Active engagement with nature: outdoor adventure tourism,sustainability and wellbeing

Abstract

This article draws on the conflicting arguments surrounding outdoor adventure tourism activities to determine if such activities might usefully be considered beneficial for humans and nature, and how they might offer avenues for sustainable tourism practice. Research in the field has often examined outdoor adventure activities through a lens that either highlights their negative environmental impacts or has sought to conceptualise motivations and/or experiences. In this article, we argue that through practices that are often seen as destructive, there is the possibility to think differently about human-nature relationships and pro-environmentalism. To explore these issues, we draw on data collected from a series of semi-structured interviews with outdoor adventure tourists. Our analysis highlights how outdoor adventure tourism facilitates reconnections to nature, offering potential wellbeing impacts and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. We conclude that outdoor adventure activities as a form of sustainable tourism have potential implications for our understanding of, and engagement with, sustainability, mental health and wellbeing.     

Tourism knowledge and neocolonialism – a systematic critical review of the literature

Despite the official end of colonialism in the twentieth century, neocolonial structures of power have kept influencing the political, socio-cultural and economic arenas worldwide. Within this scenario, the tourism academy has seen its landscape develop with its own set of power structures, which have shaped its knowledge production and dissemination. However, whether and how neocolonial forces have exerted their influence on tourism knowledge production and dissemination is still a subject of debate among scholars. This paper was conceived as an attempt to cast additional light on the nexus between tourism knowledge and neocolonialism. More specifically, through a systematic review of the articles published in tourism journals in the last decade (2007–2017), this work assesses the status of the current tourism knowledge through the lens of neocolonialist theory. Overall, this critical review highlights that with some exceptions, most of the previous reviews concerning tourism knowledge only evaluate the work published in English in highly ranked tourism journals and tend to neglect knowledge systems outside the English-speaking global centres. Furthermore, previous studies exploring structures of power affecting tourism knowledge production and dissemination present limitations in terms of the themes and perspectives identified.     

How sustainable is sustainable hospitality research? A review of sustainable restaurant literature from 1991 to 2015

This research was designed to evaluate our current state of knowledge by systematically reviewing tourism and hospitality academic literature concerning sustainability in the restaurant sector by undertaking a systematic review and content analysis. The characteristics of 76 articles are listed in a comprehensive table, presenting research design and research variables, and the articles are examined for their approach to the sustainability concept as applied to the restaurant industry (i.e. the range of responsible practices addressed in each work). The findings indicate that the majority of the literature only engages with parts of sustainability, particularly ecological, rather than holistic sustainability. This matters because it may mean we fail in our attempts to achieve more sustainable restaurant operations.

This research suggests that tourism and hospitality studies need to re-engage with the evolving conceptualisation of sustainability to ensure that best practice responses to changing requirements are undertaken. The narrow focus on ecological aspects of sustainability featuring in restaurants does not acknowledge the full meaning of sustainability and therefore may constrain efforts to secure more sustainable futures. Illuminating such gaps in knowledge is important in order to strengthen our conceptual understandings, refine our practices and thereby secure more sustainable futures through tourism and hospitality.     

Degrowing tourism: rethinking tourism

Abstract

Concerns with growth have steadily advanced since the Limits to Growth report due particularly to human impacts on the natural environment. Since that time, neoliberal capitalism has become increasingly reliant on growth exacerbating these problems. The destructive outcomes of these strategies has led to a growing interest in degrowth. Analysts are examining how we can create economies that eschew a growth imperative while still supporting human thriving. Tourism as a key facet of capitalism is implicated in these issues and recent concerns with “overtourism” are only one symptom of the problem. This article presents a conceptual consideration of issues of degrowth in tourism. It examines current tensions in international mobility and argues just and sustainable degrowth will require greater attention to equity. This analysis suggests that essential to such an agenda is redefining tourism to focus on the rights of local communities and a rebuilding of the social capacities of tourism. This article argues for the redefinition of tourism in order to place the rights of local communities above the rights of tourists for holidays and the rights of tourism corporates to make profits.