Paris, Je T’aime: (Post) Feminist Identities, Emotional Geographies and Women’s Travel Narratives of Paris

There are an overwhelming number of contemporary women’s travel narratives documenting experiences, challenges, and place affinity for Paris. Despite the vast interest in Paris through various forms of media including the travel memoir, very little attention has been paid to women’s travel narratives, travel books and their emotional tourist experiences. As a new insight into consumer behaviour, this paper explores women’s travel narratives of Paris uncovering the mundane yet meaningful experiences of women’s travel experiences and how they connect with (post) feminist identities and emotional geographies of place. This research revealed over-arching themes present within these women’s stories: transformation; freedom and escape; and emotional experiences of place. Subsequently, Paris embraces what women desire out of life in general and enables them to transform their lives and re-invent themselves. Postfeminism provides the context with which to appropriately contextualize women’s travel narratives of Paris giving tourism researchers a new perspective on the behaviours of the female traveler

Going Forward by Looking Back: Memory, Nostalgia and Meaning-Making in Marketing for a Sense of Place

In recent years tourism scholars and practitioners have been keenly interested in tourist experience. Researchers have also made connections between tourism and meanings of place. What is still needed is to examine tourists’ emotional connection to place, to philosophical understandings of sense of place, and how to harness these intimate characteristics for place marketing. This paper is “going forward by looking back” by first discussing similarities between the dimensions of the tourism experience and a sense of place suggested by Lew (1989) and, second, by introducing a conceptual model of the interconnections among sense of place, memory, nostalgia and the tourist experience. A review of interdisciplinary literature and results from a qualitative study on sense of place are used to demonstrate the basis for the model. A discussion outlines why senses of place are important in an era where the threat of placelessness is an on-going concern. A final section provides suggestions for applying these relationships to the marketing of place

Conceptualizing Sense of Place through Multi-ethnic Narratives at a Multicultural Festival

Research on place meanings is explored in tourism and leisure research but most often through the concepts of place identity, place attachment and the measurement of these variables. Another concept having received some attention in tourism and leisure is sense of place. Sense of place in festival tourism research is exploratory and empirical research is limited. Few tourism and leisure studies explore in more detail the use of the narrative to interpret people’s meanings of place. Through an inductive approach and subjective research methods, this study examined the sense of place perceptions of ethno-cultural group leaders at a multicultural festival. Themes emerged relating to sense of place perceptions and the role of the festival in contributing to a sense of place. Results were discussed in conversation with previous sense of place and festival tourism literature. A discussion emphasized the ethno-cultural constructions of sense of place and the need for more multicultural research on place meanings in the context of leisure and tourism experiences

Rural images, tourism and sustainability: Perceptions of rural accommodation operators and their visitors in Waterloo-Wellington Region, Ontario

The purpose of this study was to investigate rural images and perceptions of rural accommodation operators and their visitors, and to explore the contribution of tourism to sustainability in the Waterloo-Wellington region. The objectives were; to investigate and compare images, as perceived by rural hosts and visitors, and as projected through accommodation brochures; to compare perceived and projected images with ideal rural images; and to explore the role of rural tourism in sustaining rural cultures and contributing to sustainable rural development. Images and perceptions of rural accommodation operators were obtained via personal interviews and visitors’ perceptions were gathered through the use of guest questionnaires. A content analysis of accommodation brochures provided the basis for the projected image. Results indicated that hosts’ images were similar to visitors’ images in most aspects but also differed significantly in others. Visitors tended to have an idealized rural image. Hosts’ perceptions also indicated that rural tourism contributes to the cultural and economic sustainability of the Waterloo-Wellington region. The findings of the present study raised important implications for further rural tourism planning and promotion in the context of sustainable rural development, as well as addressed the need for future research on rural images, tourism and sustainability

Is Ruggedness a Key Habitat Feature for Woodland Caribou Along the Lake Superior Coast?

Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou Gmelin) in the Lake Superior Coast Range are at risk, having been extirpated in portions of their range including Lake Superior Provincial Park and Pukaskwa National Park (PNP). A resource selection function has yet to be formulated for this population. I chose to examine the population between Terrace Bay and Marathon, Ontario, where the most recent observations of mainland individuals has occurred, hypothesizing that rugged terrain was a mechanism for caribou to escape predation from wolves (Canis lupis L.). These animals do not appear to use rugged terrain, as they were found to be spaced away from rugged areas. Ruggedness is likely important at the landscape scale, segregating caribou from moose (Alces alces L.) and consequently wolves. At the finer scale caribou probably avoid rugged terrain to lower energetic costs. Alternatively, refuge islands appear to act as the primary means of spatial segregation between caribou, moose and wolves. Heavy selection for these features is not a viable long-term survival strategy for caribou in the LSCR, as shown by an extirpated population in PNP. I suggest that caribou will be extirpated from the LSCR, as populations on Michipicoten and Slates Islands which have likely sourced the mainland coast have recently become extirpated or nearly so