Beach Holidays Research Articles

Overseas tourists negotiating risk at Australian beaches

Beachgoing experiences are highly desirable among international tourists visiting Australia. Beach use has been popularised in the contemporary Australian imaginary influencing how locals behave at the beach and setting an example to visitors. Many of the behaviours that Australian beach users’ display can be classed as risky. How and why tourists enact certain risky behaviours in their attempts to comply with beach going norms in Australia is not well known. The imagined beachgoing psyche of tourists describes a disconnection between pre-conceptions about risk at the beach and the reality of actual risks and hazards. The pursuit of thrill and risk while on holiday work to reconcile tourist attitudes about their often safety-averse behaviours, helping to explain why beach safety is often ignored, accidentally and purposefully. The influence of other social phenomena, such as the amplification of risk, interactive risk and group norms, contribute to tourists’ beach behaviours in Australia. Beachgoer questionnaires and interview testimonies triangulated results using a mixed-method-research approach that identifies the mechanisms that lead to an incoherence between understandings of danger and safe behaviours, which were specific to the socio-spatial context of the Australian beach space. There is much ambiguity in the nature of the Australian beach holiday, where the tourist beachgoer can choose between behaviours of escape (to relax) and excite (to take risks). This can lead to the conflation of these contrasting, yet spatially connected, pursuits.

Wine tourism and the introduction of new technologies in winemaking and viticulture

This paper, provided by the authors, focuses on the prospects for the development of wine tourism in the southern regions of the Russian Federation. Unlike a beach holiday, for obvious reasons unpopular in winter, wine tourism is a year-round phenomenon. The most important factor in the successful development of this type of business is familiarizing tourists with the latest technologies in winemaking and viticulture. These technologies are based on digitization of agriculture, the introduction of elements of precision farming, digital mapping and yield planning, parallel driving systems, Internet of Things (IoT), the use of unmanned tractors (combines) and robotics.

The role of climate services in handling climate change risks: contributions of UKCP18

The role of climate services in handling climate change risks: contributions of UKCP18

Can’t touch this

Australia’s laid-back, sun-drenched beach lifestyle has been a celebrated and prominent part of its official popular culture for nigh on a century, and the images and motifs associated with this culture have become hallmarks of the country’s collective identity. Though these representations tend towards stereotype, for many Australians the idea of a summer holiday at the beach is one that is intensely personal and romanticised – its image is not at all urbanised. As Douglas Booth observed, for Australians the beach has become a ‘sanctuary at which to abandon cares – a place to let down one’s hair, remove one’s clothes […] a paradise where one could laze in peace, free from guilt, drifting between the hot sand and the warm sea, and seek romance’.1 Beach holidays became popular in the interwar years of the twentieth century, but the most intense burst of activity – both in touristic promotion and in the development of tourism infrastructure – accompanied the postwar economic boom, when family incomes were able to meet the cost of a car and, increasingly, a cheap block of land by the beach upon which a holiday home could be erected with thrift and haste. In subtropical southeast Queensland, the postwar beach holiday became the hallmark of the state’s burgeoning tourism industry; the state’s southeast coastline in particular benefiting from its warm climate and proximity to the capital, Brisbane. It was here – along the evocatively named Gold Coast (to Brisbane’s south) and Sunshine Coast (to its north) [1] – that many families experienced their first taste of what is now widely celebrated as the beach lifestyle [2]. As one reflection has it: In the era before motels and resorts, a holiday at the Gold and Sunshine coasts usually meant either pitching a tent and camping by the beach or staying in a simple cottage owned by family or friends […] Simplicity, informality, individuality […] were the hallmarks of these humble places.2

Prospects for the development of tourist business in Ukraine

The urgency of analysing the tourism business in our country as a key element of the service system is due to the fact that it can help to form a positive image of the territory or its image, brand, the degree of development of infrastructure transport, services, the availability of recreational resources, the ecological component of the territory, as well as its overall investment attractiveness. The overall state of the economic development of the infrastructure of tourism services is more influencing the formation of a positive image of the territory. Our country may be more interesting than the countries of beach holidays, which are focused on tourism as one of the main sources of budget revenues, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus and Dominican Republic. Without income, which gives a developed economy, it is impossible to achieve mass tourism, and, consequently, there is no subject of management. In contrast to the tourist places of a wide profile, visits to tourist places of a narrow profile are an end in themselves. This includes areas with various tourist attractions, which ultimately attracts tourists to a particular region. Analysis of the prospects for the development of tourism services in Ukraine allows us to represent the tourist region as a kind of system, a set of interconnected elements: the economy, the demand of the tourist market, infrastructure, the development of society, natural objects, tourist attractiveness, developed industry, politics. The aim of research is to study the state of the tourist business in Ukraine, identifying problems and prospects for the development of tourism services in our country. Methodology: during the study, an analysis of the state of the tourist business in Ukraine was conducted. The economic growth of tourist facilities, tourist regions, and the development of industries, coexist or depend on the tourist business depends on the path that the development of the tourist services industry will take today. The scientific importance of the work lies in the fact that on the basis of the conducted research it is possible to improve innovative projects for the development of the tourist business. The value of the research is that it is increasingly necessary to attract youth start-ups, which should be created for a long time and with great potential in the tourism market. Professionals from various industries should be involved (IT technology, travel business, marketing, system and risk management  ...) JEL Classification: L83, M21, O10

Segmentation of foreign tourist demand in a coastal marine destination: The case of Montañita, Ecuador

Demand segmentation at coastal destinations contributes to the commercialization of locations in order to create products and services in accordance with each of the groups found. Ecuador is located in South America, and on its coast is the province of Santa Elena, where the Montañita Commune is located. This spot has been designated as a "Surf City" and constitutes a popular area visited by foreign tourists. Recreational activities related to sun and beach holidays take place here, and water sports such as surfing and parasailing are popular. This study aims at identifying the different segments of demand of foreign tourists in this coastal marine destination in terms of their motivational dimensions. To do so, an empirical work herein has been undertaken on-site, using a questionnaire and applying a factorial analysis as a multivariate technique. The results show the existence of three motivational dimensions: "Water Sports and Social Visits", "Ecotourism", and "Sun and Beach". According to the motivation schemes, four typologies of foreign tourists have been identified. First, "Eco-coastal Tourists" who visit the destination motivated by climate, sand and contact with nature. Second, "Indifferent Tourists" with low scores in almost all motivation criteria and who are not clearly related to any of the three dimensions identified. Third, "Water Sports Tourists" who visit the destination motivated by surfing and who enjoy the sun and the beach. Forth, "Sun and Beach Tourists" who visit the destination and are mainly motivated by rest and relaxation together with sun and beach criteria. The importance of this research lies in its contribution to the understanding of the characteristics of the different clusters of foreign tourists with regard to the motivational dimensions involved in this type of tourism.

Children sustain high levels of skin DNA photodamage, with a modest increase of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 , after a summer holiday in Northern Europe.

Childhood solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure increases the risk of skin cancer in adulthood, which is associated with mutations caused by UVR-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD). Solar UVR is also the main source of vitamin D, essential for healthy bone development in children. To assess the impact of a 12-day Baltic Sea (54° N) beach holiday on serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 [25(OH)D3 ] and CPD in 32 healthy Polish children (skin types I-IV). Blood and urine were collected before and after the holiday and assessed for 25(OH)D3 and excreted CPD, respectively, and personal UVR exposure was measured. Diaries were used to record sunbathing, sunburn and sunscreen use. Before- and after-holiday skin redness and pigmentation were measured by reflectance spectroscopy. The average ± SD daily exposure UVR dose was 2·4 ± 1·5 standard erythema doses (SEDs), which is borderline erythemal. The mean concentration of 25(OH)D3 increased (× 1·24 ± 0·19) from 64·7 ± 13·3 to 79·3 ± 18·7 nmol L-1 (P < 0·001). Mean CPD increased 12·6 ± 10·0-fold from 26·9 ± 17·9 to 248·9 ± 113·4 fmol μmol-1 creatinine (P < 0·001). Increased 25(OH)D3 was accompanied by a very much greater increase in DNA damage associated with carcinogenic potential. Overall, skin type had no significant effects on behavioural, clinical or analytical outcomes, but skin types I/II had more CPD (unadjusted P = 0·0496) than skin types III/IV at the end of the holiday. Careful consideration must be given to the health outcomes of childhood solar exposure, and a much better understanding of the risk-benefit relationships of such exposure is required. Rigorous photoprotection is necessary for children, even in Northern Europe.

Functional Possibilities of Expressive Lexical Facilities in Professional Tourist Communication

The change in emphasis of linguistic investigations towards anthropocentrism directs researchers to reveal creative mechanisms of verbalization expertise in modern scientific paradigm. Lexical means of expression take a special place in professional communication and have the ability to represent elements of professional knowledge peculiarly. Appeals to the functionalities of the stylistic tropes and figures are motivated in our article primarily by their wide use for pragmatic purpose specialist’ implementation. The purpose and objectives. The functionalities of lexical means of expression are considered; the role and place in professional tourism communication are defined; how employees of tourism industry form the tourists’ attitude to certain phenomena of reality are found out in the article. Experts of tourism enterprises should affect not only the sense of potential tourists, but also their imagination providing communicative comfort. For this purpose managers operate on a whole case of lexical expression means – stylistic tropes and figures that are part of elements in the contact creation. It is well known fact that their application is always promoted to colorful creation of different aspects phenomena in the language. In professional speech tourism communication we observe tropes’ usage as a leverage the recipient to create vivid images with a high degree of suggestibility in his mind. Experts in tourism industry use quite colorful composition vocabulary which “under power of romantic profession” is supersaturated with multiple comparisons: everything is as a legend, as a work of art in Vienna; Bulgaria, like endless field dotted with colorful flower and green parks. Metaphor in professional tourism lexicon often becomes a means of emotional impact on the recipient and involves a surreal space where you can see the necklace of islands of the Indian Ocean, dip in the whirlpool of sea impressions, sunbathe in the sun bathed beach. If the metaphor is understood as the transfer by the name similarity, metonymy is regarded as transfer based on adjacency of objects and phenomena. In the tourism sector metonymy promotes accumulation оf linguistic means for clearer and concise structure in providing information such as: Cherkasy region offers opportunities for unique, interesting and cognitive rest; Ukraine entered the top 10 countries by number of tourists in Turkey. Epithet function is to provide a positive asessment of tourist facilities, emphasizing its importance: a fantastic atmosphere, a picturesque peninsula, a luxurious excursion program, a perfect hotel infrastructure. A tourism manager using hyperbole convince potential tourist that he buys all the best. The usage of hyperbole animates the description of tourist sites and at the same time promotes the attitude creation to delivered information. For example, the rating of the most popular countries among tourists Spain ranked the first; for a beach holiday one should go to beautiful Zanzibar. One of the most prominent means of creating an attractive image of tourism services are stable expressions. Such words and phrases are perceived as something unexpected that contrasting with the rest of the text. They promote to strengthening linguistic influence: relax with a royal scale, it is time to see the world, you will have a great opportunity to visit a unique museum of port wine, with this tour operator everything will be in chocolate and others. So lexical means of expressions in professional tourism communication have a significant impact on the recipient’s speech because of his originality and expressiveness. Namely such verbal tools give impetus to the author’ display of his artistic identity, promote the impact on consumers’ high intensity of tourism product by creating certain emotional effect and provide opportunities for manipulation of the audience. All these factors taken together affect the consumer choice of potential tourist ultimately.

Nature's very own play things

As beach holidays start to become a distant memory we suggest activities and craft ideas that will make use of some of the pebbles the children may have brought home with them.

Development of an algorithm to predict serum vitamin D levels using a simple questionnaire based on sunlight exposure.

Sun exposure is the main determinant of vitamin D production. The aim of this study was to develop an algorithm to assess individual vitamin D status, independently of serum 25(OHD) measurement, using a simple questionnaire, mostly relying upon sunlight exposure, which might help select subjects requiring serum 25(OHD) measurement. Six hundred and twenty adult subjects living in a mountain village in Southern Italy, located at 954m above the sea level and at a latitude of 40°50'11″76N, were asked to fill the questionnaire in two different periods of the year: August 2010 and March 2011. Seven predictors were considered: month of investigation, age, sex, BMI, average daily sunlight exposure, beach holidays in the past 12months, and frequency of going outdoors. The statistical model assumes four classes of serum 25(OHD) concentrations: ≤10, 10-19.9, 20-29.9, and ≥30ng/ml. The algorithm was developed using a two-step procedure. In Step 1, the linear regression equation was defined in 385 randomly selected subjects. In Step 2, the predictive ability of the regression model was tested in the remaining 235 subjects. Seasonality, daily sunlight exposure and beach holidays in the past 12months accounted for 27.9, 13.5, and 6.4% of the explained variance in predicting vitamin D status, respectively. The algorithm performed extremely well: 212 of 235 (90.2%) subjects were assigned to the correct vitamin D status. In conclusion, our pilot study demonstrates that an algorithm to estimate the vitamin D status can be developed using a simple questionnaire based on sunlight exposure.

Comparison of Climate Preferences for Domestic and International Beach Holidays: A Case Study of Canadian Travelers

Coastal tourism is the largest segment of global leisure tourism and it is firmly linked to the destination’s natural resources—with climatic resources chief among them. Through observations and survey responses of beach users, studies have evaluated climatic resources for coastal tourism by quantifying optimal and unacceptable conditions. However, these studies have not taken into consideration that different forms of holidays (e.g., daytrips, short trips, main annual holiday, “once-in-a-lifetime” trip) may have varying degrees of resilience to climatic conditions. This is the first study to explore whether ideal and unacceptable climatic conditions vary between domestic and international tourists. Using an in situ survey, Canadian beach users traveling domestically (n = 359) and internationally (n = 120) were examined. Key findings include statistically significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between the two sample groups for every climate variable, with the international sample more resilient to a broader range of weather conditions, including a greater acceptance for warm temperatures, longer rainfall durations, higher wind speeds, and greater cloud cover. This study adds further insight into the complexities of evaluating climate for tourism, with implications for the demand response of tourists to climate change.

English

The current organisational environment is characterised by rapid change. This means that if businesses want to survive, they must stay abreast of these changes so as to take the most appropriate and risk-minimizing decisions. This can only be done if the decision makers have access to Intelligent Information. To obtain this information, it is necessary to have structured processes of Competitive Intelligence in place. Large businesses have been doing this for years, and now more and more small and mediums business are doing it too. In this paper, an analysis will be carried out of the implementation of these Competitive Intelligence processes in hotels in the Costa del Sol - a valued beach holiday destination on a European level. Despite strong competition from other such destinations, the Costa de Sol attracts millions of sun-seeking holiday-makers, as well as more and more visitors from other tourism sectors, such as sport and culture.

Mindy Calling: Size, Beauty, Race in The Mindy Project

Mindy Calling: Size, Beauty, Race in The Mindy Project

Vacation ease: travelling with an insulin pump.

Vacation travel is a welcome retreat from our everyday world. Whether the trip is trekking in Nepal, a ski vacation in the western Rockies or a beach holiday to the Caribbean, the insulin pump is a constant companion for many people with diabetes. As a healthcare professional assisting individuals in their travel plans, we can contribute to the success of their trip by encouraging early preparation and by sharing practical and timely tips. To provide current information and practical insights for healthcare professionals (HCP) who are counseling patients with diabetes travelling with an insulin pump. There are numerous suggestions for all patients with diabetes who travel. This article will focus on travel recommendations specific to the pump user. Due to the lack of research in this area the information shared is based on evidence where possible and otherwise patient experience. Insulin pump users can enjoy any type of vacation travel. Certain destinations require more preparation than others but regardless of the choice of venue, preplanning in collaboration with a knowledgeable health care provider can contribute to a successful experience.

How to communicate sustainable tourism products to customers: results from a choice experiment

This multiphase and empirical study explores the best communication style for reaching different international tourism markets and provides an understanding of how purchase decisions could be better influenced in travel brochures. A pre-test experiment evaluated the perceived emotionality and rationality of communication elements in a fictional travel brochure designed for a typical beach holiday but managed according to sustainability principles. In phase two, a choice experiment was conducted to test how Swiss, German, British and US travellers could be influenced by varying visual and textual communication elements in the fictional brochure (based on Mexico for US respondents and Menorca for all others). The choice experiment produced 3006 responses from an online survey in the four countries. Results confirm a general preference for emotionally laden communication styles for sustainable tourism products, while respondents were indifferent to the emotionality of standard product feature communications. Respondents did not show a preference for the inclusion of a graph explaining the product's sustainability attributes.

Revisiting Tourism Flows to the Caribbean: What is Driving Arrivals?

The Caribbean share of the global tourism market has been declining. This study examines what is driving tourism flows. It estimates the determinants of tourism and explores variations based on sample differences, and also constructs a static nominal price comparison index. The paper finds that: (i) tourism arrivals and expenditure are sensitive to both price and income factors in source markets; (ii) price and income elasticities of tourism have declined since 2008; (iii) price elasticity is statistically insignificant for “high-end†destinations; and (iv) the nominal cost of an average one week beach holiday in the Caribbean is higher than in other beach destinations around the world. These results point to the need for structural reforms to raise product quality, cost reduction or containment in “low-end†destinations, including possibly via exchange rates, and an adjustment in aggregate consumption to adapt to the implications of a lower contribution to GDP from tourism.

Revisiting Tourism Flows to the Caribbean: What is Driving Arrivals?

The Caribbean share of the global tourism market has been declining. This study examines what is driving tourism flows. It estimates the determinants of tourism and explores variations based on sample differences, and also constructs a static nominal price comparison index. The paper finds that: (i) tourism arrivals and expenditure are sensitive to both price and income factors in source markets; (ii) price and income elasticities of tourism have declined since 2008; (iii) price elasticity is statistically insignificant for “high-end” destinations; and (iv) the nominal cost of an average one week beach holiday in the Caribbean is higher than in other beach destinations around the world. These results point to the need for structural reforms to raise product quality, cost reduction or containment in “low-end” destinations, including possibly via exchange rates, and an adjustment in aggregate consumption to adapt to the implications of a lower contribution to GDP from tourism.

Present and future climate resources for various types of tourism in the Bay of Palma, Spain

The Bay of Palma, in Mallorca, is a leading region for beach holidays in Europe. It is based on a mass tourism model strongly modulated by seasonality and with high environmental costs. Main tourism stakeholders are currently implementing complementary activities to miti- gate seasonality, regardless of climate change. But climate is—and will remain—a key resource or even a limitation for many types of tourism. Assessing the present conditions and exploring the future evolution of climate potential for these activities have become a priority in this area. To this end, the climate index for tourism (CIT)—originally designed to rate the climate resource of beach tourism—is adapted to specifically appraise cycling, cultural tourism, football, golf, motor boating, sailing and hiking. Climate resources are derived by using observed and projected daily meteorological data. Projections have been obtained from a suite of Regional Climate Models run under the A1B emissions scenario. To properly derive CITs at such local scale, we apply a statistical adjustment. Present cli- mate potentials ratify the appropriateness of the Bay of Palma for satisfactorily practicing all the examined activ- ities. However, optimal conditions are projected to degrade during the peak visitation period while improving in spring and autumn. That is, climate change could further exac- erbate the present imbalance between the seasonal distri- butions of ideal climate potentials and high attendance levels. With this information at hand, policy makers and regional tourism stakeholders can respond more effectively to the great challenge of local adaptation to climate change.

A 10-step guide to party conversation for bioinformaticians

A 10-step guide to party conversation for bioinformaticians

A comparison of patterns of sun protection during beach holidays and everyday outdoor activities in a population sample of young German children

Reducing exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the main effective measure for preventing skin cancer. Educational campaigns targeting sun protection have been focused either on behaviour on the beach during the summer holiday alone, or during everyday outdoor activities of the children. Little is known about the comparison between these different settings. To analyse whether parents apply similar protective measures to reduce UV exposure for their young children in different outdoor environments. Families (n = 2619) with children aged 3-6 years (response: 64·7%) were enrolled in a population-based survey in the German city of Erlangen and its surrounding rural county. Using a self-administered standardized questionnaire parents gave information about demographic and photosensitivity data of their children, their knowledge about risk factors for skin cancer and their typical instructions given to their children when these played outside on a summer day in different outdoor environments. Significant discrepancies regarding the four UV protective measures (clothes, shade, sunhat, sunscreen) for children between an everyday outdoor setting and a holiday setting on the beach were observed. A high level of parental risk factor knowledge was significantly associated with a better protection for children in all four measures only on the beach. Photosensitivity and demographic characteristics had some impact on protective behaviour, too. Measures of sun protection were reduced with children's increasing age. Skin cancer prevention campaigns should target the encouragement of sun protection for children also in outdoor activities of daily living, not only during a summer holiday on the beach.