Sustainability Indicators for Small Tourism Enterprises – An Exploratory Perspective

Despite the numerical dominance of small tourism enterprises (STEs) in many destinations, little is known about their role in helping destinations progress towards sustainability objectives. The a priori assumption is that, by being small and locally owned, these enterprises automatically contribute to sustainable tourism development. This paper argues that to test this assumption, relevant indicators of sustainability (ISTs) should be developed. In contrast to destination and community ISTs, which are often stakeholder driven, the indicators developed here take an unconventional but not unprecedented approach, drawing on published frameworks and peer-reviewed case studies. The methodology of this approach has been made explicit so that potential users and researchers can assess its value and build upon it. A list of indicators that emerge from the process, covering the four broad sustainability dimensions, is given, which can be used in assessing the STE's progress towards a destination's long-term sustainability goals.     

Tourism,Marketing and Sustainable Development in the English National Parks: The Role of National Park Authorities

This paper examines the work of the English National Park Authorities (NPAs) in relation to aspects of the development of sustainable tourism. The NPAs have implicitly sought to achieve sustainable tourism development since the parks were first designated, striving to balance the needs of visitors and the environment within the context of living, working landscapes. Studies have revealed, however, that some NPAs are not fully championing sustainable tourism development. The paper examines the NPA's use of marketing and marketing perspectives in encouraging sustainable tourism, exploring attitudes, roles and activities. A diverse, piecemeal and sometimes underinformed approach is revealed. The paper concludes with ways forward for English NPAs and for other protected area management organisations.     

可持续旅游开发多中心管理模式研究——以湖泊旅游为例

旅游开发必须建立在科学的管理模式下,才能确保资源环境的可持续利用.而作为常见的旅游开发形式,湖泊旅游具有较强的环境敏感性和生态脆弱性.本文以此为着眼点,系统论述了可持续目标下的旅游开发过程中的多中心管理模式,阐明了各行为主体的职能与关联,并就我国当前湖泊旅游开发管理的若干关键问题提出了建议和对策,尤其深入地针对一些流行观点进行了再认识.     

Energy use and leisure consumption in Norway: an analysis and reduction strategy

This article discusses the environmental impacts of leisure activities. Calculations are presented for the time-use, money expenditure and energy use involved in leisure services and goods consumed by Norwegians in 2001. The paper draws upon a two-year project financed by the Research Council of Norway. Leisure consumption represented around 23% of the total energy use within private and public consumption in Norway. The energy intensity of leisure consumption, measured in energy use per amount of expenditure, was 20% lower than that of everyday household consumption but 380% times higher than that of public consumption. Surveys show that around half of Norwegian leisure time is spent at home, with considerable use of electronic goods, but that the major energy users are holidays, outdoor recreation and second homes. Growing mobility in leisure patterns is a dominating problem. Leisure consumption is growing rapidly and energy-intensive forms of leisure consumption are growing fastest. A 10-point strategy for reducing the environmental impacts of leisure consumption is presented, including strategies for changing leisure production, changing patterns of leisure consumption, changing the volume of leisure consumption and utilising leisure as an educational arena.     

After over 25 years of accrediting beaches,has Blue Flag contributed to sustainable management?

This paper examines the qualitative, quantitative, and geographical evolution (1987–2012) of the Blue Flag campaign and accreditation process in Spain, a leading coastal tourism destination heading the list of awards. The standard Blue Flag criteria for crowded, developed beaches are now adapting to new demands for natural beaches, but they still fail to capture essential sustainable tourism features, such as limiting user numbers, or preserving and restoring sand ecosystems. Given these shortcomings, some destinations are moving to alternative awards with a higher environmental commitment, such as EMS, ISO14001, and Eco-Management and Audit Schemes (EMAS). A cluster analysis of Blue Flag data for 983 beaches in Spain over 26 years revealed different behaviour patterns: established tourist areas that have always opted for the Blue Flag programme; tourist areas that adopted the Blue Flag early on but replaced it with ISO14001 and EMAS; recently developed destinations applying for the award to boost their tourism promotion; and tourist areas with no well-defined policy that have opted intermittently for Blue Flag. These profiles illustrate the different policies of Spain's Autonomous Regions, and they are useful for tourism managers to verify whether their destination's behaviour pattern contributes to sustainable tourism and matches strategic policies they have designed for them.     

Complexity science: an alternative world view for understanding sustainable tourism development

Tourism research has generally taken a reductionist approach and has not effectively understood tourism as a stakeholder within a complex system (CS) of stakeholders. As a result, interpretations of sustainable tourism development (STD) are highly focused and sector-specific, thereby limiting understanding of the complex inter-relationships between tourism components and other components within a system. This paper explores complexity science as an alternative paradigm to understand why STD is problematic. It is argued that a new world view is required to understand the unpredictable world in which tourism operates. Complexity science and the associated chaos theory offer an alternative paradigm for viewing and understanding tourism phenomena. Viewing underlying influences on a CS in terms of the characteristics of complexity science, including the edge of chaos, strange attractors and conflict provides greater understanding of the system in which tourism operates. The second part of the paper discusses a framework, adapted from complexity science characteristics, to identify the complex inter-relationships between stakeholders with political, environmental, economic, social and cultural interests in an urban river context, the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia.     

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.     

Crisis Management,Tourism and Sustainability: The Role of Indicators

The damage to tourism caused by a crisis or disaster may not only have serious implications for a national economy but also threaten the livelihoods of many in the destination. The monitoring of crisis indicators could allow intervention to minimise the crisis and offers a chance of protecting tourism for the benefit of all stakeholders. This paper evaluates the role of crisis indicators in sustainable tourism development, and shows why this is closely connected to issues in sustainable tourism. The author challenges the conventional classification of crises and suggests that grouping them according to their triggers is more useful in predicting and managing a potential crisis. Empirical data gathered during interviews with senior Malaysian public and private sector representatives highlight some of the practical issues associated with the identification and monitoring of appropriate indicators. The paper concludes that the new classification allows crisis management to be more cost-effective and may also be a key to indicator development for other aspects of sustainable tourism. The travel trade may hold the key to indicators of market trends, but there would be issues in obtaining the necessary information for reasons of confidentiality.     

Identifying tourists with smaller environmental footprints

This paper identifies which information about tourists serves as the best predictor of their pro-environmental behavior at home and on vacation. If a small set of predictors can be identified, the tourism industry would be able to use them to focus attention on attracting tourists with smaller environmental footprints. Results from a survey asking respondents about pro-environmental behavior in their role as residents and tourists indicate that environmental concern, altruism, feeling morally obliged to behave in an environmentally friendly manner, age and regional identity are the best predictors of the segment of people who behave in an environmentally friendly way at home. Income levels and moral obligation best predict membership of the segment of environmentally friendly tourists. The two segments overlap; differences between them are due to the fact that, at home, people can create the infrastructure they require to behave in an environmentally friendly way. On vacation they need to adjust to the infrastructure provided, which can act as a barrier to pro-environmental behavior. Results have direct practical implications, highlighting the value of demand-side approaches to environmentally sustainable tourism for protected areas, both urban and rural, such as focusing on those market segments that have the highest intrinsic inclination to protect the environment.     

Networking for sustainable tourism – towards a research agenda

This paper proposes a research agenda for networking for sustainable tourism research based on a collaborative workshop of international tourism academics and researchers and an extensive review of the relevant literature. Each year, Building Excellence in Sustainable Tourism – an Education Network (BEST EN) holds a Think Tank on a topical issue in sustainable tourism education. One aim of the Think Tank is to develop a relevant research agenda that draws on the collective knowledge of participants and acknowledges the interdependent economic, environmental and social objectives in sustainable tourism. Six main areas were identified as important for a research agenda on networking for sustainable tourism and its implementation: theory, methodology and conceptual issues; actors, culture and power; lifecycle, evolution and dynamics of networks; knowledge transfer; macro-perspectives and strategic action, vision, innovation and management of networks. This paper presents and discusses these research themes in the context of a literature review on networks and networking for sustainability in tourism. It is found that substantial progress has been made in the investigation of private sector networks at the destination levels; research on networks involving public sector stakeholders and networks across sectors and levels of governance, however, remains limited.     

Applying a transformative learning framework to volunteer tourism

This paper applies the educational theory of transformative learning to reconceptualising the practices of volunteer tourism. The theory of transformative learning posits a 10-step process to experience a radical shift in consciousness that dramatically and irreversibly alters how participants see their place in the world. Volunteer tourism has commonly been seen as a form of alternative tourism that provides a cathartic experience for the volunteer tourists and benefits to the hosting organisation and the natural and/or social environment of the project. Existing research suggests that these outcomes have not, as yet, been achieved by current practices in this sector. In referring to the theory of transformative learning we note that some, but not all, of the 10 steps have been applied and that we might therefore expect volunteer tourism to fall short of its promises. We conclude that the theory of transformative learning offers a useful framework for volunteer tourism, providing insights into the need to create opportunities for participants to complete the transformative process. We suggest that volunteer tourism organisations redesign their activities to include the remaining steps of transformative learning to improve their product for both the tourists and the sustainability outcomes of the projects.     

Australian indigenous tourism policy: practical and sustainable policies?

This paper reviews the development of Australia's policies for indigenous tourism and analyses those policies for their sustainable tourism content. It notes that in Australia, tourism is increasingly seen as an instrument for sustaining indigenous communities, many of whom look to tourism for a better future. Growing intervention from Australian federal and, more recently, State/Territory governments has sought to create tourism policies to facilitate market growth and product development in the indigenous sector. Yet the effectiveness and appropriateness of these policies, particularly in terms of a sustainable approach to development, has been questioned. A qualitative study of Australian State/Territory governments' policy for indigenous tourism examines the extent to which sustainable development principles are addressed. The results revealed that 32 of the 35 analysed policies demonstrated “sustainability rhetoric” that lacked the rigour and depth to realise any legitimate moves towards achieving sustainable tourism development for indigenous peoples. Based on the study's findings, this paper recommends that there cannot be a “one size fits all” framework for indigenous tourism development to suit all circumstances. Policies need to draw upon indigenous diversity and, in a consistent, collaborative, coordinated and integrated manner, provide the mechanisms and capacity-building to facilitate long-term sustainable indigenous tourism.     

RESIDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES OF A WORLD HERITAGE SITE: The Pitons Management Area, St. Lucia

This study examined the factors that influence local community residents’ support for the Pitons Management Area (PMA) as a World Heritage Site and their support for Sustainable Tourism Development. Community Attachment, Environmental Attitudes and Involvement in PMA were hypothesized as independent variables. Results of a structural equation modeling analysis using 319 resident samples suggested that Community Attachment positively influences their support behaviors, and Environmental Attitudes indirectly influence the support behaviors through Perceptions about PMA. Level of Involvement in the PMA was not found to have any significant relationships. The notable lack of involvement of residents presented critical implications for the sustainability of the site.