With the emergence of Web 2.0, the Internet has begun to realize its potential in supporting the tourism experience. This presentation will first identify a number of applications within Web 2.0 that are visitor oriented - from Expedia and Travelocity to YouTube, FlickR and Google Map - to support what Gnoth describes as the tourist activated network...

"Web 2.0" is a term used to refer to the emerging new wave of innovation on the Internet. Some see it as a second high-tech wave, marking the recovery from the technology and Internet "bust" at the end of the 1990s (O'Reilly 2005). Characteristics of Web 2.0 are...

While it seems to be gradually dawning on humankind that the quality of our lives and (in extremis)survival of our and subsequent generations will depend to a significant extent on our ability and willingness to make urgent and significant corrections to our lifestyles, it is much less commonly understood how such changes should be structured and pursued towards a wholesomely sustainable outcome...

As the environmental movement got underway and environmental awareness came into focus in the late 20th century, the tourism industry began incorporating 'environmentally friendly' efforts into their business practices. Requests for towel reuse and water conservation has become common in hotel rooms; recycling bins, organic souvenirs and renewable energy systems have also made appearances at tourist sites, particularly those that are nature or outdoor oriented...

Environmental sustainability has been a growing concern in our society for the past twenty years, and is a primary issue of many leaders of the tourism industry. In spite of the many efforts to encourage and/or enforce environmentally sound practices, they have expressed concern as to the actual level of adoption of such practices by the industry at large...

Methods for researching the future have grown both in variety and rigour, offering new opportunities for understanding sustainable tourism. This paper discusses the value of futures research as a tool for envisioning and planning sustainable tourism futures but observes that there is greater potential for the use of futures methods in tourism...

Dr. Robert Billington, Ms. Natalie Carter & Ms. Lilly Kayamba, Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Laboratory - Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, Inc., USA

The internationally acclaimed Blackstone Valley Tourism Council continues to create a sustainable visitor destination using whole place-making techniques. Under its auspices, the Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Laboratory shares the Tourism Council's research and experience in developing planned sustainable tourism with tourism leaders and community stakeholders seeking to develop viable destinations...

Ms. Regina Binder, Hughes Binder, USA

Sense of place is the human response to natural and built surroundings, geography, history and population. Over time, that response evolves into a shared consciousness, woven by memory, story and experience. Distinct from written history, the process stamps the soul of a community with an indelible and miraculous sense of place different from others and unique to itself...

Dr. Larry Dwyer, University of New South Wales, Australia,
Dr. Deborah Edwards, University of Technology Sydney, Australia,
Dr. Nina Mistilis, University of New South Wales, Australia &
Ms. Carolina Roman, University of New South Wales, Australia

A key element of a successful tourism industry is the ability to recognize and deal with change across a wide range of key factors and the way they interact. Key drivers of global change can be classified as Economic, Social, Political, Technological and Environmental. This paper explores the way in which these key drivers could affect the global tourism industry to the year 2020...

Dr. Alison Gill & Dr. Peter Williams, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Translation of the concept of sustainability into practice is fraught with problems. While policy advances in all sectors of the economy have made steps in the right direction the lack of clarity in defining what is meant by 'sustainability' has resulted in varied responses. The tourism industry, with its heavy dependence on the quality of the natural environment has, especially through the development of ecotourism products, sought to address the sustainability question...

Dr. Keith Henning , Adelphi University, USA

In spite of the trend towards business as a key element in society and tourism, governments still play an important role in the sustainable development debate. Like any social institution, governments and related organizations do not always function effectively. When they do not, for some reason, we (academics, business people, government officials and the general public) often argue that the solution is to impose a "made in business" solution...

Ms. Christina Heyniger, Xola Consulting, USA &
Dr. Kristin Lamoureaux, George Washington University, USA

The intent of this research is to provide a comparative analysis of several innovative social entrepreneurial businesses operating within the realm of rural adventure tourism. This qualitative, case-based research explores six companies, which have been able to incorporate rural adventure tourism with projects aimed at addressing human and environmental issues...

Dr. Michael Hughes & Dr. Jack Carlsen, Curtin University of Technology, Australia

The relationship between the themes in sustainable tourism publications and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) was explored in this article. A categorised list of 3719 sustainable tourism articles was thematically analysed to determine the content focus and how it related to the TBL. Text searches were conducted using standardised search terms matching individual articles with particular topics using the NUD*ist 6 software...

Dr. Leo Jago & Dr. Margaret Deery, Victoria University, Australia

Innovation is fundamental to any industry in its quest to realising its potential. The tourism industry is no different in this pursuit of excellence and innovation but, unlike many other industries, it is largely comprised of small businesses that struggle to stay abreast of new innovations and adopt them. Many innovations, that are sought by the industry and developed accordingly, are not used for a range of reasons...

Dr. Conrad Lashley, Nottingham Trent University, UK &
Dr. Barry O'Mahony, Victoria University, Australia

Recent challenges within the hospitality industry highlight a critical need for research and innovation to inform management practice. Surprisingly, however, a comprehensive review of literature has found that innovation research within the industry is scant and that innovative practice lags behind many other industries...

Dr. Janne Liburd & Ms. Anja Hergesell, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Located in Northern Europe, the North Sea Region (NSR, see Map 1) is regarded a unique natural landscape, a centre of oil, gas and wind energy production, a major transportation route, an important fishing and industrial area as well as a popular recreational destination (Burkhard & Diembeck 2006). The state of tourism, its characteristics and impacts vary greatly throughout the region...

Dr. Kevin Lyons, University of Newcastle, Australia

The popularity of volunteer tourism as a form of alternative tourism has grown significantly over the past decade (McGehee, and Norman, 2002). Volunteer tourists can now be found throughout the world participating in a wide array of social, educational, political and environmental projects. While these projects continue to use volunteer tourists as a significant source of labour, the NGOs and community organisations that provide and support them have begun exploring other innovative ways to attract and engage volunteer tourists who may wish to provide their voluntary labour in less direct ways...

Dr. Nancy McGehee, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA

This is a study of the relationships between two volunteer tourism host communities and the volunteer tourists who visit them. One is a declining rural community located in the Appalachian mountains of the United States. The other is in a rapidly expanding urban setting in Baja California, Mexico...

Dr. Cynthia Messer, Dr. Ingrid Schneider & Dr. Okechukwu Ukaga, University of Minnesota, USA

Communities have a variety of interest levels in tourism overall, including sustainable tourism (WTO, 2002). While we have witnessed increased awareness and discussions about sustainability and sustainable tourism, there is often a lack of shared definitions of means and ends among stakeholders, ambiguities in what is meant by sustainable tourism, and constant debate over specific policy and practice options for achieving it (McCool et al, 2001)...

Dr. Graham Miller & Dr. Caroline Scarles, University of Surrey, UK

Tether (2003) describes innovation within service industries as having a Cinderella status - marginal and neglected. The traditional approach to thinking about innovation has been to concentrate on manufacturing and within that, the role of research and development to produce technological invention that can lead to product innovation (Miles 2005)...

Dr. Gianna Moscardo, James Cook University, Australia

Innovation can come in many forms but all of these share three common elements - creativity, a problem solving approach and a new way of thinking. This paper proposes that current approaches to tourism and sustainable regional development have a number of problems and new solutions to these problems could come from using creative thinking methods...

Dr. Norma Nickerson, University of Montana, USA

The antecedents of the modern outfitter are numerous and varied, reaching far back into mythology, allegoric literature, history, and geographic exploration. Throughout history, guides have played two distinct roles, the pathfinder and the mentor (Oschell 2004). The outfitters and guides of today possess and expand on both of these roles...

Dr. Pauline Sheldon, University of Hawaii, USA

This paper will present the findings of a recent Summit on the Future of Tourism Education held in April 2007 in Austria. The summit's goal is to identify future societal, economic, environmental, political and technological trends from 2010 to 2030 and project how tourism and tourism higher educational programs must change to address these trends...

Ms. Camelia Tepelus, Lund University, Sweden

Ethical questions related to globalization, human rights, unfair labor practices and trans-boundary exchanges of capital and work force create ever more complex challenges for the tourism sustainability agenda. In recent years, the tourism industry is increasingly called on by media and governments to provide socially responsible and quick responses to emerging problems resulting from the dissolution of borders and workforce migration...

Dr. Timothy Tyrrell, Arizona State University, USA &
Dr. Robert Johnston, University of Connecticut, USA

"Operational definitions of tourism sustainability require details regarding what is to be sustained, for whom it is to be sustained, and the level at which it is to be sustained." This is the introductory sentence to "A Dynamic Model of Sustainable Tourism" (Tyrrell and Johnston, 2005). In it we develop a dynamic model illustrating the interrelated behavior of tourism-related economic and environmental conditions over time...

Dr. Larry Dwyer, University of New South Wales, Australia &
Dr. Deborah Edwards, University of Technology Sydney, Australia