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In response to issues and challenges facing the operators of nature-based tours, this study examines snowmobile tours in Svalbard, Norway. Specially, it posits to explore experience providers awareness of the fragile nature in which they are operating and how this awareness is implemented in their offerings. Subsequently, the chapter evaluates experience providers’ attitude of what aspects of the offerings they perceive as attractive to the tourists and the staging of the offerings accordingly. This study utilises interviews with six informants representing three different firms, a participant observation, and text analyses of the offer on the website www.Svalbard.net as the study method. The results show that the informants are aware of the fragile nature and strive to promote a sustainable behaviour during tours. In particular, they focus on informing and teaching the tourists about environmental aspects of the tour through storytelling and staging during the tour. By empowering the tourists through education and involvement they aim to make the tourists change their focus from riding the snowmobile to learning about the fragility of the nature and wildlife. Further, the informants state that the tourists may even become spokesmen for sustainable tourism due to the touring experience received. In conclusion, in a highly fragile environment like the Arctic a rise of motorised tours invites discourses on tourism development. It is pivotal to preserve the nature in a sustainable way while offering attractive tour experiences.

With continued growth in tourism, demand for guided local excursions, sightseeing, and entertainment has increased rapidly, particularly in European tourist destinations cities. Many touristic sights can often be viewed best from the water. Operators offer a variety of sightseeing cruises on motor barges along rivers, canals, lakefronts, or ports. In many tourist destination cities and around urban heritage sites, however, increasing boat traffic and the associated air pollution from diesel-powered engines have become a local environmental concern. Based on complaints from residents and visitors, several cities have already announced plans for (mandatory) tourist boat emission reductions. Today, electric mobility offers alternative options for safely and conveniently powering commercial tourist boats, that may contribute to mutually beneficial solutions for local operators, tourist visitors, and residents alike. However, the technology is still expensive and new businesses may also face considerable challenges when entering established local competitive tourism markets. Focusing on the local waterways of the city of Berlin, Germany, the authors have conducted a local case study, including interviews with several operators of (electric) tour boats, as well as an initial empirical survey of their tourist customers. The authors point out the viewpoints of the various stakeholders, identify opportunities, discuss constraints, and offer policy recommendations with a view to enhance the sustainability of waterborne transport in tourist destination cities.

This study aims to conduct a critical analysis of online carbon calculators, assesing their accuracy and ability to provide holistic carbon impact appraisals of different elements of holiday travel. It seeks to identify the major data sources for estimates and establish the interrelatedness between them. The determinant factors for the variance in the magnitude of the carbon footprint appraisals between calculators are critically reviewed.

The paper reviews the key online carbon calculators to better understand how estimates of carbon footprint are made, what background information is available to tool users and which factors affect the accuracy and comprehensiveness of appraisals.

The study concludes that the applicability of existing carbon calculators to carbon impact assessment in tourism is limited. Moreover, poor accesibility of the background data, inconsistencies in the multiplying factors used and inhomogeneity in the appraisal methods employed question the accuracy, credibility and transparency of carbon calculators. Suggestions are made on how to improve the overall quality and reliability of carbon calculators in order to enhance their consistency, transparency and applicability in the tourism domain.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of assessment approaches available in the tourism domain to produce reliable estimates of the carbon impacts from holiday travel.

The chapter was prompted by the trend towards providing public health messaging through social marketing. The purpose is to understand the determinants of walking within a city in terms of framing policy to promote greater physical activity (PA). This is demonstrated through the context of Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The chapter provides a literature review and showcases a case-study. Descriptive statistics are presented on how far Sydneysiders walk using Household Travel Survey data and how this might be changed if short motorised trips are converted to walking. Modelling walking time follows to see if there are policy levers that could be used to increase walking time. Over 78% of Sydney’s population do not meet the recommended PA target of 30 minutes per day. Converting short motorised to walking provides marginal improvement. Walking to access activities contributes more to total walking time than walking to/from public transport. Modelling suggests potential policy levers to increase PA. Targeting driving licence holders, households without cars and promoting walkable environments are found most effective. Promoting undertaking more activities on foot is likely to be more successful than promoting walking for short trips. The chapter provides an overview of PA around the world and an empirical case study of walking in Sydney, NSW, Australia. In turn this provides an evidence base for more successful targeting of social marketing messaging for public health.

This chapter describes gender differences in Montevideo through the study of daily mobility. Generally, mobility studies do not account for gender differences more than in a superficial way, distinguishing basic travel patterns by sex. However, different patterns and mobility behaviours can obscure situations of deeply entrenched gender inequality that have direct consequences on the opportunities that men and women are able to reach. To disentangle these inequalities, this work addresses some mainstream mobility indicators classified by gender but also some specific indicators, with special attention to care mobility as a factor that can restrain women’s ability to move. Moreover, a tour-based analysis is performed to shed light on gendered schedules and mobility patterns. Results show that women’s mode share comprises a larger proportion of transit trips, they travel shorter distances – investing more time – and they contribute in a greater proportion than men to care mobility, especially among the lower quintiles of income. While men’s commuting patterns have a defined ‘home-based work’ profile, women have a higher level of heterogeneity in their daily itineraries. Access to private motorised means of transport is a key variable in explaining the configuration of mobility patterns, and there is a persistent gender gap in this matter. The chapter concludes that, as several authors have reported, gender is a marker in terms of mobility. It sets specific conditions for urban life in general and mobility in particular that, in turn, may be the cause of further inequality.

Purpose – Bicycle riding provides a sustainable and affordable solution to many of the significant problems associated with motorised transport and physical inactivity. The provision of infrastructure plays an important role in encouraging people to begin and subsequently continue to ride bicycles and to do so safely.

Methodology – This chapter describes different types of on- and off-road infrastructure and reviews studies of their effects on rider numbers and safety. In addition, it looks at the roles that end-of-trip facilities and bikeshare programs can play in contributing to bicycle use and general transport sustainability.

Findings – Infrastructure characteristics can influence both perceived and objective levels of safety. It is important to identify and avoid treatments that increase perceived safety but are actually less safe. The type of infrastructure needed or desired differs between current and potential riders and according to trip purpose. Well-designed marked bicycle lanes on roads can reduce crash rates. Safety at intersections can be improved by: advanced green lights for cyclists, short cuts for right-hand turns, brightly coloured bicycle paths and advanced waiting positions for cyclists. Off-road facilities are generally safer, but intersections with roads must be carefully treated. Shared paths and footpaths are risky for older pedestrians (and older cyclists).

Implications – In many countries the provision of more infrastructure that increases the perceived safety of riding is needed to encourage cycling, particularly transport cycling and cycling by women.

This study aims to analyze the visual aspects of transport tourists’ experience of mobility focusing on British cruise and coach tourists’ international travel experiences.

The qualitative data was collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews with coach and cruise tourists and analyzed using thematic analysis.

The visual experience of mobility (demonstrated in the paper by the example of cruises and coach tours) is critical in the formation of transport tourism experiences. The mobile tourist landscapes emerge from the interplay of the subjective experiences of particular modes of mobility (vehicle or vessel) and routes, whereby the two key visual elements are the changing scenery and views of everyday local life as experienced whilst traveling.

The present study focuses particularly on the visual elements of passive transport tourism experiences. It does not account for other tourist activities nor does it study the experiences associated with active transport tourism. Future research could perform a holistic analysis of tourists’ experiences of transport in all its forms.

The findings point to the centrality of the experience of mobility in transport tourism experience. The following two key aspects of the experience emerged: the importance of variation of the scenery that the tourist consumes during their tour and a desire to observe mundane, everyday life elements of the destination, which should be taken into account by the tour operators and service providers in the route design and marketing.

Coach and cruise tourism are rarely analyzed together; this study demonstrates considerable parallels between the two in considering them as transport tourism, a mode of recreational activity where mobility is the central part of the tourist experience and should, therefore, be considered a tourist attraction in and of itself.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the 2015 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Road World Cycling Championship in Richmond, Virginia.

An array of eclectic methods included in situ witness observations of several of the races, 21 semi-structured random interviews and multiple discussions with elements of UCI, the city of Richmond’s planners, residents and business owners during and after the championship in fall 2015.

This paper has uncovered five findings: First, the material investment was considerably smaller than that of other events (common good criterion CGC i – good governance); second, pre-planning was critical to successfully hosting the event; third, this event included not only two entities as one would expect at first glance, but many (common good criterion CGC ii – good management); fourth, a filière approach to community service and the exploitation of clustered thematic activities was of critical importance to successfully hosting the 2015 UCI Road World Cycling Championship; and fifth, this event enabled the opportunity to market other city and regional assets (common good criterion CGC iii – good outcomes).

Cities hoping to bid for events ought to consider hosting unique events such as road championships. Those cities will benefit from careful event pre-planning, responsible event hosting and post-event legacies in the form of socio-economic and mindscape memories.

Bidding and pre-event planning is increasingly seen as an opportunity to locate, create and develop support for common good urban projects, which will remain valuable after the event is over or which will need to be built in spite of the bid’s result.

This study fills an unresearched gap on the impact of events on a city’s future non-motorized sustainable transportation priorities.