Tourism in a 'borderless' world : the Singapore experience
Regional Tourism in Asia PacificThe phenomenon of "regional tourism" emerged in the 1990s. Countries and cities are increasingly looking across political borders to collaborate with one another in policy planning, project development, and tourism marketing. Shared natural and cultural resources can be jointly developed and promoted, and infrastructural duplication and harmful competition between countries minimized. The approach may be especially of interest to small countries, for which the experience of Singapore provides useful insights.The many forms of regional tourism. One of the most recognizable forms of regional tourism is the tourism triangle, in which cities in adjacent countries collaborate. Tourism triangles center on a shared economic or natural resource, such as a scenic attraction. The triangle is usually anchored by three principal cities (sometimes states or provinces) in three different countries. Examples in the Asia Pacific region include (see Fig. 1):* Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore Growth Triangle, or IMS-GT (Indonesia's Riau Islands, Malaysia's Johor state, and Singapore), #1 in Fig. 1;* Northern Growth Triangle (Malaysia's Penang, Indonesia's Medan, and Thailand's Phuket), #2 in Fig. 1;* Southern China Growth Triangle (Flong Kong, Taiwan, and the Guangdong and Fujian provinces of China), #3 in Fig. 1.The goal of tourism triangles is for cities/countries to complement each other and to undertake joint projects that leverage each country's strengths. For example, the IMS-GT promotes itself as a resort region capitalizing on Singapore's air/seaport connections and Indonesia's and Malaysia's golf courses, beaches, and comparatively cheaper labor.A second form of regional tourism is developed within the framework of political and economic alliances established by governments to promote a wide range of mutual goals. Alliances under which tourism collaborations have been initiated include:* Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area, or BIMP-EAGA, #4 in Fig. 1;* The Greater Mekong Subregion (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province of China), #5 in Fig. 1;* The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN; and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, or APEC.Within each alliance, regional tourism is usually established through separate subcommittees or working groups. For example, the ASEAN Subcommittee on Tourism facilitates joint marketing of the region, information exchange, and tourism investments between countries. The Greater Mekong Subregion, formed by the Asian Development Bank in 1992, also has a tourism working group that coordinates infrastructure development and markets the participating countries as "Jewels of the Mekong." APEC formed its Tourism Working Group in 1991 to promote social and economic development of member countries through collaborative projects.A third form of regional tourism involves nongovernmental regional associations, which can be credited with first envisioning the potential for regional tourism. One example is the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), which was formed in 1951 with a mix of private and public sector members. Its original goals included encouraging the development of tourist facilities throughout the Pacific and easing government barriers to travel. Today, the Association also acts as a liaison between the public and private sectors within and between countries. Other non-profit regional associations include the nongovernmental ASEAN Tourism Association (ASEANTA) established in 1971 and the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) established in the early 1980s.Singapore's Imperative to 'Go Regional'From the 1960s through the early 1990s Singapore worked to develop its local and national tourism infrastructure and marketing. But with limited land for further development, the country began to look beyond its own borders. …
The move to preferential trade in the Western Pacific Rim
Economists suggest that the welfare gains from trade liberalization can be maximized either through unilateral liberalization or through negotiating non-discriminatory agreements at the global level through the World Trade Organization (WTO). In recent years, however, many countries have turned to preferential trade arrangements (PTAs) as a significant component of their liberalization strategy. More than a hundred such agreements have been notified to the WTO since its establishment in 1995, the vast majority of these involving only two parties.Countries of the western Pacific Rim were slow to jump on the PTA bandwagon: Throughout the postwar period, they were strong adherents of multilateralism in trade negotiations. Beyond the negotiated commitments they undertook in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO, they preferred to reduce their trade barriers on a unilateral and nondiscriminatory basis. The region's preferential trade groupings (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] and the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement) were only partial exceptions to the rule: Their members continued to engage in significant unilateral and nondiscriminatory tariff reductions from the mid1980s onward, an approach that made sound economic sense given the relative unimportance of their regional partners in their overall exports.At the end of 2001, only China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan, among the 144 members of the WTO, were not parties to preferential trade agreements. By this date, however, all the northeast Asian economies had been included in one or more proposals for bilateral or plurilateral PTAs. In the last four years, more than 40 such arrangements involving western Pacific economies have been proposed or are under negotiation, or have been agreed on and are being implemented (see Table 1). For the first time, Japan and China, the world's second and third largest economies, have either signed or are negotiating PTAs. These agreements will have significance for not only the participants and regional nonparticipants, but also the multilateral trading system as a whole.Is the move to preferential trade by western Pacific Rim countries cause for concern? Why have they changed the direction of their trade policies? What are the likely effects of PTAs on the economies of participants and nonparticipants? How will the agreements affect the balance of pro- and antiliberalization forces within the participating countries? How will they affect liberalization in regional and global forums? These are the principal questions addressed below.The Pros and Cons of Preferential Trade AgreementsPTAs (especially bilateral agreements) have been the dominant form of trade agreement since the Industrial Revolution. Although economic historians have often identified the preferential agreements of the interwar period as a major contributory factor to the global depression of the 1930s, no evidence exists to date that the current wave of PTAs is responsible for an increase in global trade barriers; in fact, overall tariff levels have fallen substantially thanks to the successful conclusion of the GATT's Uruguay Round. PTAs certainly have not produced the breakdown of the global system into rival blocs that was predicted by some at the end of the 1980s. Other positive arguments can be made in favor of the new bilateralism:* PTAs are being negotiated more speedily than global trade agreements now that the WTO membership is approaching 150 economies.* PTAs present opportunities for exposing protected sectors gradually to international competition, thus paving the way for an eventual full liberalization. Although PTAs are often labeled "second best" by economists, they may represent an improvement on the status quo.* Provisions may be included in preferential agreements that go beyond commitments previously made in the WTO. They can produce deeper economic integration and serve as testing grounds for collaboration, which can later be extended through global agreements. …
Immersive haptic interaction with media
New 3D video representations enable new modalities of interaction, such as haptic interaction, with 2D and 3D video for truly immersive media applications. Haptic interaction with video includes haptic structure and haptic motion for new immersive experiences. It is possible to compute haptic structure signals from 3D scene geometry or depth information. This paper introduces the concept of haptic motion, as well as new methods to compute haptic structure and motion signals for 2D video-plus-depth representation. The resulting haptic signals can be rendered using a haptic cursor attached to a 2D or 3D video display.