Consulting communities: using audience response system (ARS) technology to assess community preferences for sustainable recreation and tourism development

Abstract

Audience response system (ARS) technology (also known as “clickers”) has emerged as an educational tool that promotes active learning. This paper describes how ARS works and how it can also be used in research to assess community preferences for tourism development. A case study that used ARS technology shows how stakeholder preferences for extraction, heritage tourism and recreation within two rural mountain economies in the US west were effectively assessed. The use of ARS was backed by situation assessment procedures to determine appropriate stimulus questions probing trade-offs, perceived costs/benefits and cultural fit. A detailed series of key results measured community preferences and were made available to guide policymaking and future empirical survey work. Public meeting arrangements, publicity, structure and moderation for the ARS work is described and discussed. Evaluation of the use of ARS technology showed high levels of participant satisfaction with both the technology and the situation assessment procedures, and the emergence of potential tourism development actions.

Keywords:

• alpine tourism
• community tourism
• economic sustainability
• heritage tourism
• nature-based tourism
• rural tourism

Dr Catherine Keske is Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University, where she is also Associate Director of the Institute for Livestock and the Environment (www.livestockandenvironment.info). She is also Adjunct Professor at the Denver University Sturm College of Law. She is Principal Investigator for the US Department of Agriculture Grant 2008-02698, “Using Mountain Ecosystem Services to Provide Sustainable Economic Growth and Job Development in Rural Communities”.

Dr Steve Smutko is the Wyoming Excellence Spicer Distinguished Chair in Environment and Natural Resources, based in the Haub School and Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) at the University of Wyoming. This endowed chair position is the first of its kind in the US devoted to collaborative decision-making. Dr Smutko is also Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wyoming.