consulting
George Washington University: Turks & Caicos, Salt Cay – Investment selection for community and ecosystem sustainability
ABSTRACT
Unlike the other islands of the Turks & Caicos, Salt Cay’s population has plummeted to 54 residents. Salt Cay urgently needs a tourism investment to revitalize the island. But which tourism investment type is best suited to attract permanent residents, protect the island’s fragile ecosystem and showcase its unique history: a cruise dock, a luxury resort or glamping (glamorous camping)?
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MITACS: How to measure community well-being of host tourism communities such as Banff and Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Sustainability is commonly defined as the integration of economic, environmental, and social dimensions. This research narrows its focus to investigate the social dimension and its relationship to the economic dimension: the proper redistribution of wealth to create vibrant and resilient societies. The current research is primarily a subset of social sustainability, which is the impact of implementing a living wage to workers providing tourism services within protected areas. Protected areas naturally attract conservationists keen to preserve pristine environments. Hospitality companies utilize these areas to expand tourism. Private business interests are often supported by lobby groups such as chambers of commerce and hotel associations. Between the conservationists and private-sector owners are the employees that provide essential services from room attendants to bartenders who mostly earn minimum wage. These workers have seen their negotiating power eroded due to the lack of organization and representation unlike powerful environmental groups and private enterprises.
Nature Conservancy: Insurance Products for hospitality companies to protect the meso-american reef system (MARS)
The catastrophic hurricane Wilma in 2005 shook Mexico’s insurance industry to its roots. It is hard to overstate the dramatic changes in the industry following the event. From regulation to reserves to insurance companies, no element was unaffected following the most expensive hurricane in Latin America’s history. Insurance was severely scaled back and most insurance companies removed themselves from insuring beachfront properties. The market is slowly loosening but still today there are only six major companies that regularly insure properties within 500 meters of saltwater high tide (or 250 meters from freshwater). They are AXA, Inbursa, Atlas, QBE and Grupo Mexicano de Seguros and Mapfre. And of these companies, AXA carries the majority of policies on beachfront hotels in northern Quintana Roo. Irrespective of these companies, most brokers interviewed felt that any new product would require the participation of an international re-insurer due to the ownership of the assets: private insurance to insure federal property, beaches, and reefs. The stated advantages of larger re-insurance companies are a greater appetite for risk and the ability to design specialized products.
ActionAid: Tax avoidance by hospitality companies in East Africa
Report on the Potential for a Case Study and Tax Advocacy
A significant percentage of the revenues arising from tourism, common estimates suggest approximately 60 to 75%, leaks away from developing countries because of foreign ownership of the industry, imported resources, foreign tour operators and airlines, and other reasons. And the poorer the developing country, the higher the probability that the gross expenditures for tourism are greater than the earnings from it. The more a developing country relies on luxury tourism and the smaller its internal market, the greater is the danger of high expenditures for imported luxury goods. Some authors have found that the more established a country becomes as a tourism destination, the greater the proportion of revenue that leaks away.