Abstract:Haze pollution has worsened and has received close attention by news agencies in the past two years. This type of environmental pollution might have a great effect on tourism image and the entire tourism industry of a destination. This study aimed to reveal the potential impacts of haze pollution on the tourism industry. Based on a case study in Beijing using questionnaires for potential tourists, awareness of haze pollution, impacts of haze pollution on travel and attitudes toward the impacts were discussed. The results indicated that haze pollution has a considerable potential impact on travel, and there are distinct differences among travel elements and tourism market segments. Due to its impacts, haze pollution could be taken into account in tourists' decision-making processes, causing a portion of potential tourists to cancel tourism plans. As a result, tourist arrivals to similar destinations could decrease by a small margin, but the most significant impact could be on the temporal distribution of tourist arrivals, namely tourism seasonality, due to tourists' "avoiding" psychology.

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We compare the Sinophone term shengtai lüyou and the Anglophone term ecotourism through reciprocal translations of relevant literature and grounded iterative comparisons of conceptual components and practices. The Chinese concept of shengtai lüyou is similar to the Western concept of ecotourism but with key differences: a role in promoting human health; a predilection for human art and artefacts to enhance nature; and no limitations on scale. These differences are reflected both in academic literature and in practical implementation by government agencies and the tourism industry. Shengtai lüyou is thus a cultural analogue of ecotourism, not simply a translation. There are three steps in its evolution. Traditional Chinese culture, different from the West, provided the context. Recent concerns over environmental impacts, management, education and community equity in tourism, parallel to the West, provided favourable circumstances. The Western term ecotourism, introduced into Sinophone literature by Chinese researchers in the mid 1990s, provided a catalyst. Just as China has learnt from ecotourism, the West can learn from shengtai lüyou.

The Mongolian steppes and their nomads, horses, herds and gers form a cultural landscape which is the region's icon attraction, the central image in Mongolian marketing, the key feature of its flagship tourism products, and the most heavily commoditized component of its industry. In other Mongolian landscapes, and also in the steppes of neighboring regions and the grasslands of Africa, Australia, and North America, natural and cultural heritage are treated as separate attractions. The concept of cultural landscape is heavily used in a WorldHeritage context, has a significant role to play in the global tourism industry, and deserves further investigation as a tool for analysis.

Abstract. Since the beginning of political transformation in Poland, rural tourism was perceived as a versatile means for improving the economic situation of rural areas. It became a subject of excessive interest of politicians, scholars, various activists and the media. The aim of this article is to show the development and functioning of institutional and organizational environment over rural tourism in Poland. At first, development of rural tourism in Poland is presented, followed by the formation of a national and then a local support system. The multidimensional support for rural tourism and the accompanying enthusiasm for it allow for making a statement that tourism became "an apple of the eye" of the rural transformation process in Poland.

a b s t r a c tChina has $8000 protected areas, with different categories and levels of designation. These include many reserves of global conservation significance. There are more numerous but smaller parks in the more heavily populated provinces of the south and east, and fewer larger parks in the northwest. We sampled 1200 representative parks nationwide, using questionnaires delivered to park managers in person, with 160 categorical or ordinal parameters. Response rate was 92.5%. We carried out three analyses: first, for each parameter independently; second, for five multi-parameter aggregate indices; and third, for two top-level indices of environmental and visitor management respectively. We tested for patterns by category, level, size, age, region, visitor volume and revenue, with >600 individual tests, and >70 patterns significant at p < 0.0001. We found that both environmental and visitor management practices are more intensive for large, old, rich, heavily visited parks. A number of parks receive >100,000 visitors per day, and have adopted large-scale infrastructure approaches which successfully minimise impacts and maintain conservation values, as confirmed by on-site audits. Key conservation concerns include off-park air and water pollution sources in some regions, and sale of items including threatened species, in 7% of parks.