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Copyright of Leisure/Loisir: Journal of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Beaches are distinctive destinations, and their attractiveness is decisive for attracting tourists, enriching their experiences, and sustaining coastal tourism. This study investigates how different dimensions of beach attractiveness—scenery and cleanliness, facilities and services, geophysical aspects, and access and comfort—affect visitors‘ overall beach experience and revisit intention. By utilizing structural equation modelling (SEM) in AMOS, with data from 311 respondents, this study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how these factors contribute to beach tourism sustainability. The mediating role of overall beach experience between beach attractiveness and revisit intention was also examined. The findings indicate that beach scenery and cleanliness, geophysical aspects, and facilities and services have direct positive effects on the overall experience of beach users. The results also revealed the positive direct effects of beach scenery and cleanliness, and geophysical aspects on revisit intention. Finally, overall experience mediated the positive indirect effects of facilities and services and access and comfort dimensions on revisit intention. These findings underscore the importance of enhancing beach attractiveness and improving user experience to encourage revisitation and promote sustainable beach tourism. The results are further discussed from a demand perspective and implications are provided for beach management, policymakers, regulators, and local governments on the supply side to support the development of sustainable beach tourism in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the Integrated Threat Theory as a framework for an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to examine the impacts of tourism on Seychelles' residents. In-depth interviews of 28 informants revealed residents' perceptions of tourism's negative impacts. Findings were combined with factors from previous studies in a quantitative survey of 281 respondents for a more comprehensive view. Results revealed that residents perceived restricted access to beaches near hotels, the strain on public infrastructure, economic leakages, and unfavourable employment prospects (vis-a-vis expatriate staffers) as unsavoury aspects of tourism. These impacts notwithstanding, Seychellois remain positively disposed to tourism and hold favourable attitudes towards tourists. Thus, while realistic and symbolic threats were confirmed, they did not translate into intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through This research paper we will highlight the conceptual framework of the blue economy, clarify its most important principles, and indicate the importance of the blue economy and its most important sectors. In the end, we will present the endeavors and experiences of some Arab countries in this field, which became clear that, despite the novelty of the term, Arab countries have had successful experiences to some extent in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the challenges faced by public and private stakeholders at Eastern Beach in East London, that are preventing attainment of Blue Flag status. Blue Flag beaches are a major tourism drawcard, yet the Eastern Cape province of South Africa is facing obstacles that impede achievement of this ecolabel. To investigate this, the paper focuses on Eastern beach. Twenty public and private stakeholders involved in coastal planning and management in East London participated in individual virtual semi-structured interviews. Through thematic analysis, key themes were identified. Findings indicate that public control, safety and security as well as infrastructure are key challenges. Environmental management also requires attention as several negative impacts prevail. Furthermore, the need for concerted stakeholder coordination in the drive toward Blue Flag status emerged as a necessity. Considering the potential of Eastern Beach, it would be favourable to East London to have this beach accredited. It would enhance sustainable tourism development with its positive economic, social and environmental impacts. The identification of the challenges can assist stakeholders in moving towards this status. These findings could also apply to managers at other beaches that are aiming to attain, maintain or regain Blue Flag accreditation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to explain the intended environmentally responsible behavior of Beach visitors. Beach tourism is one of the most vulnerable areas, and yet sensitive to the consequences of littering caused by the growing population of beach visitors. This work aims to determine the factors significantly influencing intended environmentally responsible behavior, particularly Beach litter prevention. An extended theory of planned behavior is used to explain this phenomenon by incorporating biospheric value and positive affect. Convenience sampling techniques were used to collect the data, and a survey was conducted in the Gunung Kidul area, Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia. The survey questionnaires were distributed in the three research sites: Krakal, Baron, and Sunda Beaches. The sample of this research consisted of 317 Beach visitors. The results were obtained from Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) following a two-step analysis to ensure and evaluate the accuracy and quality of the measurements and the model. The result demonstrates a positive association between biospheric value and positive affect and attitude toward behavior. Besides, attitude toward behavior and perceived behavioral control predict beach litter prevention intention, whereas subjective norms were insignificant. This study integrated biospheric value and positive affect to advance the theory of planned behavior. This work provides additional knowledge to the literature, particularly in the context of Beach tourism. The results highlighted the importance of biospheric value and positive affect, which can be leveraged when considering solutions to the littering problem. Both practical implications and future research agenda are also discussed in this study. In addition, this work addressed the limitation and future direction of this research, which suggest adopting this model in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of the human-environment interface predicates the need for tools and techniques that can enable the effective translation of weather and climate products into decision-relevant information. Indices are a category of such tools that may be used to simplify multi-faceted climate information for economic and other decision-making. Climate indices for tourism have been popularized in the literature over the past three decades, but despite their prevalence, these indices have a number of limitations, including coarse temporal resolution, subjective rating and weighting schemes, and lack of empirical validation. This paper critically assesses the design of the tourism climate index, the holiday climate index-beach, and a new, mathematically optimized index developed for the unique contextual realities of Great Lakes beach tourism. This new methodology combines the use of expert knowledge, stated visitor preferences, and mathematical optimization to develop an index that assigns daily weather scores based on four weather sub-indices (thermal comfort, wind speed, precipitation, and cloud cover). These daily scores are then averaged to the monthly level and correlated to visitation data at two beach parks in Ontario (Canada). This optimized index demonstrates a strong fit (R2 = 0.734, 0.657) with observed visitation at Pinery Provincial Park and Sandbanks Provincial Park, outperforming both the tourism climate index (R2 = 0.474, 0.018) and the holiday climate index-beach (R2 = 0.668, 0.427). This study advances our understanding of the magnitude and seasonality of weather impact on beach tourist visitation and can inform decision-making of tourism marketers and destination managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saayman, M. and Saayman, A., 2017. How important are Blue Flag awards in beach choice? South Africa's almost 3000-km coastline has long stretches of sandy beaches. An important yardstick for measuring their quality is the Blue Flag award, desired by beach and coastal management agencies. This paper investigates whether the Blue Flag status necessarily attracts a different beachgoer. It asks whether clear differences can be found between beachgoers at Blue Flag and non-Blue Flag beaches. Surveys of beachgoers were conducted during summer (March to April 2014) at six beaches near Cape Town and three near Mossel Bay. Four of these nine Western Cape beaches had Blue Flag status. The data from 374 completed questionnaires collected via random sampling were analysed using principal component analysis and logistic regression analysis. The results showed that seven beach-specific attributes attract beachgoers, with the most important ones being beach cleanliness and infrastructure. The results of the logistic regression showed that Blue Flag beachgoers are more likely to be locals, travelling in larger groups and who are motivated to visit the specific beach on the basis of attractiveness. They also regard visual beach cleanliness as more important. The paper has several findings, namely, it identified unique motives for travelling to a beach and it identified the attributes that mattered to beachgoers. It also highlighted the need for educational activities as well as environmental issues. Another important finding is a clear distinction between Blue Flag and non-Blue Flag beachgoers. This innovative study made a contribution in terms of literature and practise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal tourism is impacted by regional environmental change, including sea-level rise and climatic change. A case study at five Japanese beaches was conducted to determine the relative difference in coastal and climatic changes that are important for recreational beach tourism. Future climate conditions and projections of shoreline changes due to sea-level rise were estimated using ensembles of 14 and 21 Global Circulation Models (GCMs), respectively. The Holiday Climate Index (HCI:Beach) specific to recreational beach use was used to assess historical and future climatic suitability while beach loss area was used to quantify physical changes to beach conditions. Diminished beaches with improved climate conditions were observed at all sites except Yonehara, which had both diminished beach and climate conditions. Comparing HCI:Beach scores relative to historical conditions revealed a change of −2.4 to +10%, while beach losses were typically >60%. These results highlight that beach tourism suitability at the study sites will likely exhibit greater changes due to sea-level rise, compared to those driven by changing atmospheric conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waves are movements of ups and downs of seawater that carry energy. This wave energy can erode the beach shore, including the Kenjeran Beach. The areas of eroded coast will depend on the magnitude of the energy of the waves. This research aimed to analyze wind and ocean waves for the management of coastal tourism areas, mainly related to visitor safety. This research used wind and wave data from BMKG obtained for ten years (2009-2018), and they were processed using Software ArcGis 9.3 and Software WRPOLT View 8.0.2. The statistical method used in this research was the Windrose method, which analyzed the wind direction and speed in a certain place and was the ratio of the wind blowing in each wind direction. The distribution of wind was intended to determine the significant wind speed and direction that have an effect in 10 years. The wind had an average speed of 5.31 m/s from 2009 to 2018. The variation in the dominant wind direction movement occurred in the range of 90° to 270°, but overall, the wind came from the East and Southeast. The highest ocean waves caused by wind in the Kenjeran tourism area were 0.8 m and occurred in 2014. It can be concluded that the wind and the ocean waves in the coastal tourism area of Kenjeran are relatively weak. Thus, in terms of security and safety for visitors, Kenjeran beach is very suitable for tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate indices have a long history of use to combine multi-faceted climate information for tourism resource evaluation. Traditionally, indices have been used to assess tourists' sensitivity to destination climatic pull factors, not tourists' sensitivity to source market climate as a push factor for seasonality-driven markets. This study addresses this gap by using tourism climate indices to assess the influence of climatic push and pull factors for seasonal fluctuations in arrivals to Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and Saint Lucia, from the province of Ontario, Canada (from January 2008 to December 2017). Building on the conceptual foundation of the Holiday Climate Index:Beach (HCI:Beach), this study uses an optimization algorithm to develop two indices: (1) an optimized in-situ index that estimates the climatic pull-factor of the destination, and (2) an optimized ex-situ index that estimates the climatic push-factor from the source market. Findings reveal the optimized ex-situ (push) index explains 83% (R2 = 0.830) of the variability in total monthly arrivals from Ontario and has greater predictive accuracy than the in-situ (pull) index. The research advances understanding of climatic influences on Caribbean tourism arrivals and provides the foundation for new seasonal forecast-based Climate Services (CS) for destination managers and marketers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of perceived service quality and perceived value on attitude-behavior models is still under investigation in literature. This study is aimed at examining tourists' revisit intention to beach destinations using a conceptual model developed by adding two additional predictors, service quality and perceived value, with the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data were collected by a personal-administered survey of 419 tourists who had visited Cox's Bazar Beach in Bangladesh. A PLS-based SEM was applied to examine relations among various constructs of the conceptual model. The results revealed that perceived value significantly influenced both tourists' attitudes and revisit intention but service quality influenced tourists' attitudes only. These findings contribute to the body of knowledge in tourism literature as well as provide useful insights for designing effective marketing offering to provoke tourists to revisit beach destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to determine the destination competitiveness of beach tourism in Batangas Province as input to the proposed tourism sustainable development plan. It assessed the level of sustainability of the beach destinations in Batangas Province relative to economy, socio cultural and environment. It also tackled on how competitive are the destinations in Batangas Province in relation to inherited resources, created resources, destination management, supporting factors, demand conditions and situational conditions. The study is quantitative in nature where it utilized descriptive method design that involved the collection of primary data using structured questionnaire. Cronbach Alpha was used to test the reliability of the tool after pilot testing. Quantitative method was used to assess the level of sustainability of the beach destination so with the competitiveness of the beach destinations in the municipalities of Calatagan, Nasugbu and San Juan in Batangas Province for a filed survey. There were 420 respondents used in gathering data which composed of different stakeholders such as tourists, residents, resort owners and local government unit treated with utmost confidentiality using purposive sampling. The statistical treatment of data was applied such as frequency, percentage, weighted mean, analysis of variance or F-test and z-test and Pearson-R. Findings revealed that majority of the respondents are 15 to 20 years old, female, single, college graduate and from San Juan, Batangas. The respondents assessed the evidence of sustainability of beach destinations in Batangas Province as evident and sustainable on overall indicators for economy, socio cultural and environment. The respondents agree on the competitiveness of beach destinations in relation to inherited resources, created resources, destination management, supporting factors, demand factors and situational condition which found competitive. A tourism sustainable development plan was proposed so that policy makers can use this approach for the development of tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through an empirical investigation of the historical relationship between the destination climate and tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, this study presents the first revealed preference evaluation of a climate index informed by tourists' stated climatic preferences for coastal-beach tourism (i.e., a sun-sand-surf or 3S travel market). The goal of this multi-organization collaboration was to examine the potential application of a newly designed climate index—the Holiday Climate Index (HCI):Beach—for three Caribbean destinations (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Lucia). This paper provides an overview of the evolution of climate indices, including the development of the (HCI):Beach. To test the validity of climate indices for a beach travel market, daily climate ratings based on outputs from the Tourism Climate Index and the HCI were correlated with monthly arrivals data from Canada (a key source market) at an island destination scale. The results underscore the strength of the new index, with each destination scoring consistently higher using the HCI:Beach, including a stronger relationship (R2) between index scores and tourist arrivals. These findings demonstrate the value of combining stated and revealed preference methodologies to predict tourism demand and highlight opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surf zone injury and environmental condition data were collected concurrently during the summer of 2014 along the Delaware coast. Documented injury data included injury type, gender, age and activity, while measured environmental conditions included local wave height, wave period and foreshore slope. Daily water user counts were used to normalize injury rates relative to the number of beachgoers at risk. There were 280 injuries over 116 sample days along the entire Delaware coast and 169 injuries over 82 sample days within the 5-beach focused study area where water user count data were available. Injuries were not distributed randomly as tested against a Poisson distribution and occurred in clusters with up to 15 injuries occurring in a single day. There were 32 serious injuries (cervical fractures, spinal cord injuries) and 1 fatality. Water user counts throughout the course of a day exceeded 25,000 on busy weekends such that the mean injury rate was 0.02 %. Men were twice as likely to be injured relative to women, and the mean injury age was 32 years old. Tourists were six times more likely to be injured compared to local beachgoers. Wading (44 %) was the dominant injury activity followed by body surfing (20 %) and body boarding (17 %). Direct correlation between injury occurrence or injury rate and any environmental factors was weak (highest squared correlation coefficient <0.12), but the highest injury rates were associated with moderate wave height (0.6 m) with lower injury rates for both smaller and larger waves. Lack of direct correlation between injury occurrence or injury rate and environmental parameters suggests there was an important (and as yet undetermined) human element that also dictates the injury rate. Additionally, the high proportion of injuries to tourists may require alternate strategies in local beach safety and injury awareness campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-interview interactions between qualitative researchers and research subjects are characterized by two-way sense-making processes, through which research subjects attempt to make sense of researchers’ intentions, and what they themselves stand to gain or lose from participating in a given research. Based on a reflexive account of my ethnographic fieldwork experiences in Kenya’s South Coast region, among men known as ‘beach boys’ and as participants of ‘female sex tourism’, I illustrate how the concerns and interests of my target interviewees were generated and negotiated during the pre-interview phase. I do so by analysing our pre-interview interactions, drawing links between my assigned identities, asymmetries between us and the concerns and interests that were generated, as the men considered their participation or non-participation in the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we compare the perception of climate change in two different tourist settings of northeastern Spain: the Catalan Pyrenees and the Catalan Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands. We carried out a survey of 906 cases (506 in the coastal areas of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands and 400 in the Catalan Pyrenees) asking residents on those areas to assess the possible effects of climate change on tourist-related activities. While the existence of climate change and of its estimated impacts is widely accepted, we observe statistically significant differences in most of the questions between residents in the coastal areas and residents in the Pyrenees. In general terms, respondents from the Pyrenees display a much higher concern regarding the economic impacts of climate change on tourism. On the other hand, the results also show that some demographic groups, such as women, members of large households, or unemployed, tend to present higher levels of concern. This study may give new hints on which tourist modalities and which groups are more concerned for the impacts of climate change in Mediterranean tourist environments and could translate into more targeted adaptive and mitigation practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major impacts of climate change have been projected for tourism in Europe. Typically, these projections took general tourism activities such as sight-seeing and their climate requirements as their point of reference. The purpose of this study is to reassess the impact of climate change, by looking specifically at beach tourism in summer, a crucial market segment in Europe and more specifically in the Mediterranean. As beach tourism requires relatively high temperatures, relatively modest shifts in attractiveness are found. With respect to climate, the Mediterranean is likely to remain Europe's prime region for summer-time beach tourism for at least the next 50 years. Coastal managers in Mediterranean destinations are advised to focus some of their attention on other climate change impacts such as sea-level rise or water availability, and include environmental quality and diversification of activities in their deliberations. In non-Mediterranean regions, a promising strategy may be to focus on short- and medium-distance visitors who can take advantage of the new opportunities for beach tourism, and to explore the merits of seasonal climate forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal erosion and inundation represent the main impacts of climate change and the consequential sea level rise (SLR) on beaches. The resultant deterioration of coastal habitats and decline in beach tourism revenue has been a primary concern for coastal managers and researchers. Nevertheless, the extent of SLR on beach tourism in Egypt remains relatively unknown. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between beach width shrinkage due to SLR and the loss in tourist resort revenue. We use the hedonic pricing approach, which combines economic and environmental variables, to determine the environmental impact on beach tourism along 14 km of the coast of Sahl Hasheesh and Makadi Bay, Hurghada, Egypt. The resort revenue depends on the cumulative benefits from the market price of the resort rooms, which is a function of morphological variables and tourism variables. Three regression models (semi-log, double-log, and custom-log) were used to select the most appropriate functional hedonic model. Three coastal slopes were considered (0.03, 0.06, and 0.12) to address the uncertainty in beach width. When 0.06 coastal slope is used, the expected losses in revenue are 84,000, 220,000, and 546,000 USD/day period (representing 3%, 7%, and 18%) for 2030, 2050, and 2100, respectively, considering the lowest scenario representative concentration pathway (RCP2.6); for the worst case (RCP8.5 SLR), the expected losses are 142,000, 369,000, and 897,000 USD/day period (representing 5%, 12%, and 30%) for 2030, 2050, and 2100, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]