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The positive sentiment, as well as the role of the residents as a key stakeholder in the scuba diving tourism system (SDTS) in Italy's Portofino Marine Protected area (PMPA), is essential for the sustainability of the SDTS. However, studies on this area found that residents did not form part of the planning and the implementation of the MPA or SDTS, and as a result, negativity towards these industries was observed. It was the purpose of this study to determine possible gaps in communication and understanding between two key stakeholders in this SDTS, namely the residents and the dive operators in order to create better undertstanding and resident sentiment towards the industry. This was done through a mixed-method approach. Interviews were held with dive operators, after which a questionnaire was distributed to residents. From the results, misperceptions and miscommunication were found between the two stakeholders which caused negativity in the SDTS. The data showed that residents are not aware that they are stakeholders with an essential role in the SDTS. This study contributes to current literature regarding the importance of residents as stakeholders in SDTSs and the tourism industry as a whole, and the manner in which negative social impact perceptions can foster negativity towards tourism activities. From a practical perspective, this study makes recommendations on how systems such as the PMPA and SDTS should be planned and managed by incorporating the key stakeholders into the planning and implementation, thereby bridging the gaps in communication and understanding between the stakeholders, and building a more sustainable tourism industry. ; This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in European Journal of Tourism research on 24/06/2018. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://ejtr.vumk.eu/index.php/volume20/605-v20rp105 This paper has received funding from the European Union (EU)'s H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie ...

ABSTRACT Scuba diving has attracted increased numbers of tourists on a global scale. While the beneficial as well as detrimental impacts of scuba diving tourism have been well documented, limited research attention is given to the perspectives of dive operators with respect to sustainable development. This study examined the perspectives and experiences of dive operators in relation to sustainable resource use in Mozambique and Italy, two countries that are home to popular coastal destinations and offshore marine parks. Interviews suggested that overall operators have positive attitudes towards sustainable resource use, engaging in actions such as deploying four-stroke engines, recycling equipment and waste, and favouring electric- over fuel-powered vehicles. Yet, they do not promote sustainable resource use at the dive centre, with reasons including limited time, lack of government incentives, and absence of rebate systems. Implications were discussed for sustainable diving operations in the study areas and generally. ; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors extend their gratitude to the participants in the interviews, which are included in the list reported here: http://www.greenbubbles.eu/?cat=70. Special thanks go to Van Dao Truong, Murat Egi, Martina Milanese, Carlo Cerrano, Marco Palma, Waldo Krugell, Miguel Gonçalves, Armand Viljoen, the Peace Parks Foundation, and the management board of Portofino MPA. This study was funded by the Green Bubbles RISE project, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2014. The project has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 643712. This paper reflects only the authors' view. The Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Although cultural tourism is the most prevalent type of tourism in the world it still remains invisible in South Africa's tourism landscape. Despite the country's unique cultural heritage resource base and the fact that cultural diversity is the core feature of South African marketing strategy, absence of culture as a purpose for travel in the South African Tourism international exit survey means that the size of cultural tourism market as well as behaviour characteristics of cultural tourists are not known to both government and industry. For this reason the main tourism stakeholders in the country are unable to make informed strategic and developmental decisions which directly affect the performance of South African cultural heritage tourism products. This paper contributes to South African cultural tourism discourse both theoretically and practically. It presents a theoretical overview of the complex nature of cultural tourism demand, specifically cultural motivation and omnivorousness of cultural consumption. These theoretical concepts are applied on the data from South African annual tourism reports, and European and USA tourism reports and research studies, in order to determine the size and behaviour characteristics of the main international cultural tourism markets in South Africa ; http://reference.sabinet.co.za.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/document/EJC143202 ; http://reference.sabinet.co.za.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/sa_epublication/ajpherd

With the advent of the experience economy the unique experiential value of cultural heritage products comes to the forefront of cultural tourism development and is the main value proposition for emerging destinations, including South Africa. As South Africa's democracy divedends had paid out by 1998, South African Tourism was left with an array of dormant cultural heritage resources (still) unable to turn them into meaningful tourist experiences. The reason is lack of understanding of tourist experience as opposed to tourist consumption. Consumer segmentation and marketing mantra of telling and selling simply does not work on tourist experience arising from consumption of cultural heritage products. Two propositions underline this type of experience: attractions cannot speak for themselves and we tell the story to sell the experience. The art of telling the story converges on both sides of experiential paradigm (tourist and attraction) thus telling is selling principle is a point of sale for cultural heritage products. Unpacking this principle in creating unique experiential value of cultural heritage products is the main theoretical contribution of this paper to South African cultural tourism discourse. The proposed experiential framework pertinent to cultural heritage sites integrates three paradigms namely product, experience and interpretation and the resultant tourist experience as a gestalt phenomenon. Against this framework the experiential value of South African cultural heritage products is assessed with data from official South African sources ; http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication_article/ajpherd_v19_supp3_a13 ; http://reference.sabinet.co.za.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/sa_epublication/ajpherd

Copyright c [2011] IP Publishing Ltd. Reproduced by permission. ; This paper estimates the economic value of South Africa's longest running national arts festival, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in the Eastern Cape Province. The Eastern Cape is a middle-income province (6.6% of national GDP), settles 9.6% of the South African population and has a high unemployment rate. A survey was conducted in July 2009, with 450 visitors completing a structured questionnaire at various sampling locations across the festival area. A social accounting matrix (SAM) for the province was used to estimate the economic value of the arts festival to the region's economy (adopting the classical SAMs multiplier approach) with visitor depending data. This research shows that the festival makes a significant contribution to revenue generation as well as to job creation, thereby confirming that investments made by government in arts and culture can address economic objectives. ; http://dx.doi.org/10.5367/te.2011.0049

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to estimate the potential economic value of the 2010 Soccer World Cup for South Africa. Problem investigated: The Soccer World Cup (SWC) is regarded as the largest sporting event to be hosted and South Africa is investing billions of Rand in the hosting thereof. Based on this the question that comes to mind is, what is the potential economic value of such an event? Previous research attempts to determine the economic value were limited in their focus on what should be included when economic modelling of events is conducted. Most of these studies were done by consultants on behalf of various government departments and consequently, the results of these attempts are criticised for their over-inflating and overestimations by various other researchers. Methodology: The literature review identified many aspects that need to be taken into account when modelling the economic impact of such an event together with aspects identified in the literature review. Lessons from the 2002 Korea/Japan and 2006 Germany Soccer World Cups were used as premise for our estimations. In this article, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling is used to estimate the potential economic valueFindings: The results showed that the 2010 Soccer World Cup would in all probability have positive impacts on the economy of the country in terms of GDP growth and employment, with possible negative effects that include higher inflation and net export losse. Value of research: The value of this research lies in the approach that was followed firstly, by introducing lessons learned from previous World Cups as well as aspects not taken into consideration previously in economic modelling and secondly, by using CGE modelling in determining the economic value. Conclusion: The hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup is a major achievement not only for South Africa, but also for the rest of Africa, especially from a marketing point of view. From an economic point of view, this study shows positive results. However, compared to other studies conducted on the 2010 SWC, the findings are more conservative. The latter is supported by the results of a similar study conducted one year after the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Germany supporting the notion that various variables have to be taken into account when economic modelling for hallmark events is done.

Published Article ; Tourists spend a good portion of their travel budget on food and beverages. Culinary preference knowledge should thus be important to numerous stakeholders. Little is, however, known about the determinants of culinary preferences of international tourists. Furthermore, in the context of developing countries, very little has been published about cuisine in tourism. The purpose of this research is to identify the determinants of culinary preferences of international tourists to South Africa. A newly developed questionnaire based on literature was completed by 627 international tourists. Five culinary preference factors were identified from the results of the study, namely social influence, culture and religion, exploration, the culinary experience and environmental sensitivity. Social influence was the most important factor, followed by environmental sensitivity and then the culinary experience. Only two socio-demographic variables were found to influence the culinary preferences of international tourists to South Africa. Implications for each of the findings are put forth. Specific recommendations are also made to national and provincial government, tourism marketers and dining establishments alike, in order to reap the numerous benefits associated with culinary preference knowledge.

The coastline of Portofino, Italy, a famous destination for the rich and famous, attracts thousands of visitors each year. Tourism product owners constitute a significant component of the competitive environment in this area in order to claim a piece of the tourism pie. For the local dive operators, the situation tends to be even more difficult when dealing with strict regulations concerning the marine protected area and a specific market. The identification of critical success factors could offer some insight into the management of these operations. In order to accomplish this, a qualitative research approach was followed by interviewing eight dive operators in the area of Portofino. It was clear that the critical success factor to manage a dive operation was unique to this area and differs from other tourism products by adopting a unique customer relations approach, an emphasis on safety, and the focus on providing a signature product. These results could assist managers of dive operations in identifying new opportunities in terms of management and sought out threats to the business. ; This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in European Journal of Tourism research on 12/12/2016. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://ejtr.vumk.eu/index.php/volume17/503-v17164 This paper has received funding from the European Union (EU)'s H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 643712 to the project Green Bubbles RISE for sustainable diving (Green Bubbles). This paper reflects only the views of the authors. The Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The researchers would like to acknowledge the support of the dive centres who collaborated, and all the people who helped with this survey.

PurposeThis paper aims to identify and cluster visitors to a premier South African cheese festival based on their motivation for attending the festival.Design/methodology/approachA structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from visitors over the three days of the festival, in which 519 usable questionnaires were included in the analysis. Three stages of the analysis were employed: a factor analysis examining the visitors' motivation to attend the festival, a cluster analysis based on the motives identified by the factor analysis and an analysis of significant differences between the different market segments.FindingsThe general profile of respondents was similar to the profile of culinary tourists found in other studies. Furthermore, five key motives were identified, of which this combination has not been previously identified in the literature. The cluster analysis identified three distinct clusters, with heterogeneous behavioural and socio-demographic profile identifiers.Practical implicationsThe value that this market segmentation technique holds regarding the marketing and branding of a(n) event/festival is that it could help managers/marketers to promote better culinary events/festivals in South Africa, by offering unique attributes that attract culinary visitors.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, this study is a first attempt to segment culinary visitors based on motivational factors, especially within the South African context. Clustering based on motives proved to be a useful market segmentation tool and proposes a 3-S typology of visitors to food-related events/festivals, namely, social, serious and selective epicureans.

MasterFile - 24 months embargo ; Tourism has been widely proposed as a tool contributing to development. Community-based tourism (CBT) has been specifically recognised as a tourism development approach aimed at facilitating the development of disadvantaged communities. However, realising this potential is often difficult and it may additionally be jeopardised by the lack of specific structures intended to facilitate the CBT development process. Moreover, government entities should be the protagonists in facilitating CBT development. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to a possible gap between policies and practice in order to more effectively facilitate CBT development for the benefit of disadvantaged communities in South Africa. While CBT organisations operate in various parts of the world, South Africa lacks this structure. This paper, therefore, proposes a specific structure, to fill the gap between policies and practices in the facilitation of CBT development.