The relevance of the tangible and intangible social impacts of tourism on selected South African communities

Most tourism social impact studies emphasise tangible social impacts such as economic improvement. In developing countries such as South Africa, a small percentage of tangible benefits filter down to community level. This creates a problem as various studies revealed the importance of community support for the sustainability of the tourism industry. Therefore it was important to explore the role of both the tangible and the intangible social impacts of tourism. Communities with established tourism industries (Clarens, Soweto and Jeffreys Bay) formed part of the quantitative research. Through exploratory factor analyses, 31 social impact statements could be categorised into four tangible and two intangible impacts. The tangible factor Economic improvement obtained a low rating, meaning that it was not directly experienced by residents, while the intangible factor Community pride and upliftment obtained the highest rating among all factors. This, together with the fact that community members continue their support for the tourism industry, is a novel find, indicating the significant role of intangible social impacts in fostering community support. This finding shows the importance of incorporating intangible social impacts into tourism planning in developing countries. Contributions are made towards social impact research methodology and literature.     

The Essential Role of Sense of Community in a Youth Sport Program

This multiphased study identifies the salient benefits that parents seek for their families from a youth sport program. Phase 1, a preseason focus group study of parents of swimmers in three clubs (N = 15), indicated parents seek a sense of community for their children and themselves, and sense of community is linked to their desire for children to learn sport and life skills. Phase 2, a postseason survey of parents in the same three clubs (N = 129), tested the relationships among coaching quality, friendships, organizational communication, sport and life skills, sense of community, parents' satisfaction, and their repeat purchase intention. Using path analysis, sense of community was identified as the key driver of satisfaction and repeat purchase intention, with swimming improvement also having a significant effect on satisfaction. These findings highlight the central role sense of community plays for participants and their families in youth sport contexts.     

Higher skilled working tourists and their leisure lifestyles: a qualitative study of guest language instructors in South Korea

Using interviews conducted with 24 higher skilled working tourists employed as guest language instructors in the Republic of Korea, this paper explores how working tourists could secure an optimal leisure lifestyle in their host countries. Three key findings emerged. First, the respondents were seeking casual, touristic, amateur, hobby and volunteer leisure with their colleagues and with their host community members. But, the rewards and episodic aspects of their leisure, including formal and informal language development, suggested that it incorporated variations in project-based leisure as a core characteristic. Second, these respondents were taking part in guest, host and leisure speech communities that were each offering leisure choices. However, their leisure lifestyle was best when leisure, second language development and acculturation coincided in a leisure speech community. Third, that in a leisure speech community, respondents’ acculturation and friendships improved more so than in either guest or host speech communities. Also, that these respondents’ formal and informal second language learning within their leisure speech communities was essential for an optimal leisure lifestyle. The paper determines that leisure speech communities, occurring along a continuum of monetary, educational and interpersonal resources, could affect the linguistic mobility of higher skilled working tourists. It recommends that future research could examine if a sociolinguistics of leisure could assist in exploring and mapping the leisure lifestyles appearing among mobile populations in a globalising world.     

Comparing levels of resident empowerment among two culturally diverse resident populations in Oizumi,Gunma, Japan

While resident empowerment has been a central aspect of the sustainable tourism literature, difficulties of putting the concept into practice have been noted given the heterogeneous nature of communities. “Community” is often divided by kinship, age, gender and ethnicity, and such division may influence the perceptions of empowerment. The goal of this study was to better understand heterogeneous perceptions of empowerment by administering the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale within the community of Oizumi, Japan. Oizumi has the highest concentration of Brazilian immigrants in Japan, and the town has embraced “ethnic neighborhood tourism” centered on Brazilian culture as a strategy for economic development. Oizumi's demographic makeup allowed for testing differences in perceived empowerment between members of the dominant ethnic group (Japanese) and members of the ethnic minority group (Japanese Brazilians). Analysis of 650 completed questionnaires revealed that Brazilians felt more psychologically and socially empowered than Japanese residents, indicating a shift in the balance of power between the ethnic groups. Results also revealed that the political dimension of empowerment was rated relatively low among both groups, suggesting a general lack of opportunities to participate in the planning process. Implications for both practice and theory are presented.     

Cognition of disaster risk in a tourism community: an agricultural heritage system perspective

Cognition of risk is the first step in reducing disaster damage and losses. In this study, risk cognition in the Hani Rice Terraces, the core tourism attraction in Yuanyang County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan, China, is analyzed based on field survey and participatory geographic information system (GIS). The results show that tourism communities have cognition of risk; are more sensitive to hazards (especially drought); have more severe potential damage and losses from hazards; and also have more enthusiasm to adapt to disaster risk, when compared with a non-tourism community. On disaster vulnerability maps, the tourism communities identified the unique “Forest – Village – Terrace - River” landscape while the non-tourism community only recognized the terrace and the village as the main elements affected by hazard. Also, the tourism communities had deeper understandings of drought, flash floods and landslide disaster risks. A conceptual model based on “Pressure – State – Response” relationships is put forward to explore the situation in which, in the tourism community, terraces have a greater variety of functions and enhanced values resulting in the spatial expansion of hazard effects.     

Charleston's newfound “entertainment zone”: should we be concerned?

This CIT Research Letter addresses issues related to the night-time economy and the rapid proliferation of bars along a section of a tourism oriented city's main street. Merely 10 years ago, locals did not frequent the area, it was of no interest to tourists, and it was regarded as a neighbourhood where one would not want to walk, especially at night. However, with the area's transformation to the nightlife centre of the city, issues have arisen that are of concern to city government officials. This paper considers these concerns.     

Local Venturing as Compassion Organizing in the Aftermath of a Natural Disaster: The Role of Localness and Community in Reducing Suffering

In contrast to models of compassion within existing organizations, this grounded theory study examines how ventures emerge relying on localness and community in direct response to ‘opportunities’ to alleviate suffering in the aftermath of a natural disaster. While a natural disaster is a surprising disruptive event devastating a local community, that local community is nested within a broader community, which can be a source of abundant resources. Ventures created in the aftermath of a natural disaster, given local knowledge and unencumbered by pre‐existing systems, procedures, and capabilities, are highly effective at connecting the broader community with the local community through customizing resources to meet victims' needs and to quickly delivering these resources to alleviate suffering.     

Mineral wealth – ‘in the name of morafe’? Community control in South Africa's ‘Platinum Valley’

Direct control of mineral resource wealth by communities in resource-endowed regions is advocated as a panacea to conflict and fundamental towards attainment of self-determination and local autonomy. Based on the study conducted in Royal Bafokeng and Bakgatla Ba Kgafela, the two prominent, platinum-rich traditional communities in South Africa's North West Province, this article reveals that, although mineral wealth in South Africa's platinum-endowed communities such as Royal Bafokeng is reportedly distributed ‘in the name of morafe’ (‘community’ in Setswana), inadequate participation produces polarised local priorities and tensions at the grassroots level. Community control of mineral wealth is thus likely to paradoxically generate conflict and exclusion at the traditional community level, particularly in contexts where participation in mineral wealth-engendered community development is championed by traditional leaders through customary-derived spaces of local engagement.     

城市社区文化建设的实证研究

城市社区文化建设是和谐社区建设的重要内容。合肥市、马鞍山市结合本地实际,创造和形成了完备设施、健全队伍,因地制宜、特色发展,以人为本、广泛参与,资料整合、共建共享的社区文化建设特色,满足了社区广大群众的要求,为进一步推动城市社区文化建设提供了有益的启示。