Tourism and International Borders: Themes and Issues

Political boundaries are invisible, vertical planes that transect land and airspace, and they mark the limits up to which a political entity may exercise its sovereign authority. Most international boundaries have been marked on the ground in various ways as tangible lines separating societies and political systems from their neighbors. International borders have traditionally been viewed as barriers to various forms of human interaction. In fact, one of their primary purposes typically has been to hinder the flow of goods, people, and ideas between nations for ideological and economic reasons (2, 13). Geographers have a long tradition of interest in the formation process of political boundaries and their functions in social, political, and economic terms. Likewise, interest in tourism as a topic of research is increasing at an extraordinary rate among social scientists, and to a lesser extent among physical scientists, from many disciplines. Most researchers seek to understand the sociocultural, economic, political, and physical environmental impacts of tourism, as well as patterns of international tourist flows. Tourism by definition entails crossing borders in one form or another, yet with few exceptions (7, 21, 22, 23), researchers have all but overlooked the relationships between political frontiers and tourism. The purpose of this special issue of Visions in Leisure and Business, therefore, is to address this dearth in the academic literature by examining the relationships between tourism and international boundaries. This theme issue brings together the expertise of prominent scholars in the area of political borders. All of the contributors have conducted extensive research in various parts of the world on a diverse range of border-related subjects. Here they merge their political, cultural, and economic interests with the study of tourism

Cross-border Shopping: Tourism in the Canada-United States Borderlands

This research note examines the phenomenon of cross-border shopping between the United States and Canada as a form of borderlands tourism. This activity has always existed in the region and has traditionally been characterized by high but consistent numbers of Canada-to-US flows and lower but consistent numbers of US-to-Canada flows. However, in 1997, owing to an increase in value of the Canadian dollar and other economic variables, the number of Canadian shopping trips to the United States increased dramatically until 1992, when the value of the Canadian dollar began to fall. This in tum has led to the rapid increase in levels of American travel to Canada, including shopping trips, in the mid- and late-1990s. Characteristics of cross-border shopping are examined together with some of the economic and social impacts of the rise and. decline of this phenomenon in American and Canadian border communities

Cross-border Shopping in Hungary: Causes and Effects

Shopping tourism in Eastern Europe has grown enormously since the 1970s, and the geopolitical changes that occurred in the late 1980s and early 90s had a major bearing on its development. Within the context of shopping tourism, this paper examines cross-border shopping trends in Hungary, which is one of the most prominent shopping destinations in the former communist bloc. After a description. of the phenomenon and its magnitude in Hungary, spatial patterns in the borderlands are considered and the probable impacts of Hungary\u27s future admission into the European Union are explained

Kazakhstan Gulag heritage: dark tourism and selective interpretation

Kazakhstan holds some of the most significant Gulag heritage sites; however, tourism research remains limited. This article introduces analysis of contrasting sites and considers how some have been developed and others ignored. Selectivity in interpretation is linked to societal amnesia and the collective trauma experienced by the population of Kazakhstan. The article reaffirms the politicization of heritage in this emergent nation

Tourism, sovereignty and supranationalism in a changing world : experiences from islands and coastal areas

This paper examines the notion of sovereignty in an ever-changing postmodern world and its implications for tourism. New spaces have been created, old spaces have been united, and traditional barriers have been torn down. These and other manifestations of globalization are particularly poignant in island and coastal destinations. Empirical examples will be provided from Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and the Arctic to illustrate shifting notions of absolute sovereignty into supranationalist associations, cross-border cooperative relations, and in some cases, more austere extremes in asserting state sovereignty. All of these changes have salient implications for tourism from planning, marketing, and policy perspectives

Understanding Japanese tourists' shopping preferences using the Decision Tree Analysis Method

This study was designed to assess the factors affecting Japanese tourists’ shopping preference and intention to revisit Korea. The analytical method applied in this study was Decision Tree Analysis, which is under-utilized in tourism studies. A total of 300 questionnaires were collected on the basis of on-site survey method and used for data analysis. Among interesting findings, three groups including ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and spent US$50-300 on shopping’, ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$300-1000’ and ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$1000-5000,’ showed a high level of intention to return to Korea for the purpose of shopping. In addition, two groups ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of below high school’ and ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of a college graduate or above’ showed a higher level interest in merchandise than in shopping venue attractiveness

Finnish Settlements in Rural Thunder Bay: Changes in an Ethnic Community

Finnish Settlements in Rural Thunder Ba