Tamara Young

Framing Experiences of Aboriginal Australia: guidebooks as Mediators in Backpacker Travel

Guidebooks play an influential role as mediator among the traveler, the travel experience, and the traveled destination. Despite the centrality of guidebooks in the experiences of independent travelers such as backpackers, the question of how readers use these texts has received little attention in tourism research. This article explores the influence of guidebook texts on backpacker experiences with, and interpretations of, Aboriginal Australia. The investigation is drawn from the textual analysis of three popular guidebooks to Australia, coupled with interviews with a sample of 28 international backpackers traveling in Australia. The research reveals that guidebooks are negotiated through the lived and imagined experiences of their readers at various times throughout the travel experience. Significantly, the interplay between the backpacker travel experience and the guidebook text is dynamic and primarily situational. The findings highlight the role that the text plays as mediator between the traveler (the backpacker) and the traveled culture (Aboriginal Australia).

Urban development and the leisure dilemma: a case study of leisure and recreation in urban residential estates in the Lower Hunter, New South Wales

Abstract This paper examines the leisure and recreation activities and experiences of people living in urban residential estates in the Lower Hunter, New South Wales. Drawing on data collected in household surveys of residents aged 14 years and over in four residential estates, this paper profiles the respondents themselves, describes their leisure preferences and activities, and explains how they felt about how they experienced the leisure and recreation spaces and settings within, and adjacent to, their residential estates. The findings revealed that although the quantity and quality of recreation resources varied among the estates, some common themes emerged among respondents with respect to their leisure and recreation needs, perceptions, and demand. In particular, substantial numbers of respondents in each estate expressed dissatisfaction with recreation resource provision. There was an expressed need for larger areas of open space and parkland, and better facilities for a wider range of age groups. The authors concluded that leisure and recreation planning for urban residential estates is generally ad hoc and at best standards based, and characterised by the reproduction of familiar but inadequate leisure and play spaces. Supply was not based on sound empirical evidence of who occupies, or will occupy, homes in a particular estate, or of those peoples leisure and recreational needs and how these affect equality.

Evaluating volunteer tourism: has it made a difference?

ABSTRACT This paper examines the challenges of evaluating volunteer tourism and looks towards possibilities for rethinking the ways in which the phenomenon is conceptualised. We reflect on the debates and practices that have emerged since the first theoretical exploration introduced over 15 years ago in a book titled Volunteer tourism: Experiences that make a difference. This review paper commences with a discussion of the criticisms that have been targeted at both research and practice, and reflects on the need to rethink how volunteer tourism is evaluated. We argue that the volunteer tourism industry must respond to criticisms from academics and the media and move towards conscious choices that reframe volunteer tourism away from development aid towards intercultural mutuality and decommodification.

Mediating global citizenry: a study of facilitator-educators at an Australian university

ABSTRACT Research concerned with global citizenry in tourism is often focused on the potential outcomes of educational travel on the global competencies of student travellers. The experiential learning of educational travel – increasingly represented by short-term, faculty-led programmes – can be transformative for students. It is argued that educational travel shifts the focus of young people from a narrow or self-oriented position, to a broader and more encompassing global perspective to become socially aware and responsible global citizens. Whilst such outcomes of educational travel are evidenced in academic literature, an aspect of educational travel that has been overlooked concerns the mediation of global citizenship. This qualitative study investigates the role played by university staff who facilitate short-term educational travel, finding that, in addition to playing a key role in curriculum delivery and programme logistics, university staff are active in global citizenship education through the mediation of student experiences in unfamiliar cultural contexts. The role of academic staff in educational travel can be compared, theoretically, to that of a tour guide. Educator-facilitators are central to developing the global competencies of students and nurturing global citizenship.

Measuring motivations for popular music concert attendance

An understanding of consumer motivations for event attendance is important to designing product offerings, planing event programs, and effectively marketing them to potential audiences, yet audience analysis in reference to the market for live music concerts is extremely sparse. The Purpose of this study was to understand consumers motivations for attending a popular music concert and to develop a valid and reliable scale to empirically measure these motivations. A multiphased apporach was adopted. First, focus groups were conducted to explore motivations for popular music concert attendance. Second, drawing from literature and focus group findings, a pool of items was developed and evaluated to establish face validity. Third, a pretest was conducted (n=60) and exploratory factor analysis performed to ensure items adequately explained motivation dimensions. Finally, an online questionnaire was administered to the general public (n=502). Content, criterion, and construct validity as well as internal consistency were examined and the psychometric properties of the scale assessed to determine the accuracy and reliability of the concert attendance motivation scale (CAMS). Focus group findings revealed 10 primary motivations for concert attendance. The empirical data also supported the notion that the CAMS is a multifaceted construct, comprising 10 dimensions.

Building capacity in a regional business community through engaged scholarship: A case study of the Tourism Monitor project in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia

Leisure and tourism industries in regional areas are dominated by both small- and medium-sized businesses, collectively referred to as small-to-medium tourism enterprises. This paper presents a case study that describes a research initiative that was developed to engage with the wine tourism and related leisure industries of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia, where small-to-medium tourism enterprises have proliferated. The case study focusses upon a regional business performance monitoring initiative that was undertaken by a research team in collaboration with a small group of local industry champions. This paper draws upon the concept of engaged scholarship to highlight the challenges associated with building capacity of both small-to-medium tourism enterprises and the regional associations that represent them, and discusses the implications of such an approach.

Building sense of community in youth vacation camps through staff training: a comparative case study

ABSTRACT This study examines a sense of community developed by and among staff at two diverse youth vacation programmes. In-depth interviews and non-participant observations conducted with counselors and camp directors at each camp were the methods used by this study to collect data. Inclusion boundaries and episodic distinction are the two themes that emerged from the data. The findings reveal that both camps sought to establish a sense of community through the development and use of rituals and traditions established primarily over an intensive staff pre-camp training week that were integrally connected to the natural context in which the camps were located. However, the contemporary camp emphasized community and natural surrounds as a metaphor for life outside of camp, while the traditional camp tended to emphasize the natural context of community as a respite from life outside of camp.