Browsing by Author "Prayag G"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Destination transitions and resilience following trigger events and transformative moments
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-04-28) Hall CM; Prayag G; Fang SE
    Disasters and crises are increasingly seen as opportunities for transformation of the tourism system at various scales. From a resilience perspective, crises and disasters may act as trigger events for system change, sometimes described as the “disaster-reform hypothesis”. An integrative framework informed by different fields is used to analyse the destination development pathways following the Kaikōura earthquake in New Zealand. In addition to policy documents and media, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 21 business owners and managers in the Kaikōura region, an internationally recognised ecotourism destination. The findings show pathway competition, experimentation, scale effects and lock-in influencing transitions. The research identifies interactions between different actors at different levels of governance in shaping destination pathways post-disaster, with external political and economic actors having the most influence. Multiple levels of resilience chart a potentially more resilient destination. The study concludes that the range of potential destination pathways is constrained by decision-making at other scales, e.g. national policy settings and insurance coverage, that affect tourism businesses and destination decision-making. As a result, the notion of transformation should be understood as an essentially contested concept both within a destination and between destination stakeholders and those that operate at a national scale.
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    Exploring CBD Retail Performance, Recovery and Resilience of a Smart City Following COVID-19
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2023-05-19) Fieger P; Prayag G; Dyason D; Rice J; Hall CM; Basbas S
    The city of Christchurch, New Zealand, incurred significant damage due to a series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The city had, by the late 2010s, regained economic and social normalcy after a sustained period of rebuilding and economic recovery. Through the concerted rebuilding effort, a modern central business district (CBD) with redesigned infrastructure and amenities was developed. The Christchurch rebuild was underpinned by a commitment of urban planners to an open and connected city, including the use of innovative technologies to gather, use and share data. As was the case elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant disruptions to social and economic life in Christchurch. Border closures, lockdowns, trading limitations and other restrictions on movement led to changes in traditional consumer behaviors and affected the retail sector’s resilience. In this study, we used CBD pedestrian traffic data gathered from various locations to predict changes in retail spending and identify recovery implications through the lens of retail resilience. We found that the COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdowns have driven a substantive change in the behavioral patterns of city users. The implications for resilient retail, sustainable policy and further research are explored.
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    Panic buying and consumption displacement during COVID-19: Evidence from New Zealand
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2021-06-01) Hall CM; Fieger P; Prayag G; Dyason D; Morley B
    Panic buying and hoarding behavior is a significant component of crisis- and disasterrelated consumption displacement that has received considerable attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding such purchasing and stockpiling behavior provides critical information for government, disaster managers and the retail sector, as well as policy makers to adjust crisis response strategies and to better understand disaster management, including preparedness and response strategies. This study examines consumer purchasing behavior, retail spending and transactional data for different retail sectors between January 2017 and December 2020 using data for the greater Christchurch region in New Zealand. Once COVID-19-related panic buying began, overall spending increased sharply in anticipation of lockdowns. Transactional spending increased and subsided only slowly to a level higher than pre lockdown. The magnitude of the panic buying event far exceeded historical seasonal patterns of consumer spending outside of Christmas, Easter and Black Friday, although daily spending levels were comparable to such consumption events. The results of the study highlight the importance of comparing panic buying to other events in terms of purchasing motivations and also considering that so-called panic buying may contribute to greater individual and household resilience. The volume of sales alone is not adequate to define panic buying. Instead, the extent of divergence from the normal daily spending value per retail transaction of a given population provides a much more accurate characteristic of panic buying.
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    The Triple Blow Effect: Retailing in an Era of Disasters and Pandemics—The Case of Christchurch, New Zealand
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2022-02-04) Dyason D; Fieger P; Prayag G; Hall CM; Verdaguer CC; Frago L
    In the last two decades, the retail sector has experienced unprecedented upheaval, having severe implications for economic development and sustenance of traditional inner-city retail dis-tricts. In the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, this effect has been exacerbated by a series of earthquakes in 2010/2011 which destroyed much of the traditional retail precinct of the city. After exten-sive rebuild activity of the city’s infrastructure, the momentum of retailers returning to the inner city was initially sluggish but eventually gathered speed supported by increased international vis-itation. In early 2020, the return to retail normality came to an abrupt halt after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses spending and transaction data to analyze the compounding impact of the earthquake’s aftermath, shift to online shopping, and the retail disruption in the Christchurch central retail precinct because of COVID-19. The findings illustrate how consumers through their spending respond to different types of external shocks, altering their consumption patterns and retail mode (offline and online) to cope with an ever-changing retail landscape. Each event triggers different spending patterns that have some similarities but also stark differences, having implications for a sustainable and resilient retail industry in Christchurch. Implications for urban retail precinct development are also discussed.
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    Transformative places and the citizenship experience: A dynamic perspective of disasters, transitional servicescapes, and place attachment
    (Elsevier B.V., 2024-03) Finsterwalder J; Chen NC; Hall CM; Prayag G; Tombs A; Timmermans H
    A city can be regarded as a servicescape, serving its citizens by providing the opportunity to co-create and experience services, such as in the retail or hospitality sectors. In case of a disaster and the collapse or (partial) destruction of a city's servicescape, the connection of citizens to place, i.e., their place attachment might be impeded, transformed or lost as might be their usual citizenship experiences. The present paper fuses the domains of Transformative Service Research (TSR), environmental psychology, disaster science, and citizenship experiences. Via an exploratory qualitative investigation it finds that transitional, i.e., temporary servicescapes which are put into place until more permanent servicescapes can be rebuilt, can be transformative places in regard to co-creating novel citizenship experiences to “re-attach” residents to their city.
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    Transformative Service Research Methodologies for Vulnerable Participants
    (SAGE Publications, 10/11/2022) Dodds S; Finsterwalder J; Prayag G; Subramanian I
    Understanding vulnerable consumers when conducting Transformative Service Research (TSR) is essential but these consumers and their contexts are often complex and difficult to research. Despite a movement towards TSR methodologies suitable for studying vulnerable participants and their contexts, a comprehensive framework that can guide service researchers is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to investigate appropriate methods, procedures, and protocols that permit researching a wide range of vulnerable groups and exposures to vulnerable situations in TSR. This is undertaken via a review of the literature and the authors’ reflections of their experiences with researching vulnerability in various configurations (e.g., disasters, refugees, healthcare, disability, and older people). Through an iterative process of personal case reflections and group discussions blended with extant literature, patterns and insights regarding appropriate research protocols, techniques, processes, and sampling are identified. These insights contribute to the development of a comprehensive TSR framework in five research method areas including 1) consideration of the context, researcher, support persons and participants, 2) recruitment considerations relating to sampling, 3) recruitment considerations in terms of ethics and set-up, 4) data collection considerations relating to research protocol and set-up, and 5) data collection considerations. The framework can guide both academics and practitioners to enhance research outcomes for both participants and researchers.