Surfing tourism and community in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

While surfing tourism brings many advantages to isolated communities, it also brings unwanted side-effects. This article explores how people in the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia, perceive surfing tourism, taking particular note of how people talk about both the positive and negative influences on their daily lives. The article draws primarily on fieldwork undertaken between July and September of 2010 but incorporates further data in making its arguments. The article explores ways people in Mentawai talk of improvements in their livelihoods due to surfing tourism, including increased employment opportunities and the ability to learn English. The article also shows, though, that people in Mentawai express concern about surfing tourism, particularly concerning issues of alcohol, drugs and the disrespectful behaviour of surf tourists. The article concludes by arguing that more research needs to be conducted to ensure the views of Mentawai people are incorporated into policy developments and surf tourism growth. The article uses a sustainable livelihoods model to evaluate the impact of surf tourism in Mentawai.     

High unemployment and tourism participation*

This paper analyses individual tourism participation decisions during a worldwide economic downturn. Given the nature of tourism services, a reduction in habitual consumption is highly probable during an economic crisis. Since the unemployment rate is strongly correlated with the economic cycle, the hypothesis that is discussed concerns whether residents’ decision to participate in tourism is affected by their region's level of unemployment. More specifically, it is suggested that unemployment not only affects the tourism participation decision of those who are out-of-work, but that aggregate unemployment (measured as the region's unemployment rate) also has a bearing on such decisions made by individuals in general. The results that were obtained for a set of EU countries show that the unemployment level has a positive effect on the probability of not going on holidays. This effect emerges when there is an unemployment rate of over 10%.     

Fair trade in tourism

Tourism as an industry is increasing rapidly in developing countries. Due to historical inequality in global trading relationships on the basis of ‘core–periphery’ dependency, globalisation and liberalised free trade, mainstream mass tourism reinforces the social and economic disadvantages of southern destinations. The ‘Fair Trade Movement’ has sought to redress unequal trading by promoting fair trade in commodities with small producers in the South, enabling them to take control over the production and marketing process and challenging the power of transnational corporations. This paper examines the feasibility of fair trade in tourism. It explores the obstacles and opportunities that might lead to establishing a definition of fair trade in tourism, incorporating criteria that would be workable and practical for both partners in the South and North. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Progress in tourism and destination wellbeing research

A proliferation of research in recent years has revealed a myriad of relationships between tourism and the concept of wellbeing. These include health benefits of visiting tourist destinations, a product focus on wellness and maintaining good health. Broader interpretations emphasize the complex ways in which tourism can influence the emotional, psychological, cognitive and spiritual dimensions of wellbeing, both for tourists and for destination communities. This study reflects an emerging paradigm shift that incorporates a deeper appreciation of the benefits derived at the destination level from a focus on health and wellbeing. The study highlights three key perspectives, namely the tourist, the destination community and the destination itself. The study concludes that research in this area is critical to the future development, management and marketing of sustainable and competitive destinations with the wellbeing of tourists, their destination host communities, and the overall destination experience, critical to their ultimate success.     

A linkage between Internet use and tourism activities

The impact of Internet use on leisure activities is investigated theoretically and empirically beyond the extent to which the related literature has reached. This study illustrates theoretically a nonlinear linkage between Internet use and tourism activities in the context of a thought experiment relating to individual’s allocation of spare time among leisure activities. By means of a count data model, our empirical evidence suggests that time spent online has an inverted U-shaped impact on overnight trips and museum visits, indicating that the marginal impact of Internet use is decreasing. At the low points of time spent online, Internet use may stimulate tourism activities, whereas at the high points of Internet use, it could have just the opposite effect. This finding implies that problematic use of the Internet (or Internet addiction) is negatively associated with tourism activities. However, time spent online does not significantly affect leisure activities such as watching movies and TV, listening to the radio, or reading magazines and newspapers.     

Migration and inbound tourism: an Italian perspective

This paper investigates the impact of migration on Italian inbound tourism flows in a dynamic panel data framework. Arrivals, expenditure and nights from 65 countries are analysed for the period 2005–2011. The migration variable is defined at both origin and destination in order to assess the pushing and pulling forces. Estimates were performed using both aggregated flows and flows disaggregated to separate the visiting friends and relatives (VFRs) from two non-VFR categories, namely holiday and business. The results suggest the presence of a strong migration-tourism nexus, which clearly goes beyond VFRs. Moreover, the effects of the different determinants vary according to the way in which the tourism market is segmented and, within each segment, to the way in which tourism demand is measured.     

Civil aviation regimes and leisure tourism in Europe

The paper discusses the implications of modern civil aviation regimes for tourism in Europe. A discussion of the relation between air transport and tourism sets the foundation for the study focus. The market strategies of the players involved are examined within a multidimensional framework of corporate rivalry during regulation and liberalisation. The connotations for tourism origins, destinations and consumers are presented and policy measures are suggested for the alleviation of emerging problems.     

Perceptions of terror stricken tourism destinations

ABSTRACT

In the wake of global safety and security concerns, it is important to understand and document perceptions held by tourists so as to inform destination recovery efforts post terror attack. This exploratory study employs focus groups to examine American millennials’ perceptions of risk and their intentions to travel to terror-stricken destinations, specifically Nice, France. Perceived risks related to general international travel articulated by participants included, health, theft, and safety concerns. Participants indicated that they were willing to travel to Nice, post terror attack, with the exception of one group that would choose to travel elsewhere in France. Participants’ rank ordering of the sources they would consult during the decision making process for travel to a terror stricken destination included: family, people with lived experience of the destination, and government. This paper contributes to risk perception literature, particularly scholarship on the nexus between terrorism and tourism.     

Key factors for successful leisure and tourism public transport provision

In the second half of the 20th century, the main focus of transport policy and transport studies was on the reduction of the use of motorised, individual transport, in particular with regard to daily commuter traffic. The main concepts concentrated on creating an attractive public transport supply and, where possible, improving the infrastructure for non-motorized traffic in order to open up alternative forms of travel. Although these concepts produced noticeable effects on everyday travel, they could not cope with steadily rising problems in the field of leisure traffic. Therefore, primarily supply oriented, autocratic desktop transport policies cannot be seen as a promising approach within the leisure context.Consequently, the article focuses on the necessary key factors for successful leisure and tourism public transport provision. It stresses the need for rethinking transport policy by choosing a demand oriented approach and realising the importance of additional accompanying efforts in the areas of marketing, transparency and quality. Focusing on the demand side, with its individual attitudes and preferences, leads to a new understanding of traffic planning by adopting a bottom up, rather than a top down approach.     

Creative experiences,memorability and revisit intention in creative tourism

The objective of this study was to identify hypothesised relationships among creative experiences, memorability, and revisit intentions in creative tourism. Face-to-face questionnaire survey was adopted and 399 valid questionnaires were collected in the pottery town of Yingge in Taiwan. The results show significantly positive relationships among creative experiences, memorability, and revisit intentions. Structural equation modelling analysis verified that memorability fully mediated the effect of creative experiences on revisit intentions. The study suggests that memorability may be a more appropriate predictor to revisit intentions, particularly in the case of creative activities.     

Developing a geocollaboratory for Indigenous tourism research

Collaboratories have been defined as virtual places where collaborative research can be undertaken. As part of the Aboriginal Tourism Network (ABORINET), a geocollaboratory was developed to support Indigenous tourism research. Indigenous communities are culturally distinct and remotely located and this presents geographic and sociocultural constraints when conducting research on issues affecting these communities. ABORINET's development focused on the specific goal of enabling collaboration between researchers and Indigenous peoples on issues related to Indigenous tourism planning and management, and the general issue of enabling the sharing of differing knowledge and management approaches among research and Indigenous communities. The purpose was to develop a multi-scale and multi-method data collection and analysis protocol for better understanding Indigenous tourism in a way that supports multi-site and longitudinal comparisons, for connecting Indigenous communities across the world, and for sharing the results in ways that are meaningful to stakeholders within and beyond Indigenous communities. This paper outlines the development of the geocollaboratory and describes the lessons learned with specific attention afforded the geographical nature of the collaboratory. Recommendations for mitigating challenges are proposed and future research opportunities are identified.     

A review of Delphi forecasting research in tourism

The Delphi technique is the most popular judgemental forecasting method in tourism studies, but theoretical and empirical developments in this area (especially for forecasting purposes) have been slow. This paper analyses published research on Delphi forecasting in tourism and hospitality, explores how the Delphi forecasting method has progressed over the past four decades in terms of topical areas, empirical applications, and issues of reliability and validity, and is thus expected to advance understanding of the Delphi technique, providing topical and methodological recommendations for researchers and industry practitioners for producing accurate forecasts. The literature concerning the qualitative and quantitative applications of Delphi forecasting in tourism is mainly divided into three research themes: event forecasting, forecasting tourism demand, and forecasting future trends/market conditions (the most popular application). Issues of accuracy, reliability, and validity, as well as a group of Delphi-specific characteristics, such as panel size, panel selection, consensus measures, and analysis of results, are summarized and discussed. This study also examines the accuracy of Delphi forecasts as well as exploring the role of the Delphi approach in integrating human judgement into quantitative forecasts.     

Wellness tourism in Sareyn,Iran: resources,planning and development

Health tourism is a broad concept that incorporates both medical and wellness tourism. Sareyn, city of Ardabil province, is one of the largest and the most diverse cities for health tourism. Although health tourism in Iran is in its infancy, it can offer new opportunities, and strengthen the overall competitiveness of Iran's tourism industry. In this paper, by using strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, the strengths and opportunities for sustainable health tourism are determined. Also, weaknesses and threats are recognized; finally, guidelines for efficiently using the strengths and transforming the weaknesses into opportunities and strengths are presented.