Experiences of Transport Tourism

This thesis presents an analysis of tourists‟ experiences of travelling whilst participating in transport tourism. The study defines transport tourism as tourism in which transport provides the main context for the tourist experience, for example coach tours, cruises and cycling holidays. Existing research tends to focus on the individual transport tourism product types and usually only considers one aspect of experience. Consequently, current understandings of tourists‟ experiences of transport tourism are fragmented and lack a unifying model. It is the development of such a tourist experience model that applies to transport tourism that forms the purpose of this thesis. The thesis demonstrates that transport is a component of all holidays in order to facilitate travel to, back from and around destinations, and that tourists‟ experiences of this travel differ. However, tourists participating in transport tourism will also travel as part of the main tourist experience, and these experiences will vary depending on the nature of tourists‟ involvement with transport. Accordingly, a theoretical typology of four transport tourist experiences is developed in this study: the positive, the reluctant, the passive and the active transport tourist experiences. The primary research focuses upon the passive and active transport tourist experiences and adopts a phenomenographic research strategy. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 20 transport tourists: 10 interviewees were passive transport tourists (coach and cruise) and 10 were active transport tourists (cycling and sailing). Data were coded and categories of description were identified, analysed and linkages between the categories were induced. The findings demonstrate that although experiences of transport tourism vary depending on whether tourists are passive or active transport tourists, commonality is apparent and a more broadly applicable model can developed. In general, tourists‟ experiences of transport tourism are predominantly visual and relate to the things seen along the route including landscapes, human and animal life. The mode of transport also influences tourists‟ experiences of transport tourism, as does social interaction with other people (family, friends and other tourists). Least influential of all are destinations. However, this component does not refer to tourists‟ experiences at the destination itself, rather their anticipation of future and memories of previously visited destination. The differences between passive and active transport tourist experiences that emerged reveal that tourism operators were influential in the passive transport tourist experience through the provision of entertainment and information; active transport tourists‟ direct involvement with the operation and navigation of the mode of transport (bicycle or sailing boat) and the nature of the route posed a series of challenges that had to be conquered. The findings demonstrate that experiences of transport tourism, although predominantly visual, are not exclusively so and perceptions of auditory and haptic sensing also occur. The contribution to knowledge of this thesis is the analysis of experiences of transport tourism; this contribution has two cumulative phases. First is the presentation of an original theoretical typology and its four constituent transport tourist types. This contribution provides a framework for other researchers studying the experiences of iii tourists using transport in its various forms to situate their work within a broader range of experiences, a framework that was lacking hitherto. The analysis of the primary data facilitated the development of the tourist experience model that applies to transport tourism. In doing so, it moves away from the fragmented approach taken in previous research and the model represents the experiences of transport tourism that transcends individual transport tourism product types. Additionally, because of the study‟s interpretive, inductive approach, it also provides an understanding of travel from the perspective of the tourist, a perspective that is often overlooked in other research, and the resultant model is generated from their accounts of their experiences

Towards liminal balance: Unpacking the UK's urban canal space

This paper critically examines the liminal geographies of the United Kingdom's 7,000‐mile canal and river network, embodying a thread of complex intersections and interactions between water and land. Drawing on a study involving stakeholder interviews, group discussion with canal users, and observational walks in Manchester and London, the paper explores the concepts of liminal flux, scalar intersections, and deliminalisation. We first outline how the UK's urban canals are characterised by liminal flux over time and space, reflecting their dynamic geographies. Revealing the presence of critical intersections between liminality and scale, we then focus on the ongoing and everyday spatial and territorial entanglements between different canal and towpath users. Finally, we consider the challenge of deliminalisation, and an associated shift from liminality and in‐betweenness towards greater spatial fixity via neoliberal intervention and development. Our findings highlight the importance of preserving the unique characteristics of urban canals as liminal spaces, arguing that they provide recreational opportunities and contribute to urban wellbeing by providing opportunities for ‘transitory dwelling places’. Maintaining a liminal balance within urban canal environments is therefore crucial and requires careful curation. In turn, this notion of curating liminal balance has implications for other potential waterfront developments that offer a similar positive potential for hydrocitizenship and its fluid ambiguities of in‐betweenness. Moreover, it demonstrates the importance of a ‘lighter touch’ of redevelopment and governance in some parts of the urban environment to help preserve, or even enhance, citizen wellbeing

The NASA Roadmap to Ocean Worlds

In this article, we summarize the work of the NASA Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds (ROW) group. The aim of this group is to assemble the scientific framework that will guide the exploration of ocean worlds, and to identify and prioritize science objectives for ocean worlds over the next several decades. The overarching goal of an Ocean Worlds exploration program as defined by ROW is to identify ocean worlds, characterize their oceans, evaluate their habitability, search for life, and ultimately understand any life we find. The ROW team supports the creation of an exploration program that studies the full spectrum of ocean worlds, that is, not just the exploration of known ocean worlds such as Europa but candidate ocean worlds such as Triton as well. The ROW team finds that the confirmed ocean worlds Enceladus, Titan, and Europa are the highest priority bodies to target in the near term to address ROW goals. Triton is the highest priority candidate ocean world to target in the near term. A major finding of this study is that, to map out a coherent Ocean Worlds Program, significant input is required from studies here on Earth; rigorous Research and Analysis studies are called for to enable some future ocean worlds missions to be thoughtfully planned and undertaken. A second finding is that progress needs to be made in the area of collaborations between Earth ocean scientists and extraterrestrial ocean scientists

Liquidness: Conceptualising water within boating tourism

This paper discusses the elemental materialities of water mobilities, bringing the agentive qualities of water to the centre of theoretical discussion of tourism. Analysing data collected through qualitative interviews with, and participant observation of, British boating tourists, the analysis of watery materialities and the corresponding tourist assemblages are presented across water bodies: on inland waterways and in coastal areas. Examining the mobilities of the water materialities and the cooperation between water, boat and the tourist, we propose the concept of water-boat-human assemblage for examining boating tourism in terms of liquid relationships. The paper also introduces the notion of liquidness: the relational conglomerate between mobilities, materialities and practices as an analytical category for theorising water tourism

The Atlantic salmon genome provides insights into rediploidization

The whole-genome duplication 80 million years ago of the common ancestor of salmonids (salmonid-specific fourth vertebrate whole-genome duplication, Ss4R) provides unique opportunities to learn about the evolutionary fate of a duplicated vertebrate genome in 70 extant lineages. Here we present a high-quality genome assembly for Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), and show that large genomic reorganizations, coinciding with bursts of transposon-mediated repeat expansions, were crucial for the post-Ss4R rediploidization process. Comparisons of duplicate gene expression patterns across a wide range of tissues with orthologous genes from a pre-Ss4R outgroup unexpectedly demonstrate far more instances of neofunctionalization than subfunctionalization. Surprisingly, we find that genes that were retained as duplicates after the teleost-specific whole-genome duplication 320 million years ago were not more likely to be retained after the Ss4R, and that the duplicate retention was not influenced to a great extent by the nature of the predicted protein interactions of the gene products. Finally, we demonstrate that the Atlantic salmon assembly can serve as a reference sequence for the study of other salmonids for a range of purposes.publishedVersio

Towards liminal balance : Unpacking the UK's urban canal space

This paper critically examines the liminal geographies of the United Kingdom's 7,000‐mile canal and river network, embodying a thread of complex intersections and interactions between water and land. Drawing on a study involving stakeholder interviews, group discussion with canal users, and observational walks in Manchester and London, the paper explores the concepts of liminal flux, scalar intersections, and deliminalisation. We first outline how the UK's urban canals are characterised by liminal flux over time and space, reflecting their dynamic geographies. Revealing the presence of critical intersections between liminality and scale, we then focus on the ongoing and everyday spatial and territorial entanglements between different canal and towpath users. Finally, we consider the challenge of deliminalisation, and an associated shift from liminality and in‐betweenness towards greater spatial fixity via neoliberal intervention and development. Our findings highlight the importance of preserving the unique characteristics of urban canals as liminal spaces, arguing that they provide recreational opportunities and contribute to urban wellbeing by providing opportunities for ‘transitory dwelling places’. Maintaining a liminal balance within urban canal environments is therefore crucial and requires careful curation. In turn, this notion of curating liminal balance has implications for other potential waterfront developments that offer a similar positive potential for hydrocitizenship and its fluid ambiguities of in‐betweenness. Moreover, it demonstrates the importance of a ‘lighter touch’ of redevelopment and governance in some parts of the urban environment to help preserve, or even enhance, citizen wellbeing