Selling bubbles at sea: pleasurable enclosure or unwanted confinement?

ABSTRACT

The insularity of super-sized cruise ships is simultaneously part of their appeal and a problem. Seagoing tourism enclaves offer a world of fantasy, consumption, familiarity, and diversion. However, problems encountered by passengers with respect to seasickness, boredom, and a sense of entrapment are noted within a range of publications. Selling the desirable aspects of cruise-ship enclosure co-exists with attempts to address the unease, discomfort, and uncertainty associated with bounded domains. These two currents, to use a nautical metaphor, characterize – or steer – the way in which shipboard experiences are sold to passengers. The concept of place marketing can be related to the thrust of the currents. Place marketing has been widely addressed in relation to urban and rural areas but not tourism enclaves such as cruise ships. The insular cruise-ship environment – a contained, consumption-driven place – is sold to (prospective) passengers in different ways. Those who study place marketing have yet to address dissimilar, but complementary, promotional messages (or currents) that are used to sell resort-style environments. Commercial imperatives explain the actions of cruise-ship companies with respect to selling the enclosed nature of their vessels, especially to North American consumers. The way in which place marketers manage place-based images – a response to intensified intercity or inter-town competition – mirrors the careful management of the promotion of shipboard spaces, often a response to intense competition within the cruise industry and part of initiatives designed to attract first-time passengers. This study addresses a research question: How are different but congruous promotional messages deployed as part of efforts to sell shipboard spaces?     

俄罗斯的亚太战略与政策探析

俄罗斯作为苏联解体后的当然继承国,成为当今世界政治经济格局多极化发展趋势中重要的一极。目前俄罗斯承袭了苏联后期的亚太战略,并在某种程度上使其有所发展。本文在分析苏联后期实施亚太战略与政策的基础上,着重探讨了俄罗斯目前实施亚太政治经济战略的新东方政策与措施,并对其远东同亚太各国的经济联系的近期态势进行了实证分析;论述了中俄关系对实施其亚太战略的重要性;指出中俄建立面向21世纪的战略协作伙伴关系完全符合两国各自的地缘经济利益。     

Maʻagan Mikhael B,Israel: a preliminary report of a Late Byzantine–Early Islamic period shipwreck

The Ma?agan Mikhael B shipwreck was found in 1.5m of water, beneath 1.5m of sand, 70m off the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The hull remains are in a good state of preservation, comprising the endposts, aprons, framing timbers, hull planks, stringers, and bulkheads. The finds comprise rigging elements, wooden artefacts, organic finds, animal bones, glassware, coins, bricks, stones, ceramic sherds, and complete amphoras. The shipwreck was dated to the 7th–8th centuries AD; which makes it an exceptional source of information regarding various aspects of ship construction, seamanship, and seafaring in the area in Late Antiquity.     

Fragments of Boats from the Canale Anfora of Aquileia,Italy, and Comparison of Sewn‐Plank Ships in the Roman Era

Fragments of Roman sewn‐plank boats have been found, during rescue excavations, in the Canale Anfora, an artificial channel used by Roman ships to enter the Roman city of Aquileia. Remains were found in both 1988 and 2005 at the same site. Elements of what were probably two boats are analysed and compared to other finds of Roman sewn boats found along the coast of the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. They are evidence of the use of this technique, instead of the more widespread mortise‐and‐tenon system, in the quite limited area of the Northern Adriatic. These boats were used both for inland and for maritime navigation.     

明清时期长江中下游地区的鱼苗生产与贩运

明清时期长江中下游地区鱼苗的生产与贩运较为兴盛．江西九江湖口一带是最大的鱼苗生产基地和鱼苗贩运集散地,其他一些江湖水系交汇、饵料丰富的地方的鱼苗生产与贩运往往也具有一定规模。渔民们在长期的鱼苗捕捞生产过程中积累了丰富的经验．鱼苗捕捞采集生产及贩运销售已形成一个较完整的体系,鱼苗市场规模盛大,鱼苗贩运渠道较广,销售辐射范围宽,贩运方式多种多样,官方参与并干预了鱼苗生产与贩运的全过程。     

Rising and Narrowing: 16th-Century Geometric Algorithms used to Design the Bottom of Ships in Portugal

Methods of designing the bottom of ship's hulls were only a small part of the process of building a frame-based ship in Portugal in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but they deserve a careful look. Using a number of geometric algorithms that were already well-known to Italian shipwrights of the 15th century, Portuguese shipwrights obtained the co-ordinates of the turn of the bilge points of the central, pre-designed, frames without the need for making drawings.
© 2006 The Author     

清初苏州商船赴日贸易史实辨析

顺治九年(1652),一艘赴日本贸易的苏州商船回国。史学界对该商船的赴日时间及贸易方式存在争议:一说是1644年赴日,在日本进行了八年的海外贸易;一说是1650年或1651年私自出海,交易完毕后即回国。本文根据明清档案及朝鲜史料对该事件的记载,以及当时中国、东南亚、日本之间的贸易状况进行综合考察,可以肯定该商船是于1644年前往日本,并在日本与交趾之间从事贸易活动。