Pascal Scherrer

Importance of tasting rooms for Canary Islands' wineries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the tasting room for wineries from a re‐developing Spanish wine region, and identify the challenges winery owners currently face in their pursuit to market their wines through the tasting room.Design/methodology/approach – Between May and June of 2007 a total of 23 winery owners, managers and wine makers located in the Canary Islands were interviewed from a sample of 61 wineries identified in Tenerife and La Palma islands.Findings – The findings confirm the vital importance of the tasting room as a marketing, branding, and educative vehicle for the wine product. Overall, wineries focus on the tasting room as a way to advertise and present their wines to visitors and passers by as part of a long‐term strategy, rather than as a way to make direct wine sales.Research limitations/implications – It is acknowledged that the sample of only 23 participating businesses may not be enough to make generalisations about the impact of the tasting room on win...

Monitoring and evaluating volunteer tourism: a review and analytical framework

The rapid expansion and commercialisation of the volunteer tourism sector and the potential for negative impacts on host communities have put the sector under increasing scrutiny. Monitoring and evaluation are key aspects of sustainable tourism planning and management, and play important roles in the project planning and implementation cycles of volunteer tourism organisations and destination managements. However, they can be both value-laden and politically charged, making an understanding of context, purpose and various approaches to monitoring and evaluation important. Drawing from evaluation and critical management studies, this conceptual paper reviews the literature, presenting an analytical framework aimed at improving the quality of monitoring and evaluation. The paper is positioned within the adaptancy platform and focuses on qualitative, critical approaches to evaluation. The framework highlights the important influence of context (the issue the volunteer tourism programme is addressing, the nature of the intervention, the setting, the evaluation context and the decision-making context), and identifies four dimensions of volunteer tourism (stakeholders, organisations, markets and programmes) which may influence monitoring and evaluation practices. The analytical framework presented is useful for practitioners developing monitoring and evaluation processes, and for researchers interested in empirical studies which seek to evaluate monitoring and evaluation practices.

Recovery of Alpine Herbfield on a Closed Walking Track in the Kosciuszko Alpine Zone, Australia

Abstract Human use of arctic and alpine environments can result in damage to the natural vegetation and soils. Restoration of the damage can have limited success due to the severity of the environment, which restricts plant germination and growth and increases the potential for soil erosion. In this study, we evaluated the success of restoration of a closed track in the alpine area around continental Australias highest mountain, Mount Kosciuszko. Vegetation and soils along a 4 km walking track (that was closed and rehabilitated more than 15 yr ago) were compared with the adjacent undisturbed vegetation and soils. There was limited success in restoration with clear differences in soil nutrients, extent of vegetation cover, plant species composition, and height of vegetation between the track and adjacent natural vegetation sampled using 1 m2 quadrats. The study highlights the need for limiting disturbance in such environments, and for ongoing rehabilitation in areas that have been disturbed. It also indicates that when non-native species are used in rehabilitation, they may not necessarily be succeeded by natives, particularly if soil conditions do not return to a state similar to undisturbed areas.

Recovery of Alpine Vegetation from Grazing and Drought: Data from Long-term Photoquadrats in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia

Abstract Recovery of tall alpine herbfields from livestock grazing and drought were examined using 30, 0.6 × 0.9 m permanent quadrats photographed in 1959, 1964, 1968, 1978, and 2001 in Kosciuszko National Park, southeastern Australia. Cover attributes were assessed using a 130-point grid superimposed over each slide/photograph. For the 18 permanent quadrats near Mount Gungartan, where grazing ceased in 1958, there was a pattern of increasing vegetation cover. Bare areas were initially colonized by herbs, with native grasses, the lateral expansion of existing shrubs, and other herb species eventually replacing the colonizing herbs. For the 12 quadrats near Mount Kosciuszko, where grazing ceased 15 years before the survey, vegetation cover was high (around 94%) in all surveys except at the end of a long drought. The drought caused an increase in litter at both locations as graminoids died back. Graminoid cover recovered relatively rapidly and had reached pre-drought levels by 1978 and remained high. Herb cover was dynamic after the initial recovery from grazing, with a trend for reduced herb cover after 1964. The pattern of recovery from these two types of landscape level disturbances differed due to the different responses of the major life forms to bare ground, litter, and existing vegetation cover. The study also highlights the benefits of existing long-term monitoring programs.

Impacts on Aboriginal spirituality and culture from tourism in the coastal waterways of the Kimberley region, North West Australia

The Kimberley coast in Australia’s far northwest stretches from Broome, Western Australia, for over 3000 km to the Northern Territory border. The largely undeveloped and remote area has gained increasing popularity in recent years for its spectacular scenery, Aboriginal rock art and native wildlife that forms the platform for a strong and uniquely Australian ecotourism experience. This paper examines the cultural impacts of tourism on the area, with focus on the expedition cruise industry. Visitors to the area access many land-based attractions of significance to Traditional Owners. Unlike at other tourist destinations, non-indigenous cruise operators offer the indigenous experience, without any contact with the Traditional Owners of the areas visited. This project worked in close consultation with representatives from the four native title groups, expedition cruise operators and other stakeholders to assess cultural and environmental management practices and identification of current and potential impacts of ecotourism activities. The study found that the issue of cultural and spiritual impacts on sites of Aboriginal significance, coupled with issues of on-site visitor management, requires urgent attention. Impacts included lack of consultation with Traditional Owners, permission not being sought for access and cultural protocols not being followed resulting in a perceived lack of respect for traditional custodians. There are currently considerable variations in operational practices that should be addressed through the development and implementation of good practice guidelines and operational standards. There is also a need for an improved governance framework and the development of appropriate statutory and non-statutory mechanisms to facilitate sustainability in coastal planning and development of the Kimberley coastal area. The appointment of an adequately equipped body to oversee and drive the regional planning and development process, including the development of a coastal planning strategy, could provide the capacity for such a process.

Taming wicked problems: towards a resolution of tourism access to Traditional Owner lands in the Kimberley region, Australia

This paper names and describes the longstanding issue of tourism access to the Kimberley coast region in northwest Australia. Tourism access is a problem because it occurs without appropriate permissions from the Traditional Owners. The granting of access permission is a fundamental component of the local Traditional Owner ontology, or concept of being. Tourism activities cannot be culturally sustainable without appropriate Traditional Owner permissions. We argue that this seemingly simple issue is a “wicked problem” and must be recognised as such to facilitate its “taming” to create a culturally sustainable local tourism industry. The paper first examines the cultural and historical context, establishing a more nuanced understanding of the problem. Framed in Rittel and Webbers definition of a wicked problem, it then describes its complex and intercultural nature, highlighting repeated and continuing efforts and failures by key parties to address it, linked to an ingrained lack of political will. We conclude that operators could take ownership of the wicked problem and contribute to taming it by proactively engaging in a direct relationship with Traditional Owners based on transformational learning. The paper contributes to tourism planning studies, to the concept of the Just Destination and to indigenous tourism understanding.

Environmental and cultural implications of visitor access in the Kimberley region, Australia

Abstract The Kimberley coast in Australias far north-west is the traditional country and home of a number of Indigenous groups and hosts some of the countrys richest cultural heritage, most spectacular rock art, scenery and wildlife, making it an attractive tourism destination. A growing expedition cruise industry provides the main means of visitor access to remote coastal sites and offers excursions to shore-based attractions in what are mostly Aboriginal Reserve lands. In light of concerns about environmental and cultural site impacts resulting from increasing visitor numbers, this study examined biophysical site impacts along access trails to shore-based attractions and used qualitative methods to ascertain cultural impacts. The synthesis of the findings highlights that cultural concerns arising from visitor access without having sought traditional owner consent for such access, combined with a lack of traditional owner involvement in the planning, management or running of visitor activities, overshadow currently low environmental impacts of onshore expedition cruise activities. To overcome the continuing impasse regarding the issue of unsanctioned visitor access, the Kimberley urgently needs a coordinated approach by key stakeholders and the traditional owners which recognises and acknowledges the historical context. Such a process would facilitate tourism activities to become culturally sustainable.

Facing divergent supply and demand trajectories in Australian caravanning Learnings from the evolution of caravan park site-mix options in Tweed Shire

The caravan park sector of the Australian leisure accommodation industry currently provides 50% of total domestic bed capacity. Recent decades have seen a gradual decline in caravan park establishments and despite its continuing market dominance in terms of bed capacity, the industry today is only a mere shadow of its former glory days in the mid 1970s. A current resurgence in caravanning, as a subset of drive tourism, has seen an increase in registrations of new campervans and motor homes of over 19% in the last 5 years alone. This inverse relationship between downward-trending park capacity and upward-trending recreational vehicle1 registrations raises significant capacity issues for leisure accommodation. This article examines supply-side elements of caravanning – elements largely overlooked in the demand-side focused literature – through a case study of caravan parks of the Tweed Shire in northern New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It innovatively adapts the theoretical framework of Butler’s (Canadian Geographer 1980; 24: 5–12) tourist area life cycle (TALC) to an industry subsector, caravan parks, to examine time-series trends in park-based site-mix options and capacity. The study found that traditional site infrastructure, geared towards mobile accommodation forms of caravans and tents, is giving way to fixed forms of relocatable homes and ensuite cabins. In an environment of increasing demand for the caravanning experience but decreasing parks, and thus decreasing total site capacity, the contrasting trends are predicted to create a serious accommodation facilities shortage for the caravanning sector of the tourism industry. It concludes that the broad pattern of caravan park development, through site-mix analysis, is in alignment with the six stages of the TALC, as proposed by Butler (Canadian Geographer 1980; 24: 5–12). Market forces have, to date, propelled caravan parks to their current stage of the TALC. However, the path to a sustainable future for Australian caravan parks will now predominately be determined through their own proactive management intervention.

Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Conceptual Framework to Guide Development Projects in the Pacific Islands

This article 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 research in Vanuatu and Fiji in 2013–2014 was the development of the integrated Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework (ASRLF). The Pacific Island nations have a well-developed traditional economy, but appropriate rural economic development has been problematic. The ASRLF seeks to function in the local Pacific Island context while also having relevance to sustainable rural development projects elsewhere.

Integrated strategic asset management: frameworks and dimensions

Comprehensive asset management should be embedded in organisations through the temporal, organisational and spatial dimensions. We examine how an integrated approach to asset management might consider the whole range of interrelations and interactions of these dimensions. Asset management should take into account the operational and the strategic management of the asset (time dimension) as well as organisational, technology and information and human factors management (organisational dimension). Furthermore, the inclusion of management topics arising from interaction between assets, stakeholders and clients, ecological environments, industry, and government is critical (spatial dimension). We argue that a strategic standpoint for asset management establishes a framework that includes governance, policy, tactical and operational aspects that are brought into a comprehensive integrated approach. Prior frameworks have identified the various elements that need to be considered. However, they have not addressed their operationalisation and neglected governance and broader contextual factors in building an asset management model. We present an integrated asset management approach to developing a capability maturity model which addresses all three outlined dimensions. To do so it is necessary to define asset management process areas, capability and maturity levels, and capability and maturity indicators for each process area.