Using an educational video-briefing to mitigate the ecological impacts of scuba diving

Recreational scuba diving is rapidly increasing, and the negative impacts to marine reef biota are of conservation concern. Educational approaches have been tested to mitigate diver damage to benthic organisms, but logistical constraints impede their implementation in many locations. We investigated the behaviors of scuba divers in terms of their contacts with benthic organisms, and assessed how an educational video-briefing caused changes in diver behavior. The video provided environmental information to divers, and enhanced their use of low-impact diving techniques. Divers who received the video-briefing exhibited significantly lower rates of contact with and damage to the benthos, than did divers who did not receive a briefing. The level of diving experience did not correlate with the rate of benthic contact in either group of divers. Male divers and photographers both contacted the benthos significantly less, and female divers and photographers both caused significantly less damage when they viewed the video-briefing prior to diving. Our findings highlight the importance of easily implemented, standardized educational approaches such as the use of video-briefings to mitigate the impacts of scuba diving. This study adds to the framework of tested strategies available to support the sustainable use of marine areas by the diving tourism industry.     

Impacts of recreational diving on hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) behaviour in a marine protected area

The hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is a critically endangered species encountered by recreational divers in marine protected areas (MPAs) circumtropically. Few studies, however, have examined the impacts of recreational diving on hawksbill behaviours. In 2014, we collected turtle sightings surveys and dive logs from 14 dive operations, and conducted in-water observations of 61 juvenile hawksbill turtles in Roatán, Honduras, to determine if differences in dive site use and diver behaviours affected sea turtle behaviours in the Roatán Marine Park. Sightings distributions did not vary with diving pressure during an 82-day study period. We found the amount of time turtles spent eating, investigating and breathing decreased when approached by divers. Our results suggest diver interactions may negatively impact sea turtle behaviours, however it is unknown if recreational diving has a cumulative effect on turtles over time. We recommend that MPA managers should implement monitoring programmes that assess the impacts of tourism on natural resources. We have established monitoring of hawksbills as representatives of the marine habitat in an MPA, which has the potential to be heavily impacted by dive tourism, and provide recommendations for continued monitoring of the resource.     

Value orientations toward coral reefs in recreation and tourism settings: a conceptual and measurement approach

This paper examines recreationist and tourist value orientations toward coral reefs (e.g. protection–use, biocentric-anthropocentric), tests a scale for measuring these orientations in recreation and tourism settings, groups individuals based on their orientations and examines demographic and activity differences among groups. Data were obtained from surveys of 2821 users at three coastal and marine sites in Hawai'i. Belief statements about reefs (e.g. “coral reefs have value whether humans are present or not”) were used to measure value orientations. Users agreed with protectionist and disagreed with use-oriented beliefs. Except for one statement (“humans should manage coral reefs so that humans benefit”), the scale provided a reliable and valid measure of value orientations toward reefs. Respondents were grouped into three subgroups (strong protection, moderate protection, mixed protection–use). The largest number of users had strong protectionist orientations toward reefs, and there was no group possessing only use orientations. There were no relationships between value orientations and site, age and residence. Females, snorkelers and sunbathers had stronger protectionist orientations, whereas most scuba divers and anglers had mixed orientations. Given that most respondents had protectionist orientations, efforts to conserve reefs would be supported, whereas activities with deleterious effects on reefs would not be widely supported.     

Examining the influences of experience,personality and attitude on SCUBA divers' underwater behaviour: A structural equation model

This study examines and extends the empirical evidence of the causal relationships among experience, personality and attitude on the behaviour of scuba divers. The empirical data were collected from divers (n = 413) in the five most popular islands for scuba diving in Malaysia. Measurements of diving attitude, experience and underwater behaviour were developed based on the literature and expert opinions. The ‘Big Five’ model was utilised to measure the personality of divers. Data were analysed using the structural equation modelling to examine the relationships among the constructs. Past experience was found to be the most important factor in explaining divers' underwater behaviour, followed by diving attitude and personality. Diving attitude partially mediates the relationships between experience and underwater behaviour. The paper discusses some of its theoretical and managerial contributions which could facilitate the design and management of potential detrimental impacts caused by divers in the marine environment.     

Risk management for scuba diving operators on Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is one of the world's most popular scuba diving destinations. Unfortunately, a series of recent diving injuries and deaths has tarnished the region's safety record. In particular, media attention surrounding the disappearance of American divers Thomas and Eileen Lonergan has focused attention on dive operators’ legal responsibilities and the consequences of failing to discharge their duty of care to customers. This paper briefly examines the relevant Australian law for recreational diving operations, and reviews risk management strategies that may reduce or prevent the occurrence of future problems.     

The resilience of formal and informal tourism enterprises to disasters: reef tourism in Phuket,Thailand

This paper explores the resilience of vulnerable tourism sectors to disasters in a period of global change and interdependence. The coral reef tourism industry is highly vulnerable to natural disasters and economic and political shocks. The paper also explains why enterprise resilience is central to sustainable tourism management, for economic, socio-cultural and environmental reasons. It extends the concepts of ecological and social resilience to that of enterprise resilience. Using scenarios and interviews with key enterprise staff, the study contrasts the levels of resilience of formal and informal reef tourism enterprises, and the factors associated with the enterprise resilience in Phuket, Thailand, following the 2004 tsunami and the 2008 political crisis. Informal enterprises reported better financial condition in a crisis scenario and higher levels of social capital in the form of government, family and community support than formal enterprises. Formal and informal enterprises both enjoy high lifestyle benefits from reef tourism, which supports resilience. Most formal enterprises had part foreign ownership/management (61%); no informal enterprise had any foreign ownership or management. Management policies supporting reef tourism should consider local nuances and the importance of lifestyle benefits for both formal and informal enterprises, and take steps to enable enterprise flexibility and cost-cutting during crises.     

Scuba diving tourism with critically endangered grey nurse sharks (Carcharias taurus) off eastern Australia: Tourist demographics,shark behaviour and diver compliance

Guidelines and a national code of conduct were implemented to manage scuba diving tourism with the critically endangered grey nurse shark (Carcharias taurus) along the Australian east coast. The demographics of diving tourists, swimming behaviour of grey nurse sharks at various life-history stages and compliance of divers to the guidelines/code of conduct were simultaneously assessed during diver–shark interactions at four sites from March 2011 to February 2012. Milling was the most frequent swimming behaviour observed and no significant changes occurred with the number of divers or distance to sharks. Divers exhibited 100% compliance with all guidelines investigated. Satisfactory compliance may have been attributable to guideline clarity, the ease of establishing diver–shark interactions, stakeholder involvement in management processes and diver perceptions of sharks. Similar sampling of group and individual shark behaviour should be done to further enhance the understanding of the beneficial and adverse impacts of this marine wildlife tourism sector.     

Selling Anthropocene space: situated adventures in sustainable tourism

Abstract

The Anthropocene is a proposed technical term for a new geological timeframe, but it is also a conceptual tool with the potential to redefine the stakes of contemporary environmental politics. One facet that is often overlooked is that the Anthropocene is a concept with commercial potential, even if the term itself has not been widely adopted. This article presents an investigation of the commercial potential of the Anthropocene idea through the lens of self-described sustainable tourism ventures in The Bahamas. These examples demonstrate some of the ways in which Anthropocene imaginaries participate in the recreation, redesign, and rebranding of specific spaces as emergent “tourism products”, specifically the small island farm and the anthropogenic coral reef. The goal is twofold: (1) to explore the symbolic and material creativity of the Anthropocene idea as its themes are used to extend capitalist innovation, and (2) to examine the Anthropocene idea as a strategy that builds upon existing histories of inequality to enable transnational accumulation in particular locales. As a situated adventure, this article articulates a reflexive mode of political ecological research for the Anthropocene that is equipped to critically articulate emergent practices at the intersection of postcolonial tourism, environmental conservation, and sustainable development.     

Managing the Impacts of SCUBA Divers on Thailand's Coral Reefs

While dive tourism enjoys continued growth worldwide, concern exists that it is contributing to the degradation of coral communities, biologically and aesthetically. This study examined the effect of SCUBA diver contacts with coral and other substrates. Ninety-three percent of divers made contact with substrata during a 10-minute observation period with an average of 97 contacts per hour of diving. Two-thirds of the divers caused some coral damage by breaking fragments from fragile coral forms with an average of 19 breakages per hour of diving. Fin damage was the major type of damage. Underwater photographers caused less damage per contact than non-photographers; as did male divers, compared with females. Diver-induced damage decreases with increasing number of logged dives and attendance at pre-dive briefings. Park managers can help reduce impact by identifying and directing use to sites that are resistant to damage, matching diver competence and site preferences, and alerting operators to dive conditions. Minimising impact requires dive operators to be proactive in promoting minimal impact diving behaviour. This includes selecting sites that match diver expectations and experience, and providing pre-dive briefings in the context of diver activities and physical capacity, and site susceptibility to impact and current strength.     

Sustainability performance assessment focusing on coral reef protection by the tourism industry in the Coral Triangle region

Coral reef based tourism in the Coral Triangle region is responsible for economic benefits but also for negative social and environmental impacts, thus an approach to evaluate this industry's sustainability performance would be valuable. We selected 10 key indicators, out of 681, that were directly relevant to the impacts of tourist activities on coral reefs in economic, social, environmental, and wildlife aspects of sustainability. Efficiency, inefficiency and overall models were developed to measure relative sustainability performance focusing on coral reef protection by the tourism industry for all six countries in the Coral Triangle, from 2008 to 2012. Our results showed that Indonesia had the best relative performance among countries in the region, followed in descending order by; Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Solomon Islands. Future plans to achieve higher performance by the tourism industry in each country can be made if a comprehensive sensitivity analysis is carried out.     

基于游憩体验质量的民族村寨旅游产品优化研究——以云南西双版纳傣族园、四川甲居藏寨为例

民族村寨旅游产品存在形式单一、缺乏个性特色,难以满足游客高质量体验需求的现象.针对这一问题,文章选择云南西双版纳傣族园、四川甲居藏寨两个典型的民族村寨为游客调查研究点,以国外游憩体验偏好量表为基础,开发设计了旨在适应中国本土化民族村寨游客游憩体验质量的测量量表,并对其加以实证研究.研究发现,民族村寨游客的游憩体验质量存在“享受自然风光、新朋友的结交、心理压力缓解、民族风情氛围、民族知识学习、身体锻炼放松”6个共同因子；并根据其定量评价结果,提供了民族村寨旅游产品的优化策略,以期构建内涵丰富、形式多元、结构合理的民族村寨旅游产品谱系.     

军事遗产旅游资源分类与价值评估

军事遗产是重要的历史资源,尤其在历史教育、知识输出、国情教育等方面具有重要价值,因而可被视为独特的旅游资源。本文在国内外军事遗产研究综述的基础上,提出军事遗产的分类方法,共计2个大类、7个亚类、28个子类。在梳理国内外研究的基础上结合专家评价,提出军事遗产的旅游价值评估指标体系,包含要素价值、存续特征2个一级指标及游憩价值、历史价值、审美价值、社会价值、独特程度、规模程度、知名度、完整性、适游性、承载力和安全性11个二级指标,并进一步划分为可观赏性等23个三级指标。采用基于专家打分的层次分析法对指标权重赋值,形成军事遗产旅游价值评价的方法体系,并构建军事遗产旅游价值评价对比关系图,以指导资源群中的单体开发梯次。     

Tourism and Aldo Leopold's “cultural harvest”: creating virtuous tourists as agents of sustainability

Sustainable tourism aims to achieve a balance between the needs of tourists, the environment, local people, and businesses – a situation complicated by the numerous ethical issues at play. This paper presents an original account of the ethics of Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), a key figure in the development of modern environmental ethics, as it unfolds in his classic work, A Sand County Almanac. We argue that prior interpretations failed to incorporate Leopold's lynchpin cultural harvest idea into his larger “land ethic”, and that a proper understanding of the cultural harvest reveals how tourism and other recreational activities can drive a person's ethical development. Ultimately, the land ethic helps us protect and nurture the most precious sustainability resource: human beings that value and respect the environment. The paper will be of value to tourism scholars, to heritage interpreters, to travel journalists, to tourism marketing staff, and to tourism managers. It shows the enormous opportunities for better marketing and heritage interpretation, notes the potential value of slow tourism, and the need for opening five key areas of the cultural harvest for tourists: storytelling, learning and knowledge, beauty and aesthetic appreciation, rarity and the hunt for trophy, and signature/personality.     

中国海洋旅游研究脉络、热点与展望

海洋旅游是重要的海洋经济类型,加强海洋旅游相关研究是服务中国海洋强国战略的基础性任务。本研究选取中国学术期刊网络出版总库收录的619篇中文文献为样本,系统分析中国海洋旅游研究脉络。研究发现,1992—2021年中国海洋旅游相关研究成果数量呈“起步探索、陡状攀升、波动回落”的变化特征,经历了以海洋旅游环境要素和资源价值评估为主的资源导向与孕育探索阶段（1992—2002年）,以多元议题拓展和集成方法创新并重的产业导向与全面推进阶段（2003—2010年）,以及同国家发展需求联系紧密、实践应用不断丰富的战略导向与深化拓展阶段（2011—2021年）;研究热点集中在海洋旅游理论内涵与研究范畴、资源开发与评价、社会与经济影响、资源环境与可持续发展、目的地开发与管理等5个方面。立足新时期中国海洋旅游理论发展与实践需求,未来应重视学科交互融合、技术手段集成和数据平台建设,提升理论研究同国家战略驱动、地方现实需求和行业实践发展的适配性,为推动中国海洋旅游高质量发展提供理论与决策指导。     

Navigating through the complex transport system: A heuristic approach for city tourism recommendation

The fast development of machine learning and artificial intelligence has led to a great improvement of the smart tourism recommendation system, however many problems associated with the choice of transport modes in city tourism have yet to be solved. This research attempts to address this issue by proposing a model of customized day itineraries with consideration of transport mode choice. With improved particle swarm optimization and differential evolution algorithm, a nondominated sorting heuristic approach was devised. A case study was carried out in Chengdu, China to examine the performance of our approach. The results show that compared with extant methods, our approach achieves better performance. In addition, our approach can create more sensible, multifarious, and customized itineraries than previous methods. Tourism organizations and mobile map app providers could integrate our proposed model into their existing smart service systems, as part of their e-business or digital strategy for enhancing tourist experience.     

中国休闲渔业研究进展回顾与启示——基于Citespace知识图谱分析

休闲渔业是传统渔业和旅游休闲产业结合的产物,是旅游研究的分支,其在创新旅游发展方式、促进美丽乡村建设等方面发挥着重要作用。本研究以知网数据库核心期刊、CSSCI和CSCD中休闲渔业研究的文献为数据来源,利用Citespace计量并绘制相关知识图谱。分析发现,中国休闲渔业研究发展经历了起步探索和上升发展2个阶段,现已形成多学科共同参与的局面,研究架构基本建立。发展路径研究在休闲渔业研究内容体系中占较大比重,而休闲渔业概念内涵、资源分类及评价、产品形式、发展效益、营销管理也是学者们涉猎的领域。最后,结合实际背景为中国休闲渔业研究提出5点启示：持续建构理论体系、结合国家战略政策、聚焦“人-渔”关系、关注休闲渔业绿色低碳视角、将发展性议题研究作为主线,以期推动休闲渔业理论体系更新,从而为休闲渔业政策制定和产业现代化提供更好的经验支持。     

基于Agent的景区游客行为仿真建模与应用——以颐和园为例

我国旅游景区内部客流管理一直以来都没有得到应有的重视。通过对颐和园景区"五一"小长假和"十一"黄金周客流持续2年的实际观测,采用基于Agent的仿真建模方法,构建了游客到达、游客移动、游客停留等景区游客基本行为模型及其仿真运行环境——基于Agent的景区游客行为仿真系统。系统的正确性验证表明,仿真系统的输出数据能够反映景区各停留点游客数量的真实情况;系统的灵敏性验证表明,入口游客数、游客在景点的停留时间以及流向景点方向的客流量3个参数能够引起仿真系统各景点游客数量的灵敏变化。所建系统能够预测景区客流的时空分布,能够通过变换仿真参数值进行各种客流调控措施的仿真实验,并给出具体调控参数以支持景区管理者的客流管理实践。     

Impact of Rural Tourism Operated by Retiree Farmers on Multifunctionality: Evidence from Chiba,Japan

This paper examines the roles and significance of rural tourism activity undertaken by those farmers who have retired from non-farming jobs from a multifunctional perspective in Chiba, Japan. The results revealed that rural tourism activities by retirees could realize efficient and sustainable resource utilization of the farm and therefore enhance multifunctionality of agriculture. The main findings were the following. (1) The farming style of the study farm is small production of multiple products all year round, which increases opportunities for farming and farm-life experiences by local school children and urban visitors, although this type of farming was not respected from a productivity-oriented farming perspective. (2) Providing farming experience services makes it possible to utilize unused resources, including obsolete farming techniques, in the farmyard. (3) All of these activities promote multifunctionality not only in terms of environmental functions such as land preservation, landscape formation and biodiversity, but also cultural and social functions such as recreational and educational functions. These results indicate that multifunctionality is not in parallel with the low productivity of retiree farmers and that rural tourism will be an effective and recommended activity for those farm-oriented people who have retired from non-farming occupations.     

Using Ostrom's common-pool resource theory to build toward an integrated ecosystem-based sustainable cetacean tourism system in Hawai`i

This paper explores the suitability of community-based conservation measures to complement a proposed command-and-control approach for two multi-user bays with spinner dolphins in Hawai`i, USA, which have considerable dolphin watching tourist activities and human–dolphin interactions. The paper uses Ostrom's common-pool resource theory as an analytical lens, with an assessment of the attributes of the resource and the user(s) to explore questions of governance and sustainability. In Hawai`i, spinner dolphins move predictably from offshore overnight feeding grounds into shallow bays for daytime rest, interacting frequently with humans using these bays for tourism and other social, recreational, and subsistence purposes. To reduce the current negative interactions with dolphins, managers are seeking to implement a command-and-control approach, namely time–area closures. Our analysis indicates that viewing the bay as a resource with tourism as one of many human demands, instead of specifically focusing on dolphins, reflects an ecosystem-based approach and acknowledges complex management demands. We found that while unrealistic to expect community-based conservation to spontaneously emerge here, cultivating some of Ostrom's attributes among stakeholders might lead to a more productive set of institutional arrangements that would benefit the dolphin population, with the methodology used potentially leading to a global management model.     

The role of Great Barrier Reef tourism operators in addressing climate change through strategic communication and direct action

The projected decline in reef health worldwide will have huge repercussions on millions of stakeholders depending upon coral reefs. Urgent action is needed to sustain coral reefs into the future. Tourism operators are recognised as stewards of Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), a World Heritage Site, and are taking action on climate change, through their business practices and by engaging guests with interpretation and targeted messages. Yet little is known about how tourism operators along the GBR perceive climate change, or what actions they believe are most effective to address climate change impacts on the GBR. We describe a set of semi-structured interviews with 19 tourism operators in the Whitsundays and Cairns, the most popular tourism destinations along the GBR. Using a thematic analysis to code and report patterns within the data, we show tourism operators recognise the threat of climate change and strongly support increased action to address it. Most respondents are hesitant to engage their guests about climate change despite acknowledging an interest, expertise, and responsibility to do so. Understanding the barriers preventing tourism operators from addressing climate change is an important step towards helping them, and the tourists visiting the region, take action to protect the GBR.