The use of values to understand visitors to natural areas: a study of campers on the Murray River

In Australia, protected areas such as national parks have extensive strategies in place to ensure the natural environment is conserved, and visitors are provided with a range of opportunities for satisfying experiences. Many areas, such as those in privately owned or unprotected areas have not yet developed such measures. A growing but relatively unknown type of recreation and tourism is the vehicle-based market which includes caravanning, camping and four wheel driving. This market is attracted to these remote areas and is beginning to create a number of negative impacts. It is a significant management problem that relatively little is known about. This paper describes an exploratory study conducted at a site on the Murray River in South Australia. Campers were grouped into two clusters, Nature lovers and Recreationists, based upon their values. The clusters differed in their intrinsic, use and non-use values but were similar with respect to their recreation values. The clusters indicated some differences in their attitudes to management and their support for the introduction of facilities. The campers' perceptions of the site's naturalness were also measured

Tourism and Making the Places after War: The Somme and Ground Zero

The sites of war have varied from single fields of battle, to those at sea and in the air, to the long trench lines of the Great War (1914-1918), the vast cities and regions of World War Two and more recently, to small urban sites that epitomise the ‘War against Terror’.  This paper is primarily based upon the landscapes of the Great War in Europe, but it explores some of the similarities with the ‘Ground Zero’ terrorist attack in New York, with respect to the associations between memory, tourism and geography, and how these manifest as different landscapes. A core component in the commemoration and understanding of conflict is in actually visiting the site where events occurred. Tourists are known to perform a key role in the creation and maintenance of these important sites: not only do they ‘consume’ them, but tourists actively contribute towards creating a touristscape

APDSI 2005

In Australia, protected areas such as national parks have extensive strategies in place to ensure the natural environment is conserved, and visitors are provided with a range of opportunities for satisfying experiences. Many areas, such as those in privately owned or unprotected areas have not yet developed such measures. A growing but relatively unknown type of recreation and tourism is the vehicle-based market which includes caravanning, camping and four wheel driving. This market is attracted to these remote areas and is beginning to create a number of negative impacts. It is a significant management problem that relatively little is known about. This paper describes an exploratory study conducted at a site on the Murray River in South Australia. Campers were grouped into two clusters, Nature lovers and Recreationists, based upon their values. The clusters differed in their intrinsic, use and non-use values but were similar with respect to their recreation values. The clusters indicated some differences in their attitudes to management and their support for the introduction of facilities. The campers' perceptions of the site's naturalness were also measured

4th International Symposium on Aspects of Tourism

The world air transport industry is in crisis. Many industry commentators believe that 'the extraordinary price of fuel - is destroying [air transport industry] profitability'. The paper discusses what we believe are some early indications of the way in which forecast future rises in global oil prices and transport fares may influence mobility. It argues that the problems being experienced in the Northern Territory through declining tourist numbers foreshadow the problems that other places will face in the future

An experimental evaluation of the State Adult Attachment Measure: the influence of attachment primes on the content of state attachment representations

Attachment theory predicts cross-contextual stability of attachment representations, but research findings are rather mixed. Recently, it has been suggested that these mixed findings reflect the existence of both state and trait attachment components. The development of the State Adult Attachment Measure (SAAM) has enabled an investigation of this hypothesis. The current study aimed to evaluate the extent to which the SAAM is a useful instrument for studying such state attachment hypotheses. For this purpose, a two-week longitudinal study investigated whether the manipulation of the temporal accessibility of different attachment contents activates different within-person attachment representations. The impact of attachment primes before re-administering the SAAM was investigated in 268 participants. Results showed that the SAAM was meaningfully related to evaluations of self and attachment figures. Moreover, activation of different attachment contexts influenced state attachment towards partners as primary attachment figures. The results provide support for the SAAM as a measure of state attachment towards partners, but data on parent attachment were less straightforward. In all, the current study provided support for contemporary models of attachment as comprising both trait-like stability and context-dependent variability in attachment state

Mission Impossible? Exploring the Limits of Managing Large IT Projects and Ways to Cross the Line

For decades much effort has been made to improve project management capabilities. Still, the failure rate remains high, especially for large IT projects. Our postmortem analysis of 15 large IT projects of the Swiss Federal Administration, with an accumulated loss of one billion U.S. dollars, shows that while project management deficits account for some of the failures, project failure is primarily caused by poor project governance capabilities. Based on insights gained from the initial failure analysis, the Swiss Federal Government decided to assess all its large IT projects based on our co-designed framework. Meanwhile, also private companies have assessed IT projects applying our framework. As a consequence, valuable discussions and measures have been initiated and sporadically projects were stopped. The data gained by these assessments will allow to identify patterns that promise to be a reference for governance actors and bodies what information to ask for, when to intervene, and how

19th Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management Conference (ANZAM 2005)

Little or no study particularly in Australia has examined whether or not the marketing competencies possessed by small to medium sized retail organizations can influence their level of business performance. This study was designed to determine if there are significant differences in the competitive marketing competencies possessed by the high level performing and low level performing small to medium sized retail businesses in South East Queensland

19th Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management Conference (ANZAM 2005)

Although according to the literature being able to build loyalty in consumers is a key factor in acquiring market share and sustaining a competitive advantage, very little is known about the factors affecting loyalty to a camping site. This study was designed to identify if campers demographic variables and their level of satisfaction with a camping site may be related to their loyalty to the camping site

Effects of a lifestyle intervention on endothelial function in men on long-term androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer

Background: Treatment of prostate cancer with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is associated with metabolic changes that have been linked to an increase in cardiovascular risk. Methods: This randomised controlled trial investigated the effects of a 12-week lifestyle intervention that included supervised exercise training and dietary advice on markers of cardiovascular risk in 50 men on long-term ADT recruited to an on-going study investigating the effects of such a lifestyle intervention on quality of life. Participants were randomly allocated to receive the intervention or usual care. Cardiovascular outcomes included endothelial function (flow-mediated dilatation [FMD] of the brachial artery), blood pressure, body composition and serum lipids. Additional outcomes included treadmill walk time and exercise and dietary behaviours. Outcomes were assessed before randomisation [baseline], and 6, 12 and 24 weeks after randomisation. Results: At 12 weeks the difference in mean relative FMD was 2.2% (95% CI 0.1 to 4.3, p = 0.04) with an effect size of 0.60 (95% CI <0.01 to 1.18) favouring the intervention group. Improvements in skeletal muscle mass, treadmill walk time and exercise behaviour also occurred in the intervention group over that duration (p < 0.05). At 24 weeks, only the difference in treadmill walk time was maintained. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that lifestyle changes can improve endothelial function in men on long-term ADT for prostate cancer. The implications for cardiovascular health need further investigation in larger studies over longer duration