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Tourism expenditure in destinations is an important element of tourism research and has been the subject of numerous studies. This paper seeks to understand the complex pattern of expenditure within a distinctly defined geographical area, namely the destination Geirangerfjord in Western Norway. This is done by using a new approach where total expenditure is divided into three different measures of expenditure, which are then used to compare spending patterns of three important visitor groups in the destination - cruise visitors, individual visitors on land and land visitors staying overnight. By investigating socioeconomic, travel related, destination related and psychological explanatory variables, drivers of expenditure for each of the three groups are compared. The study reveals that different groups visiting Geirangerfjord diverge both with respect to spending patterns, as well as factors explaining these patterns. Based on the findings and previous literature in the field, the article proposes a new integrated “opportunity framework” in which to understand spending in a destination. Understanding the Blurry Picture of Tourism Expenditure in a Cruise Destination (Geirangerfjord – Norway)

For several years Vietnam has been receiving attention as an attractive business location for foreign companies. But in spite of overall positive economic developments, foreign companies in Vietnam also experience challenges, e.g. connected to bureaucracy and corruption. Another issue that is of crucial importance for foreign companies in foreign markets are the conditions on the labor market. This paper investigates questions about the potentials and challenges for foreign companies on the Vietnamese labor market, and of how attractive Vietnam’s labor market is compared to India and China. Education levels, productivity, wage levels, and number of strikes are among the indicators that are used to compare the attractiveness of Vietnam’s labor market to the labor markets of China and India. Furthermore the results of almost 30 interviews conducted with companies from Austria, Germany and Switzerland on their experiences with doing business in Vietnam are used to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of the labor market in Vietnam.

Following economies like China and India, also Vietnam has managed to increase its attractiveness for foreign direct investments in recent years. In contrast to many European economies Vietnam had overcome the financial and economic crisis in 2008 quickly and turned back to high growth rates already in 2010/11. Nevertheless many European economies and companies still regard Vietnam as an unstable and fragile economy. Therefore the questions arise which general investment conditions are of importance for companies that are investing abroad, and which factors make Vietnam attractive as a business location for foreign companies? After a presentation of stylized facts about Vietnam and a discussion of location theories and location factors, we develop a scoring method to evaluate general investment conditions. Eight of the member states of the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe are used as reference groups to test the scoreboard rating tool, before it is applied for Vietnam