The negative effects of on-site bad weather are generally recognized. However, the experiences of tourists engaging with bad weather are extremely complex and far from being a generalization of ...negative outcomes, especially as the positive aesthetic value of bad weather begins to gain attention. From an aesthetic perspective, taking complex ensembles of interacting natural elements including weather as aesthetic objects, this study constructs a robust theoretical framework to analyze these complex bad weather experiences. Through a mixed methods research design, this study identifies one of the possible negative impact mechanisms whereby bad weather can negatively affect perceived aesthetic quality, further negatively impact aesthetic emotion, and ultimately reduce tourist loyalty. Literary association and aesthetic sensitivity are revealed as boundary conditions that inhibit the negative effects of bad weather on aesthetic quality. Building on these findings, this study further advances our knowledge of the interplay of weather experiences and natural aesthetics.
This study conceptualises astro-tourism as a nature-based tourism phenomenon and illustrates its positioning as a special-interest tourism (SIT) field using a phenomenological approach. In the ...process, this baseline research study contributes to this relatively new tourism field's foundational research aspects, such as developing a definition and, examining its articulation with destination image. It finds that astro-tourism is based on the interest of tourists in sky-related activities such as dark sky observation and astrophotography, most often in a nature-based context. The findings can be utilised to develop astro-tourism as a new medium in conceptualising tourism destination image by combining destination earth features as well as sky features. Targeting sky features of a destination combined with the earth facilities to attract tourists is one of the new opportunities to deliver unique tourism products.
It is increasingly recognized that interacting with nature promotes well-being and health for both adults and children. Less is known about the role of nature in people's everyday lives during ...emerging adulthood which means the shift from adolescence to young adulthood. This study examines university students' participation in outdoor recreation and the perceived well-being effects of nature. The qualitative data consists of thematic writings (N = 47) produced by environmental students at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in 2020. The findings show that most students have negotiated time and other constraints and maintained active participation in outdoor recreation. The findings highlight that nature can have an important role in students' well-being during a life stage loaded with stress factors, and especially in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature provides opportunities not only for physical activity but also for emotional and cognitive renewal, strengthening social relationships, and relieving the negative physiological effects of various stressors. Nature helps students in reflecting on their lives and even gaining a stronger sense of self. Natural settings provide a venue for students' socially shared experiences but also support retreat behaviors by enabling ‘being away’ and providing freedom from the pressures of student life. To prevent decline in connection with nature, special efforts should be made to support young adults' interaction with nature and gaining well-being benefits. Encouraging outdoor recreation at all life stages is needed to foster a lifelong nature connection and well-being experiences.
The study highlights the importance of hearing young adults' voices in decision-making and land-use planning to provide diverse opportunities for outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism. The findings stress the value of urban green spaces in supporting students' well-being in their everyday lives. To provide a sense of extent and ‘being away’ from daily routines and requirements within the city, it is important to preserve slightly managed natural settings that generate opportunities to explore nature and receive multisensory and embodied experiences. Emphasis on multisensory experiences, such as hearing bird song and breathing fresh air, also stresses the importance of taking natural elements into account in all urban planning. Promoting easy access to both urban green spaces and more distant natural settings is important for young adults. Organizing outdoor activities may also help students in familiarizing themselves with green spaces and socializing with peers.
Nature-based tourism experiences have the potential to inspire visitors to adopt conservation behaviours that protect natural environments; however, to have global effect on environmentally sensitive ...areas such as the Great Barrier Reef, we may need to expand this influence to beyond just visitors. One way to reach large audiences is through digital technology. Virtual reality is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to replicate reality effectively, accordingly, this study employed a quasi-experimental design (N = 114) to compare the impact of a real versus a virtual nature-based marine tourism experience on participants' intentions to engage in conservation behaviours. The study reveals that a nature-based tourism experience delivered via 360-degree VR technology has the potential to be as effective as a real-life experience when seeking to influence conservation behaviours. Further, this study reveals that the effectiveness of both types of experiences is not enhanced by the addition of interpretive content. Implications for the design of both virtual and real nature-based experiences targeting behaviour change are presented, and suggestions for future research exploring the design and delivery of interpretation discussed. The potential for using VR to engage wider audiences and prompt widespread behaviour changes is also highlighted.
The growth of nature-based tourism has raised the need to better understand tourists' expectations towards outdoor recreation environments. There is little knowledge, however, of international ...tourists' attitudes towards forest management practises or of their effect during winter. This study investigated how commercial forests correspond to the environmental expectations of international nature-based tourists and how the season affects tourists' landscape preferences. Altogether 750 foreign visitors to Finnish Lapland responded to a survey and evaluated photographs presenting various types of forest landscapes in summer and winter. Beautiful scenery was the most important motive for the choice of travel destination and for participating in outdoor recreation. The results highlight the strong impact of seasons on the perceived quality of the landscape in commercial forests. Seasonal differences are largest in regeneration areas as snow cover mitigates the effects of forestry operations. Even-aged, middle-aged and mature forest stands were considered to be suitable for tourism in both summer and winter. There is a demand for adapted management regimes in commercial forests targeting year-round nature-based tourism. In conclusion, forestry and tourism can coexist in the same area with good planning and with management actions that take visual quality and recreational values of the environment into account.
Entrepreneurship researchers have focused primarily on climate change mitigation. The physical effects of climate and weather on venture performance remain understudied. Accordingly, we introduce ...climatology to the entrepreneurship literature to quantitatively investigate the impacts of extreme weather events (i.e., tropical stormforced winds) on nature-based entrepreneurial performance. We operationalize our extreme weather event study at three coastal, entrepreneurial campgrounds that observed 12 tropical storm-forced events between 2007 and 2016. When controlling for institutional and other fixed effects, there were short-term but no long-term performance disruptions. Findings suggest adaptive and mitigative capacities are possible among nature-based entrepreneurial ventures experiencing extreme weather events. Thus, a key insight is the resilience of RV campgrounds to tropical-storm forced winds, the focal weather extreme.
•Entrepreneurship research on climate change has been focused on mitigation.•Missing from the inquiry is adaptive capacity of ventures to weather extremes.•An extreme weather event study methodology was used to study these interrelations.•A key insight is the resiliency of RV campground ventures to weather extremes.•Methodological and theoretical advancements and implications are provided.
The purpose of this study was to test the validity of the new Tourism Autobiographical Memory Scale (TAMS) that measures visitor experience through personal memory. The TAMS uses the autobiographical ...memory framework to represent the degree to which a travel experience was impactful to a traveler’s life. Visitors were asked to recall a memory from their visit to a national park and rate the memory of the experience based on its impact and frequency of rehearsal on a 7-point scale. Using exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing, two distinct factors emerged. Results identified a reliable measure of a memory’s impact and frequency of rehearsal of tourists. The TAMS provides researchers a new scale to gather information about the impact of a visitor experience from the direct source—personal memories. Destination managers who understand the impact they can have on a traveler will be able to manage and market to those types of experiences.
To counteract the threat of global warming, many nations have resorted to increasing their use of renewable energy sources, wind farms being among the most popular. The greatest obstacle when it ...comes to the acceptance of wind farms is their visual impact. Recently, tourism has become Iceland's largest export sector, the country's natural landscape being the main attraction for visitors. This paper attempts to compare the perception of residents and tourists towards wind energy production in general and towards Iceland's first proposed wind farm, to be located at the edge of the country's uninhabited interior Central Highlands. The study is based on a questionnaire survey conducted among residents living adjacent to the proposed wind farm and among tourists travelling through the proposed area. The results indicate that residents are more positive than tourists towards wind turbines and consider them less intrusive in the landscape. Hence, the location of Iceland's first wind farm at the main gateway into the country's Central Highlands is problematic and likely to disturb the experience of tourists passing through the area. Despite the wealth of wind in Iceland it might be challenging to utilize it for energy production due to the importance of nature-based tourism for the economy. If Iceland becomes a physical exporter of renewable energy, it may be expected that more pressure will be set on the construction of wind farms. Thereby nature-based tourism and wind energy would be in direct competition over land use.
•Wind turbines reduce the naturalness of a landscape and the quality of wilderness.•Residents and tourists consider landscape without power plant infrastructure more beautiful.•Tolerance level towards landscape change is higher among residents than tourists.•Economic reasons are likely to influence residents' opinion on wind energy production.•A wind farm in the Southern Highlands of Iceland poses a threat to the tourism industry.
This empirically-based paper examines how sustainability is implemented in tourism destination management organizations. By positing a conceptual model for sustainability implementation that is ...grounded in the academic literature and assessed in light of the empirical findings of the study presented here, this paper combines two strands of academic inquiry. Works on sustainability and its implementation offer the theoretical and practical context; implementation theory from the political sciences provides the conceptual context. Twenty interviews with 22 destination managers in nature-based tourism destinations in the Tyrolean Oberland and the South Island of New Zealand form the empirical basis of our study. Implementation processes are found to be non-linear and non-synchronous. Discretion of individuals and communication between destination stakeholders are decisive factors that influence implementation processes. Destination managers associate a wide range of projects with sustainability, and they prioritize implementing projects for economic sustainability. Sustainability successes as measured against SDGs 8 and 12 lack in concrete and holistic measures.
•Sustainability implementation processes are non-linear and non-synchronous.•The different stages of implementation are subject to different external drivers.•Stakeholder communication and discretion affect all stages of implementation.•Destination managers associate numerous and different projects with sustainability.•Destination managers prioritize implementing economic sustainability projects.
This paper studies individual preferences for place‐based attributes in the context of nature‐based domestic tourism trips. We examine the regional characteristics that explain tourist destination ...choice focusing on taste heterogeneity for distance and temperature. We examine the influence of a set of mean shifters in the marginal utilities for regional amenities, and how individuals are willing to trade distance in exchange for warmer (cooler) climates (i.e., marginal rates of substitution). Using a rich dataset of trips within Spain for nature‐based purposes, we find large heterogeneity in preferences for temperature differentials and distance, with trip purposes acting as moderators.
Resumen
Este artículo estudia las preferencias individuales por los atributos relacionados con el lugar en el contexto de los viajes de turismo nacional basados en el disfrute de la naturaleza. Se examinaron las características regionales que explican la elección del destino turístico, centrándose en la heterogeneidad de las preferencias por la distancia y la temperatura. Se examinó la influencia de un conjunto de cambios promedio en las utilidades marginales de los servicios regionales, y cómo los individuos están dispuestos a aceptar una mayor distancia a cambio de climas más cálidos (o más fríos), lo que constituyen las tasas marginales de sustitución. Mediante el uso de un amplio y completo conjunto de datos de viajes por el interior de España con fines de disfrute de la naturaleza, se encontró una gran heterogeneidad en las preferencias por los diferenciales de temperatura y de distancia, en la que los fines del viaje fueron los factores moderadores.
抄録
本稿では、自然体験型の国内の観光旅行というコンテキストにおける、場所に基づく属性に対する個人の選好を検討する。距離と温度に対する嗜好の不均一性に焦点を当てて、目的地の選択の理由となる地域の特性を調べる。地域のアメニティの限界効用における一連の平均変動要因の影響と、個人が温暖(寒冷)な気候と距離をどのくらい積極的に引き換えにするのか(すなわち、限界代替率)を調べた。自然体験を目的としたスペインの国内旅行の豊富なデータセットから、温度差と距離に対する選好性に大きな不均一性があり、旅行の目的が調整効果として作用していることが分かる。
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