ecosystem change and cause diminished vegetative cover, reduced productivity, increased soil erosion, invasion of exotics, and loss of native species. Moreover, in the recent years, earth's vegetative cover may exceed the ecosystem's capacity to adapt, which happens through the consequence of rapid land degradation along with desertification. Therefore, this chapter provides how different regions endeavor with this arid ecosystem by performing various adaptation practices.

The technological and digital revolution has introduced important changes in the tourism industry. However, capturing the extent of the new tourism 4.0 paradigm is still difficult. This study aims to assess the dimensions related to the concepts of industry 4.0 in tourism and hospitality, tourism innovation and tourism ecosystem when considered simultaneously, and their role in promoting a new wave of competitiveness in the tourism industry.

A bibliometric study was conducted based on tourism 4.0, hotel 4.0, tourism innovation and tourism ecosystem using 120 eligible articles published between 2008 and 2021 from the Web of Science database.

This study demonstrated the advances in industry 4.0 in tourism and hospitality publications over 13 years and identified five interconnected dimensions: (1) knowledge transfer in tourism; (2) networking tourism innovation; (3) sources of tourism innovation; (4) smart tourism ecosystem and (5) innovation research in tourism. It was also concluded that tourism development should be a regional competence based on strategic networking and externalisation of regional knowledge flows.

This bibliometric review provides important implications and recommendations for several players of industry 4.0 in tourism and hospitality and policymakers. Not only did it make it possible to create a state of art, but also to categorise the existing interconnections between the dimensions of Tourism 4.0, Hotel 4.0, Tourism innovation and Tourism ecosystem to optimise its implementation and generate greater value. In addition, practical implications were inferred that improve the tourism sector’s competitiveness, helping strategic decision-making at the level of policymakers and actors in this sector.

Apart from state of the art, this bibliometric review made it possible to categorise the existing interconnections between the dimensions of tourism 4.0, hotel 4.0, tourism innovation and tourism ecosystem to optimise its implementation and generate greater value. Practical implications were inferred that improve the tourism sector’s competitiveness, helping strategic decision-making at the level of policymakers and several players in this sector.

This study addresses the existing literature gap in the interconnection of industry 4.0 with tourism and hospitality by describing the most relevant conceptual interconnections and setting practical implications for improving the competitiveness of the tourism industry. Furthermore, it integrates previous studies and outlines future lines of investigation.

This article explores challenges for rural Australian local governments during the transition to high-speed broadband infrastructure. Despite the National Broadband Network’s promised ubiquitous connectivity, significant access discrepancies remain between rural and urban areas.

Empirical findings are drawn from a full-day workshop on digital connectivity, which included participants from seven rural local governments in New South Wales, Australia. Thematic analysis of the workshop transcript was undertaken to extrapolate recurring nuances of rural digital exclusion.

Rural communities face inequitable prospects for digital inclusion, and authorities confront dual issues of accommodating connected and unconnected citizens. Many areas have no or poor broadband access, and different digital engagement expectations are held by citizens and local governments. Citizens seek interactive opportunities, but rural authorities often lack the necessary resources to offer advanced participatory practices.

While this research draws from a small sample of government officials, their insights are, nonetheless, heuristically valuable in identifying connectivity issues faced in rural Australia. These issues can guide further research into other regions as well as civic experiences of digital inclusion.

There is a need to reconceive Australia’s current policy approach to broadband. Greater rural digital inclusion may be achieved by focusing on connectivity as a public interest goal, targeting infrastructure developments to suit local contexts and implementing participatory digital government practices.

The actions suggested would help ensure equity of digital inclusion across Australian municipal areas. Without such changes, there is a risk of rural citizens facing further marginalisation through digital exclusion.

What is this tide of history that washes over the continent of Australia after 1788 destroying in its wake much of the indigenous people’s relationship with land and waters? Now only remnants, fragments of a former aboriginal inscription of law/lore remain evident in the Australian physical and metaphoric landscape.¹ In Law, the “tide of history” has been extended from its original voicing in Mabo v. Queensland [No. 2] (1992) to become a justificatory strategy for the limitation of responsibility and a concurrent apologia that simultaneously acknowledges a previous aboriginal connection with land but denies its current legitimacy.²

Looks at the problem of global warming from the viewpoint of wholeness. That is, the problem of global warming will be looked at in a comprehensive study considering several aspects of the cosmos, the Earth, and the phenomenon of life. With such a broad understanding in mind, first analyzes both the disadvantageous and advantageous aspects of the current global warming. Second, compares three typical environmental conditions in which humans have lived. Third, employing the concept of global warming, looks at the myth of how ancient civilizations appeared and disappeared. Then, considering our Earth system as an open system travelling in the universe, provides an explanation for the current global warming and for global climate changes. It is expected that the explanation presented can be applied to produce long‐term predictions for climate changes.

AUSTRALIA, waste deserts where emus and kangaroos still have first claim on the land; desolation; drought; ingenious methods of irrigation; lone eucalyptus trees like grey‐green balls, thinly spread over the yellow, dry grass‐land; arid savannas; magic scenery; fertile plains where beef cattle and sheep graze; golden glittering citrus orchards; blue plastic‐covered bunches heavily creaking in the banana patches on sun‐drenched eastern slopes; twittering creeks at which soft‐haired Jersey calves sip the water; thick impenetrable, subtropical rain‐forest with a wild beauty; ravines; trees which seem to grow into the sky; flowers, flowers, flowers; and birds in sparkling colours. Yes, those are some memory images.

Given the distinct and unique climates in these countries, research conducted in other parts of the world may not be directly applicable. Therefore, it is crucial to conduct research tailored to the specific climatic conditions of Australia and New Zealand to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Given population growth, urban expansions and predicted climate change, researchers should provide a deeper understanding of microclimatic conditions and outdoor thermal comfort in Australia and New Zealand. The study’s objectives can be classified into three categories: (1) to analyze previous research works on urban microclimate and outdoor thermal comfort in Australia and New Zealand; (2) to highlight the gaps in urban microclimate studies and (3) to provide a summary of recommendations for the neglected but critical aspects of urban microclimate.

The findings of this study indicate that, despite the various climate challenges in these countries, there has been limited investigation. According to the selected papers, Melbourne has the highest number of microclimatic studies among various cities. It is a significant area for past researchers to examine people’s thermal perceptions in residential areas during the summer through field measurements and surveys. An obvious gap in previous research is investigating the impacts of various urban contexts on microclimatic conditions through software simulations over the course of a year and considering the predicted future climate changes in these countries.

This paper aims to review existing studies in these countries, provide a foundation for future research, identify research gaps and highlight areas requiring further investigation.

Embedded in built environment discourse, this chapter examines the traditional knowledge and resilience of the Ngadjuri Nation Peoples through an Elder’s narrative of reconciliation as well as resistance in their subsisting colonial settlement. Removed from ‘Country’ in the 1840s, Ngadjuri Aboriginal community endured colonial industries of open-cut copper mining and large-scale pastoralism as irreparable destruction to their cultural landscapes. European processes in the resources sectors reshaped natural topographies, deconstructing Ngadjuri Songlines and Ancestral Dreaming stories. Burra’s colonial stone buildings of settlement, painstakingly cut and composed from materials of the surrounding ecological terrain, prompted new narratives from Ngadjuri as a way of alleviating scars. Broadly speaking, this chapter aims to show how cultural heritage of two communities is provocatively and conceptually unpacked through the vernacular buildings’ cross-cultural foundations. That is, an under-reported narrative was unwittingly bestowed on the colonial-built forms with hidden meanings that deserve further investigation. This chapter offers a counternarrative to colonial histories revealing Ngadjuri’s methods for reconnecting to Country and culture after generations of disempowerment. It explores how within the materiality of colonial structures, the Ngadjuri entwined their remediated storylines – revealing a data curation that had avoided popular discourse in the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] sector representation. This example implies there are bodies of knowledge in built cultural heritage hidden elsewhere on our Aboriginal Nations and the challenges it presents GLAM in their Indigenisation processes.