Heritage tourism clusters along the borders of Mexico

This article seeks to find potential heritage tourism clusters in border areas. Literature about tourism destinations is essentially focused on administrative-bound areas, while little attention has been paid to functional regions. The research is based on a methodological exercise to contribute to this debate by analyzing the case of three border regions between Mexico, the USA, Guatemala and Belize, respectively. These borders have never been static but have changed throughout history, to the present day situation. It is argued that these changes have implications for the potential development of heritage tourism. The results identify a number of cross-border clusters and corridors in these areas with different levels of tourism underdevelopment, mainly because of political or legal restrictions. The results of this study contribute to an improved understanding of borderland heritages and cross-border regional clusters in the context of tourism.     

Residents’ preferences for historic preservation criteria and their determinants: an American example

From the perspective of local residents, who are the ultimate stakeholders and guardians of heritage preservation, this paper aims to explore the public perceptions and internal and external factors that can influence residents’ preferences for historic preservation criteria. The results of multiple regression analyses reveal that the three preservation criteria (physicality, human relationship, and actions and processes) are influenced by residents’ subjective perceptions and objective characteristics. Some management implications, including designing comprehensive interpretation systems to enhance cultural capital, are discussed.     

Trade-offs of European agricultural abandonment

Agricultural land abandonment is a policy challenge, especially for areas with unfavorable conditions for agriculture and remote and mountainous areas. Agricultural abandonment is an important land use process in many world regions and one of the dominant land use change processes in Europe. Previous studies have shown that abandonment can have both positive and negative effects on several environmental processes, influenced by location and scale. Preferred policies and management of these areas are debated given concerns for the loss of (traditional) agricultural landscapes and potential impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. We present a European-scale impact assessment of the possible effects of agricultural abandonment, based on eight indicators that are on the forefront of the agricultural abandonment debate. Using a multi-scale modelling approach, we expect between 71.277 and 211.814 km² of agricultural abandonment in 2040. Impacts on the indicators and trade-offs between the impacts are spatially variable. A typology of typical trade-off bundles at a 1 km² resolution resulted in four typical trade-off clusters. All clusters identified are characterized by a loss of agriculture-related values, such as agro-biodiversity and cultural heritage. For two clusters, this was accompanied by positive effects on indicators such as carbon sequestration, nature recreation and mammal habitat suitability. Overall, our results indicate that location and scale are key to assess the trade-offs originating from agricultural abandonment in Europe. Identification of typical trade-offs bundles can help to distinguish potential desirable outcomes of agricultural abandonment and assist in targeting measures to areas that face similar management challenges.     

乡土文化景观安全格局及遗产廊道构建 研究——以福建永泰为例

借助ArcGIS空间分析技术，运用景观安全格局理 论和空间阻力模型分析方法，以福建永泰为例，针对乡土文化 遗产体验进行景观资源适宜性评价，同时建立低、中、高3个 级别的景观安全格局水平。结果表明：乡土文化遗产体验适宜 性水平较高，低中等安全格局水平所占比例高达81.11%。为 此，提出构建永泰乡土遗产廊道、形成乡土遗产景观网络与全 域旅游开发利用的具体建议措施，旨在加强乡土文化安全与景 观遗产的整体保护，促进全域旅游开发保护与乡村全面振兴的 实现。     

运城市文物旅游资源时空特征及保护开发对策

山西省运城市是全国重点文物保护单位数量最多的地级市。运用SPSS19.0对运城市的国家、省级重点文物保护单位的时空分布数据进行分析处理，定量计算不同朝代或13个县（市）的文物分布综合指数，进而探讨旅游资源的时空分布特征。分析结论表明：①运城市文物资源时代分布不均衡，商周和明朝为文物旅游资源丰富时期，旧石器、春秋战国、汉、南北朝、隋唐、元和清朝等朝代为文物旅游资源较贫乏时期。②文物时代特征明显，不同朝代的文物旅游资源类型不一。③空间分布不均衡，盐湖区和新绛县是文物旅游资源丰富地区，芮城县、平陆县、临猗县、稷山县、万荣县、垣曲县和河津市是文物旅游资源较贫乏地区。④各类文物分布相对集中，每个县（市）均有文物旅游资源分布。最后分析了运城市文物旅游资源的影响因素，针对运城市文物旅游资源的保护和开发提出对策。     

Evolution of tourism in a flagship protected area of China

Nature-based tourism in protected areas, which is growing worldwide, offers much potential to enhance biodiversity conservation, poverty alleviation, and ultimately sustainable development. Understanding the evolution of protected areas as tourism destinations and the causes and consequences of changing supply and demand elements is an essential step toward sustainably managing tourism in these critical ecosystems. This research applied the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model to illustrate and analyze the 30-year evolution of tourism in Wolong Nature Reserve. Being inscribed in UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage programmes, Wolong is a flagship protected area in China. We showed that the Reserve experienced exploration, involvement, and development stages of the TALC before tourism growth was completely halted by the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008. We systematically investigated the changes related to the evolution of tourism and identified various internal and external driving forces. We examined the dynamics of politics, economy, and tourism growth that might propel the Reserve through the life cycle and identified significant tourism governance structural changes through the stages. The results have implications for sustainable tourism development in China's protected areas and also contribute to a broader and general understanding of the complex relationships between protected areas, sustainable tourism, and community development.     

The importance of threat,strategy, and resource appraisals for long-term proactive risk management among forest owners in Sweden

In natural hazards management, it is important to understand what motivates people to act when they or their property are threatened by natural hazards. Despite the importance of both threat and coping appraisals for responses to threats, less is known about the relations between threat and coping appraisals when risk management is long term. The present study examined appraisals of threat (cognitive and emotional), personal resources (cost and self-efficacy), and strategies (response-efficacy) as predictors of proactive management responses (past behavior and future intention) among forest owners in Sweden by means of a questionnaire (n = 1482). A path analysis revealed that threat appraisals and response-efficacy were direct predictors of past risk management behavior and the intention to respond in the future. Appraisals of resources, including cost and self-efficacy, were indirectly – via forest susceptibility and threat appraisals – related to threat responses. Although the model displayed reasonable fit for both owners more and those less involved in forestry, the cognitive appraisals variable was not a significant predictor of responses among owners less involved in forestry. In the full sample, the examined model explained approximately 50% of the variance in threat appraisals, and 28 and 17% in future intention and past behavior, respectively. Theoretical implications for how threat and coping appraisals are related during long-term risk management, and practical implications for forest risk management, are discussed.     

Understanding children's engagement with interpretation at a cultural heritage museum

This study aims to investigate how, and the extent to which, different interpretation techniques (e.g. visual, verbal and interactive) at a cultural heritage museum affect children's behaviour, associated with their engagement with interpretive materials and their understanding of the content and its key ideas and messages presented as cultural lessons. An exploratory study with classes of primary-school-aged children, adopting a qualitative method including observation and post-visit in-depth interviews, was carried out. The results did not indicate any discernible difference between the types of interpretation technique used, with regard to their interaction with the site, or their understanding of the museum's content. Rather, it is the circumstances under which the interpretation techniques were used by the children. Two main variations in the way that the children interacted with their peers and the interpretation were found to affect the level of understanding of different stories, and female and male children showed generalised preferences for different forms of behaviour. How these behavioural patterns impacted on their understanding of the interpretation and meanings of the displayed objects at the museum is discussed.