Metropolitan Commuter Belt Tourism

With the current rise of metropolitan regions as a present location and driver of the development of rural tourism, agritourism, food tourism and nature tourism, there is a need to analyse the major economic, social, political and managerial aspects of these types of tourism which occur within the rural-urban fringe. This book establishes a current inventory and appropriate future selection of commuter belt tourism products for metropolitan areas. It also explains how public and private resources can be combined to achieve synergistic effects in tourism promotion and provides a structural analysis for the proper management of tourist organisations in metropolitan areas. Additionally, there is insight into how the development of metropolitan areas affects rural tourism and agritourism within broader social, economic and environmental relations. The issue of the growth of metropolitan areas, which is a complex and multifaceted challenge, is elaborated on with diverse examples in Poland and further afield. This is valuable reading for students, researchers and academics of tourism, as well as rural and urban studies, business management, farm management, and leisure studies.

Through the lens of African emerging economies, this text examines empirical studies and the related practices of agritourism. By looking at tourism innovation, entrepreneurship ethics and responsibility of public and private organizational stakeholders, the text promotes an understanding of how radical novel sustainable agritourism might be implemented to help society's living become more sustainable with low usage of material resources, low energy and environmental cost. The book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students interested in the challenges of sustainable agritourism and African emerging economies.

This book aims to fill a gap in the current literature by tracing the rural transformation process and the development of rural tourism functions in Poland over the last 30 years. It examines the socioeconomic transformation between 1989 and 2019 that resulted in the formation and development of Polish rural tourism and the various practices associated with it. This timely topic is addressed in a central and eastern European context and sparks interest in further in-depth analysis due the diversity and magnitude of the transformation processes undertaken by the Polish rural areas. Since Polish rural areas constitute as much as 30% of the total rural areas in all new European Union member states, this book adds value through an in-depth statistical analysis of the pace of socioeconomic changes in Polish rural areas. It delves into the creation and consumption of tourism services locally, as well as the impact of global trends on the development of rural tourism in Poland. This book will be of interest to economists, sociologists, political scientists and postgraduate students across eastern and central Europe who deal with rural tourism issues.

Former communist countries face unique issues in developing and marketing tourism businesses, communities, and attractions because of centralized polices that discouraged international influences. While soviet economies relied on state policies to facilitate community development, the success of capitalism lies in access to a variety of resources, such as the environment, fiscal services, infrastructure, and market knowledge at the local level. Moreover, communal societies potentially possess social capital that can provide unique economic development opportunities. This book incorporates a regional perspective that widens the tourism development debate to include theoretical analyses, applied research, and case studies that document the broader successes and challenges that affect tourism stakeholders and addresses the necessary elements that facilitate a comprehensive tourism development strategy in emerging and transitioning former communist countries.

While experiential staging is well documented in tourism studies, not enough has been written about the diverse types of experiences and expectations that visitors bring to the tourist space and how communities respond to, or indeed challenge, these expectations. This book brings together new ideas about cultural experiences and how communities, creative producers, and visitors can productively engage with competing interests and notions of experience and authenticity in the tourist environment. Part I considers the experiences of communities in meeting the needs of cultural tourists in an international context. Part II analyses the relationships between individualcultural tourists, the community, and digital technology. Finally, Part III responds to new methodologies in relation to interactions between government and regional policy and community development. Focusing on the way in which communities and visitors ‘perform’ new forms of cultural tourism, Performing Cultural Tourism is aimed at undergraduate students, researchers, academics, and a diverse range of professionals at both private and government levels that are seeking to develop policies and business plans that recognize and respond to new interests in contemporary tourism.

This book examines rural tourism across three different contexts, acknowledging the complexity of rural places. It applies a systematic comparative framework across nine case studies from Australia, Canada and Sweden. The case studies address the uniqueness of different rural spaces, while the framework incorporates many theoretical aspects from human geography including spatial, historic, institutional, demographic, socio-economic and network perspectives. In the course of applying this comparative case study framework, the book identifies numerous implications for planning and policy in rural settings. These contributions from international, expert authors help to identify the opportunities and challenges that affect rural regions, from places at the urban fringe to exotic remote spaces and taking in the ‘boring bits in between.’ Both the analysis and the framework used will be of value to scholars and students of rurality, tourism, regional development, rural policy, geography, and destination management. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the rural context in developed countries and a robust conceptualization of rural tourism geographies.

This book brings together cutting edge research and applications of social media and related technologies, their uses by consumers and businesses in travel, tourism and hospitality. The first section addresses topical issues related to how social media influence the operations and strategies of tourism firms and help them enhance tourism experiences: open innovation, crowdsourcing, service-dominant logic, value co-creation, value co-destruction and augmented reality. The second section of the book looks at new applications of social media for marketing purposes in a variety of tourism-related sectors, addressing crowd-sourced campaigns, customer engagement and influencer marketing. The third section uses case studies and new methodologies to analyze travel review posting and consumption behaviors as well as the impact of social media on traveller perceptions and attitudes, with a focus on collaborative consumption and sharing economy accommodation. Finally, the fourth section focuses on hot topics and issues related to the analysis, interpretation and use of online information and user-generated content for deriving business intelligence and enhancing business decision-making. Written by an international body of well-known researchers, this book uses fresh theoretical lenses, perspectives and methodological approaches to look at the practical implications of social media for tourism suppliers, destinations, tourism policy makers and researchers alike. For these reasons, it will be a valuable resource for students, managers and academics with an interest in information and communication technologies, marketing for tourism and hospitality, and travel and transportation management.

This book provides an up-to-date account of the many processes shaping and transforming rural space in various parts of the world. The various case studies focus on the multi-functionality of the rural world and the driving forces behind it. The book demonstrates that rural areas are no longer simply characterized by an agricultural economy, and instead accommodate multiple complementary activities. It also touches upon two major changes that have taken place. The first is the process of rurbanization, which has led to the clear distinction between town and countryside becoming blurred: urban traits have penetrated rural areas, and rural traits have invaded towns. The second change is that rural areas are increasingly seen as multi-functional, providers not only of food and other natural resources but also locations for the generation of renewable energy (wind farms, solar farms, biogas) and regions for the preservation of biodiversity. These transformations have resulted in a new understanding and self-image of rural areas and their populations.