“To Plan or ot to Plan:” Serendipitous vs. Organized Travel

The recent invention and popularity of mobile navigation devices have increased the possibility of unplanned, serendipitous travel. To better understand the independent travel market, this study developed a scale for the construct “Style of Independent Travel” (SIT) in order to explore the serendipitous and organized dimensions of travel and their relationship to relevant travel behavior. The scale was included in a survey of visitors to the Rocky Knob area of southwest Virginia. Findings revealed that tourists had a higher preference for travelling spontaneously than following a fixed and organized itinerary and that serendipity and organization in travel was related to travel planning and visitor activities. However, there was no significant relationship between SIT, past visitation, and role of the destination as primary destination or stopover

“If You Build It, They Will Come”: Relationship between Attraction Features and Intention to Visit

The purpose of this study is to find out what themes and features of a tourist attraction are considered important by tourists, and whether or not these features influence their likelihood of visiting different types of attractions. First, for potential travelers to a rural destination, their likelihood of visiting different types of built tourist attractions was measured. Second, five attraction features (i.e., Experience, Cultural Value, Site Accessibility, Marketing, Leadership) were used to identify potential travelers’ preference. Finally, this study explored whether attraction features influenced potential travelers’ likelihood to visit different types of built attractions. The findings of this study can provide direction for the planning of cultural and heritage tourism

Conducting visitor studies using smartphone-based location sensing

Visitor studies explore human experiences within museums, cultural heritage sites, and other informal learning settings to inform decisions. Smartphones offer novel opportunities for extending the depth and breadth of visitor studies while considerably reducing their cost and their demands on specialist human resources. By enabling the collection of significantly higher volumes of data, they also make possible the application of advanced machine-learning and visualization techniques, potentially leading to the discovery of new patterns and behaviors that cannot be captured by simple descriptive statistics. In this article, we present a principled approach to the use of smartphones for visitor studies, in particular proposing a structured methodology and associated methods that enable its effective use in this context. We discuss specific methodological considerations that have to be addressed for effective data collection, preprocessing, and analysis and identify the limitations in the applicability of these tools using family visits to the London Zoo as a case study. We conclude with a discussion of the wider opportunities afforded by the introduction of smartphones and related technologies and outline the steps toward establishing them as a standard tool for visitor studies

Understanding the Relationship Between Livelihood Constraints of Poor Forest-adjacent Residents, and Illegal Forest Use, at Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

The relationship between livelihoods and forest use is one of the main challenges facing wildlife and habitat conservation in developing countries. Poor residents in forest-adjacent areas are typically perceived to be the main forest users, with use often deemed illegal. However, there is still a limited understanding of livelihood constraints of the poor, and how such constraints influence illegal forest use, particularly for poor residents in forest-adjacent communities. In this paper, we address this gap. First, the measures for livelihood constraints, including food access constraints and education constraints, and illegal forest use are proposed. Second, the developed measures are used in a structural equation model, to explore the relationship between livelihood constraints and illegal forest use, for poor residents in communities adjacent to Volcanoes National Park, in Rwanda. Food access constraints, a dimension of food security constraints, were found to be the strongest predicator of illegal forest use. However, food insecure residents around the park may not be the main driver of current levels of illegal forest use, supporting previous research questioning the narrative of poverty driven illegal forest use in developing countries

Understanding the Relationship Between Livelihood Constraints of Poor Forest-adjacent Residents, and Illegal Forest Use, at Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

The relationship between livelihoods and forest use is one of the main challenges facing wildlife and habitat conservation in developing countries. Poor residents in forest-adjacent areas are typically perceived to be the main forest users, with use often deemed illegal. However, there is still a limited understanding of livelihood constraints of the poor, and how such constraints influence illegal forest use, particularly for poor residents in forest-adjacent communities. In this paper, we address this gap. First, the measures for livelihood constraints, including food access constraints and education constraints, and illegal forest use are proposed. Second, the developed measures are used in a structural equation model, to explore the relationship between livelihood constraints and illegal forest use, for poor residents in communities adjacent to Volcanoes National Park, in Rwanda. Food access constraints, a dimension of food security constraints, were found to be the strongest predicator of illegal forest use. However, food insecure residents around the park may not be the main driver of current levels of illegal forest use, supporting previous research questioning the narrative of poverty driven illegal forest use in developing countries