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RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Author : Jack Carlsen & Alison Morrison
School/Work Place : Curtin University, Australia (Jack Carlsen), University of Strathclyde, UK (Alison Morrison)
Contact : j.carlsen@curtin.edu.au
Year : 2008

Lifestyle has been oft cited in the literature as the main motivation for those establishing or acquiring tourism related businesses in attractive destinations. However, the term has many different dimensions and connotations, both positive and negative, that have emerged in the tourism literature since the 1980s. Furthermore, the trend towards increased migration, reinforced
by the baby boomer generation pursuing new opportunities for enhanced quality of life has given rise to the phenomena variously referred to as 'lifestyle migration' in Europe (Vaugeois and Rollins, 2007), 'amenity migration' in North America (Moss 2006) and 'sea- change' in Australia (Stehlik 2007) that underwrites the growth of lifestyle firms in tourism and hospitality. Demographers have noted the internal migration of urban dwellers to rural areas of Australia since the 1970s and refer to this as 'population turnaround' because it has arrested the decline of rural communities that had occurred in previous decades (Burnley and Murphy 2004). Coastal and mountain locations are also popular destinations that receive this flow of migration, creating significant impacts in resident communities, land use and economic activity, both positive and negative. In light of these trends and impacts, the need to understand this phenomenon and those that pursue an ideal lifestyle through tourism and hospitality related business endeavors has never been more acute.

This understanding is premised on the assumption that lifestyle is a socially constructed phenomenon (Russell and Faulkner 2001) which, when applied to a tourism and hospitality business context, creates a degree of complexity in motivations, meanings and values that sets it apart from other business models. However, lifestyle oriented small tourism [LOST] firms have significant influence in tourism destinations through the quality of the experiences they provide, service standards, investment decisions and environmental performance so the business dimensions of lifestyle firms are also important.

There is an obvious connection between LOST firms in a destination and the promotion of a desired lifestyle to their potential customers, the lifestyle-led consumer groups. It has long been recognised in marketing that consumers do not only purchase physical products and services, they also buy concepts and associated images attached to those products and services. For example, Kamman et al (1998) has suggested that rural life could be conceptualized as meaning quietness, space, physical activities, feeling of belonging to a community, small and human scale, sparsely populated, low density building, fresh air, healthy and peaceful. Kamman et al (1998) suggest that these lifestyle concepts and associated products can be 'reverse network engineered' in certain geographical locations to provide a blue print for policy and planning and encourage and stimulate certain forms of activities while excluding others that conflict with the lifestyle concept.

Walmsley (2003) contends that there will be winners and losers in the emergent lifestyle-led consumption oriented society, citing places such as Denmark, on the south coast of Western Australia as having an image that "can accommodate a lifestyle oriented tourism industry" (2003:68). In this way, tourism is critical to the changing nature of rural locales that are the target of lifestyle consumers as well as those small tourism firms that seek to exploit the locational and lifestyle benefits that are vested in these places. Potentially all 'post-rural' places could offer the 'otherness' that urbanized Australians are increasingly demanding and thereby capitalize on the centrality of lifestyle in the consumer society, increasing mobility and prosperity of lifestyle oriented groups, such as retired baby boomers and advances in technology for place promotion. The need to generate an income during the transition from farming to tourism, or from salaried to selfemployment or retirement is also a significant driver of change in rural areas. Thus, opportunity and necessity is evident in many rural areas, including the Ferguson Valley in Western Australia that forms the case study in this paper. Descriptions of the valley in the words of the LOST firms designed to appeal to lifestyle oriented consumers provide insights into the multiple dimensions of lifestyle firms as depicted in a systemic model of LOST firms proposed in this paper.


List of Articles
No. Subject Viewssort Date
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133 Think Tank IX The role of values in sustaining the hospitality labou... file 8655 Oct 13, 2013

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132 Think Tank XI Visualising Sustainability: Reflections on Applied Stu... file 8690 Oct 14, 2013

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131 Think Tank XIV Exploring the potential of Community Based Ecotourism ... file 8753 Jun 27, 2014

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130 Think Tank XV Why Africans do not visit their national parks: A case... file 8784 Jul 27, 2015

Present-day Western approaches relating to nature and natural resources management assume that humans are independent from the natural world (Pierotti & Wildcat, 2000). Protected areas such as Yellowstone National Park were created with ...

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129 Think Tank IX Labour Justice and Sustainable Tourism: The Centrality... file 8849 Oct 13, 2013

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128 Think Tank VI Corporate Social Responsibility and Marine Tourism Org... file 8856 Oct 13, 2013

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127 Think Tank VIII Destination Competitiveness and Policy Making for Pove... file 8857 Oct 13, 2013

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126 Think Tank XIII Modeling the Index Components of Tourist Satisfaction ... file 8972 Nov 06, 2013

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Author: Toney K. Thomas 

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125 Think Tank XV A vacation from capitalism; what happens when the ‘mas... file 8973 Jul 27, 2015

Philosophical and theoretical debates in tourism must be situated not just within economic and cultural contexts, but also political and social ones (Ataljevic, Pritchard & Morgan, 2007). Tourism is more than an ‘industry,’ Freya Higgins...

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124 Think Tank XIV A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of Sustainab... file 9098 Jun 26, 2014

Emerging tourist destinations can challenge ecological, economic, social, and quality of life barriers. These issues draw attention towards the consequences of increasing complexity that are often found as a tourist marketing system grows an...

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Year: 2014 

OPA: 2014 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

123 Think Tank VII Volunteer Tourism: Sustainable Innovation in Tourism, ... file 9099 Oct 13, 2013

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 ra...

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122 Think Tank XII Employee Work Attitudes, Mobility and Promotional Oppo... file 9174 Nov 06, 2013

The issue of employee mobility is brought into sharp focus in times of economic and social uncertainty. Previous studies into the causes of employee mobility have investigated, among other determinants, the link between the promotional oppor...

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121 Think Tank IV Environmental Training and Measures at Scandic Hotels,... file 9227 Dec 01, 2013

Hotels are traditionally geared towards providing a high-level of comfort and entertainment, as well as a broad spectrum of services, often without giving much concern to associated environmental or socio-economic impacts. Hotel companies ty...

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120 Think Tank XII Are We Moving Towards Education for Sustainability? A ... file 9282 Nov 06, 2013

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119 Think Tank VIII Sustaining through Gastronomy: The Case of Slow Food M... file 9345 Oct 13, 2013

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118 OPA award Crisis Communications and Tourism Recovery Strategies ... file 9386 Oct 13, 2013

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117 Think Tank VIII Shared Playgrounds: Contrasting Visitor Perspectives o... file 9424 Oct 13, 2013

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116 OPA award Slow Travellers - Who Are They, and What Motivates Them? file 9502 Nov 06, 2013

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115 Think Tank VIII Community Actions to Engage Local Residents in Tourism... file 9502 Dec 19, 2013

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