A little learning is a dangerous thing? The ethics of teaching accidental tourists in higher education

This paper raises questions about the ethical issues that arise for academics and universities when under-graduate students enrol in classes outside of their discipline - classes that are not designed to be multi-disciplinary or introductory. We term these students ‘accidental tourists'. Differences between disciplines in terms of pedagogy, norms, language and understanding may pose challenges for accidental tourists in achieving desired learning outcomes. This paper begins a discussion about whether lecturers and universities have any ethical obligations towards supporting the learning of these students. Recognising that engaging with only one ethical theory leads to a fragmented moral vision, this paper employs a variety of ethical theories to examine any possible moral obligations that may fall upon lecturers and/or universities. In regards to lecturers, the paper critically engages with the ethical theories of utilitarianism, Kantianism and virtue ethics (Aristotle) to determine the extent of any academic duty to accidental tourists. In relation to universities, this paper employs the emerging ethical theory of organisational ethics as a lens through which to critically examine any possible obligations. Organisational ethics stems from the recognition that moral demands also exist for organisations so organisations must be reconceptualised as ethical actors and their policies and practices subject to ethical scrutiny. The analysis in this paper illustrates the challenges faced by lecturers some of whom, we theorise, may experience a form of moral distress facing a conflict between personal beliefs and organisational requirements. It also critically examines the role and responsibilities of universities towards students and towards their staff and the inherent moral tensions between a market model and demands for ‘good' learning experiences. This paper highlights the tensions for academics, between academics and universities and within university policy and indicates the need for greater reflection about this issue, especially given the many constraints facing lecturers and universities.

The cultures of Restaurant Australia: epicurean food experiences for tourists in south east Queensland

Tourism Australia’s launch of the ‘Restaurant Australia’ marketing campaign in 2014 is aimed at changing perceptions of the ‘prawn on the barbeque’ image of Australian culinary culture. The campaign is the government's response to global research that reveals that tourists want ‘good’ food and wine experiences (in Australia?). In effect, ‘Restaurant Australia’, and the AUS$10 million supporting it, is promoting? the notion that Australian tourism should provide epicurean food experiences associated with high quality and ‘authentic cultural’ tourism, rather than contrived versions of national identity articulated via stereotypical notions of national cuisine. This paper adopts a cultural tourism approach, especially in relation to theories of authenticity and the relationship of post-tourists, cultural tourists, and tactical tourists to examine two very different areas of wine and food production in Australia in the context of the Restaurant Australia campaign. In particular, it considers issues associated with defining Australian cuisine and the development of a narrative about Australia as a epicurean destination.

Serendipitous road trips: Enhancing tourists’ experiences through social interaction

Driving can be a lonely activity. While there has been a lot of research and technical inventions concerning car-to-car communication and passenger entertainment, there is still little work concerning connecting drivers. Whereas tourism is very much a social activity, drive tourists have few options to communicate with fellow travellers. The proposed project is placed at the intersection of tourism and driving and aims to enhance the trip experience during driving through social interaction. This thesis explores how a mobile application that allows instant messaging between travellers sharing similar context can add to road trip experiences. To inform the design of such an application, the project adopted the principle of the user-centred design process. User needs were assessed by running an ideation workshop and a field trip. Findings of both studies have shown that tourists have different preferences and diverse attitudes towards contacting new people. Yet all participants stressed the value of social recommendations. Based on those results and a later expert review, three prototype versions of the system were created. A prototyping session with potential end users highlighted the most important features including the possibility to view user profiles, choose between text and audio input and receive up-to-date information. An implemented version of the prototype was evaluated in an exploratory study to identify usability related problems in an actual use case scenario as well as to find implementation bugs. The outcomes of this research are relevant for the design of future mobile tourist guides that leverage from benefits of social recommendations.

Anticipating Chinese Tourists Arrivals in Australia: A Time Series Analysis

Given the growing importance of the Chinese tourist market to Australia, an understanding of Chinese tourists' arrival patterns is essential to accurate forecasting of future arrivals. Drawing on 25 years of records (1991-2015), this study developed a time-series model of monthly arrivals of Chinese tourists in Australia. The model reflects the exponentially increasing trend and strong seasonality of arrivals. Excellent results from validation of the model's forecasts endorsed this time-series model's potential in the policy prescription and management practice of Australian tourism industries.

Best after rain : waterfall discharges and the tourist experience

Waterfalls attract tourists because they are aesthetically appealing landscape features that are not part of everyday experience. It is generally understood that falls are usually seen at their best when there is a copious flow of water, especially after heavy rain. Guidebooks often contain this observation when referring to waterfalls, sometimes warning readers that the flow may be severely reduced during dry periods. Indeed, many visitors are disappointed when they see falls at such times. Some are saddened when the discharge of a waterfall has been depleted by the abstraction of water upstream for power generation or other purposes. While, for those in search of the Sublime or merely the superlative, size is often important, small waterfalls can give great pleasure to lovers of landscape beauty. According to guidebooks, however, even these falls are usually best seen after rain. Drawing on tourist and travel literature and personal journals from the eighteenth century to the present, and with reference to examples from different parts of the world, this paper discusses the importance of discharge in the tourist experience of waterfalls.

Consumer-based brand equity for Australia as a long haul tourism destination in an emerging market

Purpose: Although the branding literature emerged during the 1940s, research relating to tourism destination branding has only gained momentum since the late 1990s. There remains a lack of theory in particular that addresses the measurement of the effectiveness of destination branding over time. The purpose of the research was to test the effectiveness of a model of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) for a country destination.---------- Design/methodology: A model of consumer-based brand equity was adapted from the marketing literature and applied to a nation context. The model was tested by using structural equation modelling with data from a large Chilean sample (n=845), comprising a mix of previous visitors and non-visitors. The model fits the data well. Findings: This paper reports the results of an investigation into brand equity for Australia as a long haul destination in an emerging market. The research took place just before the launch of the nation’s fourth new brand campaign in six years. The results indicate Australia is a well known but not compelling destination brand for tourists in Chile, which reflects the lower priority the South American market has been given by the national tourism office (NTO).---------- Practical implications: It is suggested that CBBE measures could be analysed at various points in time to track any strengthening or weakening of market perceptions in relation to brand objectives. A standard CBBE instrument could provide long-term effectiveness performance measures regardless of changes in destination marketing organisation (DMO) staff, advertising agency, other stakeholders, and budget.---------- Originality/value: This study contributes to the nation-branding literature by being one of the first to test the efficacy of a model of consumer-based brand equity for a tourism destination brand.

Towards local cultures of sustainability : facilitating community created environment education centres through design

Ecological sustainability has been proposed to address the problem of human impacts increasingly degrading planetary resources and ecosystems, threatening biodiversity, eco-services and human survival. Ecological sustainability is an imperative, with Australia having one of the highest eco-footprints per person worldwide. While significant progress has been made via implementation of ecologically sustainable design in urban communities, relatively little has been undertaken in small, disparate regional communities in Australia. Regional communities are disadvantaged by rural economic decline associated with structural change and inequities of resource transfer. The ecologically sustainable solution is holistic, so all settlements need to be globally wise, richly biodiverse yet locally specific. As a regional solution to this global problem, this research offers the practical means by which a small regional community can contribute. It focuses on the design and implementation of a community centre and the fostering of transformative community learning through an integrated ‘learning community’ awareness of ecologically sustainable best practice. Lessons learned are documented by the participant researcher who as a designer, facilitator, local resident and social narrator has been deeply connected with the Tweed-Caldera region over a period since 1980. The collective action of the local community of Chillingham has been diligently recorded over a decade of design and development. Over this period, several positive elements emerged in terms of improvements to the natural and built environment, greater social cohesion and co-operative learning along with a shift towards a greener local economy. Behavioural changes in the community were noted as residents strived to embrace ecological ideals and reduce fossil fuel dependency. They found attractive local solutions to sourcing of food and using local employment opportunities to up skill their residents via transformative learning as a community in transition. Finally, the catalytic impact of external partnering has also been documented. How well the region as a whole has achieved its ecologically sustainable objectives is measured in terms of the delivered success of private and public partnering with the community, the creation of a community centre cum environment education centre, the restoration of local heritage buildings, the repair of riparian forests and improved water conditions in local river systems, better roads and road safety, local skills and knowledge transfer, support of local food and local/regional growers markets to attract tourists via the integrated trails network. In aggregate, each and every element contributes to a measure of eco-positive development for the built environment, its social organisation and its economy that has guided the local community to find its own pathway to sustainability. Within the Tweed-Caldera bioregion in northern New South Wales, there has been a lack of strategic planning, ecologically sustainable knowledge and facilities in isolated communities that could support the development of a local sustained green economy, provide a hub for socio-cultural activities and ecology based education. The first challenge in this research was to model a whole systems approach to eco-positive development in Chillingham, NSW, a small community where Nature and humanity know no specific boundary. The net result was the creation of a community environment education centre featuring best-affordable ecological practice and regionally distinctive, educational building form from a disused heritage building (cow bale). This development, implemented over a decade, resonated with the later regional wide programs that were linked in the Caldera region by the common purpose of extending the reach of local and state government assistance to regional NSW in economic transition coupled with sustainability. The lessons learned from these linked projects reveal that subsequent programs have been significantly easier to initiate, manage, develop and deliver results. In particular, pursuing collaborative networks with all levels of government and external private partners has been economically effective. Each community’s uniqueness has been celebrated and through drawing out these distinctions, has highlighted local vision, strategic planning, sense of belonging and connection of people with place. This step has significantly reduced the level of friction between communities that comes from natural competition for the finite pool of funds. Following the pilot Tweed-Caldera study, several other NSW regional communities are now undertaking a Community Economic Transition Program based on the processes, trials and positive experiences witnessed in the Tweed-Caldera region where it has been demonstrated that regional community transition programs can provide an opportunity to plan and implement effective long term strategies for sustainability, empowering communities to participate in eco-governance. This thesis includes the design and development of a framework for community created environment education centres to provide an equal access place for community to participate to meet their essential needs locally. An environment centre that facilitates community transition based on easily accessible environmental education, skills and infrastructure is necessary to develop local cultures of sustainability. This research draws upon the literatures of ecologically sustainable development, environmental education and community development in the context of regional community transition towards ‘strong sustainability’. The research approach adapted is best described as a four stage collaborative action research cycle where the participant researcher (me) has a significant involvement in the process to foster local cultures of sustainability by empowering its citizens to act locally and in doing so, become more self reliant and socially resilient. This research also draws upon the many fine working exemplars, such as the resilience of the Cuban people, the transition town initiative in Totnes, U.K. and the models of Australian Community Gardens, such as CERES (Melbourne) and Northey Street (Brisbane). The objectives of this study are to research and evaluate exemplars of ecologically sustainable environment education centres, to facilitate the design and development of an environment education centre created by a small regional community as an ecologically sustainable learning environment; to facilitate a framework for community transition based on environmental education, skills and infrastructure necessary to develop local cultures of sustainability. The research was undertaken as action research in the Tweed Caldera in Northern NSW. This involved the author as participant researcher, designer and volunteer in two interconnected initiatives: the Chillingham Community Centre development and the Caldera Economic Transition Program (CETP). Both initiatives involved a series of design-led participatory community workshops that were externally facilitated with the support of government agency partnerships, steering committees and local volunteers. Together the Caldera research programs involved communities participating in developing their own strategic planning process and outcomes. The Chillingham Community Centre was developed as a sustainable community centre/hub using a participatory design process. The Caldera Economic Transition Program (CETP) prioritised Caldera region projects: the Caldera farmer’s market; community gardens and community kitchens; community renewable energy systems and an integrated trails network. The significant findings were: the CETP projects were capable of moving towards an eco-positive design benchmark through transformative learning. Community transition to sustainability programs need to be underpinned by sustainability and environmental education based frameworks and practical on ground experience in local needs based projects through transformative learning. The actioned projects were successfully undertaken through community participation and teamwork. Ecological footprint surveys were undertaken to guide and assess the ongoing community transition process, however the paucity of responses needs to be revisited. The concept of ecologically sustainable development has been adopted internationally, however existing design and planning strategies do not assure future generations continued access to healthy natural life support systems. Sustainable design research has usually been urban focussed, with little attention paid to regional communities. This study seeks to redress this paucity through the design of ecologically sustainable (deep green) learning environments for small regional communities. Through a design-led process of environmental education, this study investigates how regional communities can be facilitated to model the principles of eco-positive development to support transition to local cultures of sustainability. This research shows how community transition processes and projects can incorporate sustainable community development as transformative learning through design. Regional community transition programs can provide an opportunity to plan long term strategies for sustainability, empowering people to participate in eco-governance. A framework is developed for a community created environment education centre to provide an equal access place for the local community to participate in implementing ways to meet their essential needs locally. A community environment education centre that facilitates community transition based on holistic environmental education, skills and infrastructure is necessary to develop local cultures of sustainability.

City meeting places: Brisbane's Hungry Jack's and Melbourne's Flinders Street Station

When arranging a place to meet in Brisbane, it has become almost second nature to say, “I’ll meet you outside Hungry Jack’s,” which is located in Queen Street Mall. In Melbourne, the common saying is, “I’ll meet you under the clocks,” which refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance to Flinders Street Railway Station. The saying “I’ll meet you under the clocks” is loaded with memory and history for most Melbournians—from WWII farewells to after school meetings. The clocks, and the station, have become part of the symbolic culture of the city. A feature of these two sites is the diversity of people who arrange to meet there, ranging from business people, tourists, teenagers, lovers, families to local schoolchildren. These two spaces cross boundaries of exclusion and enable people to feel as though they belong the city. While it seems appropriate for people to arrange to meet at a railway station, it is interesting that many people who meet at Flinders Street Station do not travel by train to arrive there: some walk; some take the tram and then walk; others arrive by bus. Similarly, most of the many people who arrange to meet outside Hungry Jack’s in Brisbane do not intend to enter the store...

Tourist use of mopeds in Queensland

Tourist use of mopeds in Queensland is encouraged by licensing regulations permitting moped riding for car licence holders, who may lack prior knowledge or experience of moped or motorcycle use. Using official crash and registration data, this research examines moped use by tourists, identified as crash-involved riders holding an interstate or overseas licence. Tourists were more likely to be younger, female, in single vehicle crashes, and deemed at fault than Queensland licence holders. Potential safety issues include poor riding skills, inexperience, inattention and lack of protective clothing. Moped rental companies play an important role in managing client crash and injury risks. These risks could also be reduced through introduction of more stringent licensing requirements, though this may be detrimental to moped rental companies as well as to tourist mobility and enjoyment. The discussion considers the relevance of adventure tourism perspectives and theory to the use of mopeds by tourists.

Walking the Coleridge Way : using cultural tourism to change perceptions of Somerset after the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001

This paper explores one of the ways in which the Somerset region in the United Kingdom, devastated by the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001, is trying to free itself from recurring negative representations and create more positive images of the area. After the epidemic projects were sought that would promote a more positive image and draw tourists back to the area. One of these projects drew on literary tourism to reinvigorate the site. A Walking and Bridle trail called the ‘Coleridge Way Walk’ has been implemented to take the images of the area from ones of disease and dirtiness to ones of Romantic longing. The Coleridge Way Walk uses past imaginings to re-energise the area. This energy, in part, comes from ‘re-imagining’ the site through past imaginings. The Coleridge Way Walk uses the past to create future direction for the once tainted area.

The influence of online reviews on consumers’ attributions of service quality and control for service standards in hotels

Online travel reviews are emerging as a powerful source of information affecting tourists' pre-purchase evaluation of a hotel organization. This trend has highlighted the need for a greater understanding of the impact of online reviews on consumer attitudes and behaviors. In view of this need, we investigate the influence of online hotel reviews on consumers' attributions of service quality and firms' ability to control service delivery. An experimental design was used to examine the effects of four independent variables: framing; valence; ratings; and target. The results suggest that in reviews evaluating a hotel, remarks related to core services are more likely to induce positive service quality attributions. Recent reviews affect customers' attributions of controllability for service delivery, with negative reviews exerting an unfavorable influence on consumers' perceptions. The findings highlight the importance of managing the core service and the need for managers to act promptly in addressing customer service problems.

Determinants of place identity and dependence : the case of international tourism in Tanzania

This research examines the effects of expectation (perceived attractiveness) on satisfaction, place identity, and place dependence. Place identity and place dependence are viewed as relational components of choice and relate to deeper needs. This study proposes that these two relational components depend on transactional expectations, which are emergent and determined by past experiences and visitor goals. In a theoretically elaborated and tested Structural Equation Model (SEM) this study assumes that these relationships vary according to intentions to return. The study addresses the conditions under which loyalty intentions influence the deeper place attachments (place identity and place dependence) that visitors associate with attractive cultural and natural destinations. The model is tested on a sample of 504 international tourists visiting Tanzania during fall 2010, and explains 59% of variance in the predicted dependent variables. The results are linked to a discussion on loyalty programs.

Grand tours in the glare of the sun : harnessing digital media to develop cultural tourism in Queensland, Australia

It has been well established that highlighting the cultural attributes of a region through stories of place, local histories, and the creative arts boosts tourism income to a region. Cultural tourism also serves to promote the creative industries to visitors and residents alike and, by enhancing a region’s cultural identity, fosters new opportunities for the arts. It can therefore offer considerable potential benefit to the creative economy in Australia. However, in comparison with Europe, where cultural tourism can rely upon an established historical, artistic and literary cultural identity that stretches back to Grand Tours of the seventeenth century, in Queensland, Australia the relatively new enterprise of cultural tourism must compete with visitor expectations of sun, surf and the natural landscapes, which have become the mainstay of tourism advertising. Moreover, in Queensland, it is essential to connect vast distances, diverse communities and a variety of cultural experiences. We must also take account of the expectations of contemporary tourists, who anticipate a digitally mediated travel experience and increasingly seek to connect with local communities in authentic ways. In this paper we consider the unique considerations that must be taken into account in the Queensland context and propose approaches to developing an integrated identity that embraces both the ‘great outdoors’ and the region’s cultural attributes. We make recommendations for providing the types of digitally mediated ‘local’ experiences that cultural tourists now expect, and illustrate the design principles we propose through early, tentative approaches to smart phones, locative media and augmented reality applications for cultural tourism in the region. We conclude by proposing additional ways to formulate a digital strategy in line with the recommendations we make.

Globalising the body : globalisation and reproductive rights

Globalisation is a phenomenon of the contemporary world. Everywhere around us there seem to be signs of the power of the forces of globalisation: in our media and popular culture; in our international linkages across continents through international travel and telecommunications; in our globalised trade; and with the global movement of people, a process which itself ranges from the movement of international tourists to the international movement of refugees and other displaced persons. The processes of globalisation seem to simultaneously unify and divide us. There is no doubt that we live in a globalised world and that we are connected to others in previously unimaginable ways by transportation, telecommunications and economics. Yet, while this global context increasingly links us to others, there is also a very real sense in which separation, difference and the local have also gained a new significance; we are locked in a tension between the universal and the particular that has come to typify contemporary society. This article explores the meanings of globalisation and this dynamic – or tension – between the universal and the particular in terms of its implications for the body and, in particular, its significance for women and their reproductive rights.