Community Preservation Act interest level

The interest should be better. After all the CPA provides matching funds for Open Space and Recreation, Affordable Housing and Historic Preservation.  And these make a community a better place to live or visit.  See the news report in this morning's paper.

Wrote a paper on the CPA a few years back to compare and contrast the socio-demographic characteristics of communities accepting (or have yet to vote) the Community Preservation Act.  It is titled "The Massachusetts Community Preservation Act: factors influencing acceptance" and is available at this site.

Abstract:
In New England, urban sprawl creates a need for protecting open space. In 2002, residents of Southwick, MA, voted to accept the Massachusetts Community Preservation Act (CPA), which helps communities implement smart growth by providing funds for affordable housing, open space protection, and historic landmark preservation. This paper summarizes the findings of a survey administered before the town-wide CPA vote. Survey and demographic data from Southwick and other Massachusetts communities are compared in order to anticipate additional acceptance of the statewide initiative. The data suggest that communities that have higher median household incomes and more extensive housing stock are more likely to adopt the CPA.

Has your town adopted a Smart Growth strategy?

United States Travel and Tourism Exports

TI News: An information service provided by the Office of Travel & Tourism Industries

From my newsfeed from (http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/)

January 25, 2012

United States Travel and Tourism Exports: November 2012

Year-to-Date U.S. Travel and Tourism Exports Already Exceed Annual Record

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced that international visitors spent an estimated $14.1 billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, the United States during the month of November - nearly $1.3 billion more (10%) than was spent in November 2011.

• Travel Receipts: Purchases of travel and tourism-related goods and services by international visitors traveling in the United States totaled $10.8 billion during November, an increase of nearly 11 percent when compared to last year. These goods and services include food, lodging, recreation, gifts, entertainment, local transportation in the United States, and other items incidental to foreign travel.
  
• Passenger Fare Receipts: Fares received by U.S. carriers (and U.S. vessel operators) from international visitors increased 7 percent to $3.3 billion for the month, following an increase of 2 percent in October. U.S carriers have received more than $36 billion from international visitors through November 2012, the strongest year-to-date performance on record.

International visitors have spent an estimated $153.8 billion on U.S. travel and tourism-related goods and services year to date (January through November), an increase of nearly 10 percent when compared to the same period last. In fact, U.S. travel and tourism exports through November have already exceeded the record-setting annual total from last year.

Americans ave spent more than $108.5 billion abroad year to date (up 8%) - resulting in a $45.2 billion balance of trade surplus for travel and tourism through November 2012.

Zusammenhang and Tourism

According to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zusammenhang

Ein Zusammenhang ist die Beziehung (Relation[1]), die zwischen miteinander verbundenen Teilen besteht. Diese Teile können sein:

materielle Gegenstände

gedankliche Gegenstände – etwa Begriffe, Aussagen, Theorien oder Normen

Eigenschaften dieser beiden Arten von Gegenständen.

Der ursprünglichen Wortbedeutung (vgl. „zusammenhängen“) kommt der physische Zusammenhang am nächsten. Davon abstrahiert sind gedankliche Zusammenhänge oder ein allgemeiner Bezugsrahmen; darüber hinaus existieren beispielsweise emotionale Zusammenhänge, Zusammenhänge von sozialen Gruppen und sprachliche Zusammenhänge.

In Abgrenzung zu physischen Zusammenhängen werden jene des gedanklich-sprachlichen Bereichs je nach konkretem Fall als Kohärenzen, logische Zusammenhänge oder als Kontext bezeichnet. Kausal hingegen können Zusammenhänge in beiden Fällen sein. In der Religion, aber auch in der Intuition der meisten Menschen wird die Welt als zusammenhängendes Ganzes betrachtet. In dieser Hinsicht spricht die Philosophie von einer Korrespondenztheorie der Wahrheit: Zusammenhänge zwischen Gegenständen, Eigenschaften und Prozessen seien die Grundlage für die Kohärenz von Begriffen, Denkprozessen oder Aussagen.

got it?

Five Themes of Geography Applied to Tourism

Found this good link about using the Five Themes of Geography to a tourism example.
What are the 5 themes of geography in Orlando Florida?

Here is an example from one on my PowerPoints:

No matter what you think about the 5 themes, it is still a decent way to think geographically.

Thomas Cook and tourism

Travellers outside the US probably know about Thomas Cook.  We got our AAA and American Express and so on, but Thomas Cook has been planning tours since 1841.  A chronological history of Thomas Cook can be found on their website.

They are also addressing Sustainability and the logo "Travel the World, Without Costing the Earth" is noteworthy.  Also several data tables are available about their impact.

TSA: X-Ray Scanners To Be Removed

Well, I blogged about this back in 2010.  My student response was 2 for it and 1 against.  A generation of citizens have grown up with War, Terrorists, and no music on MTV.  What is wrong with the picture?

Well the TSA will be removing those x-ray scanners from airports because of a loss of privacy.  I expect a secure flight, but the whole travel experience has certainly changed over the past decade.

For details from TSA, see the page.  You can also see that TSA is privitizing security at airports and we know from jails and schools how good that will be.

Retirement and Expats

I'm at that age when I am thinking about retirement.  Not so much from reading and writing about recreation and tourism, but certainly from full time teaching and the administrative stuff I have to do as chair.

I discovered this site a few years ago and am on the mailing list.  We have talked about retiring out of the US so this resource is valuable.  The are specific forums on dozens of countries.  City and Country guides are also found.  Information on costs, insurance moving expenses are all covered.

In the meantime, I travel, to learn more about our wonderful world.

So to learn about places for retirement, check out the expat forum.

WTTC: Economic Impact of Travel & Tourism

The World Travel and Tourism Council states

"Travel & Tourism’s performance in the first half of 2012, especially international arrivals, has been positive. World Travel & Tourism GDP is projected to grow by 2.7% in 2012.  This is especially impressive as set against the wider global economic backdrop, many economies are slowing or are showing below-trend or negative growth. In the Eurozone, sovereign debt issues and austerity policies have reduced trade and spending considerably over the first half of 2012 impacting economies around the world.  The pace of growth in emerging markets is faster than in advanced economies, however, they too are feeling the impact of Europe’s financial troubles."

For the mid year update (Oct 2012) click here.