463 research outputs found
Parks and Trail Hubs as Green Gyms
Research on the influence of community, neighborhood, and park design on physical activity has gained interest in the 21st century. One dominant park amenity considered by urban planners and park designers are trails and trail hubs to a park system and regional trail network. Trail hubs act as an intersection where multiple trails converge and visitor’s services such as parking, restrooms, water, or exercise areas are provided. Trail hubs are increasingly included in new park designs or in modifications of older parks to facilitate active transportation and active physical activity levels for better health conditions. Few studies have examined how specific park features across different parks influence physical activity levels. This study evaluates physical and social behaviors within and across parks to test the outcomes of park features. Park user data were collected in situ from 1,089 park users with a random sample approach over a three-month period. Data were collected on physical activities, purpose of park visit, social composition of users, and temporal variables at three urban parks of different aged neighborhoods in Singapore. Users were intercepted at two areas within each park -- a multi-use area and the dominant trail hub area. Results suggest that an overall park design, including its age and its park amenities, influences park uses. Self-reported physical activities and motives for park visitation showed that vigorous physical levels and exercise motives occurred at a high proportion at trail hub areas compared to general park facility areas. Solo users were more likely to be located in trail hub areas, whereas park users with families, children or friends were more likely to use general park facility areas. The newest of the three parks studied, which featured a trail hub that provides extensive access to trails and coastal area, particularly exhibited high levels of vigorous and moderate physical activity. The value of these findings is in helping park designers and planners better understand the outcomes of different neighborhood and park design layouts, through the allocated amenities within an area and in relation to the immediate surroundings of the park area. Trail hubs developed in new or existing trail or park systems were associated with greater physical activity levels. Future research could test trail hubs outside of park settings to determine if these findings transfer to additional community areas. With evidence of different behaviors in park settings, park planners can serve the exercise and social needs of urban dwellers
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Stakeholder Opinions About Tourism
Research on sustainable tourism is growing but often not done in tandem with a community led initiative to effect policy. This study was part of a community and tourism sustainability effort that involved a stakeholder-involved process in a community in the southwestern U.S. The community is a popular destination by in-state, national and international tourists. This paper focuses on the results of two of the several data collection efforts that were part of this project: resident survey and business owner/manager survey. Specially, the findings of this research show that the community atmosphere factor that includes indicators related to the physical environment and safety most contributes to a high QOL in the community and must be a priority consideration in sustainable tourism planning. Conversely, the crowding factor most severely detracts from QOL with traffic, crowding and congestion being detrimental to QOL
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A Novel Method to Analyze Tourism Webinars
Webinars and virtual conferences are effective digital platforms to bring academics and practitioners together to share and disseminate knowledge in a dynamic online format. Often, a webinar is recorded and shared, but rarely is the webinar used as a source of data analyzed for further meaning. Travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have shifted the way individuals and organizations receive new knowledge, information, and research. This study utilizes a novel method to qualitatively analyze a webinar from 2020 that discussed climate change and COVID-19 in relation to the tourism industry. Findings were validated in various ways to show the efficacy of this method. This research adds to the literature by testing a new framework and introducing a new approach to assess, compile, summarize, and graphically represent knowledge disseminated within a webinar setting
Présentation des résultats de l'enquête «Langues et employabilité». : Analyse des besoins des entreprises françaises
National audienc
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Local residents’ perceptions about tourism development
Local residents are important stakeholders in tourism development. Their positive quality of life should be considered and ensured while destinations try to satisfy tourists and earn benefits from tourism. This paper examine residents’ perspectives at tourism destinations, specifically, the relationship between residents’ satisfaction with their quality of life related to tourism impacts and their support for tourism. The research site is a popular destination in the Southwest of the USA. Data were collected using a mail-back resident survey. The results of a structural equation modeling approach confirms the hypothesis that residents’ satisfaction with quality of life affects their level of support for further tourism development. However, the indicators and sub-constructs attributing to the residents’ satisfaction with quality of life could be varied, depending on features of each destination and demographics of the residents
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Overtourism: Sustainable Tourism Plan and Stakeholder Involvement
Overtourism with its negative impacts on tourism destinations is a threat to sustainability. Heavily visited destinations around the world have applied different methods to keep the problem in control such as capping the number of visitors, de-marketing, and changing visitors’ behaviors. However, tackling overtourism requires a systematic approach through planning and involving stakeholders. This on going case study examines the process of developing, implementing and monitoring sustainable tourism plan with a focus to diagnose overtourism and develop solutions in a popular destination. Data has been being collected through field trips, participant observation, review of project documents, and in-depth interviews. Findings will be useful for destination management in the context of overtourism and contribute to improve stakeholders’ involvement management framework in literature.
Keywords: overtourism, tourism stakeholders, sustainable tourism plan, MSIM framewor
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Extending satisfaction and loyalty research with a longitudinal perspective
This study examines the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty based on two dimensions of loyalty: attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. By measuring a traveler’s actual future behavior on a longitudinal perspective rather than just at a cross-sectional perspective, this research seeks to contribute to develop theoretical frameworks and quality measures of customer loyalty. The proposed model was tested in a hotel setting with structural equation analysis with the results showing that customer satisfaction is an important antecedent to attitudinal loyalty. Customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty were found to not be related to behavioral loyalty. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed
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REVISITING TRAVEL UNCERTAINTY WITH AN EYE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
This study is aimed at a more comprehensive understanding of travel information sources in two formats- traditional and web-based – with a consideration of tolerance for travel uncertainty levels. The findings of the study suggest that individuals believe it is important to reduce travel uncertainty and at some point before an actual vacation, a traveler reaches more certainty about travel decisions. However, no significant effect for tolerance for travel uncertainty on a variety of information search behaviors was found. The weak associations of information sources in traditional and web formats indicated that web-based information sources are not replacing but instead complementing traditional information sources. TV programs and commercials were found to be easily and highly available to travelers and significantly related to tolerance for travel uncertainty. This finding suggests that it is important to consider broadcast advertising which focuses on two factors (Vogt and Fesenmaier, 1998): (1) “hedonic information need” which captures consumers’ attention and stimulates interests, and (2) “functional need” which helps consumers narrow their alternatives and as establish “brand loyalty” based on the images on TV. Additionally, the Internet was observed to be a significant communication channel between travelers and travel businesses or destination organizations. It is therefore important to focus on content that solves travel uncertainty and presents detailed information regarding accommodations, activities, transportations, weather, and culture
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Paintbrushes to Pruners: Tourism Professionals with a Purpose
Volunteer tourism research has studied individual motives to participating in development work overseas. There is, however, an absence of research examining what influences corporate or individual employees to volunteer for tourism related activities as ambassadors or representatives of their organization within their own country. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with tourism professionals attending the November 1 and 2, 2015 Tourism Cares event in Williams, Arizona (a town adjacent to the Grand Canyon). Findings suggest tourism professionals’ motives to volunteer (personal, relationship building and social responsibility) have linkages to the common good approach. Study implications can be beneficial for employee-volunteer management, and business ethics, as well as contribution to corporate social responsibility, sustainable tourism, and volunteer tourism research.
Key Words: Corporate social responsibility, Individual social responsibility, Volunteer tourism, Sustainable tourism, Corporate volunteer programs, Business ethics, Common good approach
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Investigating the Relationship Between Tourism and Residents’ Senses of Pride in an Emergent, Post-War Destination
This research investigates residents’ perceived senses of pride in a rapidly growing tourism destination that still bears social and geopolitical consequences of war. It considers pride on demographic, attitudinal, and site-based levels, seeking to understand whether pride manifests as self-inflating, as has been proposed in psychology research, rather than as other-distancing or other-devaluing. Neighborhood affiliation is found to yield significant differences in perceived pride as well as other attitudinal variables. Findings suggest that residents’ pride may be significantly influenced by tourism, thus highlighting pride’s inherently social properties and providing support for the claim that pride may be experienced largely in terms of self-inflation. These findings suggest that tourism development in post-war settings may contribute to “authentic” pride within residents, which may have positive psychological benefits and help to unite residents following a period of conflict or division
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