Sustainable Rural Tourism: Lessons for Rural Development

Rural areas are recognised for their complex, multi-functional capacities with a range of different interest groups claiming their rights to, and use of, different rural spaces. The current rural development paradigm that is evident across the globe is epitomised by the European LEADER approach. Using evidence from the proposed National Park in Northern Ireland, we ask the question: what is the potential of sustainable rural tourism to contribute to rural development? Within our analysis we consider the scope for adaptive tourism to overcome some of the ongoing challenges that have been identified within the LEADER approach. Four themes are revealed from this analysis: institutional (in)capacity; legitimacy of local groups; navigating between stakeholder interests; and sustainable tourism in practice. These issues, discussed in turn, have clear implications for the new rural development programme.

Opportunity cost based analysis of corporate eco-efficiency: A methodology and its application to the CO2-efficiency of German companies

In this paper, we propose the return-to-cost-ratio (RCR) as an alternative approach to the analysis of operational eco-efficiency of companies based on the notion of opportunity costs. RCR helps to overcome two fundamental deficits of existing approaches to eco-efficiency. (1) It translates eco-efficiency into managerial terms by applying the well-established notion of opportunity costs to eco-efficiency analysis. (2) RCR allows to identify and quantify the drivers behind changes in corporate eco-efficiency. RCR is applied to the analysis of the CO2-efficiency of German companies in order to illustrate its usefulness for a detailed analysis of changes in corporate eco-efficiency as well as for the development of effective environmental strategies. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dead But Delightful:Tourism and Memory in New Orleans Cemeteries

The book chapter examines the history of New Orleans cemeteries and their popular image, especially in regard to the tourism industry.

Exploring Scale Effects of Best/Worst Rank Ordered Choice Data to Estimate Benefits of Tourism in Alpine Grazing Commons

In many environmental valuation applications standard sample sizes for choice modelling surveys are impractical to achieve. One can improve data quality using more in-depth surveys administered to fewer respondents. We report on a study using high quality rank-ordered data elicited with the best-worst approach. The resulting "exploded logit" choice model, estimated on 64 responses per person, was used to study the willingness to pay for external benefits by visitors for policies which maintain the cultural heritage of alpine grazing commons. We find evidence supporting this approach and reasonable estimates of mean WTP, which appear theoretically valid and policy informative. © The Author (2011).