Pascal Scherrer

Southern Cross University · Faculty of Business Law and Arts

The dual mandate of conserving natural and/or cultural heritage while facilitating visitor experiences challenges protected area managers to deal with the environmental impacts of human behaviours. The issue of waste disposal is an important aspect of the human-nature interaction, not least in backcountry areas, yet it is a largely understudied asp...

Rapid growth of recreational vehicle (RV)-based camping is challenging traditional models centred on caravan park stays. Self-contained RV technology and social change facilitate stays outside of regulated commercial caravan park environments, shifting use into unregulated contexts. This disruption fuels heated stakeholder and political discourse i...

24 Effective management of National Parks requires an understanding of visitors to provide safe and 25 enjoyable visitor experiences. Risk and preparedness of snow-based recreation is not well 26 understood outside of the context of avalanches. This study investigated risk perception and 27 preparedness of snow-based backcountry visitors in the Sno...

This paper proposes the term ‘active leisure events’ to ameliorate fragmentation of research concerned with ‘mass-participation’ events primarily aimed at non-elite participants. This literature is characterised by semantically diverse terminology despite such events sharing a range of unifying characteristics centring around an ethos of being open...

Converting disused railway corridors into multi-purpose spaces to achieve strategic sustainable mobility, leisure, and/or tourism objectives is an increasingly prevalent public policy issue. Previous literature suggests it is often bottom-up processes driven by networks of community-level actors that generate community support and political will to...

Pro-environmental consumer behaviours are increasingly desirable. However, many studies report that gaps exist between consumers’ attitudes toward green products and their purchasing behaviours. Understanding these gaps is important to foster market demand for green products. Two sets of distinct consumer value systems offer insights into green con...

This paper reviews empirical research on the extent and nature of risks associated with dangerous tourist self-photography (selfies) and management responses. Global epidemiological studies have captured the extent of the problem, with studies recording 250+ media-reported deaths within the past decade. Nearly half occurred in natural environments,...

Rail trail developments involve converting disused railway corridors into multi-use spaces for leisure, tourism, and sustainable mobility. The transformation of disused railway corridors into successful rail trail developments in the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom has contributed to a resurgence in community, government and busin...

Purpose This paper aims to purposely place community and its stakeholders at the forefront of an investigation of positive and negative social, economic and environmental impacts of the sharing economy in the specific context of Airbnb by drawing upon the triple bottom line (TBL) framework of sustainability. Design/methodology/approach A qualitati...

Purpose This paper aims to track the evolution of an innovative Aboriginal tourism business model with deliberate social and community enterprise objectives in a remote setting. Design/methodology/approach It adopts an in-depth exploratory case study approach to discover key characteristics of an emerging tourism enterprise. The qualitative data s...

Tourism in national parks is essentially about providing memorable nature-based experiences for visitors. However, often there are limits to the numbers of people that can enjoy an iconic experience at a given site in a national park. Summiting a mountain has the propensity to provide an iconic experience for visitors but can be accompanied by mana...

Effective communication of safety information for visitors to national parks and other protected areas is essential, particularly where the potential consequences of incidents are severe. Signs are often the primary communication tool for safety messages in national parks. Compliance-based approaches to safety signs using standards drawn from occup...

This paper argues that stakeholder relationships in volunteer tourism represent principal-agent relationships. Using principal-agent (P-A) theory as a theoretical lens, this paper highlights types of relationships between host communities and volunteer tourism organisations most conducive for effective host community participation in the monitoring...

Knowledge exchange involves a suite of strategies used to bridge the divides between research, policy and practice. The literature is increasingly focused on the notion that knowledge generated by research is more useful when there is significant interaction and knowledge sharing between researchers and research recipients (i.e., stakeholders). Thi...

Managers of marine protected areas (MPAs) are constantly challenged to encourage positive user behaviour to minimise impacts on marine ecosystems while allowing recreational use. Yet, some marine users continue to act in ways that diminish conservation values of the area. Drawing on social psychological theories, this paper presents a case for info...

Monitoring and evaluation are tools that can facilitate sustainable and responsible tourism planning and management in organisations through encouraging good practice and the continuous improvement of programmes. However, to date, there is limited knowledge and understanding of how, or indeed if, volunteer tourism organisations actually monitor and...

In the management of protected areas, stakeholders range from supra-national organisations, through to national and local-level decision-makers. Although there has been substantive research on stakeholders, there is limited inquiry on involving them in the development of nature-based tourism experiences in heavily visited protected areas. Drawing o...

Visitor experiences have been identified as critical for the sustainable management of tourism destinations. However, researchers have given limited attention to how to measure visitor preferences for different, newly proposed experiences, especially in nature-based tourism contexts. This paper aims to capture potential visitors' preferences for na...

Public open spaces are important places that can contribute to public health initiatives through facilitating leisure-time physical activity. Using the findings from 400 self-completed questionnaires of park visitors, this exploratory study examined people’s use, perception and attitudes of a specific type of outdoor exercise equipment (in the form...

This book provides an overview of the cruise industry covering a broad range of topics and issues. It has been written for a broad audience including students pursuing university and training programmes, tourism industry professionals, planners and managers in the cruise industry, and finally government agency employees. The book is organized into...

The neglect and marginalisation of smallholders in economic and development policy contributes to increasing vulnerability of rural communities. Underinvestment in agriculture, climate change impacts and growing competition for land and water places further pressure on smallholders. In this context, this paper examines the current focus in the Sout...

Smallholder farmers continue to make up the largest proportion of the world's disadvantaged. Rural smallholders in the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to climate change, underinvestment and growing competition for land and resources. Strengthening synergies between agriculture and tourism through avenues such as agritourism has been widel...

A report reviewing latest literature and research regarding visitor safety, visitor behaviour and safety signs in natural areas, such as national parks and beaches

This paper reviews rural development literature in the areas of sustainable livelihoods and agroecology. Combining agroecological and sustainable livelihoods approaches enables interdisciplinary research that incorporates principles from sociology, economics, agronomy and ecology. . The outcome of this literature analysis alongside participatory re...

Comprehensive asset management should be embedded in organizations through the temporal, organisational and spatial dimensions. We examine how an integrated approach to asset management might consider the whole range of interrelations and interactions of these dimensions. Asset management should take into account the operational and the strategic m...

Freedom camping is fuelling nationwide political debate in Australia as a rapidly expanding recreational vehicle (RV) market impresses upon regional and urban communities its strong desire to avoid traditional caravan parks and the features that they present/represent. Community leaders are being lobbied to consider the needs of all types of carava...

The rapid expansion and commercialisation of the volunteer tourism sector and the potential for negative impacts on host communities have put the sector under increasing scrutiny. Monitoring and evaluation are key aspects of sustainable tourism planning and management, and play important roles in the project planning and implementation cycles of vo...

This chapter focuses on identifying and analysing the elements of Strategic Management for infrastructure and engineering assets and asks: what are the considerations and implications for adopting and implementing an integrated strategic asset management framework? We contend that corporate governance, policy, objectives and strategy as well as int...

This paper directly challenges the persisting argument that in the host–(uninvited) guest relationship of Kimberley coastal tourism in Australia's far northwest, Traditional Owners (the hosts) have a pedagogic responsibility to first educate the tourism industry (the guests) of their impacts on them in order to facilitate culturally appropriate and...

This paper names and describes the longstanding issue of tourism access to the Kimberley coast region in northwest Australia. Tourism access is a problem because it occurs without appropriate permissions from the Traditional Owners. The granting of access permission is a fundamental component of the local Traditional Owner ontology, or concept of b...

The caravan park sector of the Australian leisure accommodation industry currently provides 50% of total domestic bed capacity. Recent decades have seen a gradual decline in caravan park establishments and despite its continuing market dominance in terms of bed capacity, the industry today is only a mere shadow of its former glory days in the mid 1...

The caravan park sub-sector of the Australian tourism accommodation industry provides at least half of the national tourism bed capacity, and in 2009 generated over A$1.1 billion in annual takings. However, the number of parks and park capacity is in decline nationally while both international and domestic demand for the drive-tourism experience is...

he expedition cruise industry along the remote 3000 km Kimberley coast in Australia’s northwest draws on the area’s environmental and cultural assets for its tourism product and provides the main means of access for visitors. Cruises involve frequent on-shore excursions to attractions including rock pools, rock art and historic sites. This study us...

The Kimberley coast in Australia's far north-west is the traditional country and home of a number of Indigenous groups and hosts some of the country's richest cultural heritage, most spectacular rock art, scenery and wildlife, making it an attractive tourism destination. A growing expedition cruise industry provides the main means of visitor access...

The alpine zone in Australia's Snowy Mountains has important economic, cultural and ecological values. It is of great scientific and biological importance, maintaining an assemblage of vegetation communities found nowhere else in the world. It is one of the few alpine regions in the world with deep loamy soils, and contains endemic flora and fauna...

This paper highlights the gap in current indicator-based approaches to address intangible cultural impacts and traditional owner values and ontologies in the development and management of tourism. Present approaches to management and assessment of tourism impacts on indigenous land and sea country (where “country” denotes Aboriginal space and place...

Geotourism, as the concept of tourism based on geological features, has gained growing traction in recent years as evident not only from contributions in this book, but also from the Geopark movement and the number of recent conferences on the subject. Geotourism and particularly the Geopark concept build on the notion that fundamentally, geology i...

Geotourism, as the concept of tourism based on geological features, has gained growing traction in recent years as evidenced not only from contributions in this book, but also from the geopark movement and the number of recent conferences on the subject. Geotourism and particularly the geopark concept build on the notion that fundamentally, geology...

To help overcome preventable health problems in the developed world, the ‘active living’ concept seeks to stimulate people's physical activity in everyday environments. This study contributes to the understanding of the leisure‐tourism‐physical activity relationship by investigating the self‐reported physical activity of holidaymakers on Rottnest I...

Employers engage with corporate physical activity programs to foster employee wellbeing with a view to reducing the costs of absence and recruitment. This study reports on employee engagement with a commercial program, the Global Corporate Challenge, in terms of motivation, barriers, team dynamics, social aspects and self-reported physical activity...

Expedition Cruising is growing rapidly around the world. One emerging destination is the Kimberley Coast of far north Western Australia. It is accessible almost exclusively by sea or air and has gained increasing popularity in recent years because of its spectacular scenery, pristine nature, Aboriginal rock art and remoteness, giving visitors the i...

In Australia and many parts of the world, protected area managers face the challenge of implementing a legislated dual mandate of conservation and public use. On Rottnest Island, Western Australia, this balancing act is amplified through the managing agency’s financial reliance on visitors and by highly polarised public opinions and vocal interest...

Ecotourism and Environmental Sustainability: Principles and Practice, by J. Hill and T. Gale (Eds.). Ashgate, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-7546-7262-3

Tourism to the Canary Islands is centered around competitively priced holidays focused on the sun and beach mass tourism experience. A restructure of the islands’ wine industry offers opportunities for developing new tourism alternatives based on gourmet products and traditional landscapes. This paper examines the potential of wine tourism from win...

Purpose Many studies underline the critical relationship between local communities and rural‐based industries. However, the dynamics of the relationship between wineries and local communities is rarely considered in research despite the importance of these links for rural communities. This paper investigates this dimension from the perspective of C...

The Kimberley coast in Australia’s far northwest stretches from Broome, Western Australia, for over 3000 km to the Northern Territory border. The largely undeveloped and remote area has gained increasing popularity in recent years for its spectacular scenery, Aboriginal rock art and native wildlife that forms the platform for a strong and uniquely...

Visitation to natural areas continues to raise an array of management challenges despite the availability of a range of management frameworks. Balancing recreational opportunities with conservation objectives remains the fundamental challenge. Natural areas near urban growth centres are in particular experiencing increasing visitation pressure. Thi...

The article provides an overview of the Australian expedition cruise industry, examines the current activities and status at the main cruise hotspots and draws comparisons between destinations. A case study of the expedition cruise industry in the Kimberley region is also provided.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the tasting room for wineries from a re‐developing Spanish wine region, and identify the challenges winery owners currently face in their pursuit to market their wines through the tasting room. Design/methodology/approach Between May and June of 2007 a total of 23 winery owners, managers...

Wine tourism is experiencing significant development in both new and old European wine regions. In the case of the Canary Islands, wine has been produced and traded for centuries but little is known about the current state or potential for wine tourism on the islands, despite the fact that millions of tourists, including many potential wine tourist...

Many holiday destinations provide people with different social, cultural and natural environments that promote opportunities for participation in a range of physical activities. Holiday-makers also generally have more commitment-free time which can provide for increased levels of physical activity. There has, however, been limited research which ex...

The twin goals of the Ningaloo Destination and Data Modelling (NDDM) project are: to develop a dynamic model of Ningaloo incorporating socio-economic, and load implications of tourism that can be integrated with an ecological model of the region; and to effectively engage with stakeholders to build both trust in the model and group learning between...

Geological formations such as entire mountain ranges, individual peaks and associated land formations are the foundation of tourist attractions in many parts of the world. Mount Kosciuszko, continental Australia's highest peak at 2228 masl, is the most assessable of the 'seven continental summits' and is the key attraction for visitation to the Sno...

Visitation to protected areas is increasing worldwide, causing increasing pressures on areas that are often principally conserved for their natural and cultural heritage values. The Australian Alps have been no exception with a continuing increase occurring over the last 25 years. Visitation to the Kosciuszko Summit Area (Australia’s highest mounta...

Human use of arctic and alpine environments can result in damage to the natural vegetation and soils. Restoration of the damage can have limited success due to the severity of the environment, which restricts plant germination and growth and increases the potential for soil erosion. In this study, we evaluated the success of restoration of a closed...

Recovery of tall alpine herbfields from livestock grazing and drought were examined using 30, 0.6 X 0.9 m permanent quadrats photographed in 1959, 1964, 1968, 1978, and 2001 in Kosciuszko National Park, southeastern Australia. Cover attributes were assessed using a 130-point grid superimposed over each slide/photograph. For the 18 permanent quadrat...

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Physical inactivity is one of the major contributors to ill health and, hence, productivity costs in Australia. While the workplace is increasingly recognised as an appropriate site for promoting healthy behaviour, the effectiveness of workplace physical activity programs remains to be demonstrated, particularly with regards to participants' motiva...

The vegetation of the alpine zone of Kosciuszko National Park has been exposed to various pressures since the 1830s. Grazing, tourism and most recently human induced climate change have altered, or have the potential to alter, the natural ecosystems of the area. This project examines the changes in the distribution of vegetation that have occurred...

The popularity of nature tourism destinations can threaten the environment the attraction is based on. To limit detrimental effects of increasing visitor numbers, management tools such as the hardening of facilities are commonly used. However, decisions about the type of hardening are often based on the short-term financial cost of construction. To...

This is an overview of a photobook designed to complement a technical report. The photobook was used as a tool to disseminate the research outcomes to the Traditional Owners and other project stakeholders.

A study conducted in Springbrook and Lamington National Parks byScherrer (1998) attempted to identify factors that influence the densityof Lantana camara and to assess the long-term persistence of lantanaand its capacity to spread into neighbouring vegetation. The physical characteristics (light intensity, soil moisture, colour, pHand conductivity,...

This thesis examined vegetation change over the last 43 years in Australia's largest contiguous alpine area, the Kosciuszko alpine zone in south-eastern Australia. Using historical and current data about the state of the most common vegetation community, tall alpine herbfield, this thesis addressed the questions: (1) what were the patterns of chang...

No Yes

Physical inactivity is one of the major contributors to ill health and, hence, productivity costs in Australia. While the workplace is increasingly recognised as an appropriate site for promoting healthy behaviour, the effectiveness of workplace physical activity programs remains to be demonstrated, particularly with regards to participants’ motiva...