‘Personal memory tourism’ and a wider exploration of the tourism−memory nexus

This paper investigates the varied intersections between tourism and memory. It begins with a brief consideration of the parallel developments between the emergence of the ‘memory boom’ and that of the ‘tourism boom’, as well as the academic fields of memory studies and tourism studies, respectively. Memory is a crucial factor in choosing a destination; it impacts on the tourist experience at the destination and on the sharing of the experience with others after the trip, notably through narration, photography, and memory objects, such as souvenirs. Both memory and tourism rely on media and representation and on audience and consumption; both are allied with processes of identity formation. It is argued that tourism drives the memory boom as much as memory drives tourism. Bartoletti's [(2010). “Memory tourism” and the commodification of Nostalgia. In P. Burns, C. Palmer, & J.-A. Lester (Eds.), Tourism and visual culture (pp. 23–42), Vol. 1. Wallingford: CABI] conceptualization of ‘memory tourism’ as overlapping but distinct from ‘heritage tourism’ and Timothy's [(1997). Tourism and the personal heritage experience. Annals of Tourism Research, 24(3), 751–754] concept of ‘personal heritage tourism’ are discussed as foundations for what is then defined as ‘personal memory tourism’. The latter revolves around travel associated with personal memories – not only the revisiting of places associated with happy memories, but also the return to sites of personal trauma and suffering in a quest for healing.     

Tourism Experience Network: Co‐creation of Experiences in Interactive Processes

This article launches a new framework, the Tourism Experience Network (TEN), which explores co‐creation of experiences. The TEN framework absorbs value as experience logic in tourism marketing. Its uniqueness illustrates structuring processes and includes consumers/tourists in the service management. A theoretical explorative technique based on literature was used to construct the TEN. It departures from interactive networks, new service paradigm and tourism marketing, and contributes to tourism experience theories. Inspiration from the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group was embraced to modify issues inherent from traditional networks—the ARA model. By linking this approach with experience, actors are defined as experience facilitators in tourism and networks. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creative tourism in Balinese rural communities

The present study extends knowledge on creative tourism in rural areas. It was unclear from previous research how features of creative tourism, such as risk of commodification, play out in rural areas of developing countries. The study built on theoretical overlaps which suggest that creative tourism may improve the potential of community-based tourism. Literature suggested that creative tourism may address three issues plaguing community-based tourism: (1) lack of financial resources could be circumvented with intangible heritage; (2) loss of cultural identity could be reversed by sparking interest for culture; (3) power relations between hosts and guests could be rebalanced by repositioning locals from servant to teacher. These theoretical overlaps were explored in the context of five Balinese villages using a microethnographic approach with participant observations and expert interviews. Findings from this study partly confirm and extend the theoretical synergies. Furthermore, a new synergy, increasing enthusiasm for intercultural exchange, and one negative interaction, intangibility as a differentiator, were found. Findings also revealed conditions for success in developing creative tourism in a community-based tourism context. In sum, we contribute the conclusion that creative tourism in rural areas is promising under certain conditions.     

Advertising of National Identity and Tourism Bureaucracy

This paper examines the presentation of notions of nationality within tourism advertising for the World Heritage Sites by the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO). Heritage tourism is related to historical processes and present day judgements and encompasses issues of identity and political gains. Based on qualitative research, the empirical work succeeds in making a practical and theoretical contribution to the way a bureaucratic state organisation presents the ‘nationness’ of the state by interpreting various sites and approaching them in a symbolic way. This is an issue that has implications on the way tourism policies legitimise their actions towards such promotions. It reflects the dependence of the bureaucratic industry of tourism on symbols rather than on rationality according to the principles of bureaucracy.     

Performing identity and culture in Indigenous tourism – a study of Indigenous communities in Québec,Canada

The aim of this paper is to analyze the ways in which Indigenous tourism affects representations of identity and culture, and how tourism practices are described, negotiated and related to development in Indigenous communities. This aim is met through a study, including interviews and observations in Québec, Canada, where Indigenous tourism has received increased attention and economic importance in recent years. Tourism is put forward as positive for economic as well as social and cultural development, through alternative income opportunities and the revalorization of traditions and cultural practices. Individuals from four different ethnic nations were involved in the study: Innu (formerly known as Montagnais), Cree (Eeyou), Wôbanaki (Abénakis) and Hurons (Wendat). From the interviews conducted for this study, we find that Indigenous tourism influences the ways in which individuals see themselves, and how they perceive their identity and culture. Through the production of Indigenous tourism products, the notion of authenticity is challenged, and performed in ways that benefit contemporary life within the communities. But these performances may also reproduce or challenge traditional Indigenous identities, and fuel tensions and conflicts between different groups within the communities.     

Socio-cultural criteria for the evaluation of rural tourism projects – a Delphi consultation

Tourism scholars highlight the use of evaluation as a tool in managing the development of tourism. However, despite the potential for extending knowledge and understanding, few evaluation studies form an integral part of tourism development practice. The study from which this article is drawn is exploratory in nature and investigates the possibility of formulating an index of generic criteria, for application in the development and management of rural tourism projects. Complementary research methods comprised a Delphi Survey, followed by a focus group and semi-structured interviews. This article focuses on those criteria, generated by Delphi panellists in Britain and South Africa, which pertain to the socio-cultural structure and environment in which rural tourism projects are located, the resources on which they are based and the adoption of appropriate management strategies to ensure that these are conserved and sustained. However, despite their support for the criteria generated respondents emphasised that, unless projects were financially viable and operated according to business principles, local communities would bear the costs of rural tourism development without reaping its benefits.     

Tourism and ethnicity: situational perspectives

Ethnicity permeates many aspects of tourism, but remains poorly understood in this context. Ethnicity is also a problematic concept because of its variability and the complexity of its interrelation with social structure. Anthropological perspectives show that ethnicity is flexible and negotiated, and this paper draws attention to latent ethnicity and the dynamic character of responses to tourism. The strategies used by peoples in tourist destinations to cope with stereotyping are also discussed. Tourism also contributes to the process of identity formation in new nations, and may encourage majority populations to re-evaluate their perceptions of minorities. In order to stimulate tourism, new nations also compete with one another to lay claim to illustrious names or heroic forebears. Situational adaptations to tourism are illustrated from a variety of perspectives to explore the complex processes of boundary creation, maintenance and change. The emphasis in the paper is conceptual, but is related to contemporary issues in interethnic relations as they occur in tourism. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A double life cycle: determining tourism development in Macedonia

This article investigates the symptoms of tourism development in Macedonia by applying the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model. The study explores the political context and the government's role in policy-making and implementation at each TALC stage. It also attempts to assess key arenas of governmental influence on tourism, such as privatization, legislation, tourism promotion, and fiscal policy. To this end, we conducted an analysis of secondary data sources with the aim of assessing the current stage of tourism development. Our analysis indicates that tourism in Macedonia is presently in the development stage but that future decline is still possible. Our general findings indicate an insufficiently developed tourist supply, underlining the importance of taking action as a prerequisite for a well-established tourism planning process. Finally, the study reviews and offers a better understanding of the manner in which Macedonia's tourism policies are changing in a complex region, with the aim of blending top-down decision-making with elements of grass roots involvement in a bid to create a solution to the country's search for a new future.     

New directions in the sociology of tourism

This review article starts with an examination of the shifting nature of tourism discourse from the 1960s up to the present, and then focuses on seven topics that we consider to be on the forefront of current developments in the sociological study of tourism: emotions, sensory experiences, materialities, gender, ethics, authentication and the philosophical groundings of tourism theories. We find that in recent years the sociology of tourism was marked by three general trends: the growing application of specific novel theories from other fields to tourism, the examination of new facets of touristic phenomena and an intensified inquiry into the status of tourism as an intellectual or cultural project. We conclude that while the application of a range of novel theoretical perspectives and facets largely reflects the postmodern move away from binary thinking and concepts, the sociology of tourism still makes little contribution back to the discipline of sociology, and will need to address important emergent topics such as deglobalization and current nationalistic movements towards isolationism, to do so.     

Voices from Costa Rica: exploring youth perceptions of tourism and the influence of tourism on identity formation and cultural change

Tourism has become a rapidly growing phenomenon in Costa Rica over the past two decades, with a rate of foreign tourists per capita of 0.46 (one of the highest rates in the Caribbean basin). As tourism increases, it is clear that the impacts will continue to be a major change-agent, especially for small communities in Costa Rica. To explore youth perceptions of the impacts of tourism on their culture and community and to better understand the ways in which tourism influences the formation of cultural identity, this qualitative Photovoice study focuses on youth ages 10–16 living in a Costa Rican community. Through the participants’ photographs and discussion, four themes emerged, including economic impacts resulting from tourism, the preservation and loss of culture and history, the importance of respecting the land, and injustice resulting from tourism development. The youth demonstrated the ways in which their experiences and personal histories related to tourism are intertwined with their sense of identity and pride for their community and culture. The results emphasize the relevance of exploring cultural identity within youth populations and support the assertion that tourism generates significant cultural change, which in turn influences youths' past, present, and future perceptions of their community and culture.     

Leisure Constraints Research: Its Value as a Framework for Understanding Tourism Seasonability

Tourism seasonality is a major issue within tourism but is poorly understood. This paper argues for the adoption of a leisure constraints framework to develop more in-depth insights into seasonal variations in tourism. The structure of this argument consists of three parts: (1) the limitations of existing understandings of seasonality in tourism; (2) the nature of leisure constraints theory and its underutilisation in a tourism context; and (3) the benefits of adopting this theoretical framework in terms of its relative sophistication and hierarchical models.     

Tourism and identity‐related motivations: why am I here (and not there)?

This paper examines past and present literature relating to identity development and identity‐related tourism motivation. It presents a theoretical model of identity‐related tourism motivation that is based on multidimensional rather than unidimensional theories of identity as well as acknowledging both individual and social influences on identity development. It is argued that identity‐related motivations are fundamental to all tourist experiences and vital to understanding not only why individuals engage in tourism but what benefits they derive from the experience, suggesting that tourism is often used by individuals as a means to explore, maintain and even disengage from particular aspects of identity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Travel guidebooks and the construction of tourist identity

Tourist identity is an important component of the postmodern identity. This review paper unveils the role of travel guidebooks as identity construction agents at a time when tourism has become an important postmodern phenomenon. The review offers a processual look at roles played by guidebooks in tourist information gathering and formation of cultural tastes and preferences, and portrays the influence of guidebooks on social change. The review points especially to the lack of a broad theoretical perspective in the research of the role of guidebooks in tourist identity formation as well as tourist motivation and consumer behaviour formation. Consequently, the paper suggests that future studies of tourist identity should adopt a socio-historical and cultural interdisciplinary approach focusing on travel guidebooks, using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Based on this proposed framework, the article suggests several further research directions for the study of social construction of tourist identity within a spatio-temporal context.     

Towards a spirituality-based platform in tourism higher education

This conceptual paper contributes to tourism knowledge by proposing a spirituality-based platform in tourism higher education. Through this platform, the authors show how tourism education that supports discussion on spiritual development can help to create global citizens who are able to understand their potential as social, cultural and environmental stewards. This paper reviews recent developments shaping tourism education and examines the contemporary tourism educational landscape that supports a spirituality-based educational approach. The 7th platform of tourism studies is offered through a spirituality-based approach to knowledge and examples are given of how we can develop such a platform in tourism higher education.     

Advancing tourism research through multilevel methods: research problem and agenda

Tourism research often encounters social phenomena and research problems that involve multiple levels. However, most researchers assume that the phenomena exist in a single level and perform analyses that do not reflect the hierarchical nature of social dynamics. This article heeds the call from Current Issues in Tourism by illustrating multilevel methods and proposing an agenda for multilevel research. In particular, this article seeks to reconcile the limitations of single-level analysis and to delineate how multilevel methods could be applied in tourism research. It further seeks to advance tourism theories by introducing more complex multilevel design with broader applications in various tourism settings. This article presents two common tourism research scenarios, critiques their limitations, and proposes how multilevel methods could not only address these limitations, but also how they could advance tourism theories. An empirical study is offered to demonstrate multilevel design and analytical techniques.     

‘Cittáslow’ eco-gastronomic heritage as a tool for destination development

Slow Food has gained considerable attention as a social movement trying to counteract increasing globalisation in eating habits and food production. Cittáslow, a network of towns, are working with qualitative local urban development, based on similar principles as Slow Food. The ‘slow’ movements could be expected to have influences on tourism development. This possible connection has been neglected in the scientific tourism literature. Based on a study in three Cittáslow towns in Northern Italy, this article concentrates on how destination development is conducted in a Cittáslow context, unveiling some contradictions between the commercial sides of tourism and the non-commercial ethos of the Cittáslow movement. The studied towns were involved in various efforts in the field of sustainable planning, thereby also improving destination specific resources and local identity. One example is their focus on ‘slow’ events, mainly based on local gastronomy. Tourism marketing was, however, only of secondary importance; which mirrors some scepticism towards mass tourism and commercialisation, and even against marketing as such. Despite this, the Cittáslow concept may have an indirect potential for tourism development by improving product development and increased visibility. The risks involved concern gentrification and overexploitation.     

Informing tourism policy with statistical data: the case of the Icelandic Tourism Satellite Account†

The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) is a popular internationally recognized method for measuring tourism's contribution to the economy. The credibility and visibility of tourism as a distinct economic activity are, therefore, based on TSA data which have the power to show its macroeconomic importance. According to the most recent World Tourism Organization study, 60 countries around the world implemented TSA in one way or another in 2010. However, in the same year, a research carried out by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development revealed that the usage of TSA for tourism policies is rather limited due to specific issues, such as the lack of knowledge about TSA, inadequate international comparability, and timeliness. This paper illustrates several possibilities of using enhanced TSA estimates in the Icelandic context for informing tourism policies. Specific examples are presented of developing data on tourism-related investment (Tourism Gross Fixed Capital Formation) and governmental consumption for selected collective services related to tourism (Tourism Collective Consumption). These improve the usefulness of the TSA as a statistical instrument for sound tourism policies.     

A Quality Assessment of Education and for Kenya's Tour-operating Sector

This study examines the provision of tourism education and training in Kenya in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries. Specifically the paper examines the human resource skills needed by Kenya's tour-operating sector and the extent to which current training provision is adequate. The approach used in the present study is a modified version of WTO's Tourism Education and Quality (TEDQUAL) methodology. The results indicate considerable convergence between the perceptions of industry operators and education providers concerning quality gaps in the development of skills. A number of systemic training shortcomings are identified including curriculum deficiencies and the inadequate development and enhancement of workplace skills. In view of the resource constraints facing most developing countries, it is argued that tourism training and education should consciously address the needs of the locally-based industry and that such an approach should result in a more effective education and training system.     

Collaborative governance for low-carbon tourism: climate change initiatives by Australian tourism agencies

The Australian tourism industry is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on natural areas and the destination choices of long-haul travellers concerned about carbon emissions. A National Tourism and Climate Change Taskforce was established in 2007; with a national action plan for Tourism and Climate Change produced in 2008. Implementing these climate change actions requires new partnerships between tourism agencies, business programmes, carbon consultants, and offset providers. This paper assesses collaborative governance of climate change in Australian tourism, with a focus on low-carbon initiatives promoted to tourism operators by state and territory government tourism agencies. The paper compares the climate change initiatives of these tourism agencies based on six key dimensions of governance including: accountability, transparency, involvement, structure, effectiveness, and power [Ruhanen, L., Scott, N., Ritchie, B., & Tkaczynski, A. (2010). Governance: A review and synthesis of the literature. Tourism Review, 65(4), 4–16]. While most state and territory tourism agencies provided resources on climate change initiatives for tourism operators there was little accountability for emissions reduction within the agency. Collaborative governance of climate change was also more developed in states with climate change policies, destinations vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (e.g. Great Barrier Reef, Queensland), or dependent on long-haul travellers. Further research is needed on the governance and effective delivery of carbon emissions reduction programmes by tourism agencies.     

The tourist with a hidden agenda? Shifting roles in the field of tourism research

This article focuses on the way tourism researchers have to shift between different roles when in the field. The complex reality of the tourism arena with its multidisciplinary character requires a certain flexibility when it comes to the approach and perspective used by the researcher when interacting with the actors in the field. This role switching and flexibility has certain consequences when it comes to the position of the researcher. Furthermore, contemporary developments in the world (such as globalisation, technological developments and increased human mobility) have altered the practice of ethnographic research. The article explores and reflects upon some of the (methodological) issues that tourism researcher are confronted with when conducting ethnographic research, by discussing a number of empirical examples from different researchers in the field. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.