A critical review of methods for tourism climate change appraisal: life cycle assessment as a new approach

This paper reviews existing approaches to assessing tourism sustainability, especially its contribution to climate change. It assesses ecological footprint analysis, environmental impact assessment and input–output analysis but finds them inaccurate and unreliable. It goes on to argue that life cycle assessment (LCA) is a more promising tool for tourism climate change impact assessment, highlighting important areas where LCA application can contribute towards better understanding of tourism's role in global climatic changes. To demonstrate the applicability of the LCA methodology, a case study of a short weekend holiday trip is presented. Related greenhouse gas emissions are measured comparing LCA and alternative carbon footprint calculation methods. The comparison demonstrates markedly different results. The reasons for the discrepancy along with the potential of LCA to estimate the “indirect” carbon contribution of the holiday trip's components are discussed. A key feature of the LCA calculation is that for short-haul trips the proportional impact of accommodation-related emissions is shown to be larger than in earlier calculations, while transport impacts are reduced.     

Computer Simulation as a Tool for Planning and Management of Visitor Use in Protected Natural Areas

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Principles on Implementation of Sustainable Tourism suggest that implementing sustainable tourism must include monitoring visitor use of protected natural areas and directing it to areas where the environmental and social impacts of tourism are minimised. Thus, sustainable tourism management requires information about the spatial and temporal flow of visitor use in protected natural areas to help identify potential tourism-related threats to the natural and cultural resources of an area and the quality of visitors’ experiences. Recent research has identified at least four ways in which simulation modelling of visitor use can facilitate more informed planning and management of sustainable tourism in protected natural areas, including (1) describing existing visitor use flows; (2) monitoring the condition of ‘hard to measure’ indicator variables; (3) testing the effectiveness of alternative visitor use management practices; and (4) guiding the design of research on public attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, using findings from studies conducted in the Inyo National Forest and Isle Royale National Park, USA, each of these four potential contributions of computer simulation to sustainable tourism management and planning. The paper concludes with an assessment of the limitations of existing applications of computer simulation to nature-based tourism and recommendations for future research.     

Environmental Management Systems in Outdoor Recreation: A Case Study of a Forest Enterprise (UK) Site

Management of environmental impacts is a key requisite to achieve sustainable tourism and recreation; and Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) provide the framework to assess, plan, act upon, control and monitor environmental management and performance. Although a large proportion of tourism and recreation sites would be in a position to work towards an EMS, few of them are aware of what they need to do to implement such systems. This case study analyses to what extent the elements of an EMS are present in the current management of a Forest Enterprise site in the UK providing outdoor recreation, promoting nature conservation and producing timber. This paper demonstrates how an EMS can be applied to put a structure to the management of a multi-purpose site, and concludes that this site, representative of other Forest Enterprise sites, can meet the basic demands of an EMS.     

Participatory complexity in tourism policy: Understanding sustainability programmes with participatory systems mapping

Linear logic models are insufficient to understand how interventions work in complex areas such as sustainable tourism. We present Participatory Systems Mapping (PSM), a novel method to develop shared understandings and collective management of complex policy issues among stakeholders. We use PSM with stakeholders in Barcelona to support the design of an upcoming evaluation of an existing sustainability programme. Discussion during workshops, and analysis of the PSM map produced, suggest sharing best practices and improving peer-to-peer learning are pivotal to improving sustainability. We show how a complex systems approach, implemented via PSM, can provide a more holistic understanding of the contexts and interactions of tourism policy. We offer learning and guidance on how the method can be used by others.     

Characterising and identifying gaps in sustainability assessments of tourism - a review

This paper highlights the main stages in developing a process of sustainability assessments in tourism (SAT) and applies a systematic literature review of empirical research based on pre-developed assessment categories. The aim is to characterise general approaches to measuring sustainability in tourism and to identify patterns and research gaps within these approaches. Four major assessment methodologies were identified through a hierarchical cluster analysis. Whereas new frameworks and indices explore new conceptual approaches to sustainability assessments, case studies and systems approaches rely on existing indicator work and create new assessment contexts. The literature review confirms the heterogeneity of these assessments, albeit without an overall sector-specific consensus. The results show that stakeholder involvement is not widely implemented in the indicator-selection process, and indicators are not linked to sustainability targets. The findings demonstrate that more effort is needed in relation to contextualising frameworks and assessment approaches, to foster target-oriented decision-making.     

Artificial Reefs as Recreational Scuba Diving Resources: A Critical Review of Research

This paper reports on the increasing practice of developing and promoting artificial reefs as sites for scuba diving tourism and recreation. A comprehensive definition of artificial reefs is presented that encapsulates the diversity of structures used by marine recreationists, particularly scuba divers, followed by a review of existing literature that specifically examines artificial reefs as a resource for the conduct of recreational scuba diving. Three main thematic areas were identified in the existing literature: social dimensions, socioeconomic impacts and environmental engineering. A typology of artificial reefs is offered to better describe and categorise artificial reef structures according to unit characteristics that may influence recreational use such as material used, appearance, complexity and cost. The paper presents a conceptual model that identifies the components of an artificial reef scuba diving experience and discusses the potential of artificial reefs to act as tourism resources and management tools to redistribute scuba diver numbers away from natural reefs. Directions for future research are suggested, emphasising collection of data on aspects of the artificial reef scuba diving experience to better inform marine resource management.     

Seeing the forest for the trees: tourism and the International Year of Forests

The year 2011 is the United Nations International Year of Forests. In addition to performing extremely significant environmental, economic, and social services, forests are also important tourism attractions in their own right and locations for recreation and tourism activities. The limited statistical data available suggest that there are billions of tourism and recreational visits to forests each year. This paper provides a global overview of biodiversity conservation, protected areas, recreational access, and management objectives in forests before outlining some of the main themes in the relationship between tourism and forests. It concludes that there is a need for a research effort on tourism and forests in order to provide greater recognition for the economic and environmental contributions of tourism in forest areas as well as the overall value of forests for health and wellbeing.     

Managing ecotourism: an opportunity spectrum approach

Over the past decade and a half, visitor management frameworks and procedures have been developed to address issues resulting from tourism and recreation use of areas. These have included the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS), the Tourism Opportunity Spectrum (TOS), Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC), Visitor Activities Management Planning (VAMP), and the Visitor Impact Monitoring Process (VIMP). This paper outlines a new framework, based on existing approaches, within which opportunity for ecotourism may be set. It incorporates and modifies ideas from the ROS and TOS to address ecotourism specifically, is termed the Ecotourism Opportunity Spectrum (ECOS) and contains eight components. The paper concludes with a discussion of the difficulties of assigning relative priorities to ecotourism activities in a region, and assessing the significance of the resulting environmental impacts.     

Island Tourism and Sustainability: A Case Study of the Lakshadweep Islands

Lakshadweep archipelago, off the south-western coast of India, is a relatively little known island tourism destination. With a very fragile environment, traditional society and marginal economy, and almost entirely dependent on the mainland, Lakshadweep has been developing tourism as an important economic activity. With its geographical and environmental limitations, sustainability is a major issue in Lakshadweep tourism. However, the islands seem to have turned these limitations to their advantage by developing and managing tourism in a controlled manner. This paper considers the development of tourism in Lakshadweep islands within the context of sustainability. Examining the structural and developmental features of Lakshadweep tourism, the paper seeks to identify specific development and management patterns, if any, and explores potential strategies for promoting sustainability-oriented tourism in Lakshadweep.     

Identifying spatial overlap in the values of locals,domestic- and international tourists to protected areas

Nature-based tourism is increasingly encouraged to support local socioeconomic development in and around protected areas, but managing protected areas for tourism could challenge existing park uses associated with self-organized outdoor recreation and local resource use. We used a web-based Public Participatory Geographic Information System (PPGIS) to identify the most important places and values of local, domestic, and international visitors to Jotunheimen National Park and Utladalen Protected Landscape in Norway. Scenic and recreation values were prioritized by all groups, but local users mapped more values relating to hunting, fishing, gathering and cultural identity. While the three user groups overlapped in some places, we found that they self-segregated to some extent. Our study affirms the importance of spatially explicit analyses to support protected area management. Understanding the spatial distribution of values held by different user groups can aid in designing tourism management strategies that minimize intergroup conflict.     

Crowding standards at Petra Archaeological Park: a comparative study of McKercher's five types of heritage tourists

To achieve sustainability in heritage tourism, tourists should be placed at the heart of the management and planning processes. Indicators and standards-based frameworks were developed in the field of outdoor recreation management to manage and measure crowding and other problematic issues in parks and related areas. Using normative theory and visual research methods, this article aims to examine crowding standards of tourists at Petra Archaeological Park, and compare these standards between the types of heritage tourists suggested by a model developed by Bob McKercher. Results showed that tourists’ acceptability levels go down with an increasing number of tourists, and tourists who are highly motivated to visit heritage sites (i.e. purposeful and sightseeing heritage tourists) had the most restrictive acceptable number of tourists at the park. The normative standards formulated in this article provided a guidance to manage crowding at Petra.     

The establishment of a rapid natural disaster risk assessment model for the tourism industry

At the current time, the Taiwan government is aggressively promoting projects, such as the so-called “Double Tourist Plan”, designed to encourage the development of the sightseeing related business. Operators in the tourist industry hope to construct facilities at or near scenic areas, which, given their special geography, are often adjacent to the mountains or the ocean. Unfortunately these are also the areas that most often experience natural disasters. This has a negative impact on the tourism industry. The centralization of tourist facilities, leading to the gathering of large numbers of visitors during the holiday seasons, can place people in danger. In other words, tourism operators in the Taiwan region face a high risk of natural disasters. It is difficult to assess such risks. Most of the existing models for catastrophe risk assessment consume huge amounts of time and are costly to use, so are more commonly applied for assessment at high-value facilities (such science-based industrial parks), rather than by the tourism industry, where economic factors are of greater concern. It is necessary to develop a simple and rapid assessment method that will allow ordinary business owners to carry out comprehensive risk analysis of tourist facilities. Thus, in this study, we explore various theories related to different kinds of natural disaster risk analysis mechanisms, with the goal of establishing a rapid risk assessment model suited to the tourism industry that can be used to quickly analyze disaster-forming characteristics and risk weaknesses in local regions. Furthermore, we incorporate an expert weighting process for assigning weightings for natural disaster risk index assessment. This method can help tourism asset owners prepare for the worst, and be capable of responding appropriately if and when such an event occurs. Good planning can effectively reduce the loss and risks associated with natural disasters and allow recovery work to commence sooner.     

旅游区经济影响域界定研究——以八达岭长城旅游区为例

文章提出了旅游区经济影响域的概念和关键指标、界定模型,并选取八达岭旅游区作为典型案例区,旅游区周围的6个村落为样本点,进行现场问卷调查和深入访谈,从而获取了旅游经济指标的实测值以及样本空间坐标。然后运用旅游区经济影响指数模型和旅游区经济影响域域值模型对样本数据进行总体趋势和范围的分析。结果发现,基于户均旅游直接就业和收入标准化值的八达岭旅游区旅游经济影响域域值为2.84千米,该值代表了八达岭旅游区经济辐射范围核心部分。在此基础上,刻画出旅游经济影响域的空间结构,并探讨了空间分异的原因。     

Segmentation by recreation experience in island-based tourism: a case study of Taiwan's Liuqiu Island

This study expands the profile characteristics of island-based tourists by assessing recreation experiences. In so doing, it aims to elucidate the market segmentation of island-based tourists by assessing the recreation experiences of tourists at Liuqiu Island in Taiwan. A total of 481 useable questionnaires were obtained and analyzed. The analytical results indicate that tourists can be segmented into four clusters according to their recreation experiences: multi-experience recreationists, aestheticists, hedonists and knowledge seekers. These four different tourist segments performed significantly differently in terms of environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). The market segmentation introduced in this study can be helpful for elucidating tourist experiences and ERB implementation. Understanding tourism experience preferences will help managers develop marketing strategies and design tourism products to meet tourists’ needs. This study's findings could be used to provide different strategies for different segments of tourists. To help manage natural resources, managers should design their environmental programs to encourage different segments of tourists to participate in ERBs. We provide valuable managerial implications for the sustainable development of island-based tourism.     

Holistic tourist experience in halal tourism evidence from Indonesian domestic tourists

This research explores the holistic experience in halal tourism and its consequence on tourist satisfactions and tourist intentions. The data for this study were obtained from 479 Muslim tourists in Indonesia. Exploratory factor analysis test identifies five dimensions of holistic halal tourist experiences, which can be classified into halal experience and recreation experience. Based on the partial least square estimation, this study reveals that the consequence of recreation experiences on tourist satisfaction, and tourist intention to revisit and endorse, overwhelms the effects of the halal experience.     

Reviewing integrated sustainability indicators for tourism

Integrated sustainability indicators for tourism (ISIT) address tourism as an element of both economic and socio-ecological systems and as actively integrated in multi-level policy-making and planning. This paper aims to review studies of ISIT in peer-reviewed journals with a focus on methodological approaches. By specifically examining ISIT, this study embraces the interdisciplinary nature of both sustainability science and tourism studies. The results are based on a systematic literature review and categorization of the studies’ academic disciplines, methods and organization of indicators. The results reveal that despite being a relatively young area of study, research on ISIT has developed simultaneously across multiple academic disciplines, and is expanding. There seems to be greater interest in developing new methodologies than applying existing indicator frameworks. Most papers refer to indicators thematically and thus discuss tourism separately in the contexts of environmental, social or economic impact. However, emerging approaches analyze tourism as a system of interconnected components and an element of multi-level policy-making. These approaches emphasize public participation and a continuous redefinition of sustainability challenges in response to changes in socio-ecological systems. Current research on ISIT thus focuses on the interconnectedness of indicators and sustainable development as a dynamic process rather than an end goal.     

An earthquake disaster management mechanism based on risk assessment information for the tourism industry-a case study from the island of Taiwan

Although progress has been made in assessing risks in Taiwan, there remains a need to undertake risk assessment for the Taiwanese tourism industry. Although the conventional rules of thumb usually adopted by the insurance industry for damage assessment may be adequate in normal circumstances, this is not feasible for rare incidents for which there is very little reference material. One such example is earthquake damage. The average period of occurrence of major earthquake in Taiwan is about a hundred years, which makes it impossible to precisely assess average losses. In addition, earthquakes are not like some disasters (such as typhoons or epidemics) for which one can receive early warning. Thus, in this study, we seek to provide a practical mechanism for earthquake disaster risk assessment and management for the tourism industry, focusing on insurance and prevention. The primary objective is to integrate the relevant earth sciences, engineering and insurance data with the concepts of disaster risk management, taking into consideration the characteristics and sources of earthquake-related risks. In short, we develop an earthquake disaster assessment model to apply to risk management in the tourism industry. The practicality of the model is demonstrated with some examples related to the hotel industry in Hualien, Taiwan, an area plagued by frequent earthquakes. The results clearly show the efficacy of the proposed disaster assessment models for the tourism industry.     

Linking tourism into emergency management structures to enhance disaster risk reduction

Despite increased global interest in the impacts of natural disasters on tourism, little research has occurred into exploring how these are addressed at the destination level. Creating a link between tourism and disaster risk reduction and management is particularly important in places that rely heavily on tourism and, at the same time, are prone to natural hazards. New Zealand is a good example. Hence, in this paper we use the case study of the Northland region to explore how both tourism and disaster management stakeholders perceive the role of tourism in present and future disaster risk management activities. The overall finding is that tourism in Northland is currently poorly considered in existing disaster management planning, and recent natural disasters have identified a range of gaps and concerns within each of the Four Rs (Reduction, Readiness, Response and Recovery). Based on these insights, and building on the current Civil Defence structure, a template for linking tourism into disaster management is proposed and populated. A Tourism Action Plan, adopted by the Northland ‘Tourism Cluster’, provides a guideline for tourism specific initiatives that complement the existing Civil Defence plans, thus adding value to the formal disaster management efforts. Considering the lack of systematic disaster management in tourism reported in the literature, this research should also be of interest to other tourist destinations and their aspirations for long term sustainability.     

Developing a Surf Resource Sustainability Index as a Global Model for Surf Beach Conservation and Tourism Research

The growth of surfing activities and surf tourism has gained significant attention in the academia during the past decade. This paper is aimed at developing a framework of indicators and methods used in assessing the sustainability factors of surf sites. The research puts forward a Surf Resource Sustainability Index (SRSI) as a conceptual model to study the sustainability of surf tourism sites. The literature review, previous experience, and discussion with veteran surfers and scholars were used to develop indicators and determine their measurability and aptitude. Index pilot testing was carried out in Phuket, Thailand, where an emerging surf culture and tourism market segment add to the island's bustling economy and coastal resource-management issues. The case study underpins the importance of social, economic, environmental, and governance factors in the conservation process. The SRSI metrics provide a direct method for assessing surf sites and offer tangible benefits to surfers and other stakeholders.     

景区经营权价值评估方法的适宜性研究

景区的产权状况已成为景区经营实践与理论研究的核心问题之一.随着景区的发展及产权对经营效应的影响凸显,自20世纪90年代开始我国出现景区经营权流转的探索.在景区经营权流转过程中,景区经营权价值评估已经成为实现我国景区经营权合理流转基础性的关键问题之一,也是旅游研究领域的重要前沿课题.文章在系统构建景区经营权价值评估方法体系基础上,根据评估方法本身特点、方法科学性、所需资料等综合分析出面向不同对象的具体评估方法.主要结论是:①经营权价值评估方法需由途径选择、评估对象分析、评估具体方法选择、指标与参数选择4部分组成;②折现现金流量法较适宜成熟型景区的评估,开发初期的景区在具备详细资料的前提下可采用折现现金流量法,或可采用收益还原法,潜在景区在参考同地区类似景区假设开发的前提下采用收益权益法较合适;③不同方法采用不同的参数体系.该研究有助于景区经营权价值评估的开展,为景区经营权流转、融资、法律担保等奠定方法基础.