Conceptualizing the selves of tourism

A profusion of touristic experiences of the last 20 years has generated a variety of means of theorizing, analysing and marketing tourism. This paper has sought to recentre the analysis on the ideas of a conceptualization of the self through the tourism experience. Predominant current conceptualizations of tourism as commiditized escapes have been re-examined and recontextualized in the light of feminised post structural viewpoints to bring a richer understanding of tourist experience(s). The potential for changes in self and identity through cross-cultural interactions is discussed. The approach taken is person centred, rather than those focussed on economics, marketing or management. Nevertheless we demonstrate the usefulness of such a people orientated perspective for all aspects of the tourism industry. At the same time the threads of an interactive, person centred approach are being woven together to emphasise the importance of interactions – personal, communal and cultural in the tourist enterprise and to position the selves and identities of tourists and hosts at the ethical centre.     

Food tourism policy: Deconstructing boundaries of taste and class

Recent discussions from the journal of tourism management call for more critical deconstructions of the political and economic structures that shape policy and planning. The present paper takes up this call, using a post-structualist framework to examine Scotland's food tourism landscape. Utilising Foucauldian discourse analysis to deconstruct 2,312 media sources collected through a Factiva database search, we illustrate how policy discourses privilege middle class cultural symbols through official food tourism promotion, marginalising particular foods positioned as working class. We find that this is particularly evident through the example of the deep fried mars bar; where, despite touristic desires, classed media discourses constructed it as global, bad and disgusting, and therefore an embarrassment to official tourism bodies. We conclude by discussing the broader importance of attending to the marginalising and silencing effects tourism policy exerts when the power values and interests involved in its formation are not critically appraised.     

Consuming dark tourism: A Thanatological Perspective

Despite increasing academic attention paid to dark tourism, understanding of the concept remains limited, particularly from a consumption perspective. That is, the literature focuses primarily on the supply of dark tourism; less attention, however, has been paid to the demand for ‘dark’ touristic experiences. This theoretical paper seeks to address this gap in the literature. Drawing upon the contemporary sociology of death, it explores the relationship between socio-cultural perspectives on mortality and the potential of dark tourism as a means of confronting death in modern societies. In so doing, it proposes a model of dark tourism consumption within a thanatological framework as a basis for further theoretical and empirical analysis of dark tourism.     

Producing ceramic art works through tourism research

It might appear initially that the diverse fields of ceramics and tourism do not have much in common. However, printed pictorial ceramic objects have been widely available since the 1860s as touristic souvenirs. The relationships between art and tourism, however, have been explicitly examined by only a few tourism researchers. This paper critically examines how tourism research can actively and innovatively inform artistic practices. It thus explores the relationships between the production of ceramic art work, souvenirs, photography and tourism. In so doing it challenges the conventional opposition between art and souvenirs through the integration of popular tourism imagery and the distortion of souvenir shapes.     

Sustainable tourism and the management of nearshore coastal places: place attachment and disruption to surf-spots

Surfing, a dominant recreational activity in many coastal areas, is a primary driver of local and international tourism. Surf-spots, nearshore oceanic locations where waves break and surfing occurs, are essential community resources. Yet, many surf-spots are at risk of degradation from climate change and other factors. Knowing whether and why surfers consider surf-spots as meaningful places can inform sustainable management of these resources, benefitting the environment and users alike. This study examines place attachment and disruption in relation to surf-spots through an online survey of 1055 surfers in California, where surfing is an important recreational and touristic industry. Our findings suggest that surfers exhibit high fidelity to specific surf-spots and develop deep attachments to those spots, with the strength of the attachment varying depending on the type of surf-spot. Some respondents consider surf-spots to be “part of their family”; few respondents describe no attachments. We conclude that, despite being dynamic oceanic locations, surf-spots are meaningful places for surfers. This importance, combined with the value of surf-spots as resources driving coastal tourism and recreation, warrants systematic consideration of surf-spots as natural resources by managers, and suggests that user–place attachment should be better understood at surf-spots and other tourism sites.     

Research note sport tourism versus event tourism: Considerations on a necessary distinction and integration

Abstract

Interest in sport-related tourism increased perceptibly around the millennium, however, a comprehensive conceptual framework for a classification of sport (event) tourism is still missing. The predominant focus of sport tourism encompasses event-related touristic endeavors, such as mega sport events; however, an holistic approach to sport tourism suggests the need for further integration of other sub-areas such as nonevent-related components. This research note, therefore, provides a sport tourism perspective and a methodological approach to establishing the sport tourism cube as a necessary tool for the further distinction and integration of sport and event tourism. The research aim is, therefore, to build a foundation for further scientific research in sport tourism.     

Mediating urban transition through rural tourism

This study examines China’s urban–rural transition in the process of development and change. Regarding tourism as a discourse of difference, it focuses on a rural ethnic community, Jiabang, in Southwest China. It aims to highlight the role of tourism in providing a stimulus for the creation of a local group identity that subverts wider discourses of rural areas. With the goal of understanding how toured places are imagined, presented and consumed, this study utilises mixed data sources collected from tourism promotional materials and ethnographic fieldwork. The findings suggest that the forces behind the touristic place creation and consumption are both integral to and the result of the changing attitudes and perceptions of people and places in contemporary China.     

Touristic Development and Water Sustainability in Banff and Canmore,Alberta, Canada

During the past decade the towns of Banff and Canmore, located in the Bow Valley Corridor of Alberta, Canada, have faced intense touristic, recreational and residential developmentpressure.Both communities have experienced significantinvestment and obvious growth in residential, resort and other tourism infrastructure. These changes have stimulated concerns regarding ecological,economic and social impacts of touristic development and triggered questions regarding its sustainability. This paper outlines the nature of touristic development activities in the Bow Corridor and, in particular, identifies water supply and waste water treatment issues related to touristic and residential growth in the towns of Banff and Canmore. Efforts of local municipal officials to deal with the impacts of residential and visitor demand on water supply and treatmentinfrastructure,including demand-and supply-side managementactions, are noted. Sustainability principles for water management, produced by the Canadian Water Resources Association, are used as touchstones to identify the incorporation of sustainability concepts and principles in planning and management of water resources in the Bow Valley Corridor. The paper concludes with comments concerning efforts to attain sustainable water managementas a componentof sustainable tourism in the Bow Valley Corridor.     

Sustainable development of industrial heritage tourism – A case study of the Industrial Monuments Route in Poland

The main goal of our research was to identify, characterize and discuss the main types of business models that can be found in touristic heritage sites that have been transformed into such from former industrial facilities or were newly created to pass on the heritage values. The research is a continuation of our study that started in 2017 on on Polish touristic sites, that are associated on a touristic route – Industrial Monuments Route of Silesian Voivodeship. This route is located in southern part of Poland and it is the largest industrial route in the country. Our research revealed, organized and complemented the different types of business model transformation that took place in the analysed sites, among them is the post-production organization model which is the most frequently occurring one. This model applies to touristic ventures or cultural institutions that are former production or extraction facilities. Thanks to the transformation of those sites they suite now to fulfil their new touristic function, even if originally they have been designed for other purposes. The use of such transformed business models has also proven itself as an effective and in many cases the only way to preserve and save cultural heritage from degradation.     

Tourism as a cultural domain the case of Taos,New Mexico

This paper offers an analysis of tourism as a cultural domain through a combination of hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling procedures not previously used together in touristic studies. The data for the study were gathered from interviews with 89 tourists who completed a card-sorting task for fifty items selected as representative of the range of real behavioral choices available to visitors to the Taos region. The two solutions presented, based on the U-statistic and the KYST program, are in reasonably good agreement and also correlate well with an earlier analysis reported in this journal (Kemper 1979). The approach used here not only enhances ethnographic understanding of tourism as a cultural domain and complements field research carried out using more traditional participant-observation and survey interview methodologies, but also offers a number of valuable applications for conceptualizing and marketing tourism.     

Hybridity between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’: Visiting Gyeongju through the prism of colonial imaginary

This article aims to understand the hybridity between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ exposed in heritage production and its touristic consumption in the colonial era. This article is a single case study investigating Gyeongju city of Korea. Findings show the complexity of this binary relationship by revealing three different types of hybridity: the first is engaged in a visible manifestation of difference, the second is a hybridization process by which differences are either naturalized or neutralized within the colonized host, and the third is a perspective for representing the new critical tourism practices. This study also demonstrated that heritage and tourism, as results of this hybridization, were significant mediums for offering colonial encounters and narratives that reveal this hybridity.     

Sights of sites: picturing heritage,power and exclusion

This paper explores the visual representations used to illustrate, promote and communicate a particular idea of heritage in the tourism literature, which provides an instance within which to examine the material consequences of a dominant discourse. This examination takes place within the context of current New Labour policy initiatives, which have put forward a new role for heritage, both in terms of the touristic experiences it can provide and as an instrumental tool for social inclusion and civic engagement. It is argued in this paper that these consciously designed objectives have also opened up a conceptual space within which images of heritage are drawn upon to undertake a course of ideological work that affectively reaffirms and legitimizes the cultural symbols of an elite social group as a consensual representation of national heritage.     

The impact of tourism on the physical environment

Cohen Erik “The Impact of Tourism on the Physical Environment”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. V, No. 2, April/June 1978, pp. 215–237. While moderate and well-distributed tourism may help to upkeep attractions and preserve the environment, tourism as a mass industry poses new environmental risks. This paper is a first attempt to assess systematically the environmental impact of tourism and to spell out the principal factors on which this impact depends: the intensity of tourist site-use, the resiliency of the eco-system, the time perspective of the developers and the transformational character of touristic developments. The environmental dynamics of the tourist ecological sub-system are shown to consist of a constant expansion at the margins and intensification at the mature core, leading to the creation of “contrived” attractions both at the core (as “natural” attractions decline) and the margins (to supplement meager “natural” attractions as tourism expands into less attractive regions). Two major types of measures for environmental protection are discussed: those protecting the environment for tourism and those protecting it from tourism. The need for the second type of measures is emphasized, particularly in developing countries, which face greater environmental risks from tourism than the developed ones.     

Customer segmentation for marinas: Evaluating marinas as destinations

Marinas are a significant part of marine tourism activity and they are complex organizations having a highly heterogeneous business structure with many different companies trying to provide the various services that altogether compromise the so called “marina services”. From this perspective, they can be described as destinations and analyzed with a destination marketing perspective. This study aims to conduct a benefit segmentation approach to marinas as destinations, in order to identify the existing market segments based on yachters' expectations from them. Data were collected from 261 yachters of seven marinas located on Turkey's Aegean coast in 2014. The five identified segments are labelled as socially oriented, indifferent, supportive facilities oriented, service and prestige oriented, and touristic attractiveness oriented clusters. Clusters are validated by nine independent variables that define their socio–demographic characteristics and individual motivations for traveling to marinas. The results offer important implications both for practitioners and scholars.     

Social impacts as a function of place change

This paper argues that both impacts felt by and attitudes to tourism are a function of place change. Destinations are comprised of three types of place: tourism, non-tourism and shared. It is believed attitudes are generally positive when stasis exists among the three types, but deteriorate during periods of rapid place change. Likewise, impacts are felt when place changes, especially when non-tourism place is transformed into either shared or tourism place. This proposition is tested through a meta-analysis of more than 90 journal articles examining social impacts of tourism. Nine types of place change were identified as well as a relationship between place change and lifecycle stage.     

How do monetary and time spend explain cultural tourist satisfaction?

Tourist expenditure is studied from many perspectives, including that of the two primary types of budget—monetary and temporal—that a tourist must manage in a destination. Yet, despite the scholarly interest in tourist expenditure, no studies to date have sought to quantify how spend type affects tourist satisfaction.Since money and time are finite, it is important to understand how they contribute to tourist satisfaction. The aim of the present research is therefore to analyze how tourist behavior in a cultural destination, taking into account the real-time spending of both monetary and time budgets, contributes to satisfaction-formation. A sample of 957 touristic activities conducted in the City of Granada (Spain) was analyzed from a multilevel perspective, measuring tourist satisfaction with the activity in real time.The study identifies several factors of interest for stakeholders of cultural tourism from a new conceptual and methodological approach in tourism satisfaction studies.     

Tourism and cultural revival

Cultural change is a recurrent concern in tourism anthropology studies. Host societies frequently remodel their culture following the creation of a tourist resort. But, that does not necessarily imply an acculturating process, since what actually takes place is pragmatic cultural production work in response to the touristic demands that offer consolidated economic alternatives and livelihood. As for the Pataxó Indians of Porto Seguro of Brazil, they have sponsored a “cultural revival” process. In other words, they have generated the traditions that start being exhibited commercially in arenas where the prospect of emergent ethnic tourism is perceived.     

Imagining the Nepali ‘nation’ through tourism

Tourism is considered to present a contrived and inauthentic version of a nation and that there is a big gap between touristic image and the social reality of the nation. By contrast, some scholars have argued that tourism can be an important tool to articulate nationhood and nationalism as it represents an authentic national culture. This paper looks into the representation of the Nepali nation in tourism and sees how fairly it represents ‘national imagery’ and culture. Data collected through unobtrusive methods and observations show that tourism is presenting a picture of Nepal that is largely partial and unrepresentative of its composite character. The imagery of Nepal in tourism is full of references to Himalayan heritage and there is a serious under-representation of the region of Terai and its people. The portrayal of Nepal in the two sources used reflects the representations of some kinds of ‘conservative nationalism’ in Nepal. This study also stresses that such (under)representations prevents tourism from playing a meaningful role in bringing in more ‘sub-national’ identities into the composite imagery of Nepal and solidifying and expressing Nepali national identity and nationalism.     

“We had a ball … as long as you kept taking your painkillers” just how much tourism is there in medical tourism? Experiences of the patient tourist

The debate over ‘medical tourism’ versus ‘travel for medical treatment’ largely centres on the role of the voluntary leisure or touristic component. This study provides empirical evidence regarding the nature of leisure tourism occurring during medical travel, drawing on interviews with individuals who have returned from travel overseas for medical treatment. We identify four influences: the medical procedure; personal factors (e.g. travel experience, resilience, accompanying companions); destination factors; and financial matters. The most significant of these is the nature of the medical procedure, its level of invasiveness and requirements for post treatment recovery, and whether or not the patient-traveller suffered any complications. The ‘hotel-isation’ of hospitals (‘hospitels’) contributes to participants' perceptions of this type of travel being touristic in nature, even if no other conventional touristic activities are engaged in. We also observe similarities between medical tourism and business travel, both being hybrid forms of tourism, with variable leisure components.     

Creating New Relationships Through Tourism: A Qualitative Analysis of Tourist Motivations of Older Individuals in Japan

The current study is an exploration to examine older Japanese individuals’ motivations for travel. The study employed an open-ended survey and in-depth interviews in order to gain insight into the creation of human relationships through tourism. Our results show that tourism is perceived as offering extraordinary opportunities to meet new people, and to form and develop new relationships by Japanese older individuals, who experience fewer opportunities to interact with other people in their everyday lives compared to individuals in younger generations. In particular, distinct features of tourism settings, such as liminality and touristic communitas, allow older tourists to express themselves more freely by escaping from their existing relationships as well as from many social norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions.