80,532 research outputs found
ISER Working Paper 2009.1
In this report we calculate the economic importance of nature-based tourism in Southeast Alaska
as measured by business revenue. Our estimates are based on field research conducted during
2005, 2006 and 2007. We define nature-based tourism as those tourism activities for which the
natural environment is a significant input.1
Our key findings include the following:
• Nature-based tourism generates about 140 per visitor in Juneau to more than $2,600 per visitor on Prince
of Wales Island. These differences reflect the range of activities offered -- from half-day
excursions to multiple, overnight all-inclusive lodge stays.
• Nature-based tourism expenditures create a significant economic ripple effect that keeps
money circulating through the economy. This money supports jobs in marketing, support
services, food and beverages, accommodations, fuel sales, government, and other sectors.
• Communities are clearly striving to differentiate themselves and capitalize on local
amenities such as the Stikine River, Anan Creek, the LeConte Glacier, Tracy Arm,
Glacier Bay, Pack Creek and exceptional fishing and scenic opportunities.
• A large and growing portion of Southeast Alaska’s visitors are cruise ship passengers.
Both cruise passengers and independent travelers are similarly interested in nature-based
tourism services. The majority of cruise ship shore excursions offer nature-based
activities, from hikes and glacier viewing to flightseeing and forest canopy zip lines.
• Communities hosting large numbers of cruise passengers are actively developing new
and creative tourism products such as forest canopy zip lines and mountain biking while
those with fewer visitors tend to be focused on sport fishing. This appears to be the case
even if local amenities exist to support a broader range of business and visitor activities.
Thus, there appear to be unrealized opportunities in some communities, but these may
also reflect an inadequate visitor base upon which to risk additional investment.
• There is a complex and competitive system for pre-booking cruise ship shore excursions.
Businesses with exclusive cruise line contracts make price and tour information available
only to cruise passengers and often agree to sell tours only through the cruise line.• The tourism businesses in cruise ports of call that appear to be most successful either
have a cruise ship shore excursion contract or are catering to overnight (non-cruise)
guests with high-quality and high-value services. Examples of these types of businesses
include sport fishing lodges and multi-day yacht cruises.
• It is difficult to compete with established businesses holding existing cruise line
contracts. Despite this hurdle, a number of companies are offering creative new products
including zip lines through the forest canopy, glass-bottomed boats, and an amphibious
“duck” tour.
• Some operators attribute the increased interest in adventure activities to a change in
cruise ship clientele. In recent years, cruise companies have been catering to a younger
crowd, targeting families. In any event, increasing numbers of passengers are interested
in more active pursuits.
• Competition for cruise passengers exists both within and between communities, as people
are booking their shore excursions in advance and look at all the options. Sitka
companies mentioned they were carefully tracking zip line activity in Juneau and
Ketchikan, dogsled tours on the Mendenhall Glacier, and other activities to see which
market niche they could capture.
• There is some evidence that visitors are willing to pay premium prices for higher quality
experiences in more pristine environments. However, it is not clear what specific
attributes (seclusion, fishing experience, food, services, perceived exclusivity, and
environmental amenities) are the key components of this higher market value.
• It is possible to design a community-based tourism program that provides employment to
local residents as is occurring in Hoonah. However, Elfin Cove appears to bring in more
in gross revenues than Hoonah with about one-eighth as many visitors because Hoonah’s
operation relies on volume while Elfin Cove businesses rely on higher-priced fishing
lodge experiences. Day trips seem to be relatively higher cost, lower profit operations.
• Independent travelers appear to try to avoid crowds and many are repeat visitors. Most
tend to stay longer and have more open itineraries than those on cruise ships or organized
tours. These characteristics make independent travelers more difficult to contact.
• Independent travelers also appear to seek communities with fewer visitors and those that
they perceive to be more “authentic,” such as Petersburg, Wrangell, and communities on
Chichagof Islands. A lack of transportation capacity, whether on scheduled jets or on
ferries, may be limiting the opportunities for these smaller communities. Less marketing
may also be a factor limiting visits by independent travelers.
• The primary marketing mechanisms for smaller, non-cruise related businesses are the
internet and word of mouth. In addition, many customers return to the same fishing
lodge, yacht tour, or charter business year after year.
• Wildlife viewing is highly attractive to visitors due to spectacular scenery and abundant
wildlife including whales and other marine mammals. Companies in several communities
expressed a desire to move toward more wildlife viewing and sightseeing and away from
sport fishing. These operators preferred wildlife viewing as it was less stressful due to less pressure to catch fish. Some operators were making this shift, while others thought
they would not be able to match the revenue generated by sport fishing.
• Weather has a significant impact on business for companies whose tours are not prebooked
on cruise ships. Operators noted a marked difference between the sunny, dry
summer of 2004 and the remarkably wet summer of 2006. Visitors walking off a ship in
the rain were much less likely to go on marine tours or hikes in soggy conditions, and
seasonal revenues were down. Businesses with cruise contracts did not experience this
setback as passengers are not reimbursed for pre-sold tours when weather conditions are
poor. The one exception was flightseeing, where companies had to cancel tours due to
unsafe weather conditions.
• Promoting wildlife watching is an important marketing strategy for Southeast Alaska
communities. Visitors bureaus currently produce pamphlets with charismatic large
animals, such as whales and bears. Bureau staff cited studies showing the desire to see
wildlife was attracting a large portion of out-of-state visitors.
• A significant policy question emerging from this research is how the public lands might
be managed to increase the economic returns from tourism to residents of Southeast
Alaska communities, especially the smaller communities that can only accommodate
smaller numbers of visitors at one time. Bear viewing is one example of a high-value
activity that depends on controlled access to specific infrastructure.Alaska Conservation Foundation.
University of Alaska Foundation.
The Wilderness Society.Executive Summary / Introduction / Methods / Ketchikan / Juneau / Sitka / Norther Southeast Alaska Yachts / Chichagof Island / Prince of Wales Island / Petersburg / Wrangell / Conclusion
Customer empowerment in tourism through Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM)
We explain Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM) and adopt this new technique to travel context. Benefits and disadvantages of the CCM are outlined together with warnings of typical caveats
Value: CCM will be expected as the norm in the travel industry by customers of the future, yet it is only the innovators who gain real tangible benefits from this development. We outline current and future opportunities to truly place your customer at the centre and provide the organisation with some real savings/gains through the use of ICT
Practical Implications: We offer tangible examples for travel industry on how to utilise this new technology. The technology is already available and the ICT companies are keen to establish ways how consumers can utilise it, i.e. by providing ‘content’ for these ICT products the travel industry can fully gain from these developments and also enhance consumers’ gains from it. This can result in more satisfied customers for the travel (as well as ICT) companies thus truly adopting the basic philosophy of marketin
Recreation, tourism and nature in a changing world : proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 2010
Proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 201
Curated routes: the project of developing experiential tracks in sub-urban landscape
The Curated Routes project reflects on the visiting routes’ ability to make apparent the internal characteristics of urban environments. The project’s name allude to the intellectual function of curation and the materiality of routes. Curate deals with the practice of arranging material –tangible or intangible- in a way that a new understanding of an area is revealed. The word routes refers to the linear associations that link places and guide movement. The Curated Routes aim to reinforce the development of bonding ties between people and urban environments by re-constructing the way we visit and explore a place.
The overall goal of the project is to outline the conceptual guidelines of a visitors’ guide that could later be used for the development of the informatics model. The project follows the methodology that the context-aware routes apply, though particular attention is paid to the second phase of the process where an innovative approach is applied. The introduction of the “chronotope” filters enables us to “knit” the terrestrial route to a range of informative storylines, and hence to develop different interpretations of an urban environment
Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism – A Potential for Local Business Development
Over the past few years, the tourist industry has come to be recognised as a way of providing strategic support for sustainable local business development. In this article we attempt to define an appropriate innovation concept in relation to tourism on the basis of an attractor principle. We then discuss the concept of entrepreneurship in connection with tourism, looking at its significance in its relationship with local business development, thereby positing the premise of social entrepreneurship. This frame of reference is used in five cases in the analysis. The analysis shows that it is possible to innovate and draw up plans for new attractors but that it is considerably more difficult to convert these plans into reality through social entrepreneurship. The conclusion is that we need to focus upon organisation of semi-public tourist organisations, if we want tourism to promote local business development.
Potential Improvements to National Park Service Visitor Surveys and Money Generation Modeling in Alaska
This study presents options for improving the use of the Money Generation Model in National Park
Service (NPS) land units in Alaska. The Money Generation Model (MGM) is used nationwide to model
economic impacts of visitation to public lands, including National Park Units. This analysis identifies
potential improvements to the application of the MGM model and visitor survey processes for use in
Alaska. Improvements include changes to visitor intercept methods to improve statistical reliability of
the sampling process and a more representative sample, changes in the survey instrument to more
accurately reflect Alaska visitor travel and expenditure patterns, and better identification of the
economic sphere of influence of Alaska national park units.National Park Service, Alaska Director's Office.
National Park Conservation Association, Alaska Office.Abstract / Introduction / Purpose of Analysis / Potential Improvements to Visitor Survey and Economic Impact Model / National MGM Economic Impact Estimates / Summary / References / Appendix A. Katmai National Park and Preserve 2006 VSP Survey Instrument / Appendix B. Survey Questions Suggested Re-Write / Appendix C. Maps Showing Access to Alaska National Parks / Appendix D. Alaska Visitor Statistics Survey Instrumen
Strategies and Resources for Integrated Community Sustainability Planning in St. Paul’s, NL
Under the Federal Gas Tax Agreement, Canadian municipalities are required to
complete an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP) by March, 2010.
Integration and sustainability are two key concepts that have become the
foundation of recent models for community planning. The purpose of such planning
is to provide a broad, long‐term plan for a community that will help it maximize
economic and social benefits, without depleting the environmental resources upon
which community members depend.
Like many coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, St. Paul’s is
currently facing many challenges to future sustainability. The town also has
opportunities to develop linkages between its many assets in order to build a
stronger community. This document discusses some of these challenges and
opportunities in the context of integrated community sustainability planning. The
document also includes strategies and resources that St. Paul’s, and other, similar
coastal communities can use to develop linkages between community assets
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