CALL FOR PAPERS: XVII Reunion of the International Committee for the History of Nautical Science - Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway, 2nd - 4th October 2014 (Revised) (original) (raw)

Post-2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup: oversupply and location of luxury hotel rooms in Cape Town

Current Issues in Tourism, 2014

An excess of hotel rooms in cities preparing to host a mega-event such as the FIFA Soccer World Cup is not a new occurrence. Between 2007 and 2010 the number of five-star hotel rooms in Cape Town increased by 50% and four-star hotel rooms by 20%. A spatial database of three-, four-and five-star hotels was compiled for the hotel sector of Cape Town. This paper reveals the global-local nexus of luxury hotel development in Cape Town (South Africa) and three different contexts in which the oversupply of hotel rooms must be understood. First is South Africa as a developing country engaged in hosting a hallmark event and engrossed in concomitant inflated tourism-related expectations. Second is the vulnerability of Cape Town's hotel sector with its overdependence on long-haul holiday tourists from a narrow northernhemisphere market experiencing the worst economic recession since the 1930s. Third is the favourable economic trends in South Africa from 1999 to 2007 that have trapped hotel developers in a 'fallacy of composition'.

DYNAMICS OF ACCOMODATION UNITS IN CLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA

Cluj-Napoca (350,000 inhabitants) has a dynamic urban infrastructure that closely reflects geopolitical status of Transylvania. In the 19 th century, most inns were located on a single street, but in the early 20 th century, the city's hotels had various kinds of comfort and locations. Between the two world wars, three luxury hotels appeared in the city landscape. During the communist period large accommodation capacities were built, 15 hotels (2500 beds) were recorded in 1990. In the next few years, a spectacular start and an exponential increase of the hotel units was established. Competition is based now on more than 79 hotels and touristic villas (4327 beds) are encountered (2011) but with low occupancy. Now a diversification and specialization of the accommodation units based on thematic tourism is looming, according to tourists' profile (business, cultural, scientific, sport events). The location of hotels was achieved by the following criteria: main roads axes, airport (over 1 million passengers in 2012 and 2013), increasing the capacity of the university center with new private higher education institutions, external pressure on big university clinics due to the concentration and specialization of medical service, economic activities with the impacton influence area.

The Agreement Generation: young people’s views on the new cross-border relationship’

Young adults of today are the first generation of people on the island of Ireland raised in a context of a negotiated – and democratically endorsed – agreement on the constitutional question, supported by institutions working on power-sharing, cross-border and inter-governmental basis. The 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement provided an opportunity to reframe the various relationships within and between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. But its lasting legacy will be determined by those who were young children at the time of its conception. This paper presents findings of research on the views of young people in Dublin and Belfast about the conflict, the peace, the border and about how they view each other.