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Transformational tourism is about a change in thinking and behaviour through travel and tourism. In contrast to the first volume which focuses on tourist perspectives, this second volume focuses on host community perspectives of transformational tourism. This volume shows that through the tourist-host relationships, interacting with other people and learning about other places, host communities can critically reflect on life, and shift the course of their knowledge and the meaning perspective. By experiencing tourism and tourists, host communities can generate new thoughts and ideas, create new meanings, change their social, cultural, political and environmental beliefs and, most importantly, move towards new values of openness, tolerance, sharing, empathy, compassion, justice and peace, unity and oneness, and service to others. This volume contains 14 chapters. Most of the chapters concentrate on a particular type of host experience and report on research studies conducted in various parts of the world. The volume is aimed at tourism students and academics in business and non-business schools. Studies presented in this volume are also likely to appeal to tourism businesses because they show what tourism products should be developed in order for the host communities to grow and the industry to be successful. In addition, this volume is aimed at students, academics and professionals from other disciplines that deal with human development and behavioural changes.

This book deals with the issue of how travel and tourism, if developed in a proper form, can contribute to human transformation, growth and development, and change human behaviour and our relationship with the world. The volume investigates the experiences offered by travel and tourism that can change travellers as human beings and their relationships and interactions with natural, socio-cultural, economic, political and technological environments. The book has been published in two volumes. This first volume focuses on the tourist perspective and the tourist self. It consists of 16 chapters covering different types of tourism, including: wellness, retreat, religious and spiritual tourism; extreme sports, backpacking and cultural tourism; WWOOFing and ecotourism; and volunteer and educational tourism. This book is primarily intended for tourism students and tourism programmes in business and non-business schools. However, it could also appeal to students, academics and professionals from disciplines that deal with human development and behavioural changes.

In recent years there has been a considerable interest in the cultural aspects of tourism such as the impacts of culture on tourism planning, development, management, and marketing. However, the focus has been on material forms of culture such as arts, music, or crafts. The impacts of national culture on tourist behavior and travel decision-making have not been paid much attention. Only in the last two years have cross-cultural issues begun to generate significant interest among academics. An examination of cultural characteristics and differences is extremely important to the tourism industry because today's tourism environment is becoming increasingly international. Advances in technology, and improved communication and transportation have enhanced peoples' mobility and travel such that exposure to culturally different societies, cultures exchanges and interactions is now commonplace. It is imperative for industry representatives, who operate in the international business environment and deal with foreign tourists on a daily basis, to understand the influence of national cultures of their customers. Unfortunately, information on the nature of the cultural differences between international tourists and locals is not readily available in tourism literature. The concept of culture is very complex. The analysis of cultural differences in a multidisciplinary tourism context and/or application of the literature on cultural differences in the abstract concepts such as satisfaction, attitude or loyalty (that have different meanings in different cultures) to the tourism context create problems. Although the effects of national characteristics on consumer behavior in general have been investigated in several research studies, more information is required concerning the cultural differences in the tourism context. This book will bring these concepts to the undergraduate student in tourism, as well as students in the related fields of marketing, management, international business, and cross-cultural communication. Designed as a textbook, it will organized and presented in an integrated and relevant way for the benefit of a worldwide audience. * Provides comprehensive coverage of cross-cultural issues and behavior in tourism * Textbook design features learning objectives, discussion points and review questions to facilitate student use * Illustrates how international cultural differences influence travel decision-making

There has been a significant increase in the number of studies investigating cultural influences on consumer behavior in tourism, hospitality and leisure, particularly in Australia, the United States, Europe, and New Zealand. However, despite the tradition of rich culture and hospitality, despite the importance of tourism to the economies of Arab/Muslim countries, and despite the natural and cultural resources with which Arab/Muslim countries are divinely endowed, and despite the popularity of tourism in these countries, studies focusing on consumer behavior in hospitality, tourism and leisure