Tourism and visitor management in protected areas

Author(s): Leung, Yu-FaiSpenceley, AnnaHvenegaard, GlenBuckley, RalfGroves, Craig

Organization(s): IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)IUCN, Global Protected Areas Programme

Abstract:
Protected areas are a key component of any global conservation strategy. Tourism provides a crucial and unique way of fostering visitors’ connection with protected area values, making it a potentially positive force for  conservation. Protected area tourism’s economic benefits—which depend on beautiful natural areas, healthy wildlife and nature, and authentic cultures—can also be a powerful argument for conservation. Tourism in protected areas  is a major part of the global tourism industry—an industry whose scale and impacts are enormous. Such a high volume of visitors implies certain needs for fundamental infrastructure and requirements for employment and human services, all of which have ramifications for the economy, society, culture and the environment. These Guidelines provide guidance on key issues to help managers achieve sustainable tourism in protected areas.

to download.

Behave better on Vacation

a TED talk explains.

Sustainable Travel

One of my weekly news feeds showcased this website.  All good stuff and the one I practice on a daily basis is to carry a cloth bag when I shop so I don't need that bad plastic bag. Yes, we can all become a better traveler.

To learn more, also visit Tourism Geography Today.

Good stuff!

November 26-27, 2015 World Summit on Sustainable Tourism ST+20 - Spain

Happen to be in Europe now?  Check out the World Summit on Sustainable Tourism in Spain.  For details. see the page.   Lots of good resources for educators too.

Sustainability and Eco-health tourism

This chapter highlighted some of the consequences facing health tourism today.  While not comprehensive in all the positive and negative impacts of the industry, an attempt has been made to highlight two of the more pressing issues: health care equity and bio-hazards. 

Bristow, R. (2013) Sustainability and Eco-health tourism. In Sustainability in Tourism. Chapter 4 in Jenkins, I., and Schroder, R., eds. Gabler, Wiesbaden, Germany, pp. 67-82.

Available from Amazon or Springer Gabler.

Sustainability in Tourism: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Ian Jenkins reports:

We would like to let you know of this new publication.  This is an Anglo-American/German collaborative approach to sustainability.  A good reader for your bookshelves and your summer hols!

We hope you enjoy it!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sustainability-Tourism-A-Multidisciplinary-Approach/dp/3834928062

Sustainability and Eco-health tourism

Sustainability and Eco-health tourism

Robert S. Bristow

Introduction
Over the millennia, travel to foreign lands to soak in mineral waters has been popular for the privileged (Bookman and Bookman, 2007; Connell, 2011; Mitman, 2003; Reisman, 2010; Towner, 1996; TRAM, 2006). Long sought for their medicinal values, mineral springs have attracted visitors for thousands of years. And access to these resources has been possible through advances in transportation and a growing middle class that fuelled further interest in the experience of the holiday to escape the urban environment (Gilbert, 1949). The travel continues today as evidenced by the popularity of the historic mineral waters found at Saratoga Springs in the USA, Bath, England and Baden-Baden, Germany.

Yet today these tourists are seeking not only a bath and massage, but may also want cosmetic surgery or a knee replacement (Goodrich and Goodrich, 1987; Goodrich, 1993a; Hall, 1992; Hall, 2003). Fed by the interest to improve oneself, be pampered, or address some health concern, health travel is likely to continue in the future. Lunt and others (n.d.) found four consequences for the emergence of the international health market: large numbers of people travelling for treatment, the shift of tourists from more developed nations to less developed ones, the rise of information via the Internet, and public and private infrastructure development to promote tourism.

Health Tourism is the umbrella term for all tourist aspects of health, wellness and medical care (Smith and Puczkó, 2009). For example, Hall (1992) notes that health tourism may be appropriately viewed on a continuum from a sun and fun vacation to the need to seek a major medical operation. Progressing along this continuum the number of tourists decreases (Hall, 2003).

introduction of paper to be published in 

Sustainability in Tourism: A Multidisciplinary Approach, edited by Ian Jenkins & Roland Schröder, Springer Gabler July 2013.

KLM To Use Biofuels To Power Transatlantic Flights

Gosh, if KLM partners with McDonalds, it might put Exxon out of business?

But see the press report about "KLM Royal Dutch Airlines says it will begin operating weekly transatlantic flights between New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol using a biofuel mixture consisting of 25 percent cooking oil and 75 percent jet fuel."

Is Exxon worried?  Well, probably not since Exxon and others are investing heavily in biofuels.

But it might make the Big Apple smell like french fries.

Recreation, Tourism and Sport Specialty Group Sessions

The call for papers at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers is in full swing right now. The Recreation, Tourism and Sport Specialty (RTS) Group Sessions are found at this link.  The latest session proposal comes from Prof. Bosak at the University of Montana and the theme is:


Re-framing Sustainable Tourism

The term sustainable tourism has been in existence since the late 1980’s and since that time, debates in the field have been challenged by varying notions of what sustainable tourism is and to what purposes does it serve. In a world that is increasingly globalized and interconnected, contentious and complex, is sustainable tourism limited to small firms located in rural environments, or does the concept have broader applicability. Technology, environmental issues and global- local interactions have changed enormously in the last 25 years thus necessitating an evaluation of the concept as an organizing tool for research and practice. As such, academics and others continue to re-define and reframe issues of sustainable tourism in interesting and innovative ways. This session proposes to highlight some of those ways in which sustainable tourism is being re-framed to include among other things:

• Its place in complex social-ecological systems
• Challenges to assumptions treated as facts
• An increasing focus on justice and governance
• The relevancy of the notion of resiliency to sustainable tourism
• The politics of sustainable tourism
• More nuanced understandings of scale and sustainable tourism
• Managing and planning sustainable tourism

We invite both empirical research and critical essays on the idea of Reframing Sustainable Tourism. Authors of abstracts chosen for this session will be asked to develop a paper for possible inclusion in a special issue of the journal Sustainability and as a chapter in an upcoming edited volume on re-framing sustainable tourism.

See the RTS website for more details.