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Given the rapid growth of the Chinese cruise market, several Chinese cities are attempting to become a hub for cruise ships. The aim of this study is to evaluate the competitiveness of those cities with regard to hosting cruises. It employs a cloud model that transforms the qualitative description of competitive indicators into quantitative measurement and assesses the competitive advantage and specialization of the top homeports in China. Questionnaires are delivered to experts from eight cruise ports in China and the cloud model based on 14 evaluation factors is used to analyze the competitiveness of the ports under investigation. The result shows that the city’s scale, population, and development have been the main factors for assessing the competitiveness of port cities. The research provides insight about the Chinese cruise port cities’ competitiveness, which is particularly useful for future development decision and marketing strategies of ports and prospective destinations.

It is often found that the value of travel time (VTT) is higher for car drivers than for public transport passengers. This paper examines the possible explanation that the difference could be due to a selection effect. The result is an inability to measure the effect of a mode difference, e.g., comfort, among transport modes. We specify a model that captures the mode difference through a mode dummy and use econometric techniques that allow treatment of the mode dummy as the result of an individual choice and hence endogenous. Using first a standard logit model we find a large and significant difference between the VTT for bus and car. When we control for endogeneity using instruments, the mode dummy becomes smaller and just significant. Our investigation is novel in that it allows for endogeneity in the estimation of VTT but like other applications using instruments the results indicate that we have difficulty in finding good instrumental variables.

Innovative modern technologies are utilised in the hospitality and tourist industry to attract prospective consumers. Travel vlogs have emerged as a type of visual travel blog which includes information regarding tourist destinations, accommodation, cuisine, touristic activities, mode of accessibility, etc. The current study aims to investigate the influence of vlogger credibility on triggering the tourist intention to visit an eco-tourism destination.

The present study is a quantitative study, and it was conducted by surveying 218 respondents. A structured, close-ended and self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents.

The findings indicated that vlogger trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness significantly impact Bangladeshi tourists' intention towards visiting an eco-tourist destination.

The present study has several theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, the research framework illustrated how the vloggers' trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness on Bangladeshi tourists' visit intention to eco-tourist destinations. Practically, tourism industry practitioners, particularly destination marketers, will get benefit from the present study.

The chapter draws on recent scientific findings on the participation of fathers in childcare, and the perception of the role of fathers by both men and women in the Czech Republic. We apply a mixed method approach, combining qualitative data from longitudinal research on transition to motherhood and fatherhood (TransPARENT), which traced 16 parental couples for four years, with data from quantitative surveys on the topics of parenting and work–life balance. The data are examined for the incidence of breadwinner and the involved father models in Czech families. We focus on the earliest stage of the family life course, that is, when the children are aged between zero and four years. We show that fathers of young children still predominantly assume the breadwinner role, leaving most childcare to mothers. However, the growing number of parents expressing a preference for a more equal sharing of childcare indicates a shift in both the perception of fatherhood and the value placed on the active participation of fathers in early childcare in the Czech Republic. The main limitation of this text is that it only focuses on families with very young children. The future research should fill the gaps in contemporary knowledge of Czech families by addressing the division of roles, and particularly the roles of fathers, in households with school-age children. The chapter suggests that fathers’ greater involvement in childcare could be stimulated by policy measures such as the introduction of paternal leave or broadening the range of (public) childcare services for the youngest children.

Presented at the “Disarm! For a Climate of Peace,” meeting held on September 30 – October 3, 2016 in Berlin and organized by the International Peace Bureau.

This essay asks: How can we understand and theorise the impacts of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on everyday life based on Radical Humanism? How can Lefebvre's ideas be used to reveal the ideological character of contemporary accounts of the impacts of robots and AI on society? It engages with rather unknown works of the Radical Humanist Henri Lefebvre on the sociology and philosophy of technology such as Vers le cybernanthrope (Towards the Cybernanthrope). Foundations of a Lefebvrian, dialectical, Radical Humanist approach to the sociology and philosophy of technology are presented. This essay introduces Lefebvre's notion of the cybernanthrope and sets it in relation to robots and AI in contemporary society. Based on Lefebvre's critique of the cybernanthrope, this chapter develops foundations of the ideology critique of robots and AI in digital capitalism. It discusses examples of technological deterministic and social constructivist thought in the context of robotics, AI, and cyborgs and argues for an alternative, Lefebvrian, dialectical approach. This essay situates Humanism in the context of computing, AI and robotics. The chapter advances a Lefebvrian Radical Humanism by engaging in analyses of AI and robots in Post-humanism, Transhumanism, techno-deterministic approaches, social construction of technology approaches, techno-optimism, techno-pessimism, acceleratonism, the mass unemployment hypothesis and Spike Jonze's movie Her. This chapter shows that the major lesson we can learn from the Radical Humanist sociology of technology and Henri Lefebvre's works on technology is that Radical Humanism helps creating and sustaining technologies for the many, not the few. This insight remains of high relevance in the age of digital capitalism, smart robots and AI.

The purpose of this chapter is to report some initial findings based on the WTO Dispute Settlement Data Set (Ver. 2.0) that the authors have compiled for the World Bank. The data set contains approximately 28 000 observations on the workings of the Dispute Settlement system. It covers all 351 WTO disputes initiated through the official filing of a Request for Consultations from January 1, 1995, until October 25, 2006; and for these disputes it includes events occurring until December 31, 2006. Each dispute is followed through its legal life via the panel stage, the Appellate Body stage, to the implementation stage.

The descriptive statistics in the chapter points to three observations. The first and obvious observation is the almost complete absence of least developed countries. Second, less poor and developing countries are much more active and successful than the authors would have expected. Third, the EU and the United States dominate less than expected, being much more often the subject of complaints, than a complaining party, and they have a very low share of all panelists.

This chapter reconsiders commonly held views on the ownership and management of private property, contrasting capitalist and simple property, particularly in relation to how a firm shareholder governance model has shaped society. This consideration is motivated by the scale and scope of the modern global crisis, which has combined financial, economic, social and cultural dimensions to produce world disenchantment.

By contrasting an exchange value standpoint with a use value perspective, this chapter explicates current conditions in which neither the state nor the market prevail in organising economic activity (i.e. cooperative forms of governance and community-created brand value).

This chapter offers recommendations related to formalised conditions for collective action and definitions of common guiding principles that can facilitate new expressions of the principles of coordination. Such behaviours can support the development of common resources, which then should lead to a re-appropriation of the world.

It is necessary to think of enterprises outside a company or firm context when reflecting on the end purpose and means of collective, citizen action. From a methodological standpoint, current approaches or studies that view an enterprise as an organisation, without differentiating it from a company, create a deadlock in relation to entrepreneurial collective action. The absence of a legal definition of enterprise reduces understanding and evaluations of its performance to simply the performance by a company. The implicit shift thus facilitates the assimilation of one with the other, in a funnel effect that reduces collective projects to the sole projects of capital providers.

Because forsaking society as it stands is a radical response, this historical moment makes it necessary to revisit the ideals on which modern societies build, including the philosophy of freedom for all. This utopian concept has produced an ideology that is limited by capitalist notions of private property.