Search results

Scuba diving tourism is reputed to be a potential low-impact recreational activity that allow environmental conservation and socioeconomic benefits for local communities. Few studies have addressed the issue of sustainability of scuba diving tourism through the simultaneously investigation on the economic and socio-cultural aspects and its implications for tourism development. This study aims to examine the scuba diving tourism in three under-explored North African tourism destinations with high ecotourist potential. The authors present an exploratory picture of scuba diving tourist demand, divers' preferences, motivations for recreational diving experiences and their propensity towards conservation.

The authors developed a case study research strategy collecting profile data on 123 divers. Furthermore, regression analysis was performed to investigate the divers' preferences, motivations and propensity towards conservation.

The divers' limited number, the presence of mainly local seasonal tourists and a moderate propensity towards conservation influence the potential of the diving tourism segment to generate significant socioeconomic benefits for local sustainable development in these destinations. However, establishing a marine protected area (MPA) could foster the development of a long-term strategy for scuba diving tourism, improve conservation awareness and increase divers' satisfaction.

Diverse profiles, preferences and motivations can provide tools to sustainably manage and preserve coastal and marine biodiversity, while also maximising the quality of the recreational experience. One of the most effective site-based strategies to orient the diving sector towards sustainability involves the design and strengthening of MPAs.

The research provides an original contribution to the debate on sustainable tourism strategies by demonstrating how the study of economic and socio-cultural aspects of scuba diving could provide guidelines to orient the tourism development of marine and coastal areas towards the principles of sustainability (also through the establishment of MPAs). The findings present an overview of the sustainability of the scuba diving tourism segment by investigating the preferences, motivations and inclination towards conservation among tourists for whom the diving experience is not a core holiday activity.

This paper aims to describe a case between practitioners and social marketing academics to grow and scale a programme that engages with primary schools, teachers, children and the education network, inspiring students to become marine leaders and ocean champions.

Over a six-year period, the authors first applied collective intelligence to work with stakeholders across society to better understand the barriers and solutions to teaching children (6–12 year olds) about the ocean in schools. Following this, a Collective Impact Assessment of the Explorers Education Programme took place to grow the impact of the programme.

The Explorers Education Programme has grown its numbers higher than pre-pandemic levels. In 2022, the Explorers Education Programme had the largest number of participating children, reaching 15,237, with a growth of 21% compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and 79% compared to 2021. In 2023, the programme won the “Best Education Outreach Award” category of the Education Awards in Ireland.

This research stresses the importance of measuring impact. The long-term impact of the Explorers Education Programme at societal, environmental and economical levels takes a much longer time frame to measure than the six years of these research collaborations.

The collaborative approach between academics and practitioners meant that this research had practical implications, whereby necessary and effective changes and learnings could be directly applied to the Explorers Education Programme in real time, as the practitioners involved were directly responsible for the management and coordination of the programme.

The value of collaborations and engagement between academia and practice cannot be underestimated. The ability to collectively reflect and assess impact moves beyond “an” intervention, allowing for more meaningful behavioural, social and system changes for the collective good, inspiring the next generation of marine leaders and ocean champions.

This study aims to empower cruise academia to assert their role as enablers, and potentially drivers, of sustainable, responsible and resilient cruise futures.

This contribution represents a synthesis and a critical reflection of cruise-related research-review literature over the last four decades, assessing its impact and potential in terms of influencing the evolution and future developments of cruise tourism.

Cruise research between the 1980s and the first decade of this century could be characterised as “ship-centric” and managerially focused. Over the last decade and up to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, cruise research has become increasingly “cruise-destination centric”, with sustainability emerging as a dominant theme. Diverging somewhat from the public and media emphasis on environmental concerns and risks, academic research tends to focus on the economic aspects of sustainability. Nonetheless, and despite aiming for practical relevance, cruise research tends to remain reactive and lags behind industry trends.

This paper proposes a shift from a “applied” to an “applicable” research paradigm, inspiring researchers to proactively shape the industry‘s future by embracing “what-ifs” in their thematic scope. Such a paradigm calls for a normativity-enriched methodological diversity, as well as the inclusion of transformational relevance as an indicator of research impact.

Public perceptions of cruise tourism have changed over the years, evolving from that of a promising holiday niche to a symbol of unsustainable mass tourism. In this context, cruise scholars are offered guidance for transcending the polarising debate of growth versus de-growth/limits while increasing the relevance and transformational impact of cruise scholarship.

这篇论文是对过去四十年来与邮轮旅游相关的研究评论文献的综述和批判性反思, 评估其在影响邮轮旅游的演变和未来发展方面的影响和潜力。

总体目标是增强邮轮学术界的能力, 使其能够在可持续、负责任和有弹性的邮轮未来发展中发挥促进者和潜在推动者的作用。

20 世纪 80 年代至本世纪头十年的邮轮研究可以说是 “以船为中心”, 以管理为重点。 在过去的十年中, 直到 COVID19 大流行之后, 邮轮研究越来越 “以邮轮目的地为中心”, 可持续发展成为主导主题。 与公众和媒体强调的环境问题和风险有些不同, 学术研究往往侧重于可持续发展的经济方面。 尽管如此, 邮轮研究尽管以实际相关性为目标, 但仍倾向于被动应对, 落后于行业发展趋。

本文提出了从 “应用 “研究范式向 “适用 “研究范式的转变, 激励研究人员通过在其主题范围内接受 “假设”, 积极塑造行业的未来。这种范式要求在方法上丰富规范性, 并将变革相关性作为衡量研究影响力的指标。

多年来, 公众对邮轮旅游的看法发生了变化, 从充满希望的度假小众旅游发展成为不可持续的大众旅游的象征。在此背景下, 为邮轮学者提供了指导, 以超越增长与去增长/限制的两极化争论, 同时提高邮轮学术研究的相关性和变革性影响。

Esta contribución representa una síntesis y una reflexión crítica de la literatura de investigación-revisión relacionada con los cruceros durante las últimas cuatro décadas, evaluando su impacto y potencial en términos de influencia sobre la evolución y futuros desarrollos del turismo de cruceros.

El objetivo general es capacitar al mundo académico de los cruceros para hacer valer su papel como facilitadores, y potencialmente impulsores, de futuros cruceros sostenibles, responsables y resilientes.

La investigación sobre cruceros entre los años 80 y la primera década de este siglo, podría caracterizarse como “centrada en el barco” y enfocada a la gestión. Durante la última década y hasta las secuelas de la pandemia de COVID19, la investigación sobre cruceros se ha vuelto cada vez más “centrada en los cruceros-destino”, con la sostenibilidad emergiendo como tema dominante. Apartándose un tanto del énfasis público y mediático en las preocupaciones y riesgos medioambientales, la investigación académica tiende a centrarse en los aspectos económicos de la sostenibilidad. No obstante, y a pesar de aspirar a la relevancia práctica, la investigación sobre cruceros tiende a seguir siendo reactiva y se queda rezagada con respecto a las tendencias del sector.

Este documento propone un cambio de un paradigma de investigación “aplicado” a otro “aplicable”, que inspire a los investigadores a configurar de forma proactiva el futuro de la industria, abarcando los “y si…” en su ámbito temático. Dicho paradigma exige una diversidad metodológica enriquecida por la normatividad, así como la inclusión de la relevancia transformadora como indicador del impacto de la investigación.

La percepción pública del turismo de cruceros ha cambiado a lo largo de los años, evolucionando desde la de un nicho vacacional prometedor a la de un símbolo del turismo de masas insostenible. En este contexto, se ofrece a los estudiosos de los cruceros una guía para trascender el polarizante debate de crecimiento frente a decrecimiento/límites, al tiempo que se aumenta la relevancia y el impacto transformador de los estudios sobre cruceros.

To take full advantage of the unprecedented availability of information on networks and digital systems, professionals need to be comfortable finding information relevant to the tasks at hand. This study was conducted at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research to investigate scientists’ personal information management (PIM) practices.

A qualitative research approach was used. Critical incidents were collected to probe information about PIM activities. The PIM-related critical incidents were gathered through extended conversations in the form of semi-structured interviews.

Extended conversations revealed that scientists were aware of the importance of information organization and management. They collected and received information from various sources regarding their tasks and saved part of the information for future use. Scientists organized saved information into named folders using the categories of projects, clients and planning. The files were updated by regular deletion and cleaning. Different strategies were used to retrieve the information. These included searching by keywords and file names, and browsing using the folder structure. Scientists have used various PIM tools. They reported that time pressure, information overload and anxiety due to information fragmentation were major challenges in PIM.

This study recommends a compilation of guidelines to assist scientists in the efficient management of personal information. As there are only a few studies currently available in the literature on scientists’ PIM, this study makes a valuable contribution to the relevant professional literature.

Tourists' environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB) is very important for the environmental sustainability of popular tourist destinations. The main purpose of this research paper is to explore the relationship between environmental citizenship behaviour (ECB) and trust in local government with ERB.

A theoretical model was proposed and tested. Data were collected from domestic tourists (n = 555) visiting Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

The results show that all dimensions of ECB (helping, engagement and initiatives) have a positive effect on the formation of ERB among domestic tourists. The results also show that trust in the local government of the destination has a moderating effect on the relationship between the two dimensions of ECB (engagement and initiatives) and ERB. The helping dimension of ECB has the highest positive impact factor on ERB. The results provide a comprehensive framework for further research. The proposed model is strongly supported by the findings.

Local policy makers can focus on how to increase the environmental motivation of domestic tourists. Environmentally friendly projects can be developed to attract their attention. This will ensure that they take more responsibility for the environment at the destination.

Understanding the potential impact of local government on tourist behaviour is crucial for sustainability. However, there are few studies that directly examine the moderating effect of trust in local government on the relationship between ECB and ERB. This study addresses this gap and makes novel contributions to the relevant literature.

Pakistan has long been regarded as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations promotes conservational agricultural practices (CAP); however, they received little attention. Therefore, this study aims to explore the antecedents of farmers’ intention to adopt CAP with empirical evidence to enhance CAP in developing countries.

Using a random sampling strategy, the data has been gathered from 483 Pakistani’s farmers of the most agriculture-producing province, Punjab and Sindh via a questionnaire survey. Regression-analysis (Haye’s process approach) is implied for testing the hypothesis.

The findings indicated that a farmer’s environmental orientation positively affects the farmer’s intention to adopt CAP. Furthermore, the farmer’s attitude towards agricultural production and the farmer’s belief in climate change also positively moderate the relationship.

Based on findings, this research suggests a need for efforts by the government to encourage farmers to engage themselves in technical support for the adoption of CAP. The educational campaigns and training sessions need to be arranged by the government for this purpose. This may help the farmers to adopt strategies relating to climate change concerning their education, credit access and extension services.

This paper explores the antecedents of farmers' intention for CAP in Pakistan. The empirical evidence previously missing in the body of knowledge will support the governments, researchers and FAO to establish a mechanism for enhancing CAP in developing countries like Pakistan. Further research is recommended to explore the outcomes of farmers' intentions to adopt more CAP to gauge the effectiveness of adaptation strategies

Research on solar energy adoption offers a multidimensional scope and warrants exploration from multiple perspectives, including political, economic, management, behavioral, policy and innovation aspects. The aim of this paper is to comprehensively consolidate major research findings on the premise of solar energy adoption and to disclose gaps in the existing literature.

A bibliometric analysis of the vast literature is conducted on 1,009 meticulously shortlisted articles following the semi-systematic literature review methodology. A text analytics tool named BibExcel is used for synthesizing the literature, and the results are visualized using Gephi, Pajek and a spreadsheet application.

This paper reports the evolution of research in the selected domain. It is noted that research in this domain was primarily concentrated on four broad themes, namely, peer effects and spatial patterns, public perceptions, policies and economics and technological evolution. The analysis further reveals the merging of two of these themes as a result of transdisciplinary research and also projects future research trends emphasizing political interventions in technological evolution and diffusion.

Research trends and future research scope are identified and discussed in detail. The information revealed from the analysis, along with the research implications, will assist policymakers in noting the flaws in the current doctrines and practices, entrepreneurs in understanding potential enablers and barriers influencing solar energy adoption and budding scholars in comprehending the current research status and framing promising research objectives to close the existing research gaps.

Marine plastic pollution (MPP) is increasing in recent times because of the high usage of plastic products. Green consumption behaviour (GCB) gaining attention as effective approach to achieving sustainable source reduction of plastic pollution, which negatively affects both human pollution and marine biodiversity and ecosystem. Although, Higher Education (HE) students are key stakeholders in addressing environmental issues, including MPP, there is limited empirical research in Ghana on factors influencing HE students’ GCB. This study, in an endeavour to bridge the gap, used the revised theory of planned behaviour (TPB) framework to investigate the factors influencing higher-education students’ green consumption behaviour in the Ghanaian context. Specifically, the purpose of the study is to examine the interplay of consumer novelty seeking (CNS), environmental concern (EC), perceived behavioural control and social influence on green consumption behaviour among higher-education students in Ghana. The study also explored the moderating role of gender in the relationship between CNS and green consumption behaviour.

This study used quantitative approach to obtain data from a sample of 233 students at the University of Cape Coast and used the partial least squares structural equation modelling approach for the data analysis.

The findings provide valuable insights, highlighting the important role of CNS and ECs in driving higher education students’ green consumption behaviour in Ghana. This study also found a revealing role for gender as a moderator in the relationship between CNS and green consumption behaviour, with females exhibiting a more pronounced response to CNS in influencing green consumption behaviour. On the contrary, the authors found a non-significant impact of perceived behavioural control and social influence.

Although this study presents results that provide valuable insights for policy and practical implications, it has some limitations worth mentioning for future research directions. Firstly, the participants sampled for this study comprised only higher education students from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, which may limit the applicability of the findings to other student populations at various universities in Ghana and beyond. Moreover, the exclusion of non-students who are considered as “Generation Z” (i.e. born within 1995–2010) may narrow the scope of generalisability in the context of young consumers’ green consumption behaviour in Ghana. To enhance the generalisability of future studies, it is recommended that the scope of this study be extended. Furthermore, it should be noted that this study primarily measured higher education students’ green consumption behaviour based on self-reported data. Therefore, future research could adopt alternative approaches, such as non-self-reported measures or experimental data so to reduce the complexities and the gap that may exist between attitudes and behaviour.

These results provide valuable insights for policymakers, educators and environmental advocates to develop targeted initiatives that resonate with Ghanaian higher education students to foster green consumption practices and contribute to global efforts against marine plastic pollution.

The novelty of this study lies in the decision to propose a TPB model by including variables like CNS and EC that are believed to positively shape attitudes towards green consumption behaviour. The rationale for examining these variables is grounded in the belief that they are appropriate factors that may predict students’ green consumer behaviour, which may serve as a potential solution to marine plastic pollution.

This study aims to explore the latent potential of alternative-responsible tourism and ecotourism leadership in sustainable tourism and the sustenance of rural communities in Musina Municipality in Limpopo Province, South Africa. It also sought to compare this potential with other African pastoral areas and to integrate it with various rural sites elsewhere abroad.

Narrative literature, document reviews, interviews and focus group discussions were used to garner relevant data and were analyzed through cross-tabulation analysis and manually. On this account, probable climate change-bound environmental consequences, rural, tourism, farming and ecological administration issues came to the forefront.

The examination correlates the potential position of proper ecotourism exercises and responsible tourism as an agreeable path to promote sustainability in rural localities. Subsequently, upon apparent countryside products, ecotourism and farming exercises glimpsed in the study area, environmental degradation poses a conceivable hazard to natural resource governance. Hereafter, it aggravates the possibilities for climate change effects and poor subsistence.

The rich biodiversity in the study area provides platforms for sustainable rural tourism enterprises and addresses any pertinent concerns. Thus, the study has manifested a demand for a creative tourism approach and innovations against environmental change outcomes and to capacitate Musina Municipality residents and probably others elsewhere on the continent to engage in ethical tourism initiatives and sustainable livelihoods.

This paper explores the collaborative dynamics and dimensions within a virtual multi-cultural and interdisciplinary workplace. The study focusses on the use of online communication technologies to enhance social inclusion and networking within academia.

This study uses an autoethnographic approach to draw on the personal experiences of a team of four scholars, including three early-career researchers and a senior scholar. Their reflections on their academic positionality and the institutional constraints reveal both the strengths and vulnerabilities of collaborating in a virtual workplace.

The findings offer insights into the complexities of navigating social dynamics, such as delegating responsibilities, organising meetings across various time zones and encouraging continuous collaboration, inclusivity and effective communication during an extensive timeline. As a result, their experiences revealed that a virtual workplace culture with similar and different attributes to a “normal” workplace emerged.

The paper demonstrates how to create an effective and inclusive virtual workplace by exemplifying best practices in academia and providing practical guidance for individuals and institutions based on honest, co-produced autoethnographic reflections of the authors’ lived experiences.