Susanne Becken
Griffith University, Tourism, Leisure, and Sport Management, Faculty Member
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Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Sustainability, Carbon Taxes, Tourist Behaviour, Climate policy, and 22 moreDisaster risk management, Disaster Management, Resilience (Sustainability), Pacific Islands Forum, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Biochemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Water quality, Water Treatment, Wastewater Treatment, Bioenergy, Biofuels, Bioprocessing, Bioproducts, Biomass Processing, Mobilities, Transport, Tourism/leisure, Tourists' Experiences, Embodiment, and Corporate Social Responsibility edit
Inbound tourist arrivals into China have been declining in recent years, possibly in response to increasing levels of urban air pollution. To examine Westerners’ contemporary views on China as a travel destination, with a particular focus... more
Inbound tourist arrivals into China have been declining in recent years, possibly in response to increasing levels of urban air pollution. To examine Westerners’ contemporary views on China as a travel destination, with a particular focus on air pollution, this research surveyed 600 US and Australian residents. An online panel survey collected data on cognitive and affective destination image, cognitive and affective risk perceptions, intention to visit China and key demographic variables. The findings show that, while China’s cognitive image attributes were perceived positively, potential travelers expressed negative views about travel risks in China in general and about air quality in particular. Importantly, feelings towards the risk of air quality had a significant negative impact on destination image as well as intention to visit China. The research contributes to theory by highlighting the importance of considering affective risk perceptions in destination image studies. While...
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In line with the Paris Agreement, the global hotel sector must reduce its carbon emissions by 66% by 2030 and 90% by 2050. Adopting renewable energy technology (RET) to produce electricity on site is one of the UN’s recommended tools for... more
In line with the Paris Agreement, the global hotel sector must reduce its carbon emissions by 66% by 2030 and 90% by 2050. Adopting renewable energy technology (RET) to produce electricity on site is one of the UN’s recommended tools for the hotel sector. Some hotels have explored certain sustainable practices such as light-emitting diode lights, T5 fluorescent tubes, motion sensors, the key-card system, and water-cooled chillers. However, several studies have reported low RET adoption in the hotel sector globally. There are limited studies exploring RET adoption in the hotel context. In response to a strong call to action to the hotel sector, this dissertation addresses this gap by identifying key dynamics that underpin RET adoption, how they influence RET adoption rate, and how these dynamics promote sustainability growth of RET adoption while balancing environmental, social and economic risks and benefits. The results of a systematic quantitative literature review indicate that R...
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The aim of this book is to contribute a much deeper understanding of tourism crisis and disaster management with a specific focus on the Asia-Pacific. Chapters contributed by international tourism scholars and practitioners discuss both... more
The aim of this book is to contribute a much deeper understanding of tourism crisis and disaster management with a specific focus on the Asia-Pacific. Chapters contributed by international tourism scholars and practitioners discuss both the theoretical and practical approaches towards successful crisis management. This book examines a number of crisis and disaster types, including crises caused by crime, natural disaster, political conflict and financial crisis. The book has 16 chapters and is structured along the lifestyle stages of a crisis or disaster: (1) planning and preparedness activities before a crisis or disaster; (2) response to, or management of, a crisis or disaster as it occurs; and (3) a final resolution to a new or improved state after the crisis or disaster is over.
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A presentation at the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre Workshop, held 5-6 July 2007. Tourism is dependent on the climate, and climate change will impact on tourism in various ways. Tourism is increasingly carbon intensive,... more
A presentation at the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre Workshop, held 5-6 July 2007. Tourism is dependent on the climate, and climate change will impact on tourism in various ways. Tourism is increasingly carbon intensive, and consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their carbon footprint. This presentation is an overview of tourism and climate change, and examines topics including issues, behaviours, and responses.
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ABSTRACT Weather conditions that influence natural resource-based tourist destinations are likely to be affected by climate change, but our understanding of how businesses and destinations manage for present and future conditions is... more
ABSTRACT Weather conditions that influence natural resource-based tourist destinations are likely to be affected by climate change, but our understanding of how businesses and destinations manage for present and future conditions is limited. In this study we report on the relationships between weather and tourism activities in the Queenstown-Lake Wanaka region, South Island, New Zealand. Key stakeholder interviews and a workshop form the empirical basis of this paper. Coping range application ideas derived from ecological management literature are used to develop a framework to understand and inform thinking and strategies around how tourism businesses and destinations are currently responding to the weather and perhaps could in future respond to climate change. Results show that within a destination individual businesses have widely varying relationships with the weather, with each type of activity operating within its own coping range to particular environmental gradients, for example temperature. Coping, which can be observed outside the ‘ideal’ range of a particular environmental gradient, requires business adjustments so as to cope with increasingly marginal conditions, up to a Critical Stop Point – the ultimate threshold. The data suggest that increased need for adjustments impacts on business viability, and more planned adaptation measures would be necessary to increase viability under increasingly detrimental climatic conditions. Discussion at a destination level workshop indicates that at and beyond thresholds, keystone industry and destination level strategic adaptation planning is required to ensure the viability of the destination as a whole.
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Marketing, Tourism Management, Green Marketing, Sustainable Tourism, Environmental Sustainability, and 11 moreSegmentation (Marketing), Market Segmentation, Tourism, Voluntary Carbon Offsetting, Turnover, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Green and Sustainability Practices, Carbon Fibers, Environmental Preservation through Tourism, Travel Tourism, and Commercial Services
give a nod to indigenous peoples in the so-called North’ in her larger body of research. In fact, this collection (or set of explorations) is uneasily situated in international relations conversations (Myanna Lahsen’s chapter in... more
give a nod to indigenous peoples in the so-called North’ in her larger body of research. In fact, this collection (or set of explorations) is uneasily situated in international relations conversations (Myanna Lahsen’s chapter in particular). Nonetheless, this edgy aspect to the project embodies many of the complex contestations that intersect and move within these issues of power, knowledge, norms, discourses and climate change. I suspect this low-intensity dissonance is by design. While the attention paid to the theoretical divisions within constructivism risks reifying what is operationally often a matter of emphasis, this restlessness in the book works well overall. The editor is clearly sensitive to a number of issues as she pre-figures many potential critiques in the Introduction. She writes ‘. . .the book cannot contain all possible perspectives. . .we urge others to learn from our efforts and to generate further studies, comparisons and constructive suggestions. . .’. She is correct. Nonetheless, while her own self-evaluation rightly calls for analyses of other contexts, such as Africa and Asia, I found that biophysical agency was remarkably underconsidered. The book could have benefited from more consistent accounting of this unmistakably vital ‘actor’. Moreover, greater attention paid to the varied natural science processes shaping understanding of climate change (along with social, political and cultural factors) in the theatre of discursive structuration would have further strengthened the volume. As it stands, analyses of the variegated role of biophysical processes in the social construction of climate change are awkwardly obscured. While Nicholas Onuf notes this heterogeneity in the Foreword, it is not consistently carried through the book. In highly contentious neo-millennial environmental challenges such as climate change, social constructionist approaches need to be scrupulous in order to minimize sparking illusory and counterproductive debates. While such interventions seek to enhance understanding of complex and dynamic human-environment interactions, misuse (catalogued voluminously through time) instead can enhance obfuscation. Amid these dangers, I found that the present collection very successfully navigated around these potential pitfalls by treading that treacherous ‘middle ground’ between positivism and pure subjectivity, and provided an incisive and illuminating series of papers. Thus, meeting the editor’s aforementioned goals many times over, the volume provides highly informative and valuable building blocks for understanding of power-knowledge interactions as they relate to climate change. With a critical edge, these contributions trace shifts in discourses and policy considerations, while they help to anticipate future changes in various contexts and social settings.
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ABSTRACT Some researchers have argued that resilience is a useful concept for understanding impacts on social-ecological systems, such as tourist destinations. This paper presents the development of a resilience framework for tourist... more
ABSTRACT Some researchers have argued that resilience is a useful concept for understanding impacts on social-ecological systems, such as tourist destinations. This paper presents the development of a resilience framework for tourist destinations with a particular focus on climatic disturbances or stress, and their impacts on tourism activity sub-systems. Building on the model of a ‘stability landscape’, this research uses primary data from the Queenstown-Wanaka destination in New Zealand to evaluate the concept of resilience and to formulate surrogates that describe the factors that shape resilience. Challenges for future research, including the proactive building of resilience, are outlined. This research represents a good example of an interdisciplinary approach that transcends existing epistemologies in tourism.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide contrasting narratives of what the future of Asia Pacific tourism may look like, and to identify how current policy interventions and recommendations made for coronavirus disease 2019... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide contrasting narratives of what the future of Asia Pacific tourism may look like, and to identify how current policy interventions and recommendations made for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovery shape the system's trajectory. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on a set of four possible futures emerging from COVID-19, tourism policy responses are analysed and a link to their potential contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals is made. Findings A system goal is presented for each scenario, and what this means for the tourism system. Existing policies indicate that tourism is moving towards a “Discipline” future, although evidence for all four trajectories could be identified. Whilst the “Transform” scenario is most aligned with a sustainable future, the findings highlight that sustainability outcomes are possible in the other scenarios as well, if risks are managed adequately. Research limitations/implications The l...
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Abstract Effective climate change action relies on the production of relevant knowledge. This review provides an interdisciplinary meta-analysis to critically assess tourism and climate change knowledge production across three knowledge... more
Abstract Effective climate change action relies on the production of relevant knowledge. This review provides an interdisciplinary meta-analysis to critically assess tourism and climate change knowledge production across three knowledge domains: academic, practical and political. Building on existing tourism knowledge frameworks and applying systems thinking, the Tourism Climate Change Knowledge System is developed consisting of five knowledge dimensions: Source of knowledge, Knowledge creation, Influence on knowledge, Knowledge content and Knowledge impact. Results reveal how knowledge differs across domains and what barriers impede effective knowledge generation. While some links could be identified, there remains a disconnect between academic knowledge outputs and practical and political knowledge needs. The holistic lens enables the formulation of recommendations to enhance the production and use of knowledge.
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The growing number of social media users and their posts provide valuable data about the sentiment that they have toward different services as well as people. Recent advances in big data analytics and natural language processing provided... more
The growing number of social media users and their posts provide valuable data about the sentiment that they have toward different services as well as people. Recent advances in big data analytics and natural language processing provided means to automatically calculate sentiment in text. Sentiment analysis is method which can be used to analyze social media content, it basically converts social media post text into quantitative data. While significant work was directed toward sentiment analytics of English text there is limited attention toward sentiment analytic of Chinese language. In this work we propose and test method to identify sentiment in Chinese social media posts and to test our method we rely on posts sent by visitors of Great Barrier Reef by users of most popular Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo. We elaborate process of capturing, managing and also we describe method for sentiment calculation, which provided details of sentiment toward the different GBR destina...
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Purpose Destination monitoring is crucial to understand performance and identify key points of differentiation. Visitor satisfaction is an essential driver of destination performance. With the fast-growing volume of user-generated content... more
Purpose Destination monitoring is crucial to understand performance and identify key points of differentiation. Visitor satisfaction is an essential driver of destination performance. With the fast-growing volume of user-generated content through social media, it is now possible to tap into very large amounts of data provided by travellers as they share their experiences. Analysing these data for consumer sentiment has become attractive for destinations and companies. The idea of drawing on social media sentiment for satisfaction monitoring aligns well with the broader move towards smart destinations and real-time information processing. Thus, this paper aims to examine whether the electronic word of mouth originating from Twitter posts offers a useful source for assessing destination sentiment. Importantly, this research examines what caveats need to be considered when interpreting the findings. Design/methodology/approach This research focusses on a prominent tourist destination s...
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The growing number of social media users and vast volume of posts could provide valuable information about the sentiment toward different locations, services as well as people. Recent advances in Big Data analytics and natural language... more
The growing number of social media users and vast volume of posts could provide valuable information about the sentiment toward different locations, services as well as people. Recent advances in Big Data analytics and natural language processing often means to automatically calculate sentiment in these posts. Sentiment analysis is challenging and computationally demanding task due to the volume of data, misspelling, emoticons as well as abbreviations. While significant work was directed toward the sentiment analysis of English text there is limited attention in literature toward the sentiment analytic of Chinese language. In this work we propose method to identify the sentiment in Chinese social media posts and to test our method we rely on posts sent by visitors of Great Barrier Reef by users of most popular Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo. We elaborate process of capturing of weibo posts, describe a creation of lexicon as well as develop and explain algorithm for sentime...
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With the growth of smartphone usage the number of social media posts has significantly increased and represents potentially valuable information for management, including of natural resources and the environment. Already, evidence of... more
With the growth of smartphone usage the number of social media posts has significantly increased and represents potentially valuable information for management, including of natural resources and the environment. Already, evidence of using 'human sensor' in crises management suggests that collective knowledge could be used to complement traditional monitoring. This research uses Twitter data posted from the Great Barrier Reef region, Australia, to assess whether the extent and type of data could be used to Great Barrier Reef organisations as part of their monitoring program. The analysis reveals that large amounts of tweets, covering the geographic area of interest, are available and that the pool of information providers is greatly enhanced by the large number of tourists to this region. A keyword and sentiment analysis demonstrates the usefulness of the Twitter data, but also highlights that the actual number of Reef-related tweets is comparatively small and lacks specific...
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Marketing, Economics, Scepticism, Climate Change, Climate Change Adaptation, and 15 moreClimate change policy, Climatology, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Tourism, Environmental Sustainability, Sustainable Tourism Development, Tourism, Agnotology, Climate Change Politics, Climate Change Skepticism, Climate change denial, Denial, Climate Politics, Elsevier, and Commercial Services
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Climate change poses complex challenges and addressing these requires increasing integration across policy domains. This research developed a framework to assess policy integration between the tourism and climate change domains by... more
Climate change poses complex challenges and addressing these requires increasing integration across policy domains. This research developed a framework to assess policy integration between the tourism and climate change domains by examining coverage, scope, materiality and alignment. A database of 101 policy documents was compiled, representing 61 countries over 17 years. Only 37 documents covered the tourism-climate nexus substantially, suggesting climate change has not yet become a priority for tourism policy makers. Considering that tourism makes considerable contributions to and is substantially impacted by climate change, the observed gaps in tourism policy needs to be addressed. The paper concludes with some minimum expectations for policy integration, including examples of good practice, and suggests that more effort is required to achieve climate change policy integration in tourism.
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Purpose This paper aims to investigate weather sensitivity of tourism businesses in New Zealand to examine whether adaptive responses and “learning” about current weather can help operators to prepare more proactively for future climatic... more
Purpose This paper aims to investigate weather sensitivity of tourism businesses in New Zealand to examine whether adaptive responses and “learning” about current weather can help operators to prepare more proactively for future climatic changes. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on data from interviews with 57 tourism operators and stakeholders in three key tourist destinations in New Zealand. Data were content-analysed and coded into weather types, impacts and business responses. Findings This research found that tourism stakeholders were well aware of the specific weather conditions that caused business problems, and they had considerable knowledge and experience in responding to conditions effectively, even though the causal chain of weather conditions and direct and indirect tourism impacts was often quite complex. Importantly, operators were found to learn from previous experience and also from other agents at the destination. Thus, the research established that a c...
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... Jude Wilson is a Doctoral Student, Lincoln University, PO Box 84, Lincoln 8162, New Zealand (E-mail: wilsonj2@lincoln.ac.nz ... Planning generally is concerned with 'pre-determining a course of... more
... Jude Wilson is a Doctoral Student, Lincoln University, PO Box 84, Lincoln 8162, New Zealand (E-mail: wilsonj2@lincoln.ac.nz ... Planning generally is concerned with 'pre-determining a course of action' to achieve a desired goal (Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth, 1979) and in the case ...
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Yield Research Programme was undertaken by Lincoln University in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism and the Tourism Industry Association, with support from Tourism New Zealand. Special ...
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... Hence, daily travel distance decreased for international tourists between 1999 and 2001. The most important drivers of tourism energy use in New Zealand are internal domestic air travel (34.5% of total energy use in 2001), private... more
... Hence, daily travel distance decreased for international tourists between 1999 and 2001. The most important drivers of tourism energy use in New Zealand are internal domestic air travel (34.5% of total energy use in 2001), private Table 13.4 Summary of energy use by ...
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... with the spatial analysis, allowed some indication of regional economic benefits. To account for potential differences between different cultures of origin, coach tourists were segmented into Australian, European, North American and... more
... with the spatial analysis, allowed some indication of regional economic benefits. To account for potential differences between different cultures of origin, coach tourists were segmented into Australian, European, North American and Asian tourists. While coach tourism by nature ...
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Voluntary carbon offsetting was popularised during the last decade, particularly by airlines, as a tool to ‘neutralise’ emissions associated with travel. Although there is a wide range of carbon offsetting schemes for tourism, the uptake... more
Voluntary carbon offsetting was popularised during the last decade, particularly by airlines, as a tool to ‘neutralise’ emissions associated with travel. Although there is a wide range of carbon offsetting schemes for tourism, the uptake of these programs has been reportedly low. Regardless, little research has explored the visitor segments who voluntarily undertake carbon offsetting. Consequently, this research investigates the prevalence of carbon offsetting amongst international tourists to Australia between 2008 and 2010 and, using cluster analysis, segments the carbon offsetters into three distinct markets. Findings reveal a stable carbon offsetting market, despite a Global Financial Crisis occurring during the reference period. Further, travellers from the United Kingdom/Europe were more likely to carbon offset, while those from Asia were less likely to participate in the schemes. Thus, this could indicate that the social marketing, public discourse and substantial media coverage in the United Kingdom/Europe had enhanced climate change mitigation behaviours.