The “flyers’ dilemma” describes the tension that now exists between the personal benefits of tourism and the climate concerns associated with high levels of personal aeromobility. This article ...presents the first international comparative analysis of attitudes toward climate change and discretionary air travel, providing insights into areas of convergence and divergence across three European societies—Norway, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Employing a critical interpretive approach and drawing upon 48 in-depth semistructured interviews, we document evidence of widespread neglect of the flyers’ dilemma. Our comparative analysis confirms that although current discretionary air travel practices are deeply embedded and resistant to change, attitudes toward the climate crisis and barriers to behavior change offer points of important contrast between different societies. Efforts to reformulate excessive discretionary air travel in response to accelerating global climate change must accommodate the unique issues and contrasting perspectives that exist in sections of these societies.
This book is a must read for anyone with a long-term mindset about the management of tourism, since it is the first to examine in depth the effects of climate change on this sector and to consider ...how stakeholders should be responding. Dr. David B. Weaver, Professor of Tourism & Events Management School of Recreation, Health, and Tourism
Whale watching around the world has experienced explosive growth, driven largely by environmental marketing that presents it as a green alternative to whaling, leading to widespread questions of ...sustainability. The failure of sustainability is, in part, due to poor implementation of recommendations from scientific impact assessments, ineffective science communication about the negative impacts of whale watching on whale populations, and limited collaboration between whale watching operators, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that promote whale watching, and the scientists that measure the impacts of whale watching. To promote sustainable whale watching it is vital to have these critical stakeholders present a coherent and consistent message to the public on what constitutes sustainable whale watching. Here, we present the findings of research focus groups with Science, NGO and Industry stakeholders to distil relevant science communication and whale watching issues. Theoretically informed by the dominant models of science communication, we present the results of two expert focus groups (N = 19), and subsequent thematic analysis to emphasize stakeholder perspectives and collaborative science communication intervention strategies. The findings highlight the potential role of participatory approaches to science communication to increase multi-stakeholder collaboration and advance interests in sustainable whale watching.
Theoretically framed by the concepts of networks, co-presence and proximity, we explore the interplay of corporeal and virtual academic mobilities in the context of 'remote institutions' to advance ...the work-sociology of aeromobility at a time of climate crisis. Empirical insights are drawn from 31 in-depth interviews conducted with academic staff at the University of Otago (New Zealand), to explore the complex personal and professional decisions that underpin academic mobility practices, and shed light on why levels of academic aeromobility have not diminished with the growing capacity for virtual substitution. Our findings inform discussion of the concepts of 'necessary' travel and virtual travel as a substitute for non-participation. We conclude with reflections on the scope for social (practice) and institutional (policy) reform, and avenues of future research.
Accelerating global climate change poses considerable challenges to all societies and economies. The European Union now targets a 20% reduction in CO
2 emissions by 2020. Indeed, the Labour-led ...Norwegian government is committed to carbon neutrality across all sectors of the economy by 2030. Aviation has been identified as a rapidly growing contributor to CO
2 emissions. This article reports on a research project that explored Norwegian attitudes towards climate change, particularly as they relate to extreme long-haul air travel to
Aotearoa/New Zealand. It reveals that the ‘dream trip’ to New Zealand for Norwegians is still largely intact. It also finds evidence of ‘air travel with a carbon conscience’ arising from growing concern for high frequency discretionary air travel. Evidence of denial of the climate impact of air travel that recent studies have revealed was largely absent. Interviewees expressed a greater concern for short-haul air travel emissions than for the climate impact of long-haul travel. However, intentions to adapt long-haul travel behaviours were expressed, highlighting the need to monitor consumer attitudes towards the impact of air travel on climate change. We conclude that Norway is a vanguard European tourism market in terms of climate sensitivity.
The purview of climate change concern has implicated air travel, as evidenced in a growing body of academic literature concerned with aviation CO
2
emissions. This article assesses the relevance of ...climate change to long-haul air travel decisions to New Zealand for UK consumers. Based on 15 semi-structured open-ended interviews conducted in Bournemouth, UK during June 2009, it was found that participants were unlikely to forgo potential travel decisions to New Zealand because of concern over air travel emissions. Underpinning the interviewees' understandings and responses to air travel's climate impact was a spectrum of awareness and attitudes to air travel and climate change. This spectrum ranged from individuals who were unaware of air travel's climate impact to those who were beginning to consume air travel with a 'carbon conscience'. Within this spectrum were some who were aware of the impact but not willing to change their travel behaviours at all. Rather than implicating long-haul air travel, the empirical evidence instead exemplifies changing perceptions towards frequent short-haul air travel and voices calls for both government and media in the UK to deliver more concrete messages on air travel's climate impact.
With the continuing biodiversity crisis in New Zealand, an increasing number of eco-sanctuaries have been established to restore local ecology through the active management of invasive predator ...species, in combination with the translocation of endangered endemic wildlife. Seeking to achieve the (near) complete restoration of pre-human ecosystems, many of these projects are community-led social enterprises where tourism is developed for operation revenue and conservation advocacy. This paper explores perceptions of ecological restoration and tourism by individuals involved in the management and operation at New Zealand mainland eco-sanctuaries and considers implications for the co-creation of visitor experiences. Informed by theories of environmental philosophy, it presents an analysis of 14 in-depth interviews. The findings reveal that the philosophies of the participants can either challenge visitors to reflect upon their ecological perspectives or pay increased attention to visitor interests and accommodate diverse perspectives in the provision of the tourist experience. This paper contributes new knowledge by identifying participants’ eco-centric and shallow anthropocentric environmental ethics and dilemmas facing tourism development at community-led ecological restoration sites. In doing so, it considers the possibility that co-created visitor experiences at eco-sanctuaries can challenge the environmental philosophies of visitors.
Marine tourism is a new frontier of late-capitalist transformation, generating more global revenue than aquaculture and fisheries combined. This transformation created whale-watching, a commercial ...tourism form that, despite recent critiques, has been accepted as non-consumptive activity. This paper uses four academic discourses to critique whale-watching as a form of capitalist exploitation: (1) commercial whale-watching and global capitalist transformation, (2) global capitalist politics and the promoted belief that whale-watching is non-consumptive, (3) the inherent contradictions of non-consumptive capitalist exploitation, and (4) whale-watching as a common-pool resource. These discourses lead us to critique whale-watching practices in relation to the common capitalist sequence of resource diversification, exploitation, depletion and collapse. Using specific impact studies, we conclude that a sustainability paradigm shift is required, whereby whale-watching (and other forms of wildlife tourism) is recognized as a form of non-lethal consumptive exploitation, understood in terms of sub-lethal anthropogenic stress and energetic impacts. We argue the need for a paradigm shift in the regulation and management of commercial whale-watching, and present the case for a unified, international framework for managing the negative externalities of whale-watching. The relevance of the issues raised about neoliberal policy-making extends beyond whale-watching to all forms of wildlife and nature-based tourism.
With a population of 4.5 million, New Zealand's contribution to total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is relatively low. On a per capita basis, however, New Zealand's GHG emissions are the ...fifth highest among Annex 1 countries, due in part to the relative size of the pastoral agricultural sector. Biophysical impacts of climate change will largely extend current climate trends, with high regional variability. A review of climate change literature identifies three key risks for New Zealand relating to economic connectedness, perceptions of ‘clean, green’ New Zealand, and social equity. Since 2008, New Zealand's main mitigation response has been the emissions trading scheme (NZ ETS), yet the ETS is currently providing little by way of meaningful incentives for behavior change and low‐carbon investment. Moreover, since declining to enter the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, engagement with global climate governance has been modest, and recently released emissions reduction targets have raised questions over New Zealand's responsibilities as a global citizen. In this paper, adaptive responses are considered in connection to key industries (agriculture, tourism) and communities (coastal, Māori), and examine the devolved structure of adaptation. Mainstream media reporting of climate change in New Zealand appears to be aligned with the scientific consensus position, yet it continues to frame climate change as a political issue, prioritizing political over scientific voices. Public perceptions of climate change provide evidence of continued uncertainty relating to human attribution, and depict climate change as a spatially distanced risk which could affect support for government action on climate change. WIREs Clim Change 2015, 6:559–583. doi: 10.1002/wcc.355
This article is categorized under:
Trans‐Disciplinary Perspectives > National Reviews
The application of sustainable development (SD) in organisational strategy has been debated for over 20 years. There is much social and political support for sustainability, but very little empirical ...research into its value, particularly to public sector organisations. This paper reports on the first empirical research into the application of Sustainable Market Orientation (SMO), a conceptual merging of the principles of sustainable development and market orientation, to be applied in strategic management. The research context is the New Zealand Department of Conservation's (DoC) administration of national park policy with particular focus on the Fiordland National Park. In-depth interviews were made with 33 DoC stakeholders, 9 internal and 24 external, including tourism businesses, local and national politicians and tourists and NGOs. The findings confirm the value of SMO in public service strategy management particularly in terms of balancing environmental, social and economic strategy, defining public service marketing parameters and ensuring the integration of short-term and long-term strategy. They also raised key issues in achieving conceptual balance in managing the environmental, social and economic orientations of SMO in protected areas using publicly owned resources and dilemmas inherent in reducing public sector funding for protected area conservation.
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