Bicycle Tourism Research Articles

中国户外旅游回顾与展望——基于外国学者视角①

In this contribution I provide a foreigner’s perspective on the growth and development of outdoor tourism in China over the past three decades or more. This is the perspective of someone who does not speak Chinese, but who has been privileged to visit some of China’s outstanding outdoor tourism destinations over an extended period, and observe social, economic and environmental changes as they took place. A foreigner’s perspective is always more limited than that of Chinese scholars, but it may still provide a useful counterpart. I describe three main historical phases. The first took place in the 1980s, before the development of large scale domestic or inbound international tourism. I provide some historical anecdotes which may be of interest to Chinese university students. The second phase was the gradual opening of China to international inbound tourism, and its inclusion as a favoured destination by global tourists. The third phase has two components: the enormous growth of Chinese domestic tourism, largely in cultural and economic isolation from the international tourism industry; and the simultaneous growth of Chinese outbound tourism, closely linked to the international industry. China now has a very large domestic outdoor tourism sector, and a much smaller but nonetheless significant international inbound sector. The former includes: visits to scenic parks, nature reserves, forest reserves, and traditional cultural sites; specialist Chinese adventure activities such as piaoliuziyou; and internationally widespread outdoor mountain activities such as trekking and mountaineering, and outdoor coastal activities such as surfing and kiteboarding. The latter includes, e.g., climbing Mt. Everest from the northern side; rafting in Tibet, Yunnan and Szechuan; off- road and bicycle tours, and riverboat cruises. From a research perspective, the key issue for foreigners is that whilst many Chinese scholars can read English, and many International publications are translated to Chinese, the reverse does not apply: few foreigners are familiar with the Chinese language, and hence with the Chinese academic literature. From a foreign researcher’s perspective, therefore, cooperative projects with Chinese colleagues are of enormous value. As regards research topics in outdoor tourism, there are three broad approaches which can perhaps prove valuable in future. The first is to ensure that innovations in the international literature are also applied in China, as immediately as possible. That is, China should benefit from global research, and China should be included in international comparative studies. That can only occur if relevant research in China is published in internationally accessible journals. The second is that since China now forms a very large component in global tourism, as well as in the world economy and population more broadly, it is critical for foreign researchers that they can gain access to Chinese research findings. Foreign researchers understand that outdoor tourism in China is influenced by scale, history and culture, but they are not yet in a position to follow how those factors influence the many rapid changes occurring within the Chinese domestic tourism sector. We would like to know more, and understand better. As just one example, China now has a surf tourism subsector. Where does that fit into the international surfing industry? The third is that as more and more Chinese outdoor tourists travel overseas, their culturally driven expectations may not always match what international tourism enterprises provide. Chinese clients are influencing the outdoor tourism industry in other countries; and when they return home, they may also influence the outdoor tourism industry within China. The role of tourism in these cultural exchanges and interactions provides fascinating opportunities for social science research at present.

Economic Benefits of Increased Cycling

Cycling is not only improving the livability of cities, public health, air quality, or the CO2 balance, it also creates “hard economic value and jobs”. It is therefore a perfect tool for transition in the transport sector, providing a large number of assets, including jobs. Although the latter point is important to attract public authority consideration and investment in cycling, good information has hitherto been lacking.At regional or city level, some estimates of jobs in the cycling sector are available. At European level however, job figures have been quite scarce.This is the reason why ECF, in partnership with its Cycling Industry Club (CIC), asked TML to assess the jobs in the European cycling sector.TML assessed the number of jobs today and in the future, assuming a doubling in the modal share of cycling. It calculated full-time equivalent jobs in 5 subsectors:•bicycle retail (mainly sales and repair),•bicycle industry (manufacturing and wholesale),•bicycle infrastructure,•bicycle tourism (accommodation and restaurants),•bicycle services.For most sectors job figures linked to cycling were not directly available. TML therefore consulted literature, national studies on the subject, national accounts, used some proxies and did some statistical analysis to provide estimates of jobs in the cycling sector.The study found that more than 650,000 jobs are linked to cycling today in the EU-27 and more than 400,000 new ones could be created in the future with a doubling of cycling modal share. Other interesting findings concern the characteristics of these jobs. Cycling could, compared to other sectors, create:•more local jobs,•more jobs for lower skilled workers,•more jobs per euro spent.It could thus open an interesting window for opportunity for a transition to a more inclusive Europe.In 2015, ECF is producing another report on the economic benefits of cycling, more specifically regarding benefits which occur at the local level.Several studies have shown that, besides creating jobs, making cities more cycling-friendly has beneficial effects for e.g. the businesses of local retailers or for property value along traffic-calmed roads. ECF's aim is to provide an overview of the results of the research done so far and identify areas where further investigation is needed.The paper summarises both reports in order to show how cycling as a mode of transport is a factor of economic growth and provides social benefits.

Aerobic and Cognitive Exercise (ACE) Pilot Study for Older Adults: Executive Function Improves with Cognitive Challenge While Exergaming.

Dementia cases are increasing worldwide; thus, investigators seek to identify interventions that might prevent or ameliorate cognitive decline in later life. Extensive research confirms the benefits of physical exercise for brain health, yet only a fraction of older adults exercise regularly. Interactive mental and physical exercise, as in aerobic exergaming, not only motivates, but has also been found to yield cognitive benefit above and beyond traditional exercise. This pilot study sought to investigate whether greater cognitive challenge while exergaming would yield differential outcomes in executive function and generalize to everyday functioning. Sixty-four community based older adults (mean age=82) were randomly assigned to pedal a stationary bike, while interactively engaging on-screen with: (1) a low cognitive demand task (bike tour), or (2) a high cognitive demand task (video game). Executive function (indices from Trails, Stroop and Digit Span) was assessed before and after a single-bout and 3-month exercise intervention. Significant group × time interactions were found after a single-bout (Color Trails) and after 3 months of exergaming (Stroop; among 20 adherents). Those in the high cognitive demand group performed better than those in the low cognitive dose condition. Everyday function improved across both exercise conditions. Pilot data indicate that for older adults, cognitive benefit while exergaming increased concomitantly with higher doses of interactive mental challenge.

The protected areas: are they still in the ‘pleasure periphery’ or are they destinations for sustainable tourism activities?

The protected natural areas play an important role in recreation. This paper discusses the issue of recreational activities in these areas. The National Park and Protected Landscape Areas in the southern part of the Czech Republic were selected for the purposes of illustration. It has been revealed that relaxation is the most important activity among tourists in the large-area protected natural territories, according to a recent survey of 1,500 participants. Entertainment is the second most important activity. Recreational sport activities (such as swimming, tennis, etc.) are respectively in the third and fourth places. We can talk about the large-area protected natural reservations as destinations for “nature-based tourism”, whose prerequisite is the existence of a pristine natural environment, which is primarily bound to protected natural areas in today’s world, and it is not for sustainable tourism. According to the participation in recreation activities, four segments of demand have been identified in visits to these large-area protected natural territories: (1) passive visitors, (2) visitors focused on exploring but not participating in any physical activity, (3) active visitors with a dominant interest in bicycle touring, and (4) active visitors with a dominant interest in history.

The Art of Guiding in Nature-Based Adventure Tourism – How Guides Can Create Client Value and Positive Experiences on Mountain Bike and Backcountry Ski Tours

This paper examines the ways in which guides contribute to creating value to clients. The context is nature-based adventure tourism in the specific mediums of mountain bike and backcountry ski tours in Utah and Idaho, USA. Qualitative interviews of clients and guides combined with participant observations are used to explore how guides interact with clients to increase their perceived value. Important findings are related to how guides use their knowledge about the activity, the area, safety management, as well as their organizational skills, to effectively and conveniently facilitate fun experiences with minimum risk exposure. The paper also documents guides’ contributions related to learning, relational aspects, entertainment techniques, and providing information about environmentally friendly behavior. An important theoretical contribution is the identification of how guides carefully balance thrilling and safe experiences and avoid experiences that cause anxiety. The study documents how guides can contribute to prevent negative incidents like conflicts within the client group, or possible accidents. The study indicates that there is a potential for increased contributions from guides especially related to choreographing experiences, interpreting nature, and learning of behaving environmentally.

Construction of a topographical road graph for bicycle tour routes

In this paper, we describe an algorithmic procedure for transforming traditional road map data into a novel topographical road graph for generating customized multi-day bicycle routes. To that end, we are using polyline data from the OpenStreetMap (OSM), 1/3-arc second resolution elevation data from a Digital Elevation Model provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, and a model of perceived exertion (PE) for bicyclists of different levels of expertise. Our topographical road graph allows for the calculation of the PE over any sequence of road segments (a path) for bicyclists of different levels of expertise and serves as input for generating paths of minimal PE. Our objective is to enable generation of multi-day bicycle tours of minimal PE for cyclists of different levels of expertise.

Profiling bicycle tourists: a case of Croatia

Purpose – The purpose of the primary research is to gather information about the behaviour of bicycle tourism demand. Primarily by studying domestic bicycle tourists, the research results were expected to provide valuable market parameters, comparable with the determinants of previous relevant studies. Design and Methodology – Research was carried out by surveying different segments of bicyclists, recognized in earlier conceptual contributions. Electronic data collection techniques were applied. The online questionnaire was distributed to chosen respondents in the form of the link included in a personal message on a certain social network. A personal approach ensured a high response rate. The nature of research design resulted in a descriptive research, although some of its characteristics could be considered as exploratory. Findings – This paper is the first attempt to study the Croatian segment of the bicycle tourism demand. As far as the attributes common to both national and international research are concerned, it is possible to argue the similarities and differences of demand profiles. Value – Until there is a uniform approach to monitoring the phenomenon at the European level, the profiling of demand in bicycle tourism makes it possible to compare the specific findings with current trends. This research applies a somewhat different perspective than the existing ones – enabling more insight into the cycling-related behaviour in the home area and on vacation. As part of the international demand for bicycle tourism, knowledge about the behaviour of one particular national market contributes to the general state of the research.

IEEE Young Professionals EMC

We held two successful Young Professionals events at the joint 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility and EMC Europe in Dresden, Germany this summer. Our social event was a bike tour of the historic city with Professor Tzong-Lin Wu and Professor David Pommerenke as our special guests. The rainy day did not dampen the enthusiasm of our EMC Young Professionals! Our professional development event consisted of a Body Language lecture where Martina Sabath taught us how to relax before a talk, learn how to interpret gestures in a business arena and what pose would make the speaker look confident when he/she is on the podium.

Multi-day bicycle tour route generation

AbstractIn this paper, we describe a procedure for constructing bicycle routes of minimal perceived exertion over a multi-day tour for cyclists of different levels of expertise. Given a cyclist’s origin, destination, selected points of interest she/he wants to visit, and a level of cycling expertise, this procedure generates a multi-day bicycle tour as a collection of successive daily paths that begin and end at overnight accommodations. The objective is to minimize the total perceived exertion. We demonstrate the implementation of this procedure on an example multi-day tour route in California and present the results of a survey designed to evaluate the daily paths constructed. Repeated measures analysis indicated that 108 of the 120 perceived exertion ratings of the routes generated by our method fit the reported perceived exertion levels of 175 avid cyclists who participated in an evaluation survey.

Extending the benefits of leveraging cycling events: evidence from the Tour of Flanders

Research question: This paper examines event leveraging for public health benefits with the outcome of increasing physical activity participation. While event leveraging provides the foundation for this research, social ecological theory is additionally applied to further examine how leveraging efforts can increase physical activity participation through an understanding of systems and targets.Research methods: An in-depth case study of the Tour of Flanders (Dutch: Ronde van Vlaanderen), Belgium's most popular annual cycling event, is conducted by using qualitative data from interviews and documents.Results and findings: Results reveal that community and sport event-related leverageable resources have been leveraged simultaneously through the strategic use of Flanders' cycling heritage to increase bicycle tourism and active participation in cycling in the region. The Village of the Tour and the Centennial Tour are discussed as two leveraging processes that occur at distinct social ecological systems, using different targets to promote cycling.Implications: The paper argues for greater cooperation between different levels of government operating in the advent of leveraging cycling events to extend the benefits of leveraging.

Cycling into Sensoria: Embodiment, Leisure, and Tourism

A self-supported long-distance bicycle tour in Hawai'i is the context for theoretical musings about the role of the sensuous in leisure and tourism scholarship. Autoethnography and narrative inquiry was chosen to underscore the experiences and critical insights from self-supported long-distance bicycle touring leisure research for three leisure scholars. Sensuous scholarship complements Lefebvre's spacetime that placed the human body and everyday life at the center of his theorizing. Kānaka Oiwi's scholarship and critique of Eurocentric leisure supports the value of sensuous scholarship as enhancing Eurocentric leisure practices as well as supporting decolonizing processes relevant to leisure/ tourism research. Taking the body–mind–spirit and "body-on-a-cycle motion" seriously highlights the power of sensuous scholarship, interrogates dominant narratives of leisure, and demonstrates the power of paying attention to the everyday features and the production of leisure spacetimes.

Mountain Bike Tourism and Community Development In British Columbia: Critical Success Factors for the Future

Mountain bike tourism may provide significant benefit to communities, as shown by economic impacts of $38 (CDN) million realized in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor region of British Columbia, Canada in 2006. This achievement was realized due to regional stakeholder collaboration and community mountain bike trail planning dating back to the early 1990s. Despite the value and recent growth in mountain bike tourism, formal research into community mountain bike tourism development is still in its infancy. To explore the critical success factors necessary to build sustainable tourism capacity for the development of mountain bike tourism, a modified Delphi method was utilized to query industry experts in this empirical study. A literature review, followed by online surveys of selected experts, led to the creation of a framework for community-based mountain bike tourism development to support sustainable community mountain bike tourism strategies. This framework may be beneficial to clusters of tourism stakeholders for mapping-out long-term objectives and to achieve planning and operational efficacy. Utilization of the framework may also assist stakeholders to more effectively execute a successful community-based mountain bike tourism development strategy while assisting future researchers to delve further into an analysis of the role of critical success factors.

Attributes of Destination Attractiveness in Taiwanese Bicycle Tourism: The Perspective of Active Experienced Bicycle Tourists

This study extends previous studies by examining the demand-side perspective towards the factors determining the attractiveness of a bicycle tourism destination and choosing Taiwan as the research context. Thirteen determinants of destination attractiveness were selected by reviewing the relevant literature. The relative importance of these determinants was analyzed using the analytic hierarchy process method. Using the snowball sampling approach, a total of 28 active experienced bicycle tourists were involved in this study. Results show that provision of catering services (grocery and convenience stores), comfortable climate, smooth pavement surface, and provision of lodging facilities are the most important attributes determining the attractiveness of a bicycle tourism destination. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

An investigation of factors determining cycling experience and frequency

A bicycle tourism destination is composed of complexes of different attributes that are crucial for the determination of tourist satisfaction levels. However, the relative impact of sector-specific destination attributes on bicycle touring and leisure cycling experience and frequency has been both poorly understood and studied. This study is an attempt to fill this literature gap by exploring a demand-side perspective on the important contributors of overall satisfaction with cycling experience and the key determinants of cycling frequency. The 28 sector-specific destination attributes were drawn from the relevant literature, and then modified by a panel of industry experts. Using exploratory factor analysis, three destination-specific attribute-level satisfaction factors were identified in descending order of satisfaction degree: ‘provision of signage services,’ ‘provision of safety and emergency services,’ and ‘quality of bicycle routes.’ Among these factors, ‘provision of safety and security services’ and ‘provision of signage services’ were found to be the most important contributors to overall satisfaction. Finally, ‘monthly income’ was proven to be a significant predictor of cycling frequency. This study is of great importance as there is a growing body of evidence that the use of bicycle for leisure, recreation, and tourism is undergoing a resurgence worldwide. The findings of this study may be of interest to scholars in Western countries where bicycle tourism is mature and highly developed and in Asian countries where the sector is at an early stage of development. Since bicycle touring and leisure cycling experience and frequency can be increased by modifying destination marketing and management practices, the government and industry sectors should focus more attention on ensuring the provision of multi-functional grocery and convenience stores along designated bicycle routes, developing an informative and visible signage system for designated bicycle routes, and targeting middle- to high-income bicyclists with diverse bicycle touring and leisure cycling experience options.

Sustainability SI: Exploring Heterogeneity in Cycle Tourists’ Preferences for an Integrated Bike-Rail Transport Service

Bicycle tourism has recently become an important niche tourism market, and one that is growing along with rising awareness of the need for sustainable development. However, one major concern is that such tourism might generate additional car journeys, as cycle tourists often put their bikes in cars and drive to the location where their cycling will take place. This paper focuses on an integrated bike-rail transport service, and examines cyclists’ preferences with regard to this service by using a discrete choice experiment in Taiwan. The preferences of different groups segmented by cycle tourists’ recreation specialization level and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for service attributes were examined. Data were collected using an on-site choice experiment survey, with choice sets designed based on service attributes in the integrated bike-rail transport service context. Mixed logit models were analyzed to explore the varied preferences of the respondents. The results revealed that cycle tourists in general are concerned about the service attributes of the integrated bike-rail transport service, such as price, type of bike storage, bike storage location and service frequency. In addition, varied preferences and differences in the WTP for the attributes were found among the different groups.

Attività ricettive «amiche della bicicletta». Casi italiani e prospettive

A survey carried by the European Parliament - Directorate General for Internal Policies, entitled «The European cycle route network Eurovelo», highlights how Italy is one of the favorite tourist destinations by bicycle from other EU countries and Switzerland. The different types of tourism cycling coincide with the active tourism, nature tourism, the itinerant tourism, religious tourism, etc., but they share the use of bicycles, which requires infrastructure, services and accommodation appropriate. Regarding the latter feature can not speak of bicycle tourism without investigating the phenomenon of socalled bike hotels, accommodation facilities, not just hotel, particularly attentive to the needs of travelers cyclists, linked together in a network and offer specific the various types of bicycle tourists. The paper analyzes the totality of accommodation facilities, hotels and other, at the national, regional and provincial level, based on data from Istat 2010, identifying for each field structures bike friendly, and investigating the reasons that have led us to develop, in some areas more than in others, this type of tourist accommodation. Complete the cognitive framework an overview of local and national policies aimed at encouraging the development of this type of tourism and hotels and other accommodation facilities.

The logistic product of bicycle destinations

Purpose – of the study is to indicate the path of much needed segmentation in the Croatian tourist supply. Therefore, it aims to identify the destination-specific elements of bicycle destinations in Europe, within the context of cycle tourism demand. Design – While the quality of the tourist product is proportional to the level of logistics implementation and the rivalry on the tourist market is supply chain-based, the focus is on a crucial element of tourist supply chain management—information. Methodology – The study recognizes both counterparts on the market, although highlighting the tourist supply. The data on supply was collected by researching the internet information sources available to cycle tourists while making travel decisions. Findings on the destinations’ logistic product variables are compared to criteria set by the researched cycle tourism demand. Approach – This small-scale research of bicycle tourism supply aims at testing the selected criteria for the purpose of a sequential wider research oriented towards providing a list of possible upgrades for Croatian destinations. Findings – Among all features attributable to a destination, research demonstrated that the cycle tourists’ primary focus is on information accessibility. The cycling-specific supply recognizes this information dependency and targets the market by a variety of needed information, while general tourist sites often lack complete information. Value – Similar research of bicycle tourism does not exist. The field is mainly contributed to trough conceptual discussions and studies of existing practice. This research establishes to what extent the demand and supply side match by identifying the common attributes of cycle tourism destinations.

The Joy of Biking Together: Sharing Everyday Experiences of Vélomobility

This paper analyses how adults and children elicit and share their everyday experiences of cycling together in a variety of circumstances. Video data were collected of commuter cyclists, family bike rides and school bike tours. Using an ethnomethodologically informed approach to talk, mobile action and interactional practices, the novel video recordings of these diverse vélomobile formations are analysed in order to document how cyclists organise and mobilise their experiences and accompanying emotions in relation to the concurrent activity of biking together. Assuming that displays of emotion are situated, social activities, the analysis focuses on how embodied displays of emotion are accomplished, maintained, assessed and resisted by co-riders in motion.

Brian Kobilka

> ### Preamble by Robert Lefkowitz > > It’s a great source of personal pride and pleasure for me to introduce this interview with Dr. Brian Kobilka. Brian’s major contributions to science have been in elucidating the structure and mechanism of activation of G-protein–coupled receptors using primarily the beta 2 adrenergic receptor as a model. Brian’s interest in this area began about 30 years ago when he came to my laboratory as a cardiology fellow at Duke University to do post-doctoral research. He had already completed his medical degree at Yale and House Staff training at Washington University in Saint Louis. During his years in my laboratory, even at this very early stage in his career, the talents which would ultimately allow Brian to achieve his recent successes in crystallizing G-protein–coupled receptors and G-protein–coupled receptor complexes, were already apparent. These include remarkable technical creativity applied to seemingly intractable problems, persistence in the face of failure, and a seemingly unlimited tolerance for risk in the projects that he undertakes. > > In this interview Brian talks about the keys to his success. He wisely points out that there is no one “right” way to proceed in the lab to be successful. Rather, each one of us has to do it in a way which maximizes the particular talents and gifts that we have. One of the features that makes Brian’s own work so impressive is the consistent level of originality and creativity that he has brought to defeating technical hurdles which have obstructed forward progress by others in the field. > > I applaud Brian’s balanced approach to life. In addition to his devotion to his science, he is devoted to his family and also finds time for healthy leisure pursuits such as cycling and running. Any young (or not so young) scientist reading this interview could not find a better role model …

Improving cancer research

Improving cancer research