Betty Weiler

Southern Cross University · School of Business and Tourism

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 interpretatio...

This paper reviews empirical research on the extent and nature of risks associated with dangerous tourist self-photography (selfies) and management responses. Global epidemiological studies have captured the extent of the problem, with studies recording 250+ media-reported deaths within the past decade. Nearly half occurred in natural environments,...

The term special interest tourism (SIT) first appeared in the tourism literature nearly three decades ago and continues to be used as a label by tourism scholars, researchers and educators. Given SIT is most robust as a demand construct, this chapter uses the acronym SIT to refer to special interest travel and special interest travellers. The chapt...

Management of human-wildlife conflict is often challenging and complex, particularly when the conflict involves sharks. New technologies are being trialled in New South Wales, on Australia's east coast, to accommodate the community demand for increased beach-user protection that does not harm marine wildlife. Drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles), a...

Contact with nature and experiences with nonhuman animals have been shown to contribute to nature connection and human wellbeing, both of which are innate needs according to the biophilia hypothesis. This study explores what marine mammal encounters mean to people and how they affect connection to and understanding of nature. It was hypothesized th...

In light of incident occurrence in recreational protected areas, there is a need to consider larger questions of risk and responsibility for visitor safety. Whether visitors in national parks think that their safety lies in the hands of themselves or others has important implications for the prevention of accidents. This paper sought to explore the...

Nature recreation can be beneficial for human health and wellbeing, and this paperinvites discussion about whether environmental behaviour nature contact can influence naturecontact. As human life becomes more urbanised, people interact less closely with nature,which weakens and nature connections are weakened. Tourism provides an opportunity toenh...

Business and tourism researchers show continuous interests in determining the dimensionalityof service quality and investigating how service quality influences profit-related outcomes suchas customer loyalty. Despite the inconsistencies in results across industries, types of servicesand culture, little is known how the choice of measurement influen...

Zoos are becoming more intentional about embedding messaging in their interpretation to promote pro-conservation behaviors, essentially acting as agents of social change. Values theory suggests that, be effective, interpretation including these pro-conservation messages needs to broadly align with visitors’ values. Using the Schwartz value system,...

This chapter discusses the importance of understanding the context of Social-Ecological Systems for the management of sustainable and resilient destinations. Specifically, we argue that context plays a key role in how tourism destinations are affected by and react to slow and fast change drivers occurring at different system scales. Depending on th...

This case study aims to explore the factors that underpinned successful engagement of stakeholders in the development, piloting and evaluation of a volunteer camphost programme. The study is informed by both stakeholder theory and the volunteer management literature. Multiple data sources and mixed methods were used to uncover the perceptions of th...

The management of visitor safety in protected areas is characterised by complex responsibility-sharing relationships. Utilising the Delphi technique as a qualitative research tool, this paper explores responsibility from the perspective of protected area managers within an Australian context. Through an iterative series of email-based exchanges, ma...

This article explores enablers and inhibitors of emotional engagement between visitors and Tasmanian devils at Healesville Sanctuary, Australia. A qualitative research approach was utilized including 44 interviews (ten with staff and 34 with visitors) and eight hours of observations of 622 visitors. Findings are presented in relation to six themes:...

Despite tour guides being substantial influencers in the tourism industry, tour guiding research is relatively recent and receives insufficient scholarly attention. This paper provides a content analysis of empirical English-language journal articles on tour guides and tour guiding covering a 36-year-period. Papers were coded by journal discipline,...

Over the past two decades, there has been anecdotal reporting of declines in young people’s engagement with natural environments. This article focuses on Generation Y, also commonly referred to as the Millennials. Through a scoping study of published research to 2017, we explore how Generation Y experiences, views, and is influenced by natural area...

https://mmv9.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/last_version_abstract_book_7.pdf

Tourism in national parks is essentially about providing memorable nature-based experiences for visitors. However, often there are limits to the numbers of people that can enjoy an iconic experience at a given site in a national park. Summiting a mountain has the propensity to provide an iconic experience for visitors but can be accompanied by mana...

This paper critically reviews the theoretical engagement of empirically-based tour guiding literature published in the tourism literature from 1980 to 2016, as a driver for future high-quality, rigorous research. An analysis of 140 empirical studies on tour guides and tour guiding during this period provides a foundation for identifying patterns, t...

Effective communication of safety information for visitors to national parks and other protected areas is essential, particularly where the potential consequences of incidents are severe. Signs are often the primary communication tool for safety messages in national parks. Compliance-based approaches to safety signs using standards drawn from occup...

While scholars have reflected on the roles played by psychology in tourism studies, there has been only limited exploration of the contributions of this discipline to tourism doctoral research. The aim of this study is to examine how psychology features in tourism-focused doctoral dissertations completed in the United States (US), Canada, Australia...

This study aims to empirically compare the adoption of business sustainability amongst 291 randomly-selected tourism and non-tourism businesses in New South Wales, Australia. Tourism businesses were found to be more committed to environmentally-sustainable practices than other types of businesses with there being a clear correlation with their abil...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the benefits and drawbacks of visual methods, specifically architectural drawings, for assessing locals’ perceptions of proposed tourism development in a cultural tourism precinct. Design/methodology/approach To explore the use of visual methods 21 in-depth interviews were conducted with locals wor...

Chinese inbound tourism constitutes Australia’s fastest growing and largest international tourist market. Currently, most of this travel is conducted via group package tours (GPTs). While there is anecdotal evidence of dissatisfaction with some aspects of Chinese tourists’ service experience such as commission-based shopping, little empirical evide...

Tourism doctoral dissertations have grown exponentially in recent years. Despite this, there have been limited studies which examine the contribution of specific disciplines to tourism doctoral research over time. Subsequently, this article explores the theories, concepts and methods employed in tourism doctoral dissertations informed by the founda...

Tourism provides a raft of economic benefits to destination communities, including employment, income, foreign investment, improved infrastructure and facilities. However, core benefits received are often juxtaposed with local concerns regarding economic, environmental and social impacts of tourism, such as seasonality, congestion, acculturation an...

Managers of marine protected areas (MPAs) are constantly challenged to encourage positive user behaviour to minimise impacts on marine ecosystems while allowing recreational use. Yet, some marine users continue to act in ways that diminish conservation values of the area. Drawing on social psychological theories, this paper presents a case for info...

In the management of protected areas, stakeholders range from supra-national organisations, through to national and local-level decision-makers. Although there has been substantive research on stakeholders, there is limited inquiry on involving them in the development of nature-based tourism experiences in heavily visited protected areas. Drawing o...

Visitor experiences have been identified as critical for the sustainable management of tourism destinations. However, researchers have given limited attention to how to measure visitor preferences for different, newly proposed experiences, especially in nature-based tourism contexts. This paper aims to capture potential visitors' preferences for na...

Recently, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the relationship between tourism and quality of life (QOL). While the concept of QOL is contestable, a number of studies have revealed that travel can increase an individual’s perceived and actual QOL. To date, the focus has been on vacation travel, highlighting that travel primarily for the...

The neglect and marginalisation of smallholders in economic and development policy contributes to increasing vulnerability of rural communities. Underinvestment in agriculture, climate change impacts and growing competition for land and water places further pressure on smallholders. In this context, this paper examines the current focus in the Sout...

Smallholder farmers continue to make up the largest proportion of the world's disadvantaged. Rural smallholders in the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to climate change, underinvestment and growing competition for land and resources. Strengthening synergies between agriculture and tourism through avenues such as agritourism has been widel...

Interactive experiences with non-captive, charismatic, marine megafauna, such as whales and dolphins, present a growing ecotourism trend with potentially positive and negative sustainability outcomes. Its sustainable future in countries recently developing this type of tourism is dependent upon not only operational best practices and management, bu...

The package tourists dominate the outbound Chinese holiday travel market, and to date their nature tourism experiences have been investigated, analysed and reported primarily with a Western gaze. This paper critically examines the findings of previous studies from both Chinese and English-language literature, to develop a more nuanced understanding...

One way national parks can sustain their societal relevance and ensure ongoing political and community support is through conscious and deliberate repositioning. This study investigates the potential for psychologically repositioning national parks using persuasive communication designed to shift public perceptions of the benefits of visitor experi...

This article assembles research published in Chinese-language journals and the more mainstream English-language journals to present a critical review of the literature on service quality of travel agencies in China. A brief background to travel agencies in China and a bibliometric analysis of the literature is followed by a thematic analysis of con...

The personal and community-wide benefits of parks are well documented in previous studies. Despite a strong recognition of park benefits in the literature, there has been limited inquiry focused on the relationship between visitation and perceptions of the personal and community-wide benefits of parks. Consequently, this paper revisits the influenc...

The work of Australian researchers has been central to the development of theory and scholarship on tour guiding. The paper begins with a quantitative synopsis of the collective output of Australia-based research that has appeared in scholarly journals, published conference proceedings, edited books and research reports. More tour guiding research...

In the quarter of a century since the release of the 1987 Brundtland Report, sustainable tourism has emerged as the dominant paradigm in tourism development. However, the debate, discourse, and criticism of this subfield of tourism research continues. To address such concerns the purpose of this paper is to explore trends and patterns in sustainabl...

The not-for-profit sector works within a market environment, in which charities compete with one another for donations. Despite their humanitarian aims, the sector suffers from both financial and sexual misconduct. Some researchers have called for the creation of professional bodies with self-governing accreditation schemes to monitor and signal et...

This study adopts a multidisciplinary perspective on the process of transformational change in volunteer tourism. Transformational change is understood as an individualized process which can lead to a critical awareness of the self, leading to a new self-definition. It involves four specific elements, a reflection upon the content of their knowledg...

Thirty years after Cohen's seminal work on tour guiding, the role(s) played by and skills required of tour guides continue to evolve. As 'experience' has come to be considered central to tourism, research on the guide as communicator and experience-broker has expanded. Guides broker experience in at least four domains – physical access, understandi...

The use of volunteer tour guides by commercial tour operators has attracted little scholarly attention. This paper presents a qualitative case study of a commercially organized tour led by volunteer tour guides, and explores how the guides' status as volunteers shaped experiences of tour customers. Analysis, underpinned by stakeholder–agency theory...

A report reviewing latest literature and research regarding visitor safety, visitor behaviour and safety signs in natural areas, such as national parks and beaches

This research examines the strategic alignment between external and internal stakeholders’ perceptions of the benefits of parks. To achieve this objective, surveys were distributed to park agency staff, as well as a sample of residents in New South Wales, Australia. Findings revealed alignment between external and internal stakeholders, with execut...

This paper reviews rural development literature in the areas of sustainable livelihoods and agroecology. Combining agroecological and sustainable livelihoods approaches enables interdisciplinary research that incorporates principles from sociology, economics, agronomy and ecology. . The outcome of this literature analysis alongside participatory re...

Recently calls have been made to move beyond traditional social impact studies and explore how tourism impacts the quality of life of local inhabitants, especially on islands. This research seeks to explore what quality of life (QOL) means for locals employed in the tourism industry in Ubud, Bali. A series of 21 semi-structured interviews revealed...

This paper examines the cultural brokering or mediating role of tour guides and the contribution of interpretation to that role. Using Chinese inbound tourism to Australia as a context, the paper draws on two separate mixed-methods studies to explore the views of tourism industry representatives, tour guides and visitors with respect to cultural me...

This paper reports on employment and graduate attribute outcomes based on a case study of business/tourism graduates over a four-year period. It provides a model and methods that can be replicated elsewhere in order to build a more comprehensive picture of the relationships between university education, employment success, and graduate attribute ou...

W orldwide, Indigenous tourism has grown in importance over the last few decades, thus placing peoples, their territory, culture, customs, views of the world, and natural environments at the center of attention of an array of Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations and governments. Australia, Brazil, and New Zealand are home to many Indigenous...

This paper reviews and synthesises research findings to date on (1) the role of the tour guide as experience broker, (2) the relevance and efficacy of guide communication, and in particular the application of nature and heritage interpretation principles to enhance the guided tour experience, and (3) visitor demands and expectations of a tour guide...

Tourism geographers have noted the tendency for enclaves to develop in attraction-rich tourism zones and population centres. The accumulation of tourism in such enclaves can act to limit the spread of benefits to the most impoverished regions and their inhabitants. This research addresses the question of whether peripheral regions can utilise the i...

The aim of this paper is to provide insights into Chinese backpacking tourism in Tibet. Chinese backpackers, also referred to as “donkey friends” in China, are distinctively Generation Y born in the 1980s and 1990s. They grew up at a time when China shifted political power to Deng Xiaoping’s explorations with capitalism and greater openness. Aided...

In the current climate of intense turbulence, tourism must transform to a more sustainable development platform. Yet it remains unclear how the concept of sustainability is embedded at different levels of government policy and planning, and how this has evolved over time. This paper identifies the concept of sustainability as it is articulated in 3...

Understanding and conveying the benefits of providing visitor experiences in national parks is critical for their survival, but to date has received relatively little attention. This paper uses a series of semi-structured interviews and an online survey with senior/executive managers from three Australian parks agencies, as well as an analysis of c...

This study examined the effects of both cognitive and affective tour guide interpretation outcomes on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intention in a heritage tourism context. Data were collected via a survey of 282 inbound mainland Chinese tourists to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, a heritage tourism site in Victoria, Australia. A hierarchical struc...

The purpose of this study is to explore the fairness perceptions of Chinese hotel consumers about service recovery. A total of 460 Chinese hotel guests participated in this study. The measures were adopted from previous studies and data were collected in a hotel in Wuhan. The findings confirmed the importance of compensation to Chinese consumers wh...

Using data collected from 452 visitors at the Dandenong Ranges National Park, Australia, this paper applies multiple regression (MR) and structural equation modelling (SEM) approaches to test the relationships between the respective sub-constructs of place attachment (place dependence, place identity, place affect, place social bonding), place sati...

Compiled from research papers presented at the 2nd Interdisciplinary Tourism Research Conference, Fethiye, Turkey, held in April 2012, this book brings us all those papers related to varying fields of tourism research from an interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing fields such as geography, architecture, recreation, and culture. The authors inc...

The importance of managing visitor expectations has been highlighted in natural and protected areas. However, minimal research has been completed on visitor expectations of contact with staff in national parks and protected areas. Staff can play an important role in delivering information and in interpreting significant natural and heritage attribu...

The purpose of this study was to examine visitors' attitudes towards an environmentally-responsible tourist behaviour - fossil collecting - and towards the visitor management strategies for managing this behaviour at an environmentally sensitive tourism destination. In particular, a market segmentation approach based on environmental attitudes was...

Tourism on islands, as elsewhere, can have positive and negative economic, environmental, and sociocultural impacts. Previous research has focused on residents’ perceptions of these impacts with little emphasis on those of the visitor, resulting in a lack of theorizing and empirical investigation into how visitors perceive and evaluate their impact...

Understanding and enhancing societal support for national parks is critical for their survival globally, especially in the uncertain and rapidly changing economic and political environment of the 21st century. This paper argues that the continuing availability of a diversity of visitor experiences in national parks is essential for cultivating this...

Abstract Many zoos now emphasize that their role in conservation includes influencing the behavior of their visitors for the benefit of wild animals. However, there is limited evidence of behavioral change to support this emphasis; one reason may be that requested behaviors are not viewed favorably by zoo visitors. The purpose of the present study...

This paper examines the disciplinary influence and the extent of multidisciplinary doctoral research in tourism in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Dissertation databases were mined to identify 1,888 tourism-focussed doctoral theses completed between 1951 and 2010. Abstracts were analysed to determine disciplinary influences, d...

Using a constructivist ethnographic approach, this paper explores the extent to which philanthropic tourists visiting a school and orphanage in East Africa were able to hear and voice the concerns of their hosts. While some authors suggest that there is insufficient time during a holiday experience for tourists to become emotionally involved with h...

This paper invokes the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a diagnostic tool to explain an existing public education program's limited success at improving river water quality in the City of Perth, Western Australia. A reflective, client-driven research approach was used. A facilitated expert workshop defined an environmental problem (excess nutrie...

This paper critically examines the concept of place attachment and its likely influence on pro-environmental behavioural intention of visitors. It considers place attachment as a multidimensional construct comprising place dependence, place identity, place affect and place social bonding, and suggests that research investigating this relationship i...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of first-person street theatre reenactments versus third-person interpretation at a recreated 1850s gold-rush heritage tourism site. Data collected from 357 visitors following 7 different interpretive activities indicated that third-person interpretation produced significantly higher mean res...

Place attachment is a multidimensional construct comprising place dependence, place affect, place identity, and place social bonding. Yet, studies investigating the relationships between place attachment, place satisfaction, and pro-environmental behaviour have not investigated its pluralistic nature. Using data from 452 visitors to the Dandenong R...

Profound experiences with wildlife have been identified as potential triggers for changing the way people feel and act towards wildlife. However, there has been little systematic research into the impacts of these experiences on the lives of those who experience them. This qualitative study investigated the types and strength of impact associated w...

Islands are the most vulnerable and fragile of tourism destinations and will experience even more pressure as the combined impacts of economic, social and environmental change accelerate in the future. In order to understand the process of island tourism development, response to change and challenges and their journey to sustainability, this book p...

This article explores a values-based approach to regional destination branding. Drawing on a qualitative case study of the branding of Victoria's High Country, a regional tourism area in rural Victoria, Australia, the article illustrates the shortcomings of a branding process (both in theory and practice) that draws on an overly narrow values base....

Some authors and researchers have argued that tour guides are well-placed to foster sustainable tourism outcomes by, for example, communicating about and connecting clients with the natural and cultural environment and its values (via nature and heritage interpretation), and conveying, monitoring and role-modelling appropriate visitor behaviour in...

This research note presents a summary of a project that reviewed Australian postgraduate theses/dissertations completed to date on interpretation, tour guiding, and environmental education in Australia as one indicator of the state of research in these fields and as a basis for comparison with other countries. An inventory of 120 doctoral and maste...