The Boys Next Door (February 20-22, 27-28, 1997)

Program for The Boys Next Door (February 20-22, 27-28, 1997)

Revisiting VFR and Pleasure Segmentation for Urban Canadian Destinations

Visiting friends and relatives (VFR) is a major motivation for a significant number of domestic visits to Canada’s urban destinations. This paper uses existing literature and data to suggest that VFR is understated and undervalued by the tourism sector and operationalizes a new definition that incorporates trip purpose and accommodation use to reexamine the impact this form of tourism has on Canadian cities. Opportunities for growth of this segment are presented based on the results, recommending that VFR be viewed as a untapped market rather than a low value segment that cannot be influenced

Reflections on Using Video as a Data Collection Tool in Narrative Inquiry

This abstract offers reflection on the use of video as a data collection tool. The study was guided by a constructionist epistemology, and followed a narrative inquiry methodology, and the use of video in recoding interviews in considered. Unstructured interviews with participants were video recorded, and then edited to form a shortened and restructured narrative by the researcher. Participants then reviewed their video narratives with the researcher, and reflected on the representation offered. These second interviews were also video recorded and integrated into the overall narrative. Discussion considers epistemological implications of video as a data collection tool, as well as more practical considerations. The use of video as a data collection tool is positioned as generally beneficial in co-constructing narratives of tourism related experiences, and worthy of adoption in other research studies

Multicritical Symmetry Breaking and Naturalness of Slow Nambu-Goldstone Bosons

We investigate spontaneous global symmetry breaking in the absence of Lorentz invariance, and study technical Naturalness of Nambu-Goldstone (NG) modes whose dispersion relation exhibits a hierarchy of multicritical phenomena with Lifshitz scaling and dynamical exponents $z>1$. For example, we find NG modes with a technically natural quadratic dispersion relation which do not break time reversal symmetry and are associated with a single broken symmetry generator, not a pair. The mechanism is protected by an enhanced `polynomial shift' symmetry in the free-field limit.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor typos corrected, references adde

The VFR Hosting Activity of Immigrant and Canadian-Born Residents

The VFR Hosting Activity of Immigrant and Canadian-Born Residents Abstract This study compares the activity of immigrant and non-immigrant residents who host visiting friends and relatives (VFR). A survey of 2201 residents of the Greater Toronto Region asked about recent and general hosting behavior. Findings show that immigrant hosts are more likely to have hosted in previous three years. Further, immigrants who arrived most recently tended to have hosted higher proportions of non-Canadian and first time visitors. In addition, this same group were most likely to take vacation days in the last twelve months in order to host, and also took the most time to spend with their guests. This corresponded with a relatively high activity rate visiting local attractions with their guests. Implications for practitioners revolve around engaging (recent) immigrants as influencers and consumers of tourism in their communities

International Student’s Mobility and Tourism: Relations, Opportunities, and Insights for Canadian University Cities

The increase in student enrollment and mobility in Canadian universities every year generates a continuous flow of people that move, study, work, and live in university cities across the country. The presence of international students contributes to the prosperity of Canada, positively impacting its socio-cultural and economic development. The multiplicity of needs and services related to this segment of the urban population also makes their way through to the travel and hospitality sectors. Indeed, students visit and travel in the country, contributing to urban tourism and the local economy. In addition, the uncertainty related to the post-pandemic period and the hybridization of academic activities provided by several Canadian universities in response to the conditions created by the pandemic, will continue to impact the use of space, places, and services and increase the level of the temporary and flexible hospitality demands. This study investigates the relations and the opportunities between the mobility of university students and urban tourism, with implications for partnerships between destinations and their higher education institutions, a topic rarely explored in the tourism field and its literature

Species diversity enhances perceptions of urban coastlines at multiple scales

Biodiversity is increasingly understood as an important mediator of human aesthetic appreciation of scenes and landscapes, with implications for cultural services and well-being. However, the generality of biodiversity effects across affective emotions, scales and habitats remains unclear. Urban coastal intertidal habitats on seawalls and other artificial structures are expanding worldwide. Despite growing calls to prioritise biodiversity in urban coastal planning and management, the potential co-benefits determined by people's responses to biodiversity in these novel intertidal communities are unexplored. We investigated, using image-based questionnaires, how several facets of biodiversity influence how people perceive urban coastal structures at both landscape and close-up scales. Species richness strongly enhanced people's ratings of images for aesthetic appeal, interest and calming potential at both scales, but was more pronounced at the close-up scale. Species evenness also increased ratings at the close-up scale, while functional diversity (Rao's Q) was associated with a decline in aesthetic appeal and interest at the close-up scale, indicating that people can disfavour scenes dominated by species with contrasting traits. Analysis of free-text assessments showed that people strongly and positively valued scenes that were perceived to be ‘diverse’, a response that was much more common when viewing scenes with high species richness. The underlying structure type also clearly affected appraisals, with more obviously engineered structures being perceived to be less natural and thus less desirable. Our results show that biodiversity's effects on aesthetic appreciation extend to multiple affective emotions and to unfamiliar urban intertidal habitats, suggesting that managing these environments for biodiversity may simultaneously support aesthetic, educational and well-being benefits. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of responses to the facet of biodiversity and viewing scale in our results underlines the context dependency and complexity of people's perceptions of urban environments

The Role of Tourism and the Visitor Economy in Main Street Recovery and Revitalization

Main streets are economic and cultural hubs of communities, acting as local destinations which often attract visitors. Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) represent main streets and are associations of property owners and tenants who work to create successful business environments and attract people to them. In many ways BIAs are involved in destination management and marketing practices at the main street level and are important actors in local tourism and visitor economy development, yet few studies have explored this relationship. Therefore, this exploratory study involved a thematic analysis of interviews held with 36 Canadian BIA representatives to understand the role of tourism and the visitor economy in main street recovery and revitalization. Findings show that the visitor economy plays a significant role in the work and function of BIAs, but that its benefits could be greater capitalized on through further attention at the main street level, with implications for practitioners and academics