From a socio-ecological systems perspective, resilience is dynamic, multi-dimensional and multi-scale. This study provides evidence of the relationship between different types of resilience ...(psychological, employee and organizational resilience) affecting the recovery of tourism organizations after the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010/2011. A survey of tourism business owners and employees (managers) was undertaken five years after the February 2011 earthquakes. Results show significant and positive relationships between psychological and employee resilience. Further, employee resilience contributes to both life satisfaction of tourism business operators and organizational resilience. Life satisfaction of business owners and managers contributes to organizational resilience. Implications for the well-being of tourism business owners and managers, and ways of strengthening both psychological and organizational resilience are suggested.
•Models organizational resilience as a second-order construct.•Compares two models of organizational resilience and financial performance.•Suggests that modelling planned and adaptive resilience ...separately is better.•Only adaptive resilience has an impact on financial performance of firms.
The resilience of tourism organizations is an important issue for destinations. While studies examine the social capital of firms, researchers have yet to understand the relationship between social ...capital (structural, relational and cognitive) and organizational resilience as predictors of business performance. This study evaluates these relationships at the interfirm level among tourism organizations in the postdisaster context of Christchurch, New Zealand, where business performance for some tourism operations was severely impacted. Surveys of tourism organizations reveal that structural capital has a positive relationship with both cognitive and relational capital. Only relational capital has an influence on adaptive resilience. Adaptive resilience has a significant influence on business performance. By showing which elements of social capital contribute to adaptive resilience, these findings can be used by tourism organizations in their recovery phase to direct investments in building resilience and strengthening interfirm relationships.
Space tourism-past to future : a perspective article Cohen, Erik; Spector, Samuel
Tourism review (Association internationale d'experts scientifiques du tourisme),
02/2020, Volume:
75, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
This paper aims to briefly review the history and future expectations for space tourism.
Design/methodology/approach
Historical review.
Findings
After a series of successes in space travel, ...culminating by the Apollo 11 Moon landings in 1969, governmental efforts at space travel stalled. In the early twenty-first century, private entrepreneurs inspired new life into space travel and tourism, offering commercial suborbital trips, but none have as yet actually taken place. However, despite impediments, a significant expansion of space travel and tourism is expected to occur in the course of the twenty-first century.
Originality/value
The paper offers a synoptic view of past and projected future developments in space travel and tourism.
This qualitative study investigates how skiers' transport is addressed in environmental communications (ECs) produced by ski areas on New Zealand's South Island. Ski areas can build social legitimacy ...by positioning themselves as pro-environmental. Skiers' transport, which accounts for more CO
2
emissions than the daily operations of ski areas in New Zealand, is one of the most pressing issues facing the industry. The topic of skiers' transport was explored via an analysis of the ski areas' ECs in addition to semi-structured, in-depth interviews with managers from the ski areas and with skiers. The research found that the impacts of skiers' non-local transport are largely ignored by both ski area managers and skiers. Ski areas are viewed as detached from transport networks, they do not face pressures from skiers to mitigate those impacts, and they are thus able to build social legitimacy by engaging in and communicating relatively simple pro-environmental initiatives (such as recycling). These findings demonstrate a need to reconceptualise what constitutes a sustainable sport tourism organisation in order to account for the salience of transport-related impacts and to consider the extent to which ski areas are responsible for mitigating emissions stemming from tourists' transport.
Abstract
The proposal of new negotiation formulae in the midst of stalemated conflicts can help to reframe the problem and restart dialogue. They can also unleash new controversy. The Moroccan ...Initiative for Negotiating an Autonomy Statute for the Sahara Region is a formulaic proposal advanced by Morocco to describe the broad outlines for Sahrawi autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty. It has been the subject of debate within the international community since it was first introduced in April 2007. Until now, however, discussion of its efficacy as a formulaic basis for a negotiated resolution to the Western Sahara dispute has largely outweighed serious consideration of how the proposal relates to current understandings of international law concerning self-determination and free association. Like Western Sahara, the Cook Islands, Niue, Aceh, New Caledonia, and Bougainville are cases of non-self-governing territories and other high autonomy arrangements where there has been recognition of the need to substitute, as the basis for ending the conflict, a comprehensive negotiated political status, in place of frequently unworkable or unattractive alternatives such as a contentious referendum on independence, open-ended talks, or continued armed conflict. In light of the lessons learned from actual state practice and international responses in the foregoing cases, an assessment of the present Moroccan proposal demonstrates that with some improvements, it may offer a viable new starting point for negotiations. The result of using this plan as a formula to restart negotiations can be the attainment for Western Sahara of a full measure of self-government ‐ in a manner consistent with international law ‐ by means of free association.
Transhumanism and cosmic travel Cohen, Erik; Spector, Samuel
Tourism recreation research,
20/4/2/, Volume:
45, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article introduces transhumanism into the study of space travel and tourism. Transhumanism advocates the enhancement of the human body to affect a technological evolution of humans towards a ...new, advanced species - the posthuman. In contrast to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and most visionary space entrepreneurs, transhumanists envision that human enhancement is a precondition for travel and expansion into the cosmos. We distinguish two versions of transhumanism: a moderate one, which seeks to overcome human biological limitations and enhance human capacities, and an extreme one, which seeks to dispense of the body by transferring, or uploading, the human mind from the biological brain to a computer. We claim that, if such operations prove feasible, the moderate version will facilitate travel within the solar system, and the extreme version might constitute a precondition to Galactic travel and expansion. 'Unmodified' tourists may thus be deemed comparatively unfit for space travel, particularly to far away destinations. While government space agencies and the private spaceflight industry continue to refer to the 'opening' of outer space to everyone, transhumanist ideas indicate that this democratisation of space tourism might not occur.
This study clarifies the role of sense of place, social capital, and psychological resilience as valuable resources that can build psychological wellbeing (PWB) in long-term disaster recovery. ...Existing studies on disaster recovery often examine these intangible resources in isolation, without recognizing their inter-dependencies. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with residents, following the Canterbury earthquake sequence, we identify themes and visualize them through a post-disaster wheel of wellbeing (PDWWB) to highlight the need for greater recognition of PWB in the provision of tangible resources in disaster recovery. The results show that both individual (psychological resilience) and community resources (social capital) as well as an individual's sense of place provide different levers to activate in rebuilding residents' PWB (hedonic and eudaimonic aspects). For example, social capital can enhance psychological resilience and PWB while sense of place can contribute positively to social capital, psychological resilience and PWB. Thus, re-establishing sense of place and supporting social ties and networks can improve both psychological resilience and PWB post-disaster.
•Suggests a better integration of psychological wellbeing of individuals in long-term disaster recovery is required.•Emphasises the important role that sense of place and social capital plays in long-term disaster recovery.•Highlights how individual and social level resources can be leveraged to improve psychological wellbeing of individuals.•Visualizes the identified themes through a post-disaster wheel of wellbeing (PDWWB).
Dominant sustainability discourses commonly situate Earth as the singular realm of human influence and position modern mobility as one of the primary means through which we are destroying the ...biosphere. The commercialisation of activities in outer space and the development of space tourism have resulted in drastically reduced launch costs, enabling an increased human presence beyond the biosphere. This paper argues that current debates concerning the relationship between tourism mobilities and sustainability are marked by increasingly untenable assumptions concerning the spatial and temporal parameters of human influence. We critique those assumptions by introducing the concept of a sustainable trajectory to examine the relationship between modern mobility and sustainability, a relationship that is being redefined by the rapidly advancing fields of commercial spaceflight and space tourism. Greater attention to space tourism and commercial spaceflights is required in order to develop a coherent, long-term conceptualisation of the implications of modern mobility for sustainability.
The ongoing conflict in Western Sahara is one of the more intractable legacies of European colonization in North Africa. Following the withdrawal of Spain, this territorial dispute escalated in 1975 ...into a war of independence between the Sahrawi people of the Polisario Front, who were backed by Algeria, and the states of Mauritania and Morocco. In 1976, the Polisario Front established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which was not admitted in the UN but won recognition by a few states. After multiple peace efforts, the conflict reemerged in 2005 as the “independence Intifada.” Today, the Polisario Front controls about 20% of Western Sahara. At the heart of the conflict lie geopolitical interests and incompatible claims aggravated by the use of military force and decades of mostly unproductive diplomatic maneuvers by international bodies and regional or foreign powers. This thorough, impartial survey brings together some of the best experts on the Sahara question to provide a broad-based analysis of the problem, from a range of perspectives. Featuring new research, the chapters examine the roots of the conflict, its dynamics, and potential solutions. This groundbreaking text also addresses questions of law, human rights, natural resources from an analytical point of view. Contributed by scholars from North Africa, Europe, and the U.S., it is an essential contribution to the literature of Middle East and African studies.
