Zoekresultaten

Cultural tourism during the covid-19 pandemic in Portugal

The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic represented a significant break with previous patterns of cultural consumption, effectively halting the growth of “mass cultural tourism” driven by cheap flights and collaborative economy accommodation. Surveys conducted by the ATLAS Cultural Tourism Group in Portugal were used to develop a detailed picture of cultural tourism consumption during the pandemic. In 2020 and early 2021 surveys were conducted at different locations in the country, generating over 500 responses. The research shows that COVID-19 had significant impacts on the profile and activities of cultural tourists in Portugal, with much more domestic tourism at most sites, and fewer visitors staying away from home. Levels of satisfaction and intention to return remained high, as did perceived authenticity. There was a significant drop in touring holidays, with visitors more likely to stay in a single location. Those tourists visiting cultural attractions during the pandemic had a positive experience, despite the challenging conditions. Levels of satisfaction increased compared with previous surveys in Portugal in 2004, but there were also fluctuations in levels of satisfaction during the pandemic period, correlated with levels of COVID-19 infections. Some indications of emerging alternative forms of cultural tourism include an increased proclivity for rural locations and inland areas, away from destinations usually associated with mass (cultural) tourism. The article concludes by considering a number of implications for the development of cultural tourism in Portugal and other destinations in the postpandemic era.

Reframing Urban Tourism

In a matter of weeks last year, discussions regarding tourism in cities changed from how to deal with overtourism to how to deal with ‘no tourism’. Shortly thereafter, a great number of posts on LinkedIn, websites, and blogs highlighted how the tourism crisis that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic could help reinvent tourism, into something more equal, inclusive, and sustainable. And so, online – at leastin mypersonalonlinebubble – there seemedtobe a real momentum for proper, transformative changes in (urban) tourism. How can we rebuild urban tourism in a sustainable and resilient way?

Mass tourism

Diving into the contexts of in-between worlds : worldmaking in medical tourism

In this review article, the authors contextualize the contemporary practice of medical tourism in terms of the concept of worldmaking, which was introduced (in this journal) with two articles a year or two ago by Hollinshead. Here, the authors first contextualize medical tourism in terms of "worldmaking" per medium of the observations of the corporeal realms identified by Alexis de Tocqueville almost 200 years ago. In 1835, de Tocqueville wrote with enthusiasm tinged with nostalgic regret about the new world of American democracy that he then saw as the world of the future. A serious rupture in history took place of which he became a most relevant critic. But there have been (according to Mainil, Platenkamp, and Meulemans) many ruptures since then: that is, there have been short periods of "in-between worlds" that became ever more anchored in the timeline of Western history. Today, they argue that tourism as a field of expertise, practice, and knowledge is intertwined with several other networks of expertise. It is responsible (itself) for many small "ruptures" in these modern times. Mass tourism can be seen as such a shift. Sustainable tourism and the attention paid to climate change would be another such shift. And the authors of this review argue that an interesting and deep-seated case in this regard is medical tourism. They argue here that medical tourism has a great deal of worldmaking capacity, especially by means of the Internet and international marketing tools. It arises in the interstices of the interacting networks of a global world. It crosses borders in line with emerging power structures in a global network, but it also meets local resistance or regional obstacles that are related to other networks. In between these worlds of human experience, various interactions of perspectives on the concept of health itself come to the surface. Within the field of medical tourism different stakeholders play a role in a worldmaking process. Our reviewers from the Low Countries thereby argue that medical tourism itself is responsible for a Tocquevillean rupture within and across our global network society. In their view, medical tourism also constitutes a new hybrid-that is, as a hybrid medical paradigm that seems to be appearing within the performative and productive world of tourism.

Current issues in tourism: mitigating climate change in sustainable tourism research.

This paper adopts a problematising review approach to examine the extent of mitigating climate change research in the sustainable tourism literature. As climate change has developed into an existential global environmental crisis and while tourism's emissions are still increasing, one would expect it to be at the heart of sustainable tourism research. However, from a corpus of 2573 journal articles featuring ‘sustainable tourism’ in their title, abstract, or keywords, only 6.5% covered climate change mitigation. Our critical content analysis of 35 of the most influential papers found that the current methods, scope and traditions of tourism research hamper effective and in-depth research into climate change. Transport, the greatest contributor to tourism's emissions, was mostly overlooked, and weak definitions of sustainability were common. Tight system boundaries, lack of common definitions and incomplete data within tourism studies appear to hamper assessing ways to mitigate tourism's contribution to climate change.

Moving from pilgrimage to "dark" tourism: leveraging tourism in Palestine

Traveling to places associated with death is not a new phenomenon. People have long been drawn, purposefully or otherwise, towards sites, attractions, and events linked in one way or another with death, suffering, violence, or disaster. War-related attractions, though diverse, are a subset of the totality of tourist sites associated with death and suffering. This article aims to assess how "dark" tourism may play a role in leveraging tourism in Palestine, which has largely relied on pilgrimage tourism in the past. This article investigates the potential for developing this form of tourism, since Palestine has been undergoing death, suffering, violence, or disaster through political tension and instability since 1948 and arguably for a generation earlier, but has not yet developed a strategy for tourism development that considers this type of tourism.