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The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of key actors in the Caribbean’s hotel industry on the development of business models that are inclusive of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and resilient to climate change challenges. The objectives are to gain a better understanding of the central actors’ perspective and to explore the potential of scenario thinking as a pragmatic tool to provoke deep and practical reflections on business model innovation.

The research is based on a questionnaire survey conducted via email to senior personnel in the hotel industry across the region as well as to national and regional tourism and hospitality associations/agencies and government ministries. The questionnaire used a mix of close- and open-ended questions, as well as fictional scenarios to gain insight about perceptions from key actors in the tourism sector, including respondents’ personal beliefs about the reality of climate science and the need for action at the levels of individuals, governments, local, regional and multinational institutions.

The study found that while the awareness of climate change and willingness to action is high, respondents perceive that hotels are not prepared for the climate crisis. Respondents had an overall view that the hotel sector in the Caribbean was unprepared for the negative impacts of climate change. Recommendations from the study include the need for immediate action on the part of all to both raise awareness and implement focused climate action to secure the future of tourism in the Caribbean.

The use of a survey has considerable challenges, including low response rates and the limitations of using perceptions to understand a phenomenon. The survey was conducted across the Caribbean from The Bahamas to Belize and down to Trinidad and Tobago so that views from across the similar, yet diverse, regions could be gathered, included and compared for a comprehensive view of perceptions and possible ideas for climate smart action.

The 2030 Agenda for SDGs is based on policy and academic debates. This study helps to bridge the academic and policy discussion with the needs of the industry.

This study contributes a consideration for climate-resilient business models for hotels in the tourism industry as a definitive action toward achieving SDG 13. This combined with the use of fictional climate change scenarios to access perceptions about the future of the hotel industry in the light of climate change, adds originality to the study.

How university context (UC) enhances students’ entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity recognition is an emerging topic. It is known that students learn, not only from educational programmes, but also from the context in which they are embedded. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of such context on student’s entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity recognition.

The authors use a three-dimensional institutional framework to describe UC including regulative, normative and cognitive structures. Regulative structures refer to rules and regulations, support initiatives in relation to entrepreneurship; normative structures include shared values and norms; while cognitive structures apply to knowledge among students and faculty. A heterogeneous sample of 196 respondents from five countries was used to create reliable measures of UC and to test the hypotheses with the help of regression analysis.

The findings indicate that two dimensions of UC in particular (regulative and normative) were shown to be of great importance in increasing entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity recognition among students.

The study contributes to this further by suggesting a reliable and theory-grounded scale of UC. Furthermore, this study adds to the discussion on entrepreneurship education by proving evidence of the importance of UC on entrepreneurial intentions. The important contribution is acknowledgement of the fact that social systems both constrain and enable entrepreneurs in their discovery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities. The authors have established that “would-be student entrepreneurs” do not exist separately from their structural context. Attempts to understand them outside of this context cannot, therefore, fully capture their nature.