The Hole

 The Hole,

I am introducing is in Providenciales, TCI.

Enjoy!

An Assessment of Four Selected Communities Along the Appalachian Trail in Relation to Emile Benton Mackaye's Original Vision of Regional Planning

An Assessment of Four Selected Communities Along the Appalachian Trail in Relation to Emile Benton Mackaye's Original Vision of Regional Planning

a MS thesis by Jessica Ann Schottanes, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

I had a chance to work with this graduate student last year on a project with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the A.T. Community.  Read her research at this link.

Schottanes, Jessica Ann, "An Assessment of Four Selected Communities Along the Appalachian Trail in Relation to Emile Benton Mackaye's Original Vision of Regional Planning" (2021). Masters Theses. 1073.

https://doi.org/10.7275/22483508.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/1073

Enjoy

Stonehenge

 This time two years ago, while in the UK for a conference, I stopped by here.

Music by Spinal Tap

St Quentin's Castle, Llanblethian

St. Quentine's Castle in Wales is a very pretty site and perfect for a picnic.

A nice history is found here.

The Wikipedia site for the castle.

Here is another website with some pictures.

Easy to find also.

Time to get published (in print)

Journal publishing is an expected job responsibility for faculty.  And for that matter, just about any publishing will help advance an academics career (government documents, books etc.).

But for many publications it can take some time from the point of submission to the final print version.  And that of course is after you write the paper in the first place.

It has become faster today with the automated and online manuscript submission platforms that take the original paper and distribute it to the editors and reviewers.  But there is still a lot of work involved to review the paper at this point.

Some journals are fast and other are slow.  And that is not a criticism of the journal or editors; it could be a function of the volume of papers received and the backlog to fill an issue with 10 or so papers.

Long story short, for our "Geography of Fear" paper:

Pages 262-275 | Received 03 Jun 2018, Accepted 04 Jun 2019, Published online: 22 Jun 2019

Abstract: Urban centres encompass a variety of tourist attractions. To expand these offerings, the opportunities must recognize the temporal and spatial constraints of travel. Temporally a night-time economy can fuel visitation and has traditionally been centered on entertainment, food and drinking establishments. The former has broad appeal to all visitors while the latter are more attractive options for the young and fearless. Spatially, to attract a broader audience of visitors, one most overcome the fear of the night so important in family friendly opportunities. Following the examples in several cities, the commodification of dark tourism themes has been shown to encourage family visitation, despite the macabre theme of the attractions. For the purpose of this study, an assessment of common fears is asked of night-time tourists as they prepare to enter an urban haunted attraction. The attraction is promoted to scare the guest but at the same time, expected to be safe. In this manner we begin to understand the dual nature of fear (i.e. repel vs attract) evident in night-time tourism experiences.

I just got notice of the paper publication info:

"Now you're published, you'll hopefully want to share your article with friends or colleagues. Every author at Routledge (including all co-authors) gets 50 free online copies of their article to share with their networks. Your eprint link is now ready to use and is: "

Link 

Two years from submission to print!   Enjoy.

Happy Halloween and Geography of Fear

Seems like a good time to highlight research about the contribution of haunted attractions in urban planning.

So in between watching horror movies on TV (TCM has genre films all day!) consider this paper on the topic.

Bristow, R. S., & Jenkins, I. S. (2019). Geography of fear: fright tourism in urban revitalization. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 1-14.

Boo!

Geography of fear: fright tourism in urban revitalization

Robert S. Bristow and Ian Jenkins

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events

Abstract
Urban centres encompass a variety of tourist attractions. To expand these offerings, the opportunities must recognize the temporal and spatial constraints of travel. Temporally a night-time economy can fuel visitation and has traditionally been centered on entertainment, food and drinking establishments. The former has broad appeal to all visitors while the latter are more attractive options for the young and fearless. Spatially, to attract a broader audience of visitors, one most overcome the fear of the night so important in family friendly opportunities. Following the examples in several cities, the commodification of dark tourism themes has been shown to encourage family visitation, despite the macabre theme of the attractions. For the purpose of this study, an assessment of common fears is asked of night-time tourists as they prepare to enter an urban haunted attraction. The attraction is promoted to scare the guest but at the same time, expected to be safe. In this manner we begin to understand the dual nature of fear (i.e. repel vs attract) evident in night-time tourism experiences.

KEYWORDS: Urban revitalization, entertainment districts, fright tourism, night-time haunted attractions, dark tourism

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2018

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2018

Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group

For details, click here.

Wednesday 29 Aug 2018

Visualising seascapes: encounters with coastal and marine environments (1)

Wednesday Session 1 (09:00-10:40)        

Visualising seascapes: encounters with coastal and marine environments (2)

Wednesday Session 2 (11:10-12:50)        

Traversing Landscapes of Gender Based Violence (GBV) (1)

Wednesday Session 3 (14:40-16:20

Landscapes of tourism, travel or exploration? Perspectives from historical and tourism geography

Wednesday Session 4 (16:50-18:30)        

Liminal Landscapes in Tourism

Wednesday Session 4 (16:50-18:30)        

Thursday 30 Aug 2018

Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group AGM

Thursday Plenary & lunch (13:10-14:25)        

Teaching the Geographies of Sport (1)

Thursday Session 3 (14:40-16:20)        

Teaching the Geographies of Sport (2)

Thursday Session 4 (16:50-18:30)        

Friday 31 Aug 2018

Sonic Spaces: music landscapes, soundscapes and identity (2) - Sonic Spaces and Mobile Landscapes

Friday Session 3 (14:40-16:20)        

RGS 2018 Liminal Landscapes is scheduled

Liminal Landscapes in Tourism
Affiliation	Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group
Convenor(s)	Robert S. Bristow (Westfield State University, MA, USA) Ian S. Jenkins (University of Iceland, Iceland)
Chair(s)	Robert S. Bristow (Westfield State University, MA, USA)
Timetable	Wednesday 29 August 2018, Session 4 (16:50 - 18:30)
Session abstract	Liminality has recently gained the attention of tourism scholars (Preston-Whyte, 2004; Pritchard, & Morgan, 2006; Andrews & Roberts, 2012; Brooker & Joppe, 2014). The transitional time and space for the tourist experience is an important one to understand since it has a great impact on the overall encounter. Yet the shear nature of liminality is generally so abstract that only recently has research attempted to explore the relationship in tourism. Liminality is anthropologically associated with Rites of Passage (van Gennep, 1960). Turner (1974) refined liminality as the edge of everyday life. Similar to a tourist experience, the chance to break away from the norms of daily life is an important aspect of tourism. Liminality is a logical transition for tourists since they are leaving the comfort of home to travel to some unknown experience. This frequently reflects the period and space in the anticipation and travel to and from phases of the experience (Clawson and Knetsch, 1966; White and White, 2003; and Lew, 2012). The purpose of this session is to explore how liminal landscapes are viewed in travel and tourism.

CFP Liminal Landscapes in Tourism

CFP Liminal Tourism RGS-IBG Annual Conference

Call For Papers:

RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Tuesday 28 August to Friday 31 August 2018, Cardiff University, Cardiff.

CFP: Liminal landscapes in Tourism

Sponsored by the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group

Session conveners ; Robert S. Bristow, Westfield State University, USA, Ian S. Jenkins, University of Iceland

Liminality has recently gained the attention of tourism scholars (Preston-Whyte, 2004; Pritchard, & Morgan, 2006; Andrews & Roberts, 2012; Brooker & Joppe, 2014). The transitional time and space for the tourist experience is an important one to understand since it has a great impact on the overall encounter.   Yet the shear nature of liminality is generally so abstract that only recently has research attempted to explore the relationship in tourism.

Liminality is anthropologically associated with Rites of Passage (van Gennep, 1960).  Turner (1974) refined liminality as the edge of everyday life. Similar to a tourist experience, the chance to break away from the norms of daily life is an important aspect of tourism.   Liminality is a logical transition for tourists since they are leaving the comfort of home to travel to some unknown experience.  This frequently reflects the period and space in the anticipation and travel to/from phases of the experience (Clawson and Knetsch, 1966; White and White, 2003; and Lew, 2012). 

We invited contributions that explore how liminal landscapes are viewed in travel and tourism.  

Please send; an abstract of no more than 250 words, name, email contact and affiliation to Rob at rbristow@westfield.ma.edu and Ian at jenkins@hi.is or dr.isjenkins@gmail. The deadline for submissions is the 2nd February 2018. If you have any questions or concerns please be in touch.

Physical Geography Online

While not really recreation, since I teach physical also, I do like to share good resources.  Check out this link.  Part of the PhysicalGeography.net it is a great free resource about our planet.

the web and the Image Of The Day

The web has always been good for "something" of the day sites.  I remember early work (maybe by Yahoo?) of producing a link to a new site every day to showcase something new.

Here is a site of the day site that deals with remote sensing:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/

check it out!

Nordic Geographers Meeting in Iceland this June

The NGM is a biennial meeting of Nordic geographers, taking place in turn in one of the Nordic Countries.

The 5th Nordic Geographers Meeting will be held in Reykjavík, Iceland, at the University of Iceland, 11 – 14 June 2013. Previous meetings include: Lund, Sweden (2005); Bergen, Norway (2007); Turku, Finland (2009); Roskilde, Denmark (2011).

The theme of the NGM 2013 is Responsible Geographies. Both human and physical geographers are encouraged to participate under this broad heading.

We will be adding to our data base by collecting data on the next Westfield River Wildwater Races.  Our abstract follows:

Rural Tourism: Challenges of Carbon Impacts

Robert S. Bristow
Department of Geography & Regional Planning
Westfield State University
USA

Ian Jenkins
Les Roches – Gruyere
University of Applied Sciences
Switzerland

According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, CO2 emissions generated directly from the tourism sector account today for 5 per cent of global CO2 emissions.  In many cases, especially in the ecotourism sector, tourists may believe their impact is minimal as they try to travel green.  This misconception needs further examination since ecotourism is often touted as a green alternative to conventional mass tourism when in fact, the impact may be spread over a larger natural area.  The purpose of this research is to identity the carbon footprint generated by a whitewater canoe race from both the participants and the observers. 

The Carbon Footprint is one measure of the tourism impact of human activity related to leisure pursuits. According to the World Tourism Organization changes in the availability of water, loss of natural habitats, reduced to the visual landscape, altered agricultural production, and other factors will all impact tourism as a result of climate change.

Data for this study were collected by a survey administered on the date of the 2012 Westfield River Wildwater Races, a river with Class III rapids.  The sample represents 153 novice racers, 36 experts and 100 spectators yielding a total 289 respondents.  Calculating total emissions was based on the type and year of vehicle driven to the event, total round trip miles and calculating a per mile carbon emission for each party.  Based on this sample, it is estimated that a total 8558.98 pounds of carbon were emitted into the atmosphere for this tourist event.

Keywords:  Carbon footprint, rural tourism 

Teaching Physical Geography over the winter break

I'm teaching a Brick and Click class in Physical Geography over our winter break. We met for the first time last night with a Remote Sensing Lab. Everyone is just amazed with the data available on Google Earth (or Google Maps).

It is a wonderful learning tool.

Most of the students use it to explore an area prior to a vacation. StreetView is of interest as well. Here is an image of our campus.

Tonight we do a lab on topographic maps.

Sinabung Volcano Erupts

Just in time for my Physical Geography class, and any geography class for that matter. Not that I want to exploit the local residents, but natural disasters like this, occur almost every day.

And it gives us geographers current events to show our students. I just Googled Earth to see where it is.

It might even eclipse, momentarily, the five year anniversary of Katrina. I mean, there is a world outside of the states.