‘Islands within Islands?’ The Maldivian resort,between segregation and integration

Abstract

The Maldives resort islands are a type of tourist enclave subject to a dual form of borderization. The islands have an external border that coincides with each island’s coastline and with the limits of the private property of the resort; this border regulates the movement of tourists and locals. The islands also have an internal border that separates the outer edge of the island from the inner edge. The outer edge, which is supposed to represent the perfect landscape of the ‘tropical island,’ houses all of the tourist facilities, while the interior contains the structures dedicated to the metabolic activities of the resort. The frontline staff members and the tourists share the ‘dreamscape’ of the outer edge, whereas the maintenance workers live in the secluded space inside the island, where they are typically hidden from the sight of tourists by high walls, and their movement is usually restricted from staff designated areas to their location of work. For maintenance workers, these spaces, necessarily limited due to the small size of the coral islands, risk becoming ‘islands within islands.’ Recently, the Maldivian government has begun to promote projects and initiatives in support of territorial integration between the resorts and communities of neighboring islands. Thus, the outer limits of the resort islands are, today, more porous. Their internal borders, in contrast, remain very difficult to cross.     

旅游体验前后日常环境行为对具体地点环境行为的影响——以大学生黄山旅游体验为例

明确日常生活中与旅游情境下环境责任行为之间的关系对于推进个体环境责任行为具有重要意义。将黄山旅游体验操作化为体验经历，以同一批次黄山旅游者游前、游后的环境责任行为调查数据为基础，运用Smart PLS软件，基于最小二乘法，对游前和游后的日常环境责任行为对具体地点环境责任行为之间的影响关系进行检验。研究结果表明：①游前和游后数据均显示，日常环境责任行为不同维度均部分影响具体地点环境责任行为，但影响有限。②行为之间相似性越高，越容易产生影响。③旅游体验后的日常环境责任行为对具体地点环境责任行为的影响略大于游前两者之间的影响，旅游体验可能会增强行为之间的正向影响。     

Selling bubbles at sea: pleasurable enclosure or unwanted confinement?

ABSTRACT

The insularity of super-sized cruise ships is simultaneously part of their appeal and a problem. Seagoing tourism enclaves offer a world of fantasy, consumption, familiarity, and diversion. However, problems encountered by passengers with respect to seasickness, boredom, and a sense of entrapment are noted within a range of publications. Selling the desirable aspects of cruise-ship enclosure co-exists with attempts to address the unease, discomfort, and uncertainty associated with bounded domains. These two currents, to use a nautical metaphor, characterize – or steer – the way in which shipboard experiences are sold to passengers. The concept of place marketing can be related to the thrust of the currents. Place marketing has been widely addressed in relation to urban and rural areas but not tourism enclaves such as cruise ships. The insular cruise-ship environment – a contained, consumption-driven place – is sold to (prospective) passengers in different ways. Those who study place marketing have yet to address dissimilar, but complementary, promotional messages (or currents) that are used to sell resort-style environments. Commercial imperatives explain the actions of cruise-ship companies with respect to selling the enclosed nature of their vessels, especially to North American consumers. The way in which place marketers manage place-based images – a response to intensified intercity or inter-town competition – mirrors the careful management of the promotion of shipboard spaces, often a response to intense competition within the cruise industry and part of initiatives designed to attract first-time passengers. This study addresses a research question: How are different but congruous promotional messages deployed as part of efforts to sell shipboard spaces?     

CONTESTING HOME: TOURISM,MEMORY, AND IDENTITY IN SACKVILLE,NEW BRUNSWICK

The expression of place and cultural identity through tourism practices is the focus of this paper. Extending recent work which has maintained that contemporary tourist landscapes must be seen as more than superficial responses to economic restructuring and deindustrialisation, it argues that these practices are in no way simple, uncontested constructions of identity and culture. Rather, cultural and heritage tourism practices may be sites where a fundamental symbolic struggle is waged over that identity and culture: over the meaning and representation of place and of ‘home’. L'article suivant traite de l'expression touristique d'endroit et de l'identité culturelle. Je propose que les paysages touristiques contemporains sont plus que des réponses superficielles à la restructuration économique et à la désindustrialisation. Ces pratiques touristiques liées à la culture et à l'héritage sont plutôt les sites d'une lutte symbolique entre la signification et la représentation du lieu, de la mémoire et de l'identité.     

中国工业旅游发展评析:从西方的视角看中国

本从西方的视角，对世纪之交以来中国工业旅游发展的状况进行谨慎评析。探讨中国工业旅游发展独特的政经背景，以及从政务接待到商务接待的历史过程及其对工业旅游的影响。分析中国工业旅游之开发概念、价值观、供需和组织模式等多方面与西方传统产业衰落区兴起的工业旅游之不同点。初步探讨中国目前缺乏工业遗产意识的原因，以及中国工业遗产旅游开发的未来潜力。提出：中西不同的工业旅游开发模式对双方均有启迪，中西双方的学术交流也能推动中国对其历史尚短的现代工业化遗产之旅游价值的认识和实践。     

旅游地文化变迁的影响机理研究:武夷山茶文化案例

本文选取武夷山茶文化为研究样本,借助质性访谈对旅游地文化变迁的影响因素进行探索性认知.结果表明:旅游地文化变迁的主要影响因素是文化因素、社会因素、市场因素和资本因素.本文根据影响因子的量化研究,把旅游地文化变迁的影响机理概括为:文化内驱力、社会推动力、市场调控力和资本外驱力合力驱动的结果.     

Seasonal weather sensitivity,temperature thresholds,and climate change impacts for park visitation

Historical park visitation and weather data, taken at the daily time scale from 2000 to 2009 for Pinery Provincial Park in southern Ontario (Canada), were analysed as an objective measure of the weather sensitivity, temperature thresholds, and potential impacts of projected climate change for park visitation. Three seasonal weather-visitation models were constructed using multivariable linear regression (peak, shoulder, off-season). To account for both natural and institutional seasonality, the weather-visitation models included both climatic (temperature, precipitation) and social (weekends, holidays) variables, which demonstrated equably comparable effects on visitation across the three models. Critical temperature thresholds were identified for each season using one-way analysis of variance to determine the range of temperatures within which the threshold was evident; the specific degree of temperature associated with the threshold was identified within the seasonal regression models. Temperatures over 33 °C during the peak season and over 29 °C during the shoulder season indicated critical thresholds at which point conditions that were ‘too hot’ for some caused a decline in visitation. Furthermore, temperatures below 11 °C indicated another critical threshold, where conditions were ‘too cold’ for most and therefore park visitation was less sensitive to temperature variability below this threshold. A partial sensitivity analysis for the impact of a warmer, wetter climate on park visitation was conducted, illustrating the effect of a 1 °C to 5 °C warming in maximum temperatures, coupled with a 5% to 15% increase in total precipitation. In response to projected climate change, the weather-visitation models suggested that for each additional degree of warming experienced, despite the negative effects of increasing precipitation and more frequent heat extremes, annual park visitation could increase by 3.1%, annually. The projected increase in park visitation as a result of rising temperatures was mainly associated with shoulder season visitation, with only minor increases in peak season visitation.     

(Un)related variety,urban milieu and tourism-company differentiation

High tourism growth in single-asset tourism cities is often associated with a standardization of supply of products and services by tourism entrepreneurs. However, and in contrast to this common-sense view, tourism growth in specific urban tourism milieus in the ‘sun-sea-sand’ tourism city of Antalya has stimulated tourism entrepreneurs to differentiate their products. Contrary to most economic-geography literature on spatial clusters, evolutionary economic geographers argue that inter-industry relations of (un)related variety are crucial in inter-firm differentiation. The aim of the paper is to define the factors that influence tourism-firm differentiation in the single-asset tourism city of Antalya. The empirical research is theoretically informed by evolutionary economic-geography literature, and pays much attention to the role different urban sub-milieus play in tourism-firm differentiation. It is the first research on the relation between (un)related variety and tourism-firm differentiation in tourism studies. The empirical research is based on primary data collected by a firm-level survey (hotels, restaurants, jewellery- and retail-trade firms) in the city of Antalya. The factors that influence tourism-firm differentiation are explored by using quantitative methods of analysis (an econometric logit-regression model and a correspondence analysis). The main result of the empirical research is that investments in firms in related sectors, in our case jewellery companies and hotels, are positively and significantly related to tourism-firm differentiation. In addition, the location tourism firms in areas visited by a mix of consumers (tourists and locals) also is positively and significantly related to inter-firm differentiation whereas urban milieus visited by locals only have a negative effect.     

Climate change adaptation of the tourism sector in the Bolivian Andes

Over the last 40 years, warmer temperatures have caused a considerable decrease in snow cover on glaciers and high rates of glacial melt, particularly in tropical mountains. In the Bolivian Andes, the Chacaltaya glacier (5400 masl) had been a tourist destination known as the highest ski slope in the world since 1939. As a result of climate change, skiing has not been possible after 1987 and the glacier definitely disappeared in 2009. However, since 2005, the place has become a new attraction for tourists. Travel agencies in La Paz now offer day trips to the Chacaltaya site. In order to understand the present attraction of the site and its potential for reproduction elsewhere, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with various categories of stakeholders involved in the tourism industry in La Paz, and archives and images were analysed. Our results show that the multifunctional character of this tourist site, including easy access to a summit, beautiful views, acclimatisation to altitude and opportunity to experience snow, are key factors in its renewed attraction for visitors, together with, to a lesser extent, the incentive of being able to watch a famous and evident full disappearance of a glacier and former ski slope. The stakeholders' groups share general views and perceptions about environmental changes and about the qualities of the site, but they also differ in terms of projects and evaluation of potential attractiveness. In particular, the development of the visibility of climate change impacts on mountain environment is valued by experts or by members of the Andean Club, but not by travel agencies. The example of Chacaltaya shows that multifunctional tourist sites may still be attractive in the future.     

Beyond convention: reimagining indigenous tourism

As a knowledge domain, contemporary indigenous tourism is framed in reference to cultures conventionally recognized as ‘indigenous,’ and engages this almost exclusively from a supply-side perspective. This paper reimagines indigeneity and indigenous tourism as embracing also the other 94% of global population. From a utilitarian perspective, this inclusion of ‘nonconventional indigenous people’ harbors opportunities to advance the sustainability agenda by reconnecting modern mainstream cultures, through personal exposure in dispersed settings, with ancestral roots and associated sustainable livelihoods. Such reconnections are framed as a form of re-indigenization that may be especially attractive to ‘travel promiscuous’ diasporic populations such as those found in the ‘settler’ countries of Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Articulation of this concept could be facilitated by existing knowledge domains and products in heritage tourism, rural tourism, and urban tourism, as well as sustainable tourism. Rather than usurping conventional indigenous efforts to re-indigenize and re-empower, it is contended that the nonconventional dimension can coexist with and even reinforce the latter, while enriching the dimensions of indigenous tourism as a dynamic knowledge domain.