Tourist experience of nature in contemporary China: a cultural divergence approach

The study of Chinese nature tourism is a relatively independent research realm which adopts a cultural perspective to study the tourist experience. Chinese tourists are regarded as being accustomed to experiencing nature through associating it with high culture such as landscape poetry and paintings, calligraphy, and so on, and the impacts of traditional popular culture are seldom addressed. Yet, for the majority of Chinese, popular culture has significant influences on their behavior. From a cultural divergence approach, this paper chooses Huangshan Mountain as a case to investigate the way common Chinese people experience nature, and it is found that cultural impacts are differentiated, since neither cultures nor tourist groups are homogeneous. Specifically, tourists can be classified into classicists and folklorists according to whether they have professional knowledge about the traditional arts. As the majority of Chinese are folklorists and are largely neglected in the research, they are the main interest of this study. High culture has a weak impact on folklorists because they lack professional knowledge to associate with nature through high culture. It is popular culture that strongly influences folklorists’ behaviors in their drawing farfetched analogies to nature and praying to nature.     

Spain: highs and lows of 20 years of HSR operation

This paper has been written in response to the Viewpoint contribution by the author Button (2012) entitled: “Is there any economic justification for high-speed railways in the United States?”. In this article, the Spanish HSR high-speed rail network is used as an argument against certain HSR investments. Several of the data presented by the author are misleading and some of the information given in connection with Spain is incomplete. As the Journal of Transport Geography is widely read by policymakers and the scientific community, Button’s misrepresentation could cause serious damage. We therefore set out to clarify the data used by Kenneth Button and to explore some points in greater detail, although in no case eschewing criticism of Spain. Although excessive Spanish investment in public infrastructure over the last twenty years has probably had a negative impact on the real estate bubble, investments in HSR infrastructure in Spain have specifically been accompanied by two particular facts that need to be distinguished from other countries’ experience. These facts cannot be overlooked and will be discussed in this paper. They relate firstly to the total amount of European funds used in HSR construction and secondly to the technological and scientific innovations developed in Spain linked to the HSR market.     

City Image and Perceived Tourism Impact: Evidence from Port Louis,Mauritius

Research suggests that the images residents hold about their community influence the political support for tourism. Yet, few researchers have investigated the image that local residents have of their own area. Borrowing from the existing literature on place image and residents' perceptions of tourism impacts, a theoretical model incorporating these two lines of research is developed and tested using data collected from residents of the city of Port Louis, Mauritius. It proposes four city image attributes as the independent constructs influencing residents' perceptions toward the overall impact of tourism development. These include social attributes, transport attributes, government services attributes, and shopping attributes. Overall impact of tourism development is considered to be a determinant of the level of support for the industry. Results of the structural equation modeling analysis indicate that residents' perceived levels of shopping attributes, transport attributes, and social attributes of the city influence their level of support for the tourism industry. The hypothesis relating transport attributes to overall impacts of tourism was not supported. The study provides some important considerations for local planners attempting to make tourism more supportive in the city.     

旅游地对周边乡村社区居民的影响研究——以北京蟹岛度假村为例

旅游的发展给旅游目的地带来了广泛的影响,而目的地居民是旅游影响的主要承担者。本文通过对北京市蟹岛度假村周边乡村居民的深度访谈,从访谈资料中进行NVIVO编码分析,从而发现旅游地对周边乡村居民产生的积极或消极的经济影响、社会影响以及环境影响等。     

Greenways: a sustainable leisure experience concept for both communities and tourists

This paper reviews the development of greenways/car-free trails as an alternative environmentally friendly communication system and assesses their strengths and weaknesses. It gives the results of a questionnaire survey of 1261 users along a 106-km greenway in Spain linking the Pyrenees with the Mediterranean Sea. Unlike previous studies, sampling was random and unequal probabilities of selection were properly accounted for. The results show a complex range of user profiles, tourist and non-tourist, their perceptions of the trail and some of the direct and indirect impacts of the greenway on the communities through which it passes. Management recommendations flowing from the survey are presented with the aim of increasing the use of accommodation services and businesses in the towns and villages near the greenway and helping create a more sustainable tourism system. The paper illustrates the potential importance of greenways in a future low-carbon tourism strategy adapting to climate change.     

Focal area approach: a participatory community planning approach to agricultural extension and market development in Kenya

The focal area approach has been developed and applied by the public agricultural extension service in Kenya to harness the comparative advantages of various players for the overall development of rural areas. Participatory processes have been institutionalized in public extension and have brought new meaning to both extension and understanding rural development. The interactive engagement of smallholder farmers by public extension and the conducive environment created by the approach for other service providers to interact with communities has brought many advantages. The participation of women and youth, the poor and vulnerable groups in generating information and solutions to address food security and other rural needs has been impressive. The knowledge gained from the interaction has contributed in influencing policy change and research priorities. Smallholder farmers have formed common interest groups, which has enabled them to move from subsistence to business farming associated with increased knowledge, increased productivity and increased demand for produce. The approach has enabled extension service providers to reach more farmers per year than they did previously. The partnerships created between public extension with other institutions contributed to enhancement of knowledge and skills that has enabled the approach to spread to more areas in the country. Further capacity development among the extension providers and formulation of supportive policies that encourage demand-driven extension will lead to further improvement of the approach and scaling up.     

Residents' perceptions of the environmental impacts of tourism in the Lake Bosomtwe Basin,Ghana

This study investigates residents' perceptions of tourism's physical impacts in the Lake Bosomtwe Basin in Ghana. Data were based on a resident survey conducted in the basin in January 2006. Residents perceived both positive and negative impacts of tourism development, but were more inclined to the positive side. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the district assemblies in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism should start managing the impacts, and also educate the local population on the dangers of underestimating the negative impacts of tourism on the environment.     

Possible economic impacts of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation: an application of <Emphasis Type="Italic">FUND</Emphasis>

Climate change can lead to a substantial reduction of the strength of the thermohaline circulation in the world oceans. This is often thought to have severe consequences particularly on the North Atlantic region and Northern and Western Europe. The integrated assessment model FUND is used to estimate the extent of these impacts. The results indicate that, owing to a slower warming (rather than cooling) of the regions most affected by a thermohaline circulation collapse, climate change induced damages in these regions would be smaller in case of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation. However, even with a thermohaline circulation collapse, the total and marginal impacts of climate change are negative.JEL Classification: Q510, Q540We are grateful to Till Kuhlbrodt for providing the CLIMBER data and to Andre Krebber for processing them. The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research through the INTEGRATION project, the US National Science Foundation through the Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change (SBR-9521914) and the Michael Otto Foundation provided welcome financial support.     

广西龙胜龙脊景区旅游综合效应评价

选取相对熟悉的广西龙胜龙脊景区为调研点，尝试运用改良后的旅游影响态度尺度调查方法和层次分析法、模糊综合评判等数理方法，运用SPSS软件、MATLAB的计算应用程序对广西龙胜龙脊景区的旅游综合效应进行定量评价．所得的评价结果与龙脊景区实际情况基本吻合，证明这种方法具有一定的可信度和可操作性．为旅游目的地旅游综合效应的评价提供了一种新的方法和思路．