Diane Lee

This working paper presents lessons learnt based on the lived experiences of delivering a short-term student mobility program in Hokkaido, Japan, through applying the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). Academic staff from four culturally diverse backgrounds reported on Critical Incidents (CIs) observed during the program. The result was 38 CIs analysed, which suggest six themes for consideration by those planning study abroad programs. These six themes are: (1) Student preparedness, attitude and mindset, (2) Moments of recognition, celebration and success and lightbulb moments, (3) Cross-cultural issues, (4) Challenging physical conditions, external factors and the program’s logistical constraints, (5) Institutional policy and infrastructure issues, (6) Language and communication issues, and (7) Divergent stakeholder expectations. The findings of this study create an empirically supported, pedagogical approach to the development and evaluation of study abroad programs.

Using selected clans in Anambra and Enugu States as case studies, this study discusses collaboration as a potential strategy for addressing socio-cultural consequences of tourism to help achieve responsible tourism development. Most studies in this field focus on economic factors which are easier to measure than socio-cultural. Our study aims are to explain how tourism operators are using local peoples’ socio-cultural values and practices for tourism, the challenges encountered and how collaboration/community participation can help to address these challenges. The findings presented in this study are from ongoing PhD fieldwork. This is a qualitative research which adopts an ethnographic method of data collection. The study utilizes triangulation of methods to interact with participants through in-depth interviews, focus group discussion and participant observation. There are four groups of participants: traditional rulers; village representatives; men, women and youth and tourism officials. Tourism development in Anambra and Enugu States is localized. This is a consequence of poor funding and stakeholder’attitudes including those of government and tourism planners. Stakeholders adopt a top-down approach to tourism development thus neglecting the views of the local people. This affects the peoples’ perception of tourism and its consequences. Positive and negative socio-cultural results of tourism were observed. The local people argued that if they are part of the planning and decision-making process, they can support tourism development and help address potential problems. The findings from this study will serve as reference point to…

This study takes a systematic quantitative literature review of the academic literature that concerns practices and issues of tourism training and education in an Australian context. The study examines papers published from 2001 to 2014. The review focuses on the analysis of five aspects: 1. researcher location, 2. location of sample origin, 3. focus of study, 4. published year and 5. journal. Forty-one academic articles were collated from online databases. Preliminary findings suggest that there is a growing trend in this study field, attracting both Australian and international academics. Further studies are called to fill the gap in the area of Vocational Education and Training (VET), particularly given the emerging link between the VET and Higher Education sectors.

The aim of this paper is to provide insight into wildlife tourists' risk perceptions relevant to the experience of interacting with giant pandas in a semi-captive setting. A survey of tourists to the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding (CRBGPB) resulted in 650 valid questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-tests and one-way analysis of variances (ANOVAs) were used to explore the influence of demographic characteristics and tourist behaviour on risk perception. Perceptions relating to risks associated -with the quality of the tourism experience were the most high, whilst physical risk perception was the lowest. The most important finding was that risk perception for the CRBGPB experience was low.

This paper focuses on the findings from an evaluation (funded by the STCRC) of the three-year Tapestry Tourism Futures Project (TTFP) in the context of governance models in community tourism planning. The TTFP was a tourism resource management project that was carried out in the South West Region of Western Australia (then called the Tapestry region, but since renamed the Geographe region) from 2000 to 2003, before being handed over to the regional community for selfmanagement. At the heart of the project was the ‘tourism futures simulator’ (TFS) developed by the CSIRO to aid regional planners in their understanding of potential tourism impacts across a variety of spheres, and first implemented in Port Douglas, North Queensland (Walker et al, 1998). The simulator aimed to encourage a broader systems perspective within the community as it illustrates relational dependencies between sectors that many may not traditionally associate with tourism, for example health and security services. The key aims of the TTFP were: 1. To explore and educate the tourism community about the notion of a ‘systems’ approach to sustainable tourism; 2. To develop a timely, reliable and useful data set unique to regional requirements (namely, up-to-date visitor data); and 3. To make available a locally specific computer simulation model that could provide trend information for planners and policy makers in response to ‘what-if’ scenarios. Empowering the community through capacity-building and meaningful involvement in the project was also an important objective. The project relied on a top-down knowledge-based injection into a bottom-up request for input. In other words, the community presented the questions and a group of experts provided the tools for finding the answers. A series of workshops were held with regional representatives that mapped the relationships between the various components of the ‘tourism’ system. This knowledge formed the basis of the TFS. Visitor surveys undertaken by tourism providers produced the raw data that was fed into the simulator, and once analysed was provided back to the providers in the form of tourism reports. In April 2003 management of those tools passed from the experts to the region, with the team of national experts replaced by a university team located at ECU Bunbury, and the State and national funding bodies replaced by the six local governments in the region, who committed to the project for a further three years. However, in 2006 the project was discontinued (not long after the evaluation was completed) after the regional Shires that were funding the program felt that it was no longer in their interests to continue. This paper will focus on the community placement phase, and the advantages and disadvantages of its implementation in the context of sustainable community development – an explicit objective of the TTFP. It situates the evaluation findings in the overall context of sustainable tourism planning, particularly concerning collaboration in community tourism planning and suitable governance structures. Given the ongoing interest in community-based approaches such as those employed in the TTFP (for example, their potential application in the Ningaloo Cluster project, in which the TTFP architects have been involved in planning), the findings of the evaluation are felt to be relevant and timely.

Partnerships between tourism enterprises and protected area managers are widely promoted as means to generate mutually beneficial outcomes. This paper reports on a study that examined the effectiveness of twenty-one tourism partnerships associated with protected areas across Australia. Quantitative and qualitative surveys of partnership participants were used to identify the most important features of the partnerships and analyse the relationships between these features and outcomes for participants, as well as for sustainability more generally. Important outcomes for the partners included economic gains for protected areas and tourism businesses; improved availability of information; improved relationships; adoption of innovative approaches to problems-solving; and reduced conflict between partners. Important sustainability outcomes included improved understanding of the values of protected areas; improved biodiversity conservation; greater respect for culture, heritage and traditions; increased engagement of local communities in tourism; and increased local social and economic benefits. Partnership-related features that influenced these outcomes included open communication; inclusive participation; partners' commitment; adaptability to changing circumstances; leadership by at least one of the partners; agreement on the purpose and direction of the partnership; identification and allocation of partners' roles and powers; agreements and regulations supporting the partnership and tourism in protected areas; sufficient resources; and an understanding other partners' viewpoints. These results are used to characterise and identify the requirements for successful protected area tourism partnerships.

Shore-based turtle tourism is emerging as a popular activity for independent travellers during the summer months in the Ningaloo Marine Park, yet little is known about the spatial extent of human-turtle interactions and their impact on nesting marine turtle species in the area. Aerial survey techniques in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can provide useful tools for identifying potential 'interaction hotspots' where management of human-turtle interactions is required. This paper explores the application of aerial surveys that quantify both tourist activity and turtle nesting activity along the Ningaloo Marine Park coast in Western Australia.