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RESOURCES


RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Author : Candice Hunter & Kevin Mearns
School/Work Place : University of South Africa
Contact : mearnkf@unisa.ac.za
Year : 2016
The world is changing into a place where broader spectra of responsibilities are now being embraced. A significant realisation has grown throughout the world that the Earth’s natural resources are scarce. Industrialisation and economic growth has provided worldwide prosperity. The increasing evidence of negative impacts caused by climate change has given rise to persistent environmental concerns, particularly caused by the global reliance on fossil fuels and limited energy and water supplies (Gummer & Goldsmith, 2007). There is vast evidence of devastating effects that humans have had on the environment (Schmidt-Traub& Sears, 2005). Economic development has also resulted in both positive (emergence of middle classes, better water and electricity supply, better transport systems and education) and negative social impacts around the world (high levels of poverty, youth unemployment, shortages of housing and other social resources). Protests against these negative social issues have encouraged institutional and corporate efforts to address environmental and social concerns, resulting in more organised interventions and incentives for people, companies and governments to change their behaviours and actions that are creating negative social and environmental effects. However, there is still a continuing need to address the environmental and social changes as humans are dependent upon the natural environment and its resources to achieve human development goals. All the environmental and social problems will have a direct effect on every human being around the world unless steps are taken to mitigate and reverse negative environment impacts. It is unsustainable to continue to ‘practice as normal’ focussing only on economic gains. It is crucial to look after the environment and society through changes in behaviours, practices and activities. “Sustainable development had a profound influence on the way people now perceive themselves as an integrated part of the environment: people are increasingly aware that their activities have a significant impact on the environment (Mearns, 2012: 7851).” A strong call for the implementation of sustainable development and triple bottom line reporting has been made. A new focus on companies’ environmental and social impacts have grown in the corporate world. Corporate impropriety resulted in calls for corporate transparency and accountability, which has led to the rising demand for corporate social responsibility, sustainability reporting and sustainable development (Freemantle, 2005; Erlandsson & Olinder, 2009).  The triple bottom line, was enforced within the corporate world through several avenues. An influential aspect that has practically forced companies to implement the triple bottom line reporting in South Africa is the development of the King Code III on corporate governance. According to the code, all JSE listed companies are required to comply with the latest King code, incorporating sustainable development into their business practices (King Committee on Governance, 2009). With the pressure placed on companies to enforce the triple bottom line within their business practices, this has challenged companies to create a balance of economic, social and environmental priorities.  As a consequence to implementation of sustainability practices, sustainability reporting has become an important phenomenon amongst corporations. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a focus on corporate governance, especially with regard to sustainable development and sustainability reporting, also known as triple bottom line reporting (Aras & Crowther, 2008). This has had an influence on business activities and the way in which businesses report their activities.

List of Articles
No. Subject Viewssort Date
334 Think Tank VI Hilton Environmental Reporting as a Tool of Corporate ... file 7933 Oct 13, 2013

This paper reports on the history, criteria and procedures within Hilton Environmental Reporting, a computerized reporting tool created by Addsystems for Hilton International. The development and implementation process of the upgraded versi...

Author: Paulina Bohdanowicz 

Year: 2006 

333 OPA award Slow Travellers - Who Are They, and What Motivates Them? file 7926 Nov 06, 2013

Tourism’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is estimated to be around 5% and is forecast to grow rapidly, to around 16% of global emissions by 2020. Future strategies for mitigation must address the levels of demand for t...

Author: Derek Robbins & Jaedong Cho 

Year: 2012 

OPA: 2012 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

332 Think Tank VIII Sustaining through Gastronomy: The Case of Slow Food M... file 7925 Oct 13, 2013

This paper is conducted within the interpretive paradigm, using subjectivist, non-positivist, qualitative approach to research started out of writer’s personal motivation after being exposed to a couple of Slow Food conviviums in the recent ...

Author: Miha Bratec 

Year: 2008 

331 Think Tank XII Micro-Mobility Patterns and Service Blueprints as Foun... file 7922 Nov 06, 2013

This paper proposes the use of micro-mobility patterns and service blueprints in visitor management planning. Using a nature-based conservation area and visitor attraction in Wellington, New Zealand, as a case study, micro-mobility patterns ...

Author: Julia Albrecht 

Year: 2012 

330 Think Tank XI CRS 2.0: Management Perspectives of Sustainable Hospit... file 7905 Oct 14, 2013

In recent years, hotel companies have recognized the importance of engaging in responsible business practices as they relate to stakeholders including employees, guests, and the communities in which their properties are located. Accordingly...

Author: Stuart E. Levy & Sun-Young Park 

Year: 2011 

329 Think Tank VI Testing Clarkson’s Typical Corporate and Stakeholder I... file 7850 Oct 13, 2013

In today’s world of growing concern over the social and environmental effect of tourism, the responsibility for the future of our society is moving from simply relying on our political leaders and interest groups towards the concept that cor...

Author: Catrina Papaleo & Sue Beeton 

Year: 2006 

328 Think Tank VIII Community Actions to Engage Local Residents in Tourism... file 7777 Dec 19, 2013

This paper explores the residents’ knowledge of community actions to engage local members in tourism planning and development in the King Cobra Village of Thailand. The degree of participatory ability which is associated with the public atti...

Author: Kitsada Tungchawal 

Year: 2008 

327 Think Tank VII The New World of Travel 2.0: Application of Social Sof... file 7749 Oct 13, 2013

"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). Character...

Author: Alan A. Lew 

Year: 2007 

326 Think Tank VII Destination and Enterprise Management for a Tourism Fu... file 7743 Oct 13, 2013

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, Tec...

Author: Larry Dwyer, Deborah Edwards, Nina Mistilis, & Carolina Roman 

Year: 2007 

325 Think Tank VI The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: CSR, Film and Tourism.... file 7741 Oct 13, 2013

This paper reports on an element of an ongoing research project undertaken since 1999 in relation to the effects of film-induced tourism on a small community based in North Yorkshire, England, namely Goathland.  Goathland is better known to ...

Author: Sue Beeton 

Year: 2006 

OPA: 2006 Runner Up 

324 Think Tank IX Malay Small Family Business Values file 7736 Dec 19, 2013

In Malaysia approximately 90% of the businesses are categorized as small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The majority of these small businesses are family owned and make a significant contribution to Malaysian Gross Domestic Product. The prev...

Author: Askiah Jamaluddin & Jack Carlsen 

Year: 2009 

323 OPA award Stakeholder involvement, culture and accountability in... file 7653 Oct 13, 2013

Following its historical rise and fall, America’s first industrialized polluted landscape garnered federal and local support to remedy its near destruction. Today, the Blackstone Valley is a pragmatic example of translating theory into pract...

Author: Robert Billington, Veronica Cadoppi & Natalie Carter 

Year: 2006 

OPA: 2006 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

322 Think Tank X The Managing Local Tourism Master Class: Communicating... file 7587 Oct 13, 2013

The aim of this paper is to describe an action-based research project entitled the Management Local Tourism Master Class (MLTMC) and to discuss the merits of this extension tool in building sustainable tourism management practices across loc...

Author: Dianne Dredge, Emma-Jane Ford & Michelle Whitford 

Year: 2010 

OPA: 2010 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

321 Think Tank XVII Residents’ perceptions of sustainable tourism in Mauri... file 7583 Aug 17, 2017

This paper examines residents' perception on sustainable tourism in Mauritius. 500 surveys were elaborated and circulated to the respondents. This research examines the connections between the demographic variables gender, age, instruction l...

Author: Bhavish Jugurnath & Roucheet Bissessur & Youvish Ramjattan & Devendra Bissessur 

Year: 2017 

320 Think Tank IX How to create superior value in sustainable tourism: ... file 7470 Oct 13, 2013

Extensive research and practical implementation concerning the value of natural resources has thus far been conducted when one considers for example wildlife-, eco- and cultural tourism, however many of these values originate from industry ...

Author: Philipp E. Boksberger & Jack Carlsen 

Year: 2009 

319 Think Tank X Cultural-Touristic Network Altenkirchen – Perspective ... file 7461 Oct 13, 2013

Altenkirchen is situated in Westerwald/Raiffeisen region of Germany (between the cities of Bonn, Cologne, Mainz and Wiesbaden) and in addition to the 7,000 city inhabitants includes 42 municipalities with a further 24,000 people. It is a ci...

Author: Sanja Zerlauth & Dietmar Wiegand 

Year: 2010 

318 Think Tank IX What do sustainable tourism researchers value? An anal... file 7404 Oct 13, 2013

Sustainable Tourism has emerged as a major field of specialisation within tourism and has been so pervasive that some have suggested that the field represents a fifth platform of tourism research, while others have argued that the field has...

Author: Pierre Benckendorff 

Year: 2009 

317 Think Tank XIV A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective on Sustainable Tourism... file 7326 Jun 26, 2014

In this study, I take up the task to work towards a theoretical and methodological framework that allows using sustainability as a threshold concept for critically evaluating the assumptions embedded in both tourism management theory and pra...

Author: José-Carlos García-Rosell 

Year: 2014 

316 OPA award Crisis Communications and Tourism Recovery Strategies ... file 7241 Oct 13, 2013

This paper describes the application of lessons and processes gleaned from previous crises and disasters to the tourism recovery process for the Maldives following the tsunami of December 26 th , 2004. An assessment of existing literature as...

Author: Jack Carlsen 

Year: 2005 

OPA: 2005 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

315 Think Tank XV Perceptions of the business community on the sustainab... file 7227 Jul 27, 2015

The holiday property market has seen a genuine boom in the last years with second homes being an integral part of today’s tourism and an important pillar in the accommodation sector. Today second homes are seen as an enabler for destination ...

Author: Anita Zehrer 

Year: 2015 

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