Site and situation strategy in tourism planning: A Mexican case study

Mexico has experienced all the effects, good and ill, of a large and expanding tourist trade. Tourism's negative consequences--economic dependency, crime, cultural erosion--have manifested themselves in tourist ghettos along Mexico's northern border, on the Mexican Riviera, and in the capital. This study is an assesment of contemporary Mexican tourism planning as it relates to these problems, and further as it seeks to make tourism a stimulus to economically depressed areas of the nation. A case study approach is utilized to identify the strategy of site and situation selection for the new programmed resort complex at Cancun on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan peninsula. It is concluded that Cancun embodies, at least for Mexico, a radical departure in tourism development. The resort is situated to attract a large foreign clientele and to create the greatest possible positive economic and social impact on a resident Mexican population that has suffered chronic underdevelopment.     

Rock art tourism in the uKhahlamba/Drakensberg World Heritage Site: obstacles to the development of sustainable tourism

This paper focuses on rock art tourism, a highly vulnerable heritage of broad public interest, only sustainable within an effective management framework. The paper explores tourism management in South Africa's uKhahlamba-Drakensberg World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2000 for its natural landscapes and its exceptional rock art heritage. In practice, nature dominates the area's tourism and management dynamics. Current tourism patterns, markets and frequencies, together with rock art's low place within tourist agendas, are described. This situation is shown to be a legacy of European Alpine romanticism, and the political rejection of indigenous cultural heritage prior to 1994, still expressed through visitor patterns and marketing policies. Despite rock art needing tourism to valorise its conservation, and being recognised by commentators and the state as a viable route to tourism development, heritage conservation, socio-economic regeneration and cultural empowerment, the failure to reform entrenched and ineffective tourism/conservation governance and management systems is exposed. The problems affecting rock art tourism have allowed the retention of unwelcome values from South Africa's pre-democratic era, risk the loss of World Heritage site status, the destruction of globally outstanding art works and waste an important opportunity to expand and diversify sustainable tourism in South Africa.     

The stigmatized tourist

This paper explores the tourism experience of the Arab and Muslim Tourist (AMT) visiting a (Western) developed country for tourism, from a critical socio-cultural perspective. Encapsulated in Goffman’s theoretical underpinning of the study of stigma, and informed by Said’s Orientalism, I used in-depth interviews to understand the tourism experience of the AMT in an immigration context, situated in what Goffman refers to as the ‘normal-deviant drama’. In a contemporary climate of xeno/ethno-racism, The AMT is stigmatized by association with his/her nationals (or par default by semblance to those nationals), who constitute a visible ethnic immigrant group in the visited country. His/her actual social identity becomes confounded with an ascribed virtual identity. As a moral issue, stigmatization spoils the tourist identity of the AMT, resulting in feelings of shame, confusion, and anger. The rise of anti-immigrants discourse and sentiments, and the rise of religious extremism practices and sentiments in the world, begs for more attention in contemporary tourist studies.     

Running Havana: Observations on the Political Economy of Sport Tourism in Cuba

Abstract

Sport tourism is a booming global business that has different costs and benefits for distinctive societies depending upon both global and local socio‐cultural, political and economic factors. With more than 130 officially sanctioned events worldwide, marathon running has developed to become a key feature of the international sport tourism calendar. This paper provides an ethnographic account of the 2005 Marabana – the Havana Marathon. After consideration of some of the central conceptual and historical issues pertinent to sport tourism in relation to the marathon in general, it uses this race and the events surrounding it as a critical window into Cuba’s complex contemporary political economy. Detailed consideration is given to the special conditions that have led to the development of the Island’s sport tourism industry and the consequences of that development in terms of Cuba’s political heritage. What sets Cuba apart from the tourist economies of its Caribbean neighbours is its continued commitment to the economic and political principles of communism and its strained and tense relationship with the United States. The paper concludes by pointing to the social and economic contradictions associated with the development of a tourist economy that is essentially capitalist within a society that is avowedly communist.     

The influence of artistically recreated nature on the image of tourist destinations: Lanzarote's art,cultural and tourism visitor centres and their links to sustainable tourism marketing

Can distinctive natural assets in tourist destinations be artistically recreated and used to improve destination image and attract more visitors? This paper analyses the formation of the tourist image based on artistically recreated local nature icons, and shows how those images can enhance the overall destination image. It focuses on the island of Lanzarote, a destination with its development based on promoting an environmental image founded on the creation of a network of multifunctional, high-quality art, culture and tourism centres exhibiting artistic recreation of its unique environmental assets. The methodology utilizes a questionnaire (n = 453) structural equations modelling approach in which the overall image of the destination is directly dependent on the image of the environmental conditions and indirectly influenced by the image of the artistically recreated centres. Results show that the destination's image is significantly grounded on the image of the art, culture and tourism centres using art based on Lanzarote's natural assets. They suggest that destinations have relevant opportunities to artistically enhance natural assets to improve their tourist image and marketing, that quality multi-functional visitor centres can be important within a sustainable tourism policy, and part of the emerging breadth of approaches taken by sustainable tourism marketing.     

Exploring bad faith in tourism

Previous applications of existential philosophy to tourism have focused on the work of Martin Heidegger but have neglected the contribution of Jean-Paul Sartre. This paper examines the relevance of Sartre's concept of ‘bad faith’ to tourism. Bad faith is a way of living based on inauthenticity, self-deception, and disregard for the Other. The paper explores the manifestation of bad faith in three contemporary scenarios: flying and its implications for climate change; conforming to the expectations of other people through social media engagements; and sex tourism. It argues that bad faith - compromising and denying individual freedom – underpins many tourism practices. The paper ends by considering future opportunities for using Sartre's philosophy to understand tourist experiences.     

Hospitality Industry Responses to Climate Change: A Benchmark Study of Taiwanese Tourist Hotels

Hotels are one of the tourism businesses most vulnerable to climate change because of their fixed assets. Results are presented of a baseline study that explores the awareness, attitudes, and behaviours of Taiwanese tourist hotels with respect to climate change and its potential impacts as well as their overall environmental practices. Tourist hotels are defined by the Taiwanese government as hotel establishments of over 80 rooms in rural areas and 50 rooms in city areas. Although the 104 tourist hotels represent only 3.7% of the total number of hotels in Taiwan, they account for over half of international guest nights and had a combined revenue of over TWD$43 billion in 2010. Questionnaires were distributed via email to all tourist hotels in Taiwan and 45 valid returns were received, representing an effective response rate of 43.3%. The results of research illustrate the level of understanding of climate change within Taiwanese tourist hotels and identify the specific climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies that tourist hotels have initiated. Access to such baseline data provides a potentially significant contribution to evaluating the response of the Taiwanese accommodation sector to environment change as well as providing a basis for further comparative studies and benchmarking.     

Immersive narratives of ‘self-work’ in an experience society: understanding the cruise ship experience

ABSTRACT

Commentators have long argued that cruise ship tourism is a highly rationalised form of mass consumption, a ‘total institution’ in which consumption defines and controls the individual’s experience. Arguing that this represents a simplification, this article suggests that a closer analysis of cruise tourism tells us something profound about the nature of what it means to be a consumer in a de-territorialised age. Specifically, the article explores the suggestion that the cruise experience represents a mode of consumption in which the consumer effectively becomes the product. Through the deployment of an autoethnographic investigation of the cruising experience the paper seeks to shed light on the relationship between the tourist experience and notions of self, while making a case for a re-conceptualisation of consumption as self-work. In this light, the contention is made that the ideological power of consumption is intensified by tourism’s emphasis on the experience of the consumer as part of a broader process in which there has been a shift away from the specific consumption of products towards consumption as a temporal-partial process of self-endowment.     

高速铁路影响下的全国旅游景点可达性研究

世界旅游强国离不开良好交通的支持,而作为交通中非常重要的高速铁路的快速发展,必将有力地促进区域旅游的发展。文章探讨了2020年全国高铁网络影响下旅游景点可达性空间格局及其变化,分析旅游目的地与客源地市场空间格局变化特征,在全国尺度下定量分析高速铁路建设对旅游客源地与目的地可达性的影响。测度2020年规划高铁通车前后旅游可达性空间格局与变化。结果显示:高铁开通后,高铁沿线城市可达景点数量显著增加;尤其是"日"字形高铁沿线城市与景点的增加值最高,将成为我国重要旅游经济带,高铁沿线城市与景点是高铁网络效应的主要受益者,高铁服务带来了时空压缩效应,即高铁的开通不仅缩短旅游客源地和目的地之间的时间距离、加强了两地之间的联系,也实现了旅游者跨区域的快速外部交通,而这种快捷效应的延续同样离不开城市内部交通网络的优化,缩短中心城市到旅游景区的时间,将会进一步增强景区的吸引力。     

Assessing the vulnerability of beach tourism and non-beach tourism to climate change: a case study from Jamaica

The Jamaican tourism industry is very climate sensitive, and, like most Caribbean islands, Jamaica's main tourism product is coastal, centered on “sun, sea and sand”. The island is susceptible to many risks posed by climate change, including sea level rise and extreme events, with resultant impacts such as beach erosion, flooding, saline intrusion into aquifers and general coastal degradation. This paper evaluates the relative vulnerability of beach versus non-beach tourism in Jamaica, using 43 pre-determined literature-linked indicators. These comprise bio-geophysical, social, technological, economical, technological and institutional factors. Four case areas are assessed using multi-criteria decision analysis to derive vulnerability scores for each area. The study finds that non-beach tourism operations should not be automatically perceived as less vulnerable than beach-based operations. Sustainable adaptation options are complex and numerous, and overall beach tourism businesses have better insurance, emergency savings, disaster plans and backup power facilities, among others. They also have the advantage of being in business longer than the inland resorts, a firmer business structure and an extensive marketing budget. In the long term, better adaptation and planning by inland businesses could change this balance.     

Beyond Sun,Sand and Sea: The Emergent Tourism Programme in the Turks and Caicos Islands

Mass tourism began in the Caribbean in the 1960s with the advent of low cost air travel. Jamaica, Barbados, and the Bahamas were among the first places to develop a resort-based tourism programme. Within 20 years, these locations began to experience the problems that are now typically associated with unplanned growth. For emergent tourist destinations, these older islands can serve as a model of what not to do. One location that has taken some lessons to heart is the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) in the lower Bahamian archipelago. While TCI offers itself as a sun, sand and sea destination, tourism officials seek to attract upscale visitors with a long term investment in the islands. The problem they are wrestling with is how to develop an island image based not only on the sea-based amenities but also the local history, natural attractions and expressive culture. In response, a diverse heritage group has begun a dialogue about how to do this. This paper describes the current state of tourism in the TCI within the context of new directions in Caribbean tourism.     

Are there cultural limits to tourism?

This article poses the question: are there cultural limits to tourism? It argues that tourism is a culture industry in the sense that it markets cultural products to tourists as cultural experiences. The three elements of tourism as culture are: the cultural foundations of tourism products, the sophistication of tourists’ perceptions and experiences of tourist cultures, and the cultural consequences of tourism development on resident communities. Yet these aspects are usually treated in a tokenistic way in favour of economic and environmental considerations, ignoring the cultural consequences of major changes to destination communities as a result of tourist development. This article proposes that the changes and consequences of tourism on the culture of destinations and on the culture of tourists should be central to debates about sustainable tourism development. The article proposes a number of conditions or indicators to identify the matrix of impacts of tourism from which acceptable and unacceptable limits can be determined. The use of these indicators should be central to planning, management and monitoring practices to achieve sustainable tourism.     

The Impact of Tourism on the Patagonian Coast,Argentina

Summary

The coasts of the Argentinean Patagonia aroused considerable interest when the nature-directed tourist boom took place. This paper is based on an analysis of literature pertaining to the impact of tourism on coastal areas in the province of Chubut-particularly in the area of the Valdes Peninsula included in UNESCO's World Heritage List-and its most important city, Puerto Madryn. The conclusion reached is that the implementation of a management plan which not only takes into consideration environmental aspects but also the participation of local inhabitants can result in sustainable development for the area.     

Tourists’ aesthetic assessment of environmental changes,linking conservation planning to sustainable tourism development

Abstract

Tourists often travel to experience the natural beauty of a destination such as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. This nature-based destination attracts millions of tourists every year because of its outstanding underwater aesthetics. Recently, parts of the GBR have been degraded by warming sea temperatures and other local anthropogenic influences, threatening the Reef aesthetics and tourism in the region. In order to deal with this topical issue, the current research investigates tourists’ aesthetic assessment of environmental changes in the GBR ecosystem. Research outcomes indicate that tourists’ perceived beauty of the Reef is sensitive to environmental changes. The disappearance of sea animals (colourful fish, turtle), degrading coral and decreasing water quality negatively influence their aesthetic assessment, which can reduce tourist visitation in the long-term. Hence, sustainable tourism development in the GBR regions can only be achieved when government support for environmental management is strengthened. Conservation programs of the GBR should expand beyond coral restoration for controlling water quality, reducing pollution and protecting aesthetically appealing sea animals.     

Tourism and food production in the Caribbean

Foreign-exchange leakage through food imports for tourist consumption reduces the net economic impact of tourism in the Caribbean. Yet little is known on the interface between tourism and local food production. Tourism's competition for agricultural labor and land, and its impact on land values, land use and food prices, are disputed by researchers and are poorly understood. Thorough studies are needed on the nature and extent of tourism food imports and associated foreign-exchange leakages; the reasons a large proportion of the food for tourist consumption is imported; and the variation in food supply patterns according to quality, size, ownership, and location of tourist establishment. Further research will help formulate policies designed to increase the net economic impact of tourism.     

Social-ecological dynamics and water stress in tourist islands: the case of Rhodes,Greece

Abstract

Tourism increases, diversifies and concentrates water consumption in space and time; it contributes to social-ecological processes that often make tourist destinations vulnerable to water stress. Climate change projections foresee an increase in water stress problems in many tourist resorts. Tourist islands are particularly challenged due to their geographical isolation and the limited options for enhancing supply. Despite the significance of the problem, the understanding of the tourism and water–stress complex remains under-researched. In this article, we aim at a novel, integrated and spatiotemporally dynamic conceptualization of tourist islands’ vulnerability to water stress. To do this, we begin by presenting the “Water-Tourism Social-Ecological Systems framework” based on literature on water and tourism, social-ecological systems, adaptation, vulnerability, resilience, and island studies. We then apply this framework to investigate the so far underexplored vulnerability to water stress of the island of Rhodes (Greece). Results from in-depth interviews with key stakeholders along with secondary sources provide insights into the Rhodes Water-Tourism SES dynamics. Our analysis provides an interdisciplinary and multidimensional lens to the water-stress and -tourism complex. It enriches the literature of tourism and water and gives the opportunity to open up the scope of solutions that are being discussed.     

Tourism and water use: Supply, demand, and security. An international review

This article reviews direct freshwater consumption in tourism from both quantitative and qualitative viewpoints to assess the current water demand of the tourism sector and to identify current and future management challenges. The article concludes that even though tourism increases global water consumption, direct tourism-related water use is considerably less than 1% of global consumption, and will not become significant even if the sector continues to grow at anticipated rates of around 4% per year (international tourist arrivals). The situation differs at the regional level because tourism concentrates traveller flows in time and space, and often-in dry destinations where water resources are limited. Furthermore, the understanding of tourism’s indirect water requirements, including the production of food, building materials and energy, remains inadequately understood, but is likely to be more substantial than direct water use. The article concludes that with expected changes in global precipitation patterns due to climate change, it is advisable in particular for already water scarce destinations to engage in proactive water management. Recommendations for managing tourism’s water footprint are made.     

Promoting sustainable tourism in an urban context: Recent developments in Malaga city,Andalusia

The term ‘sustainable tourism’ is rarely used within a specifically urban context yet the concept is as equally applicable to city‐based tourism as it is to rural areas. This paper explores recent attempts to promote sustainable tourism in the city of Malaga, southern Spain and examines the ways in which the activity of tourism is being more closely integrated with other facets of the city's economy and life. Rather than seeing tourism as a ‘separate’ and ‘exotic’ activity, the city authorities are attempting to use tourism in a creative way. It is argued that it is this very integration which constitutes one of the main features of ‘sustainability’ within an urban context. Specific examples of the kinds of strategies being pursued are examined and the paper concludes with a critique of these initiatives from the perspective of the debate on sustainability.     

世界城市视角下的北京旅游建设研究

在世界城市建设的背景中,北京提出了建设国际一流旅游城市的目标,大力发展旅游产业被定位为北京中国特色世界城市建设的重要支柱。文章结合世界城市的内涵,分析了世界城市与旅游业的关系以及北京的差距所在,最后提出推动旅游产业从传统服务业向现代服务业转型升级、大力发展文化创意产业、发展旅游总部经济、努力建设国际会展之都等未来北京旅游建设的重点方向及建议。     

Showcasing Scotland? A Case Study of the MTV Europe Music Awards Edinburgh03

Abstract

This paper critically reviews the public policy framework underpinning the MTV Europe Music Awards Edinburgh03. It argues that, because local organisers did not advocate local cultural participation as a key policy, preferring an economic rationale of marketing and tourism, such involvement was limited. The organisers’ global and economic rationale led to the official view that MTV’s status within global youth culture re‐imaged Edinburgh as a dynamic and cosmopolitan city in the international tourist market, while providing a turning point in Scotland’s ability to host world class events. To them, the £750k subsidy to MTV facilitated significant local economic benefits and enhanced the city’s profile in the creative industries. However, the narrow policy framework meant local inclusion took place within MTV’s overriding emphasis on promoting celebrities and producing a spectacular television show. The Awards therefore had a largely superficial engagement with local youngsters and the Scottish pop industry, with the main beneficiaries being MTV and its sponsors, Edinburgh tourism, global pop stars, and major hotels and retailers. Protests over this were encouraged by MTV’s tight control of information, the event’s politicisation by a local newspaper, and a local actor’s ‘anti‐MTV Awards’ campaign.