Daily Archives: August 29, 2022

Study involving IFTM scholars explores potential role of the performing arts in promoting a tourism destination

Research Corner | A partnership between Macau Business and the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM)

The performing arts can play a part in improving the image tourists have of a particular destination, says a piece of research involving two scholars from Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM). The staging of such performances can be an influential attribute for places that might otherwise lack major attractions for visitors, the researchers stated.

As such, branded performing arts programmes should be highlighted in tourism marketing efforts where appropriate, they suggested.

The study was carried out by IFTM scholars Dr Joe Zhou Yong and Dr Soey Lei Sut Ieng, in partnership with Dr Yan Libo from Macau University of Science and Technology. The findings were featured in the academic paper Linking tourists performing arts experience and perceived destination image. It was published last year in the scholarly journal Tourism Recreation Research.

The work was financially supported by Macau University of Science and Technology Foundation.

The research was based on a survey answered by a sample of 419 tourists. They all had watched a live circus performance at an arena in a leading amusement park resort in the neighbouring mainland city of Zhuhai.

The research team concluded that the staging of performing arts could be an effective vehicle to showcase to visitors the cultural charm and the varied offerings of a particular destination. For places that lacked natural or physical attractions but were eager to modify or improve the way they were perceived by tourists, performing arts could be a good and easy-to-implement option in their strategy toolkit, the researchers suggested.

A good performing arts experience had high potential for enhancing destination image, stated the trio of scholars. This is an interesting finding as previous studies have rarely investigated such relationships.

Beautifier for a destinations image

The research concluded that tourist experience of both core and supplementary services relating to a performing arts product had a significant impact on how tourists perceived the value of that offering. This, in turn, affected tourist satisfaction, ultimately influencing how they judged in cognitive and affective terms the image of the host destination.

The core service of a performing arts offering refers to the show or act experience. The supplementary services cover things such as the venue where the performance is delivered, auxiliary amenities, ticketing, and transportation to the venue.

The authors of the study highlighted that Chinese tourists were less concerned about supplementary services than they were about the core service. Although performance organisers needed to ensure supplementary services were of good quality, they should consider allocating more resources to develop and improve their core services for such visitors, it was suggested.

The performing arts should not be limited to serving the needs of local communities, the team of scholars argued. The role played by the staging of such work could be expanded, with the performing arts becoming an important tourist economy activity and a destination image beautifier.

Providing theatre-based performing arts programmes to tourists was an effective way of diversifying the tourist product offering of a destination, said the researchers. The diversification of products and attractions was helpful for retaining tourists timewise in a location, useful for encouraging repeat visits, and assisted in generating word-of-mouth recommendation, they added.

The team of scholars said that performing arts products could contribute to sustainable tourism development. Their research focused on performing arts performances delivered in an arena setting, which the authors described as a form of alternative tourism. The benefits of this form of consumption by tourists stemmed from the fact live art products enrich tourists experience, prolong their sojourn in the destination, and have a relatively lower negative impact on residents, the researchers stated.

The researchers

Dr Joe Zhou Yong is an assistant professor at Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM). He holds a PhD from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests centre around destination development, tourism impact and community perception studies, and event and festival tourism.

IFTM lecturer Dr Soey Lei Sut Ieng received a PhD from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research focuses on the impact of technological innovation on consumer behaviour in the tourism and hospitality industry, with a focus on mobile applications and digital marketing.

Dr Yan Libo is an associate professor at Macau University of Science and Technology. He holds a PhD from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His academic research interests include tourist experience, tourist attractions, destination marketing, and destination management. He is on the editorial board of scholarly journal Tourism Review.

The paper

(Joe) Yong Zhou, Sut Ieng Lei and Libo Yan: Linking tourists performing arts experience and perceived destination image, Tourism Recreation Research, Volume 46, Issue 1, pages 71 to 84, 2021.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02508281.

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The show must go on and attract tourists - Macau Business

NASAs most powerful rocket yet is set to blast off Monday on the maiden voyage of a mission to take humans back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars.

Fifty years after the last time astronauts set foot on the moon in 1972 as part of the Apollo 17 mission, the space program called Artemis is to get under way with the blast off of the uncrewed 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 8:33 am (1233 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Tens of thousands of people including US Vice President Kamala Harris are expected to gather along the beach to watch the launch, which has been decades in the making.

Hotels around Cape Canaveral are booked solid with between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators expected to attend the launch.

The goal of the flight, dubbed Artemis 1, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket.

The capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point, Artemis will see a woman and a person of color walk on the Moon for the first time.

This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Saturday.

The massive orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on the space centers Launch Complex 39B for more than a week.

Its fuel tanks began to be filled overnight Sunday to Monday, with NASAs Exploration Ground Systems tweeting that they have been given a go for tanking.

But there was a brief delay of about an hour because of a high risk of lightning when the fueling operations were set to begin.

The process will continue for several hours, until the rocket is filled with more than three million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.

NASA said there is an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather for a liftoff on time at the beginning of a launch window lasting two hours.

For the first time a woman Charlie Blackwell-Thompson will give the final green light for liftoff.

Women now account for 30 percent of the staff in the control room; there was just one for the Apollo 11 mission, the first time astronauts landed on the moon in 1969.

Cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day trip, including a picture of the spacecraft with the Moon and Earth in the background.

The Orion capsule will orbit around the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach and then firing its engines to get to a distance 40,000 miles beyond, a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.

Besides the weather, any kind of technical snafu could delay the liftoff at the last minute, NASA officials have said, stressing that this is a test flight.

If the rocket is unable to take off on Monday, September 2 and 5 have been penciled in as alternative flight dates.

One of the primary objectives of the mission is to test the capsules heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.

On its return to the Earths atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). That is half as hot as the Sun.

Dummies fitted with sensors will take the place of real crew members, recording acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.

The craft will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.

A complete failure would be devastating for a program that is costing $4.1 billion per launch and is already running years behind schedule.

Mondays launch is not a near-term sprint, but a long-term marathon to bring the solar system and beyond into our sphere, said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy and strategy.

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.

And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal an eventual crewed mission to Mars.

The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.

Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

by Lucie AUBOURG

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NASA shoots for the Moon, on its way to Mars - Macau Business

Go-karting is continuing to gain a following in Cuba, with the sports competition circuit returning after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the Playa El Salado go-kart track in the municipality of Caimito, Artemisa province, about 40 kilometers from Havana, karting fans meet at weekends to test their skills behind the wheel on the 1.2 kilometer circuit.

Among them is Abel Valdes, who started karting around 30 years ago. He told Xinhua he has to import everything from tires to spare parts.

We dont always fix them, we struggle, you can see it here. The spirit of the people is good. We fight to be able to drive, which is what we want, he said minutes before entering the track.

Ruben Cantillo started karting at the age of eight and now pursues his hobby while also working as a mechanic, running his own garage in the municipality of La Lisa.

We are making every effort, almost superhuman, we would say, so that karting stays afloat and can have the boom it had in previous years, he told Xinhua.

Cantillo added that he had thought about quitting, but it was difficult to do so because his family was one of the founders of the sport in Cuba in the 1970s.

The popularity of karting in Cuba is on the rise, with new drivers like 17-year-old Pablo Raul Nascianceno, who started racing this year after passing a preparation course for young drivers, eager to unleash their adrenaline.

My passion for motor racing and karting in general began when I was little. It is the motor sport that can be done here. My biggest goal is Formula 1 on the big international circuits, he said.

According to official sources, the island currently has around 200 go-karts and karting enthusiasts from all over the island turn out for the annual Cocomar Cup, held at the Caimito track.

Angel Luis Amador, president of the working group for the development of karting in the province of Artemisa, told Xinhua that there is a local development project underway to improve the infrastructure of the kart track in Caimito and to further promote the sport.

We have the Grand Final in December. In addition, we are qualifying referees for our competitions. Karting is part of Cubas sporting identity, he said.

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Cuba works to keep sport of karting alive - Macau Business

Chinas slowing economy has left millions of young people fiercely competing for an ever-slimming raft of jobs and facing an increasingly uncertain future.

Official data released this month showed one in five young people in Chinese cities was out of work in July more than three times the national average and the highest recorded since January 2018.

Nearly 11 million graduates entered Chinas bleak job market this summer with the economy growing at 0.4 percent in the second quarter, the weakest in two years.

Zhao Yuting, 22, told AFP companies were reluctant to hire as the economy cools and that experienced workers were now jostling for entry-level jobs, elbowing out green hands such as her.

Since graduating in July, she submitted her CV to dozens of companies.

Only a handful called her back for an interview, only to turn her down saying she lacked experience.

Armed with a degree in English, Zhao thought she could earn a living as a tutor until she found full-time work.

But recent crackdowns on the tech and education sectors, which usually absorb fresh talent, have evaporated such jobs.

Ive been job hunting for two or three months but the prospects of being hired look slim, said Zhao, who has been forced to move back in with her parents while she hunts for work.

The longer it takes, the greater the pressure.

Analysts blame a slowing economy crippled by Covid lockdowns, as well as the large cohort entering the labour force during the graduating season in July and August, for the slim prospects facing Chinas youth.

Official data does not track unemployment among rural youth, and the real jobless population could be more than double the official number, estimated Zhuang Bo, an economist at research group TS Lombard.

Blue-collar workers, too, are struggling to find work as growth in the manufacturing and construction sectors cools.

The reality is more serious than what the data shows, said Ho-fung Hung, who specialises in Chinas political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

If the problem continues without remedy, it will easily spread social disorders.

At a job fair in the tech hub Shenzhen, long lines of anxious parents and young graduates waited for a chance to chat with recruiters.

But headhunters at the fair said they were cherry-picking graduates from top universities, because only a few positions were available.

My goal was to work in Shenzhen, in Chinas Silicon Valley, Luo Wen, a computer science graduate, told AFP.

But after more than four months of searching, Im ready to work even in a smaller city, for less pay.

Graduates who managed to find work this year were offered salaries that were on average 12 percent less than last year, data from online recruitment firm Zhaopin showed.

And while some job seekers were lowering their ambitions, others were biding their time pursuing further studies.

Experts warned that this may lead to degree inflation, where employers demand higher and higher qualifications for jobs that do not necessarily require them.

Analysts blamed government policies that saw a rapid rise in college students over the past decade as the economy failed to accommodate more knowledge workers.

The pandemic and lockdowns simply aggravated the problem, Hung said.

The government has pledged to shore up employment by offering tax relief for small businesses and more start-up funding.

Premier Li Keqiang has said Chinas employment crisis is complex and grave and called on state-owned companies to step up to stabilise the economy.

And as growth in the private sector slows, job seekers have flocked to cram schools to prepare for highly competitive civil service exams.

A record-breaking two million people signed up for the national civil service exam last fall.

A recent survey by 51job, one of Chinas biggest job search services, found that 40 percent of respondents preferred stable state jobs over corporate careers.

But for Zhao, who cannot afford to study further and does not have the connections to secure a government job, few options remain.

I feel that I cant see the future, she said.

I havent made any progress. Its miserable.

By Poornima Weerasekara

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China's jobless youth left in the lurch - Macau Business

The 30thanniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea on August 24, 2022 was marked by celebrations, active engagement from both sides, challenges and opportunities for the two countries in the coming years.

First, the Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol on August 24. President Xi remarked that Sino-South Korean have been developing quickly due to the mutual respect and trust from both sides, the accommodation of each others core interests, and the enhancement of understanding through communications. Moreover, both countries, according to Xi, adopt the principles of openness and inclusiveness, safeguarding regional peace and stability, promoting regional economic development, and preserving the basic norms in dealing with international relations. All these are valuable assets that both sides, President Xi said, should cherish.

President Xi also expressed his desire that both sides can maintain good friendly and neighborly relations, consolidate strategic communications and focus on cooperation.

On August 9, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met the South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin in Qingdao. Park Jin said that the South Korean side insists on denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, pointing to the unprecedented threat to regional peace, and hoping that the Chinese side can play a constructive role of fostering dialogue with North Korea. Park Jin appealed to China to attach importance to maintain strategic communication, expressing his hope that President Xi would be able to visit South Korea. Park Jin also appealed to the need for stability in logistical supplies an indication that the South Korean side was worried about Chinas technology policy and the impact of its rivalry with the US.

In response to Park Jins concerns, Wang Yi said that the Sino-South Korean relations had undergone winds and rainfall, that both sides remain safe neighbors coexisting with each other as necessary partners, and that both sides should insist on independence and autonomy, non-interference from outside, continuous openness, mutual respect and equality, multilateralism and the adherence to the UN Charter.

One big challenge in Sino-South Korean relations is the Chinese concern about the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THADD) anti-missile system in South Korea a defensive measure which have damaged their relationships since 2017. China is deeply concerned about its national security threat in the face of the THADD system, but South Korea has been aided by the US to deter the North Korean military threat.

As long as the principle of deterrence is used in dealing with national security in the Korean Peninsula, the relations between China, South Korea, US and North Korea are complex. North Korea is keen to develop and maintain its strong military, including the testing and development of its nuclear weapons. South Korea and the US see North Korea as a serious military threat. China as a friendly neighbor of North Korea can play the role of being a middleman between Pyongyang on the one hand and South Korea and the US on the other hand.

On August 5, the South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol did not meet the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi due to his scheduled vacation, shortly after her politically provocative visit to Taiwan. President Yoons gesture appeared to avoid antagonizing China at a politically sensitive time although he had a 40-minute phone discussion with Pelosi. South Korea was sensitive to the way in which the US tackles the issue of Taiwan.

However, in the era of a new Cold War in East Asia where the US is competing with China in economic and military spheres, a recent move made by South Korea to join the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and Chip 4 triggers Chinas sensitivity. The recent global shortages of semiconductor have made the US President Joe Biden and his think tank propose forming a Chips Alliance composed of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. China, however, sees this Chip 4 Alliance as a pro-American alliance that threatens its security interests.

Ideologically, South Korea cherishes universal values such as democracy, freedom and human rights like the US. The South Korean Consul General in Hong Kong, Baek Yong-chun, has recently remarked that Hong Kong must continue its position as an open and an intermediary trading hub different from mainland China to maintain its international appeal. A free and open business environment in Hong Kong is essential for international business, according to Baek, who skillfully avoided mentioning democracy and human rights in Hong Kong, which has to some extent been mainlandized in the recent years after years of political turmoil and struggles.

Consul General Baek added that if Hong Kong were the same as China, then the territory would have no rationale to exist a remark implying that he was quite concerned about the extent of mainlandization of Hong Kong.

In fact, public opinion in South Korea has shown that more young people have developed negative attitudes toward China. A poll demonstrated that 80 percent of the South Koreans have engendered negative sentiments on China. This finding is perhaps not surprising because of a very different political culture in South Korea and the widespread international perception that the rise of China has been marked by its assertiveness in the diplomatic, political, economic and military spheres.

Perhaps fortunately, the South Korean foreign policy is made and driven by political elites, career diplomats and Sinologists who understand how to deal with China skillfully, tactfully and assertively if necessary.

In early August, it was reported that Chinese officials attempted to exert pressure on the South Korean side to observe three promises made by the previous Moon Jae-in government, namely the promises of not participating in the THAAD system, not adding any new THAAD anti-missile system, and not promoting the military alliance between South Korea, US and Japan. However, the South Korean media reported that the South Korean officials in Beijing argued that these were not promises made by the Moon government.

During the celebration of the 30thanniversary of Sino-South Korean relations, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended a celebration event in Beijing with Chung Jae-ho, the South Korean ambassador to China. They both read the congratulatory messages from their presidents. Wang interestingly called on both sides to synergize developmental strategies by deepening cooperation in areas such as high-tech manufacturing, big data and green economy. He added that both sides should oppose decoupling or severing supply chains, safeguard the free trade system, and jointly maintain the openness and inclusiveness of industrial supply chains.

Wangs remarks clearly attempted to calm the concerns about whether Chinas economic policies might turn more self-protective. Recent reports on China have pointed to the continuation of economic pragmatism.

Perhaps more innovative efforts at developing an East Asian Free Trade Economic Region, which can be considered and made on the basis of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and which is composed of China, Japan and South Korea, would bring about peace and stability in the long run.

Grasping the chance of celebrating the 30thanniversary of bilateral relations between China and South Korea, the Korean Unification Minister Kwon Young-se met Chinas top ambassador in Seoul, Xing Haiming. Kwon stressed that his ministry would closely communicate with the Chinese side to push ahead with the policies of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the consolidation of cooperation. Kwon also called on China to play a constructive role to elicit any positive response from North Korea on President Yoons audacious plan of seeking to help Pyongyang to improve its economy in return for denuclearization.

In conclusion, the 30thanniversary of Sino-South Korean relations are marked by a common desire to enhance cooperation and deepen mutual exchanges in all areas. However, the issue of THAAD remains a baffling problem in Sino-South Korean relations. If both sides can tackle economic relations and focus on non-sensitive areas of cooperation, Sino-South Korean relations remain optimistic. After all, China remains a crucial middleman that can bridge the communication gap and frosty relations between South Korea and North Korea. The challenge is for South Korea to strike a very precarious balance between its tendency to be dragged into the military alliance with the US and its necessity of adopting a skillful diplomacy toward China in the very complex relations between Seoul, Pyongyang, Washington and Beijing.

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OPINION - Challenges and opportunities in Chinas relations with South Korea - Macau Business