The international journal of tourism research tập 12, số 03, 2010 05 + 06

Received 26 January 2009; Revised 18 June 2009; Accepted 25 June 2009 Keywords: Macau inbound; Mainland China outbound; service quality; tour guide; tour guiding profession.. Although A

This study examines the factors affecting

the service quality of the tour guiding

profession in Macau In-depth interviews

were conducted with representatives from

the Macau Tourist Guide Association, the

Macau Government Tourist Offi ce and

selected practising tour guides to explore

the issues from multiple insiders’

perspectives The factors identifi ed were

classifi ed into six categories: unhealthy

business practices, market domination,

immaturity of tourist market, changing

tourist behaviour, intense competition

between inbound tour operators and human

resource issues The fi ndings suggest that a

number of these problems actually

originated from the unhealthy business

practices of the tourist-generating country,

namely mainland China in this study

Considering the growing importance of the

Chinese outbound tourism market, the

study fi ndings will be of signifi cant value to

Macau and to other destinations targeting

the Chinese market Copyright © 2009 John

Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 26 January 2009; Revised 18 June 2009; Accepted 25

June 2009

Keywords: Macau inbound; Mainland China

outbound; service quality; tour guide; tour

guiding profession

INTRODUCTION

The tourism literature has widely

recog-nised that the service quality of the tour guide is a critical factor in achieving tourist satisfaction (Lopez, 1980; Geva and

Goldman, 1991; Mossberg, 1995; Wang et al.,

2000; Ap and Wong, 2001; Wong, 2001; Zhang and Chow, 2004; Black and Weiler, 2005), infl u-encing travel operator’s reputation and word-of-mouth publicity (Heung, 2008) and affecting the image and revisit intention of a destination (Whipple and Tach, 1988; Chang, 2006; Sahin and Balta, 2007) On the other hand, destina-tion governments and tourism industries are increasingly aware of the need to improve the service quality of the tour guiding profession; for instance, by investing in training pro-grammes (Weiler and Ham, 2002; Dioko and Unakul, 2005) as well as quality assurance and regulatory mechanisms (Ap and Wong, 2001; Black and Weiler, 2005) This is a particularly pressing issue in many Asian destinations in the face of fi erce intra-regional competition.Macau is one of the destinations in Asia which faces strong competition from estab-lished destinations in the neighbourhood such

as Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Singapore (Leong, 2007) Macau has been experiencing a rapid expansion of the inbound tourism market over the past decade According to the Macau Government Tourists Offi ce (MGTO) (Macau Government Tourist Offi ce, 2008a), visitor arrivals in 2007 exceeded 27 million, represent-ing a growth of 22.7% from 2006 The advent

of the liberalization of the gaming industry in

2002 (Yong and Fu, 2006) and the resultant signifi cant scale expansion of the casino business, as well as the relaxation of travel

Int J Tourism Res 12, 205–218 (2010)

Published online 10 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.746

Factors Affecting the Service Quality of the Tour Guiding Profession in Macau

Athena H N Mak1,*, Kevin K F Wong2 and Richard C Y Chang3

1 School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK

2 School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

3 Department of Tourism, Providence University, 200 Chung Chi Rd., Taichung 43301, Taiwan

*Correspondence to: Athena H N Mak, PhD Researcher,

School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford,

Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK.

E-mail: athena-mak@hotmail.com

arrangements made by the Mainland Chinese

government have signifi cantly contributed to

the exponential growth of Macau’s tourism

industry in recent years

In spite of the thriving success in the inbound

market, the large infl ux of visitors has posed

great challenges to the MGTO and the travel

industry on retaining and recruiting enough

well-qualifi ed and well-trained tour guides in

the industry, especially when there is an acute

labour shortage in Macau (Kale and De, 2006)

More importantly, the monitoring and

control-ling of the service quality of the tour guides

has become more diffi cult There are a number

of reported incidents of rows and confl icts

between tourists and the tour guides (The

China Post, 2007); Macau Daily Times, 2008)

about excessive shopping trips and the

chang-ing of the original itinerary without the

agree-ment of the tourists These incidents resulted

in a growing crisis of confi dence in the tour

guiding profession in Macau Accordingly,

there is a pressing need for policy-makers and

stakeholders to understand the current state of

the tour guiding profession and its impact on

the travel industry in Macau It is in such a

context that this study attempts to examine the

factors and the underlying causes that affect

the service quality of the tour guides in Macau

This study is part of a wider research project

that seeks to document and explore the issues

and problems affecting the tour guiding

pro-fessions in the Southeast Asia region

LITERATURE REVIEW

Roles of tour guides

According to the European Federation of Tourist Guides Associations (EFTGA), a tour guide is defi ned as a person who ‘guides groups or individual visitors from abroad or from the home country around the monu-ments, sites and museums of a city or region;

to interpret in an inspiring and entertaining manner, in the language of the visitor’s choice, the cultural and natural heritage and environ-ment’ (European Federation of Tourist Guides Associations, 1998, unpublished) In Macau, MGTO defi ned a tour guide as ‘the person who receives and escorts tourists, provides com-mentaries as a tourist service, and receives remuneration for his or her service’ (Macau Government Tourist Offi ce, 2008b) Although the two defi nitions differ, both emphasise the

‘guide/lead’ and ‘interpret/inform’ roles of the tour guide, which are respectively repre-sented under the ‘leadership sphere’ and

‘mediatory sphere’ in Cohen’s (1985) model on the dynamics of the tour guide’s role (see Table 1)

Cohen’s (1985) model delineates the four major components of the role of modern tour guides, namely ‘Original Guide’ (pathfi nder),

‘Professional Guide’ (mentor), ‘Animator’ and

‘Tour-leader’ Although the model aptly tures the roles tour guides play based on the

cap-Table 1 Cohen’s Model on the dynamics of the tour guide’s role

needs of the tourists, there are other ‘mundane’

roles that they perform For instance, as

employees of the tour operators, tour guides

are the ‘spokespersons’ representing the image

and reputation of the company and the

‘sales-persons’ selling the next tour (Grönroos, 1978;

Fine and Speer, 1985; Chang, 2006) From the

host destination’s perspective, they serve as

the ‘interpreters’ translating the cultures and

values of the host destination (Holloway, 1981;

Katz, 1985; Ryan and Dewar, 1995) and as the

‘mediators’ mediating between the host

desti-nation environment and its visitors (Weiler

and Davis, 1993; Ballantyne and Hughes, 2001)

In a wider scope, they also function as the

‘ambassadors’ of the host communities who

are entrusted with the public relations

mis-sions ‘to encapsulate the essence of place’

(Pond, 1993, p vii) and serve as the window to

a particular destination (Holloway, 1981; Pond,

1993) The studies by Zhang and Chow (2004)

and Black and Weiler (2005) provide a

compre-hensive summary on the various roles tour

guides play

Among the many diverse roles tour guides

play, there has been a strong emphasis on their

‘mediator’ role which includes mediation

between the tourists and the tour operator,

hotels and other tourism suppliers (Dahles,

2002), as well as between the tourists and the

host community and environment (Weiler and

Davis, 1993; Ballantyne and Hughes, 2001)

The harmonious balancing of the benefi ts of

these various stakeholders is most ideal;

however, as cited by Dahles (2002), the process

of mediation in the actual tourism practice can

be problematic, and the roles of tour guides are

not likely to be harmonious at all times In fact,

the different roles are often in confl ict with one

another (Holloway, 1981) Moreover, tour

guides have an ‘entrepreneurship’ role to fulfi l,

as they have a need to make their encounters

with tourists profi table for themselves (Steege

et al., 1999; Dahles, 2002) Based on these

arguments, there is a tendency of an

over-idealisation on tour guides’ ‘mediator’ role

with their various stakeholders including

tour-ists, tour operators, host communities, host

environment and government authorities

(Steege et al., 1999; Dahles, 2002), and an

under-awareness on tour guides’ ‘entrepreneur’ role

to satisfy their own economic self-interests

Service quality in tour guiding

Service quality is defi ned as the difference between customer expectations and percep-

tions of service (Parasuraman et al., 1988) Parasuraman et al (1985, 1988) posit that a

customer’s assessment of overall service quality depends on the ‘gap’ between expectations and perceptions of the actual performance According to this paradigm, customers decide whether they are satisfi ed, and a smaller gap between expectations and perceptions leads to the service being perceived as a higher quality, thus resulting in customer satisfaction

In the context of tour guiding, the perceived service quality of a tour guide can be evaluated through three major constructs: (i) core service delivery, (ii) customer orientation and (iii) communication effectiveness (Heung, 2008) Heung (2008) explicates that core service refers

to the essence of a tour guide’s service (e.g follows the agreed itinerary, provides com-mentaries and assures customer satisfaction during the tour) which the guide must deliver with consistency Customer orientation, on the other hand, denotes the extent the guide puts tourists’ needs and interests ahead of his/her own in providing superior value to tourists (e.g not to be focused on short-term self-interest and not to adopt a ‘hard’ selling approach to tourists) Communication involves the exchange of information (e.g communi-cates the itinerary/arrangement to tourists and handles tourists’ inquiries) and is regarded as

a crucial function of the tour guide Likewise,

Ap and Wong (2001) suggest that the tour guide’s attitude with respect to service (particularly in terms of the extent of money-oriented or customer service-oriented), product knowledge and communication skills are sig-nifi cant aspects in assessing the perceived service professionalism of the guide

Indeed, the service quality aspect of the tour guiding profession is starting to receive more research attention For instance, Zhang and Chow (2004) identifi ed 20 tour guide service quality attributes pertinent to mainland Chinese tourists The six most important attributes perceived by Chinese tourists were: (i) punctual, (ii) able to solve problems, (iii) knowledge of destination, (iv) honest and trustworthy, (v) inform safety regulations and

(vi) deliver service promised in itinerary Other

studies have collectively contributed to a

growing insight and understanding of the

service quality aspect of tour guides

(Moss-berg, 1995; Wang et al., 2000; Wong, 2001;

Heung, 2008) Nonetheless, most of these

studies have taken the perspective of tourists

and have not taken account of the guiding

profession’s and the industry practitioners’

perspective

Although Ap and Wong (2001) raised and

discussed some of the issues and challenges

facing the tour guiding profession in Hong

Kong from the tour guide and industry

practi-tioners’ perspective and provided insights into

understanding the nature of and issues faced

by the tour guiding profession in Hong Kong,

this study extends and delves more deeply into

those challenges and seeks to identify and

evaluate specifi c (and new) tour guiding issues

which are unique to Macau, a strongly

com-petitive Asian tourist destination which still

receives a large number of tourists By

explor-ing and investigatexplor-ing the viewpoints of various

stakeholders, this research aims to present an

updated and in-depth analysis of the current

state of the tour guiding profession and its

impact on the travel industry in Macau

The development of the tour guiding

profession in Macau

MGTO is a government statutory body with

the task of pursuing the overall goals defi ned

by the tourism sector in Macau It has fi ve

sub-divisions, namely Licensing and Inspections

Department, Promotion and Marketing

De-partment, Product Development and Special

Projects Department, Research and Planning

Department, and Administrative and Finance

Division (Macau Government Tourist Offi ce,

2008c) The Licensing and Inspections

Depart-ment of the MGTO is responsible for the issuing

of Tour Guide Cards and monitoring of any

illegal practices in the guiding profession

There are strict qualifi cation requirements

stipulated by MGTO, particularly educational

qualifi cations For example, prospective Tour

Guide Card applicants must pass the

qualify-ing courses offered by the Institute for Tourism

Studies (IFT) or obtain a diploma or bachelor’s

degree in the fi eld of tourism offered by the IFT

or other local or overseas higher education institutions approved by the IFT As of the end

of 2007, there were 1317 licensed tour guides

in Macau, representing a 6.8% growth from

2006 (Macau Government Tourist Offi ce, 2008b)

The Macau Tourist Guide Association (MATGA) was established in July 2002 The MATGA is devoted to advancing the pro-fessional development of the tour guides

in Macau It also aims to promote unity and encourage communication between its members as well as the coalition and coopera-tion of the other guide associations in other parts of the world (Macau Tourist Guide Asso-ciation, 2008) With the rapid growth of the tourism industry in Macau, the role of the MATGA as the offi cial tour guiding associa-tion offering support to upgrade its members’ service professionalism has been gaining momentum through its close cooperation with the IFT in providing new or refresher courses for member guides and by working closely with the MGTO to identify solutions for the problems faced by the guiding profession.METHODOLOGY

This study adopted a qualitative case study research approach that is rooted in the philoso-phy of phenomenology, which offers the opportunity of discovering ‘the reality working

behind the reality’ (Saunders et al., 2000) The

two-phase data collection process included a

fi rst phase of secondary data collection from various sources including travel and tourism literature, government reports, tour guide association websites and newspaper databases

to gain an insight into the current situation regarding the Macau tourism industry and the tour guiding profession The second phase involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with authoritative sources from both the Macau Tour Guide Association and the Macau Gov-ernment Tourist Offi ce, as well as three practis-ing tour guides in Macau to explore the issues and problems from multiple insiders’ perspec-tives According to Patton (2002, p 244), ‘there are no rules for sample size in qualitative inquiry’ The sample size of qualitative inquiry

is determined not by the number of viewees but by data saturation, when no new

inter-information is discovered on the study

phe-nomenon Considering that the current study

was mainly a pilot investigation with no

inten-tion to make generalisainten-tion, a small sample

size is adopted However, it is germane to

point out that the small sample size limits the

generalisability of the fi ndings

Purposive sampling was used as the

sam-pling procedure in selecting the interviewees,

whose insights would be relevant to the issues

being studied (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) With

purposive sampling, the selection of the sample

can include the most informed respondents in

terms of knowledge of the studied topics and

those most likely to affect change within the

policy realm Unlike most of the past studies

that investigated the service quality aspects of

tour guides from the perspectives of tourists,

this study is purposely focused on the insiders’

perspectives It is believed that the underlying

causes of the problems faced by the guiding

profession would be more meaningfully

inves-tigated using a multiple insiders’ perspectives

approach involving the monitoring authority/

government, tour guide association and

practising tour guides Table 2 summarises

the profi le of the interviewees

Given the fact that some of the tour guiding

issues and problems are sensitive,

interview-ees may be reluctant to discuss them in a group

setting As such, individual in-depth interview

was considered a more appropriate method to

obtain primary data in this study All

inter-viewees were assured of confi dentiality and

anonymity The interviews were held in the

beginning of June 2007 and completed by the

end of July 2007 Each of the interviews lasted

on average an hour and a half and all views were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim into Chinese The Chinese transcripts were then translated into English The English transcripts were checked and compared with the Chinese transcripts and the audio record-ings in order to ensure accuracy A total of 53 pages of transcribed data were obtained

inter-Content analysis was employed as the means for contextualising the connections between categories and themes in this study According

to Maxwell (1996), content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts to the contexts of their use It provides new insights, increases a researcher’s ability of understanding particu-lar phenomena or informs practical actions This research technique enables the researcher

to include large amounts of textual tion and systematically identify its properties

informa-by detecting the more important structures of its communication content Tree structures were constructed to identify the themes and evolving concepts with the aid of the NVivo computer programme

Triangulation of sources was used as a means

to add to the credibility by strengthening

con-fi dence in conclusions being drawn (Patton, 2002) For example, issues and problems recounted by the tour guides were validated

by the discourse from the informants from the monitoring authority, or representatives from the tour guide associations (Figure 1)

In addition, assistance was sought from two professional colleagues in the university

Table 2 Profi le of the interviewees

Primary organisational

Association (MATGA)

Tourist Offi ce (MGTO)

to serve as peer debriefers in order to identify

any hidden aspects in the transcripts Member

checking was done during the interview

process in which the researchers asked

rele-vant probing questions so as to assess whether

interviewees’ meanings were interpreted

accu-rately For instance, if an interviewee

acknowl-edged that confl ict between tourists and tour

guides was caused by the unwelcome coercing

into shopping by tour guides, the researchers

would accordingly probe into the ‘unwelcome

coercing into shopping’ variable by asking:

‘Could you tell me more the possible

conse-quences of unwelcome coercing into

shop-ping?’ This iterative process permitted the

researchers to ensure the credibility of

inter-pretation that emerged from the interviews

These strategies collectively contributed to the

trustworthiness of data, thus enhancing the

rigor of this study (Lincoln and Guba, 1985)

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The fi ndings are delineated under two themes,

tourist-generating country and host destination,

and four categories: travel agent, tourists, tour

operators and tour guides Specifi c factors

affect-ing the service quality of the tour guidaffect-ing

pro-fession in Macau are demarcated under the

following six sub-categories: unhealthy business

practices, domination of market, immaturity of

tourist market, changing tourist behaviour, intense

competition between inbound tour operators and

human resource issues Figure 2 illustrates the

structure of the categorisation

Tourist-generating country — travel agents

Unhealthy business practices The fi ndings reveal

that many of the outbound travel agents in

mainland China have adopted unhealthy ness practices that have severely affected the service quality of the guiding profession in Macau A number of researchers have previ-ously raised the issue of unhealthy business practices of travel agents in mainland China (Ap and Wong, 2001; Wong, 2001; Zhang and

busi-Chow, 2004; King et al., 2006; Zhang et al.,

2009) The fi ndings of this study corroborate this assertion and at the same time classify the major unhealthy business practices into the

two categories: cost tour fare and

below-cost reception fee.

The below-cost tour fare practice is commonly known as the zero/negative tour fare in the travel

industry It is found to be a prevalent practice

in the mainland Chinese tourism market This practice pertains to the system in which out-bound travel agents in mainland China use a low tour fare that is under their actual cost to attract tourists to join group tours On the other

hand, the below-cost reception fee practice, also known as the zero/negative reception fee is also

another current unhealthy business practice It refers to the situation in which outbound travel agents in mainland China give a below-cost reception fee or even none at all for inbound tour operators (ITOs) in Macau to receive their

tour groups The fi ndings reveal that the

below-cost reception fee practice actually stems from

the below-cost tour fare practice Because of the

fact that the tour fare received from tourists are below-cost, outbound travel agents in main-land China must cut costs and logically decline

to offer a proper reception fee to the ITOs in Macau In most cases, they allow the ITOs to

‘bid’ for the right to receive incoming group tours with the lowest possible reception fee In some extreme cases, the ITOs even have to pay out a fee just to ‘bid’ for the right to receive the

Figure 1 Triangulation of Data Source

tour groups Consequently, the ITOs will incur

expenses even before the tour groups arrive

To cut costs, they tend to shift the fi nancial

pressure to the tour guides, for instance, by

setting a ‘shopping quota’ per tourist for the

tour guides to meet The comment of a Macau

tour guide duly refl ects the seriousness of this

problem:

As the reception fee is low or even

nega-tive, the tour operators have the [fi

nan-cial] pressure, and tour guides have the

[fi nancial] pressure too [sic] As such,

service quality of the tour guide is bound

to decline, and this is a critical issue faced

by the guiding profession (MOTG-2)

Under the aforementioned circumstances,

the tour guides will inevitably have to bring

tourists to visit various designated shops to

coerce them to purchase or join optional tours

to cope with the fi nancial pressure laid by the ITOs Hence, instead of focusing on delivering the ‘core services’ (Heung, 2008), the guides are forced to shift their focus to that of the

‘salesperson’ role This practice inevitably downgrades the quality of the tour and is likely

to be detrimental to both tourist satisfaction and the perceived service quality of the tour guides

Domination of the market The fi ndings further

reveal that many travel agents in China do not directly deal with the ITOs in Macau Instead, they make their deals through wholesale travel agents (WTAs) which are mostly located in Shenzhen or Guangzhou This is because these WTAs have a long-established wide network

to receive tourists from all over China and can usually obtain air or train tickets at a relatively lower price For those provinces whose resi-dents are still required to travel to Macau in

Figure 2 Factors Affecting the Service Quality of the Tour Guiding Profession in Macau

tour groups and not as individual travellers, it

would be much more effi cient in terms of

logis-tics for the travel agents in these provinces to

send the tour groups to Macau via the WTAs

in Shenzhen or Guangzhou Aside from this,

China is a country with a large geographic

span covering 9.6 million square kilometres,

many of the travel agents scattered all over

China do not have the staff or resources to deal

with the ITOs in Macau directly These travel

agents would usually sell the tour groups to

the WTAs in Shenzhen or Guangzhou, as they

would benefi t from the economies of scales

and effi ciency in outbound logistics Likewise,

it would be uneconomical for individual ITOs

in Macau to recruit tours directly from the

many provinces in mainland China by

them-selves Consequently, these practices have led

to the situation in which the mainland Chinese

outbound market to Macau is largely

domi-nated by a few large WTAs in Shenzhen and

Guangzhou The account made by a veteran

Macau tour guide stresses the problem:

Wholesale travel agents in Mainland

China serve as intermediaries They

receive tours from all over China and sell

them to ITOs In fact, there are many

intermediaries involved, and everyone

has to earn a profi t However, tourists are

not aware of this They paid for a high

tour fare but eventually did not receive

the service quality they would have

expected Unfortunately, there are not

much monitoring measures adopted by

the mainland Chinese government

(MOTG-3)

This market domination by the WTAs has

given them the advantages of hefty profi t-taking

and misrepresentation of tour quality, which are

at the expense of the ITOs and the tour guides

in Macau It is found that very often a large

part of the tour fare is taken by the WTAs as

intermediary fee, and most often the tour

itin-eraries and components presented by the travel

agents in mainland China to the tourists are of

a higher quality Another tour guide offered

explication on the situation:

For instance, if it is stated in the

itiner-ary that a seafood meal will be arranged,

when they reached us, it will become an ordinary meal, and the difference had been taken by WTAs in Shenzhen And

if there should not be shopping in the itinerary, when they reached us, shop-ping will be included (MOTG-2)

In many cases, the tour itineraries and ponents are often not what the tourists would have expected Because ‘deliver service prom-ised in itinerary’ is considered an important

com-‘core service’ by many tourists (Zhang and Chow, 2004; Heung, 2008), this situation often leads to arguments and confl icts between the tour guides and the tourists, causing much dissatisfaction on the service quality of the tour guide

Tourist-generating country — tourists

Immaturity of tourist market The immaturity of

the tourist market in mainland China is found

to be a factor that indirectly affects the service quality and healthy development of the guiding profession in Macau The China tourism market, especially the outbound market, is relatively immature compared with the other well-developed markets One of the main problems that arise from this is that tourists tend to be

overly-concerned about the tour fare instead of the quality of the tour itself The immaturity of the

tourism market in mainland China is largely attributable to its relatively short history It was only in 1984 that the Chinese government per-mitted Chinese citizens to visit their relatives in Macau Eventually in 1990, China began to relax its policies on outbound trave, and Chinese citi-zens were allowed to join group tours to visit some Southeast Asian countries for tourism purposes (Wen and Tisdell, 2001) The insight

of an authoritative source from MATGA refl ects this phenomenon:

As the outbound market in Mainland China is immature, tourism bureaus in China must monitor their tour operators,

in particular, their way of doing business,

so that unhealthy and unethical practices can be eliminated Or else, there is not much we can do on our side (MATGA-1)

As pointed out by King et al (2006), China’s

travellers will typically only accept low prices

which are not compatible with the input costs

The fi ndings of this study appear to

corrobo-rate this phenomenon and further reveal the

fact that tourists are overly concerned with

tour fares instead of the quality of the tour

components Hence, travel agents in mainland

China emphasise low prices to attract tourists,

and as a result the tour fare is forced to be

below-cost Coupled with the profi t-taking

and price dictation practices by the WTAs, the

reception fee being paid to the ITOs in Macau

is often minimal if not below-cost

Conse-quently, the ITOs are not able to afford highly

skilled guides and even guide fees, causing

much grievance to the tour guiding profession

Without appropriate remuneration, the tour

guides are forced to coerce tourists into making

as many purchases as possible in a desperate

attempt to meet the shopping quota and to

secure their personal earnings This inevitably

results in the neglect of their ‘core services’

(Heung, 2008) Accordingly, both tour quality

and the tour guides’ performance are

unavoid-ably perceived as downgraded, thus further

fostering the consumers’ unwillingness to

pay high package prices These events form a

vicious circle

Changing tourist behaviour Another factor

found to have an indirect adverse effect on the

service quality of the tour guides in Macau is

the changing tourist behaviour in the

tourist-generating country More specifi cally, the

changing tourist behaviour identifi ed in this

study relates to the tourists’ spending attitude

and purchasing power Because of the relaxation

of travel restrictions in mainland China, more

and more mainland Chinese tourists have

visited Macau Their spending attitude has been

increasingly prudent along with the increased

travel experience and increased understanding

and knowledge about Macau, either obtained

fi rst-hand or through friends and relatives

Furthermore, the extension of the Individual

Visit Scheme (IVS) by the mainland Chinese

government to more cities has resulted in a

rapid growth in the number of Chinese

resi-dents who are allowed to visit Macau as

indi-vidual travellers The fi ndings reveal that there

are an increasing number of Chinese tourists

who travel on the IVS, especially among the repeat visitors For those who travel in tour groups, their demographic profi les have changed, and they have a relatively lower spending power compared with the tour group members in previous times The comment of a Macau tour guide corroborates this trend:Nowadays, those who join tour groups are mostly elderly, retirees, women and children They usually travel during summer vacation, and have a relatively lower spending power Those with higher spending power would not be fi rst time traveller to visit Macau, and they do not need to join tour groups and will usually travel as individual travellers So, the spending powers of Mainland Chinese group tourists are very different as com-pared with previous years (MOTG-2)

Nonetheless, the below-cost tour fare and

below-cost reception fee practices have remained

unchanged Therefore, the ITOs still face a great fi nancial pressure to recover costs, and the tour guides still need to meet the shopping quota preset by the ITOs Because of these changes in tourist behaviour, it becomes more diffi cult to meet the shopping quota, and the incomes earned by the tour guides have declined compared with the previous times

Consequently, the changes in tourists’ spending

attitude and purchasing power have become one

of the sources of confl ict between the tour guides and tourists

Host destination — tour operators

Intense competition between inbound tour tors As a result of the prevailing below-cost tour fare practice in mainland China, the ITOs in

opera-Macau have to compete against each other to offer the lowest possible reception fee or even pay out a certain amount to ‘bid’ for the incom-ing tours The intense competition among ITOs

is found to have led to a number of problems

affecting the guiding profession, namely

dimi-nution of guide fee, ‘mai tou’ fee practice, shopping quota and prepayment of tour expenses.

Among these problems, the diminution of

guide fee is found to have a severe damaging

impact on the performance of the tour guides

As a result of the intense competition to ‘bid’

for the incoming tours, the ITOs do not receive

a proper reception fee to cover all the

neces-sary expenses for conducting the tour A

number of them have resorted to lowering or

even removing the ‘guide fee’ (the fee paid to

a tour guide as a service fee for conducting the

tour) to save costs The fi ndings further suggest

that even if there is no guide fee for mainland

Chinese tours, many tour guides are still

willing to receive the tour because they have

to earn a living It is not surprising then that as

the incomes of the tour guides are affected,

their service quality fall accordingly

The intense competition has also brought

about the practice of the ITOs asking the tour

guides to pay a fee, usually accordingly to the

number of tourists in the tour group, to ‘buy’

for the right to receive the group This is

com-monly known as the ‘mai tou’ (literally meaning

‘buy head’) fee in the industry As the tour

guides pay a fee to ‘buy’ the tour groups,

tour-ists become analogous to ‘commodities’ serving

as a means to help them recover the fee they

have paid and to make money Consequently,

the ‘mai tou’ fee practice has led to an

undesir-able opportunistic and money-oriented

men-tality (Ap and Wong, 2001) in the guiding

profession that severely impairs the service

quality of the tour guides

The fi ndings also indicate that in order to

shift the fi nancial pressure to the tour guides,

many ITOs require them to meet a preset

shopping quota per tourist This statement from

an authoritative source from the MATGA

discloses the details of this practice:

Some tour operators would set a quota on

how much each tourist must spend In

this circumstance, the tour guide must

bring the tourists to go for shopping

and meet the quota, or else the tour guide

will have to pay for a fi ne to the tour

operator (MAGTA-1)

The observation of another Macau tour guide

provides further substantiation on the issue:

Nowadays, the fi nancial pressure on the

tour guides is getting higher as the

shop-ping quota is being set And the negative

tour fare [practice] is getting more severe the reception fee received by tour operators is low, and tour guides have to bear the fi nancial pressure For example, some tour operators stipulated that it is only when the shopping quota is met, the tour guides can get the tips

it is common that there will be no tips,

or tips will be deducted if the quota was not met (MOTG-3)

Obviously, if the quota is not met, the tour guides will face the consequences of paying a

fi ne or their tips being deducted It is also found that in many cases, the ITOs in Macau

require the tour guides to pre-pay tour expenses

such as meals, accommodations or other expenses on behalf of the company This way,

a great deal of the fi nancial risk is shifted to the tour guides, adding on to their fi nancial pressure Current practice suggests that the tour guides may claim these expenses from the company, but in many cases, they will only be reimbursed at least half a year later This unfair loading of the fi nancial burden on the tour guides has caused much dismay and grievance among those in the tour guiding profession

Host destination — tour guides

Human resource issues The study fi ndings

indi-cate that a number of human resource issues are besetting the guiding profession in Macau,

namely lack of recognition of the tour guide by the

employer, low and unstable income, lack of ment by tour guides, high turnover rate of guides

commit-and new immigrant tour guides.

The fi ndings uncover that the lack of

recogni-tion of the tour guide by the employer is a crucial

issue affecting the service quality of the tour guides It is found that many ITOs do not render enough recognition to the serving guides They are generally unwilling to offer them competitive remuneration, resulting in the tour guides being forced to be treated like part-time or freelance employees, although most of them in reality work as full-time

employees In addition, because of the

below-cost tour fare practices prevalent in the

main-land Chinese inbound market, the ITOs tend

to employ exploitative means to cut costs and

shift the fi nancial pressure to the tour guides

This has further diminished the recognition

given to them As such, the tour guides’

employment status, benefi ts and interests lack

protection

Low and unstable income, as one of the ensuing

consequences of the lack of recognition by the

employer, is found to be another key factor that

can severely affect the service quality of the

tour guides It is found that there is no basic

salary for the tour guides in Macau, and most

of the time they have to prepay part of the tour

expenses out of their own pockets The latter

is largely attributable to the fact that the ITOs

in Macau do not receive suffi cient reception

fees from mainland Chinese travel agents

The opinion of a veteran tour guide in Macau

provides insight on this issue:

Low income is one of the major factors

that would affect a tour guide’s service

quality and professionalism In Macau,

casinos often offer a high salary, and

many tour guides prefer to join the

gam-bling industry instead As income would

affect motivation, if the salary of tour

guides cannot be raised to an acceptable

level, it would be very diffi cult to attract

new tour guides to join the profession, or

experienced guides would choose not to

stay in the profession (MOTG-1)

As articulated by this veteran tour guide,

‘income would affect motivation’, it is not

sur-prising that the motivation of the tour guides

are negatively affected by the low and unstable

income This situation is further exacerbated

by the fact that there are an overwhelming

number of tour guides who are on a part-time

or freelance employment basis As a result,

there is a general lack of commitment within the

tour guiding profession, causing a prevailing

despondent sentiment among the tour guides

that the guiding profession is beleaguered and

lacks a promising future

Altogether, the above issues have led to a

high turnover rate in the guiding profession

Many tour guides have been attracted to join

other industries if the pay and working

condi-tions are much more favourable The account

of an authoritative fi gure in the MATGA

describes the high turnover situation:

The turnover rate of the tour guides in Macau is very high Many tour guides, especially those who have higher educa-tion background or are profi cient in foreign languages have changed jobs Many of them have joined casinos or hotels as a receptionist or PR offi cer The working conditions and pay are much better Among those who stayed, 60% are new immigrant tour guides, or those who are over 45 years of age whom would not like to change jobs due to their age (MATGA-1)

As revealed by the statement, the problem is further worsened by the acute labour shortage

in many professions in Macau (Kale and De, 2006), as the territory is developing rapidly as

a multipurpose destination and has a high demand for personnel for many industries

With a low and unstable income, and a lack of

recognition by the employer, the travel industry

is facing great challenges in recruiting quality new guides and retaining skilled and experi-enced guides in the workforce

On the other hand, the statement also refl ects

that the emergence of new immigrant tour guides

is another issue besetting the tour guiding fession in Macau The new immigrant tour guides refers to the new immigrants from mainland China who have joined the Macau tour guiding workforce The new immigrant tour guides have dominated the guiding work-force in Macau in recent years According to the MATGA informant, ‘new immigrant tour guides constitute 60% of the guiding work-

pro-force in Macau’ The service quality of the

guiding profession has been more diffi cult to control and monitor because of this trend There are a number of reasons attributable to this First, because of the need to minimise operating costs, tour operators hire relatively inexperienced new immigrant tour guides Because they are inexperienced, their service quality and professionalism varies greatly Second, the fi ndings suggest that even if the new immigrant tour guides have obtained the Tour Guide Card, they may not be able to introduce or interpret Macau in depth, espe-cially in relation to cultural aspects Third, because they have received their education in mainland China and have a strong mainland

Chinese cultural infl uence, they tend to be

more ready to accept the ‘group mentality’

commonly shared by the mainland

Chinese-based tour operators This ‘group mentality’

includes unhealthy practices such as the tour

guides paying tour operators a ‘mai tou’ fee to

be able to receive tour groups, the tour guides

paying tour operators a deposit and others as

common ‘norms’ in the industry The new

immigrant tour guides’ ready acceptance of

these ‘norms’ has further reinforced these

unhealthy practices within the industry

Fourth, as new immigrant tour guides share a

different mentality and culture with the

exist-ing local tour guides, they often try to form

their own circle, union or association that could

lead to fragmentation of the guiding

profes-sion Consequently, if the service quality of the

new immigrant tour guides are not monitored

and controlled effectively, it may have

detri-mental effects on the whole quality of the

guiding profession

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

The development of a sustainable tourism

market relies on the concerted efforts of its

various stakeholders, especially the tour

guides, as they are one of the most visible and

critical players in the tourism industry The

recognition of their importance and the effort

in raising their level of profi ciency and

profes-sionalism will benefi t the tourism industry

with greater potential for higher profi ts and

greater effi ciency Accordingly, a number of

recommendations are suggested for the

policy-makers and industry practitioners attempting

to maintain or improve the service quality of

the tour guiding profession in Macau

First, the cost tour fare and

below-cost reception fee practices should be outlawed

Despite the crackdown on the below-cost tour

fare practices by Chinese tourism authorities

around 2000 (Zhang et al., 2009), these

prac-tices are still in existence As Zhang et al (2009,

p 371) has recently pointed out, these practices

are ‘fl agrant breaches of consumer rights and

business ethics, and they should be eliminated

to ensure the healthy development of both the

Chinese outbound tourism and other similar

travel markets’ Consequently, the respective

authorities and industry members in Macau

should consider liaising with the tourism authorities in mainland China to establish a

‘minimum price’ for receiving tour group, thereby eliminating the root of the many unhealthy practices currently prevailing in the mainland China travel industry Second, to protect tourists from possible misrepresenta-tion of tour quality caused by the WTAs in mainland China, it is essential for the tourism authorities in mainland China to work coop-eratively with Macau to require all outbound travel agents, intermediaries and the ITOs to strictly follow a contract system for the tour itinerary Third, tourism authorities in mainland China should provide education to Chinese tourists to foster a more appropriate attitude and to reduce excessive emphasis on tour fares as a priority The current practice of focusing on the sale of an extremely low tour fare must be publicised to raise the tourists’ general awareness, as it is incompatible with the input costs and puts subsequent pressure

on tourists to make a substantial amount of purchases Fourth, Macau tour operators should be encouraged to recognise the tour guides’ real contribution by providing them with a proper level of remuneration and employment status The Macau government should work with the tour guiding industry to enforce a minimum level of remuneration for the tour guides If the guiding profession has

a more reasonable and stable income that does not rely completely on commissions, then their

fi nancial pressure will be relieved, allowing them to focus on their core and essential guiding roles Finally, new immigrant tour guides should be encouraged to ‘acculturate’ into the Macau tour guiding culture and the way of practice to enhance the cohesion of the guiding profession, for instance, by providing additional training if necessary This can be achieved by the concerted efforts from the tour guide association with the support of the travel industry and the government

This study identifi es a number of critical issues affecting the guiding profession in Macau Most importantly, it reveals that a number of these problems actually stem from the unhealthy business practices of the tourist-generating country, namely mainland China in the current study Despite the well-recognised growing importance of the Chinese outbound tourism

market (UNWTO, 2003), there is a general lack

of study on the prevalence of unhealthy

busi-ness practices in the tourism sector in mainland

China, particularly to what extent those

unhealthy practices have affected the travel

industry and guiding profession in the host

des-tination This study scrutinises the consequences

of these unhealthy practices, thus, adding to the

body of knowledge in this domain and

provid-ing a basis for further research

Finally, this present qualitative study with

its limited sample size aimed to contribute to

the literature mainly as a pilot investigation

without the intention of making any

generali-sations In addition, it focused on Macau as

a single case study due to time and resource

constraints Future research could undertake a

larger-scale comparative study to explore more

deeply the issues and problems faced by the

tour guiding profession in other destinations

to allow for comparisons, and perhaps,

gener-alisability to benefi t the guiding profession

and the tourism industry as a whole In fact,

the researchers are currently extending their

research to investigate the issues in the tour

guiding professions in other Asian regions,

thus the issues and problems affecting the

broader guiding profession can be examined

from diverse perspectives

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This paper is based on a small ethnographic

study of serious wildlife tourists It focuses

on three important aspects of this type of

travel First, the tangible benefi ts of the

tourist experience; second, the importance

of the tour leader as the interface between

the product and the tourist; and fi nally,

tourist perceptions of their potential

environmental and social impacts The

fi ndings reveal participants’ environmental

sensibilities and the desire to avoid

disturbance, the social benefi ts of organised

tours and how the tour leader is critical to

both the success of the holiday and the

responsible behaviour of the group

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 2 December 2008; Revised 23 June 2009; Accepted 29

Species (2006) claims that the demand

for nature experiences is growing worldwide

at a faster rate than tourism in general The

global market size of wildlife tourism today is

an estimated 12 million trips annually,

cur-rently growing at 10% per annum (Mintel,

2008) Rather than being homogenous, the

wildlife tourism market can be segmented according to tourists’ motivations and the sought after focal species (Moscardo and

Saltzer, 2004; Newsome et al., 2005) It can

include activities such as whale and dolphin tourism, birdwatching, safari tours, butterfl y watching holidays, polar bear viewing and general nature-orientated tours to encompass reptiles, insects and plants

Wildlife tourists can be further defi ned by their level of involvement (whether they are serious or casual wildlife enthusiasts (Cole and Scott, 1999; Curtin, 2009)) and their knowledge (whether it is specialist — i.e interested in one genre of wildlife — or generalist — interested

in wildlife per se (Duffus and Dearden, 1990; Kim et al., 1997; Higham, 1998; Connell, 2009))

In recent years, the products offered by both mass and specialist wildlife tour operators have evolved to meet a changing tourist profi le and a shift from single-species, usually bird-watching tours, to a generalist market which is characterised by clients who have a general and wide interest in nature (Curtin and Wilkes,

2005; Newsome et al., 2005) General

natural-ists are primarily vacationers who enjoy combining a love of wildlife with a holiday experience (Mintel, 2008) They can be classi-

fi ed as ‘serious’ wildlife tourists as their level

of involvement is greater than those who rience wildlife tourism as a day trip or a one-off tourist attraction (Stebbins, 2007; Curtin, 2009)

expe-Based on an ethnographic study of serious wildlife tourists, this paper focuses on three important aspects of this type of travel First, the tangible benefi ts of the tourist experience; second, the importance of the tour leader as the interface between the product and the tourist; and fi nally, tourist perceptions of their potential environmental and social impacts

Int J Tourism Res 12, 219–236 (2010)

Published online 5 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.747

Managing the Wildlife Tourism

Experience: The Importance of

Tour Leaders

Susanna Curtin*

School of Services Management, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

*Correspondence to: Dr S Curtin, School of Services

Management, Bournemouth University, Dorset House,

Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, PH12-5BB, Poole, UK.

E-mail: scurtin@bournemouth.ac.uk

The paper ends by highlighting the

implica-tions for tour leaders and the companies they

represent While much has been written about

wildlife tourism policies, planning and

sus-tainable management, the role of the tour

leader has been relatively overlooked; yet for

the dedicated wildlife holiday sector, tour

leaders are at the forefront of product

develop-ment, client satisfaction and responsible

wildlife watching

An all-inclusive wildlife holiday is a

particu-lar type of wildlife travel whereby specialist

(and some mass) tour operators devise an

itinerary which is based on seeing as many

different bird, animal and plant species that

is possible Tours are comprised of a small

number of participants (usually between four

and 16) and are accompanied by freelance tour

leaders who are professional naturalists A list

is compiled every day of the number and type

of species that are seen which is later posted

on the company’s websites to promote the

tour Tours can vary considerably depending

on their focus and pace: broad or narrow,

intense or relaxed Itineraries are located in the

countries and places renowned for wildlife but

can also include trips to remote and unique

locations which are at the forefront of tourism

development (UNEP/CMS, 2006; Curtin and

Wilkes, 2005)

Like other tourism sectors, wildlife tourism

is coming under greater scrutiny by

conserva-tion agencies or non-governmental

organisa-tions who ask operators to exhibit responsible

tourism policies and implement the positive

benefi ts to developing economies,

conserva-tion efforts and to tourists whose attitudes and

behaviour may change as a direct result of

seeing fauna and fl ora in its natural setting

(Orams, 1997; Mayes et al., 2004; Zeppel and

Muloin, 2007) The ‘general naturalists’ market

tend to be well educated and well travelled,

with a high level of disposable income (Mintel,

2008) They are inclined to shun the contrived

spaces of mass tourism and instead seek an

authentic, successful and somewhat educative

tourism experience (Curtin and Wilkes, 2005)

While these motivations have resonance with

small scale, sustainable tourism, the literature

alludes to the potentially consumptive use of

wildlife in wildlife tourism based upon the

assumption that any human presence impacts

upon the habitat and its wild inhabitants Just being there has a direct impact on the wildlife (Reynolds and Braithwaite, 2001; Tremblay, 2001; Green and Giese, 2004) Therefore, any research which reveals important management implications is a welcome addition to the

fi eld

Orams (1996) argues that management techniques fall into three main categories First, physical controls that ‘harden’ the natural environment, such as barriers, boardwalks, paths and carefully placed tourist facilities These infl uence visitor behaviour and reduce visitor impacts by physically separating visitors from the natural environment or by infl uencing the spatial distribution of visitors Second, direct controls such as rules, regula-tions, permits and charges to prohibit or restrict detrimental human behaviour (e.g banning certain activities, setting speed limits, ensuring operators are licensed, closing areas and enforcing controls with fi nes, forced removal, arrests and prosecutions) Finally, indirect mechanisms are used to seek appropriate behaviour on a voluntary basis via environ-mental education programmes (Orams, 1997) These three management techniques can be compressed into ‘ecological’ and ‘human’ categories (Reynolds and Braithwaite, 2001).There are several management policies which may be adopted to control the human dimen-sion of wildlife watching For example, the number of people using the site or watching wildlife can be restricted to cause the minimal amount of disturbance as possible Equally important as visitor numbers is the spatial and temporal distribution of visitors (Higginbottom

et al., 2003) Tourism activity can be reduced or

restricted during sensitive phases of an animal’s life-cycle, at breeding sites, haul-out sites and at feeding, watering and resting stations More-over, visitor behaviour can be modifi ed through direct instruction and supervision by a tour leader; particularly aspects such as noise, prox-imity, disturbance, fl ushing, feeding, spotlight-

ing and fl ash photography (Boren et al., 2009).

This has led to a number of voluntary lines and codes of conduct within the wildlife

guide-watching industry (Garrod et al., 2000;

Halpenny, 2002; Higham and Luck, 2007) While codes of conduct tend to be site and

species specifi c, Newsome et al (2005, p 189)

highlight the core aspects of ‘wildlife watching

etiquette’ which can be applied to most types

of wildlife watching These are outlined in

Figure 1 Clearly these are easier to enforce in

highly regulated and directly managed forms

of wildlife tourism such as on organised

wild-life tours led by an experienced tour leader

In reality, the management of the consumer

experience, or the ‘human dynamic’, based

upon cognitive, affective and behavioural

attri-butes, is often the most challenging aspect of

managing wildlife tourism in the fi eld because

of the highly varied nature of visitors (Ritchie,

1998; Orams, 2002) A high range of motivation

creates demand for a broad spectrum of

activi-ties and behaviours that can dramatically affect

the environmental consequences of their

visits

Marion and Rogers (1994) claim that

educa-tional approaches can be very effective when

destructive behaviour is a product of ignorance

or carelessness Managers (and tour leaders)

have an opportunity to reduce impacts

sub-stantially by informing visitors of management

concerns and by teaching them about the

focal species and about low-impact behaviour

through visitor interpretation (Armstrong and

Weiler, 2002) Education also has an important

role in terms of communicating the reasons

behind management actions to visitors so that visitors are more likely to support manage-ment strategies; especially those that restrict

their activities (Chin et al., 2000; Curtin et al.,

2009)

Indeed, there have been occasional studies which indicate that there is notable visitor support for management actions including both educational and regulatory strategies such as controlling visitor numbers, their

behaviour and access (Davis et al., 1997; Chin

et al., 2000; Lewis and Newsome, 2003; Curtin

et al., 2009) This again points to the need for a

critical understanding of the wildlife tourism experience and tourist expectations, as well as

a revised study of how wildlife tourism is interpreted by tour leaders, particularly how they can use their expertise, knowledge and experience in promoting appropriate tourist behaviour

1. Adhere to management actions and stay out of sanctuary areas - i.e keep to marked trails

2. Avoid areas that are important for wildlife in terms of resting, feeding and parental care

3. Observe animals from a safe distance

4. In the case of birds remain well back from nests, roosts and display areas

5. View wildlife from observation areas

6. Use binoculars and telescopes for close-up views

7. Move slowly in the presence of wildlife

8. Do not block an animal’s line of travel or escape route

9. Do not attempt to make the animal do something (let the animal be itself)

10. Never chase or harass wildlife

11. Do not use calls or food to attract wildlife

12. Do not feed wild animals

13. Limit the time you spend watching an animal (use the animal’s behaviour as a guide)

14. Respect others who are viewing

15. Be aware of the cumulative effects of human presence (reduce group size and excessive noise).

16. Avoid animals that behave aggressively

17. Document and report unethical behaviour by other visitors

18. Learn as much as you can about the wildlife that you are observing and / or photographing

Figure 1 Wildlife watching etiquette (Newsome et al., 2005, p 189).

watch the Autumn migration and one 10-day

whale- and bird-watching tour on the Sea of

Cortez, Baja, California, Mexico These tours

were undertaken with a specialist wildlife tour

operator based in the UK, whose main market

are tourists with a more relaxed and general

interest in wildlife but for whom ‘serious’

wildlife watching is still the primary

motiva-tion (see Curtin and Wilkes, 2005) While the

primary focus of these two trips was different

(i.e one was predominantly birdwatching,

while the other was predominantly

whale-watching), the bird-watching tour participants

had previously been on whale-watching trips

and the whalewatchers had previously been

on bird-watching trips; thus, they represented

a very similar market segment There were

eight tour participants and two guides on each

tour group Both groups comprised a mixture

of couples and single holidaymakers either

retired or without dependent children living at

home Women slightly outnumbered men

During the tour, fi eld diaries were kept to

record the days’ events, participant’s responses

to wildlife and their own observations of the

tourist experience These diaries were coupled

with semi-structured in-depth interviews of

tour participants while on tour (including the tour leaders) and were later followed by addi-tional in-depth interviews with people who had recently (within the last six months) taken

a wildlife holiday These additional interviews were sourced from a wildlife tour operator’s client database and represent the same market segment They too were carefully selected based on the criteria that they regularly go on wildlife holidays, had taken at least two dedi-cated wildlife holidays within the last two years and their gender, in order to have an even number of male and female participants This is a standard, purposive sampling method adopted by qualitative researchers who aim to select participants who have the knowledge and experience to answer the research ques-tions (Rubins and Rubins, 1995; Patton, 1990) The participants’ profi le is outlined in Table 1 Names have been changed to protect anonymity

In all, 20 qualitative interviews were ducted, recorded and transcribed allowing a systematic approach to data reduction based

con-on the clustering of invariant meaning units into themes (Moustakas, 1994; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983) Through the analysis of

Table 1 Participant profi les

participants’ transcripts, the author’s travel

diaries and the contextual literature, several

themes with regard to benefi ts of organised

tours and management implications emerged

This enabled the production of a major

the-matic framework which comprises the major

themes (or categories) as section headings of

the results and discussion section (see Figure

2) This framework is derived from the a priori

research questions and the in vivo or emergent

themes derived from the data, i.e participants’

actual words or invariant meaning as

per-ceived by the author

The research has internal validity as it

accu-rately portrays the multiple social realities of

those participating in it, but as with all

qualita-tive studies, the results may not be transferable

or applicable to other wildlife tourist

popula-tions However, the depth of qualitative

enquiry enables insight into some core

experi-ences and themes, therefore external validity may be later explored by the testing of these key themes in a wider population

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONFigure 2 displays the major themes to emerge from the ethnography These are used as sub-headings under which the text is organised As

is customary in qualitative research where the theory is grounded in the data, the results and discussion are presented simultaneously They are divided into two major sections: fi rst, the benefi ts and sought after expectations of an organised wildlife holiday including the role

of the tour leader; and second, how tourists perceive the environmental and social impacts

of this type of travel The paper then concludes with a set of implications for tour leaders and operators

Emergent themes

A priori questions

What do you hope

for when you book

a wildlife tour?

What are the benefits of travelling on an

organised tour like

this?

Knowing where to go to see as many species as possible Access to knowledgeable guides Sharing with others Meeting new (like-minded) people Managing expectations and group

The tangible expectations and benefits of wildlife holidays and perceptions of

environmental and social impacts

Figure 2 Thematic framework

THE TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE

BENEFITS OF ORGANISED,

ALL-INCLUSIVE WILDLIFE TOURS

Knowing where to go

For these ‘serious’ general naturalists, there are

two primary motivations for travelling: fi rst, to

see a number of, or as many, different species

as possible; and second, to experience and

appreciate a specifi c country or place Whilst

wildlife sometimes frequents populated places

(for example, along migratory routes or in

unique industrial habitats), a greater

abun-dance and diversity of fl ora and fauna tend to

be found in more remote places which often

require considerable planning to reach

More-over, knowing where particular species can be

seen requires considerable knowledge of, and

relationship with, a place For some

partici-pants, the basic decision on whether to travel

independently or with a tour operator can

depend on these two factors:

How diffi cult a place is to get to and how

much we want to see as many birds as we can

They know where to take you to and certainly

you see a lot more than you would otherwise

(Linda)

The joy about this whale-watching trip is that

they know exactly where to take you, where

the migratory routes are It would be very

diffi cult to organise a trip like this yourself

(Dawn, Baja California)

While seeing wildlife is the primary

pull-factor, the experience is much broader than

just ‘racing around and ticking things off’ (Michelle,

Baja, California) There is a strong desire to see

and experience places off of the beaten track

and as Michelle explains: ‘these tours do get you

out in the countryside of a country You do see a

little bit more about how people live I couldn’t for

the life of me do the tourist enclave bit’ Getting

away from the contrived tourist spaces and

seeing animals in their natural setting is an

essential component for this dedicated wildlife

holiday market The ability to offer this depends

entirely on the skill of the tour leader who can

locate all the sought after species while

simul-taneously meeting the groups’ wider

expecta-tions For this reason, the employment and

retention of knowledgeable and personable leaders is central to the tour operators’ success

Tour leaders have been described as mation providers, sources of knowledge, mentors, surrogate parents, pathfi nders, leaders, mediators, culture brokers and enter-tainers (McKean, 1976; De Kadt, 1979; Schuchat, 1983; Cohen, 1985) Alongside these numerous roles, leaders provide four major functions: instrumental, social, interactionary and com-municative (Cohen, 1985) A number of writers have studied the role of the eco-tour guide (Ballantyne and Hughes, 2001; Weiler and Ham, 2001; Haig and McIntyre, 2002), paying particular attention to the communication and interpretation of the natural (and cultural) environment (see Tilden, 1957 for a defi nition

inforof interpretation) not only in terms inforof identifi cation and explanation of focal species, but also with regard to the sustainable manage-ment of wildlife/tourist interactions, con-servation and the modifi cation of behaviour

-(Moscardo, 1996; Orams, 1997; Moscardo et al.,

2004)

Other studies, however, are less optimistic about tour guiding, suggesting that their tradi-tional role is largely superfl uous in authentic and independent forms of tourism where the emphasis is on individual experience and interpretations of reality rather than the reli-ance on tour leaders to provide meaning in what tourists see (Almagor, 1985; Reisinger and Steiner, 2006) While this may indeed be true for some forms of guiding, particularly cultural tours, little attention has been paid to the dedicated wildlife tourism guide or tour leader, as they are most frequently referred to, where the leader is in the company of their clients for the whole duration of the trip as opposed to the on-site interpretative leaders to

be found in many ecotourism attractions or destinations

On the contrary, the participants in this exploratory study reveal that wildlife tour leaders are central to the tourist experience and are a fundamental component of the trip:

so much so that it is common for tours to be bought based upon who is leading them and where customer loyalty can be as much to do with the tour leader as the tour operator Their reputation goes before them and participants

frequently recommend them to friends There

are a number of key attributes that a guide

must have: versatility, excellent fi eld skills,

sound local knowledge, reputation (many

write natural history guide books) and good

administrative and organisational skills

Although itineraries are generally laid out

in the tour brochures, once at the destination,

tours are often dynamic Itineraries may change

according to the weather, recent sightings, new

opportunities to see passing wildlife or group

decisions, and so leaders must always have

contingency plans based upon local

knowl-edge It can take leaders a long time to ‘scout

out’ the wildlife and climatic idiosyncrasies in

their territory, and they can become very

pro-tective of both their geographical area and

their knowledge: ‘If I’m on my own patch which

is Central Spain and Extremadura, I am very

cautious about who I tell what wildlife can be

seen where; particularly other tour leaders who are

leading for professional companies because that’s

like trade secrets effectively’ (Mark, tour leader,

Andalucía).

At the simplest level, the tour leader, often

in unison with local guides, escort the tourists

to prime locations where focal species can be

seen They will have researched the area well,

will know what has recently been sighted and

the best places from which to view the wildlife

They are experienced naturalists who can

iden-tify wildlife by their calls, their tracks and even

their distant silhouettes Because of these fi eld

skills, tour participants will encounter ‘a lot

more species’ than they would if they were

travelling independently as Ian exclaims:

‘I saw birds that I wouldn’t have seen even if I’d

stayed there all day’ (Andalucía).

In addition to the knowledgeable tour

leaders, participants themselves can be good

spotters and identifi ers and may even be

experts in their own fi eld of natural history

Quite often they have a particular skill or

expe-rience which can add value to the group and

can enhance the trip for other members While

tour leaders are generally expected to be

inter-ested in everything and to have at least one

specialism, they are not necessarily expected to

know about all the fl ora and fauna, therefore

they tend to welcome and involve people

who have complementary skills and who can

enhance the experience for everyone:

A big plus of these tours is you’ll fi nd the birders will be scanning the skies and trees and the fl ower and mammal people will be heads to the ground and so you get to see a lot of different things (Edward)

When group dynamics work well, it tates the sharing of experiences with like-minded individuals which has the potential to augment the wildlife encounter particularly if the experience is shared with ‘signifi cant others’

facili-Sharing with others

The desire to share experiences is frequently mentioned in the tourism literature (Fredrick-son and Anderson, 1999; Haig and McIntyre,

2002; Smith et al., 2006) In this study, responses

could be positioned along a continuum, with sharing wildlife encounters being of para-mount importance for some, to wildlife encoun-ters being equally enjoyable if you were by yourself for others However, for most, sharing wildlife encounters defi nitely enhances the holiday experience The human tendency to want to share experiences is best illustrated by the tour leader who admitted that:

the more that I tour lead the less I go out birding on my own Keith (a col-league) does exactly the same He doesn’t pick up a pair of bins (binoculars) now if

he is not on tour because if I can’t share

it with someone, it’s a waste of time I really don’t enjoy it that much (Mark, tour leader, Andalucía)

The desire to share can be more complex than merely the emotional fulfi lment sharing can elicit It can also be more functional, such

as the desire to help fellow travellers make a sighting, to share knowledge and skills, for confi rmation of a sighting and for the laying down of shared memories:

Shared experiences are very important If one of you see something interesting and then the other sees it- that is great Also

it can confi rm it for you If they don’t see

it, then you think that perhaps I didn’t

see it and I was imagining it! So it’s much

better if we both see things together and

later we can recall the moment and discuss

it (Marie, Baja, California)

The counter-argument to the need to share

was less apparent but for a few participants,

communal with wildlife can be a highly refl

ec-tive and personal experience This heightened

experience can ‘lose something when you have got

a number of people with you no matter how close

they may be to you’ (Tanya, Baja, California).

Meeting new people

One of the key fi ndings to emerge from this

study is that wildlife holidays like these are

attractive to single people as ‘everything is

organised and I know I’ve got a group of “friends”

waiting to have dinner tonight so I don’t have to

worry about going to a restaurant on my own so

there is a social aspect of it as well as the wildlife’

(Ian, Andalucía)

The tour leaders reiterated that they tended

to attract a lot of widows or widowers and that

often their clients formed long-term

relation-ships and friendrelation-ships after meeting on one of

their wildlife holidays As the recent Social

Trends survey depicts, British society is

becom-ing more lonely and insular (ONS, 2006) There

are higher incidences of divorce and of single

occupancy housing Working hours, new

technology, the gradual erosion of the typical

nuclear family and longer life expectancy point

towards a demand for holidays which can

easily be taken by the single person Human

beings are social creatures who often feel more

comfortable in groups and who seek out

the company of like-minded individuals with

whom they can share holiday experiences

(Carstensen, 1992) Furthermore, animal

sight-ings and encounters act as good social

lubri-cants, talking points which can bring people

together (Hunt et al., 1992) Fundamentally,

the attraction of nature and wildlife can be

mutually participated in and enjoyed:

It’s nice to go on holiday with like-minded

people It’s pleasant company You might

only meet people over dinner one evening

but you can have some very interesting

exchanges (Michelle, Baja, California)

Meeting new people also has a utilitarian benefi t in the way of knowledge exchange Stories and experiences unfold over mealtimes and in-between wildlife watching, particularly with regard to destinations, itineraries, compa-nies and tour leaders, and this knowledge is used to reinforce future trip decision-making, thus exemplifying the importance of ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing

Tour group dynamics

Participant observation allowed an insight into the group dynamics and culture of dedi-cated wildlife watching tours Through expe-rience and discussions, it became apparent

that there are elements of luck and leadership

involved as to how a group bonds: Michelle and Tanya had both encountered groups where awkward individuals had dominated

or manipulated the wildlife agenda dling diffi cult participants and situations is seen to be the responsibility of the tour leader whose role as social facilitator is also well documented in the literature (Schuchat, 1983; Cohen, 1985) Cohen, (1985) refers to this as an interactionary function, i.e facili-tating interaction between tourists, being friendly and approachable, listening to and respecting preferences Tour leaders take this role very seriously as it can make or mar the experience for everyone As Mark (Anda-

Han-lucía) reiterates: ‘It’s often about fi nding common

ground I am the focal point for the group body can inter-relate to everyone and everything else but the binding people in the group are the leaders’.

Every-This is illustrated in Figure 3 below which highlights the multi-skills inherent in the two major functions of tour leading, i.e both fi eld skills and social facilitating According to the tour leaders and the tour operators who par-ticipated in this study, there is always a lot of interest in becoming a wildlife guide from people with a wide knowledge of fauna and

fl ora In reality, for the general naturalist market, leading a tour requires a leader to know more about people than about wildlife, particularly with regard to ensuring group congruity as the social skills often outweigh the fi eld skills

Managing expectations

While the participants did not accompany the

tour with a wish list, there is a sense that it may

still be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see

a particular focal species This desire, however,

has to be carefully balanced in order to please

everyone Leaders must be fl exible enough to

appreciate when the desire to see something in

particular is not shared by the majority

Some-times the desire to see particular species is

driven more by the tour leader than the

participants:

I am not too disappointed if I don’t get to

see all the birds they list in the trip spec

There were several days where obviously

our leader wanted us to see particular

birds which were endemic We spent a lot

of time looking for a certain duck and it

was no big deal, but you know it was

obviously bigger for them than it was for

us (Linda)

You can’t possibly expect to see all the

whales and dolphins listed in the trip

spec as wildlife doesn’t perform to

order but then it is wonderful if you

do like the Blue whale we saw

yester-day that was a wonderful surprise (Tanya, Baja California)

According to the tour leaders, they feel

‘inadequate or unprofessional’ if they cannot,

or do not, produce all the species in the trip specifi cation as advertised in the trip reports

on the company website There is the acy of not seeing it on tour plus the double exposure of it not being published to attract new and perspective clients These anxieties can be communicated to clients who are well aware of the pressures some leaders may be under

immedi-One participant, Penny, had been on a dedicated bird-watching holiday to Madagas-car The trip was chosen for its destination, itinerary and timing Her narrative below provides an insight into a ‘bird listing’ expe-rience by someone whose interests are much broader It illustrates why clients have to be very careful which tour operator they book with:

They were defi nitely ‘listers’ (bird ers who develop lifelong lists) and they were ticking off as many endemic birds as they could fi nd As soon as we had seen

watch-Tour leader is the focal point

function Field function

FIELD INTERPRETATION

SKILLS Habitat awareness

and how to identify

SOCIAL SKILLS Informer Entertainer Animator Facilitator of social bonding

Problem solver Decision maker Organiser

Information exchange / joint experiences

Figure 3 The multiplicity of tour leading skills

this bird, we were whipped off to

the next thing without even watching

it you know without having enough

time to enjoy them before ticking off the

next thing

This obsessive desire to tick off a wish list can

also cause considerable stress to the tour leaders

especially if they are more used to a different

type of clientele More often than not, tour

leaders are freelance and guide for a number of

different tour operators, each with their own

unique mix of client expectations Some tours

are clearly more pressured than others as: ‘some

clients can go from dawn until dusk and beat you

into the ground to get to try and see everything

possible’ (Mark, tour leader, Andalucía).

PERCEIVED IMPACTS OF WILDLIFE

TOURISM

Using tape recorder/food provisioning/

managing closeness and disturbance

The desire to see focal species coupled with the

tour leaders’ predisposition to satisfy clients’

wishes can encourage controversial

manage-ment policies such as the use of tape recorders

(I Peters, personal communication, 2007), the

provision of food (see Lewis and Newsome,

2003; Chin et al., 2000; Green and Higginbottom,

2001; Orams, 2001) and the propensity to seek

close encounters with wildlife

Participant attitudes towards these methods

were explored with a number of questions to

see if they had encountered the methods while

on tour and how they felt about their adoption

The use of tape recordings of bird song

pro-duced the most cognitive dissonance Some

enjoyed the experience at the time as they got

to see the birds they wanted but later felt that

the practice was questionable as it lured the

bird out of its normal territory Moreover, it

mars the feeling of spontaneity and

authentic-ity of the experience and there is frequent

ref-erence to it as ‘cheating!’ (Carol) The following

responses refl ect the participants’ concerns:

I don’t agree with it because it is an

arti-fi cial situation probably at the end of the

day it doesn’t do the bird much good

(Ian, Andalucía)

Well I did enjoy it at the time because

I saw the bird, but then afterwards I thought if everybody did that that bird would probably breakdown (Simon, Andalucía)

You know it could be very disruptive pulling the males outside of their terri-tory and disrupting them from feeding their young or their courtship or what-ever (Matthew)

Flushing out birds is another modus operandi

which can be used to enable a sighting by the less reputable leaders This was not experi-enced fi rst hand by the author as the tour leaders were very careful not to cause distur-bance wherever possible However, some par-ticipants had experienced ‘fl ushing’ and it had caused them concern Responsible tour leaders have softer methods to locate birds, usually by hearing their call, and are very aware of the potential negative impacts of disturbance:

My feeling is that you have to respect what’s there and if you want to go back and see the same again, you mustn’t disturb it (Mark, tour leader, Andalucía)

The provisioning of food to enable wildlife sightings is also a highly debatable subject area

(Shackley, 1998; Chin et al., 2000; Curry et al.,

2001; Green and Higginbottom, 2001; Orams, 2002; Lewis and Newsome, 2003) Many people

in the UK feed the wildlife that frequents their garden and bird feeders; nest boxes and bird food have gradually taken up more fl oor space

in garden centres and built wildlife attractions (RSPB, personal communication, 2007) There-fore, the provisioning of food at various accom-modation outlets to encourage birds and animals

is not seen to be outside of ‘normal, everyday’ behaviour and was therefore not perceived as a problem or impact of wildlife watching

On the contrary, it was often seen as thing to be encouraged particularly if, by attracting wildlife to the vicinity, people would begin to be interested in it

some-I think that you should some-I have always tried to get people interested in wildlife

because I feel that I am showing them a

skill; I am passing on something that is

good (Rebecca, Andalucía)

Unlike sound, participants felt that at least

with food provisioning, the wildlife benefi ted

in some way

At least with food they get something

With sound we are taking it from them

and they don’t get anything out of it at

all (Peter, Andalucía)

Food provisioning certainly allows up-close

sightings The idea of close proximity to

wild-life has been identifi ed as a key feature of the

wildlife visitor experience Duffus (1988) found

that Orca whalewatchers ranked close

obser-vation as the second most important aspect of

their whale-watch trip (see also Muloin, 1998;

Pearce and Wilson, 1995) Similarly, Schanzel

and McIntosh (2000) reveal that satisfaction

stems from ‘the closer the better’ and the most

frequently mentioned cause of dissatisfaction

was not being able to get close enough As

Bulbeck (2005, p 101) discovered ‘closeness

can be everything’, this appears to hold equally

true for the more serious wildlife watchers for

whom getting close enough to see detail in

their binoculars and/or scopes and to be able

to correctly identify a species is fundamental

to satisfaction:

It’s fairly important, yes to get close You

know it is not much fun seeing your fi rst

condor, or whatever it is, just as a dot on

top of a mountain You want to be able to

actually see it closely enough so that you,

yourself can be satisfi ed what it is

(Matthew)

Getting close enough to be able to see

some-thing properly using binoculars is the key to

success, but this is not a prerequisite for

accept-ing disturbance:

Its back to the question as to whether you

are interfering with the natural life of

the wildlife I’ve seen tourists walking

through fi elds of growing crops to get

close to something which I wouldn’t do

If I was on a tour where this sort of

behaviour was taking place I would hold back In Morocco once I was very con-scious of the fact that we were trampling

on someone’s crops to see a bird (Peter, Andalucía)

Sound lures and food provisioning were clearly not an issue on the whale-watch boat in Baja, California The abundance of humpback and grey whales made for relatively close encounters, which, although not expected by the group, made for memorable and special experiences Overall, participants perceived the whole holiday to be relatively low impact, partly because of the way the tour was run, as Sophie explains:

I fi nd it reassuring to witness the crew’s deep admiration and respect for the wild-life in their midst; they genuinely don’t want to hassle the whales Instead, you get the sense that they aren’t purely per-ceived as a commodity; that they genu-inely seem to assume some guardianship over them (Baja, California)

Disturbance of wildlife (see Freddy et al., 1986; Stockwell et al., 1991; Yarmoloy et al., 1998; Curry et al., 2001; Curtin et al., 2009)

implies a change of behaviour and this is ceived to affect the authenticity of the sighting Tour participants want to see the focal species

per-behaving ‘normally’: ‘I always worry that my

being there is going to change what they are doing’ (Joe, Baja, California) Yet clearly just being close

to wildlife and in their vision can make this a contradiction in terms

Awareness of wider impacts

However, in contrast to other forms of travel, the small group size and environmental focus

of serious wildlife tourism is enough to put wildlife tours in a relatively good light with regard to negative impacts Most participants genuinely believe that their interest and behav-iour at the destination is more wholesome than their typical package tourist counterparts However issues such as overuse of wildlife sites, benefi ts to the local economy and sus-tainable development do concern them:

In places like Lesbos, you can see that

birdwatching and eco tourism type

indus-try benefi ts the local economy but whether

it actually benefi ts the local ecosystem is

questionable There are too many people

going to too many of the same places and

disturbing too many of the rare birds so

perhaps it’s too busy (Ian, Andalucía)

This typical discussion with regard to

impacts tends to be balanced by the fact that

tourism supports a contingent valuation of

wildlife (see Groom et al., 1991; Davis and

Tisdell, 1996; Davis et al., 1997; Green and

Higginbottom, 2000; Hoyt, 2001; Tisdell

and Wilson, 2002), i.e that economic benefi t

from tourism will somehow ensure the

conser-vation of species:

Unless there is an economic value it

(wild-life) will probably go So no, usually I

think that wildlife tourism is a good thing

rather than a bad thing (Linda)

If the birdwatchers weren’t coming here

(El Rocio) they might just drain it and

build another hotel They wouldn’t look

after it the way they do if companies

like this didn’t come here and put money

into the economy because of it (Ian,

Andalucía)

This is a view which is evidently supported

by tour operators The Travelling Naturalist’s

(2007) environmental policy states:

We believe that ecotourism has a truly

important part to play in the conservation

of many threatened habitats worldwide

Indeed tourism can be the major factor in

saving an area from damage by

destruc-tive forestry or agricultural practices We

think that wildlife tourism also has a role

in promoting the whole idea of

conserva-tion, especially in those countries where

it is given a low priority We will

there-fore continue to run tours to several

coun-tries with a dubious environmental record

believing that by working with

conserva-tion-minded local agents and

organisa-tions within those countries we can help

to strengthen their hand (The Travelling Naturalist, 2007, p 5)

Impacts are also perceived to be lessened by the presence and network of local leaders whose livelihoods depend on the sustainable

presence of wildlife (see also Boren et al., 2009)

The tour leaders themselves are very aware of the potential impacts and the levels of respon-sibility both towards leading the group and towards the wildlife and destinations:

Leaders rely on everybody being sible and not fl ushing wildlife away and spoiling it for other people It’s a very close-knit community If you fl ush it from the site, then when you come along later with more paying customers to see them, they’re gone (Mark, tour leader, Andalucía)

respon-One thing that is considered fundamental to

the sustainability of the industry is ‘to get the

money into the hands of the locals’.

They see you bring people to see the wildlife in a responsible way, and that they are spending money in the local economy and they are doing something which is perfectly acceptable in the coun-tryside; they are not killing anything, they are not destroying anything I think

we should be trying to support any local conservation initiatives that are going on (Mark, tour leader, Andalucía)

Whilst this additional tourism revenue and support for conservation is seen as a positive impact, there is more skepticism with regards

to how much of this revenue stays in the local economy and how far the local community is involved or empowered Some participants were particularly aware that it might not be as much as they would expect as Tanya and Michelle (Baja, California) ponder:

It’s diffi cult with this kind of package We have provided employment for these men

on the boat but I am not entirely vinced we are not in contact with local people really and we are not distributing our dollars very much (Tanya)

con-It is, in reality very diffi cult to know just

how eco, ecotours are (Michelle)

Part of this belief stems from the

accommo-dation that participants stay in Wildlife

tourism often uses the same accommodation

infrastructure as mass tourism Here it was

noted that hotel development tended to exclude

local people and ignore the environment

Moreover, hotel development, which has no

sense of individuality or local distinctiveness,

is questionable for some participants as it is

incongruent with their own perceptions of

being a responsible wildlife tourist:

I don’t think that enough money reaches

their economy For example, in Tanzania,

some of the time we were accommodated

in travel lodges or whatever, or hotels

owned by international companies and

you think how much of this money is

actually going to get back to the locals

(Matthew)

Equally, Joe (Baja, California) relates his

experience in Sabah, Borneo:

We were staying in a lodge right in the

middle of the rainforest which was like a

four star Hilton and one wondered why

you had to have this incredible luxury on

a holiday which is really the reverse of

what you are trying to achieve

Striking the balance between comfort and

social and environmental responsibility is a

conundrum for the operators who package the

itineraries Unfortunately, Joe’s point is not

wholly supported by those who work within

the wildlife tourism industry whose

experi-ence with clients suggests that awareness of

impacts does not appear to necessarily mean

behavioural change For example, Jeremy

admitted that when booking trips, he paid

very little attention to whether

accommoda-tion was locally owned The motivaaccommoda-tions for

doing the trip and the desire for comfort and

ease override concerns regarding the economic

impacts As David (tour leader, Natural History

Tours) explains:

Hotels matter a lot I think People like a

good place to come back to and they make

lots of comments on the hotels As you get older, as the clients get older, they are more and more concerned about the comfort, the food, that sort of thing

Finally, participants voiced notions of being pathfi nders — a small number of tourists who pave the way for future development There was a palpable feeling that destinations such

as Baja, California, having been discovered by the wildlife tourism industry, were at the crux

of further expansion — a scenario which has already consumed areas of Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands Such destinations soon become attractive to larger and potentially less interested markets which renders them less attractive for the more lucrative and serious wildlife markets (Duffus and Dearden, 1990)

As Sophie and Marie exhort: ‘you would not

want to be part of that’.

Participants attempted to ascertain the scale

of the whale-watch industry in Baja, California

At the time of travel, it appeared relatively low key with low numbers, but they questioned how the numbers of tourists might swell in the peak season Moreover, the company whose boat the tour participants travelled on had pro-duced promotional images which may encour-age high expectations of very close encounters with grey whales, and this too was cause for concern:

I can see in years to come that there will

be a lot more boats in the Sea of Cortez and it would lose something if there were huge numbers of boats all competing to get that close to the whales (Marie, Baja, California)

When asked if a participant thought that they were having an impact, would they still travel to see these things, most had a similar

response: ‘Well — it’s chicken and egg You could

say that if we don’t come, then someone else will and nothing will be gained It’s quite hard’ (Carol)

This is a debate frequently voiced and used to justify trip decisions and reduce dissonance.Some were acutely aware that getting to the destination comprised the biggest impact and

this had begun to affect decision-making: ‘I’ve

got to the point now where I feel that we have seen three different rainforests; we don’t need to see

another’ (Sophie, Baja, California) But such

altru-ism is not a common attribute evidenced by

the growth in this type of travel, the reluctance

to pay an environmental tax (McMillan,

per-sonal communication, 2007) and the wish to

see these places and their wildlife before they

vanish into extinction Instead, participants

concentrate mostly on the positive attributes of

their travel, particularly the communication

of the importance of conservation and the

propensity to enthuse people with a love of

wildlife and biodiversity

In a sense anything we do will have an

impact, and if one was really bothered you

wouldn’t do it On the other hand you hope

that by doing it, you will be able to

com-municate to others how important

conser-vation is (Michelle, Baja, California)

Even if it is about talking to your friends

or your family then something good, in a

small way, has come from us being here

In this small way, we have hopefully

con-tributed positively I think coming back

from the Galapagos, I felt very emotional

for a long time It really and truly affected

me Afterwards I joined the Galapagos

Conservation Trust and I am now

sup-porting their work as much as I can

(Tanya, Baja, California)

Tanya was not alone in her pledge to support

conservation; all of the participants belonged

to some wildlife conservation organisation,

either the local Wildlife Trust (Wildlife Trust

of Great Britain), The Royal Society for The

Protection of Birds or the World Wide Fund for

Nature (World Wide Fund for Nature)

MANAGING THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE:

IMPLICATIONS FOR TOUR LEADERS

There are a number of conclusions and

impli-cations arising from this small, qualitative

con-tribution to the fi eld of wildlife tourism The

fi ndings have revealed insight into the tangible

and operational experiences of ‘serious’

wild-life tourists, particularly their expectations and

experiences of group travel and the high

importance given to the fi eld and social skills

of the tour leaders whose role is fundamental

to the success of the tour — a point strated by the model of the multiplicity of tour leader skills

demon-These participants, together with the life tour operators and their tour leaders, are aware of the impacts that their visit has on fragile habitats and species They are particu-larly sensitive to potential disturbance of focal species, of the importance of their visit to the local economy and the contribution to conser-vation as well as the environmental footprint that travel to the destination naturally involves However, participants prefer to concentrate on the positive impacts of this type of tourism to offset their dissonance as their desire to travel and see wildlife overrides their doubts (i.e there is little evidence from this research that environmental awareness affects intention and behaviour)

wild-Nevertheless, these inherent sensibilities need to be met and reinforced by responsible tour leading which abides by codes of conduct

espoused, for example, by Newsome et al

(2005) to minimise disturbance Moreover, tour operators and leaders should ensure, and emphasise, the benefi ts to local communities and to local conservation efforts These dis-cerning clients are not easily fooled by the ‘eco-rhetoric’ of many tours Air travel and choice

of accommodation (quite often chain or tourist hotels) have become environmental stumbling blocks in the quest for sustainable wildlife tourism which supports local communities and economies Unfortunately, this market requires moderately high standards which often rule out the use of local accommodation providers especially in developing countries This is a conundrum based on Western stan-dards which is not easily overcome

Tour leaders are arguably the most tant aspect of a wildlife tour Their role as interpreters, educators, social facilitators and conservationists is pivotal to the sustainable management and use of wildlife resources They have great potential to work in unison with destination and resource managers and lead by example The eco-centric values dem-onstrated by this market point towards wishing

impor-as little disturbance impor-as possible for the wildlife This implies that once appropriate behaviour

is explained and justifi ed, they are likely to comply for two reasons: fi rst, they will adopt

the group norms as per the culture of wildlife

tourism; and second, inappropriate behaviour

can often stem from a lack of knowledge and

understanding and once this is challenged,

suitable behaviour will follow

The acknowledgement that tour leaders are

such a critical component in the sustainable

management and delivery of wildlife tourism

experiences implies that wildlife tourism

man-agement plans should involve the local and

international wildlife tour leaders who are

responsible for accompanying tourists to

wild-life destinations Their training and

involve-ment in the planning and manageinvolve-ment process

is imperative given their prominent profi le in

the eyes of wildlife tourists, their experience in

the fi eld and their knowledge of species and

conservation

Worldwide, the demand for wildlife tour

leading is likely to increase and it is apparent

from this exploratory study that having

excel-lent fi eld skills only represents a small

propor-tion of their role; social and exemplary wildlife

watching behaviour skills are arguably more

important New tour leaders (and arguably

some existing ones) from both the tourism

gen-erating and receiving countries may need

train-ing and guidance as to how to: (i) manage

different expectations of wildlife tourists;

(ii) successfully ensure minimal disturbance to

focal species while maintaining trip satisfaction;

and (iii) instigate responsible wildlife-watching

behaviour during and beyond the duration of

the wildlife holiday One management strategy

might be to move towards the introduction of

accreditation schemes for tour leaders who

must demonstrate responsible and sustainable

wildlife tourism practices The ‘spin-off’ from

positive accreditation may enhance the tour

operators’ profi le in the eyes of tourists,

destina-tions and eventually the entire industry who

would then have defi nitive ideals to abide by,

not least the avoidance of disturbance

When it comes to proximity, most

partici-pants clearly enjoy eye-to-eye experiences

Close proximity to (non-dangerous) wild

animals can be immensely thrilling and provide

memorable and highly satisfying moments on

tour The key concept for tour leaders is to be

mindful of the ‘trip-wire’ moment This is the

instant at which the bird or animal becomes

alert to the onlookers and is at the point of

taking fl ight Unfortunately, once this iour is witnessed, it is often too close and too late; disturbance has occurred and the experi-ence is diminished as fl eeing wildlife does not provide for long, extended and satisfying viewing Tour leaders must be mindful that different species react in different ways (Knight and Cole, 1998) and that tolerance or habitua-tion is not the same as non-disturbance (Richter

behav-et al., 2001) The severity of negative effects of

wildlife tourism on wildlife varies ably with the animal itself, its species, age, sex, physical condition and state of breeding (Green and Giese, 2004)

consider-Finally, the use of sound lures to attract birds can be a contentious wildlife-viewing tool The participants in this study universally implied that they found this practice to be detrimental

to the health of the birds as it lures them away from their normal activities, out of their terri-tory, away from feeding their young, away from courtship and searching for food Unlike with food provisioning, which was met with more enthusiasm, they do not perceive any benefi t to the bird It also made for a contrived rather than authentic experience which is counter to the ideals and ethos of viewing wildlife in its natural setting The issue of food provisioning, however, is complex The litera-ture advises a cautionary approach because of the negative impacts that over-reliance on pro-visioning can cause (Orams, 2002) the wrong type of food and the increase in animal popula-tion caused by the unnatural abundance of food (Shackley, 1998)

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The impact of wind farms on the

environment and subsequently on tourism

is the subject of much heated debate The

research was concerned with making a

robust quantitative assessment of the

economic impact, to help resolve the debate

and inform government policy on planning

for renewable energy In addition to a broad

description of the intercept surveys and the

advanced local economic models used to

ascertain impact, the research details two

novel elements; a Geographic Information

Systems (GIS) model for the analysis of the

number of tourists and bed spaces exposed

to wind farms and a large internet-based

survey of the willingness to pay for

landscape The research found a very small

but signifi cant negative economic impact

and, on the basis of the survey information,

suggests ways of minimising this impact

Both GIS modelling and internet surveying

were found to be extremely useful and, it is

suggested, both should become standard

tools for the tourism researcher Copyright

© 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: wind farms; tourism; economic

impact; GIS; contingent valuation; internet

surveying

INTRODUCTION

Over the last two decades, Energy Policy

has seen a marked shift towards ables as part of the UK commitment to reduce green house gas emissions by 20% between 2000 and 2010 The policy was rein-forced in November 2007 with a new target of 50% of Scotland’s electricity from renewables

renew-by 2020, and an interim milestone of 31% renew-by

2011 The 2011 target implies around 5000 megawatts of installed capacity, almost double current levels Given current technology and the time needed to plan and develop large projects such as storage hydro or offshore wind farms, the policy suggests a very signifi cant increase in on-shore wind farms with associ-ated impacts on Scotland’s landscape

Scottish tourism depends heavily on the country’s landscape, with 92% of visitors stating that scenery was important in their choice of Scotland as a holiday destination, the natural environment being important to 89%

of visitors (Harris Interactive, 2005) As part of the general policy to create a more successful country, with increasing sustainable economic growth, the Tourism sector has agreed a target

of 50% revenue growth in the 10 years to 2015

The potential problem is that many people

fi nd that man-made structures such as pylons and wind turbines reduce the attractiveness of

a landscape It is logical to assume that reduced quality of an important feature will inevitably reduce demand to some degree which in turn may result in either reduced prices for tourism services or reduced numbers of tourists or

Int J Tourism Res 12, 237–252 (2010)

Published online 25 September 2009 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.750

Assessing the Economic Impact of Wind Farms on Tourism in Scotland: GIS,

Surveys and Policy Outcomes

Geoff Riddington1,*, David McArthur2, Tony Harrison3 and Hervey Gibson4

1 GRID Economics Ltd and Glasgow Caledonian University, UK

2 Haugesund University College, Norway

3 Moffat Centre for Tourism, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK

4 Cogent Strategies International Ltd, UK

*Correspondence to: G Riddington, GRID Economics

Ltd, 7, Middleton Lane, Helensburgh, UK G84 78E.

E-mail: riddington88@btinternet.com

both Any loss of expenditure will lead to a

reduction in economic activity and result in a

loss of income and jobs

In reality, the discussion on any particular

wind farm proposal is now almost always an

adversarial debate, and opinions on the policy

area of wind farms in Scotland have become

polarised and founded on competing myths

(of which some are, and some are not, founded

in reality) This research sought to provide an

evidence based on one contentious element of

the decision, the impact on tourism in

Scot-land, and to assist decision-making by

identifying:

(1) The potential number of tourists that would

be affected

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

were used to assess the number of tourists

that may come into contact

(accommoda-tion in sight of wind farms or through

exposure while travelling by road) with

any of the projects that are built, already

permitted or currently in the process of

applying for permission within the

plan-ning system

(2) The reactions of those tourists affected by

wind farms

This was established by carrying out both

a large-scale internet-based survey of

current and potential tourists’ attitudes

and values, along with nearly 400 direct

interviews of visitor intentions at tourist

spots located close to existing or proposed

wind farms

(3) The economic impact of those reactions

This was believed to result from two main

sources First, there may be a change in the

number of tourists going to an area when

a wind farm is constructed, and it should

be possible to estimate the related change

in expenditure (through the intercept

survey) Second, the views from some

accommodation will be affected by the

construction of wind farms Under certain

assumptions, a fall in average willingness

to pay for a ‘room with a view’ results in a

proportionate fall in the average price

actu-ally paid by the tourist Consequently, any

proportionate fall in expenditure on

accom-modation can be calculated (through the

internet survey) Bringing together the two

effects allows the estimation of the net nomic impact at the local and Scottish levels

eco-The paper discusses in detail the two novel methods used: (i) the GIS assessment and (ii) the internet survey Willingness to Pay (WTP) survey The implications of the research on public policy conclude the paper

PREVIOUS WORKThis paper reports the application of some modern methods to a modern problem in the hope that it will assist others with similar prob-lems This section concentrates on how others have approached the same or similar problems

in order to identify both what is original in this research and the order of magnitude of the

fi ndings of others The theoretical background

of the methods used in the design of the research instrument is discussed later in the relevant section As an example, this research used contingent valuation (CV) to identify the change in value of the scenery as a result of wind farm development The approach used involves a web-based survey and digitally con-structed images that were randomly presented

We review the literature relating to CV, the literature relating to web-based surveys and their problems and the literature on the limita-tions of photo-montages in the section on the internet survey

There is a similar limitation when we describe the use of statements by tourists on their intentions to return There is an extensive forecasting literature on the accuracy of inten-tion surveys which is not, however, reviewed here, despite its critical importance Readers interested in these issues and the theoretical underpinnings of the other methods used are

referred to Riddington et al (2008).

Even when limiting the review to the impact

of wind farms, the list is extensive One of the major problems is that apparently important new information turns out either to be existing evidence reworked to support a case either for

or against a development or based on poorly undertaken, unscientifi c and limited surveys Typically, developers or their agents report positive or no impact and minimise or disre-gard any studies which suggest an impact

Opponents, on the other hand, invariably select

the limited number of studies that suggest a

negative impact and ignore those that suggest

none or positive impact These include, for

example, written submissions to Select

Com-mittees or verbal accounts to Planning

Inqui-ries This paper reviews a limited number of

what the authors regard as important studies

For a complete review, readers are again

referred to Riddington et al (2008).

Hanley and Nevin (1999) conducted a

detailed study of renewable energy options for

the North Assynt Estate The study is notable

in both investigating the economic impact and

in valuing scenic change using CV Central to

the study are the reactions of both visitors

(tourists) and the small local community

North Assynt is a remote community owned

estate in North West Scotland that hosts 130

households in 12 townships The options

con-sidered were:

(1) a three turbine wind farm;

(2) a hydro-scheme; and

(3) a bio-mass plant

A survey of 76 visitors was undertaken using

standard photo-montages of the likely

appear-ance of the three schemes and the percentage

of people who stated they were more or less

likely to return recorded On the basis of tourist

expenditure per head of £21.50, Hanley and

Nevin estimate a total fall of £2590; the impact

would be very small although it would be

negative

The CV related to the drop/increase in value

to the local community Those in favour of the

scheme were asked about their willingness to

pay into a fund to ensure that the scheme

pro-ceeded Those against were asked to identify

the drop in electricity prices or the number of

jobs that would need to be created for them to

cease opposition Opposition to the wind

scheme was wholly locational and based on

loss of scenic value (and potential loss of tourist

income) Of the 10, only 1 would accept a

decrease in electricity price as compensation

and another 2 would accept full-time

employ-ment as adequate community compensation It

is not clear how Hanley and Nevin obtained

the value for the whole sample but the fi gures

presented suggest a mean willingness to accept

for the opponents of £71 If we assume that the

supporters are indifferent to scenic effects (some may have a positive WTP, some nega-tive), then the mean value of the scenery would

be £15.60, which is very similar to the values for scenery found elsewhere

The NFO/System Three (2002) study for VisitScotland employed what they termed the

‘Hall approach’ In this methodology, tourists are invited into a rented hall for a semi-struc-tured in-depth discussion for up to 30 minutes

on general issues In this case, the identifi ed topic was the importance of scenery One con-tentious point was the selection of only those who described the natural landscape and natural scenery as important to their stay This excluded anyone visiting the area on business and visiting friends and relatives, rather than because they were on holiday In addition, it eliminated anyone who was undertaking some activities not deemed to be landscape focused such as golf and fi shing while including hill-walking, short walks, cycling, mountaineering and sightseeing

A total of only 180 people were interviewed,

a relatively small sample Initially, nobody identifi ed wind farms as detracting from the enjoyment of the countryside The questioning then proceeded with increasing focus on wind farms and their appearance At this stage, 29% stated that wind farms detracted from their experience of the countryside, a not unsurpris-ing result

Having established that wind farms reduced the value of the scenic experience, interview-ees were then asked how they would respond

to an increase of wind farms in the area, where area was left undefi ned Indeed, it is not clear

if respondents were referring to a hillside that contained a wind farm or Scotland

As a result of the structure of the interview,

50 people, who had not even identifi ed wind farms as a problem from the start, eventually identifi ed it as a serious enough threat to change planned behaviour

Importantly, despite the obvious limitations, this outcome has formed the basis of many of the ‘opposition’ submissions throughout the world

A contrasting study in Argyll and Bute was carried out by MORI Scotland (2002) There were three large commercial wind farms in operation in the area at the time the survey was

undertaken More than 300 face-to-face

inter-views among tourists visiting Argyll and Bute

were analysed Interestingly, despite the

pres-ence of the farms, three in fi ve of tourists

ques-tioned were not aware of their presence, and

the majority — 71% — had visited areas close

to the wind farms

Respondents were asked about how wind

farms affected the idea of Argyll as a place to

visit Forty-three per cent said the presence of

a wind farm had a positive effect, 43% said it

made no difference, and 8% said it had a

nega-tive effect

When asked about the impact on the

likeli-hood of visiting Argyll in future, 91% said it

made no difference, 4% said they are more

likely to return and 2% said they were less

likely to return

As so many studies show, there was strong

interest in visiting a wind farm if opened to the

public If a wind farm had a visitor centre, 80%

would be interested in going, with 54% ‘very

interested’ and 19% ‘not interested’

The majority of tourists who knew about the

wind farms came away with a more positive

image of the area because of their presence

In Wales, the NFO were commissioned by

the Welsh Tourist Board to assess the potential

‘Impact of Wind Farms on Tourism in Wales’

NFO (2003) found that:

(1) 78% of all respondents had a neutral or

positive view on wind farm development;

(2) 21% had a negative view;

(3) 68% would be interested in attending a

visitor centre at a wind farm development;

and

(4) 68% said it would make no difference to

their likelihood to take holidays in the

Welsh countryside if the number of wind

farms increased

Among businesses and organisations, the

general view was that wind farms should be

very carefully sited and not in areas which

were deemed to be particularly sensitive to

their development There were variations in

the explanation of what constitutes a ‘no-go’

area with some more explicit than others in

their defi nition Nevertheless, there was general

consensus that they should be located outside

of designated areas (e.g national parks and

Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Sites of

Special Scientifi c Interest) and in areas in which the visual and environmental impacts would

be minimised

Because no research in Wales (or elsewhere) has attempted to quantify the impact of wind farms on tourists, most respondents found it diffi cult to make any estimates of future impact Among those that did provide an opinion most believed that the impacts of tourism were neg-ligible, although these views are based on anecdotal evidence

Campey et al (2003) were commissioned by

the Friends of the Lake District to research the views of tourists and tourism organisations and businesses Opinions were sought near three wind farms all situated on the borders of the Lake District National Park, Lambrigg near Kendal, Kirkby Moor near Ulverston and the proposed development at Wharrels Hill near Bothel Responses were collected from 143 tourists and 24 tourism organisations Although small and possibly not statistically signifi cant, these responses are worth noting given the location, the nature of the respondents and also the commissioning organisation, a group with a history of not viewing the development

of wind energy positively

Primary research found that over 80% of visitors and tourism organisations interviewed within the Lake District and Cumbria felt posi-tive about renewable energy and wind farms The three sites under investigation were found

to have little or no effect on tourism within Cumbria and the Lake District The majority of visitors/tourists were not aware of the wind farms under investigation and after being made aware, they felt it would not impact on future visits The majority of tourism organisa-tions reported no effect on their business from the presence of an existing wind farm in their vicinity, nor did they expect any effect associ-ated with the proposal for a new wind farm The majority of visitors (75%) said that increases

in the number of turbines in the next few years would not have any effect on them visiting in the future, although 22% of visitors said that if the number of wind turbines increased consid-erably over the next few years, they would be discouraged from visiting the area

At a more academic level, Warren et al (2005)

review research on the attitudes to wind farm developments and identify the clear

importance of open effective planning

mecha-nisms Surveys of public attitudes have

fre-quently shown that large majorities of residents

in areas with wind farms are in favour of wind

power, both in principle and in practice, and

that positive attitudes increase through time

and with proximity to wind farms As an

example, in a survey of 1810 people living

within 20 km of existing large wind farms in

Scotland, Braunholtz (2003) reports that three

times as many people regard their local wind

farm as a positive feature than as a negative

feature, with people living closest the most

positive An Irish survey of 1200 people found

that only 1% of the general public is opposed

to wind farms, that 84% regard them as a good

thing, and that most of those with direct

expe-rience of wind farms do not consider that they

have had any adverse impact on the scenic

beauty of the area, or on wildlife, tourism or

property values (SEI, 2003)

Survey evidence also indicates that people’s

viewpoints are critically infl uenced by the

nature of the planning and development

process: the earlier, more open and

participa-tory the process, the greater the likelihood of

public support (Birnie et al., 1999; Khan, 2003)

In contrast, ‘decision making over the heads of

local people is the direct route to protest’

(Krohn and Damborg, 1999, p 959) On this

basis, Wolsink (2000) suggests that local

resis-tance to wind projects does not focus on the

turbines themselves but on the people (usually

outsiders) who want to build the turbines

Because wind developments frequently occur

in rural areas, they can infl ame pre-existing

rural urban tensions (Pasqualetti et al., 2002),

especially if locals are denied access to the

process

Moran (2005) prepared an extensive review

for the Scottish Executive Environmental and

Rural Affairs Department on the value of

land-scape which covers some 42 studies

Remark-ably, all these studies generate positive values

for the preservation of existing rural

land-scapes Most of the studies are based on stated

valuations of respondents to theoretical change,

often in the form of photo-montages A

minor-ity of studies used methods based on the

revealed actions of individuals as illustrated

by either travel costs or on property prices

Because of the variability in property

charac-teristics, a standard approach is based on tiple regressions and is known as Hedonic Pricing Analysis Garrod and Willis (1992) provide a good example of its use in identify-ing the value of landscape

mul-Overall, the values given in Moran (2005) to maintain the environment in areas like national parks are typically in the range £10 to £70 per household per year which will include both use and existence values and cover residents and visitors

A decline in willingness to pay results in less expenditure and consequently has an economic impact It is diffi cult, however, to directly translate fi gures that relate to a general value over an unspecifi ed number of visits, to the expenditure of a tourist on a single trip who might pass through a particular area for a short period other than to conclude that loss of values per head per day from scenery change are likely to be relatively small

With specifi c reference to wind farm opments, Alvarez-Farizo and Hanley (2002) examine the change in value associated with a wind farm development in the Ebro valley in Spain They used two choice experiment struc-tures, CV and choice experiment and four attri-butes, cliff protection, habitat and fl ora protection, landscape and cost For landscape they used before and after photo montages of the wind farm development The results sug-gested a loss of landscape value of between

devel-3000 and 6000 pesetas (£12 to £24) per head loss of value This is very similar to the fi gures

in Moran’s survey

Riddington et al (2008) also reviews

evi-dence on impact and value from seven other countries and fi nds very similar ambiguous outcomes In summary, there is little evidence

of signifi cant negative impact or substantial loss of value from the introduction of wind farms into the landscape, but some evidence of small changes The quantifi cation of this small change is the focus of this research

THE USE OF GIS TO IDENTIFY TOURISTS AND ACCOMMODATION AFFECTEDNot every tourist in Scotland will be affected

by wind farms Those on business, for example, are not likely to be detracted by the scenery

More importantly, many ‘holiday’ or ‘day trip’

tourists will not see wind farms and/or stay in

accommodation in sight of a wind farm Thus,

the fi rst task was to ascertain how many

tour-ists would be affected The method chosen was

to build a GIS model of four case study areas,

Caithness and Sutherland (in the far north of

Scotland), Perthshire (in the centre) and the

Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway

(in the south)

Providing a defi nition of a geographical

information system is not an easy task

Heywood et al (2002, pp 11–12) discuss various

attempts at providing a defi nition Chorley

(1987) defi ne a GIS as ‘a system for capturing,

storing, checking, integrating, manipulating,

analysing and displaying data which are

spa-tially referenced to the earth’ Bahaire and

Elliott-White (1999) give an early review of the

use of GIS in Tourism Planning and Bateman

et al (2002) provides a similar review of some

Environmental Economics applications in

areas like hedonic pricing, travel cost

estima-tion and benefi ts transfer More recently,

Fedeski and Gwilliam (2007) use GIS to

iden-tify urban areas at risk from fl ooding, essential

prior information when trying to assess the

costs of climate change EDINA (2008) and

Go-Geo (2009) provide information on a number

of other applications related to land use and

tourism

As early as 1996, Sparkes and Kidner

dem-onstrated the use of GIS and a viewshed tool

to select sites which would be appropriate for

the construction of wind farms Their approach

took into account wind speed, proximity to

centres of population and proximity to roads

It did not, however, attempt to quantify the

number of people exposed to wind farms or

measure the intensity of those experiences It

is also a fairly simple early example and now,

with the growth of computing power, far more

sophisticated models become possible

As far as can be ascertained, the models in

this study constitute a major development in

two ways First, there appear to be no

exam-ples of Zone of Visual Impact (ZVI) data

com-bined with other data sources to quantify the

number of people exposed and the level of that

exposure Second, we can fi nd no examples of

combining three or more ZVIs of individual

farms for area wide analysis

The nature of the exposure to wind farms was expected to have different impacts A wind farm only visible as a pattern on a distant hill (e.g the Braes of Doune) may have a dif-ferent impact, both positive and negative, from one adjacent to the road (e.g Hill of Dun and Causeymire) Because of the huge numbers of tourists on a major route such as the M74, slight exposure may actually have a signifi cant economic impact One of the priorities, there-fore, was to estimate the numbers that have exposure as a proportion of all tourists

Formally, the key objective of the GIS study was to combine the roads and accommodation that would be exposed with the numbers of people on the roads or in the accommodation and establish three metrics

(1) percentage of tourists travelling on roads

in the area who had high exposure to wind farms, where high is defi ned as a view of more than four or more turbines at either less than 1 km for 2 minutes or less than

15 km for at least 10 minutes;

(2) percentage of tourists travelling on roads

in the area who had medium exposure to wind farms, where medium is defi ned as a view of more than four or more turbines at less than 15 km for at least 2 minutes; and(3) percentage of accommodation in an area with a view of four or more wind turbines

The basic tool of GIS is the map There are two types of map; Raster and Vector In the raster structure, the map consists of a number of cells (e.g 4000∗4000) each of which carries informa-tion e.g colour and height As areas such as forests or roads exceed single cells, the cell links are made using colour and external infor-mation For example, a set of cells coloured red adjoining each other in a line might be recog-nisable as a road In contrast, the vector map consists of points, lines and polygons with identifi ed attributes such as the grid reference, the feature class (an ‘A’ road), names (‘A99’) and other details (vehicle counts) GIS is nor-mally based on vector maps because this is how information is most easily stored and linked

The maps used, both raster and vector, were obtained via the EDINA service (http://www.edina.ac.uk) from the Ordnance Survey

‘Digimap’ database and the ‘UKBorders’

data-base In addition, in this project, the

accommo-dation database obtained gave post codes for

hotels and the UK Borders database provided a

fi le to convert post codes to co-ordinates

Two very important functions for GIS

analy-sis are Join and Spatial Join In ‘Join’ data are

attached to the map on the basis of a common

factor For example, we might have a map

which contains the borders for the Census

output areas and has a Name attribute If data

from the census on, for example, employment

rates by output area also contains the Name

then it can be simply Joined and presented on

the map

Spatial Join examines the location

(co-ordi-nates) of the information to be joined For

example, suppose we have a hotel list with

co-ordinates and a map containing local authority

borders then we can attach each hotel to the

local authority using a Spatial Join

The main model used in this research was a

3-D application developed using ESRI’s

Arc-GIS software package (ESRI, 2009) Creating

the map of each case study area showing the

position of all the turbines, the road network

and the accommodation, involved combining

a number of maps The fi rst task was to create

a 3-D surface known as a Triangulated

Irregu-lar Network for the areas in question from the

Ordnance Survey’s Digital Terrain Model data

sets known as Landform Panorama The case

study area boundaries were then added from

the UKBorders data set, roads from the OS

Strategi Data Set, and accommodation from the

VisitScotland database The precise positioning

of the turbines in each wind farm is critical and

was normally obtained from the developers

However, in some cases, the precise position

was currently unknown In these cases, they

were located in a standard rectangular grid but

the height was reduced by 30% This refl ected

received advice on the usual impact of fl exible

placement on visual impact Around each

turbine, a 15-km visibility buffer was added

Finally, for presentation purposes, a

back-ground raster map was added

The analysis of the geographic models was

via the viewshed tool provided in the software

The map is divided into a number of cells The

line of sight between the cell and a specifi ed

point (or vice versa) is then identifi ed and if

there is no intervening object (e.g a ridge) then the cell is marked as having a view of the turbine A line of sight was identifi ed between every cell defi ned to be within 15 km of at least one wind farm and every turbine within that zone The number of ‘positive’ sightings for each cell was recorded The default is 10 000 but in this case, because of the need for preci-sion at road width level, cells of 40 m∗40 m were deemed necessary This leads to some 16 billion cells for the maps covering the Scottish Borders These were reduced by considering only those cells in the 15-km visibility buffer areas to around 530 million — a still staggering number The resulting visibility map is known

as the ZVI and an example is given for ness in Figure 1

Caith-This ‘physical’ map was used not only as a means of explanation to the sponsors, but also

to validate the models on the ground, by assessing the visibility of currently existing farms However, the analysis itself makes no use of the map Arc provides a ‘Clip’ tool which removes items outside defi ned areas, in this case the ZVI The ‘Calculate Values’ tool was then used to assess the length of road sections remaining Similarly, Spatial Join and Calcu-late Values were used to identify the number

of bed spaces within the ZVI

The fi nal stage requires the estimation of the tourist traffi c on the affected and unaffected roads in the area and the number of beds Scot-land has available monthly fi gures for all major roads freely available on the Scottish Roads Traffi c Database of Transport Scotland About 65% of UK holidaymakers and 85% of foreign tourists to rural Scotland occur in the summer months (ScotExchange, 2009) Thus, by observ-ing the difference in tourist traffi c between the April to September and the October to March

fi gures, we can estimate the total number of tourists on the affected roads

The proportion of bed spaces affected was simply obtained from VistScotland data on accommodation and an assumption that half the rooms in any hotel would be in view of the turbines

This stage of the research was completely new to the authors and, as far as known, has not been undertaken anywhere before Although technically diffi cult, the results were highly satisfactory