Understanding the benefits of social tourism: Linking participation to subjective well‐being and quality of life

This paper aims to explore the relationship between well‐being, quality of life and holiday participation among low‐income families in the UK. There have been very studies that have examined quality of life (QOL) and subjective well‐being in relation to tourism and none that have attempted to apply measures to assess the benefits of holidays for those people who are generally excluded from participation. This is important in relation to social tourism because of the fundamental need to develop mechanisms to evaluate the impact of charitable funding for supporting low‐income families' participation in holidaymaking. This study evaluates the types of reasons given for financial assistance in applications to the Family Holiday Association including follow‐up research with a sample of successful applicants on the perceived benefits of the holiday, including questions on QOL factors. The findings are limited in scope but do indicate that increases in QOL were reported among low‐income families. The paper concludes by arguing that further research on adapted well‐being and QOL measures be applied to tourism consumption. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An examination of the role of domestic destinations in satisfying holiday demands

The role of domestic destinations in satisfying demand for holidays has received less attention than research which outlines the challenges associated with long haul travel, particularly within the United Kingdom context. This paper examines the role of domestic holidays in satisfying demand in relation to international holidays, in the context of providing a better understanding of the environmental impacts of tourism. This is achieved through analysis of a household survey and a series of interviews with family groups of holiday-makers. The data was collected in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. Most respondents prefer domestic holidays in attractive coastal and rural destinations; they often take place in the summer and for shorter periods than overseas trips. Yet once at the destination there is commonality between tourism practices in domestic and international destinations. Socio-cultural aspects, life stage and financial considerations prove much more influential than environmental concerns in influencing choice. In response, the main policy recommendation would be to raise the relative cost of travelling abroad. The primary research recommendation would be to deepen the understanding of how substitution between destinations can occur.     

The perceived effects of holiday‐taking upon the health and wellbeing of patients treated for cancer

The role that holidays play within health and wellbeing has been addressed infrequently within academic research. Much of the work that does exist has tended to focus upon illnesses or health complaints arising as a consequence of travel. Any beneficial health effects of travel largely have been neglected. This paper reports the empirical findings of a qualitative study conducted to determine the perceived effects of holiday‐taking upon the health and wellbeing of a group of cancer patients, a population ignored by the tourism community. Four perceived effects are identified relating to personal health, social effectiveness, personal identity and regaining independence, and the implications of these findings discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The tourist experience and bonding

This paper sheds light on the gendered meanings of bonding within the tourist experience. Its basis is a survey of young male and female single students, which demonstrates how they value being with, doing and sharing a holiday with their friends. The findings suggest complex gender power relations within tourism. For instance, women significantly more than men need to be together with, talking to and sharing experiences with their friends, and they require more than men this company to feel safe during the day and night. Such gender distinctions are linked to how men and women enact friendships and gender differently and to the geography of women's travel fears, which proposes that women more than men develop mental maps which restrict public movements. This research also suggests that the need for the company of friends is not just about spatiality; singles of both sexes prefer to be with friends when eating out in the enclavic and in heterogeneous tourism spaces. This finding thus proposes that midlife single women's ambivalence towards eating out alone on city breaks and resort holidays is perhaps not so much about womanhood as their age.     

‘A holiday is a holiday’: practicing sustainability,home and away

‘Behaviour change’ is one of the major concerns for academics and practitioners concerned with tackling climate change. Research amongst tourism geographers has conventionally focussed on the various choices that individuals can make, both before and during their holidays, to reduce environmental footprints, specifically through the use of sustainability criteria. However, whilst there is a developing understanding of the motivations for sustainable tourism practices, there is less appreciation of the relationship tourist practices have to everyday environmental activities in and around the home. This latter issue has been researched extensively by social psychologists and environmental sociologists. Accordingly, the paper will draw upon these two existing bodies of research to argue that a holistic understanding of ‘sustainable lifestyles’ is needed if effective behavioural change strategies for climate change are to be developed, revealing the complexities of contemporary environmental practices. Using data from a recent British Academy research project, the paper will explore the changing nature of sustainable lifestyles and will demonstrate the relationships between home- and tourism-based environmental practices. The paper will argue that whilst individuals are relatively comfortable with participating in a range of environmental behaviours in and around the home, the transference of these practices to tourism contexts can be problematic. This is particularly the case for high-consumption activities such as low-cost air travel. The paper concludes by arguing that both academics and policy makers need to re-frame their notions of ‘sustainable lifestyles’, transcending a series of practices and contexts.     

Disabled travel: not easy,but doable

Research on disabled tourists is still in its infancy and, at its present stage, the issue of accessibility in particular sets the research agenda. However, as with all tourists, disabled tourists' enactment of barriers as well as benefits pertaining to holidays depends on the individual's former experiences, travel career and engagement in other leisure activities. Accordingly, this paper accounts for the findings of a series of qualitative interviews with mobility-disabled tourists, the purpose of which was to engage disabled tourists in conversations based on their reflective enactment of their own touristic endeavour. The study revealed (1) that various associations for disabled people play crucial roles in determining both whether and how an individual takes on the role of tourist; (2) that disabled tourists especially go on vacation in order to be freed from the role of ‘objects of care’; (3) that tourism relates to the ends of overcoming self-doubt, redefining oneself and building self-confidence; and (4) that vacation decision-making is far more complex for the disabled tourist than for other tourists; albeit complexity is reduced as the disabled tourist becomes more experienced.     

Current Issues in Method and Practice

Australians are not taking up their full allowance of annual holidays which could, in time, lead to issues of community health as well as impact on the viability of the domestic tourism industry. As a response, government tourism organisations in Australia have allocated funds to encourage domestic holidays. However, competition for discretionary income from other sources of recreational activities will continue to impact on this sector, requiring more than direct tourism promotion. This paper considers one such competing aspect of discretionary spending, namely gambling, and its likely effect on tourism expenditure. It examines the role of demarketing as a means to limit gambling expenditure and increase tourism. A range of demarketing and remarketing strategies are proposed as integrated elements of gambling and tourism planning. Such a proposal has the potential to restructure regional communities in such a way as to contribute to the building of community and personal well-being.     

Social Tourism and Healthy Ageing

Recent research in social tourism notes possible links between tourism participation and improvements in health. However, there is a lack of quantitative evidence concerning the potential links between tourism participation and self‐reported health amongst older people. An ageing society requires measures to promote independent living and enhance older people's quality of life. This paper provides evidence that older tourists are more active and healthy than non‐tourists, from a study comparing health perceptions amongst Spanish older people. The results provide tentative conclusions of causal relationships between tourism and dimensions of physical and mental health through a Structural Equation Model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Climate change and the air travel decisions of UK tourists

Whilst much effort has been made to communicate to the public the importance of reducing carbon footprints in the home, one area where emissions are growing rapidly and little attempt has been made to increase consumer understanding of the impacts is holidays, particularly those involving air travel. Using focus group research, this paper explores tourists’ awareness of the impacts of travel on climate change, examines the extent to which climate change features in holiday travel decisions and identifies some of the barriers to the adoption of less carbon-intensive tourism practices. The findings suggest that many tourists do not consider climate change when planning their holidays. The failure of tourists to engage with the climate change impact of holidays, combined with significant barriers to behavioural change, presents a considerable challenge in moving the tourism industry onto a sustainable emissions path. The findings are discussed in relation to theoretical perspectives from psychology and sociology.     

Learning never goes on holiday: an exploration of social tourism as a context for experiential learning

This paper applies Experiential Learning Theory to examine learning experiences of UK children during a holiday to assess the potential of holidays as influencing factors in educational achievement and attainment. The paper presents findings from a study undertaken with low-income families who had received financial support to take a holiday through the concept of social tourism. The study concludes that across a range of holiday styles, tourism can provide a context for experiential learning, and that the holiday can help to contextualise classroom learning through relearning. Finally, this form of social tourism, which included cooperation between schools, families, social and education services and social tourism organisations helped to improve relationships between the schools and families, which could be beneficial for children's learning in school. This paper calls for further research on the links between tourism and education.     

Solo Holiday Travellers: Motivators and Drivers of Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction

A growing number of people are travelling alone for holidays, yet limited research addresses this topic. This paper explores the main motivators and drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for solo holiday travellers using a critical incident technique to collect and analyse data. The findings show that drivers of satisfaction for solo holiday travellers are more related to personal feelings of freedom, relaxation and discovery (personal factors) and interaction with other people (human interaction factors) than with holiday destination factors. Safety (a destination factor) and unfriendly service providers (a human interaction factor) are the main sources of dissatisfaction for solo holiday travellers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparison of three methods for assessing the walkability of the pedestrian environment

This paper presents the results of a research project conducted in the UK designed to increase understanding of the factors which influence levels of walking and pedestrian route choice. It describes a number of techniques that were used to assess the pedestrian environment from a pedestrian’s perspective. These techniques included a computer based tool developed using stated preference surveys to determine the relative values of a range of factors in the pedestrian environment; an on-street survey that was designed to investigate values and attitudes towards different attributes of the pedestrian environment along a route; and finally an ‘on the move survey’ where pedestrian volunteers were interviewed while walking along the route in order to get an actual account of their experiences as they walk. A case study is then used to show the benefits and disadvantages of using these different techniques and compares results for a pedestrian route in the City of Leeds in the UK. The results indicate that there were a number of pedestrian attributes considered important by pedestrians when walking including pavement cleanliness, safe crossing places, good connectivity and sense of security. The three approaches complement one another and have highlighted in different ways that the walking experience is affected by the cumulative impact of multiple interactions (both positive and negative) as people walk in the pedestrian environment.     

Using triangulation to assess a suite of tools to measure community severance

There is a lack of tools to identify and measure community severance caused by large roads and motorised traffic, despite the evidence of its negative impacts on local communities. This paper reports the development of a suite of tools to measure and value community severance, undertaken as a part of the Street Mobility and Network Accessibility research project. The tools include participatory mapping, spatial analysis, a video survey, street audits, a health and neighbourhood mobility survey, and a valuation tool based on a stated preference survey. They were tested in the area around Finchley Road, a busy arterial road in North London. The study found that Finchley Road is an unpleasant place for pedestrians due to high traffic levels, air and noise pollution, and the lack and poor quality of pedestrian crossing facilities. This has a negative impact on the mobility and accessibility of local residents and, to some extent, on their health and wellbeing. The analysis showed coherence between the findings from the different measurement tools applied individually, but also revealed interconnections between factors which contribute to severance, demonstrating that overall the suite is reliable for assessing community severance in urban areas. Overall, the paper provides a multidisciplinary approach to developing standardised methods to measure a negative impact of transport that is still relatively unknown.     

Progress in tourism and destination wellbeing research

A proliferation of research in recent years has revealed a myriad of relationships between tourism and the concept of wellbeing. These include health benefits of visiting tourist destinations, a product focus on wellness and maintaining good health. Broader interpretations emphasize the complex ways in which tourism can influence the emotional, psychological, cognitive and spiritual dimensions of wellbeing, both for tourists and for destination communities. This study reflects an emerging paradigm shift that incorporates a deeper appreciation of the benefits derived at the destination level from a focus on health and wellbeing. The study highlights three key perspectives, namely the tourist, the destination community and the destination itself. The study concludes that research in this area is critical to the future development, management and marketing of sustainable and competitive destinations with the wellbeing of tourists, their destination host communities, and the overall destination experience, critical to their ultimate success.     

The impact of the UK aviation tax on carbon dioxide emissions and visitor numbers

We use a model of domestic and international tourist numbers and flows to estimate the impact of the recent and proposed changes in the Air Passenger Duty (APD) of the United Kingdom. We look at four different scenarios (abolishing the APD, keeping the 2001 APD level, the 2007 APD and the Conservative Party's “Green Miles” proposal) using base, high and very high elasticity levels as well as assumptions about the substitutability between domestic and international holidays and the effects of a carbon tax. We find that the recent doubling of the APD has the perverse effect of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, albeit only slightly, because it reduces the relative price difference between near and far holidays. Tourists arriving into the UK would fall slightly. The number of tourists travelling from the UK would fall in the countries near to the UK, and this drop would be only partly offset by displaced tourists from the UK. Tourists leaving the UK for countries further a field would increase. The proposal of the Conservative Party to exempt the first 2000 miles (for UK residents) would decrease emissions by roughly the same amount as abolishing the APD altogether—but the number of tourists arriving into the UK would not rise. These results are reversed if we assume that domestic holidays and foreign holidays are close substitutes. If the same revenue were raised with a carbon tax rather than a boarding tax, emissions would fall rather than rise.     

The future of walking in Europe: a Delphi project to identify expert opinion on future walking scenarios

There is increasing recognition of the importance of walking to the sustainability of cities, set against a continuing decline in everyday walking. This paper reports on a research project, which predicts trends in walking in Europe by 2010 by seeking opinion of experts who are knowledgeable about non-motorised transport. There is a consensus that there will be more walking for leisure and health, but less everyday walking. This will happen despite walking being seen as more important and there being more facilities, infrastructure, information and funding for walking.     

EU network carriers,low cost carriers and consumer behaviour: A Delphi study of future trends

This paper uses a Delphi panel of 26 air transport experts to forecast the structure of air transport in the EU in 2015 in respect of network carriers, low cost airlines and passenger behaviour. Secondary research was used to construct a number of scenarios about the future structure and strategy of EU network and low cost airlines and also traveller behaviour. Consensus of opinions was sought amongst the panel in a two-round process. The consensus opinion of the Delphi experts was that; network carrier consolidation will reduce EU players to less than five, there will be only two or three large low cost carriers, Business Class products will disappear on short hauls, and leisure travellers will take an increasing number of multiple short-duration holidays.     

Benefits of shift from car to active transport

There is a growing awareness that significant benefits for our health and environment could be achieved by reducing our use of cars and shifting instead to active transport, i.e. walking and bicycling. The present article presents an estimate of the health impacts due to a shift from car to bicycling or walking, by evaluating four effects: the change in exposure to ambient air pollution for the individuals who change their transportation mode, their health benefit, the health benefit for the general population due to reduced pollution and the risk of accidents. We consider only mortality in detail, but at the end of the paper we also cite costs for other impacts, especially noise and congestion. For the dispersion of air pollution from cars we use results of the Transport phase of the ExternE project series and derive general results that can be applied in different regions. We calculate the health benefits of bicycling and walking based on the most recent review by the World Health Organization. For a driver who switches to bicycling for a commute of 5 km (one way) 5 days/week 46 weeks/yr the health benefit from the physical activity is worth about 1300 €/yr, and in a large city (>500,000) the value of the associated reduction of air pollution is on the order of 30 €/yr. For the individual who makes the switch, the change in air pollution exposure and dose implies a loss of about 20 €/yr under our standard scenario but that is highly variable with details of the trajectories and could even have the opposite sign. The results for walking are similar. The increased accident risk for bicyclists is extremely dependent on the local context; data for Paris and Amsterdam imply that the loss due to fatal accidents is at least an order of magnitude smaller than the health benefit of the physical activity. An analysis of the uncertainties shows that the general conclusion about the order of magnitude of these effects is robust. The results can be used for cost-benefit analysis of programs or projects to increase active transport, provided one can estimate the number of individuals who make a mode shift.     

Host community attitudes toward tourism and cultural tourism development: the case of the Lewes District,southern England

Increasingly research is being conducted on host community attitudes toward tourism. However, few studies have been conducted at a regional level and none have examined the attitudes of the host community towards both tourism and cultural tourism development. This paper outlines a study conducted in the Lewes District of southern England and notes that although residents are generally supportive of tourism development and cultural tourism development, there are differences in opinion concerning the perceived economic and social benefits. In particular, levels of income and proximity to the tourist centre were major influencing factors. Conclusions and recommendations are made concerning the need for tourism planners to distribute the benefits more widely and to engage residents from different socio‐economic groups and localities in tourism planning and development activities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Low cost carriers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: Emergence and barriers to development

This paper investigates the development of low cost carriers (LCCs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from a broader perspective. We use passenger volume data at the airline and flight segment levels to illustrate the development of LCCs in the region; we conduct a structured comparison of the actual business model characteristics of the MENA-based LCCs to assess their adherence to the archetypical LCC business model; and we compile the key barriers to LCC growth in MENA from the literature.We find that the overall market share of LCCs in MENA is still below the world average – despite high growth in recent years. The presence of LCCs varies considerably between MENA countries and route groups. The more upscale, “Jetblue”-style business model, where passengers benefit from additional, complementary services or product characteristics, prevails. Political tensions, adverse regulations and lower levels of liberalization compared to Europe or North America negatively affect LCC development in many MENA countries. While low middle-class proportions appear to be a challenge for low cost business models, Asian diaspora and tourism – from beach holidays to pilgrimage – seem to induce additional demand.