Tourism versus nature conservation: reconciliation of common interests and objectives——an analysis through Picos de Europa National Park

Nature tourism and particularly tourism in national parks have acquired significant importance in contemporary societies. Post-Fordist consumers have reevaluated the meanings of ‘nature' and ‘natural spaces' and now avoid standardization to seek singularity. Tourism in national parks is a consequence of this tendency and has both positive and negative aspects. The purpose of this sociological research is to describe the most relevant conflicts in the Picos de Europa National Park(Spain) involving the park's conservation, local economic development,and tourism. Seven in-depth interviews and three focus groups were addressed to key local stakeholders.In this research were identified three chief areas of existing or potential inter-related conflicts and the main actors interacting with them. The first is on population, particularly, the negative consequences of depopulations on the local socio-economic development and the environment. A second source of conflicts identified is caused by the difficult conciliation between commercial exploitation and conservation of the protected natural area. More precisely, this specific form of tourism positively contributes to the economy of local communities whilst problems can arise for the conservation goals of National Parks. Thirdly, in this research is also analyzed the institutional governance and the inter and intra-governmental conflicts as well as with the Park's management body. These findings provide important information for the improved management of tourism and conflicting interests in natural parks.     

Green Tourism in Mountain Regions - Reducing Vulnerability and Promoting People and Place Centric Development in the Himalayas

In recent years, mountain regions are attracting great attention to Indian tourists in general and foreign tourists in particular. The potential mountain resources for promoting green tourism are enormous in the form of natural and cultural heritage such as biosphere reserves, flora and fauna, lakes and rivers and traditional rural resources. In order to utilise tourism industry market, uncontrolled numbers of tourists and related haphazard infrastructural facilities in the vulnerable mountain regions pose serious environmental implications. The ecological pressures are threatening land, water and wild life resources through direct and indirect environmental impacts together with generation of solid and liquid wastes, so green tourism is emerging as an important task in order to develop new relationship between communities, government agencies and private sectors. The strategy focuses on ecological understanding, environmental protection and ecodevelopment. The major attributes of the green tourism include environmental conservation and education and distribution of income to local people based on strong partnership. Various knowledge systems go a long way for achieving the goals of the green tourism, which creates awareness about the value of environmental resources. Mountains have ecological, recreational, educational and scientific values, which need to be utilised in sustainable way. Various tourist activities andfacilities need to be diversified in order to achieve multiple benefits including scientific field excursion, recreation in natural and cultural areas, community festivals and sport tourisms. Green tourism considers tourism development as an integral part of a national and regional development. The paper discusses the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the green tourism with particular reference to village tourism development programme taking empirical evidences from the Himalaya. Such programme also minimises biophysical and human vulnerability and risks in mountain regions. The environmental consciousness campaign and introduction of code through multi- purpose Tourist Resource Centres are gaining currency in above context.     

Analysis of Social Integration Models of Tourism Labor Migrants——A Case Study of Jiuhua Mountain of Anhui Province,China

The grounded theory of qualitative methods was applied to researching the social integration of tourism labor migrants in the Jiuhua Mountain of Anhui Province, China. The research was conducted based on the in-depth interviewing of 15 samples, open-consultation and the analysis of secondhand data. The integration models of tourism labor migrants in the Jiuhua Mountain were formed through four processes including theoretic sampling, coding-analysis, cross-tabulation and contextualization. The result shows that modes of production and life styles decide self-integration orientation of tourism labor migrants in the Jiuhua Mountain. Cultural differences are fundamental dissimilarity between tourism labor migrants and natives. There are three kinds of integration models including rapid, free and gradually advancing integration. The differences among different types of migrants＇ integration models are remarkable. Taking the working integration as the abscissa and taking the life integration as the coordinate, an ＂S＂ model of integration matrix appears in the gradually advancing integration of intermediate and high administers from the working to the life which should be paid special attention to.     

Tourism management in national parks: ?umava and Bayerischer Wald(Bavarian Forest) in the Czech-German borderland

Along the Czech-German border there are four national parks, two Czech and two German, arranged in cross-border ‘pairs'. This article focuses on the southern ‘pair' formed by the parks of ?umava and Bayerischer Wald(Bavarian Forest). The aim is to evaluate and compare tourism organization in their areas, taking into account selected aspects of management: the network of hiking trails with its related infrastructure, transport accessibility, a typology of tourist centers, as well as directions and destinations of tourist movements. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the availability of geographical space for tourists is much greater in the German than in the Czech national park, and the tourism infrastructure is clearly more extensive there, including the network of tourist trails. This is mainly due to the longer and fairly uninterrupted development of tourism in this area. ?umava National Park can be identified as a model in terms of how to adjust the directions of tourist movements and the layout of the tourist trail network to the needs of natural environment. On the basis of observations in both national parks, it is possible to indicate various solutions that, after appropriate adaptation, may bring benefits to other protected areas.     

UNRAVELING ECOTOURISM PRACTICE：PROBLEM ANALYSIS BASED ON STAKEHOLDERS

Despite the considerable literatures defined what Ecotourism is or should be, it is experiencing various practices with different features. Now the term “Ecotourism” is almost applied to all tourism activities which are based on nature. Faced to the flooding of those unqualified Ecotourism, it is of great necessity to put forward professional claim. The present writer holds that the key to the realization of rigorous Ecotourism chiefly lies in the relationships among the different interest groups involved in it. So the focus of this paper is just on giving a special analysis to the interest relations between those stakeholders which include local government, tour-operators, local residents and eco-tourists, and thus helping to find out what wrong is in those unqualified Ecotourism and the roots of those problems.     

Community tourism as practiced in the mountainous Qiang region of Sichuan Province, China — a case study in Zhenghe Village

In China, community tourism is still a relatively new phenomenon, but the villagers of a small Qiang village in the Qiang Autonomous County of Beichuan in Southwestern Sichuan have initiated tourism in a way which conforms to the basic theory of community tourism development. This demonstrates that community tourism possesses a strength and vitality that can promote the development of tourism in the rural and mountainous areas. In the district of Zhenghe Village, the tourism industry, based on the community tourism model, is the mainstay of its economy. The practice of community tourism in the village not only promotes the economic development of the village community, but also leads to the protection of the mountainous natural environment and of the culture of the Qiang people. This paper investigates the development process of community tourism in Zhenghe and shows how the local residents participate in this process. It also looks at how profits have been distributed within the community. It demonstrates that community tourism is a correct choice by the Zhenghe people as they have dearly been moving from poverty to prosperity, while the local ecology and environment have been simultaneously protected. The authors hope that other minority villages with similar local conditions and natural resources will be able to use this example to develop their own community tourism.     

Sustainable tourism development in mountain areas in Sumadija and Western Serbia

Sustainable tourism,as an integral part of sustainable development,emerged as a logical outcome of preventing the uncontrolled and excessive use of tourism resources and attractions.This study analyzes whether mountain tourism development in Serbia can be sustainable and feasible in the long term.Given the heterogeneity of mountains in Serbia in terms of tourism development,the subject of this research is the achieved level of sustainable tourism development in mountains in the most developed and most visited region in Serbia-sumadija and Western Serbia:Zlatibor,Kopaonik,Tara,Zlatar,Mokra Gora and Go?.The sustainable tourism development level was analyzed by using five groups of the EU’s comparative indicators:economic,social,cultural,environmental and tourist satisfaction indicators.The results showed that the development of tourism in the examined mountains is not fully aligned with sustainable development.The tourist satisfaction indicator has the most acceptable values,which is a good basis for further harmonization of tourism development on the principles of sustainability.Economic indicators,especially the ratio of overnight stays and accommodation capacities,show the most unacceptable values,which indicate the need for implementing changes in the process of tourism development in the coming period.The analysis of sustainable tourism in mountain areas in sumadija and the Western Serbia undoubtfully points out that it is necessary to significantly change the current tourism product portfolio,which implies harmonizing mountain tourism development with global trends.Certainly,a comparative analysis that looks at the degree of sustainability of mountain tourism in some countries of the Alpine region,such as Switzerland,Austria and Slovenia,contributes to this.The more intensive development of tourism throughout the year would significantly improve indicators of sustainable tourism in all analyzed mountain areas of Sumadija and Western Serbia.This would improve the value of economic indicators,which are marked as the most unsustainable.The development of tourism in the summer season,especially recreational and adventure tourism,would improve the social and cultural component of sustainable tourism.Environmental dimension of sustainable tourism would be enhanced by the development of ecotourism.By connecting spatially close mountains(Zlatibor,Zlatar,Tara and Mokra Gora)into a unique and integrated tourism destination,synergistic effects would be achieved resulting in international recognition and making the region of?umadija and Western Serbia competitive on the European market.     

REGIONAL TOURISM COOPERATION IN TRIANGLE ZONE OF LIAONING PROVINCE

Strengthening the regional tourism cooperation is the requirement of both tourism development and tourist competition drive. On the one hand, resources, products, market and infrastructure in tourism are characteristics of half-public goods, which are the externalities. On the other hand, tourism competition has evolved from individual scenic spot, or finn competition to regional competition, which also requires urgent regional tourism cooperation. In recent years, the regional economic cooperation has been becoming popular in the world. The triangle tourism zone of Liaoning Province, constituted by Shenyang, Dalian and Dandong, is the core region of Liaoning tourism system. This regional tourism cooperation has been raised for a long time, but has not made substantial progress as yet. In recent years, the strategic cooperation among them has been becoming urgent, along with the change of tourism competition models, as well as the desire for building a Northeast Asia tourist economy circle. Based on literature, this paper establishes a conceptual frame of regional tourism cooperation and applies it in the analysis of the strategic tourism cooperation of Liaoning Province＇s golden triangle zone. This paper firstly examines both qualifications and motives concerning with cooperation among the three cities, and believes that the biggest difficulties involve traditional ideas, administrative institutions, communications, economic performances, time constraints, and more overlap among their tourist markets. Then this paper continues to construct a cooperating mechanism, including participant arrangements, construction of operating mechanism and construction of assisting mechanism. At last, this paper proposes approaches to the strategic cooperation such as introducing Xiuyan County, strategic integration and developing differentiated and complemented tourism products.     

Shift-share Analysis on International Tourism Competitiveness - A Case of Jiangsu Province

Shift-share analysis has been confirmed a useful approach in the study of regional economics and many kinds of extended shift-share models have been advanced and put into practice in economic studies, but few have hitherto been introduced and applied to the tourism research in China. Moreover understanding the spatially competitive relationship is of paramount importance for marketers, developers, and planners involved in tourism strategy development. Based on international tourism receipts from 1995 to 2004, this study aims at probing into the spatial competitiveness of interna- tional tourism in Jiangsu Province in comparison with its neighbors by applying a spatially extended shift-share model and a modified dynamic shift-share model. The empirical results illustrate that exceptional years may exist in the ap- plication of dynamic shift-share models. To solve this issue, modifications to dynamic shift-share model are put forward. The analytical results are not only presented but also explained by the comparison of background conditions of tourism development between Jiangsu and its key competitors. The conclusions can be drawn that the growth of international tourism receipts in Jiangsu mainly attributes to the national component and the competitive component and Zhejiang is the most important rival to Jiangsu during the period of 1995-2004. In order to upgrade the tourism competitiveness, it is indispensable for Jiangsu to take proper positioning, promoting and marketing strategies and to cooperate and integrate with its main rivals.     

An assessment of the climatic suitability of Afriski Mountain Resort for outdoor tourism using the Tourism Climate Index(TCI)

Tourism Climatic Indices(TCIs) are widely used in the global North to quantify the climatic suitability of a destination for tourism. Only one such study has been conducted in southern Africa to date. It is in a chronic shortage of research on tourism and climate change in the southern hemisphere. This study presents the application of the TCI in Lesotho, calculated for the eastern Lesotho Highlands. The region has an emerging tourism sector, which primarily comprises outdoor activities.These include hiking, horse-riding, music festivals,mountain biking, cultural visits, sightseeing, and at the Afriski lodge, skiing and snowboarding. These activities are reliant on climatic conditions that are conducive to the activity taking place, prolonged periods outdoors, and tourist satisfaction of the activity. Climate is a major determinant of both the length of season for these activities and the timing of peak tourist arrivals. Rising temperatures and changes in relative humidity and precipitation pose real threats to hiking, sightseeing and snow tourism at Afriski. The reliance of tourism in the region on specific climatic conditions for successful tourism prompted the use of the TCI. TCI results classify the eastern Lesotho Highlands as having.good‘ climatic conditions with an overall TCI score of 64 for the period 2012-2017. Monthly TCI scores for the easternLesotho reveal a bimodal-shoulder, meaning the peak climatic conditions are in the regional summer months(December to February). This conflicts with the peak tourist seasons of summer and winter, which align with South African school holidays, and the timing of the most profitable tourism activity(skiing)which occurs during the winter months of June, July and August. Lesotho is landlocked by South Africa.TCI analysis for South Africa reveals more suitable climatic conditions for tourism than Lesotho, with significantly higher scores of 80-89.     

RESIDENTS＇ ATTITUDES TO TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN ANCIENT VILLAGE RESORTS——Case Study of World Cultural Heritage of Xidi and Hong Villages

Tourism development surely has social, economic and environmental impacts on tourist destinations.The study on resorts residents‘ attitudes can help understand the nature of tourism development and the extent to which it may influence on tourist destinations. By now, researches on residents‘ perception and attitudes are plenteous in the international circle and achievements are great, yet few are found in developing countries. As a most representative cultural tourist destination, World Cultural Heritage-Xidi and Hong villages in Yi County of Anhui Province, are drawing the attention of both tourists and academic circles. This article, taking Xidi and Hong villages as examples, seeks to analyze ancient village residents‘ attitudes towards tourism impacts and then tries further to explore the connection between tourism development and residents‘ attitudes. Both qualitative and quantitative surveys are applied in the exploratory investigation into local residents‘ attitudes of tourism impacts. Based on abundant face-to-face interviews with the local households, tourism enterprises concerned, local government and tourists from July to August of 2002, we are able to have a better understanding of local residents‘ attitudes to community life, and perception of tourism impacts on society, economy and environment. By this we can promote domestic study on resorts residents‘ attitudes, and provide some theoretical grounds for establishing tourism development planning and perfect community participation system at tourist destinations.     

EFFECTIVENESS OF REGIONAL TOURISM INTEGRATION——Case of Quadrangle Economic Cooperation Zone in Great Mekong Region

1INTRODUCTION Quadrangle Economic Cooperation Zone (called the Golden Quadrangle) among China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand is one of the most isolated and troublesome re- gionsinthe world. It hasa longhistoryasone ofthe most politicallysensitive spotsin the world. Wars, refugee mi- grations, drug, closed national borders and lack ofinfras- tructurehavelongbeenconstantbarrierstothisarea. Quadrangle Economic Cooperation Zone is now the focus of Asia. Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and China …     

Community responses to mountain tourism: A case in Bhyundar Valley, Indian Himalaya

Tourism industry has become an important part of Indian economy, and tourism development has been, however, concentrated to a few areas. Accumulation of tourism activities has reached the critical stage in most of the tourism centers, which pose serious threats to the natural environment. The Bhyundar Valley of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve （NDBR） in Uttarakhand State of the Indian Himalaya is a burning example of such problems. Land use/cover changes, deforestation and accumulation of garbage are some of the negative impacts of unregulated tourism in the valley. Unsustainable activities of tourists and villagers in the valley make such problems very severe. To deal with the ongoing problems and ensure community involvement in tourism management and environmental conservation, the Biosphere Reserve Authority introduced ecotourism in the form of Eco Development Committees （EDCs） in the Bhyundar Valley. Study reveals that many problems associated with tourism have been minimized to some extent with the help of EDCs but few are still prevailing in valley. However, the existing attempts to conserve the valley from the negative effects of tourism are inadequate and modifications are needed in the current initiatives.     

Managing side effects of cultural tourism development: The case of Zhouzhuang

IPROBLEMS DEFINITIONthis will have increased to．6 billion（WEI,1999）．In比r＊Sdr＊＊＊＊＊＊S,山u＊。dd＊＊引ly厅＊＊J砒e如卜小1．IIncreasing Demand for Tourism lions of dollars yearly．Acco巾lug to WEI et al．（199）,Chinese tourismhunsm Is a relatively new social activity that has Industry has been developingveryfast．hurlsm Incomerecently eme侣ed as a global phenomenon．The World will keepon growingforthe…     

STUDY OF RURAL TOURISM IN TURPAN, CHINA

~~STUDY OF RURAL TOURISM IN TURPAN ,CHINA@KEYIM Parhad$Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, P. R. China; The Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, P. R. ChinaBRAMWELL B, LANE B,…     

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON RESIDENTS＇ PERCEPTION OF TOURISM IMPACT AT TOURIST PLACES—A Case Study of Xidi, Zhouzhuang and Jiuhua Mountain

Based on the questionnaire investigation, the authors make a comparative study on local residents‘ perception of tourism impacts in Xidi, Zhouzhuang and Jiuhua Mountain. The result shows that residents of the three places tend to have strong and consistent perception of its positive economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts, but distinctly diverse ones of its negative impacts. Residents in Xidi and Zhouzhuang also have noticeable perception of its negative environmental impacts while those in Jiuhua Mountain have weaker perception of them.The research confirms the fact that residents are more liable to have positive perceptions at the early stage of the life cycle of the tourist places. The authors conclude that there exists a nonlinear relationship between residents‘ perception and tourism development stages, and that tourism socio-cultural impact may appear at an early stage of tourism development instead of being no universal.     

Distance decay of place attachment and perceived authenticity of mountain tourism destinations in China

Place attachment has been a research focus in the fields of park and recreation management.Place attachment plays an important role in promoting sustainable development of parks and mountain tourism destination,however,there are limited studies that identified the spatial patterns of place attachment,especially in the context of mountain tourism destinations in China.Also,the geospatial spectrum of visitors is usually broad,examining the multivariate relationships among spatial proximity,perceived authenticity,and place attachment are essential for mountain tourism destinations to promote destination image and strengthen emotional bonding with targeted visitor groups.In this study,we selected an iconic and highly visited park,Jiuzhai Valley National Park in China,as our study site and conducted an on-site visitor survey to collect 557 samples.Study uses factor analysis and the structure equation model to analyze the relationship among spatial proximity,perceived authenticity,and place attachment.Results validate the two-dimension structure of place attachment and perceived authenticity.Study findings suggest that spatial proximity has significant impacts on existential authenticity and place identity,but has no significant impacts on place dependence.Perceived authenticity has a positive impact on place attachment.Study results advance the theories of place attachment and provide effective strategies to enhance emotional attachment between visitors and mountain tourism destinations.     

Function of spa development in countryside for domestic tourism in China

The common problems on tourism of developing countries have often been researched by west researchers until now, which can be concluded into special words: “two sectors”, “enclave construction”, “government’s interference”, “developing scale”, and “the industrial role of tourism” etc. In fact all the researches were done from the areas with the patronage of foreign visitors, how is the situation of domestic tourism was ignored in some points. In this paper, another developing model compared with the one with foreign visitors was presented to the readers on the case studies of countryside spas in China. Through this research, one aspect of Chinese real leisure life can be understood to some extent, and the implying that for bigger developing countries the domestic tourism can match the effect of international tourism should not be ignored at least to China. As the developing of economy, domestic tourism will finally unite with international one together, and the common problems will disappear step by step, therefore domestic tourism and international tourism of developing countries should be researched equally since now. Biography: WANG Yan-ping (1962–), male, a native of Heilongjiang Province, is a doctorate student of Chiba University of Japan. His research insterest is environmental impact assessment.