The Tsunami and Tourism: A Comment

The tsunami of December 26th 2004 had a devasting impact on the coastal regions of the countries around the Indian Ocean, bringing death and destruction on an unimaginable scale. Almost 300,000 people lost their lives, widespread damage was caused to infrastructure, transport and communication networks, ecosystems and livelihoods throughout the affected region and, overall, the economic cost of the disaster is expected to exceed $10 billion. Nevertheless, natural disasters on the scale of the tsunami are not unknown. However, the global response to the disaster was unprecedented both in its scale and immediacy. As this paper observes, this response was primarily driven by the fact that thousands of western tourists were also victims of the tsunami, transforming the event into a truly global disaster. Noting that the tsunami served to highlight the dependency of many of the affected regions on tourism and, hence, the vital importance of attracting tourists back to those regions, it suggests that, although attention will undoubtedly be focused on the management of the crisis, tourism played a positive role in that it united the world in its response to the needs of the communities devastated by the tsunami.     

Social Capital,Tourism and Regional Development: SPCC as a Basis for Innovation and Sustainability

Traditional views of regional development have focused on economic factors and potential innovation in technical and resource exploitation processes. Similarly, regional tourism development is usually couched in economic terms, such as number of jobs and increasing land values. This approach usually ignores the social and community aspects of tourism development; thus an alternative view argues that the community needs to be factored into our planning and development strategies to balance the traditional economic view. It is argued in this paper that fostering innovation in regional development is much more than a process of community consultation. Rather, what needs to be factored in is SPCC – social, political and cultural capital. This works in both directions; tourism development depends on a level of social, political and cultural capital in order to be a successful regional development tool (even in economic terms) while at the same time tourism development can be undertaken in a way that contributes to SPCC in the region. The paper outlines the key concepts of social capital, political capital and cultural capital. It does so within the context of regional tourism development and the concepts of systems of innovation and sustainable development.     

British Wildlife Tourism Operators: Current Issues and Typologies

The UK wildlife outbound tourism sector is a relatively uncharted area of academic study both in terms of demand and supply. The purpose of this paper is first, to move towards a typology of British wildlife tour operators and their favoured destinations, and secondly, to introduce the relationship between satisfying the consumer and sustainable product/destination management. A systematic review of wildlife tourism brochures and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders indicate a gradual shift from a specialised market offering high involvement in a particular species (usually birds) to a more general market looking for an interesting, but pleasant and relaxing holiday based around a general interest in nature and the environment. Both markets coexist in a complex product and tourist spectrum with neither market being entirely inclusive. Instead there is a degree of movement between one and the other which has led to operators offering a wider range of products to suit the hard-core expert and the novice enthusiast. However, product development and satisfying the consumer implies some difficult management dilemmas such as the use of tape recordings, food provisioning and the constant search for new destinations to offer experienced tourists something different.     

Lao Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: Community-Based Tourism and the Private Sector

Tourism as a tool for development was first mooted in the 1970s. Recently, focus has been on the role of ecotourism, pro-poor tourism and community-based tourism (CBT). This has been so in Lao People's Democratic Republic, where international tourism is a vital source of foreign exchange and employment and an important feature of the government's poverty-alleviation strategy. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) finances many infrastructural projects facilitating tourist movement in the Lower Mekong Basin, and with the Lao Government and the Netherlands Development Agency (SNV) is a key player in donor-assisted, community-based tourism (DACBT). The development of DACBT in Lao PDR is discussed in some detail, especially the Nam Ha Ecotourism Project, and is compared briefly with the role of the private sector in tourism development in Southern Lao PDR. It is concluded that while DACBT projects can indeed alleviate poverty and develop financial and cultural capital, private sector tourism enterprises also have an important role in poverty alleviation, and it should not be assumed that DACBT is the only – or necessarily the most efficient – form of pro-poor tourism.     

Contradictions of Rural Tourism Initiatives in Rural Development Contexts: Finnish Rural Tourism Strategy Case Study

In Western countries rural areas have faced major changes and challenges in the past decades. The role of traditional economies has decreased rapidly and the economic transition of rural areas has turned increasingly towards tourism production. By using a Finnish national scale rural tourism strategy and development programme as a case example, this paper argues that, while tourism can provide development for rural areas, the unrealistic expectations and goals may cause problems for rural communities. Unfeasible development goals of rural tourism are seen as the results of insufficient understanding of tourism dynamics and the lack of research-based or otherwise valid knowledge in development plans. In addition the connection between the ideas of rural tourism and sustainability is challenged in high tourism development goals and the related processes.     

Tourism occupations and education: an exploration study

This article contributes to the literature on the relationship between the tourism industry and vocational tourism education. It reports on an exploratory study of the work of a sample of tourism professionals and their education. The study attempts to classify tourism occupations by modifying an established scheme used in general administration. The study sought to find commonality within the diverse occupations and to go on to relate that to tourism education. The study found that the majority of the sample of 153 contained a common set of 24 activities. In educational terms, marketing, recreation and leisure and finance dominated as relevant subjects to study for tourism occupations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

发挥直管优势推进管理创新为实现路局又好又快发展注入强大合力

探索铁路局直管站段新体制下的企业管理模式,发挥运输部门的专业管理优势,强化综合部门的服务管理职能,加强企业管理,强化制度创新,推进管理创新,促进铁路的改革和发展.     

The influence of greening the suppliers and green innovation on environmental performance and competitive advantage in Taiwan

Recently, many companies have recognized the concepts of green supply chain management or supply chain environmental management. However, relatively little research attention has been devoted to the consideration of relations between greening the supply chain, green innovation, environmental performance and competitive advantage. Hence, this paper aims to bridge this gap by providing empirical evidence to encourage companies to implement green supply chain and green innovation in order to improve their environmental performance, and to enhance their competitive advantage in the global market. A model is constructed to link the aforementioned constructs. Data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey across 124 companies from eight industry sectors in Taiwan. The data are analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling and the results from the final measurement model are used to evaluate the structural model that verifies the significance of the proposed relationships. A prominent result of this study is that greening the supplier through green innovation contributes significant benefits to the environmental performance and competitive advantage of the firm.     

Short-term Perturbations and Tourism Effects: The Case of SARS in China

The 2003 SARS epidemic created a significant negative impact on tourism development in China. This paper reviews the effects on tourism of different short-term crises, analyses the effects of SARS and explores the possibility of tourism businesses being buffered from such short-term crisis and the possible new motivations derived from the crisis. Tourism’s lack of resistance but high resilience to short term crises provides tourism and regional planning challenges. These characteristics suggest diversification and partnerships can minimise community vulnerability to crises and rapid economic recovery is possible based on tourism’s resilient nature.     

The Power of Tourism: A Metamorphosis of Community Culture

The commodification of culture for tourism can result in fundamentally changing a community's structure. Focusing on one rural Atlantic Canadian community, this article examines the transformation of longstanding stable forms of human and social capital that have bonded a local community over two centuries, and in so doing helped to ensure sustainability. Transformations induced by tourism development may dramatically transform such cultures. To avoid corrosive transformation of local culture, careful management plans that protect community values must become the focal point of the plan. This paper discusses the commodification of the culture process as it has unfolded and transformed local culture in a case study rural community. Results of the study show that while local culture may be a community's most valuable asset, the commodification of local culture for tourism may, in reality, impede a community's efforts to achieve sustainability. Cultural-based tourism development invokes transformation, whereas the traditional community culture dies away while attempting to simultaneously create a new culture based on the icons of the traditional one. This may be described, metaphorically, as a death–rebirth-like process. This research suggests that conventional notions of cultural tourism as a means of community sustainability without regard for traditional practices and values may not be appropriate.     

Cluster and firm-specific antecedents of organizational innovation

Based on the idea of the tourist destination as a cluster, this paper proposes a model to explain the relationships between exploration and exploitation capabilities – whether originating in the cluster or firm-specific – and a firm’s organizational innovation. This study turns to the resource-based view to provide a theory-based concept of shared capabilities accumulated in a tourist destination or cluster, together with valid measurement instruments to capture them. Our conceptual model highlights the theoretical and practical benefits for firms of being embedded in a cluster to develop both exploration and exploitation capabilities. The study also analyses the interaction between cluster-shared capabilities and firm-specific capabilities in exploration and exploitation to obtain two types of firm organizational innovation: radical and incremental. Some implications for managers and policy-makers are presented, highlighting the importance of tight integration in managing firm and cluster resources and capabilities.     

Conflict,Power and Tourism on Lombok

This paper analyses how different power relationships between tourism developers and operators and the local Sasak community affected tourism development on the island of Lombok, Indonesia. This study is set against the background of local and national tensions, and how these also have impacted on tourism. Two case studies are presented. The first example describes how tourism developers, operating under a system of privilege in the Soeharto era, attempted to force land acquisition at Rowok, in the south of Lombok. The subsequent protracted legal case has delayed any tourism development in this area. The second example describes a model of co-operative power relationships between the management of the Holiday Inn Resort and the local Sasak community at Mangsit, north of the main Senggigi Beach resort area. Local people are employed in a range of permanent positions, and there is clear evidence of a harmonious relationship between the hotel and the community. During three days of rioting in January 2000, the local community was unwavering in its support of this hotel. It is suggested that the way in which tourism developers and operators link with the local community is an essential indicator for tourism within the context of sustainable development.     

Services and functions provided by European city tourist offices: a longitudinal study

Tourism has become a major source of employment, revenue, international awareness and opportunity in European cities. As competition among European cities grows, the efficiency of management in city tourism organisations (CTOs) becomes increasingly important. This article reports on a longitudinal study of 50 European CTOs over the 4‐year period from 1995 to 1999. The aim of the study is to examine the changes in functions provided by European CTOs during the given period of time. Findings reveal that five identifiable function categories can characterise the changes that happened during the given period of time: hotel booking service, commerce, conventional information dissemination, advanced information product and relationship management. It is argued that information technology and role change are the main driving forces of these changes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Re-enactment Events and Tourism: Meaning,Authenticity and Identity

Re-enactment events have began to play a significant role in the calendars of individual attractions, regions or even nations to generate media exposure, develop inbound tourism activity and raise the cultural heritage profile of a locality for community development and/or regeneration purposes. The (re-)presentation of cultural heritage in these forms creates a unique set of interactions between landscapes, local communities, tourists and heritage organisations. In the recent past however, re-enactment events have been subjected to increased debate and criticism as to their educational value and meaning and for their contribution to understandings of cultural heritage in post-modern consumer societies. This paper presents an interdisciplinary review of these debates and draws on small scale research findings to reassess the value of re-enactment events as a means of presenting heritage to audiences. The paper argues that re-enacted historical events achieve a range of purposes and provides examples of evidence from a range of differing perspectives including: public policy and event organisers; re-enactors and academics in the field. It argues that the professional heritage industry, tourists, and re-enactors all contribute to making such events meaningful and as such they represent unique frames through which to understand issues of authenticity and identity in the production and consumption of post-modern cultural heritage attractions.     

Recreation and Tourism in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: Key Influences on the Policymaking Process

This paper reports on a study completed in 2000 into the policymaking process for recreation and tourism in AONBs across England and Wales, with particular focus on the key influencing role of communication within this process. A number of practical measures, which might aid AONB communication and collaboration for policy development and implementation in the future, are derived from the research. In addition, the findings of the study lend weight to calls (current at the time of the research) for enhanced powers and funding for AONBs, particularly in respect of recreation and tourism provision.     

Tourism and Post-Disciplinary Enquiry

In recent times there has been discussion about whether studies of tourism are variously a disciplinary, multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary pursuit and how these relate to the institutional landscapes and practices of higher education. For some academics, these discourses are somewhat arid, but we would contend they are vital as they serve to set the epistemological terms of references for tourism scholars and play a not insignificant role in orchestrating knowledge production about tourism. This paper revisits some of these concerns relating to disciplinarity, and it suggests that disciplines as we understand them today are an artefact of previous academic divisions of labour which still dominate current institutional regulatory regimes. The purpose of the paper is to suggest that tourism studies would benefit greatly from a post-disciplinary outlook, i.e. a direction ‘beyond disciplines’ which is more problem-focused, based on more flexible modes of knowledge production, plurality, synthesis and synergy. Three possible approaches to the post-disciplinary study of tourism are identified by drawing on lessons from studies of political economy. While post-disciplinary studies of tourism have considerable potential to further our understanding of several major contemporary research themes, their introduction may be frustrated by the tourism academy and frameworks of academic governance.     

The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on French Tourism

This paper deals with the potential effects of climate change on tourism in France. It examines the implications of a scenario by Météo-France (doubling the concentration of CO2) with regards to the climatic requirements of tourists, according to the different seasons, regions and natural resources on which tourism is based.