Les Lumsdon

Slow travel: issues for tourism and climate change

This paper analyses the eclectic evolution of slow travel, examines key features and interpretations, and develops a slow travel framework as an alternative way of conceptualising holidays in the future. The paper focuses on slow travels potential to respond to the challenges of climatic change: travel currently accounts for 50–97.5% of the overall emissions impact of most tourism trips. In-depth interviews with self-identified slow travellers illustrate and underpin the concept and note that slow travellers form a continuum from “soft” to “hard” slow travellers. The paper explores time as a social institution, timeless time and fragmented time, travel as an integral part of the tourist experience, and the links between tourism and the travellers’ self-identity and lifestyles. Special attention is given to people and place engagement, to behavioural choice and decision-making psychology, and to the role and growth of web communities. Slow travel is shown to require both holiday type/style choices and travel mode choices. Walking, cycling, travel using bus, coach and train all facilitate slow travel, while air and car travel do not. Slow travel prompts a reassessment of how tourism interfaces with transport.

Tourism Transport and Visitor Spending: A Study in the North York Moors National Park, UK

Understanding the determinants of day visitor spending is key to marketing planning at many visitor attractions and destinations. In a recent study of a small-scale rural destination in the United Kingdom, the findings suggested that group visitation coupled with duration of stay were key determinants of spending. This article explores the robustness of these findings in a different context, the relationship between mode of travel and spending. This study suggests that there is a difference in the pattern of visitor spending between carborne and public transport visitors, with car-based visitors spending higher amounts. The level of expenditure varies according to group size and duration of day visit, an important consideration for planners seeking to encourage a modal switch of visitors in national parks.

Developing a conceptual framework for slow travel: a grounded theory approach

This paper discusses the sociocultural phenomenon of slow travel and explores and clarifies definitional issues. The 30-year-plus antecedents of slow travel are examined. A literature review shows a concentration on four key features: slowness and the value of time; locality and activities at the destination; mode of transport and travel experience; and environmental consciousness. Links to the slow food and slow city movements are discussed, and evidence that slow travel is an important emergent form of tourism in Europe, accounting for 10% of the holiday market, is provided. A grounded theory approach continues the exploration, involving 23 in-depth interviews with practitioners and academics, which revealed that their core requirements for slow travel centred on slowness, the travel experience and environmental consciousness. There was a lack of consensus about the eligibility of car travel and high-speed rail. Slow travel is seen as a group of associated ideas rather than as a watertight definition; it is a mindset about travel rather than a tangible product and concentrates on lack of speed rather than slowness per se. The conclusion shows it to be a growing part of the sustainable tourism paradigm and proposes a working definition of slow travel.

The demand for day-visits: an analysis of visitor spending.

A tourism destination comprises a number of elements and features, which combine to attract staying or day visitation or, in some cases, transitory visitors. Various factors which determine the degree of attractiveness of any place promoted for tourism purposes have, in recent years, been the subject of more detailed analysis. However, studies have concentrated primarily on pre-trip motivational factors, destination selection, imagery and levels of visitor satisfaction. Within the context of visitor management studies the emphasis has been placed on the quality of the physical environment. In contrast, there has been little discussion on visitor spending at a destination level, and the consequent marketing implications for tourism practitioners following from this type of analysis. This paper presents the findings of a study of day visitors to Cheddar, a small-scale, well-known inland destination in the UK. The authors conclude that while market attractors are important in encouraging visitation, the level of spending at the destination is very closely related to duration of stay and composition of party; a number of implications are drawn for those responsible for marketing destinations.

Beyond the demand for day-visits: an analysis of visitor spending.

A review of the literature indicates a gap in the research on visitor spending at a destination level, and thus a lack of awareness of the marketing implications for tourism practitioners that such research could identify. In a previous study the authors concluded that, in the case of day-visits, while market attractions were important in encouraging visitation the level of spending at the destination was very closely related to the duration of the stay and the composition of the party. In this paper the analysis is extended to short-break and longer-stay holidays at a rural destination in the UK. Confirmation of these basic determinants of spending are presented, coupled with the importance of income. The current research thus provides a bridge between day-visit activity and models of holiday spending.

Transport and Tourism: Cycle Tourism – A Model for Sustainable Development?

Whilst the relationship between transport and tourism has been a subject of discussion in the literature, research has focused primarily on an evaluation of transport as a means to an end rather than as a contextual component of the tourism offering, especially at the destination. This paper evaluates the concept of a planned sustainable transport network, the National Cycle Network in the UK, as a potential model for the integration of transport, tourism and recreation. The paper concludes by exploring a number of implications, which may be considered when developing similar tourism transport networks. A model of sustainable transport development is presented.

The Expectations of Volunteers Prior to the XVII Commonwealth Games, 2002. A Qualitative Study

The XVII Commonwealth Games in Manchester, from July 25 to August 4, 2002, was the largest Commonwealth Games (the Games) and multisporting event ever held in the UK and required the recruitment and training of the largest volunteer workforce in the UK in recent decades. While much has been written about volunteering within different contextual backgrounds, and in relation to large-scale events, little research has addressed the issue of expectations of volunteers and their attitude towards functional management during the run up to a major international event. Using a qualitative research approach with focus groups this study addresses these issues. In terms of expectations, a number of key factors were identified in relation to the recruitment, training, and other management dimensions of the Games that have implications for volunteer motivation, responses to the psychological contract, and the long-term impact of a major event.

Visitor Expenditure: The Case of Cycle Recreation and Tourism

The paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of the economic impact of sports tourism using the case study of a cycle network in the North East of England, UK, used for tourism, recreation and utility purposes. It explores the foundations of economic impacts of such a network and focuses on underlying behavioural responses of cyclists and their spending. The paper develops a model of expenditure on the basis of 383 travel diaries. The findings confirm that incomes, group sizes and durations of activity are integrally linked determinants of expenditure. The expenditures and durations of cycle trips are linked to preferences for longer journeys. This has implications for planners of routes to attract all types of cyclists from the most casual leisure trip to racing cyclists. Furthermore, the research findings infer that as extra-network and intra-network tourism groups cycling on the network do not behave differently they therefore should both be targeted by sports and tourism agencies.

Transport for Tourism: Can Public Transport Encourage a Modal Shift in the Day Visitor Market?

Two major passenger transport executives and the Countryside Agency launched the Wayfarer project in the UK in 1980. The principal aim was to investigate ways of encouraging visitor access to the countryside by public transport. One initiative stemming from the project was the introduction of a multi-modal ticket in 1983, known as Wayfarer, to encourage a day excursion market from urban centres to the countryside, and in particular to one of the busiest natural parks in the world, the Peak District National Park. Over 20 years later the Wayfarer ticket is still being marketed to encourage sustainable travel for leisure. This paper’s purpose is to profile Wayfarer users, to explain key reasons for ticket choice, and give insights into the use of public transport for recreational travel. The study also attempts to evaluate the extent to which modal shift can be encouraged. The results indicate that this type of multi-modal passenger transport ticket, marketed for recreational and tourism purposes, has the potential to offer a more sustainable modal choice to residents and visitors.

Gender differences in sports event volunteering: insights from Crew 2002 at the XVII Commonwealth Games

Mega sports events offer potential as a social and economic policy intervention designed to stimulate personal and social capital. This paper explores this potential in the particular context of gender differences in the motivations and expectations of volunteers at the XVII Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002. It utilizes questionnaire survey responses from 698 volunteers at these games. The paper argues that while the volunteers shared the same characteristics as the wider population in terms of sports participation and volunteering, none the less the expectations of female volunteers were very different than their male counterparts and, more than males, reflected the expectation of using the Games to raise their personal and social capital. This suggests a clear potential for using sports interventions to overcome existing social obstacles to both entry into the labour market but also enhanced community involvement in sports.