Integrating tourism with rural development

Tourism can play a much more powerful role in stimulating rural development than it has in most regions. Achieving this objective will require more careful integration of visitor marketing and rural development strategies. High “quality” visitors and accommodations may not be the same in rural and urban areas. What may be good for the region as a whole may not be good for its rural periphery. In the case of Hawaii, the expansion of tourism was not planned as an integral part of the rural development process, even though most of the state's hotel rooms will eventually be located in non-metropolitan areas. Hawaii may not, therefore, serve as an ideal planning model for other island regions to follow.     

Traditions of sustainability in tourism studies

As sustainability has become an important policy issue in tourism, it is arousing growing discussion and criticism, and an increasing need to understand the nature of the limits of growth. This paper analyzes how these limits are approached and evaluated in discussions on a local scale. The purpose is to recognize that behind the different understandings of them lie distinct traditions that are different in their focuses. These are referred to as resource-, activity-, and community-based traditions of sustainability. Further, the relationship between sustainable tourism and sustainable development is critically discussed.     

Integrated strategy for tourism education/training

Tourism is in need of a comprehensive framework within which to design and deliver education and training programs in a more effective manner. This paper reports the efforts of two provincial governments in Canada to formulate an integrated strategy on which to base the planning and development of a tourism education and training system. The goal of such integration is to ensure a greater degree of interdependence among different levels of the total education system so as to provide well-defined alternative career paths for present and future students. Initial results of the strategy on the development of the education infrastructure are reviewed.     

A facilitated access model and ottoman empire tourism

This paper proposes a “facilitated access” model to describe how local people make and have made use of tourism. Although Western travel accounts of the Arab Middle East have been studied by various disciplines, the Ottoman Empire has not been treated from a tourism studies approach. Travel narratives from 1835 to 1870 are used to reconstruct how, and tentatively why, Ottoman subjects adapted existing tourism services and expertise to the new Western tourists of the era. It is argued that Western tourism in the empire flourished in the foundational period before Cook Company tours began in 1869 because some Ottoman subjects could thus increase their own autonomy.     

Clusters in regional tourism An Australian case

With changing industrial patterns in regional Australia, tourism has gained increasing currency as an agent for regional economic development. This paper investigates the applicability of cluster theory in supporting the movement from comparative advantage to competitive advantage for four regional towns located on the Murray River in Australia. Thus far cluster analysis has largely been applied in the manufacturing industry. This paper reports on its potential as an analytical tool in service-based tourism and, through the cases studied, identifies vital attributes of clusters that are lacking in the least economically successful region in the study area.     

Negotiating landscape in rural tourism

Landscape is a vitally important asset for Norwegian rural tourism. Different views and perceptions of landscape are negotiated among key actors such as operators, tourists, and farmers. This article investigates these negotiations in relation to three dimension of landscape: values and requirements; how it is experienced; and future development prospects. The study shows that while actors hold different positions and attitudes, all of them unite in their concerns about landscape change, and in their desire to preserve food traditions and local produce. Further, this paper argues that there is a general re-orientation in landscape perception from “spectacularization” towards “multi-sensing”.     

Politics and tourism interface: The Case of Cyprus

The Cyprus tourism industry has had to be sensitive to the political problems between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Federation is considered to be a partial solution to the problems. This paper evaluates the influence of politics and nationalism on the tourism planning and development under a possible federal constitution. The views of Turkish and Greek Cypriot participants from private and public organizations are studied through semistructured interviews. The findings suggest that any future planning and development is likely to be a complex undertaking, as the two societies tend to have different sets of objectives and expectations.     

Towards an ethics platform for tourism

Ethical distinctions inform all human actions and decisions. On inspection, however, dominant paradigms in tourism scholarship are imbued with the myth of objectivity and thus ignore the ethical dimension. Since the four platforms of scholarship were first published in 1990, a representation of one of the most value-based concepts of this time, sustainable development, has been embraced; a fifth platform has emerged to dominate the rhetoric of tourism praxis. However, this paper argues that a sixth platform, an ethics platform, is needed to interrogate the morality of the positions taken in policy, planning, development, and management. These platforms are proposed against a background of environmental ethics and global political economy.     

Sustainable tourism and the question of the commons

Sustainable development calls for wise management of natural, built, and sociocultural resources in destination areas. Resources created mainly for tourism are used in time by the local population as well. Many others are shared in common with local people in everyday life. More often than not, resources are overused and degraded, as is the unfortunate fate of most ‘common pool resources’. When this happens, sustainable development is severely threatened: economic wellbeing declines, environmental conditions worsen, social injustice grows, and tourist satisfaction drops. This paper analyzes the central role that common pool resources play in sustainable tourism development, outlines policy design principles for their management, and offers future research directions.     

Inbound tourism policies in Japan from 1859 to 2003

This paper aims to clarify the development process of the inbound tourism policies of Japan from 1859 to 2003. Evolving through five periods and ten phases, policies have been variously promoted to obtain foreign currencies and break the country’s isolation at the earliest stage, to make it a peaceful and cultured nation via international exchanges and friendship after the Pacific War, and, more recently, to contribute to its economic revitalization in recession. The relationships between inbound and national land policies, as well as nonstructural aspects such as promotion, advertising, and services, are also examined.     

Rural tourism and gendered nuances

Research findings on rural residents’ attitudes towards tourism are often contradictory, in part due to a lack of data examining the often divergent perspectives of particular subgroups. Regional survey data from the Intermountain Western United States is used to provide an improved understanding of rural tourism attitudes as they are linked to community involvement and changes, while also exploring both intragender and intergender differences. Group differences in levels of community involvement, perceptions of tourism and various other issues are observed. While differences emerge, there is also widespread agreement on the importance of preserving local culture and the opposition to sale of agricultural land for development.     

Partnership and regional tourism in Brazil

Partnerships in planning for regional development can bring together stakeholders representing interests at national, regional, and local geographical scales. This paper examines a regional tourism development partnership in Northeast Brazil. It explores the effects of socioeconomic and political contexts on this collaborative arrangement, the processes of joint working, and how participation was extended to parties not attending the regular meetings. The partnership focused on coordination among government organizations at different spatial scales and with various functions, with participants largely confined to the public sector. Using this assessment, an analytical framework is presented to assist other researchers interested in this theme.     

Gifts of tourism: insights to consumer behavior

Using empirical evidence from real-life accounts of the giving, receiving and consuming of tourism and leisure products as gifts, this paper examines the phenomenon of experience gift giving behavior. Although generic gift giving has an extensive literature expanding from the 1950s, there is a gap between consumer activity in experience gift consumption and academic understanding. The study findings show the constituent parts and processes of decision-making, gift exchange, and post-exchange, consumption and post-consumption. These concepts, whether new (for example, patterns of participation in consumption), adapted (for example, wrapping strategies) or absorbed (for example, impression management) from the gift giving literature, are drawn together as a Model of Experience Gift Giving Behavior.     

Centralized and decentralized tourism governance in Turkey

In many developing countries governance is highly centralized. The considerable potential benefits of decentralization for such countries are widely espoused, but less attention is paid to the potential difficulties and dangers. This paper develops a framework of issues to consider when evaluating the decentralization of tourism governance, including its potential benefits and shortcomings. There is examination of the transfer of authority and the distribution of power, legitimacy and accountability. The framework is used to assess tourism governance in the Turkish coastal resort of Belek, notably the involvement of central and local government, a privatized company, and a nongovernmental organization. The difficulties and threats linked to decentralization in Belek warn against an uncritical adoption of such policies.     

Geographic factors affecting tourism in Zambia

This paper discusses several geographical factors critical to tourism planning and development in Zambia. The paper focuses on the size, seasonality of climate, and population distribution of the country as well as the location of tourism resources and distances between tourist attractions. Individually and collectively, these factors have a major influence on the levels of occupancy in hotels and game lodges, and air and land transportation. The infrastructural development and its utilization for tourism are evaluated, and a number of constraints to tourism development are also examined. A discussion of appropriate tourism policies highlights the delicate relationship between economic and environmental factors. This study concludes that Tourism Master Plans should be more cognizant of geographic as well as economic factors when developing destinations such as Zambia.     

Tourism Brochures: Usefulness and Image

Tourist information has been shown to have an important influence on the choice of vacation destinations. This article studies brochures, their significance as image generators, and their influence on the selection of destinations. The study sought to discover which features in this medium are more relevant in image generation and destination choice using logistic regression analysis. The analysis is based on data collected from tourists in Madrid, Spain. The results establish a model of usefulness of brochures in order to propose recommendations for their design and content. Implications pertain to the development of theoretical understandings about the influence of the information sources on destination image, destination choice, and satisfying tourist needs.     

Comment on Richter''s political implications of Chinese tourism policy

The purpose of this study was to analyze the development of tourism in American Samoa. The government in American Samoa initiated efforts to develop tourism during the early 1960's. In spite of this, tourism in American Samoa is still in an early development stage. Internal factors which have constrained tourism growth have been the limited natural resources and underlying conflict between the traditional Samoan culture versus western ideas. External factors in the form of increased competition from nearby destinations and shifts in airline services also have limited the number of tourists to the area. The development of tourism in American Samoa is relevant to other less popular and newly developing destinations in the Pacific. Thus, it illustrates the risks and problems in developing tourism in similar Pacific destinations.     

Testing theory of planned versus realized tourism behavior

This article probes how well one’s plans for doing, buying, and consuming discretionary tourism services relate to what is actually done. Using group level data, it includes an empirical study of hypotheses comparing planned and actual consumption behaviors. The main propositions tested are that realized consumption behaviors are greater in number than planned and that the level of matching between planned and realized actions varies as a function of contingency factors of composition of the tourist group, product experience, and motivations. Data from two large-scale surveys serve to examine the theory. The findings support the hypotheses partially and provide guidance for planning survey research and marketing management strategies.     

Measuring novelty seeking in tourism

The purposes of the study were to define the construct of novelty in the context of tourism, to conceptualize its role in the destination choice process, and to develop an instrument to measure novelty. The novelty construct was comprised of four interrelated but distinctive dimensions: thrill, change from routine, boredom alleviation, and surprise. A 21 item instrument was developed to measure the construct and its dimensions. The scale was judged to have content validity by an initial panel of experts. It was demonstrated to have convergent, theoretical, discriminant, and criterion validity in terms of its expected correlations with other measures. Items measuring the dimensions were internally consistent, and both test-retest and split-half reliability were satisfactory.     

Devaluation and US tourism expenditure in Mexico

Studies that investigate the factors affecting US tourism expenditures in Mexico generally regard relative prices in these countries as sensitive determinants. The findings of inelasticity of expenditures of American tourists with respect to prices in the Mexican interior and border in several studies published in the 1980s are debatable. This study evaluates the impact of recent peso devaluations by adjusting 1970–1982 US tourism expenditures by an index that combines the Consumer Price Index in dollars, the CPI in pesos, and the exchange rate. The results here clearly indicate that US expenditures in the interior and on the border are price sensitive and have a strong positive trend reaction to devaluation in both nominal and real terms. Border expenditures clearly exceed interior expenditures and are more sensitive to exchange rate changes than expenditures in interior Mexico.