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Survey respondents are compared on strategic tourism planning issues in Banff, Alberta, and Niagara Falls (Ontario and New York). Findings reveal areas of consensus and disagreement in perceptions of issues and preferences for strategies. Three specific issues are considered: the destination life cycle concept, capacity, and destination image. Conclusions are drawn on how public and private‐sector cooperation on destination planning can be fostered when significant differences in perception and preference occur.

As intricate mental constructions, destination images reflect cultural, intellectual and existential backgrounds of individuals, communities and social groups, as well as marketing strategies. In the case of Banff National Park, for example, marketing strategies have promoted a potential need for wilderness and natural environment related experiences that is expressed in western post‐industrialized societies. However, touristic development often creates places structured to fit suitable images suggested by the market and leads to the co‐existence of multiple images for a single destination. The resulting tourist landscapes very often are divorced from the original setting, atmosphere, and characteristics of the real place.

The study aims to provide an insight into the inherent diversities and ambiguities of Soviet touristic landscapes during the period of late socialism by a means of Estonian biographical sources. Based on written narratives, the study focuses on the embodied ways in which Estonian travellers engaged with and experienced foreign landscapes and people during trips within the Soviet Union.

The study treats tourists’ travel landscapes as meaningful, lived experiences that highlight features and everyday life strategies that were characteristic of the Soviet period. Approaching via the lens of Estonian culture and nationality, the study analyses the meaningful experiences through which the narrators drew boundaries between the self and the other.

The Soviet tourism landscape of the 1960s–1980s was marked by sharp cultural contrasts. The landscapes that unfold in the narratives were full of contradictions, arousing feelings of both admiration and alienation. Whilst the ideological purpose of Soviet tourism was to build a “socialist nation”, the themed narratives, on the other hand, demonstrate the wide spectrum of everyday life practices, which show both the distancing of oneself from the Soviet system as well as conformation with it. Although tourism helped travellers accept the Union, this was achieved not by consenting to socialist ideology, but by becoming familiar with its heterogeneity.

Research on Soviet tourism has largely relied on archival sources and the press, which shed light mainly on the organisation and ideological basis of tourism. Drawing on oral sources, this study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex nature of Soviet tourist landscapes.

The Banff National Park is the most famous of Canada. The development of the recent years has been considered as to fast and to massive. The author analyses the key factors of success of the park development. He describes the new strategic park policy which takes into account the carrying capacity and the protection of the great nature and landscape.