Advocacy or neutrality? Disseminating research findings and driving change toward sustainable tourism in a fast changing world

There is no doubt that 2015 was a fascinating year for scholars and practitioners with interests in sustainable development and sustainable tourism. In 2015 it was revealed that, for the first time, over 100 million outbound tourists travelled from mainland China to the rest of the world (China Tourism Research Institute, 2015). Total outbound numbers were 107 million, of which 85 million trips were within Asia, but the remainder were long haul, predominantly to European destinations. Interim figures for the first half of 2015 show continuing growth, with a rise of 12.1% in outbound tourists over the same period in 2014. Worldwide, UNWTO (2015) statistics showed that international tourist arrivals reached 1138 million in 2014, a 4.7% increase over the previous year. Given the strong reliance of contemporary international tourists on carbon-intensive transport modes (Gössling & Peeters, 2015), the sheer scale of the global tourism production system poses considerable challenges to those with interests in sustainable development.

These challenges were reflected in May 2015 when Pope Francis issued the Roman Catholic church's first ever encyclical on climate change and other environmental issues, with a strong focus on care for nature (The Vatican, 2015). Tourism receives no specific mention as a problem (and there is no specific discussion of pilgrimage as a global mobility practice), but the encyclical does pay considerable attention to the issue of sustainable development. Most interestingly for those concerned with sustainable tourism, the encyclical explores at length questions surrounding behavioural change and how to achieve more sustainable development – in Chapter 6, and notably in Sections 205–208, “Towards a new lifestyle”. The sustainable tourism academic community was also striving in 2015 to respond to these challenges. One instance was a reply by Hall et al. (2015) in response to a paper by Shani and Arad (2014) which had put forward a case in relation to sustainable tourism which was sceptical of anthropogenic climate change. Hall et al. replied by explaining the extent of scientific consensus about this issue, and by arguing for the urgent need for research, debate and action on adaptation and mitigation strategies in response to the cause and effect relationship linking tourism and climate change.

These fundamental challenges underline the critical role of the academic community that is served by the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. Set against the background of unrelenting tourism growth, critical capacity constraints and developing debates, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism has this year received a record number of paper submissions, and in 2016 it will publish more pages than ever before. Indeed, from its two issues per annum initially in 1992, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism is now moving to 12 issues per annum. The journal's development trajectory leads us to reflect on why authors engage in research on sustainable tourism, developing further the ideas in last year's editorial on “What drives research on sustainable tourism?” (Bramwell & Lane, 2015). We then consider the implications for sustainable tourism research of the substantial changes in recent times in the social media and online systems available to communicate that research.

No doubt many researchers working on sustainable tourism are driven by an innate curiosity to explore and discuss the phenomena surrounding the tourism experience. For some, this curiosity may be driven by a sense of concern for the planet, injustice and the need for equity in all forms of development, including tourism. Some may be driven or otherwise influenced by institutional and career ambition objectives, for which the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) status and impact factors of journals have become measures of aspiration that were widely debated on Trinet during the course of the last year. Given the “Digital Taylorism” of many university managements, this is not surprising. Another likely driver has been the desire to execute high-quality research and then disseminate that research to the academy and, for some, also to the varied “communities of practice”. This driver includes the deeply felt need among academics to express their research findings, and also to express themselves and their views about the need for change in society in general and, at the personal level, to help make the case for change among tourists, business practitioners, NGOs, regional and national policy communities, and global governance organisations.

Expressions of the need for change made by researchers can be controversial. In the past, academics often frowned on authors who sought to press for change through the publication of their research findings. Academics, they felt, ought to be neutral, should outline and explain their “value-free” findings, and should leave it to readers to make their own judgements about the implications of those findings. That idea is linked to the belief that education and learning should be somehow “value-free”, apolitical and more “pure” than commerce or politics. However, we argue that it is impossible to be apolitical and neutral in research. Our research inevitably draws on wider “world views”, including theoretical frameworks about societal relations and ontological and epistemological positions, which affect our approach and have normative implications (Thomas, 2015). Further, we cannot be content to relegate our role in change to that of disinterested bystander, as that devalues our arguments which are based on research evidence, careful and critical assessment, and personal reflection about our own understandings and position, and it devalues our understandings of the need for change. Neutrality also reduces discussion, and inevitably, therefore, supports the status quo, which contributes to negating important aspects of change even when it is recognised that change is urgently needed. While it is important to recognise the political nature of research, it is also, however, essential that researchers strive to be independent in at least some senses, as well as to be rigorous, honest to the evidence, self-critical and reflexive.

Recognition of the importance of advocacy which is based on rigorous, critical and reflexive research is an especially important position for a journal that addresses the contentious issues of sustainable tourism, a concept created to critically explore, foster and implement the idea of more sustainable forms of tourism in order to reduce pressure on the environment, societies, heritage and culture, while spreading benefits equitably, including between hosts and guests.

Two forthcoming papers soon to be published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism explore some of these issues in considerable depth. In the first of these papers, Melissen and Koens (in press, p. 7) outline the tensions that exist:

between those who believe researchers should remain “objective” and those who feel researchers are stakeholders to policy, who are entitled, or should even be encouraged, to actively engage with other stakeholders. Especially within environmental science, many argue that it should provide neutral information to policy-makers. Not doing so threatens scientific credibility (Lackey, 2007). Others, however, contend that engagement is crucial to facilitate and ensure uptake of research outcomes in policy. Not doing so leads to being side-lined and losing influence altogether (Jones, Jones & Walsh, 2008).

The point about engagement to maximise uptake of research and thus avoid being side-lined is taken up by Hall (in press, p. 4), who states that “the tourism academy is an integral part of the tourism socio-technical system that, from a sustainability perspective, requires considerable change”. He goes on to highlight “the challenge that this provides for notions of ‘value-free’ or ‘objective’ tourism research”. Interestingly, “outreach and engagement” has now become an element of research assessment exercises, such as the six-yearly New Zealand Performance-based Research Fund (PBRF) research evaluation (Tertiary Education Commission, 2015). This new element of assessment from within the academic “socio-technical system” has dangers, but it reflects the importance of linking research-based expertise to the wider national and/or international community. Indicators of this element of research assessment in the PBRF New Zealand context include outreach activities, community engagement, contributions to Maori and Pasifika social, economic and cultural advancement, contributions to public understanding, demonstrated evidence of the key academic roles of the critic and conscience of society, media coverage of research, and the presentation of research to professional groups and organisations (Tertiary Education Commission, 2015, p. 24).

There are many ways that authors can undertake “outreach and engagement” and challenge the current system. They can provide critical and rigorous insights into the impacts of tourism on environment and society, and they can use their insights as points of discussion to highlight the need for change. Gössling and Peeters (2015), who assess tourism's global environmental impact (1900–2050) and call for urgent change, provide a model case of this approach to research and engagement. Another approach is to explore the challenges and barriers to changing to a more sustainable tourism system (see e.g. Muangasame & McKercher, 2015). Tourism researchers can also act as the conscience of the tourism world by examining doubtful practices surrounding, for example, volunteer tourism (Smith & Font, 2014). Challenging the current system can extend to rigorous critique of the often presumed benefits and assumed low impacts of nature tourism. Higham, Bejder, Allen, Corkeron and Lusseau (in press), for example, demonstrate that whale watching can be a form of non-lethal but nevertheless consumptive exploitation, understood in terms of sub-lethal anthropogenic stress on focal animals, and can have wide material impacts. This is a call for constructive critique, as opposed to destructive criticism. It is a call for research that is principled and well-founded, independent and reflective, as well as rigorous and balanced. It requires “commitment to academic independence and freedom, diversity of thinking, new ideas and critical reflection, which in turn create fertile conditions for innovative policy and practical policy measures” (Dredge, 2015, p. 175). There is also a need for research that aims to explore both the immediate and also the long-term sustainability of the tourism industry in relation to tourist experiences, business practices, environment and society.

Furthermore, this is a call for more comprehensive dissemination of research, in part because much of it is publicly funded or publicly supported, but above all to promote the prospect that timely and important research outcomes directly inform the “communities of practice” that can positively shape and influence change. Here Hall (in press) and Melissen and Koens (in press) highlight how researchers have to engage with policy-makers, and with opinion formers, if their work is to have any real-world impact. In relation to research on changing tourist consumer behaviour, Hall (in press, p. 16) argues that:

We cannot expect that just publishing a research paper will mean that policy makers will act on it. Not only do they have to find it in the first place but there is a competition between competing ideas all of which have political and economic, let alone environmental, advantages and disadvantages. While current knowledge production may be useful for journal rankings and research assessments, it is not necessarily closing the knowledge-policy gap in the longer term, although growing attention to the impact of research in research quality assessments may herald some change (Coles, Hall, & Duval, in press) Therefore, as well as changing the social practices of the consumer, effective behavioural change is likely to also require changes in research practices. Science is not the same as journalism but there is a lesson to be learnt with respect to communication and its political nature.

Increasing the dissemination of sustainable tourism research will not be an easy task, and in the increasingly neo-liberal climate of society and academic institutions, there are dangers. Melissen and Koens (in press, p. 10) note, for example, how:

more and more, academic researchers are encouraged or even forced by their employers to engage in public relations and actively promote the relevance of their work to those both inside and outside the academic community. For example, Nerlich (2013, p. 43) states, ‘hyping research in various ways – in funding proposals, in press releases, on websites, in interviews with journalists, for example – has almost become the norm’. Whether this norm fits with making an objective contribution to policy and public debate is questionable. At the very least, it increases the likelihood of politicisation of science.

There are also dangers that seeking out headlines and highlighting sound-bites could reduce some research into overly clear-cut and over-simplified exercises that reduce plurality and complexity. A focus on disseminating research might erode a necessary “critical distance”, or lead to a “narrowing” of our research agendas. Further, research questions sometimes can be more revealing and ultimately more helpful if the starting point is not on having immediate, short-term practical applications. We must not neglect important research using long-term approaches, and research examining issues that are less easily turned into media-worthy stories, and it must not be forgotten that fundamental, long-term change might be more likely to come about through intellectual and radical research work that challenges conventional thinking and is disseminated more slowly through our students and readers (Bramwell & Lane, 2006).

Despite these important caveats, it is useful to consider how authors who succeed in publishing their research in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism can disseminate their research ideas, findings and recommendations.

Clearly it is important that authors establish and maintain working relationships between themselves and relevant communities, which can include commercial practitioners, policy-makers, NGOs, interest and lobby groups, local communities, and the general public. There are also opportunities here for sustainable tourism researchers to target their dissemination activities at helping marginalised groups, including those marginalised from information and knowledge flows. Building such relationships can create mutual understanding and recognition of respective needs and perspectives, both of which are important in terms of establishing trust. Second, authors need to understand how the media works, especially for key niche market media outlets. They need to learn how and when to issue press releases, and how those releases should be written. Academic institutions are becoming more engaged in providing media support (including the preparation of press releases) to support researchers. There are a number of vital rules. The text needs to be clear to a non-specialist. It needs to have news – or something that is new and revealing – in it. It needs to avoid exaggeration, and authors must learn to be wary of phone calls from journalists who seek off the record remarks: very little ever stays off the record.

To this end, many academics have been frustrated by media filters, sensationalism and media sound bite tactics that oversimplify, distort or mislead. Creating one's own media releases (either written, or using audio-visual or presentation media), engaging with explanatory science or current affairs radio and TV programmes (including in-depth interviews and discussions), and writing for wide public audiences through opinion pieces and reflections have allowed academics to communicate directly with wider and more diverse audiences than previously. The Conversation (http://theconversation.com/uk), which seeks to combine academic rigour with journalistic flair, provides one such avenue which, given mass media interest in the articles that are published online in The Conversation, has become a pathway to disseminate original writing through the mainstream international press.

As the title of this editorial suggests, the media is also fundamentally changing. It is moving beyond traditional press, radio and television, to embrace a range of new social media and online systems, and it is critical that academics are mindful of this rapidly changing media world. Engaging with new social media and online systems offers the opportunity to both engage with “communities of practice” and also to raise the profile of research within academic and non-academic communities. The new online systems have implications for the online viewing of research, paper downloads and citations. It is noteworthy that many high-ranking journals, including the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, are moving to swiftly publish recently accepted papers online, and this can be associated with free downloads of new papers over a defined period of time or up to a set number of downloads. These trends provide new opportunities for academics to work hard to disseminate their recently published work via various networks. Their own established networks should include practitioners and colleagues who are particularly likely to be interesting in the research and, therefore, most likely to take up, act on and/or cite this research.

Another very recent development by many journals, including the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, is giving papers Altmetric scores, in addition to the numbers of citations in research journals and downloads. Altmetric scores collect relevant mentions from social media sites, newspapers, policy documents, blogs, Wikipedia and many other sources, to create a media uptake summary score. So far the top Altmetric score (39) for a Journal of Sustainable Tourism paper is held by Heenehan et al. (2015). This was achieved through active dissemination of the online publication through social and other electronic media as soon as the paper was published online. With 50 free downloads available to each author, notification of the published paper was disseminated via social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter), online academic platforms (e.g. Academia.edu and Researchgate.net) and through the websites and online networks of the authors (e.g. the Murdoch University Cetacean Research Unit and the MARMAM email distribution list), with immediate uptake from international news media. Only when engaging in these avenues of media communication does the reach of social and online media, which afford engagement with specialist and non-specialist audiences alike, become fully apparent.

The challenges of sustainable tourism, and the need to achieve research outreach and engagement, have never been greater. However, the world of sustainable tourism research, its information flows and the ways that information is disseminated have changed remarkably in recent years to help match those challenges. Some publishers now report directly to authors on the performance of their publications, revealing the number of downloads and citations that their papers have had, as well as showing which journals they were cited in, which authors cited their papers, along with details of any mass media mentions. Altmetric scores allow scholars to track and understand the uptake of their work beyond the academic community and, potentially, the impact of their research upon communities of practice (as widely defined). Authors may then benefit through greater demonstrated uptake and impact of their research. The interests of journal editors and publishers are served by increased citation of research, with implications for journal impact factors. Communities of practice can be directly and immediately informed of relevant and timely research outputs, by engaging with the online networks of scholars that are increasingly mediated by social media, electronic communities and online academic and media platforms. Through these networks, publicly funded research can be disseminated far beyond traditional academic journal readerships. Finally, and arguably most importantly, interest in sustainable tourism development, and what it does and does not entail, may be advanced through the effective dissemination and wide uptake of rigorous science.

Notes

1. MARMAM is the marine mammals email distribution list with a global network membership of academics and non-academics with interests in the conservation of cetaceans.