The effects of the LCC boom on the urban tourism fabric: The viewpoint of tourism managers

This paper analyzes the vision that the urban tourism fabric in the hinterland of five Spanish regional airports has of the low cost carrier (LCC) phenomenon and the impact that LCCs have on the various niche tourism markets. Data are used from a survey of almost 500 tourist establishment managers. One of the conclusions that should be highlighted is that most of the tourism sector considers LCCs to be perfect substitutes for network carriers and even improvements on these in many cases. The exceptions are travel agencies, especially with regard to the role LCCs play in promoting conference tourism. The factors that determine how the role of LCCs is rated are also examined using generalized ordered logit estimations.     

Planning considerations for cultural tourism: a case study of four European cities

Utilising the information gathered in four European cities, this paper discusses and tests a framework of reference for visitor-friendliness, a complex concept that encapsulates the main dimensions of the urban tourism product such as its quality, accessibility and image projection. This concept is particularly relevant to assess whether investments in culture and hospitality genuinely respond to the impulses coming from the market. The case studies highlight how specific soft elements of the urban tourism product are the ones that matter most in determining the attractiveness of a city for international visitors, and yet they are often overlooked by city planners. The paper also identifies a number of “best practice” in tourism management.     

The governance of coastal tourism: unravelling the layers of complexity at Smiths Beach,Western Australia

Fuelled by rapid population growth, coastal regions are increasingly vulnerable to the dynamic mix of coastal uses. In Western Australia, for instance, the issues associated with infrastructure shortcomings and increased population pressures have led to a spate of interest in the development of tourism and residential proposals along the coast. Many of these have emerged as hotly debated sociopolitical contests, thus raising questions in relation to the governance of coastal tourism. It is the intent of this paper to provide empirical insights into the practical nature of coastal tourism governance, using the Smiths Beach coastal tourism and residential development as a case study. An exploratory case approach is adopted so as to understand why this particular coastal tourism development has been surrounded by so much criticism and controversy. The exploration of the attitudes, experiences and views of various stakeholders have illustrated the inherent flavour of this case, with the issues of power-politics, divergent interests and agendas and lack of community consultation identified as some of the key aspects shaping the debate. The case therefore provides an ideal avenue to reveal the complex nature and key issue drivers associated with the governance of coastal tourism.     

The Delphi technique in the measurement of tourism market potential: The case of Nova Scotia

In order to plan for the development of tourism in Nova Scotia it has been necessary to gather information and opinions on the industry on a more detailed scale than has hitherto been done. Here the Delphi technique is used to gather data on tourism research, on future impacts of tourism and to strengthen a regional data base, all of which are intended to act as an effective policy-making tool in solving management and planning problems in the tourism and hospitality industry. The impact of new technology (in particular the CHECK-INN system) and training needs are discussed in detail.     

The evolution of coastal tourism destinations: a path plasticity perspective on tourism urbanisation

Evolutionary and relational approaches to economic development are gaining ground in geography as a discipline, although in the subfield of tourism geography, their potential is only just becoming recognised. This article focuses on the evolution of mature tourism destinations, taking the path dependency concept forward from the notion of path creation into the new domain of path plasticity. Drawing on the notion of cultural political economy, we examine how tourism destinations can break with path dependency routines incrementally and move steadily towards different future paths, which may recast tourism in a different light in the overall “urban” context of the destination. Using a case study of a Mediterranean coastal destination on Catalonia's Costa Daurada, we explore the inter-tangled tourism and urban development processes in relation to the socio-spatial dimensions of urban change. The article argues for a wider range of social and cultural criteria in the analysis of tourism evolution – advocating the use of path plasticity and a cultural political economy approach – to offer an alternative perspective on shifting tourism situations, reflecting the inherently “urbanising” nature of tourism development in the traditional coastal resort context. It adds to the growing literature on governance and strategy-making in sustainable tourism.     

Off-season tourists and the cultural offer of a mass-tourism destination: The case of Rimini

This paper assesses the potential implications on off-season tourism of enhancing the cultural offer of Rimini, a popular Italian seaside holiday destination hosting about 12 million overnight stays per year. Since more than 9 million of these stays are concentrated in the summer season, in the last 20 years. Rimini has been undergoing a policy of seasonality smoothing, which mainly pivots around business and cultural tourism. This assessment has been carried out through discrete choice experiments submitted to a sample of about 800 tourists who visited Rimini outside the summer months. Since tourism can be viewed as a composite good, which overall utility depends on how the component characteristics are arranged, the choice experiments allow to disentangle the importance and the willingness to pay of tourists for different attributes of the holiday. The choice model incorporates a number of possible changes to actual tourism features (which are also the subject of public debate), including them in hypothetical alternative “holiday packages”. The conditional logit analysis of the choice experiments can highlight any synergy or trade-off between cultural and business tourism. Results suggest that business and leisure tourists share many features related to the use of the territory, while there are important trade-offs between these two groups and cultural tourists. Since business tourists have a higher willingness to extend their stay, a softer budget, and their demand is also complementary to the demand of summer tourists (Brau, Scorcu, & Vici, 2009), from the destination point of view investing in this market segment would be the best option. Although a “second best”, however, cultural tourists share with the local population of Rimini many aspects of the demand of territory (Figini, Castellani, & Vici, 2009). Hence, cultural tourism can play a fundamental role in the intermediate season as a tool for smoothing seasonality, to diversify investments and to give value to the city’s cultural heritage.     

Importance-performance analysis (IPA) of sustainable tourism initiatives: The resident perspective

While importance-performance analysis (IPA) is one of the most ubiquitous methodological tools utilized in tourism research, its supply-side application to residents has been lacking. Additionally, little research has examined residents' perceptions of sustainable tourism initiatives (STIs) or their community's performance on these STIs. Given this gap, this study conducted an IPA of resident attitudes towards STIs across three U.S. counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia with varying levels of emphasis placed on sustainable tourism within their strategic plans. The results revealed residents of the three counties placed uniformly high levels of importance on the STIs, but varied in their perceptions of performance. The county with the most emphasis placed on sustainable tourism within their plan was found to have the highest performance evaluations. Methodological and theoretical considerations are discussed in detail, including the placement of cross-hairs and how IPA can be situated within social exchange theory and Oliver's expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm.     

Tourism in protected areas: The case of Poland

The interrelationship between tourism and the protection of the environment plays a large part in Polish tourism and policy-making and is reflected in the extensive legislation aimed at the protection of natural resource attractions. In June 1983 a ‘Spatial System of Protected Areas’ was adopted by the General Committee for Tourism. This identified with three concomitant tourism strategies, three different regions for environmental protection: national parks and nature reserves, landscape parks and protected landscape areas.     

The inter-relationship between rural and mass tourism: The case of Catalonia,Spain

In certain regions of Southern Europe, mature coastal resorts are currently coexisting with rural tourism areas several kilometers inland. This paper analyzes the inter-relationship of these two types of tourism and the conditions for sustaining both in Mediterranean destinations. To do so, common and uncommon characteristics of the tourist product in rural and mass tourism are identified. The case study focuses on the region of Catalonia, Spain. By applying a hedonic price model, the valuation of some traditional mass tourism characteristics in rural tourism is tested. The results show that rural and mass tourism in the region share several attributes, some of them with opposite effects. The general conclusion is that both types of tourism are compatible, but should be developed and promoted independently to preserve the attractiveness of the destination. Some managerial recommendations for rural tourism in Catalonia are also derived from this analysis.     

Towards new tourism policies: The importance of environmental and sociocultural factors

Unrestricted tourism growth could lead to the positive economic effects of tourism being outweighed by significant social and environmental disadvantages, which could in turn translate the economic benefits into disadvantages. This process derives not only from tourism effects per se, but also from changes in the social structure. This article calls for not merely economic and technical adjustments in policies, but for a fundamental political transformation in the conception of tourism and recreation.     

The implications of hotel employee attitudes for the development of quality tourism: the case of Cyprus

In an increasingly competitive market, the issue of quality has grown in significance for tourism businesses and destinations alike. This has been influenced by a number of factors, such as the expansion of consumer rights and the alleged emergence ‘new’, quality conscious tourists. In particular, it is the need to retain or increase competitive advantage that has underpinned the drive for quality in tourism—certainly, many destinations, especially those operating in the highly competitive summer-sun market, are now adopting quality tourism development strategies. However, little or no attention has been paid to the role of tourism industry employees, particularly those in hotels, in the success of quality management programmes. The purpose of this paper is to address this omission. Based upon a survey of hotel employees in Cyprus, it identifies a number of factors that may support or limit the drive towards quality service provision, with a variety of implications for the destination as a whole as well as individual hotels. In particular, hotel management should implement strategies based on reward systems, empowerment and reducing staff turnover, whilst there is an important co-ordination and guidance role to be played by the national tourism organisation.     

The sustainable integration of cultural heritage and tourism: a meta-study

This paper presents a cross-disciplinary thematic investigation into the relationship between cultural heritage and tourism. It systematizes evidence on concepts, policies and strategies and provides an interpretive synthesis illuminating the factors deemed critical by researchers for the sustainable integration of heritage and tourism. It seeks to find consilience to lead to a “new age of synthesis”. After an extensive literature review, 483 studies were selected and reviewed, assisted by a qualitative data analysis software (NVivo). The research followed the meta-synthesis approach, particularly meta-ethnography, of identifying findings, grouping findings into categories and grouping categories into synthesized findings, to produce a representative set of 15 synthesis factors. These include local involvement, education and training, authenticity and interpretation, sustainability-centered tourism management, integrated planning, incorporation into a wider sustainable development framework, controlled growth, governance and stakeholder participation, market and product diversification, suitable funding provision, international governance and support systems, a heritage capital approach, effective site management, destination management and a sound theoretical/methodological base. These 15 factors are suggested as the fundamental components of a more efficient theoretical frame and evidence-based policy in the fields of cultural heritage and tourism, aimed at achieving sustainability.     

Strategic planning for sustainable tourism: The case of the offshore islands of the UK

In the northern hemisphere a number of destinations have experienced a decline in tourism volume due to both the emergence of competitive destinations elsewhere and also their own failure to comprehend changing market trends. This paper analyses the particular vulnerability of small island destinations in the decline stage of the tourist area life cycle. In particular the benefits and procedures of strategic planning are analysed and the barriers to the adoption of strategic planning at tourism destinations discussed. The offshore islands of the UK are used to evaluate how the stages of strategic planning have developed and been adopted by the public sector and a framework is provided to allow the various approaches to be located.     

The Learning Tourism Destination: The potential of a learning organisation approach for improving the sustainability of tourism destinations

Globalisation, increasing complexity, and the need to address triple-bottom line sustainability have seen the proliferation of Learning Organisations (LO) who, by definition, have the capacity to anticipate environmental changes and economic opportunities and adapt accordingly. Such organisations use system dynamics modelling (SDM) for both strategic planning and the promotion of organisational learning. Although SDM has been applied in the context of tourism destination management for predictive reasons, the current literature does not analyse or recognise how this could be used as a foundation for an LO. This study introduces the concept of the Learning Tourism Destinations (LTD) and discusses, on the basis of a review of six case studies, the potential of SDM as a tool for the implementation and enhancement of collective learning processes. The results reveal that SDM is capable of promoting communication between stakeholders and stimulating organisational learning. It is suggested that the LTD approach be further utilised and explored.     

Consulting communities: using audience response system (ARS) technology to assess community preferences for sustainable recreation and tourism development

Audience response system (ARS) technology (also known as “clickers”) has emerged as an educational tool that promotes active learning. This paper describes how ARS works and how it can also be used in research to assess community preferences for tourism development. A case study that used ARS technology shows how stakeholder preferences for extraction, heritage tourism and recreation within two rural mountain economies in the US west were effectively assessed. The use of ARS was backed by situation assessment procedures to determine appropriate stimulus questions probing trade-offs, perceived costs/benefits and cultural fit. A detailed series of key results measured community preferences and were made available to guide policymaking and future empirical survey work. Public meeting arrangements, publicity, structure and moderation for the ARS work is described and discussed. Evaluation of the use of ARS technology showed high levels of participant satisfaction with both the technology and the situation assessment procedures, and the emergence of potential tourism development actions.     

Tourism planning in a presently developing country: The case of Malaysia

Increasingly sophisticated economic studies of tourism have been undertaken in developed countries, (DCs); in presently developing countries, (PDCs), however, the paucity of reliable data often precludes such studies. However, in some PDCs there is already a relatively strong economic and industrial base, and tourism is not viewed as the motor of development, but rather as a sector of economic diversification within the development process. The planning and management of tourism in Malaysia provides an apposite case-study of what contribution tourism can make to the economies of PDCs, and how tourism may be stimulated in such cases.     

The segmentation of canary island tourism markets by expenditure: implications for tourism policy

The Canary Islands have an indisputable comparative and competitive edge within the European Union as regards their tourism products. The present study takes a segmented market approach to study the Canary Islands tourism market, featuring a range of tourism products, each of which satisfies to a greater or lesser extent the needs of one segment of demand. It has two objectives: firstly, to ascertain which segments of demand are currently acquired at destination and secondly, to identify within these segments the niches associated with the highest expenditure. This will enable us to draw up guideliness for a regional policy on product innovation that focuses on these niches and thus generates higher levels of local development.     

The perceived impact of tourism by residents a case study in Santa Marta,Colombia

Studies of the local population's perception of tourism impact are useful in setting up programs to minimize friction between tourists and residents, and in formulating plans to gain resident support of tourist ventures. This study identifies the positive and negative aspects of tourism as perceived by the Santa Marta residents, and the influence of selected variables on resident response. It is hypothesized that the perception of tourist impact varies with the distance a person lives from the tourist zone and with the resident's socio-economic status. It is found that despite the perception of some serious negative aspects, Santa Marta residents consider the overall impact of tourism to be beneficial. They want their government to offer more economic incentives and eliminate any restrictive measures in order to stimulate tourism in the area. The positive attitudes of the Santa Marta residents toward tourism may be a function of the incipient stage of tourism development in this area.     

Host community acceptance of foreign tourists: Strategic considerations

The reported empirical study assessed anticipated reactions to foreign visitors in an area being considered for a tourism development program. Although a generally high level of acceptance was predicted by the residents, over 11% of the 846 respondents anticipated negative reactions within their residential community. Analysis of the possible relationships between twelve demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents and their expectations concerning host community acceptance of tourists from foreign countries disclosed only one statistically significant relationship. Survey participants who reported living in urban areas assessed the community's probable reaction to foreign travellers most positively, while a movement away from urban centers was associated with more negative expectations.     

The grand tour: Sources and a methodology for an historical study of tourism

Research into the history of tourism is at an early stage of development. This article examines the range of source material which relates to the Grand Tour and considers the problems involved in its interpretation. It then outlines a methodology designed to investigate this area of tourism research.