Is UNESCO recognition effective in fostering tourism? A comment on Yang,Lin and Han

The purpose of this response to the original work by Yang, Lin and Han (Tourism Management, 2009), is to continue discussion of the impacts created by the formal accreditation of sites through the process of UNESCO recognition. In the particular case described by Yang, Lin and Han, alternative interpretations of the results may be offered. Additional evidence is also provided from instances in Italy and overall it appears that econometric analysis questions the degree to which UNESCO accreditation generates the economic returns from tourism that may have prompted the original applications.     

Food and tourism: an effective partnership? A UK-based review

This paper focuses on the role of food tourism in delivering sustainability agendas by examining how the agriculture and tourism sectors have struggled to realise measurable successes because of constraints, conflicting ambitions and low levels of social capital. It focuses on the United Kingdom, which has tasked regional development agencies to adopt food tourism as a means to grow local economies, create jobs and improve natural resources and diversify. In 2009/10, 16 interviews and six workshops were conducted with stakeholders to gauge industry challenges and needs in implementing food tourism. Based on qualitative findings, a model was developed which maps five emergent themes (knowledge exchange, the supply chain, fear of change, regionalisation and marketing) alongside five sustainability principles (strong and just society, good governance, sustainable economy, working within environmental limits and using sound science responsibly). The paper argues that if food tourism is to deliver its purported sustainable benefits, the policy environment must cultivate significant social capital through the cooperation of different industries with varying needs, motivations and challenges through joint marketing schemes, more localised distribution channels and enhanced policy engagement. Scotland and Wales are more successful than England, but overall food and tourism are not yet in effective partnership.     

Robot chefs in gastronomy tourism: What's on the menu?

The use of robots in hospitality and tourism is rapidly evolving. Restaurants progressively include robots as part of their staff, not only as waiters but also as chefs. The robotization of tourism and gastronomic experiences is a vital challenge that both service providers and customers need to cope with. Within this context, the paper investigates the perceptions of tourists towards the use of robots in restaurants. Drawing from a qualitative research design and built on a grounded theory approach, the results reveal the opportunities derived from the implementation of robots in hospitality and tourism. On the other hand, tourists also perceive the growing presence of robots in food services as a form of dehumanization of the gastronomic experience. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed with regard to a new experiencescape that is increasingly dominated by human-robot interactions.     

Trends in tourism and development : A ‘Third World’ perspective

The rapid development of mass tourism to the ‘Third World’ by tour operators and tourism developers in the developed world has taken advantage of the willingness of ‘Third World’ governments to participate in projects which promise vital foreign exchange. The anticipated social and economic benefits from tourism have not been forthcoming and most of the profits involved have been retained within the economies of the developed world. Various organizations are now at work to counteract the negative impacts of the developing ‘Third World’ tourism industries, and to educate the tourist to appreciate the realities of ‘Third World’ destinations.     

Evaluating user-generated content in social media: an effective approach to encourage greater pro-environmental behavior in tourism?

Appealing to tourists’ intrinsic interest for high-quality tourism environments, and thus encouraging them to act with a greater sense of personal responsibility toward the environment, could be critical to promoting sustainable tourism. Proliferating media channels makes the choice, style and delivery of pro-environmental messages a key issue for tourism marketers and management. Social media has become a recognized important channel for tourism information, with user-generated content (UGC) being more trusted than official channels, yet there is little knowledge about its potential role in activating pro-environmental norms. This study investigates that issue. Focusing on the conjoining aspects of personal and social norms for the first time, we propose a hypothetical model to explain the direct and indirect effects of pro-environmental UGC in activating tourists’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions. Working in a Chinese context, where social media plays an increasing role, the research, using a web-based sample (N = 1043), UGC-linked pro-environmental knowledge and awareness, was found to have a strong role in activating pro-environmental norms, creating a pro-environment online community, and increasing tourists’ level of engagement in pro-environmental social media activity. The study highlights the effectiveness of social media channels with UGC providing persuasive communications able to impact sustainable behaviors.     

Holiday recovery experiences,tourism satisfaction and life satisfaction – Is there a relationship?

This research examines the relationships between holiday recovery experiences and life satisfaction through mediating variables of tourism satisfaction. Derived from a sample of 777 American respondents, it was found that individuals who were able to control what they want to do, feel relaxed and detached from work, and have new and challenging experiences during a holiday vacation were more likely to be satisfied with their holiday experiences and their life in general. The paper concludes with recommendations for the success of tourism businesses as well as the enhancement of tourists' senses of well-being.     

Agroecological tourism: bridging conservation,food security and tourism goals to enhance smallholders’ livelihoods on South Pentecost,Vanuatu

Smallholder farmers continue to make up the largest proportion of the world's disadvantaged. Rural smallholders in the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to climate change, underinvestment and growing competition for land and resources. Strengthening synergies between agriculture and tourism through avenues such as agritourism has been widely discussed; however, very little research has approached these concepts from a sustainability perspective. This case study of rural Ni-Vanuatu smallholders uses the Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework (ASRLF) to explore tourism's potential contribution to improved conservation and food security outcomes. Data collection combined participatory methods such as “storian sessions” with analysis of secondary data.

The findings highlight minimal current opportunities for rural Ni-Vanuatu smallholders to gain significantly from the tourism sector in Vanuatu. The shift from traditional gardening systems to cash cropping monocultures is also conflicting with tourism and conservation goals. This paper puts forward agroecological tourism as a strategy for integrating positive conservation, food security and livelihood outcomes for rural smallholders. It defines agroecological tourism as having a primary focus on the interpretation of sustainable traditional agroecosystems which exhibit cultural and heritage significance. Agroecological tourism has potential to support traditional practices, enhance the preservation of cultural knowledge and promote sustainable farming practices.     

Changing tourism patterns,capital accumulation,and urban water consumption in Mallorca,Spain: a sustainability fix?

This paper presents interdisciplinary research based on in-depth, comparative analysis of water consumption and land use patterns over a range of urban-tourist forms in Mallorca. The changing tourism patterns towards residential and quality tourism are studied, on the basis that capital investment for capital accumulation and increasing gains are its main drivers. Social awareness about overcrowding and resource limitations has moved the regulatory planning framework toward allowing further urban sprawl, based on the alibi of quality tourism. The rhetoric of this framework represents a first sustainability fix, a fix that hides the higher water demand and climate change issues. The socio-metabolic dimension of this process is analyzed in relation to how it has resulted in an uneven socio-spatial urban landscape of water consumption. This urban-tourist landscape is vulnerable to changes in climate, because it is sustained by an excessive use of water. Water supply is a serious constraint which has been resolved through its commodification and supply privatization, which are considered as a second sustainability fix. This tourism development process worsens rather than solves the metabolic rift, resulting in the second contradiction of capital accumulation between the imperative of continual growth and finite natural resources.     

Are tourism livelihoods sustainable? Tourism development and economic transformation on Komodo Island,Indonesia

Tourism development has often been regarded as an effective strategy for poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods. However, tourism often triggers transformations of traditional livelihoods and complete dependence on tourism-based income. Presenting the case of Komodo village on Komodo Island, Indonesia, this study provides an empirical evidence for such transformation. Based on qualitative methods, this article discusses the ways in which tourism development has led the local fishing community to give up their fishing to become fully dependent on selling souvenirs. Although currently, the souvenir business offers adequate return for local people, potential threats to this new livelihood, like a limited market, fierce competition, a short tourist season, and high dependence on cruise ship visits, are looming large. If tourism declines, local people will be left with no options to sustain their livelihood.     

COVID-19 and Africa's aviation and tourism sectors: A new agenda for the future?

Although the impact of COVID-19 is inordinately enormous, there remains a lack of attention to the new governance architecture, the African Union High-Level Task Force (AU-HLTF), in Africa's aviation and tourism sectors in its wake, which this paper primarily examines. We foregrounded governance themes of political economy within the African Union High-Level Task Force (AU-HLTF) through secondary data, observing 90 key industry leaders and 10 purposively sampled semi-structured interviews. We found the insignificant priority in tourism restart via LCCs first, the incongruent holistic relationship between the restart of the aviation and tourism sectors. Secondly, the historical-geographical material relationships within the new governance framework. Thirdly, the AU-HLTF intervention is actor-biased towards the aviation sector and rooted in path dependency. A hierarchical-mixed market governing typology we propose by arguing is a steering mechanism of public sector reform that alternatively reboots a balanced path towards sustainability by prioritizing intra-tourism promoted by low-cost carriers.     

Are all tourism markets equal? Linkages between market-based tourism demand,quality of life,and economic development in Hong Kong

Tourism markets are heterogeneous, and their performance and effects can be better understood when considered separately. This paper investigates the linkages between tourism demand from several markets and quality of life, using Hong Kong as a case of study. The literature has, initially only considered a unilateral relationship running from aggregate tourism development to residents' quality of life, and a bilateral connection has only recently been recognized. The study contributes to the literature by considering a market-segmented (mainland China, Japan, the U.S., and other markets) approach to tourism demand, using a relatively underemphasized objectively-based method, and by providing building blocks for theoretical propositions. The methodology consists of unit root and cointegration testing, together with the application of the Three-Stage Least Squares method with the Seemingly Unrelated Regression approach on time-series data. The identified market-based differences can help academia and industry in better understanding the diverse markets and building a competitive edge.     

Progress in Tourism Management: Is urban tourism a paradoxical research domain? Progress since 2011 and prospects for the future

This paper reviews progress in the field of urban tourism, revisiting and challenging the validity of the paradoxes presented in the paper by Ashworth and Page (2011). To do this, the paper examines the expansion of research endeavours in urban tourism in relation to these paradoxes, including the outputs in dedicated journals on city tourism along with the wider range of outputs generated since 2011 in social science. It also revisits the initial proposition set out regarding an imbalance in attention in urban tourism research (Ashworth 1989, 2003) and how this has been addressed through a broader development of thinking at the intersection of urbanism and tourism. It is a selective review of progress in the field, highlighting the challenges of deriving theory from western modes of analysis that need re-thinking in relation to the global south, notably Africa as well as developments in Asia and the Middle East.     

A critique of “Response Bias” in the tourism,travel and hospitality research

Measurement accuracy of respondents' opinions, perceptions, attitudes and behaviors is vital for better managerial suggestions, theoretical conclusions and advancement of science. There is a growing concern, voiced frequently in other disciplines that a high rate of response bias exists and this casts serious doubts on generalizability of conclusions. Based on limited research on the topic, this paper examines the extent to which response bias is acknowledged as a limitation in tourism, travel and hospitality research. Additional analyses were carried out to explore i) researchers' attentiveness to cautions when citing a biased study and ii) editorial policies of journals against bias. The results revealed that i) acknowledgement of response bias was low, ii) that researchers’ negligence to reported response bias limitations was high, and iii) that editorial policies of the examined journals were far from encouraging authors to discuss and include response bias related limitations. Implications were discussed.     

International conference on competitive success and challenges in tourism Taipei,Taiwan, June 25–26, 2004

The International Conference on Competitive Success and Challenges in Tourism was held in Taipei, capital city of Taiwan on June 25–26, 2004. Organized by the Department of Tourism at the Shih Hsin University (SHU) and sponsored by Ministry of Education, the Conference attracted about 100 attendants from education institutes, industrial organizations, and official bodies. Like similar events, Conference participants were able exchange and share their knowledge and research findings. In addition to the hospitality offered by the Conference organizer, participants were impressed by the digital offset color printing of the Conference proceedings.     

Publish and perish? Bibliometric analysis,journal ranking and the assessment of research quality in tourism

Bibliometric analysis is important in tourism as a result of external evaluation of research quality, interest in impact and prestige factors, and study of the field’s development. Although bibliometric analysis can be applied to any type of publication the main focus is on journals. Five approaches to the evaluation of journal quality are identified: stated preference, citation-based, derived, hybrid, and expert panels. Different productivity, impact and hybrid metrics are used to identify rankings of tourism journals from Scopus/SCImago data, compared with a derived RAE ranking, and three expert panel rankings. The different rankings reinforces that bibliometric understanding of scientific impact is a multi-dimensional construct. However, bibliometric analysis does not occur in an institutional and policy vacuum. The institutional context of government and private organization evaluations of research quality increasingly determine which metrics are applied, with subsequent effects on performance evaluation, career development and future direction of tourism studies.     

Recovery,risk and resilience: Post-disaster tourism experiences in Kaikōura,New Zealand

Tourists are essential to a destination's social and economic recovery following disaster, reducing future risk and enhancing resilience. Drawing on the results of visitor surveys in Kaikōura, New Zealand, we analyse visitors' experiences and their consideration of natural hazard risk and response abilities in relation to a damaging earthquake in the region in 2016. Despite widespread national media and significant disruption, findings suggest the disaster had very little impact on visitors' perceptions and experiences and did not translate into greater preparedness. Instead, tourists reported only limited knowledge about what to do or where to go in the event of a natural hazard event. Results suggest tourists' resilience – and Kaikōura's resilience as a whole – would be enhanced by improving knowledge sharing and awareness building. Furthermore, by considering tourists as part of a linked social-ecological system, targeted interventions to improve understanding of natural hazards can support long-term recovery trajectories and minimize future losses.