Westfield River Fish Ladder

Tour the Westfield River fish ladder Sunday, May 21 this year, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Sponsored by the Westfield River Watershed Association  this annual event is fun for all.

Connecticut River fish Ladder Open in Holyoke

The annual migration of the Atlantic Salmon can be observed at the Robert E. Barrett Fishway in Holyoke MA.  Open to the public and free the viewing continues until 11 June 2017.  Tours are available weekends at 1:30 PM.  For more info visit the Holyoke GE site.

Abraj Kudai, the largest hotel in the World?

With 10,000 rooms (yes 10k), this hotel is expected to open this year and will have 70 restaurants and five helipads.  Ten of the towers are intended to provide four-star accommodation while the remaining two will offer luxurious five-star amenities. Catering to the needs of tourists, the city receives around 2 million pilgrims for the annual Hajj. And another 20 million the rest of the year.

Seems since these tourists are not permitted to enter the US, tourism in Saudi Arabia will boom!

Leave No Trace

There are many reasons to Leave No Trace and as folks prepare for the hiking season, besides ticks, we should be reminded about minimizing our impact.  See the LNT website for an EXTENSIVE bibliography of related information.

Travel and Tourism Videos

Since everyone has a video camera, or at least a smart phone, travel videos are widely available on the web.  So besides Youtube and Vimeo, this site looks promising.  I also like the GoPro videos.

Overbooked Flights

Seems this topic has been the topic around the water cooler lately?  What, no water cooler, well then what about the coffee maker?

Well anyway, PBS republished report last week just for you and me.

Further, a quick little google search will find tons of sites discussing this very common hassle at teh airports.  See this one for instance.

The only time we had to deal with this was on a flight to Orlando for vacation.  Instead of the 6 am flight, we flew a 10 am flight, first class and started our vacation a bit later.  No big deal.

Open Air Airport.  Our flight from Puerto Plata got cancelled since New England was snowed in.  So we flew to San Juan, PR and spent the night there.  Our return home trip took 48 hours!

Paper accepted in Leisure/Loisir

Here is the abstract of our paper accepted in Leisure/Loisir.  Leisure / Loisir is the official publication of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies/Association canadienne d’études en loisir ( CALS). While Leisure / Loisir is based in Canada and offers a primary outlet for individuals affiliated with Canadian institutions, the journal encourages international submissions.

Travel behaviour substitution for a white-water canoe race influenced by climate induced stream flow

Abstract
The World Tourism Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization (UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008) have identified one of the consequences of climate change is an interference of normal precipitation.  This research investigates the changes in travel patterns by participants and spectators at an annual canoe race as influenced by variable stream flow.   Given that stream flow varies seasonally, one might hypothesize that should a permanent reduction of water flow take place in the future, a decline or shift in water-based recreation might be expected.  Using data collected over two years at the Annual Westfield River Wildwater Races, interviews were conducted at the staging area as participants waited in the queue.  Observers of the race were also interviewed.   The two sampling years represent a low flow season and a normal flow season and yield a sample of 142 parties. During the low flow season, one that is projected to become the norm under climate change models, expert paddlers travelled a greater distance characteristic of destination substitutability while spectators decreased travel distance and this suggests a reduction of interest in observing the race.

Keywords:  Climate change, water-based recreation, substitution, travel behaviour, streamflow