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The purpose of this trends paper is to offer insights into the technological changes affecting our cities and urban tourism destinations, and to explore avenues for further research and practice in the context of smart tourism destinations.

The literature on smart cities and smart tourism destinations is analysed in view of delivering a research agenda for a new generation of “post-smart” tourism destinations, beyond existing paradigms in this field.

Smart tourism research to date is found to be lacking in terms of addressing emerging (“post-smart”) social issues increasingly faced by global tourism cities, such as growing inequalities between host communities and visitors, wellness (e.g. slow tourism and slow cities) and resilience and mental health (e.g. digital detox), among others.

A post-smart approach to tourism city management and marketing calls for rethinking of existing tourism and urban policies that address wider sustainability issues exemplified by the urban transitions debate as well as adopting a more holistic networked approach to smartness involving entire regions. This also calls for the development of a new research agenda in urban tourism through a new prism – the post-smart “wise” tourism destination.

A new tourism futures construct – the “wise” tourism destination – is posited. This is done within the context of a new (“post-smart”) generation of tourism cities. It is argued that “wise” tourism cities will require novel attributes and adopt a visionary strategic positioning well beyond today’s smart tourism destination paradigms. Additionally, a tentative research agenda for “wise” tourism cities is discussed.

Strategy.

Post-Graduate and Executive Programmes in Management.

Mr Srinivas Kesineni has been chairman of Kesineni Tours and Travels for the last 19 years. Kesineni Tours and Travels is one of the fastest growing bus travel and transport organisations. The case describes the journey of Kesineni Tours and Travels since its inception. It also outlines different strategies adopted by the Chairman to reach newer heights, to survive and to grow in the turbulent times of changing technology and rising competition from different means of transportation. This unique organisation is run by family, friends and well-wishers of the owners, yet it is professional in its approach in operations. The board of directors of Kesineni Tours and Travels has approved the financial results of 2010, which shows 55 percent growth and Rs 86.71 crores turnover. This is a remarkable achievement and recognition for a company that has been in the business since 1992. In early 1992, entrepreneur Mr Srinivas Kesineni thought of a bus transportation business when he started with just two buses, and today when the organization is the largest tour and travel company in the region serving approximately 15 lack customers in a year covering 75 destinations with around 425 daily schedules. He and his team have been working tirelessly and the company has a remarkable presence in the tour and travel business in India with occasional innovative moves from optimising bus routing, initiating sleeper coaches, introducing Volvo buses to the fleet, entering the cargo transportation business and more. This business has grown at CAGR of 24.07 percent since 2000-2001. Students reading this case may come to the class with preconceived views that the journey of the organisation since its beginning is an ordinary story, but this case creates an opportunity for students to come to their own conclusion how different strategies and the synthesis is important for achieving desired outcomes form time to time. This case facilitates the deductive learning process by identifying different strategic elements form the case and to understand its synergy to explain McKinsey 7s framework.

These include: understanding different strategies and policies adopted by the organisation and its impact on performance; understanding the importance of alignment of processes and departments in achievement of organisational strategy; and analysing and understanding the concept of the McKinsey 7S Framework, which is a helpful tool to understand the performance of the organisation.

Teaching notes are available. Bradach, Jaffrey, Organisational Alignment: The 7S Model, Harvard Business School Publishing are useful for further reading.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate tourist destinations’ image based on the attributes obtained from the extant literature using correspondence analysis.

This study is aimed at measuring and illustrating destination image of tourism destinations perceived by domestic tourists. Five tourism destinations – Ooty, Shimla, Manali, Mussoorie and Mount Abu were selected as the subject of the study. Based on a representative sample of 800 respondents from the surveys across destinations, correspondence analysis was employed to illustrate an attribute based comparative analysis of the destination image of the tourist destinations.

Findings reveal that the attribute natural attraction was positively perceived by respondents across all destinations and the attribute infrastructure emerged as an area in need of dire attention. Further, the most dominant attributes which marked destinations’ positioning were – local cuisine and food outlets, hotels and restaurants, famous handicraft and parking facilities.

The findings of this study need to be integrated with qualitative studies to explore the underlying reasons for the perceived destination image.

These results provide direction to policy makers and practitioners to visualize their destinations’ competitive standing relative to their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This tourist-derived intelligence presents an opportunity to take advantage of its current position, or if necessary, optimally reposition itself.

This paper documents research that was the first to systematically capture and comparatively illustrate the destination image of Indian tourist destinations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of immigration from European Neighborhood (EN) and new member states to the EU core countries over the period 2000-2010. Apart from income differentials, unemployment rates and other standard variables hypothesized to determine immigration, the paper focusses attention on welfare-chasing as well as measures to enforce immigration policy. Using a variant of the gravity model, the paper investigates whether tests of these hypotheses are robust with respect to spatial misspecification.

The determinants of migration from the European Neighborhood and new member states to the EU core countries is estimated using a spatial variant of the gravity model. The methodology is used for both multilateral and spatial flows. Gravity model estimations are presented for immigration into the EU core destinations using standard, non-spatial econometrics, as well as spatial econometrics for single and double-spatial dynamics.

Immigration to EU core countries varies directly with the change in social spending per head in the destination. This result stands out in all the models, both OLS and spatial. Immigrants are attracted by economic inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient. However, in this case it is the level that matters rather than its change. No evidence is found that the threat of apprehension at the destination deters migrants from the European Neighborhood and other countries.

The authors assume multilateralism is spatial. This means that everything else given, destinations are closer substitutes the nearer they are, and that immigration shocks are likely to be more correlated among origins the closer they are. This implicit assumption is restrictive because multilateralism is just spatial.

While immigration to EU core countries varies directly with the change in (not level of) social spending per head. If a given country becomes more benevolent it attracts more immigration. The results suggest that if during 2000-2010 social spending per capita grew by 1 percent, the immigration rate increased by between 1 and 2 percentage points relative to the number of foreign-born in 2000. This is a large demographic effect.

Uniquely, this paper does not assume immigration flows are independent and stresses their spatial and multilateral nature. A series of new non-spatial and spatial (single and double-spatial lag) models are used to empirically test hypotheses about the determinants of immigration to the EU core countries.

Many non-Islamic countries are approaching halal tourism as the tourism strategy. However, studies examining Muslims’ attitudes and intentions to visit non-Islamic countries remain scarce. The purpose of this study is to test what factors influence Muslims’ intention to visit non-Islamic countries by considering their perception of halal risk and Islamic value of non-Islamic country destinations.

By distributing questionnaires to Muslim respondents, in total, this study collected 436 respondents. The hypotheses are tested using a structural equation modeling approach.

Results revealed that religiosity significantly affects perceived risk, but it does not have an effect on perceived Islamic values and attitude. It is also found that Muslims’ intention to visit non-Islamic countries are mainly influenced by their attitudes. Perceived halal risk and Islamic value strongly affected their attitudes toward non-Islamic countries. Interestingly, the results show that Muslims’ intention to visit non-Islamic countries is not directly influenced by perceived halal risk and Islamic value but indirectly through attitudes.

The equal distribution of respondents becomes the main challenge to achieve. It cannot be controlled by researchers. Thus, the disproportionate respondents’ distribution in terms of age, gender, occupation and, most importantly, the country selection becomes the limitation of this study.

This study contributes to the literature by evaluating perceived Islamic value and perceived halal risks in influencing Muslims’ intention to visit non-Islamic country destinations.

This paper attempts to examine the implications of non‐tariff measures (NTMs) on firms' international business operations through a survey of India's textiles and clothing exporting firms. The main objectives of the study are to identify and assess the impact of NTMs, and analyze the cost incurred in complying with them.

This paper is based on the survey which was jointly undertaken with the Market Research Division of Textiles Committee, Mumbai.

The results reveal that the EU and USA‐based buyers are more restrictive with significantly higher NTM incidences. The technical barriers, product and production process standards, and conformity assessment requirement for technical barriers are the widely used NTM categories. The compliance expenditure may vary according to firm size, and an inverse relation is revealed by this study. The larger and smaller firms demonstrate important differences in compliance due to their varying resource endowments. Further, the regression results suggest that the US and EU markets and firms' product profile/type are an important determinant of compliance cost.

This study contributes to the understanding about the implications of NTMs on Indian firms, and the inferences may be tested in other similar Asian markets. However, a further empirical validation of the issues such as NTMs as promotion and marketing tools is warranted.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivations behind Indian firms’ outward investment, i.e. whether these firms are investing abroad in search of market, resource, technology, strategic-assets, efficiency, etc. Outward FDI by Indian firms has increased considerably in recent years. Such investments have gone to more than hundred host countries and into various sectors. The higher volume of outward FDI following policy reforms requires examination of factors that have motivated Indian firms to invest in different host countries.

The empirical analysis is done for the period from 2008-2009 to 2011-2012 using firm-destination panel data with appropriate adjustment for clustering.

The analysis provides evidence of the existence of multiple motives behind such investments. Indian firms are found to have invested abroad in search of resource, technology (strategic-assets) and efficiency, whereas the evidence on market-seeking motive is found to be at best weak in the empirical analysis. The results are robust to the use of alternative sample of outward investing firms.

This analysis of firm-level motivation of outward FDI by Indian multinationals has pertinent policy implications as well. The presence of multiple motives implies that Indian firms could bring multiple benefits to the Indian economy through outward FDI.

The link between outward FDI and host country factors is examined at the firm level as against at the aggregative level using a comprehensive and unique official database on actual outward FDI made by Indian firms, originating from both manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors, in the form of equity and loan.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate ways in which Maldives could pioneer Islamic tourism on a befitting framework and financing structure as a leverage to develop its tourism industry.

The research uses qualitative approach whereby primary and empirical data on tourism practices as well as relevant laws and guidelines, issued in Maldives and in other Muslim jurisdictions of the Muslim, are analyzed. Doctrinal approach is used in analyzing secondary data on the subject.

The research reveals the potential of Islamic tourism in Maldives as well as the challenges that have constrained its development in the country. Certainty is needed in halal products, services and conducts. Codifying extant Maldives Halal Tourism Standards will establish legal framework for a standard Shariah-compliant tourism industry. Islamic financing structure enables mobilizing required funds and address financing constraints.

This research presents an insight into establishing and developing Islamic tourism industry in the Maldives. Harmonizing tourism regulations with Shariah shall bring about the required consciousness on Shariah compliance in target tourists and their desires. Private individuals can contribute in mobilizing the much needed Shariah-compliant resources to finance Islamic model resorts befitting an Islamic tourism industry.

The research puts forward proposal that identifies and recognizes a more viable Islamic financing alternative as well as Shariah-compliant regulations to pioneer the development of Islamic tourism in Maldives. The research recommends how to overcome related challenges helps government understand the proposed strategies for establishing Islamic tourism industry.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the int4ernationalization path(s) of emerging multinational corporations (MNCs) from India applying the existing theories. Later on, the paper aims to check for newer explanations using fresh concepts, if required.

The paper relies upon information from published sources and company annual reports. The authors took CNX100 firms operating in three sectors: viz. automotive, pharmaceuticals and information services, and studied their path of internationalization to draw conclusions.

Existing theories do not fully explain the internationalization process of emerging MNCs from India. The paper develops a fresh capability‐based model based on the trends that Indian firms build strategic capability before going for asset accumulation to compete at global levels. For this they use various approaches including strategic alliances, joint ventures, and technology acquisition.

The conceptual framework has not been empirically tested.

The paper suggests a fresh conceptual framework “capabilities‐then‐size” that defines the strategic path firms from emerging economies can take to internationalize and compete at global level.

We contextualize contemporary domestic worker organizing in Vancouver within a history of domestic worker organizing in Canada and then build the argument that their organizing has been structured by the gendered geographies of: international migration; the location of the work in the private home; and the prevalence of stepwise migration of Filipina domestic workers to Canada. These gendered geographies have led to a distinctive mode of organizing: in the community around a wide range of issues that enfold social reproduction into workplace issues to engage the entirety of individuals’ and families’ lives across the life course. Domestic workers’ organizing is grounded in the spatialities and materialities of their lives, and seemingly familiar gender scripts take on an active force in the domestic workers’ mobilization. Confronting the contradictions of organizing domestic workers and organizing to revalue domestic work points to the enduring undervaluation of feminized workers and their work, as well as the potential for intersectional solidarities along with the need for multisectoral strategies.