Landscapes have a central position in many rural tourism destinations. They provide both assets and bounds for tourism development, and they indirectly provide the framework in which tourism is often envisaged as a regional development tool. However, the complexity of the interactions between landscapes and tourism has resulted in multiple and sometimes contrasting interpretations and research focuses dealing with landscape-tourism interactions. These contrasts have impeded constructive discussion, dynamism and progress in tourism landscape research in general. To manoeuvre in this complex and 'chaotic' field, we argue that a reinterpretation of the concept of geotourism provides a structured way forward.A focus on geotourism, although highly contested as a scientific concept, creates opportunities to bridge the gap between tourism-centred and landscape-centred strands that dominate and hence divide current tourism landscape research. The adapted geotourism framework presented here, in which geotourism is re-interpreted as an approach to study landscape-tourism interactions instead of currently contrasting definitions as either geological niche tourism or a form of sustainable tourism, builds on the idea that landscapes and tourism are inextricably connected. Landscapes provide natural and cultural assets for tourism development, with destination images being constructed by emplaced social and power relations. Simultaneously, the created 'tourismscape' has constitutive power to shape the landscape and the processes within it. By building on this continuum between tourism and landscape, the proposed geotourism approach provides a solid conceptual foundation for future research on landscape-tourism interactions and the interrelations between tourism landscapes and regional development.
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Actively positioning tourism in regional socio-economic contexts and development plans is regularly seen by researchers as a prerequisite to practically unfold tourism-related regional development potential. However, conceptual elaboration and additional empirical evidence are still needed to gain a more critical understanding of this notion. Therefore, the objective of this research is to explore tourism-related delivery mechanisms for regional development by focusing on the role of tourism in larger regionbuilding processes. Using an in-depth interview-based case study on the supply and policy of whisky tourism in Speyside (Scotland), we found that the mode of commodification and institutionalisation of whisky tourism in Speyside provides an unstable basis for reaching destination-wide regional development aims. Despite high-profile regional branding, the regional institutionalisation provides barriers for local stakeholders to integrate in destination management processes. Networking vehicles with multi-scalar actions are necessary to foster empowerment of local stakeholders and to facilitate regional integration of stakeholder interests. We conclude that an integrative position of tourism in the regionbuilding process of destinations, facilitated by the mode of multi-scalar commodification and institutionalisation of territorial resources in the destination, is central for reaching tourisminduced regional development aims.
Several studies found larger benefits for communities when local stakeholders could participate in the tourism value chain by 'linking' their labour, products and services to the sector. However, the establishment of local linkages is difficult because of the complexity of the tourism system that consists of multi-sectoral and multi-scalar relationships. Moreover, in developing countries, empowered stakeholders tend to organise the tourism value chain vertically in which tourists are led in a spatially and socially confined trajectory in the destination, the so-called tourist bubble. This paper analyses the effect of governance in the tourism value chain on the establishment of local linkages to reshape the social and spatial boundaries of the tourist bubble in Uganda. Specifically, the possibilities of cultural tourism are explored as one particular way to reshape the bubble, that is centred on nature-based and ecotourism focuses. Results show that cultural activities can reshape the social boundaries of the bubble, while the catalyst role of cultural tourism developments is less successful in reshaping the spatial bubble boundaries. The national scale is pivotal to ensure that (1) local stakeholders are empowered to overcome existing barriers to enter and (2) international stakeholders are given incentives to reshape the bubble.
This paper aims to identify distinctive obstacles to the establishment of tourism destination governance in both transnational and within-country borderlands. Analysis of the German-Czech borderlands, a region also incorporating within-country borders between three German federal states, indicates the multi-scalar and political contestations of cross-border tourism collaboration. Local tourism projects are generally successful, both on a transnational German-Czech level and between the German states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia. However, structural cross-border destination management does not exist because of (transnational) multi-scalar institutional alignment problems and (internal) tourism-specific destination-level power contestations. Understanding destination management processes in borderlands, therefore, requires: (i) explicit multi-scalar analysis; (ii) recognition of both transnational and within-country contexts; (iii) more cross-pollination between tourism planning and cross-border governance research.
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