Mobilities, community well-being and sustainable tourism

Abstract

Tourism researchers are beginning to explore the implications of the “New Mobilities Paradigm” for improving our understanding of several aspects of tourism. This paper employs a study conducted at the intersection of this new mobilities paradigm, a consideration of destination community well-being, and the analysis of tourism sustainability through an examination of its positive and negative impacts on destinations. It describes a qualitative investigation of tourism impacts on community well-being in three Australian destinations that revealed six distinct types of tourists each characterised by different patterns of mobility. Types included Archetypal Tourists, Grey Nomads, Green Nomads, Backpackers, Temporary Workers and Amenity Migrants. The study found that patterns of impacts could be connected to these distinct types of tourists. Four key themes were identified and described – the consistent linkages between mobility variables and tourism impacts, the perceptions of tourists and tourism as providing resources for destination communities, the modification of impacts as a result of the physical, social and economic characteristics of destination communities and the emergence of conflicts and collisions between different types of tourists and residents in shared spaces. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for sustainable tourism planners and researchers, and especially for resident perceptions research.

流动性，社区生活品质和可持续性旅游

旅游研究者开始探讨为加深我们对旅游多方面的理解而产生的``新流动性范例"的意义。该文章采用了一个在这个新流动性范例的交点上建立的研究。研究通过讨论新流动性对目的地正面和负面的影响来提供了对目的地社区生活的考虑，对旅游可持续性的分析。文章描述了在三个澳大利亚目的地里的旅游对社区生活的影响进行的定性化调查。在该三个目的地中，六大独特的旅游者类型通过不同的流动性形式来分类出来。这些类型包括原型旅游者，灰色流浪者，绿色流浪者，背包游客，临时移民和市容移民。研究发现影响的形式和这些旅游者的独特类型相关。四大主要的主题被发现和定义 - 流动性变量和旅游影响之间不断的联系，将旅游者和旅游看作为目的地社区提供资源这样的看法，影响的改变作为目的地社区物理，社会和经济上特性的结果，不同类型的旅游者和居民在分享空间上产生的冲突和碰撞的出现。文章讨论了这些结论对旅游规划者和研究者的意义，特别是对居民意见的研究。

Keywords:

• new mobilities paradigm
• tourism impacts
• community well-being
• sustainable tourism

关键词:

• 新流动性范例
• 旅游影响
• 社区生活
• 可持续性旅游

Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper was funded in part by the Cairns Institute at James Cook University.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gianna Moscardo

Dr Gianna Moscardo is a professor in the School of Business at James Cook University. Her background in sociology supports her research interests in the areas of community responses to tourism and her background in psychology supports studies into tourist experiences and behaviours.

Elena Konovalov

Mrs Elena Konovalov is a doctoral candidate in the School of Business at James Cook University. Her research interests are focused on understanding community well-being and its links to tourism.

Laurie Murphy

Dr Laurie Murphy is an associate professor of tourism in the School of Business at James Cook University. Dr Murphy's research interests focus on improving tourism's contribution to regional communities with an emphasis on tourism marketing, including a focus on the backpacker market, destination image and choice and more recently destination branding and tourist shopping villages.

Nancy McGehee

Dr Nancy Gard McGehee is an associate professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, USA. Dr McGehee is a sociologist. Her research focuses on volunteer tourism and rural tourism development, particularly through the lens of the socio-cultural impacts of tourism. She is currently working in the area of tourism and social capital.