Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism-Research Planning and Management最新文献

The study focuses on the intersection between niche tourism and the concept of sustainability, questioning the oversimplified labelling of certain tourism forms as sustainable. By examining a sample of adventure tourism participants through a questionnaire survey, the study underscores the need for a comprehensive and holistic approach that also considers tourists' decision-making processes and practices, as well as their circumstances and consequences. Despite its small-scale nature, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on the intricacies of sustainable development. It emphasizes the importance of examining the multifaceted nature of sustainability and calls for a broader perspective to be adopted.

Parks and protected areas (PPAs) serve a critical role in society as natural reprieves for restoring both mental and physical health. The restorative power of nature was even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when visitation to local PPAs increased dramatically. Resource managers within local PPAs are growing concerned regarding the influence of increasing recreation visitation levels upon health, wellbeing, and overall visitor experience quality. This study examined the influence of social, ecological, and situational factors on visitors' health, wellbeing, and satisfaction in a local PPA setting in New England. On-site intercept surveys were conducted with local PPA visitors from September 2020 to August 2021 (n = 539) across both spatial and temporal scales. Structural equation modeling and binary logistic regression analyses suggest that social, situational, and ecological factors were significant predictors of visitor health, wellbeing, and overall satisfaction. Health outcomes (e.g., health improvement) fully mediated the relationship between situational factors (e.g., signage, COVID-19 visitation) and satisfaction and partially mediated the relationship between social factors (e.g., crowding, place attachment) and satisfaction. While ecological factors (e.g., trail and resource degradation) had no direct relationship with health outcomes, they showed a strong negative relationship with visitor satisfaction. Study findings suggest that as local PPA visitation increased during the pandemic, health outcomes also increased significantly, serving to mitigate certain negative impacts, and ultimately enhance overall experience quality. These findings lend themselves to an integration of health and wellbeing, visitor use management, and social-ecological systems conceptual frameworks and provide critical theoretical and managerial insights.

Management implications

This study found that as local park and protected area visitation (PPA) increased during the pandemic, health and wellbeing outcomes also increased significantly, serving to mitigate certain negative impacts, and ultimately enhance overall experience quality. Results indicate additional signage, increasing sense of place, and reducing ecological impacts should be top priorities for resource managers. Finally, study findings validate the critical role that local PPAs and resource managers play in providing opportunities for enhanced health and wellness, particularly during a global pandemic, epitomizing the mantra healthy parks and healthy people.

Economic impact analyses assess the economic effects of nature tourism in protected areas. In international contexts, various studies and monitoring systems employ input-output analyses as a standard methodology, whereas in Germany, studies have traditionally relied on value added analyses. The value added analysis assumes a general 30% indirect value added ratio of the intermediate input effects for all German protected areas and tourism sectors, without accounting for induced consumption effects.

This paper aims to enhance the quality and scope of economic impact analyses of nature tourism in German protected areas. For this reason, the input-output analysis is introduced for two German protected area cases: Black Forest Biosphere Reserve and Black Forest National Park. IMPLAN input-output data for the German district level was used.

Through input-output analysis, sector-specific and spatial multiplier variations were identified. Notably, the indirect value added ratios estimated for the two cases verify the general 30% ratio, showing a slight deviation of 30.6% for the Black Forest Biosphere Reserve and 29.6% for the Black Forest National Park. The induced consumption effect is slightly higher in the biosphere reserve, with an induced value added ratio of 13.3% compared to 11.1% for the Black Forest National Park region. These findings from input-output analyses provide foundational insights, laying the groundwork for further investigations across diverse regional cases. With a commitment to a standardized and long-term socioeconomic monitoring system built upon reliable and consistent data, this approach has the potential to foster methodological development and international harmonization in economic impact analyses within German protected areas.

Although the motives of hard adventure tourists represent a well-established research object, the theoretical foundations which can explain why experienced mountaineers engage in regular ascents remain under-examined. This study proposes that the concept of calling can help understand mountaineering motivations and explores its role on a sample of highly experienced mountaineers in Kazakhstan (n = 17). The findings of interpretative phenomenological analysis demonstrate how mountaineers view climbing as a calling. The findings reveal pursuits of novelty, re-lived climbing experiences and self-actualization as the inner calls shaping the meaning and purpose in life for mountaineering tourists. The study shows that, despite their risks, regular ascents enable experienced mountaineers to reach mindfulness, thus enhancing personal well-being. Theoretically, the study aids in conceptualizing mountaineering as a calling in life. Practically, it suggests that mountaineering can aid in achieving mindfulness and, if practiced regularly, regular ascents can help (re-)build emotional resilience of hard adventure tourists.

Management implications

The study demonstrates how experienced mountaineers consider regular ascents as their calling in life. This holds important implications for management and marketing of hard adventure tourism. More specifically, tourism managers and marketers should strive to appeal to experienced mountaineers by highlighting the novelty of climbing itineraries. They should also emphasize how regular ascents can aid mountaineering tourists to re-live their climbing experiences, achieve self-actualization, and reach mindfulness. The study shows that, for experienced hard adventure tourists, the opportunity to re-engage may represent a strong inner call and even determine the main purpose and meaning in their lives.

Park and protected area (PPAs) management is often characterized by tightly interdependent social, ecological, and managerial dimensions that have increasingly been conceptualized as social-ecological systems (SES) to understand the complex interrelationships between these dimensions. Current trends of increasing visitation in U.S. National Parks have accentuated the complex interactions between the amount of recreation use, the quality of the visitor experience, ecological resource conditions, and the burden on management and the capacity of the setting. In order to manage visitor use in balance with desired social and ecological conditions and allocate opportunities for use in an equitable manner, several U.S. National Parks including Acadia (ME), Arches (UT), Glacier (MT), Rocky Mountain (CO), Shenandoah (VA), Yosemite (CA), and Zion (UT) are using advance-reservation or managed-access reservation systems. Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) implemented a Timed-Entry Reservation System (TEPS) which required visitors to place an online reservation for park access and allocated a fixed number of reservations per daily time period. RMNP managers employed the park's transportation system to target desired conditions and consequently moderate the flow of vehicles entering the park. We developed an email-based survey instrument to understand visitors' evaluations of their experience under the TEPS system and elicited their attitudes towards use-limiting strategies like TEPS. Our analysis found 78% of respondents reflected favorably on the TEPS managed-access park experience, although these attitudes are often value-laden and involve expectations about the conditions they experience. Our results provide a contemporary perspective on the assumptions in the rationing and allocation literature regarding the barriers and acceptability of these techniques for managing visitor use. Finally, we offer some insights and considerations from this analysis for managers considering similar managed-access strategies.

Management implications

• •

  Conceptualizing a national park and associated managed-access process social-ecological systems illustrates connections between the visitor use and ecological dimensions of protected areas.

• •

  Managed-access reservations systems are a tool for management to balance recreation use alongside the resource conservation and management goals for the setting.

• •

  This research reveals that Rocky Mountain National Park visitors are generally supportive of managed-access strategies, particularly for the safety of their experience and the sustainable management of ecological resource conditions for future generations' enjoyment.

During the last ten years, visitor numbers have increased, leading to the crowding of open safari vehicles (OSVs) in the southern part of the Kruger National Park. This has resulted in complaints from visitors to KNP regarding the number and behaviour of some of these OSV operators. Therefore, this research aimed to determine visitors' perceptions regarding OSVs in the southern part of the KNP. A qualitative approach was followed with results showing that half participants differed in their perceived OSVs. Some solutions to the problem are banning two-way radio contact between OSVs, applying stricter rules and regulations for OSVs, and allocating park sections to be limited to OSVs only.

Management implication

• First, it is suggested by the participants that SANParks must educate OSV drivers/operators regarding the rules and regulations and more signage governing their use of the park is necessary.

• Second, better enforcement of behaviour – there is a need for better enforcement of the rules and regulations related to OSVs.

• Third, no radio or mobile phone communications between the OSVs – it is clear from the results that radio communications between the OSVs contribute to congestion. This may be the best plausible solution addressing congestion, but not OSV guides overall behaviour.

• Fourth, use technology to manage OSV crowding by implementing an application that uses GPS tracking to indicate the location of all OSVs. A control room must monitor this application, and as soon as there are too many OSVs at a sighting, let's say more than 5, a notice must be sent to the OSV operators to move on. Noticeably, all OSV must be registered on the application, each with a unique number, enabling park management to identify wrongdoers and those that behave appropriately.

• Fith a reporting system/platform, and it is suggested that a reporting platform must be developed allowing all visitors and OSVs to report bad behaviour or to help monitor and track issues related to OSV use within the park.

This study aims to investigate the popularly visited places and their spatial characteristics during the pandemic. To achieve this objective, semantic network analysis (SNA) and GIS spatial analysis were conducted using place-based words collected from Instagram posts from 2018 to June 2021 with the hashtag ‘Daejeon Nadri.’ The findings indicate that during the pandemic, the eigenvector centrality of words related to city centers decreased significantly, while words related to suburban areas increased. Before the pandemic, there was approximately a 10 km distance from the central node to the farthest node in the same modularity class. However, during the pandemic, the visited places were limited to their neighboring areas in the same modularity class. This study found that visited places during the pandemic were predominantly located in suburban areas, particularly around stream and forest areas. Green areas situated in city centers did not show a significant increase in visits during the pandemic. This indicates that people tended to visit less crowded green areas in suburban areas and showed a tendency to visit nearby places during the pandemic. These changes suggest that suburban green areas are also crucial for cities, not just for green areas in cities. In planning for future epidemics, easy access to green areas is crucial. Such accessibility can be made by allocating small green areas, creating linear green belts to link main greens, and strengthening public transport links to suburban areas.

Management implications

The results of this study imply that individuals tend to prefer natural green spaces with low population density for their outings amid the COVID-19 crisis. This finding underscores the significance of green spaces that accommodate urban residents' leisure activities during specific circumstances such as epidemics. It is worth considering appropriate allocation of green spaces within the city to ensure equal access to public green in urban planning. Another challenge is to enhance the public transportation network to connect major green spaces in the outskirts and suburbs of the metropolitan region.

The purpose of this study is to present resort mini clubs as a valuable product and service that can help businesses in the outdoor sector of the hospitality industry to stand out from competitors. In this endeavor, data collection was performed from social media, camping websites and entertainment programs of 44 for-profit campsites located in the region Occitanie (Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon, France). The study reveals that nature leisure tourism activities constitute a market opportunity for the camping industry. The contribution of this research is twofold: First, from a theoretical point of view, by suggesting resort mini clubs as a comparative advantage tool, this study is breaking up with the usual short term strategic approach in the industry. Beyond the topic of competitiveness in the hospitality industry, this study is also contributing to the empowerment of children, a group under-valued and under-researched in hospitality and tourism academic research. Second, from a practical point of view, the results of the study provide both a wake-up call, and a leveraging tool to practitioners who are sometimes overlooking the potential of some products and services already at their disposal.

Management implications

• •

  The paper shows managers how camping businesses are structured and how they can adapt their respective strategy.

  Furthermore, it helps

• •

  To characterize the important differences between camping groups and chains,

• •

  To monitor the competition between different offers,

• •

  To identify new investment opportunities,

• •

  To assess children's preferences and measure their satisfaction.

The present study focused on two beaches on the Amazon coast, located within Conservation Units under distinct management regimes. Within this context, the main aim of this study was to analyze the role of this units as a potential management framework for safety and comfort of local beachgoer. Unplanned territorial occupation, reduced investment in public services, and overcrowding are similar at both beaches, whereas the pressure level is lower on the estuarine beach of Pesqueiro, where the recreational activities are more closely monitored and controlled. Given the different pressures found on Ajuruteua and Pesqueiro beaches, which have a direct influence on the socio-environmental state of these coastal environments, and on the quality of tourist-recreational activities, it will be necessary to adopt appropriate approaches to resolve these problems and guarantee the adequate development of both the local community and tourist activities, in particular with regard to beachgoer safety.

Management implications

The role of Protected Areas (PAs) was studied as a potential management framework for the safety and comfort of beachgoers, where beach tourism practices could be efficiently integrated and managed. Two Brazilian beaches with similar environmental conditions but under different regulatory regimes were studied, focusing on aspects related to beachgoer satisfaction and safety. One of the beaches is not included in the PA and therefore not subject to the PA management plan regulations. Conversely, another beach is located within a PA and is therefore subject to the PA’s management plan. This study has shown that PAs are a positive alternative for the management of recreational activities along the Amazonian coast. However, given the specific characteristics of the study area and the limited investment in necessary services, the solutions to the safety problems of the beaches studied include the adoption of specifics beach management plans.

This study introduces Climate Resource View (CRV), explicitly recognizing climate resources within Resource-Based Theory as valuable, rare, and inimitable dependent on time and geographic location. Climate resources—a natural resource type—are bundles of meteorological variables of verifiable importance to a firm's performance. The focal climate resource is thermal safety operationalized as Wet Bulb Global Temperature (WBGT). WBGT is an equation that captures cloud cover/solar radiation, humidity, temperature, sun angle, and windspeed. The equation is unique compared to climate indices for tourism, because there are prescribed levels for when outdoor recreation is safe or dangerous. CRV is operationalized matching thermal safety with recreational visits at United States 63 designated national parks sorted into 11 climate zones. Results demonstrate that the focal climate resource (i.e., thermal safety): (1) is of value to recreational visits, both positive and negative, (2) is becoming rarer and inimitable, and (3) the most adverse risk conditions are in lower latitude and western regions of the United States.