Book Reviews

Water is a human right and it is essential to sustain life and livelihoods, as well as the health and happiness of tourists. This paper examines a destination with ample rain, but rapid and unchecked tourism development: Bali, Indonesia. The mismanagement of water resources means underground supplies are polluted and local people suffer from water scarcity. A multi-method approach with the various stakeholders was used to develop a stakeholder map that identifies duty bearers and rights holders. The government is the primary legal duty bearer to provide communities with water, but companies also have unique responsibilities. This paper examines why tourism businesses need to conduct human rights impact assessments. Taking due diligence for human rights can be seen as a business opportunity, leading to reduced operating costs and increased reputational strength. The benefits and challenges for business are explored.     

利益主体(Stakeholder)理论在区域旅游规划中的应用--以四川省乐山市为例

不同利益主体之间的合作是区域和城市旅游业可持续发展的保障。本文尝试将利益主体理论应用到四川省乐山市旅游发展战略规划过程中，并对不同利益主体的旅游意识和利益表达进行了定性与定量分析；讨论并提出了“利益主体”理论在我国区域旅游发展规划中的应用途径。     

Social learning and sustainable tourism development; local quality conventions in tourism: a Greek case study

This paper presents the trajectory of an innovative organisational scheme, the Local Quality Convention (LQC), concerning sustainable tourism development in the Lake Plastiras area, a less favoured area in Central Greece. It outlines the development issues of the area, the main actors, their views and practices and describes the creation, progress and emerging problems of the LQC scheme. Research reveals contradicting approaches to sustainable tourism development which, in turn, influenced the LQC's evolution. The findings are critically discussed in the light of the Social Learning (SL) approach to social change and sustainable development. According to SL it is only through interactive (participative), concerted action that stakeholders are able to co-construct an issue and its solutions. Given the dominance of “conventional” tourism in Greece as well as the top-down formation and implementation of policies, the importance of the long term facilitation of local stakeholders to achieve sustainable tourism development is demonstrated, along with other related lessons for planners and managers.     

Exploring the economic,social and cultural rights of youth leaders working in Sport for Development initiatives at grassroots level in South Africa

Abstract

Sport has not only been forwarded as a basic human right but it is a powerful tool in the advocacy of human rights. Social inclusion and gender equality through sport interventions are prevalent in the developing world. Change agents working in the field of Sport for Development applaud the success of interventions in marginalised and impoverished communities as sport is viewed as an effective tool that contributes to the social inclusion and the betterment of the poor. In a developing country, such as South Africa, unemployed youth are recruited as youth leaders in an attempt to improve their economic, social and cultural standing through their involvement in sport for development interventions. This Research Note highlights the tension between Sport for Development initiatives in South Africa that carry messages of human rights and the failure of the current system to fulfil the economic, social and cultural rights of youth leaders. This study explores the experiences of youth leaders in South Africa through the lens of ‘The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ (ICESCR). A qualitative, ethnographic approach was used to address the question: How can the socio-economic rights of youth leaders working on grassroots level in Sport for Development initiatives be recognised? The qualitative research findings indicated youth leaders perceive their work as important, but do not believe that the remuneration they receive allow for a decent living; and, that they do not believe that they have an equal opportunity for career progression within the Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) that they work for. Recommendations on how to address the rights of youth leaders are provided.     

Applying diffusion theory to destination stakeholder understanding of sustainable tourism development: a case from Thailand

The concept of sustainable tourism development is widely considered to be necessary for successful tourism development, but there is uncertainty over destination stakeholders’ understanding and thus ability to implement the concept. Utilising diffusion theory, this paper explores the diffusion of the sustainable tourism development concept among stakeholders in the tourism destination of Kret Island, Thailand. The primary data collection involved semi-structured, in-depth interviews undertaken with 10 local government authorities and 45 local residents, and data were analysed using content analysis. Interpersonal communication was the key channel for the concept's diffusion, and the involvement of opinion leaders, change agents and social networks in this diffusion was explored. Many local residents were laggards in the diffusion of sustainable tourism development thinking in comparison with local government and local opinion leaders. It is argued that both interpersonal and media communication and the identification of key actors in the community are needed to effectively diffuse sustainable tourism ideas among destination stakeholders. The results validate the use of diffusion theory as a means to understand the transfer of the sustainable tourism development concept among stakeholders, and they also provide information useful for the design of information dissemination programmes.     

从系统学角度透视生态旅游利益相关者结构关系

从系统动力学著名的"内生"理论角度分析,生态旅游可持续发展的关键就是要建立各利益相关者之间的利益均衡机制,从而形成一体化的共生系统.本文将政府、社区、保护区、旅游企业和生态旅游者五个主要利益相关者作为生态旅游系统中的内生变量,用系统动力学方法,分析协调利益获取和分配、权利和义务、生态耗损和补偿等问题,初步构建各利益相关者之间的结构关系,为建立协调各方利益的参与机制提供理论参考.     

Influencing stakeholders to reduce carbon footprints: Hotel managers’ perspective

Reducing the carbon footprint is an important strategy in addressing the greenhouse effect. Some businesses in the hotel industry have started to consider implementing programmes that involve their stakeholders so that they can reduce their carbon footprints together. However, little research into how hoteliers influence their key stakeholders has been conducted. The aim of this study is to identify who hotel managers consider to be their key stakeholders and what strategies they use to encourage the stakeholders to act co-operatively. These issues are examined by taking a qualitative research approach, in which data were collected from 22 hotel executives through in-depth interviews. The findings reveal the stakeholders identified by the executives are hotel owners, employees, customers, hotels/hotel owners’ associations, governments, consultants, investors, suppliers, environmental NGOs and the wider community. The different influencing strategies used with these stakeholders are discussed.     

Best Practice Marketing for Regional Tourism Destinations

This article reports on destination marketing best practices from 21 regional destinations around Australia. The results advocate an integrative approach to destination marketing that aligns with destination management and development objectives. From this, a framework is developed, within which nine best practice principles are identified as essential to successful and sustainable marketing of regional destinations. The key initiatives used to achieve success are discussed in detail, highlighting the need for destination stakeholders to foster a cooperative and strategic approach and ensure consistent design and delivery of a destination brand and image which is supported by tactical advertising and promotional strategies, effective visitor information services, and events to support the destination brand and image to target appropriate visitor markets.     

Building the sociomateriality of food service

Global megatrends such as urbanization, climate change and resource scarcity, shift in political and economic power, demographic change, and increasingly disruptive technological breakthroughs are transforming the conventional socio-technical system of food service. This study identifies and discusses key changes already impacting the service concept of food service, with particular focus on service interaction, its structure, and setting. Adopting a LEGO® Serious Play® approach, this study brings together diverse stakeholders to construct and discuss the current state of and future vision for the sector. Findings illustrate how the relative importance of social (i.e., customers, employees) and material (i.e., technology) actors in food service production and delivery is shifting, and will continue to shift, in the coming decades. The study proposes a framework of the new-formed sociomateriality of food service, discusses its theoretical and managerial implications, and finally puts forward a rich agenda for future research.     

Tourism stakeholder exclusion and conflict in a small island

Research in the Isle of Man, British Isles, reveals limited and dysfunctional collaboration between stakeholders, and in particular between public and private sector actors. Power and influence over tourism decision-making is generally felt to be restricted to a small and opaque network. Moreover, different levels of interest in and support for tourism further divide stakeholders. Various negative consequences are shown to arise from this absence of collaboration, including a lack of shared vision or future strategy for local tourism, and high levels of mutual mistrust between stakeholders. Resulting conflict, wasted resources, lost enthusiasm and lack of strategic direction appear to undermine the current and future management of island tourism. Emphasised by research is the importance of stakeholder collaboration to sustainable tourism management and underlying factors which may enhance or undermine. Focus on describing dysfunctional collaboration within an untypical small island setting makes a unique contribution to the existing literature.     

New concepts in planning for tourism and recreation

Many tourism development plans are, in practice, not capable of being implemented. It is argued here that obstacles to implementation can be overcome in the planning stage itself by taking account of a range of factors, eg the socioeconomic, political, sociocultural and environmental context of tourism developments, and the spread of activities and actors involved in the tourism sector. Integrated planning is thus viewed as essential, and the Product's Analysis Sequence for Outdoor Leisure Planning (PASOLP) is offered as a creative, pragmatic and operational approach.     

旅游权内涵解析及其保险保障机制探讨

公民旅游权是基本人权的重要延伸,是一种综合性权利,可分为基础性旅游权和消费性旅游权两大类,旅游保障权、旅游自由权、旅游平等权、旅游资源共享权、旅游发展共享权、旅游消费权和出入境旅游权等七项权利。在我国旅游发展与旅游者权益保护亟待加强的情况下,建议通过相关制度设计构建全面广泛的公民旅游权保障体系,完善我国旅游业持续健康发展的制度基础。在保险制度方面的保障措施主要包括:借助强制保险和商业保险提供公民旅游休闲保障,完善保险制度安排,加强旅游资源保护,进行保险创新,保障公民旅游自由权,加强保险国际合作保障,公民出入境旅游权等。     

Tourism policy implementation and society

Tourism policy implementation is examined in this paper using a society-centred, relational approach. It considers policy within its societal context, including the economy, governance, politics and culture, and it focuses on exploring the reciprocal interactions affecting tourism policy implementation in Phuket, Thailand. Difficulties in the application of three tourism-related policies are assessed for this island. It is shown how their implementation involved relations and bargaining power between actors pursuing their interests. There were tensions around the state’s various structural roles, the impacts of policies on business performance, local compared with national priorities, local government legitimacy and support, hierarchical policy processes, and patron-client relations. Wider implications for future research on policy implementation are identified in the final discussion.     

Tourism and the sustainable development goals: Stakeholders' perspectives from Nepal

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and achieve prosperity for all by bringing together policymakers, academia, practitioners, and all other relevant tourism stakeholders and providing policy and strategic engagement guidelines. As tourism is the fastest-growing sector of the global economy, examining the connections between tourism and the SDGs is relevant to both developing and developed countries. This study explores the Nepalese tourism industry's role in addressing the SDGs from the perspective of various tourism stakeholders (academia, the government, the private tourism industry, and public–private organizations). To present a comprehensive picture, this study employed a case study approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with tourism industry stakeholders. The findings suggest that, to varying degrees, the SDGs are applicable as well as achievable for Nepal. However, several issues may impede the full implementation of these goals. The implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.     

Entrepreneurial reputation in destination networks

Only few scientific contributions have attempted to analyze the patterns of governance and major stakeholders in destination networks. This paper seeks to investigate the role of entrepreneurship in destinations with the major aims laying in the identification of relevant factors of destination governance and analyses of entrepreneurs’ impact on this process. Due to the great complexity of destination networks and the process characteristic of governance, a qualitative research approach was chosen. Case study research was conducted in four Austrian tourism destinations. Results unveil the importance of entrepreneurial reputation of actors, density of strong ties in the destination network and informal relationships between actors for destination governance. This paper concludes with recommendations for future research in the field of destination governance.     

Ethical travel decisions travel agents and human rights

This paper explores the ethics of selling tourism products for destinations that have known major human rights issues. The study uses the moral intensity framework to analyze the ethical decisionmaking of New Zealand travel agents. Qualitative interviews reveal support for all aspects of the framework. In particular, agents’ judgements are strongly influenced by their perceptions of how their decisions impact upon their clients. In contrast, uncertainty surrounds the probability and magnitude of consequences of their decisions for destination communities. Strong social, cultural, legal, and economic links between the agent and the more proximate stakeholders mean that ethical decisions commonly favor these stakeholders.     

The community participation process in ecotourism development: a case study of the community of Sogoog,Bayan-Ulgii,Mongolia

Theories on community participation in ecotourism development advocate obtaining maximum levels of both community control and benefit to achieve sustainable tourism. This paper explores issues in community-based ecotourism development in a small, remote community in western Mongolia. It assesses the community's desire to develop ecotourism, their understanding of the issues involved and the feasibility of the process in a poor herding community, where 63% are herdsmen, frequently absent with their herds. Using responses from 100 participants together with interviews with key stakeholders, it describes and analyzes the difficulties in establishing community participation and ecotourism implementation. Findings revealed that long-term viable community-based ecotourism development in remote areas requires close collaboration and sustained support from trusted community leaders and from knowledgeable and committed outside stakeholders. Approaches need to be carefully tailored to local circumstances, not “one size fits all”. Key areas of concern were environmental and cultural, including fears that their tradition of hospitality might be compromised, perceptions of the local NGO's benefits to the community and local, often naïve, expectations of ecotourism development. Despite fears, over 90% of those interviewed were willing to participate in an ecotourism project in this high-risk, unforgiving economic and climatic setting.     

Rhetoric and hegemony in consumptive wildlife tourism: polarizing sustainability discourses among angling tourism stakeholders

Nature-based tourism frequently results in controversies over access rights, but also over how resources should be managed and utilized. In this article, we explore disagreements on management strategies and angling practices, which followed in the wake of the gradual introduction of increasingly strict harvest regulations in salmon angling in the Orkla River of Norway. Different views on what represent the most severe threats to the salmon stock appeared in this case to originate in rather complex patterns with respect to the ways stakeholders related to and engaged with salmon, rivers and nature in general. The identification of incompatible goals and motives of various categories of stakeholders has for long been a dominant approach in research on these types of conflicts. In this contribution, we broaden the scope by exploring how such controversies involve competition for hegemony with respect to how management and angling practices should be discursively framed.     

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.     

Are you good enough? CSR,quality management and corporate financial performance in the hospitality industry

Hospitality firms are increasingly investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) to generate strong relationships with stakeholders while aiming to benefit their own performance. However, CSR may bring both costs and benefits to the focal firm. We analyze how corporate financial performance (CFP) is affected by CSR, finding that the impact of CSR on CFP has a U-shaped form, where CSR is a cost that translates into higher benefits only when it generates solid relationships between firms and their stakeholders. Furthermore, we adopt a contingency approach, assessing the role of quality management (QM) on the CSR-CFP relationship. We find that the simultaneous implementation of CSR and QM is less beneficial to CFP than the isolated implementation of CSR due to the redundancy of different activities aimed at similar goals, i.e., stakeholders’ satisfaction. In doing so, we advance academic understanding of the impact of CSR and QM on CFP.