Tourism And Recreation In Rural Areas

This book reviews the theory and practice of tourism and recreation in rural areas in Europe. Including numerous case studies , 9 chapters cover: the changing nature of recreation and tourism provision in rural areas; the emergence of sustainability in the development debate; the different levels of policy influencing recreation and tourism development, and emphasizing the connectedness between local and global processes; the role and influence of the local community in recreation and tourism; changing patterns of tourism consumption; the changing nature of tourism supply; and the processes relating to the convergence of supply and demand.

This Handbook brings together experts from around the world to reflect critically on the relationship between tourism and rural community development. It first orients the reader in the important conceptual and epistemological foundations of the topic, before moving to consider key concepts and the most significant and salient theoretical and methodological developments in the field.

Rural tourism represents a merging of perhaps two of the most influential yet contradictory features of modern life. Not only are the forces of economic, social, cultural, environmental and political change working to redefine rural spaces the world over, but broad global transformations in consumption and transportation patterns are reshaping leisure behaviour and travel. For those concerned with both the nature of change in rural areas and tourism development, the dynamics and impacts of integrating these two dramatic shifts are not well known but yet are becoming increasingly provocative discourses for study. This book links changes at the local, rural community level to broader, more structural considerations of globalization and allows for a deeper, more theoretically sophisticated consideration of the various forces and features of rural tourism development. While Canadian in content, the cases and discussions presented in this book can be considered generally relevant to any rural region, continentally and globally, that has undertaken or is considering rural tourism development.

The Geography of Tourism and Recreation presents the first comprehensive introduction to tourism, leisure and recreation and the relationships between them. This accessible text includes a wealth of international case studies spanning Europe, North America, Australasia and China. Each chapter highlights the methods used by geographers to analyse recreation and tourism. It also introduces new perspectives from gender studies and postmodernism and examines key issues including * the demand and supply of recreation and tourism * the role of public policy, planning and management * the impact of tourism and recreation on urban, rural, mountain and coastal environments * tourism and recreation in wilderness areas and other peripheral regions. The use of student text features makes it ideal for course use.