Antarctic tourist experience : a comparison of SOI students with cruse tourists

• In Antarctica tourism has increased drastically over the last decades with the numbers of ship-borne tourists increased by 430% and land-based tourists by 757% in the last 10-15 years. This drastic increase and its future predicted increase has evoked concerns among stakeholders about negative environmental impacts by the tourism industry in these fragile environments. This development has called for long term tourism policies as well as a request for research in polar tourism to understand its nature and its management and regulation. Much effort in polar tourism research has been allocated to define polar tourism as a legitimate area of scholarly inquiry. Despite the emerging polar tourism research we still know very little about the phenomenon of polar tourism. Most of polar tourism research has focused on patterns of tourism, tourist demands and tourist behaviour such as number of tourists, motivation, demographics, their routs, destinations, activities, attitudes, knowledge, skills and compositions of the travel groups. Since the creation of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) in 1991 there has been a reliable recording of tourist data in Antarctica. However, little information is available on the nature and quality of polar tourist experiences, knowledge (pre- and post visit), on-site experience and the tourists personal experiences of their impact on the environment. Particularly interesting is the effect of polar travel on the tourists´ post visit ambassadorial activities and the costs and benefits to polar travel associated with changing global climate patterns

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Communication Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Media and Communication Science.

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)