Tourism, landscapes and cultural ecosystem services: a new research tool

ABSTRACT

This research note presents a new tool for analysing the benefits of landscapes for visitors and tourists using the Cultural Ecosystems Services (CES) framework as defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) in 2005. The authors reflect on the challenges of defining Cultural Ecosystem Services and interpreting and translating these categorisations for the purposes of questionnaire research. Previous studies had noted the difficulties inherent in capturing many of the intangible elements inherent in the CES terminology. Familiarisation with CES categories arguably affords new opportunities to bring together many of the disparate elements which have often been managed independently in landscape and tourism studies (e.g. cultural and intangible heritage, eco-systems, socio-cultural impacts of tourism and community-based tourism). A questionnaire was designed consisting of nineteen statements which related closely to the CES categorisations. It was translated into eight languages and distributed in autumn 2015 to visitors in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Netherlands and Poland in six different kinds of landscape: forest, mountains, lakeside, seaside, mountains, desert and a combination of nature and manmade. In total, 876 valid questionnaires were obtained and were proven statistically to make a useful contribution to the field of CES research, landscapes and tourism studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural ecosystem services
• landscapes
• visitor perceptions
• wellbeing
• tourism

Acknowledgements

The authors of this Research Note would like to acknowledge and thank the participants of Working Group 1 in the EU-funded COST Project Tourism, Wellbeing and Ecosystem Services (TObeWELL ISCH COST Action IS1204) for their role in this research, especially for the Delphi Study and data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Melanie Smith is an Associate Professor at the Budapest Metropolitan University in Budapest. She is co-author of the book Health, Tourism and Hospitality: Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel (2013) with Dr László Puczkó. She has worked for over 10 years on health tourism, including publications, keynote speeches and consultancy in a range of countries.

Dr Yael Ram is a Senior lecturer at the Department of Tourism at Ashkelon Academic College, Israel. Her research interests focus on person – environment relations. She studies sustainable (and unsustainable) behaviours and mobilities, cultural ecosystem services, place-driven emotions and adaptation barriers of responsible practices. Yael leads the cultural services chapter in the national ecosystems services assessment of Israel.