This book describes the state of the art of tourism planning and management in national parks and protected areas. It also provides guidelines for best practice in tourism operations. Other objectives are to: Describe case studies and guidelines that contribute to conservation of biological diversity; consider the role of local communities within or near these areas; outline the development of tourism infrastructure and services; discuss visitor management; provide guidelines to enhance the quality of the tourism experience. The focus is global and the book will appeal to both academics and practitioners.

Natural Area Tourism provides a comprehensive description of tourism in natural areas allowing readers to understand the scope of, complexities arising from, and possibilities of undertaking successful tourism developments in natural areas. Furthermore, the second edition contains an overview of recent developments, such as mountain biking, adventure activities in protected areas and geotourism. There is new content and examples from the Asian region on managing the tourism industry and management effectiveness. The book also considers important new developments in monitoring, such as remote sensing and the use of GIS, as well as the use of electronic educational resources in delivering interpretation. Attention is given to the implications of climate change, inadequate protected area security and the ever-increasing influence of the landscape matrix. Moreover, the second edition includes a comprehensive review of the new literature that has emerged since the publication of the first edition more than a decade ago. Accordingly this book will remain an invaluable resource and account of natural area tourism for many years to come.

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.

The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Management is a critical, authoritative review of tourism management, written by leading international thinkers and academics in the field. Arranged over two volumes, the chapters are framed as critical synoptic pieces covering key developments, current issues and debates, and emerging trends and future considerations for the field. The two volumes focus in turn on the theories, concepts and disciplines that underpin tourism management in volume one, followed by examinations of how those ideas and concepts have been applied in the second volume. Chapters are structured around twelve key themes: Volume One Part One: Researching Tourism Part Two: Social Analysis Part Three: Economic Analysis Part Four: Technological Analysis Part Five: Environmental Analysis Part Six: Political Analysis Volume Two Part One: Approaching Tourism Part Two: Destination Applications Part Three: Marketing Applications Part Four: Tourism Product Markets Part Five: Technological Applications Part Six: Environmental Applications This handbook offers a fresh, contemporary and definitive look at tourism management, making it an essential resource for academics, researchers and students.

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.

Visitors to parks and protected areas impact at many levels: political, economic, social and ecological. To ensure effective park management for increasing visitor numbers, good quality global data on visitor use is necessary. This manual describes terms, approaches and techniques for gathering information about public use of parks and protected areas. It covers a mixture of options ranging from direct measurements with automatic counters to indirect measurements based on simple mathematical calculations, providing a kit for producing the most accurate and sustainable enumeration of public use of protected areas under existing circumstances.

This is the final report of the project "Visitor Monitoring Methods in the Nordic and Baltic Countries". The goal of the project was to develop visitor monitoring methodologies for Nordic and Baltic land management agencies, the work of which is related to visitor management in protected and recreational areas. The report provides an overview of the visitor monitoring methods and guidelines currently available, including state-of-the-art reports and case studies from the Nordic and Baltic countries. The report concludes that there are certain common variables related to monitoring outdoor recreation that are important to all the Nordic and Baltic countries and that could be standardized. Therefore, the project group continues its work in order to produce recommendations for a common visitor monitoring methodology in protected and recreational areas in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. These recommendations will be published in the form of a Nordic-Baltic manual on visitor monitoring practices.

IUCN's Protected Areas Management Categories, which classify protected areas according to their management objectives, are today accepted as the benchmark for defining, recording, and classifying protected areas. They are recognized by international bodies such as the United Nations as well as many national governments. As a result, they are increasingly being incorporated into government legislation. These guidelines provide as much clarity as possible regarding the meaning and application of the Categories. They describe the definition of the Categories and discuss application in particular biomes and management approaches.

Nature has been a key attraction factor for tourism in the Nordic countries for decades. The demand for nature-based tourism has steadily grown and is one of the most rapidly expanding sectors within tourism across Europe and elsewhere. This demand has created opportunities for nature-based tourism to develop as an economic diversification tool within regions rich in natural amenities. But nature-based tourism is not only about tourism businesses and tourists visiting nature. The natural environment as a basis for tourism involves many challenges related to local communities, public access, nature protection and the management of natural resources. This book covers a broad set of topics in contemporary nature-based tourism from Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Areas discussed are innovation, fishing rights and supply of angling, recreation experience preferences, national park attractions, the cultural clash between established outdoor recreational use and new tourism activities, the Right of Public Access as opportunity and obstacle, preferences of tourism landscapes, controversies around wilderness development, management of hiking trails, eco-tourism certification, and financing of recreational infrastructure. This book was published as a special issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.