Universal tenets or diametrical differences? An analysis of ecotourism definitions from China and abroad

In recent years, there has been increasing attention afforded ecotourism development in China. However, a national ecotourism framework has yet to emerge. This has forced planners, managers, policy‐makers and researchers to look abroad for guidance. And, this raises sensitivity concerns related to Chinese cultural values, perspectives, and expectations regarding nature‐based tourism experiences. This study analyzes contemporary Chinese ecotourism definitions with the objective to identify a set of common definitional themes. These themes are them compared to a set of ecotourism tenets established through antecedent analysis of definitions from abroad. A discussion of universal tenets, cultural values, diametrical differences, and the achievement of sustainable ecotourism ensues. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing High-Speed Rail’s impacts on land cover change in large urban areas based on spatial mixed logit methods: a case study of Madrid Atocha railway station from 1990 to 2006

This paper proposes an accessibility-based spatial mixed logit (SML) model with panel data structure to examine the impacts of High-Speed Rail (HSR) on land cover change in large urban areas. Using data between 1990 and 2006, impacts of the Spanish HSR on Madrid’s Atocha railway station influence area – a 20 km radius buffer centred on the station – were investigated. To model the HSR impacts, besides socioeconomic variables, the development of both local and regional transportation networks with corresponding accessibility improvement is also taken into account to segregate the impacts of land-cover change brought by different sources of accessibility measures. In this study, two SML models are used: one incorporates regional accessibility indicators as a base model, and the other does not, acting as a control model. The model estimation results reveal that the reduction of the local and regional weighted travel average time has positive impacts on the Atocha station catchment area’s urbanised land-cover rates. Although the base and control models both achieve high goodness-of-fit values, the base model that considers regional accessibility reveals a better goodness-of-fit statistic and is more robust than the control model. It is concluded that the improvement of regional accessibility due to the arrival of HSR at Atocha station plays an essential role in the urbanisation of land cover changes in the study area.     

The Moral Authority of Ecotourism: A Critique

The paper argues that in debates on the role of tourism in bringing about development in the developing world, ecotourism has acquired a certain moral authority. It is often compared favourably to other categories of tourism, most notably mass tourism, based on its ability to combine conservation and development, categories that are often considered to exist in an antagonistic relationship. The paper seeks to challenge this moral authority. Others have attempted to do this, typically arguing that ecotourism can lead to mass tourism and consequently the same destructive tendencies, or that it is simply conscience salving for the western middle class. However the argument put forward here is a different one – that ecotourism as a tool for integrated conservation and development, widely advocated within conservation non-governmental organisations (NGOs), ties communities’ development prospects to a pre-existing relationship with their immediate natural environment. Basing development upon this relationship may offer some benefits to local communities, but at the same time the championing of such eco-development precludes a discussion of thoroughgoing economic development, development that would transform this relationship. The paper concludes that the championing of ecotourism reflects low horizons for development and that its moral credentials are highly questionable.     

The decision-making process of and the decisive factors in accommodation choice

This study examines tourists’ decision-making process of and highlights the decisive factors in accommodation choice, employing the discrete choice (multinomial logit and nested logit) models and using the international tourist data of Taiwan. The results of this study may be indicative of the hierarchical nature of tourists’ decision-making process of accommodation choice. In addition, we find that price is a significant factor in accommodation choice, whereas income has only limited explanatory power. The results also indicate that tourists with a longer length of stay tend to choose hotels of lower quality, and, in contrast, elder people prefer better accommodations.