The Long Tail of Tourism: Holiday Niches and their Impact on Mainstream Tourism

221 Pages·2011·7.45 MB·English

by  Alexis Papathanassis (auth.)

Alexis Papathanassis (Ed.)
The Long Tail of Tourism
GABLER RESEARCH
Alexis Papathanassis (Ed.)

The Long Tail of Tourism
Holiday Niches and their Impact
o n Mainstream Tourism
RESEARCH
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografi e;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

1st Edition 2011
All rights reserved
© Gabler Verlag | Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2011
Editorial Offi ce: Ute Wrasmann | Nicole Schweitzer
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www.gabler.de
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Cover design: KünkelLopka Medienentwicklung, Heidelberg
Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
ISBN 978-3-8349-3062-0
Acknowledgements
Thisbookisdedicatedto mystudentsatthe BremerhavenUniversityofAppliedSciences. It
istheiropenness,enthusiasmandambition thatultimatelyenablesusto maintain ourdrive
and motivation intoday's challengingeducational environment and competitive academic
context. Particular thanks to the co-authors for their research effort and my student
assistants, who have helped me with editing and formatting this rather large text.
Moreover, my gratitude goesto the BremerhavenUniversity of Applied Sciences and our
rectorate for providing the resourcesnecessaryto financeand producethis pieceof work.
My appreciation also goes to Ute Wrasmann and Nicole Schweitzer from the GWV
Fachverlage GmbH(my publishers) for their patience, professional support and flexibility
over the years. FinallyIamgrateful to Stefaniefor enduring myendlesshoursof mental
absencewhilst preparingfor andworkingonthisbook.
Prof.Dr.AlexisPapathanassis
v
Editor's Foreword
This book is the result of my attempts to counter a major challenge faced by tourism
educators. Namely: Howto prepare students for afast-evolving businesssector within a
formal educational institution?
Given the temporary nature of knowledge and the fast evolving tourism-eruise industry,
there isarguably littlevalueat passingover information andfacts,descriptive casestudies
and personal wisdoms. Foragraduate to survive and be successfulin acompetitive and
complex tourism/cruise industry, they needto becritical, innovative andsystematic inthe
waythey approachnewtasksor projects. Inlineto myexperience,the tourism industry is
traditionally quite 'un-academic' and 'front-office' experience remains decisive. Formal
qualificationsarenot ashighlyregardedasinotherindustriesandthis makesitverydifficult
for youngtourism professionalsto c1imb upthe career ladder. Soft skillsandintercultural
competence are fairly self-understood and wide-spread amongst tourism professionals. In
otherwords,basicknowledgeandsocialcompetencesarenotanexceptionalvalue-addedof
the formal education programmes, but an absolute minimum. Thus, a competitive
advantage(interms of careerdevelopment) insuchacontext isthe abilityto askthe right
questlons, c1early expressthoughts, substantiate arguments and do this consistently over
time. Thisisespeciallythe caseinlargercompanies-tourism ishighlyconcentrated -where
'political'reputationisthe keytotop management.
According to my opinion, our current education system in Germany does not sufficiently
encourage independent and critical thinking. Dur economic and political development, as
reflected in the introduction of, and experiences with, compact bachelor programmes,
ultimately aims at producing functional members of society, cost-effective workers and
team-players. Nonetheless,professionalsuccessrequiressocial-shapers,effectivemanagers
andleaders. Thismayweil bethe priceofmass-education.
Colourfullystated:
'7he mereconsumptlonojknowledgeproducesconsumers,notknowers"
"Conjormltyandstandardsleaddonottriggercreativity,butsimp/ystrengthenits
monopolisation"
Therefore the question posed here is: How canwe nurture and educate our students in
becomingmotivated,critical, andindependentthinkers? Andhowcanit bedonewithinthe
resource restrictions present. In order to help our students develop those meta-skills, I
utilisedthescientific process/ researchasateachingmethod:
vii
Research-BasedLearning(seetable0bellow):
ResearchCoaching TraditionalLecturing
ThematicScope Specific(Depthfocus) General(Width focus)
StudentRole ActiveICreative PassiveIReceptive
ProfessorRole CoachingISupportive ExplainingIDirective
One-to-OneSessionsIldea
TeachingMethod GroupLecturingIQuestioning
ExchangeI Discussion
Question7 Application 7 Description7 Understanding7
LearningProcess Understanding7 Description7 Question7 Application7
Reflection Reflection
MotivationITrustI Emotional ContentIStructureIRhetoricI
CriticalSuccessFactors
Support Entertainmentfactor
Colloquiumfeedbackinperson
WrittenExamI PresentationI
EvaluationI Feedback +detailedthesisevaluation
EssayIreportgrade+comments
report
Experiencewith aKnowledge KnowledgewithinanExperience
DesiredOuteome
Domain Domain
Table0: Research-BasedLearningvs.Traditional Lecturing
Thus,this book can be seenasacumulative researcheffort, aimed at understanding the
development dynamicsof tour operating andsheddinglight on someof its keyquestions.
Theresearchteam, comprisingof undergraduate tourism students,systematicallyexamined
20 case-studies,and documented their results. Apart from the insights provided, this
documented effortalsoservesasademonstrationof applying research-based-Iearningand
itsusefulness;notjustforstudents,butfortheacademiccommunityasawhole.
Finally, it is my hope that this book will encourage a wider integration of students in
empirical researchandknowledgecreation. Afterall,atleastwherethetourism knowledge
domainisconcerned,wecanonlybestudents.
Prof.Dr.AlexisPapathanassis
viii
Tableof Contents
Acknowledgements v
Editor's Foreword vii
TableofContents ix
1.0 Thelongtail oftourism 1
AlexisPapathanassis
2.0 Darktourism 7
SöndraBrand&Nina Platter
3.0 Sextourism 17
DanielBunn
4.0 Agro-tourism 25
StefanieGreif, CarotinRauscher&CorenSöntgerath
5.0 Visitingfriends& relatives(VFR) 35
MartinHänsel&TobiasMetzner
6.0 Religioustourism 45
FieteSeyer&DanielMüller
7.0 Health & medicaltourism 57
VivienBreitrück&ElenaNunn
8.0 Shoppingtourism•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.•.•.•.•.•.•69
MeikeBauer&MichaelaMeier
9.0 Sport& extreme tourism 77
UsaWeihermüller&FetixJentzsch
10.0 Militarytourism 87
MichaelHrusovsky&KonstantinNoeres
11.0 Spacetourism•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••95
GregorKlemm&SiniMarkkanen
12.0 Divetourism•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••105
LatteLemke&LenaOlech
ix
13.0 Ecotourism 115
InesNee&InsaBeckmann
14.0 M.I.C.E 129
FriederikeDüffelmeyer&MaikeHildebrand
15.0 Drugtourism 137
AndreaGrobe&JuliaWer
16.0 Filmtourism 149
KarolinaTomala &FlorenceFaber
17.0 Inclusivetourism 159
Hannah Münch&RebeccaUlrich
18.0 Armchairtourism 171
AnnabelBaxter&Unda Pieszek
19.0 Wellnesstourism 185
EsthervonHarten&MalteStoelting
20.0 Culturaltourism 191
Janina Deeke&MelanieWalter
21.0 Educationaltourism 201
NeleMenzel&AnnaWeldig
22.0 Revisitingthetourismlong-tailscenario 213
AlexisPapathanassis
x