Business Commons^™

Review Of: Tourism Development, Governance And Sustainability In The Bahamas, Julian Philipp, Julia Schiemann, Hannah Zehren

International Journal of Islands Research

Book Review of: Rolle, S., Minnis, J. and Bethell-Bennett, I. (Eds.) (2020) Tourism Development, Governance and Sustainability in The Bahamas, Abingdon, Routledge

English Language Challenges Faced By Licensed Guide Interpreters In Japan, Naoko Tanaka

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

This study investigates the challenges licensed guide interpreters in Japan encounter related to using the English language by examining foreign language tour guides’ use of English through interviews and surveys. The findings reveal that guides prioritise effectively conveying information and cautionary points to guests. They adjust their speaking speed, pronunciation, volume, vocabulary, and sentence structures to ensure easy understanding. Approximately 80% of the vocabulary used is at or below B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), indicating the issues which non-native speakings guides face. Moreover, they use various methods to confirm understanding, such as repeating …

Climate Change And Tourism In The Seychelles: Perceptions And Measures, Tatjana Thimm

International Journal of Islands Research

The aim of this paper is to find out in how accommodation providers in the Seychelles perceive climate change and what mitigation and adaptation measures they can provide. In order to answer these questions, a qualitative mixed-method-approach, comprised of twenty semi-structured interviews, an online-survey and participant observation was used. Results show that accommodation providers especially perceive the effects of climate change that directly affect their business and that they have already partly implemented some mitigation and adaptation measures. However, strategies and regulations are needed at the Seychelles’ government level and on a global level to actually achieve CO2 neutral travel.

Review Of: Pandemics, Disasters, Sustainability, Tourism: An Examination Of Impact On And Resilience In Caribbean Small Island Developing States, Andrew Halliday

International Journal of Islands Research

Review of: Bethell-Bennett, I., Rolle, S.A., Minnis, J. and Okumus, F. (Eds.) (2022) Pandemics, Disasters, Sustainability, Tourism: An Examination of Impact on and Resilience in Caribbean Small Island Developing States. 265 pp. Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley. ISBN: 978-1- 80382-107-8.

Keywords In Unesco Websites: The Role Of Image In Destination Marketing, Ninfa Pagano

International Journal of Islands Research

Online communication plays a vital role in tourist image formation and travel choices in the digital era. In this way, institutional communication performs a central role in tourism, influencing the market through text and keywords choice on websites. This study aims to analyse online communication by focusing on tourism discourse, i.e. English language as a specialised and promotional discourse in tourism, with a special emphasis on Dann’s rhetorical strategy of keywords. The present study explores the communication used in UNESCO websites and its contribution to tourist destination image formation through corpus-based Discourse Analysis. The focus on a selected number of …

Giving Voice To Australia’S Professional Tour Guides: Perspectives Of Their Social Identity, Birgitta E. March Mrs, Kim Williams Dr, Caroline Winter Dr

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Professional tour guides (PTGs) play an instrumental role in Australia’s tourism industry, however, there is little understanding of their perspectives regarding their challenges, expectations, belonging, and recognition. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they lack a voice and feel neglected within the tourism industry. This study adopted an interpretivist approach to capture the voices and perspectives of 19 Australian PTGs, through focus group discussions and one-on-one interviews. This qualitative study was seen through the lens of Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (1974). A key finding is that the tour guides’ strong sense of belonging is the motivating factor to address the lack of …

An Overview Of Tour-Guide Training Literature In Türkiye, Nazım Çokişler

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

The discussion of tour-guide training, which started in the 1990s in Türkiye has been taken up in the associated literature more than in any other country. No studies were previously carried out, however, to place the nearly-30-year-prolonged discussions in a historical framework and evaluate them. Yet, understanding the evolution of such training-related discussions has the potential to lead to remarkably useful information for future analyses of the subject. The purpose of the present research is to provide an overall evaluation of the literature about tourguide training in Türkiye. To this end, the literature was reviewed, and the issues addressed as …

Interpretation Performed By Certified Tourist Guides In Lisbon During The Pandemic: A Case Study, Luis Miguel Brito, Cristina Carvalho

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Interpretation quality distinguishes tourist guides. According to an investigation carried out by the authors in 2012, tourists who travel with a guide claim that although these professionals play many different, relevant, and complementary roles, interpretation is, without a doubt, the most important asset. In Europe, a traveller can find tourist guides who have a certification issued by international European organisations and who have gone through training in interpretation, together with guides who do not have any training at all and are not certified by any organisation. This paper is only about the former. The idea of conducting this study arose …

Travel Agencies And Tourist Guides Adapting To Crisis: The Portuguese Case, Ilídia C. G. Carvalho

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Tourism is constantly changing and new paradigms arise. Most recently, travel agencies and tourist guides have been facing difficulties and have had to quickly adapt themselves to be able to keep a position in the tourism market. COVID-19 brought major changes to travel and experience in destinations and it certainly increased the use of technology, which has totally changed communication systems and relationships in tourism. For this paper, interviews with Portuguese travel agents and tourist guides were carried out and were later analysed allowing the author to gain insights into the current situation regarding these two stakeholders, which were previously …

Smart City Tours As An Innovative Way To (Re)Discover Urban Environments In An Italian Context, Miriam L. Weiß

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

This article explores the foundations upon which to build innovation and further professionalise the tour guiding sector in an Italian context. It is based on a cooperation initiative started in March 2020 just at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic which proposes smart city tours as innovative, sustainable, and creative ways to (re)discover urban environments with the expected impact to make tour participants think, influence post-tour behaviour towards sustainability, and to provide a differentiated view of a visited place. The study is designed as a formative evaluation prior to introducing measures that allow further exploitation of the potential for smart …

The Resilience Of Proximity Tourism During The Pandemic: Local Walking Tours Of Budapest, János Klaniczay

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Global tourism was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, but an exception can be seen among walking tour companies providing tours for locals in Budapest, who saw a rise in demand for their tours during the summer and early autumn of 2020. During pre-pandemic times tourism levels broke records annually, and one of the main concerns was overtourism in certain cities, but due to COVID-19, international arrivals hit record-lows and millions of jobs became endangered. Meanwhile data show that local alternative walking tours in Budapest could operate sustainably during the pandemic at almost the same capacity as before, because local …

Tour Guides And Access To Trails: Problems In The Baħrija Area Of Malta, David Pace

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

The Maltese islands barely cover an area of 300 square kilometres and yet, they enjoy a varied landscape characterised by cliffs, ridges, hills and valleys. There are over a hundred valleys on the main island of Malta and many provide important waterways during the rainy season and present some of the most beautiful and varied scenery. The most accessible include the Qlejgħa valley and White Poplar Valley (Wied il-Luq). Both are frequented by thousands of visitors, particularly during the weekends and are also quite popular with tourists during the winter months. Malta’s high population density, the influx of millions of …

Ijtgr Volume 3 Table Of Contents, Kevin A. Griffin, Luis Miguel Brito, Glen Farrugia

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation In A Small Archipelago: The Role Of Ecotourism In Malta, Karl Agius

International Journal of Islands Research

The aim of this paper is to present the potential of ecotourism to develop into a niche contributing to climate change adaptation strategies whilst making the existing tourism industry more resilient. The paper provides an overview of mitigation measures adopted in Malta by the aviation, tourism and hospitality industry as well as policy makers in the archipelago to respond to major challenges that climate change poses for tourism. These changes are vital to lure ecotourists and to support ecotourism development. Six main themes emerged from the research in the context of the role ecotourism can play as an adaptation to …

A Relational Approach To Networks In A Tourism Destination: Business And Family Networks In San Vito Lo Capo, Sicily, Giovanni Ruggieri, Salvatore Iannolino

International Journal of Islands Research

This article constructs a relational framework using the principles of the Network Approach to examining the business exchange structure of a tourist destination. Network Analysis is the methodology to analyse the metrics of collaboration and cooperation among destination companies. The model was applied in a remote tourist destination named San Vito Lo Capo on the island of Sicily, where tourism has significantly expanded in the last twenty years. The focus is on how groupings of small companies within family relations can govern and be responsible for tourism destination cooperation. As the main result, the existence was identified, of a relational …

The Nexus Between Tourism Demand And Regional Characteristics: The Case Of Japanese Islands, Kantaro Takahashi

International Journal of Islands Research

This paper explores the relationships between tourism demand and regional characteristics of the Japanese islands. A regression model was carried out for 113 islands designated by the Remote Island Development Act, which is one of the laws designed to promote rural areas in Japan. Results show that the transportation situation was related to the demand of arrival tourists, whereas the results were insignificant for the model with the response variable as lodging tourists. Meanwhile, location factors were significant for lodging tourists—that is, open sea areas have more lodging tourism demand than islands in inland sea areas. Furthermore, this study found …

Ijir Title Page And Table Of Contents Vol. 3, Kevin A. Griffin, Giovanni Ruggieri, Patrizia Calò, Razaq Raj

International Journal of Islands Research

No abstract provided.

Holy Week In Spain: Negotiating Meanings In Tourism Contexts, Antonio M. Nogués-Pedregal

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

What is known as religious tourism has experienced spectacular growth in Spain in recent years. To highlight some aspects of the relationship between tourism and religious practices during Holy Week, this paper describes some occurrences involving processions and itineraries, understanding these itineraries to be social ways of creating symbolic spaces within the city layout. The paper analyses the case of a mature coastal tourist destinations in Southern Spain.

There is general agreement among scholars that tourism produces commodification either through the commercialisation of culture by way of its recreation and inclusion in the category ‘heritage’ or through the invention of …

Developing Halal Tourism: The Case Of Bongo Village, Gorontalo, Indonesia, Ahmad Izudin, Sriharini Sriharini, Latifhul Khuluq

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Religious tourism is one of the oldest forms of tourism in Indonesia’s Gorontalo Province, which is rapidly growing to be a halal tourism destination. Such a tourism concept has created new products in the industry. However, limited research has curtailed the potential of religious tourism in Gorontalo. As a contribution to the research on religious tourism, this paper explores of religious tourism as a new method to develop Indonesia’s tourism industry. The study uses qualitative methods to review the potential of religious tourism in Gorontalo. The case study was undertaken with in-depth interviews, documentation, and observation to examine the benefits …

Portuguese Continental Islands As Coastal And Maritime Tourist Destinations. Ria Formosa: An Exploration Of Its Media Impact Through Marketing, Adalberto Dias De Carvalho, Cristiana Oliveira

International Journal of Islands Research

This paper highlights the tourism promotional impacts of the tourism marketing strategies and the related media activities in relation to the Ria Formosa Natural Park, a set of islands located in the Algarve, in southern Portugal. It seeks to understand which representations are induced in the potential customers of a directly targeted tourist market. For this, we will use the conclusions of scientific studies on the geographical and physical reality of this territory and the content of the messages spread by intentionally directed marketing as well as the news spread by the media. Here we particularly reflect on the prevailing …

Island Sustainability-Predicted Impacts Of Climate Change On The Tourism Sector In Malta: Recent Experiences And Anecdotes From A Small Island, Andrew Jones Dr, Julian C. Zarb

International Journal of Islands Research

This paper aims to review threats to, and consequences of current climate change predictions on tourism in Malta. The paper reviews recent published research on the impacts of climate change and consequences of such on the physical social and economic character of tourism operations in the Maltese islands. The validity and practicality of management options to tackle the complex nature and juxtaposition between tourism growth, environment and climate change, and tourism destination management are considered, including an evaluation of management responses, the efficacy of local governance and current and future policy options and choices. The research methodology is primarily focused …

The Potential Impacts Of Climate Change On Avitourism To Islands: The Example Of Fair Isle, Scotland, Richard W. Butler Professor

International Journal of Islands Research

This paper discusses the potential impact of climate change upon a specific form of tourism, avitourism (birdwatching), and the resulting effects upon islands dependent upon this form of tourism. Bird populations, distributions and migratory patterns are all vulnerable to the impacts of global warming, extreme weather events and changes in the marine environment, as are the islands which provide their habitat. Avitourism is a lucrative and non-consumptive form of tourism that is of major importance to some small islands, particularly those that have unique indigenous breeding species and/or are visited by migrating species on a regular basis. A number of …

Climate Change-Induced Effects On Beach Degradation And Tourist Behaviour: A Review Of Previous Studies With Potential In An Island Tourism Context, Yen E. Lam González, Carmen Garcia, Matias M. González Hernández, Carmelo J. Leon

International Journal of Islands Research

This article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of papers addressing the topic of climate change impacts on beach loss and degradation, and its relation to tourist behaviour (destination choice, willingness to re-visit, expenditure and willingness to pay). The main aim is to identify values that can be used in future research works in the context of island tourism. We found that the strong specialisation and fragmentation of data and methods limit the transferability potential of previous research analysing climate-induced effects on beaches and tourist behaviour. Researchers from different fields bring their own conceptual models which often address similar problems but use …

Ijir Table Of Contents Vol. 2, Giovanni Ruggieri, Patrizia Calò, Kevin A. Griffin, Razaq Raj

International Journal of Islands Research

No abstract provided.

Conference Report: 6th National Congress Of Tourist Information (Cnit), Portugal, Cristina Leal

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Report on the 6th edition of the Portuguese National Congress of Tourist Information (CNIT), December, 2020, Porto, Portugal.

The Tangible And Intangible Heritages Of Iranian Nomads: The Touristic Potential Of Pastoral Nomadism, Hossein Noroozi

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Iranian people have a rich and significant history of nomadism and are still in contact with this ancient practice. The purpose of this research is to investigate and evaluate the Iranian nomads’ culture from a touristic and aesthetic viewpoint. The literature shows that well-known cultural tourist attractions possess particular characteristics to become a successful and sustainable product / destination. In this paper, we argue that Iranian pastoral nomads, from a geographical, social, cultural, and artistic perspective, have numerous peculiar characteristics which are attractive to international tourists. Internationally, while the sociocultural frameworks of nomadic societies are at risk of extinction when …

Portuguese Tourist Guides And The Digital Age, Ilidia Carvalho

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

The experts of tourist information, namely, the tourist guides, are a highly qualified professional class and in continuous training. Many of these professionals seem to have certain limitations in terms of using new technologies, since many of those, working today, were not born in the digital age. They have been obliged to accept these technologies and sometimes tend to look at these new ways of communicating in a sceptical way, mainly because they do not properly know how to use them. These professionals are constantly facing the need to learn how to use these new tools, which have become essential …

Tourist Guides’ Perspectives Of Demarketing The Taj Mahal, Snigdha Kainthola Ms, Pinaz Tiwari Ms, Nimit R. Chowdhary Dr

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

A UNESCO world heritage site since 1983, the Taj Mahal, located in the city of Agra in India is an important contributor to tourism in India. In the year 2018 alone, approximately 280 million tourists visited the monument. However, the popularity of the site has several negative impacts such as yellowing of the structure, pollution and overcrowding which endangers this built cultural heritage. Due to this, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is the national authority entrusted with managing heritage sites, has initiated steps to check overcrowding in the Taj Mahal. One of the widely adopted strategies is demarketing. …

Applying Interpretation Principles To A Non-Western (Japanese) Training Context, Naoko Yamada, Jeffrey Skibins, Betty Weiler

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

Interpretive guides play an indispensable role in achieving tourism and sustainability outcomes. Although interpretation theory and best practice principles are supported by literature, they have been primarily developed in Western countries. Little work has been done to evaluate the cross-cultural applicability of using Western-based interpretation in training non-Western interpretive guides. This study evaluates the use of Western-based interpretive competencies in a Japanese training context. The efficacy of the training was assessed using quantitative and qualitative pre- and post-training data from all 42 trainees. Training programs were successful in improving trainees’ perceptions of the importance of links between individual roles and …

Reflections On How The Covid-19 Pandemic Can Change Tour Guiding, Luis Miguel Brito, Cristina Carvalho

International Journal of Tour Guiding Research

This short editorial paper reflects on the Tour Guiding industry in 2020 and the impact of COVID-19. The paper suggests that while the pandemic and its associated lockdowns has devastated the tourism industry, it has also encouraged those working in the industry to be more innovative and imaginative in their business practices. While the impact of the virus is acknowledged, it is proposed that 2020 may be a turning point in redefining tourism in general and Tour Guiding in particular.