The developmental impacts of backpacker tourism in South Africa

South Africa has recorded considerable growth in tourism activity over the past decade. In the light of the vast range of economic sectors that gain from tourism development, the national government has instituted a range of incentives and initiatives to stimulate tourism development, with the expansion of tourism infrastructure aimed at high-end tourists forming a key component of this strategy. Little investment has, however, been made in tourism infrastructure targeting those markets that prefer to avoid high-end tourism facilities. In this respect backpacker tourists and their preferred accommodation type, backpacker hostels, are a case in point. Despite backpacker tourism being largely ignored in national tourism development initiatives, backpacker tourism is increasingly popular in South Africa. This paper focuses on the recent proliferation of backpacker tourism in this country and seeks to convey the results of the first nation-wide exploration in this regard. The paper has two main objectives. Firstly, it seeks to present broad-ranging empirical data concerning this tourist cohort and their preferred accommodation type- backpacker hostels — in the South African context. Secondly, it aims to demonstrate why backpacker tourists and hostels hold much potential for local development initiatives in South Africa. In the light of the findings of this study, the paper concludes that the expansion of backpacker tourism to this country might form an appropriate means by which to achieve a range of local development objectives.     

桂林地质遗迹景观特征及其保护开发策略研究

桂林地质遗迹景观是桂林最为重要的旅游资源.在详细的野外调查基础上,依据地质遗迹调查规范(DZ/T0303-2017),梳理了桂林6区10县1市共17个区域内的312处地质遗迹景观,划分出3大类,9类和20亚类地质遗迹景观类型;景观具有数量丰富,类型多样,特色突出,品质极高,分布广泛,相对集中,地质旅游价值大等7大特征,...     

旅游洞穴景区投射形象与感知形象对比研究——以贵州织金洞为例

以中国最具代表性的旅游洞穴景区——贵州织金洞为例,运用内容分析法和社会网络分析法,以网络文本为数据来源,对比研究其投射形象和感知形象。结果表明:（1）官方的高频词核心关注点涉及自然景观、形象宣传、外部交通、门票、住宿等方面,而游客的核心关注点主要集中在自然景观和导游解说上;（2）在属性类目方面,官方和游客关注的侧重点大致相同,主要集中在旅游资源、旅游活动上,但在自然资源、游览活动内容等方面的形象仍存在诸多差异;（3）从社会网络分析来看,官方重视游客体验,关注游客服务与管理,而游客对灯光、导游服务的感知更为显著;（4）总体上游客的积极情绪占主导地位,而消极情绪的主要来源为官方在建设管理等方面的不足,如长时间排队买票或取票、导游服务态度散漫、景观单调、体验项目单一等。      

基于岩溶洞穴旅游活动中洞穴环境因子的研究

随着人们生活水平的不断提高,岩溶洞穴旅游活动日益频繁,使得对洞穴环境的综合研究以及洞穴旅游管理变得尤为重要。通过调研国内外岩溶洞穴旅游管理的现状,结合岩溶洞穴环境的研究成果,综合分析岩溶洞穴环境因子,如温度、相对湿度、洞穴CO2浓度等,对岩溶景观的影响,探讨溶洞环境的自净能力以及景观保护与修复措施等问题;针对目前岩溶洞穴旅游开发的有限空间与无序客流的矛盾,提出了合理调控洞穴旅游客流量,增强洞穴旅游景观资源保护意识,从地学、旅游、环境以及健康等角度评估和开发洞穴,使旅游活动对环境因子的影响限制在可控范围,实现洞穴旅游的可持续发展。      

Protecting tourism labor? Sustainable labels and private governance

This paper examines the application of private governance through certification labels and industry initiatives in the tourism industry. These efforts are sold as a way to achieve decent working conditions for tourism workers who participate in global value chains in the global South. The question at hand is, are these mechanisms an effective way to support tourism labor? Specifically, this research documents two main findings. First, I evaluate the programs through a tourism global value chain approach and demonstrate how tour operators use language about sustainability and the certification of accommodation suppliers for brand product differentiation and marketing. My findings demonstrate that these programs do not support tourism workers. Second, even with certification and recommendations, the standards are limited and do not include measures to protect against precarious employment, gendered divisions of labor, and emotional labor demands. Thus, these initiatives do not fully protect tourism workers. Finally, I argue a new governance research approach focused on workers’ rights and empowerment provides insights into achieving a more equitable international tourism landscape. This has implications for a governance analysis focused on rights and ‘synergistic’ governance strategies.     

杭州湾南岸平原海蚀地貌的发现及意义

杭州湾南岸是我国近代海岸线变化最大的海岸带之一.前人曾利用史料、遥感、土地利用等手段对这一带岸线的变化进行过大量的研究.最近,笔者等在慈溪市滨海平原中距海岸线2～3 km的二座孤山—伏龙山和海王山发现了海蚀崖、海蚀沟、海蚀穴等海蚀地貌,从而提供了对历史海岸线位置有明确指示意义的地质地貌证据.分析认为此乃20世纪60年代...     

Power-sharing and ‘consociational democracy’ in South Tyrol

Consociational democracy is often proposed as a non-territorial strategy to accommodate tensions between ethnic groups in the framework of a democratic regime. The multi-ethnic province of South Tyrol (Alto Adige) in Northern Italy is presented as an example of a regional ethnic conflict solved by the application of a consociational strategy. During the 1950s and 1960s considerable dissatisfaction of the ethnic German majority caused inter-ethnic tensions. The situation has improved after introduction of an autonomy statute. The statute gives the democratic government of the province autonomous powers, stipulates detailed rules and procedures on power-sharing between ethnic Germans and ethnic Italians, and provides for institutional reforms. The analysis shows that the autonomy statute has significantly contributed to the transformation of South Tyrol into a regional society with the principle features of a consociational democracy.     

Interrogating the post-apartheid socio-economic transformation in Mdantsane,Buffalo City

While scholarly concentration has been given to the challenges and opportunities for urban transformation in democratic South Africa, there are still pockets of areas which fall short of intensive examination, particularly in the topic of transforming hidden urban communities. In order to interrogate the socio-economic transformation of the hidden urbanites in a post-apartheid policy regime, this paper draws heavily from empirical evidence of Mdantsane, the second largest township in South Africa. It triangulates data obtained through unstructured in-depth interviews with that gathered from census surveys and other government reports. The study indicates that despite notable policy strides to facilitate the much sought after transformation, Mdantsane’s urban landscape still suffers from development gaps that are largely reflected in socio-economic spatial inequalities. Although these findings generally resonate with scholarly evidence established in other urban areas in South Africa, we argue about the peculiarity of Mdantsane’s case, which is chiefly associated with a complex matrix of policy events and physiographic constraints that would need a revisit if the envisaged development plans are to become a reality.     

北京城市地质工作服务的新方向——地质遗迹景观资源的开发利用

本文在阐述北京城市地质工作和地质遗迹景观资源开发利用现状的基础上,通过地质公园建设实例,从推动地方经济发展和当地居民就业、加快城镇基础设施和生态环境建设、提升地学旅游品位和公众保护地质遗迹意识等三个方面论证了地质公园在保障城市经济健康和可持续发展中发挥的重要作用,从而有力阐明了开发利用地质遗迹景观资源是北京城市地质工作服务的一个新方向。本文还提出了今后北京地区地质遗迹景观资源开发利用对策。     

Skills development in tourism: South Africa's tourism-led development strategy

Skills development for tourism has attracted only a limited scholarship in the developing world. In this paper the role of skills development in advancing South Africa's tourism-led development strategy is investigated. Skills development has a central role to play in ensuring the effective and sustainable transformation and development of the tourism industry in developing countries and, in the case of South Africa, in ensuring that poorer South Africans begin to benefit from this industry. It is argued that the current lack of an integrated and co-ordinated approach to tourism skills development seriously limits the potential of skills development to impact positively on tourism transformation and development in South Africa. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Transforming the South African tourism industry: The emerging black-owned bed and breakfast economy

In South Africa the tourism industry has been targeted as one of the key sectoral drivers for economic development and transformation of the country over the next two decades. A special feature of the South African tourism economy, which is a legacy of the apartheid period, is that the overwhelming majority of tourism enterprises and of the tourism economy as a whole is under the ownership of the white minority. With the post-apartheid transition, the national government recognizes that this unequal ownership structure in tourism needs to be addressed through a programme of transformation and consolidated support for the development of black owned tourism enterprises, especially of small tourism enterprises. The objective in this paper is to examine the problems and challenges that face the transformation of South Africa's contemporary tourism economy by investigating the development and constraints upon the country's emergent small black-owned accommodation sector in the form of bed and breakfast establishments.     

Predicting the resilience of transport infrastructure to a natural disaster using Cox’s proportional hazards regression model

Transport infrastructure is at significant risk of direct damage from extreme climate events such as flooding, where the cost implications of delayed recovery are generally significant. Previous research in this regard has focused on the technical and engineering aspects of infrastructure construction. The risk management of resilient transport infrastructure is poorly considered, and little has been done to quantify the capacity of transport infrastructure to recover from the impact of natural disasters under varying conditions. This paper applies Cox’s proportional hazards regression model to determine the rate of recovery and cumulative probability that recovery occurs for transport infrastructure across regional areas in New South Wales, Australia. Data for post-disaster reconstruction projects over the period 1992–2012 are used to analyze recovery rate against geographic region, natural disaster type and post-disaster transport infrastructure reconstruction cost. Results demonstrate that transport infrastructure recovered slowest when the failure is the result of a flood rather than bushfire or storm, and in regions with a riverine geography. To validate the accuracy of the model, a bootstrap resampling technique is used. The bootstrap result confirms that the model is robust and reasonable.

     

Simultaneity as a challenge for development

Societies in the Global South are simultaneously confronted with various challenges that societies in the Global North faced over a long period of time. From the beginning of the 18th century the Global North has faced challenges in line with its industrialization and modernization processes including population growth with the necessity to feed that growing population, rapid urbanization or infrastructure development. Solving these challenges during past centuries has led to highly developed societies but produced new threats: environmental degradation and climate change—features of Beck’s ‘reflexive modernity’. Today, societies in the Global South not only face similar challenges such as population growth, malnutrition or lacking infrastructure, but also the consequences of the human-made environmental change and its related risks. Change in the Global South has reached a previously unseen pace and notable simultaneity. This paper aims to operationalise and visualise the challenge of simultaneity. By identifying six indicators for three main issues, the extent of simultaneity will be analysed using the examples of Kenya, India, Brazil and Germany. The findings show that simultaneity is a key challenge for current social, economic and ecological transformations in the Global South.     

城市旅游开发规划研究进展评述

在总结国内旅游开发规划工作经验的基础上,从理论和实践两方面探讨了综合与整体规划、配套建设、滚动开发的操作模式以及当前旅游开发重点等,强调要突出旅游文化背景和旅游形象策划,并归纳了旅游开发规划需要研究的一系列问题。     

城市旅游开发规划进展评述

在总结国内旅游开发规划工作经验的基础上,从理论和实践两方面探讨了综合与整体规划,配套建设,滚动开发的操作模式以及当前旅游开发重点等,强调要突出旅游文化背景和旅游形象策划,并归纳了旅游开发规划需要研究的一系列问题。     

基于网络文本分析的洞穴景区游客感知形象研究——以贵州织金洞为例

洞穴旅游是最具特色的旅游活动之一,游客对洞穴景区旅游形象的认知直接影响游客满意度和忠诚度,对景区的营销和发展起到重要作用。以旅游网站上的点评、游记等网络文本为基础,采用ROST CM内容挖掘软件及内容分析法,对贵州织金洞旅游形象进行了分析,主要研究结论如下:①40篇游记样本与2591条点评样本中提取出232条高频词汇,频次排在前60位的词汇表明游客的主要关注点集中于织金洞自然景观;高频词汇的语义网络矩阵以“织金洞”、“溶洞”为核心,其他特征词向周围发散状,关联词汇的关系强度表明织金洞中规模宏伟、造型奇特的岩溶景观给游客留下了深刻的印象。②旅游形象属性主类目中涉及旅游景观的高频特征词最多,其次是旅游服务与管理、旅游设施;形态各异、独具特色的岩溶景观是织金洞最大的特点,洞穴内灯光效果对游客游览有最为直接的影响。③游客积极情绪的词汇出现的频次所占比例达81.85%,消极情绪的词汇出现的频次不到10%。      

‘We promise you a warm welcome’: tourism to Malta since the 1960s

Tourism is an important element in the Malta economy. This paper traces its development since the 1960s with discussion focussing on the nature of the tourism product, marketing initiatives, arrivals patterns and changes in the accommodation sector. Problems such as an over-dependence on British visitors, the inadequacies of the infrastructure and the limited impact of planning are highlighted. Recent efforts to improve the quality of Maltese tourism are reviewed.     

万年县神农宫旅游资源综合评价与开发对策

溶洞作为一种重要的旅游资源,以其幽、奇、险等特点得到了广泛的旅游开发。科学、合理地对旅游资源开发价值进行评价是旅游开发的前提和基础。文章以万年县神农宫为研究对象,采用层次分析法和模糊综合评判法对其岩溶洞穴旅游资源的开发价值进行了系统评价,结果表明:神农宫的评价得分为87.38分,为优良级旅游资源,具有较高的旅游开发价值。在进行综合评价的基础上,将神农宫旅游资源的评价因子分为高开发价值和中低开发价值两个层级,并提出了相应的开发建议。      

Exporting the Saemaul spirit: South Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Program and the ‘rendering technical’ of Korean development

This article provides a critical intervention into South Korea’s recent effort to promote its 1970s authoritarian-era rural modernization program, Saemaul Undong (New Village Movement), as the ‘iconic’ model of its international development assistance. To better understand how this movement has been represented, this article examines the policy narratives that have been produced by the Korean government’s Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP) and circulated through multiple development cooperation initiatives. These narratives portray Saemaul as the key to Korea’s developmental success: a mental revolution in values that inculcated the ‘can-do’ spirit in poor rural villagers and allowed them to escape poverty and stagnation. We argue that the emphasis of this narrative on the spiritual, voluntary, and value-oriented nature of the movement has been used to ‘render technical’ Korea’s development experience: i.e. to reduce it to a question of how development experts successfully cultivated the spirit of development in the Korean people and, by extension, how developing countries might do the same. We show how this narrative neglects the contested history and Cold War context of Saemaul, raising questions about the ‘brand’ of development assistance that has been built upon it.     

Researching the South African tourism and development nexus

Under apartheid, tourism was essentially anti-developmental in focus and tourism research largely centred on the recreation of white South Africans. Since the 1994 democratic transition tourism has become recognised as an increasingly important sector for South Africa's economy and for achieving the government's goals for reconstruction and development. In this paper a review and critical analysis is presented of the changing directions and foci of tourism scholarship in South Africa. It is shown that South African scholars are beginning to respond to the challenges posed by tourism as a developmental focus. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.