Around the world, there is mounting evidence that parks and protected areas contribute to a healthy civil society, thus increasing the economic importance of cultural and nature-based tourism. Operating at the intersection of business and the environment, tourism can improve human health and wellbeing as well as serve as a catalyst for increasing appreciation and stewardship of the natural world. While the revenues from nature-based activities help to make the case for investing in park and protected area management; the impacts they have need to be carefully managed, so that visitors do not destroy the natural wonders that attracted them to a destination in the first place. This book features contributions from tourism and recreation researchers and practitioners exploring the relationship between tourism, hospitality, protected areas, livelihoods and both physical and emotional human wellbeing. The book includes sections focused on theory, policy and practice, and case studies, to inform and guide industry decisions to address real-world problems and proactively plan for a sustainable and healthy future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the face of international and domestic tourism and sharply focused attention on the importance of tourist health, safety and wellbeing like never before. This book offers a unique perspective on the challenges facing the world’s largest service industry to protect and care for customers in a rapidly evolving environment where borders have closed, social distancing rules apply and personal hygiene has become a key focus in everyday life. Yet tourism is a very resilient industry and history shows there is always an immediate surge toward recovery after a crisis has passed. Humans want to travel and see the world. While we appreciate that the pandemic is far from over, already there are reports of pent-up demand for travel as restrictions ease at some destinations and borders begin to open. As we move hopefully toward the recovery phase and people begin to move around for business and pleasure, this book presents the reader with key information and insights in both traditional and emerging areas of tourist health, safety and wellbeing, recognising that the world is now shaped by this pandemic, bringing change, potentially enduring benefits and lasting legacies.

This book comprises studies that reflect on various influences of excessive tourism development in protected areas, and solutions designed and initiated to mitigate such challenges. A large proportion of tourism in Mediterranean destinations constitutes nature-based tourism, in particular, tourism in parks and protected areas. As a destination experiences higher intensity and density of tourism, the potential conflict between maintaining a healthy natural environment and economic development also increases. This has urged planners and decision-makers to devise and adopt innovative approaches that seek to strike a balance between tourism development and nature conservation. This book demonstrates the importance of collaboration across and beyond disciplines and of all groups of stakeholders for maximization of societal impacts and tourism-related benefits.

From its late nineteenth century origins, the concept of protected areas has increased in scope and complexity. It now has to come to terms with the twenty first century world of neo-liberal politics, performance metrics and the growing and complex demands of tourism. This international collection of papers explores how this might be done, detailing the issues involved, and the value and values that protected areas have for economies, peoples and environments. Special attention is given to World Heritage Sites, tourism planning and their communities, to the growth of private protected areas, and to the health values of protected areas. Other subjects include private sector business involvement in protected areas, concessions policy experiments, and how the work of the world’s largest protected area agency, the US National Park Service, is adapting to changing political and market demands, and to the challenges of sustainable development. It concludes with a searching interview with a member of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. The chapters were originally published in a special issue in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Theoretical and practical insights that offer a platform for critical discussion and examine emergent controversies within the tourism industry such as the growth of alternative business models, travel in light of climate change and human resource ethics given the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), data and algorithms.

All around the world, as growing numbers of tourists and recreational visitors flock to protected and other natural areas stimulated by a renewed search for physical, mental, and even spiritual health and wellbeing, different practices and behaviours emerge. This book brings together experiences and perspectives from many countries around the world. On the demand side, the experiences are united by the desire of tourists to find a real and regenerating connection in nature. On the supply side, designing and managing tourist systems that preserve natural capital in good condition requires great professionalism to dynamically maintain a fragile and delicate balance between tourists, local communities, and nature. By understanding the attitudes and emerging norms of behaviour within the context of nature-based tourism, we can begin to sketch a roadmap to enable more holistic, enjoyable, healthy and responsible visitor experiences; facilitate ecosystem conservation; contribute to the mental and physical wellbeing of tourists and outdoor recreationists; and build sustainable economies and resilient destinations and livelihoods. This book is of great relevance for academic researchers, advanced tourism and conservation students, and practitioners working in nature-based tourism and conservation, especially those with a focus on natural destinations, as well as those interested in consumer behaviour, business and management, recreation, and sustainable tourism development.

This book provides holistic insights into management of protected areas across East Asia and identifies current trends in mountain tourism within the broader field of human geography and nature conservation. The book describes the diversification in visitors and expanding protected areas territories in different Asian countries during recent years. It also compares protected areas networks in the context of the changing demographic profiles of visitors and provides an interdisciplinary transnational appraisal of mountain-based tourism in Asia based on national and international statistics. The research combines specific case studies at the individual country and destination level with trans-regional trends, thereby offering analysis from both the perspective of supply (parks, protected areas, and stakeholders) and demand (mountain tourist market trends and segments). The book is a useful resource for students and academics in tourism and protected areas studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers interested in Asian countries.