Space Tourism Research Articles

An Analysis of the Space Tourism Market in the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Its Potential for Development of Zero-Gravity and Suborbital Commercial Spaceflights

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have developed an increasingly active and capable space industry over recent years. Saudi Arabia sent its first astronaut to space in 1985 aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle, while the UAE sent its inaugural astronaut to the International Space Station as recently as September 2019. Both countries have ambitious plans for the further development of a local but internationally collaborative space ecosystem with science, technology, engineering, math, innovation, and commercial enterprise as pillars. This article argues that space tourism can play a key role in this space ecosystem. This article analyzes the regional space tourism market and characteristics. This is achieved by a targeted questionnaire-based survey of space tourism attitudes, behaviors, desires, willingness to pay, and stated preferences from a range of socioeconomic and demographic respondent profiles. The results of the surveys carried out in 2020 are compared with identical surveys carried out by the author in 2012. Therefore, key trends in customer behaviors and preferences for space tourism are evaluated since both the 2020 and 2012 sets of surveys are also comparable with previous surveys by other organizations and corresponding comparisons are presented. The research highlights stated preferences by respondents for three space tourism segments: (1) high-speed, high-altitude jetfighter flights, (2) commercial zero-gravity parabolic flights, and (3) future suborbital commercial spaceflights. It concludes that a UAE based zero-gravity parabolic flight venture can be commercially viable. Such a venture would also create opportunity for locally based astronaut training and scientific research in weightlessness and microgravity without having the need to travel to other countries. Furthermore, it is argued that the establishment of a local spaceport for suborbital and eventual point to point suborbital travel has the potential for longer term economic value addition to the country's economy.

Pedagogy for sustainable tourism: reflections on the curriculum space of a master programme in Sweden

ABSTRACT Tourism education has matured from vocational to more liberal education while current trends underline the importance of critical studies and the shift of curricula to more action-oriented forms of education and citizenship education. However, a gap can be noticed between theory and practice in the development of pedagogy for sustainable tourism. The research reported here draws from debates in tourism education, education for sustainability, critical studies, and education for citizenship to develop a conceptual framework for pedagogy for sustainable tourism. This framework is used to reflect on the curriculum space of a master programme in tourism in Sweden in an analytic autoethnographic approach. The analysis indicates that the master programme addresses several aspects of the reflective vocational and reflective liberal curriculum space. It would also benefit from the integration of more experiential, action-oriented learning to strengthen the communal understanding of civil action and education for citizenship. This research contributes to the conceptualisation of the curriculum space for sustainable tourism. Such efforts are considered especially important in acknowledging the complex, dynamic character of tourism higher education. The aim is to invite a dialogue about the reform and evolution of tourism education to meet the needs for a sustainable future.

Competitiveness factors influencing tourists’ intention to return and recommend: evidence from a distressed destination

ABSTRACT Assessing destination competitiveness from a tourist perspective has been limited, especially for distressed destinations such as Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has been facing ongoing political and economic challenges for more than two decades which puts pressure on the growth of the tourism industry. However, all destinations compete in the same space for tourists’ attention, forcing marketers to continuously develop strategies to enhance competitiveness and increase tourist returns and recommendations. This paper focuses on identifying competitiveness factors that influence tourists’ intention to return and recommend. Based on a sample of 450 international tourists to Zimbabwe, results show that unique to a distressed destination, the residents’ hospitality and friendliness is the most important predictor for the intention to return. This emphasises the role of residents in making the destination more competitive and attractive. General amenities, attractions and destination management are also significant predictors of return intentions. Tourists' intentions to recommend are largely predicted by the destination's resources. Encouraging visitors to revisit and recommend can assist a distressed destination in increasing visitor numbers on a limited marketing budget. Understanding these factors could also help managers to improve the negative image of the destination.

Memory anew: about restoring early post-war remembrance in Lower Silesia (Poland) in tourism context

ABSTRACT The 1989 changes in the political system in Poland resulted not only in thorough reshaping of political and economic structure of the state, but also in a range of identity processes at both regional and country level. Memory, freed from the burden of communism, demanded concepts such as identity and heritage is defined again. It was necessary to verify myths and half-told truths, to articulate issues that had so far been silenced, hidden or even erased from the public space and discourse. In this context, the so-called ‘recovered territories’, namely the regions which became part of Poland after the Second World War, seem particularly interesting. The article focuses on both purposeful and accidental, grassroots and institutional actions which illustrate broadly understood processes of ‘restoring remembrance’ in Lower Silesia (Niederschlesien before 1945). The subject of the analysis, however, is not only the process itself but primarily its tourism context. The paper is trying to determine whether and how such actions influence tourist space and phenomena in the region. The methods used were case study, observation, and desk research.

Tourism Adaptation to Coastal Risks: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of the Magdalen Islands in Québec, Canada

Coastal tourism is one of the most important segments of the tourism industry but is facing major impacts of climate change. In light of these impacts, the infrastructure enabling coastal tourism activities needs to be adapted. It is through the production of a space framework inspired by the work of Henri Lefebvre that we will reveal how a tourism space is socially constructing its own adaptation process. Using a case study methodology, we will examine the case of the Magdalen Island Archipelago in Québec, Canada, and pinpoint the subcase of La Grave. The case study will show how tourism is adding value to land dynamics to justify major adaptation work on the shore in order to protect the capital accumulation capacities of the tourism space. These justifications are buttressed by discourses of heritage and economic impacts to validate proceeding with a form of spatial reordering that privileges certain spaces while potentially leaving out others.

Lex Specialis for Space Crimes

ABSTRACT Anne McClain, an accomplished American astronaut, was sent to the ISS for six months. While stationed there, she accessed the bank account of her estranged spouse making use of the official and privileged computer network of the ISS and NASA. The spouse has alleged unauthorised access to personal financial data as an act of personal impropriety and invasion of privacy. The matter was reported to the authorities for investigation. Media has splashed this as first case of alleged criminal wrongdoing committed in and from outer space. This particular case seems rather simple because complainant and respondent, both are US citizens as also the act has been committed in the US quarters of ISS which is the notional territory of the US. So, there is no conflict of law or jurisdiction. However, it flags many legal issues relating to crimes in outer space that may require discussion and settlement. In the future, with the advent of space tourism, commercial exploitation of celestial resources, planetary settlements, etc., far more serious and complicated crimes may be committed. And multi-nationality scenario with involvement of more than one state, private corporations and individuals may pose a lot of imponderables and uncertainties under existing space law, international law as also germane national laws. Major problems would relate to jurisdictional issues, extradition conflicts, procedural hassles or uncertainty in applicable legal code. Hence, there is need to negotiate a specialis treaty that may facilitate handling of legal and juridical specificities of crimes in space and also establish an International Court of Space Crimes for dispensing justice in disputed or delayed matters.

Sentimental Analysis of Space Tourism: Evidence from Twitter

Space Tourism is the new type of tourism that created a buzz in the tourism sector after the successful landing of SpaceX craft to Earth. In this scenario, the study aims to find the sentiments of ...

Establishing a standard for park visitation analyses: Insights from Germany

Protected areas not only contribute to the protection of biological diversity but also offer spaces for outdoor recreation and tourism. As is well known, visitor monitoring is required for various reasons. The need to collect comparable visitation data in Germany's protected areas became clear with a first pilot study in 2001 at Berchtesgaden National Park. Since then, additional studies have estimated visitation using a standardized methodology. This article focuses on this methodology by examining how visitation is registered in protected areas in Germany, where a combination of censuses and structural surveys are used on selected survey days and at certain survey sites. Extrapolations of such raw data consider variations in visitor volume according to season, the day of the week, and weather conditions, while also integrating visitor segmentation and official statistical data. Differences in spatial structure are reflected in those visitor segments and outdoor activities. Parks near urban areas show a high share of day-visitors, while overnight tourism predominates in more remote areas, especially traditional tourist destinations. Using this method, initial studies calculated about 53 million visitor days per year in national parks, and over 65 million visitor days in biosphere reserves. In combination with alternative counting methods, such as automatic counters, long-term monitoring must be set up to operate permanently in order to meet international reporting obligations and verify the carrying capacity of protected areas.

Tourism management in national parks: \u0160umava and Bayerischer Wald (Bavarian Forest) in the Czech-German borderland

Along the Czech-German border there are four national parks, two Czech and two German, arranged in cross-border ‘pairs’. This article focuses on the southern ‘pair’ formed by the parks of Šumava and Bayerischer Wald (Bavarian Forest). The aim is to evaluate and compare tourism organization in their areas, taking into account selected aspects of management: the network of hiking trails with its related infrastructure, transport accessibility, a typology of tourist centers, as well as directions and destinations of tourist movements. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the availability of geographical space for tourists is much greater in the German than in the Czech national park, and the tourism infrastructure is clearly more extensive there, including the network of tourist trails. This is mainly due to the longer and fairly uninterrupted development of tourism in this area. Šumava National Park can be identified as a model in terms of how to adjust the directions of tourist movements and the layout of the tourist trail network to the needs of natural environment. On the basis of observations in both national parks, it is possible to indicate various solutions that, after appropriate adaptation, may bring benefits to other protected areas.

‘In-Between’ Rural Tourism: Rethinking Rural Tourism Spaces for Policy Development in South Africa

Rural tourism is the focus of major international scholarship. This paper contributes to policy debates about rural tourism in the Global South using the example of South Africa. Specifically, it points to a need for rethinking of rural tourism spaces for policy development in South Africa. Arguably, ‘rural spaces’ cannot be viewed homogeneously simply as places outside of cities; instead rural tourism spaces must be unpacked and differentiated. The South African case is of special interest in Global South scholarship because national government launched initiatives to prepare an appropriate rural tourism policy. It is argued that a spatially differentiated approach to rural tourism policy is useful and recommends as a starting point drawing upon best practice international research which identifies (at least) three different categories of rural space, namely fringe, exotic/remote and in-between rural spaces. Insight is provided of two examples of ‘in-between’ rural spaces in South Africa, namely Greater Giyani Local Municipality in Limpopo and Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality in Eastern Cape.

Food in Slow Tourism: The Creation of Experiences Based on the Origin of Products Sold at Mercat del Lleó (Girona)

Previous studies have highlighted the role of local food as a source of destination differentiation and tourist motivation, and as part of the understanding of slow food tourism. However, few previous researchers have discussed the proximity degree of products delivered in food tourism spaces such as markets, and how they contribute to the creation of slow tourism experiences. Based on the analysis of the origin of fruits and vegetables being sold at Mercat del Lleó, the municipal market of Girona (Catalonia, Spain), this paper investigates the value of local supply in an urban food tourism system. Fieldwork included nine interviews with market vendors, and data regarding 301 fruits and vegetables sold at the market were obtained. While results show a wide representation of local and regional produce, fruits and vegetables of national and international origin predominate over proximity products. The article reveals that there is still potential to improve the relationships between local food, identity promotion, and the sustainable experiences that attract slow tourists to urban destinations.

The Effect of Development Stimulus Projects on the Promotion of Urban Tourism Case Study: District 11 of Tehran

The Effect of Development Stimulus Projects on the Promotion of Urban Tourism Case Study: District 11 of Tehran

Borrowed production: spatial processes of urban waterfront tourism in Guangzhou

ABSTRACT Urban waterfronts are time-space constructions encompassing various social relationships and functions. They become tourism spaces in the context of particular interactions among multiple stakeholders, including local governments and tourism enterprises. Yet the processes for and approaches to transforming urban waterfronts into tourism spaces remain under-researched. Based on the lens of Lefebvre’s space production theory, this research explores how tourism spaces are generated in the waterfront area of Pearl River in Guangzhou that originally featured no tourism attributes. The city government has conceived the shifting representations of space for the Pearl River waterfront over time including commercial space, scenery space, and a showcase of a prosperous city image, but neglected tourism development. Cruise companies are the key entity facilitating the spatial processes of the Pearl River Tour. The approach to space production presents itself as a means of ‘borrowed production,’ where cruise companies produce tourism spaces by embedding themselves into government plans and flexibly utilizing public projects that significantly improve waterfront infrastructure and views. This study contributes to the literature on tourism space production by clarifying the negotiating relationship between urban politics and tourism enterprises.

‘In-Between’ Rural Tourism: Rethinking Rural Tourism Spaces for Policy Development in South Africa

‘In-Between’ Rural Tourism: Rethinking Rural Tourism Spaces for Policy Development in South Africa

Event marketing as a tool supporting the process of revitalization of post-military tourism space in Borne Sulinowo

The article describes a case study concerning the implementation of the principles of sustainable development in Borne Sulinowo, where the author investigates the effect of using event marketing activities as a tool for marketing a tourism product and a regenerated post-military tourism space. The aim of the article is to show how event marketing can be used as a tool supporting the development of tourism space created in the process of revitalisation of various areas, especially post-military ones, and to identify elements that can be used by local authorities to develop and promote their tourism space taking into account requirements of sustainable development (a given space should be revitalised in a specific way and, if possible, restored to its former status). The analysis is based on a case study of a rally of military vehicles organised annually since 2004 in Borny Sulinowo as part of the process of revitalisation of the town space. The study is based on data collected in the process of participant observation and on a review of available literature and online resources. The author demonstrates that mass events can be used as a way of promoting a tourism product that is being created and can directly or indirectly help to achieve particular objectives set out in the revitalisation programme. They can also can be used to dispell concerns of the local community by highlighting benefits and opportunities associated with the changes taking place.

Stars in the rearview mirror: The Grand Tour as a guide to the development of space tourism

PurposeIn this paper, the authors argue that the blueprint that was organically developed over the course of approximately three centuries, from The Grand Tour to this day, is likely to see something close to a repeat in the development of that final frontier.Design/methodology/approachThe study used the methodology of reviewing the literature and model comparison.FindingsOpportunities will expand and change along the same trends that lead The Grand Tour to evolve into mass tourism, because as in the past people's perceptions about what is possible and reasonable will change the more common such once fictional ideas become reality.Originality/valueNothing is in the current tourism literature, on this topic. This is new and unique.

POSTCORONAVIRUS TRANSFORMATION OF ECONOMIC SECURITY OF MICRO-ENTERPRISES OF THE REGIONAL SPHERE OF TOURISM

The article examines the scientific experience in developing optimal steps in the postcoronavirus period of development of the domestic tourist region to a systematic vision of a comprehensive strategy taking into account the interests of firms. The theoretical basis for the essence of the concept of "safety in tourism" is studied and the own vision of its modern content is offered. It is established that in the post-coronavirus perspective of the tourism industry there is a need to review approaches to the formation and provision of economic security in order to maintain a stable position of enterprises in domestic and international markets, both in real and digital environment. It is determined that the structure of economic security of the tourist sphere of the region will have the following components: ecological, financial, investment, social, innovative, functional; the composition of the system of economic security of the tourist micro-enterprise is logically expressed by the components: tourist, technical and economic; financial, personnel, information. The tasks of economic security of the tourist enterprise of the region in the postcoronavirus era of business transformation are offered. It is concluded that the concept of creating a mechanism of economic security in the regional sphere of tourism provides a harmonious system of combining the priority interests of the enterprise and the environment. The basic stages of the methodology of development of the system of economic security of the microenterprise of the regional sphere of tourism in the postcoronavirus business space are formed. It is one of the priority areas for strengthening the economic security of tourism micro-entrepreneurship in the region: policy tools at the macro-level hierarchy of economic management and policy tools at the meso-level hierarchy of economic management. The structure of management functions of local authorities in the direction of forming a safe environment for tourism is shown schematically. The main requirements defined by the concept of economic security of the micro-business sector in tourism in the region are presented.

KONFLIK PEMANFAATAN RUANG PARIWISATA DI WILAYAH PESISIR TANAH LOT BALI

Studies on conflicts over the use of tourism space based on potentials and problems in the coastal area of Tanah Lot. The development of several sectors which are the main potential to be developed, namely the tourism sector, the agricultural sector, the economic sector which is a form of spatial use. From this development, of course, it involves various interest groups in the utilization of tourism space in the coastal area of Tanah Lot. From the various interest groups that exist, there will be competition between the interest groups and stakeholders, which is accompanied by negotiations. The purpose of this research is to understand in depth the conflicts related to the use of tourism space in the coastal area of Tanah Lot. In this study, using a qualitative method with a naturalistic approach to produce descriptive data in the form of written or spoken words of the person or object being observed. For the discussion and analysis of the data carried out inductively. In this study, observations were made to see directly the land use process that occurred in the coastal area of Tanah Lot. The theoretical basis which is used as an assumption in this observation is the zoning theory of spatial use, interest group theory, conflict theory, land use conversion theory, coastal area theory and tourism theory. From the results of this study it can be concluded as follows; The form of existing spatial use is dominated by rice fields, both still productive and unproductive rice fields. Unproductive rice fields are in the form of plantations. Spatial use conflicts that are very prominent are not in accordance with the Regional Regulation Number 16 of 2009 on the Province of Bali, concerning the RTRW of the Province of Bali.

Changes in cross-border tourist traffic on the Poland–Belarus border, as exemplified by the Augustów Canal

The Augustów Canal is one of the unique tourist attractions of a Poland–Belarus borderland known for its highly valuable natural, cultural-historical and tourism-related features. From the beginning of the 21st century, following total renovation as well as the opening of both water and road versions of the Rudawka–Lesnaya border crossing (in 2005 and 2017 respectively), it has been possible to observe a many-fold increase in tourist traffic within the Augustów Canal tourist space. The present article thus helps fill a research gap with an up-to-date description of this intensification and an analysis of its dynamics in terms of the countries of origin of visiting tourists, its seasonality and choice of transport, be it by water (by boat) or by road (by bicycle or on foot). This study continues investigations into the influence of the easing of the border regime in Belarus (introduction of a visa-free zone) on the volume of tourist traffic. Factors influencing cross-border traffic on the Augustów Canal have been studied at local, regional, national and international levels (multi-scalar). Fieldwork has also been organised, using the participant-observer method, and statistical data from the Polish Border Guard has been analysed. Results confirm that the greatest use made of the Rudawka–Lesnaya crossing is by tourists from Poland and Belarus, with smaller numbers from Lithuania, Russia and Germany. Poles are the nation most often availing themselves of opportunities to cross the border by water, while Belarusians show a preference for the road crossing.

Using AR Technology in Tourism Based on the Example of Maritime Educational Trips—A Conceptual Model

Technological progress in augmented reality (AR) creates new application opportunities for different branches of tourism. The application of modern technology is made possible by the widespread use of mobile devices and dedicated tourist applications. Preliminary market research demonstrates that there are no global solutions intended for tourists on sea voyages that make use of augmented reality. This paper analyzes the use of AR technology in water tourism. The proposed Maritime Educational Trip (MET) system makes it possible to combine geolocation information with the accumulated knowledge of a specific location and to present it with AR. An example prototypical Android application is developed, combining e-navigation with a knowledge base. The developed solutions show how a combination of the real world with a computer-generated world helps to expand the tourism space.