Digital voluntourism and sense of place: volunteers’ responsibility towards an ‘imaginary locality’
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2412550AbstractDigital volunteer tourism (DVT) has emerged as a viable alternative to positively impact destinations when travel is impossible during times of crisis. This leaves volunteers, the ‘agents’ in volunteer projects and development work, who might often identify with a destination or specific cause, without a tangible link to the locality. Raising the important question of what role being physically connected to the locality plays in voluntourism; this study focuses on volunteers’ perception of their own impact in an out-of-reach destination. Through online fieldwork during an eight-week internship with a volunteer organisation in Fiji, this paper offers first insights into the phenomenon of digital voluntourism by discussing the role that a link to the destination and a sense of place play in still feeling to be making a difference. Furthermore, this debate reveals whether and how DVT intends to stimulate a sense of belonging of those volunteers to foster their sense of responsibility, while juxtaposing these digital programmes to in-situ voluntourism. This paper, therefore, constitutes one of the first contributions conceptualising the geography of digital voluntourism, arguing that while DVT has its merits in contributing to the sustainable development agenda, the physical distance and isolation from the place where this impact should be felt compromise their feelings of achievement and understanding of the locality even more than in usual voluntourism projects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Value of Podcasts for Research Dissemination: The Tourism Geographies Podcast
AbstractHow effective are podcasts in disseminating academic research and engaging audiences beyond traditional scholarly channels? This study investigates the Tourism Geographies Podcast to assess its value as a research communication tool. The objectives were to explore how podcast participation shaped academics’ approaches to dissemination, the visibility and feedback they received, and the comparative benefits of podcasting over conventional outputs. Data were collected from 29 podcast guests across three seasons through written, audio, and interview responses (29.9% response rate). Thematic analysis revealed three main outcomes: the need for simplification and clarity, greater awareness of diverse audiences, and enhanced reflexivity about the broader relevance of research. While large-scale professional impacts were limited, participants reported increased visibility, recognition, and confidence in public engagement. Podcasts were consistently valued as accessible, conversational, and democratic. These findings suggest that podcasting fosters knowledge translation and offers a participatory, socially responsive complement to traditional dissemination. This algins closely with and contributes to the emerging field of Digital Humanities and Social Science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Future Trends in Tourism Geographies and Podcast Reflections
In this episode, the Tourism Geographies Podcast editors reflect on the first three seasons, highlighting what they enjoyed most about the producing the podcasts. Further, the editors reflect on different trends in tourism geographies scholarship. Thanks for listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Polar tourism and the changing geographies of the Arctic and the Antarctic regions
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2462777AbstractThe polar areas have long endured as an exotic playground for adventure in the wilderness. Tourism figures have remained low and hence the regions hold a marginal position in the global tourism system. Today, climate change and its significant impact on ecosystems and communities in high latitudes as well as geopolitical change drive attention to the polar regions. Increasing tourist numbers manifest this. While early travel records and diaries are an integral part of the history of exploration, academic research into tourism cannot be found to any greater degree prior to the 1980s This review highlights major traits in polar tourism research to date and identifies potential avenues for future research within the field. It shows that polar tourism research is a well-established orientation for tourism research today. However, great variations are in place, and far-fetched generalizations about the two polar regions are growing increasingly problematic. In this context, geographical perspectives should be utilized in order to understand polar tourism and its repercussions in a wider context of development, on different geographical scales, and even beyond the polar regions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Regenerative tourism development as a response to crisis: harnessing practise-led approaches
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2381071AbstractThe pandemic has drawn attention to the unsustainable nature of tourism, intensifying social and economic inequalities and heightening issues of urban vulnerability. As destinations reimagine their future, a holistic approach that addresses social and ecological perspectives through collaboration, stewardship and environmental ethics is required. Regenerative tourism enables destination communities to develop new ways of thinking and build the capability and capacity to work towards embedding tourism practices and ecological processes that advocate human and non-human health and wellbeing. As the tourist-historic city of York, United Kingdom emerged from the pandemic, practice-led regenerative development was evident in the city’s framework for post-Covid recovery and renewal. Semi-structured interviews with leading stakeholders identified how communities can build sustainable city ecologies through living systems thinking, evidenced through collaborative models of engagement. In York, the pandemic catalysed community stewardship and a re-orientation towards a more inclusive tourism environment. This research demonstrates how regenerative practice principles manifest in the interconnections and the networks that support the distinctive qualities and needs of York’s local communities. The study also contributes to understanding how regenerative tourism approaches support cultural revival, as evident in York. Such approaches to tourism management in historic cities highlights the transformative potential of practice-led regenerative development as a tool for addressing tourism development concerns in urban spaces. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This podcast discusses recent research published in Tourism Geographies: An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment.We talk with authors about their research contributions to share the why and how of their research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Netherlands