Major environmental impacts of European tourist transport

By merging European passenger transport demand data with international tourism data, a new data model was created, giving insight in the environmental impacts of tourism transport between the places of residence of European Union citizens and their tourist destinations. Analysis with this data model shows that, of the environmental impacts considered (climate change, air quality, noise and nature/landscape), climate change generates more than half of the externalities of tourist transport. Policies with the objective of reducing the external cost of European tourism should focus on measures reducing the impacts of tourist air transportation and intercontinental tourism.     

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.     

Nature-Based Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: Impacts of Private Sector and Parastatal Enterprises In and Around Kruger National Park,South Africa

International programmes and national policies around the world have identified tourism as an appropriate mechanism for sustainable development, poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation. To evaluate the impact of nature-based tourism on the poor, socio-economic assessments were undertaken at enterprises based within South African protected areas. Comparisons were made between local economic interventions reported by enterprises and neighbouring community member's perceptions of their initiatives. Socioeconomic impacts evaluated included employment, gender equality, procurement, corporate social responsibility, dependency on tourism and access to markets. The studies demonstrate that isolated efforts from individual tourism companies have little tangible impact on the majority of people living in highly populated rural communities but impacts are substantial for the few people who directly benefit. Implications of these findings for future socio-economic initiatives through tourism, and options to increase net benefits to the poor are explored.     

Sustainability of Tourism Development in Macao,China

To maximize the benefits to stakeholders in Macao, the sustainability of Macao tourism was examined by assessing the economic, socio‐cultural and environmental impacts of tourism, visitor satisfaction and the level of community involvement in local tourism planning from 2002 to 2009, through the use of primary and secondary data. The results revealed that tourism did bring both positive and negative impacts to the community. Visitor satisfaction was found to be moderate. Channels for community participation in local tourism development were also lacking. The paper suggests that for sustainable tourism development, Macao needs to diversify away from its casino industry, to speed up the construction of the public transport system and to keep monitoring the environmental conditions, the students' drop‐out and crime rate and the locals' quality of life. More importantly, a master plan for its tourism development integrating all the key stakeholders' interests is urgently required. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Climate change and tourism in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

Climate change impacts such as coral bleaching are now evident on many coral reefs visited by tourists. This paper reports on climate change workshops and climate change actions implemented by tourism operators and agencies in Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, with a focus on eco-efficiency initiatives. The results of a climate change action survey of 82 Great Barrier Reef tourism operators are also presented. Climate change responses by coral reef destinations require a mix of environmental and business strategies.     

Comparative evolutionary trends in environmental policy: Reflections on tourism development

As tourism is an industry that involves the environment and natural resources, its physical and social impacts have reached a point where they can be no longer neglected. Numerous conferences and conventions have taken place, and the tourism industry has initiated not only intellectual campaigns, but also action programmes. the tourism industry and its “environmentally friendly” movement, however, do not stand on their own; they are often influenced by national environmental policies. In this paper, the current national environmental policies of Britain, Germany, China, Taiwan and Japan are summarised and differences in their respective emphases are highlighted along with the resulting implication for tourism. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The development of a benchmarking tool for monitoring progress towards sustainable transportation in New Zealand

Creating and maintaining a safe and sustainable transport system is a common challenge for road authorities around the world. The New Zealand government has taken this challenge one step further by incorporating it into country’s legislation. As a consequence all road land transport authorities are committed to implementing initiatives to respond to both the challenge and the legislation. A benchmarking process for the transport sector is one of these initiatives on a national level. Benchmarking is a well known and utilised technology for the measuring of performance for infrastructure, for example within the water provision sector in England. This paper presents the development of a national benchmarking process for the transport sector of New Zealand. This development is part of a strategy to encourage road land transport authorities to improve the performance of transport in achieving sustainability and environmental targets. The development involved a literature review, proof of concept and the full implementation stage. A total of nine key performance indicators were developed to indicate the status of transport sector performance. The project and its outcomes are considered to be of benefit to road land transport authorities across the world who wish to develop a benchmark process of their own.     

Sustainable urbanisation? Norwegian cabin culture in transition

In this article, we explore a cultural change which has made the desire to live close to nature from a core tenet of Norwegian culture to an unsustainable threat to nature. During the last two decades, Norwegian cabin tourism has moved from ‘hard’ forms (few, prolonged stays, strong identification with the site) of ecotourism to ‘softer’ ones (shorter, more frequent stays, commercialisation of the site). These changes, we argue, have led to a situation in which the image of an ideal cabin which echoes hard ecotourism is perpetuated within new, softer practices. Unfortunately, this new kind of nature tourism, which is characterised by many short stays of many uncoordinated visitors spread over preferably ‘pristine’ nature, is inherently unsustainable. As an alternative, we propose more cautious transitions to more coordinated and ‘denser’ forms of tourism, which are exemplified in two cases.     

Preparing for climate change: recognising its early impacts through the perceptions of dive tourists and dive operators in the Egyptian Red Sea

Climate change has the potential to permanently alter the attraction of many destinations and substantially impact the benefits derived from tourism. These impacts can be reduced if vulnerability to climate change is understood and operators take steps to adapt. Some of the more immediate and manageable impacts are likely to result from changes in tourist perceptions and attitudes towards climate change. We test for early impacts in the Red Sea region and for the awareness of tourism operators. We interviewed 150 tourists and 35 operators. Our data suggest that changes in tourist awareness are already apparent; yet, operators ascribe only a moderate level of environmental and climate awareness to them. This ‘perception gap’ increases the vulnerability of dive operators.     

Tourism and electricity consumption in 9 European countries: a decomposition analysis approach

ABSTRACT

Tourism is a major economic activity constituting one of the main sectors in economic terms. European countries traditionally play a significant role in the overall international tourism flow. However, while tourism has a noticeable positive impact on economic development, it also contributes to environmental degradation by increasing energy consumption and therefore emissions. This paper analyses the relationships between Hotel and Restaurant electricity consumption and tourism growth in 9 European countries during 2004–2012, for which there is a sufficient amount of data available. A decomposition analysis based on log-mean Divisia index method (LMDI I) is conducted to examine electricity consumption on this sector and their components. Five decomposition factors are considered: energy intensity (EI), physical capital intensity (KI), physical and human capital relationship (KL), human capital intensity (LI) and the tourism factor (T). Results show the evolution of energy consumption related to this sector, identifying the driving forces that have influenced it.     

Regional disparity analysis of Chinese freight transport CO2 emissions from 1990 to 2007: Driving forces and policy challenges

Freight transportation and logistics act as the artery of the national economy. With a booming economy, China's freight transport sector has experienced dramatic growth in recent decades and has become a key driving force of China's CO₂ emissions. Therefore, effective and efficient mitigation policies in the freight transport sector are critical for China to promote CO₂ emission mitigation strategies. In contrast to other countries, China's challenge stems not only from technical issues but also from regional socioeconomic disparities, which in turn require the implementation of locally oriented policies. For this reason, an analysis based on regional disparity is of vital importance for future policy making. However, to date, there have been few pertinent studies on the freight transportation sector. To fill this gap, this paper aims to conduct an in-depth comparative study of CO₂ emission characteristics and the driving forces in the freight transport sector in China's three regions (covering 31 provinces) from 1990 to 2007. The log mean Divisia index method (LMDI) is employed to analyse the driving forces, and the Gini coefficient is used to investigate regional inequity. Additionally, regional disparity is explored in-depth based on the analytical results and practical concerns. The results highlight that economic structure is a key driving force for emissions change and reveal significant regional disparity and inequity in freight transport emissions. The results are critical for future policy-making to address regional concerns.     

Regional policy issues for rail freight services

This paper presents some of the results of the shortlines research project for Ademe (French agency for the environment) and Predit (French support program for surface transport research). The paper focuses on France, and makes some comparisons with North America and Germany. It is organized in two parts. The first part analyses the notion of “short line” freight railways in the European context. We observe that to date, unlike short lines in North America, which have mostly sought cooperation with major railways, the new rail operators in Europe are competing with the majors. The second part discusses regional policies on rail freight transport. We observe that for some time, local governments in France have been afraid that the on-going reduction of regional rail freight services will increase truck traffic and environmental impacts. Today, however, these governments appear to be more reluctant to promote rail freight activities than they were a few years ago. The current conditions under which local lines operate in Europe and especially in France, including small capacity on the infrastructure and high cost of labor and low productivity, may explain this reluctance.     

Sustainability in Chinese development tourism policies

Following the ‘Open Door’ policy of 1978 that accepted tourism as an appropriate sector for development in China for the first time since 1949, national and local governments have issued policies to promote tourism. Over the past two decades, the continuing development of tourism has occurred as China has started to move towards sustainability in its national policies. Although sustainability is often stated as the purpose of development, and tourism development strategies are regarded as more environmentally oriented than other industries, little guidance is provided to make sure that sustainability principles are followed. To examine this situation, sustainability components in the two types of tourism policies are examined, including 56 tourism development policies by the state councils and 31 provinces since the 1980s. These indicate a mixed result. While sustainability is an important component in some of these policies, the meaning of sustainability in the tourism sector is confusing and pro-business tourism development still plays a dominant role. It is suggested a pro-active sustainability approach should be integrated with environmental concerns in the future to allow tourism to participate constructively in the national transformation to a sustainable society.     

The UK public transport industry and provision of multi-modal traveller information

In recent years significant developments in transport policy have taken place in the UK. Public transport is considered key to the policy objectives of achieving an integrated and sustainable transport system. Improvements to public transport operations alone will not necessarily persuade people to forego the use of their cars and make use of public transport modes. Intending travellers need to be informed of what is available. Substantial activity, promoted by Government, is now taking place in the UK concerning traveller information systems developments. However, such improvements and developments are taking place in a difficult environment. The UK has gone further than any other European country in transferring its public transport services into private management operating under market forces. This paper provides an outline of the current form of the public transport industry (with a focus on bus and rail services) looking at the complex responsibilities and relationships which this entails. It then addresses the main national initiatives for integrated traveller information provision before setting out the issues facing decision makers and service providers in the light of public needs and consumer understanding.     

City resident attitudes to proposed tourism development and its impacts on the community

Much of the literature on community attitudes to tourism development relates to rural areas in developing countries while urban environments in developed countries and pre‐development scenarios have been neglected. The paper is concerned with resident attitudes to tourism development proposals and their perceived impacts in the Worsley area of the city of Salford, England. The results show that the community is divided on the issue of support for tourism development based on the perceived benefits and costs of tourism and that the anticipated negative environmental consequences are significantly more influential than positive economic or social impacts. The theoretical contribution and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The dark side of making transit irresistible: The example of France

The French experience in developing policies to reduce car use in metropolitan areas is presented in this paper as an illustration of the lack of recognition of the broader set of criteria on which specific policy frameworks should be judged. One of the major challenges, and often failings of policies focussed on reducing car use, is the lack of a structure that ensures that the downside impacts are not relocated to other parts of a system such that potential gains end up being eroded by the potential losses. We draw on experiences throughout France, as well as case studies in Lyon, to highlight the dark side of French transport policy promoting a switch from car to public transit and non-motorised modes, in terms of financial, equity and environmental outcomes.     

Determinants of collective transport mode choice and its impacts on trip satisfaction in urban tourism

The continuous growth of tourism has important environmental impacts and transports account for a large proportion of the CO₂ emissions generated by tourists. Understanding the motivations and characteristics of collective transport users in contemporary cities may contribute to promote more sustainable forms of tourism. Based on an extensive questionnaire to international tourists in Barcelona, this study employs a multinomial logistic regression to explore the links among visitors' characteristics, motivations, and means of transportation, while an ordinal logistic regression is applied to investigate whether the preference for collective transport has an impact on the satisfaction with the trip. The novelty of our approach is testing the hypothesis that the choice of collective transports is more related to trip motivations (professional, leisure, or personal) than to socio-demographic or personal characteristics of tourists. The results show that professional travelers are more oriented to the use of private cars, but they prefer collective transports when the length of stay is higher and combined with other trip motivations. Also, using collective transports is linked to high satisfaction with the visit for the tourists using this form of transportation. This study puts forward policy implications and suggestions for future research directions, in particular regarding the utilization of non-motorized forms of transportation cities.     

Impact of Long‐Term Weather on Domestic and Foreign Winter Tourism Demand

This study estimates the determinants of domestic and foreign tourism demand using data on 28 Austrian ski resorts for the winter seasons 1986–1987 to 2007–1908. Using the dynamic panel data analysis, we find that the effect of the weather variables (e.g. snow depth, cloudiness or sunshine) is quite small, with a change in one standard deviation of the variation over time in each weather variable, leading to a 2–3 % change in overnight stays. Furthermore, domestic tourists are more sensitive to changes in weather conditions than foreign tourists. By contrast, overnight stays of foreign visitors are much more responsive to changes in income than it is the case for domestic overnight stays. The occurrence of extreme snow‐deficient winters, such as the winter of 2006–2007, in the future period will reduce overnight stays of foreign and domestic visitors by 2 and 5 %, respectively. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tourism gateways and regional economies: the distributional impacts of MICE

The meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry is a rapidly expanding sector of tourism world-wide, but particularly in the Asia Pacific region. Of the many challenges underlying development of this sector none is more important than determining the economic benefits from devoting resources to industry growth. The paper argues that although research has been undertaken on the economic impacts of MICE events and MICE destinations, regionally and nationally, the issue of the distribution of these benefits between tourism gateways and more remote regions has been neglected. The paper seeks to help remedy this neglect. It presents a framework for assessing the economic impacts of the MICE industry in a regional economy. It then illustrates how the framework can be used to compare economic impacts of MICE tourism in destination gateways and more remote areas, with the use of Australian data. The paper draws attention to the types of data deficiencies that seem to be endemic to estimating the economic impacts of MICE, and which constitute a barrier to informed public policy making and planning. Finally, the implications are discussed for development of MICE tourism generally. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does tourism cause growth? Evidence from Turkey

This paper examines the impact of detailed tourism expenditure on the long-run economic growth by employing Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach and causality test for data set of 2003:1 to 2012:4 in Turkey. The detailed tourism expenditure data are firstly employed for the causality of tourism expenditure on economic growth. The results of the bounds test show that there is a stable long-run relationship between accommodation expenses, transport expenditure, expenditure of sporting activities, sightseeing tour expenditure, clothing–footwear expenditure, gift expenditure and economic growth. The results of the causality test, on the other hand, show that there is a bidirectional causality between accommodation expenses, expenditure of sporting activities, gift expenditure and economic growth and a causal flow from transport expenditure to economic growth which is verified growth-led tourism hypothesis. Results reveal that sightseeing tour expenditure and expenditure of sporting activities are more successful on explaining the long-run growth in Turkey in terms of ARDL coefficients size. This result implies a policy that Turkey needs to invest tourism to gain more especially by focusing accommodation, sightseeing tours, sporting activities and transport infrastructure.