Buen Vivir: Degrowing extractivism and growing wellbeing through tourism

Abstract

Buen Vivir (BV) is a holistic vision for social and environmental wellbeing, which includes alternative economic activities to the neoliberal growth economy. This article looks at how tourism initiatives under a BV approach can lead to degrowth by drawing on a case study of how BV is put into practice through tourism in the Cotacachi County in Ecuador. We argue that by degrowing socially and environmentally damaging extractive sectors and growing alternative economic activities like community-based tourism, a BV approach could increase social and environmental wellbeing. We refer to LaTouche’s notion of degrowth as a matrix of multiple alternatives that will reopen the space for human creativity. This complements the notion of BV as a plural approach, and in turn works to decolonise the parameters of how we might understand degrowth. In the case of Cotacachi, the vision for tourism is based on the needs of the community, rather than to satisfy a Eurocentric ideal of development supported by a policy of extractivism. BV is key to how this community conceptualises the potentialities of tourism because it considers the wellbeing of the people and the environment. In this case, degrowth is a consequence of BV, rather than the objective.     

Adventure recreation and subjective well-being: a conceptual framework

ABSTRACT

Despite the documented positive outcomes of adventure experiences, subjective well-being (SWB) frameworks have been largely absent from discourse and analyses in adventure studies. This conceptual paper proposes a framework for understanding how adventure recreation experiences promote eudaemonic SWB. In our framework, we propose that adventure recreation fosters eudaemonic aspects of SWB by supporting the satisfaction of basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness and beneficence. The framework also integrates ‘contact with nature’ as an important mechanism through which adventure recreation fosters eudaemonic SWB. Analysis of research and practice across diverse aspects of adventure recreation (leisure, tourism, and education contexts) is used to support the proposed framework and to critically evaluate how psychological models, such as self-determination theory (SDT) and SWB, can advance theory and practice in adventure recreation. We conclude by offering a number of suggestions for future research directions and practical implications.     

Analysing the Promotion,Product and Visitor Expectations of Urban Tourism: Auckland,New Zealand as a Case Study

Abstract

Urban tourism is generally not recognized as a concept. There appears to be a lack of understanding by many tourism operators that tourists visit urban destinations primarily because they are multifunctional and offer a wide variety of activities. This study reports the findings of an analysis of 160 tourism brochures by 120 different Auckland-based operators and a survey of 170 tourists. The results indicate that there appears to be a mismatch between supply and demand with tourists undertaking urban activities while the industry is primarily offering outdoor and adventure type activities. The challenge for the future is to reformulate and promote an image which is consistent with the supply attributes.     

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.     

Families at leisure outdoors: well-being through adventure

ABSTRACT

This study investigates families who choose to co-participate in outdoor adventure holidays, and explores how they benefit from these shared experiences. In so doing, it seeks to determine the role of adventure tourism in developing and enhancing family well-being (FWB). Hyper-modern family life for many is powered by technological hardware, each room in the house replete with on-line pleasures, distractions and identities. In response to this dystopia, some families opt to take adventure holidays together. However, scholarship concerning collective experiences of adventurous leisure, in this case as families, is limited. Using a qualitative whole family approach, 15 (adventure tourist) families were interviewed, totalling 62 interviewees (29 adults and 33 children under 18 years old), in their home environments. Four key themes related to FWB emerged. First, families extended their active lifestyles to adventure holidays and repeatedly mentioned the health and fitness benefits gained from these experiences. Second, adventure holidays facilitated unmediated time together for families. Third, parents harboured ideals of positive personal development for their children in these adventure settings. Fourth, making memories during adventure holidays, and recollecting these post-trip, were integral to family bonding. Further research should consider non-traditional families, and various socio-economic and cultural groups in this context.     

Estimating the Economic Impact of Event Tourism

Abstract

Tourism has become an important economic sector in many parts of the world, and many regions, states, and local areas have identified expenditures by visitors as a potential source of economic growth. Because visitor spending can contribute to the local economy, many communities seek to enhance tourism and visitor-oriented activities. As a result, estimates of the economic impact of event tourism are of interest to a wide variety of interested parties. Economic impact analyses of sports facilities and other entertainment events have come under increasing criticism in recent years. At the same time, visitors to sports events, festivals, and other visitor-oriented and event related activities can produce very substantial economic impacts for host communities. This article examines key considerations and issues that affect and are critical to reliable estimates of the economic impacts of events and event tourism.     

Family adventure tourism: Towards hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing

The study's aim is to explore the motives encouraging individual family members to participate in adventure tourism activities while on holiday and the benefits they gain from these experiences, using wellbeing as the conceptual lens. The key contributions are to address the gap in literature on family adventure tourists, and apply the subjective wellbeing (SWB) constructs of hedonic wellbeing (HWB) and eudaimonic wellbeing (EWB) to understand these tourists. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 15 families, comprising 62 interviewees in total (29 adults and 33 children under 18 years old). Findings reveal that hedonic themes were high positive affect, and alleviating feelings of distress and boredom. Eudaimonic themes were challenge and negative affect, optimal experiences, accomplishment and personal development. Family influenced the SWB motives facilitating adventure participation and the benefits gained by different members. Also, there were HWB and EWB similarities and differences between parents, younger children and older children.     

Coastal blue space and wellbeing research: looking beyond western tides

ABSTRACT

In this paper we focus on coastal blue spaces and the ways in which they have been advocated as beneficial for health and wellbeing in the context of leisure practices. We offer a reassessment of some of the claims made in this growing body of literature, highlighting the diverse cultural practices at the coast across different geographical contexts, particularly for those communities that have experienced exclusion due to ethnicity, culture, and income. We then discuss conceptions of coastal blue space and wellbeing within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, a bi-cultural nation in which indigenous knowledges connected to both wellbeing and leisure in the outdoor world are impacting dominant (white, colonial) discourses, policies and practices. We illustrate that a Māori world view embraces different practices and assumptions about what water means and how relationships with water are made including through leisure practices. Aotearoa New Zealand provides a revealing cultural context for re-assessing and indeed challenging Eurocentric assumptions about blue spaces as sites of wellbeing. More widely we suggest that it is timely to anchor blue space and wellbeing research to different ‘worlds’; that looking in to reach out and expanding research agendas is a useful and important enterprise.     

Participatory music-making and well-being within immigrant cultural practice: exploratory case studies in South East Queensland,Australia

ABSTRACT

Music participation is a way of life for many cultures and is an activity that is often passed on generationally. It can become especially important as a leisure activity for maintenance of self- and national identity for people who have migrated to countries of contrasting cultures, such as Australia. This article describes exploratory, qualitative research into the ways in which participatory music-making within communities from immigrant backgrounds in Brisbane, Australia may influence aspects of participants’ wellbeing. The sample for this research included three broadly-defined cultural groups living in the region: people of Baltic origin; people from Latin American and Caribbean backgrounds; and ‘newly arrived’ immigrants and refugees. Interviews with individuals have been analysed to explore the ways in which this involvement might affect mental, social, and emotional wellbeing. Our qualitative analyses demonstrated that beyond these aspects, factors of subjective wellbeing, both hedonic and eudaimonic, were apparent. This article aims to provoke discussions on the divergent ways in which immigrant communities utilise music-making practices to foster different types of wellbeing and the importance of maintaining diversity through cultural practices.     

Empty bowls: conceptualising the role of tourism in contributing to sustainable rural food security

Abstract

It has been suggested that the food insecurity situation prevalent in many parts of the developing world could be alleviated through the creation of tourism-based alternative livelihoods. However, while tourism has been framed as a tool for poverty reduction and livelihood improvement, less attention has been paid to the direct tourism food security link. It is the intention of this article to bring tourism and food security together thereby providing a conceptual discussion for addressing the tourism-food security nexus. A model is deductively developed through review of relevant previous studies linking tourism and its relationship with development, poverty, food security, livelihoods and sustainability. The discussion examines the drivers of these relationships through drawing together extant research relating to tourism, and other livelihood activities and sectors. By doing so, the discussion highlights the key concerns for tourism to work effectively in relation to food security. The importance of sectoral and policy integration in terms of ensuring beneficial relationships across sectors is emphasized. It is concluded that understanding the tourism-food security linkage is crucial for combating poverty in general, and food insecurity specifically.     

Tourists and community development: corporate social responsibility or tourist social responsibility?

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are usually determined, in large part, by head office and by shareholder interests. This article explores the unique case of tourism CSR which has a distinctive relationship with local communities. CSR programmes of hotels and resorts in the Global South are increasingly creating opportunities for tourists to engage directly with communities, yet the relationship between tourists and CSR – and how this impacts on community development outcomes – has so far been overlooked. Based on two separate research projects undertaken in Zambia and Fiji which examined hotel CSR from community perspectives, we show how these programmes were largely motivated, driven and financed by tourists. This suggests that, in the accommodation subsector of tourism, CSR is not only being shaped by head office, but that tourists can play a key role, leading us to coin the term TSR (tourist social responsibility). For community development initiatives in particular, this gives rise to both challenges and opportunities.     

Targeting sustainable outcomes with adventure tourism: A political ecology approach

Sustainability is a dominant paradigm in tourism research yet a lack of research on alternative tourism sectors to deliver sustainable outcomes hinders sustainable tourism research, planning, implementation, policy and management. This research uses a political ecology lens, to dissect how destinations can harness adventure tourism to achieve relevant sustainability objectives. Adventure tourism is not in itself sustainable but by targeting adventure travel that attracts passionate, high-paying tourists to participate in activities specifically suited to local landscapes, communities have the potential to create bespoke tourism products that fit the socio-ecological system and produce clear conservation and sustainable development outcomes.     

Dimensions of adventure tourism

Academic interest in adventure tourism has increased in recent years given the exponential growth of this sector. Physical outdoor activity-based conceptualisations of adventure tourism - from soft adventure (hiking, snorkelling, etc.) to hard adventure (rock climbing, wilderness trekking, etc.) – are commonly employed, but are criticised as overly simplistic and failing to capture the essence of adventure tourism. A systematic review of the adventure tourism literature aimed to address these concerns and resulted in a new conceptualisation of adventure tourism and its dimensions that offers a more comprehensive and sophisticated understanding of this tourism activity. Of the 22 dimensions of adventure tourism identified, risk and danger, the natural environment, thrill and excitement, challenge, and physical activity are at its core. Consumer-based, product-based and hybrid pillars of adventure tourism are also evident. Theoretical anchors to differentiate adventure tourism from other forms of tourism are presented.     

Motivation and involvement in adventure tourism activities: a Chinese tourists' perspective

ABSTRACT

This research aims to explore Chinese tourists' motivations and involvement in adventure tourism activities, as well as if and how personality and location affect their motivation and involvement. Using a survey that collected 252 responses, this research suggests that stimulus-avoidance and intelligence seeking are the two most important motivational forces. Results indicate that respondents would prefer overseas locations for these activities due to perceptions of greater safety and security, better service, and higher-quality facilities. Respondents who rated themselves as “open” or “closed” in personality differ regarding motivations and involvement. Practical implications are discussed, and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Definition of adventure travel: Conceptual framework for empirical application from the providers’ perspective

The growth of adventure travel has been accompanied by an enormous variety and availability of adventure travel products in international travel and tourism. This study attempts to search for a comprehensive definition of adventure travel from the providers’ perspective in order to build a conceptual framework for empirical application. A qualitative analysis of past leisure or recreation theories identified six major component variables which define adventure travel. Together with these six components, several alternative definitions of adventure travel are studied in detail as part of the research. This study proposes a new definition of adventure travel, as a standard tool for measuring and segmenting the adventure travel market.     

Post-disaster tourism: building resilience through community-led approaches in the aftermath of the 2011 disasters in Japan

Abstract

Post-disaster tourism is often perceived as a form of Dark Tourism associated with death, loss and destruction. In Japan, the term Dark Tourism has gained prominence following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. This paper focuses on a community-led approach to post-disaster tourism development, initiated in the coastal area of Minamisanriku and labelled by the locals Blue Tourism. From its inception Blue Tourism incorporated non-dark activities which concentrated on the beauty of nature, social and environmental sustainability and the development of an enriched tourist experience. Its co-creational ethos helped transform some of the negative narratives of loss associated with Dark Tourism into positive accounts of communal renewal and hope. The paper highlights the limitations of Dark Tourism to post-disaster recovery and contributes new insights to the community-based tourism literature. We argue that Blue Tourism is not a type of Dark Tourism but a form of resilience which builds around local place-based practices and traditional community knowledge. Consequently, it is capable of achieving sustainable disaster recovery and tourist satisfaction simultaneously.     

A decade of injury monitoring in the New Zealand adventure tourism sector: A summary risk analysis

Adventure tourism safety has received relatively little research attention despite the level of risk inherent in many adventure activities. In New Zealand, an absence of surveillance or monitoring of injury in the adventure sector has had important implications for the management of tourist safety. A series of studies conducted by the authors between 1996 and 2006 have sought to address this knowledge gap, with the aim of identifying the extent and nature of adventure tourism injury using a range of primary and secondary data sources. The paper reports on findings from a summary risk analysis of these studies, including evidence for the scale of the adventure tourism injury problem, and ranking of degree of risk for a range of factors for safety in adventure tourism participation. A conceptual model to assist risk management in the adventure sector is presented, and implications of findings for management and the adventure sector are discussed.     

Weather Studies in Outdoor Recreation and Nature-Based Tourism: A Research Synthesis and Gap Analysis

ABSTRACT

The impact of weather on outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism has received increasing attention from the research community during the past ten years. This article synthesizes the results of those inquiries, categorizing their predominant themes and identifying knowledge gaps. One hundred eighty-four weather-related articles drawn from a cross-section of international journals served as the foundation for this work. The research synthesis identified three recurring themes: weather-related variables that influence outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism, the importance of geographic research context, and prevailing activity types. A gap analysis indicated an abundance of underinvestigated topics in weather-related studies in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism. The article concludes with recommendations for future weather-related studies in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism developed from the predominant themes uncovered in the research synthesis and research needs discovered in the gap analysis.     

Seasonality in New Zealand Winery Visitation

Summary

Seasonality is a major issue in tourism management; however, the implications of seasonality for wine tourism have only received limited attention. Arguably, because of the interaction between seasonal patterns of consumer demand with the inherent seasonality of vineyard work and wine supply means that seasonality issues may be even more problematic for wine tourism than other forms of tourism. The article provides the results of a national study on wine tourism in New Zealand. The article highlights the seasonal nature of visitation and suggests a number of marketing strategies by which some of the effects of seasonality may be overcome in terms of both target markets and the improved management of human resources.     

The impacts of world cultural heritage site designation and heritage tourism on community livelihoods: A Chinese case study

This article examines how cultural heritage conservation, often reflective of Western values, impacts local sustainable livelihoods (SL) in a living cultural heritage site. The article argues for the modification of the SL framework for analysing cultural heritage tourism through including an explicit focus on the transforming structures and processes of local livelihoods in Fujian tulou, China, a World Cultural Heritage Site. Drawing on data collected through in-depth interviews, non-participatory observations, and secondary sources, findings show that changes related to tourism development and heritage conservation can reduce the sustainability of livelihoods in living heritage sites. Tulou clusters tend to be regarded as tourist attractions and cultural relics rather than lived-in places. Traditional livelihoods have been affected as residents are forced to adapt to the demands of tourism. This research helps to expand the SL theory by incorporating cultural heritage capital and community self-organisation, and highlighting residents' self-controlled capacity toward assets.