Environmental Interpretation: Towards a globally relevant model for communicating with tourists from culturally diverse backgrounds. Environmental interpretation, a widely accepted approach to communicating with tourists in North America, Latin America and the U.K., is based on communication research undertaken mainly by researchers in western cultures or focused on Anglo-Saxon audiences. This project advances theory and practice by critically examining the relevance of this model for communic ....Environmental Interpretation: Towards a globally relevant model for communicating with tourists from culturally diverse backgrounds. Environmental interpretation, a widely accepted approach to communicating with tourists in North America, Latin America and the U.K., is based on communication research undertaken mainly by researchers in western cultures or focused on Anglo-Saxon audiences. This project advances theory and practice by critically examining the relevance of this model for communicating with visitors from a range of cultural backgrounds. Environmental messages, communication media and the application of environmental interpretation principles are experimentally manipulated to evaluate their relative effectiveness in communicating with international and domestic visitors from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds, as a basis for refining the model for wider application.Read moreRead less
Fostering pro-environmental behaviour of zoo visitors through strategic communication. A key part of achieving an Environmentally Sustainable Australia is to change human behaviour. Given annual visitation to Australia's zoos of 14.5 million, including about 4.2 million to the partner organisations, there is great potential for zoos to use their experiential platform to foster pro-environmental behaviour. How best to persuade people to change their behaviour, however, is still poorly understood ....Fostering pro-environmental behaviour of zoo visitors through strategic communication. A key part of achieving an Environmentally Sustainable Australia is to change human behaviour. Given annual visitation to Australia's zoos of 14.5 million, including about 4.2 million to the partner organisations, there is great potential for zoos to use their experiential platform to foster pro-environmental behaviour. How best to persuade people to change their behaviour, however, is still poorly understood. This research will improve the capacity of zoos to achieve pro-environmental behaviours among their visitors and thus have significant environmental and social benefits. Linking motivational factors with visitors' susceptibility to persuasion will assist any organisation that seeks to foster pro-environmental behaviour.Read moreRead less
A cultural history of Australian motor travel overseas. This project will add to our understanding of Australians' changing perceptions of the world, the way that Australian identity has been performed when overseas and the practice of motor touring.
It will be of direct benefit to the tourist industry and in contributing to our knowledge of Australia's relationship to the world and our region.
Transforming Tourists' Antarctic Experience. With the Antarctic tourist industry currently growing and diversifying, the project aims to discover how cruise operators can foster positive and culturally informed relationships with the region among visitors of different national backgrounds. Through extensive in-situ fieldwork with partner Intrepid Travel, the project expects to generate new understandings of how operators' active mediating role combines with multisensory experience of Antarctica ....Transforming Tourists' Antarctic Experience. With the Antarctic tourist industry currently growing and diversifying, the project aims to discover how cruise operators can foster positive and culturally informed relationships with the region among visitors of different national backgrounds. Through extensive in-situ fieldwork with partner Intrepid Travel, the project expects to generate new understandings of how operators' active mediating role combines with multisensory experience of Antarctica to forge human connections with this extreme but fragile place. Anticipated outcomes include protocols for best practice in designing and implementing tourist experiences. By encouraging diverse visitors to value Antarctica, the project should benefit both operators and the polar environment.Read moreRead less
Enabling tourism, conservation symbiosis by engaging protected area visitors in focused lifelong activism. Rainforests occupy just 0.3% of Australia and are endangered by increasing visitation and urbanisation. This project will transform visitors to rainforest-protected areas from a potential liability to an asset by investigating their willingness to participate in volunteering, fundraising, donating and other forms of park-related activism throughout their lifetime, and using this information ....Enabling tourism, conservation symbiosis by engaging protected area visitors in focused lifelong activism. Rainforests occupy just 0.3% of Australia and are endangered by increasing visitation and urbanisation. This project will transform visitors to rainforest-protected areas from a potential liability to an asset by investigating their willingness to participate in volunteering, fundraising, donating and other forms of park-related activism throughout their lifetime, and using this information to design a prototype park where quality visitor experiences also translate into biodiversity enhancement. Australia as a result will emerge as a world leader in tourism/conservation symbiosis, realising substantial ecological, social and economic benefits from the thriving rainforests that this symbiosis fosters.Read moreRead less
Consumer preferences for voluntary carbon mitigation in the aviation sector. The demand for aviation is rapidly adding to carbon emissions. Little is known about consumer preferences for aviation carbon offsets and how they evolve over time. This hinders the expansion of voluntary schemes at a crucial period in history. This research will investigate consumers offset preferences and their willingness to pay for aviation carbon mitigation using a novel time series methodology. The project aims to ....Consumer preferences for voluntary carbon mitigation in the aviation sector. The demand for aviation is rapidly adding to carbon emissions. Little is known about consumer preferences for aviation carbon offsets and how they evolve over time. This hinders the expansion of voluntary schemes at a crucial period in history. This research will investigate consumers offset preferences and their willingness to pay for aviation carbon mitigation using a novel time series methodology. The project aims to inform government policies and to help industry to develop carbon offset programs which are more likely to be supported by consumers, thus helping to reduce carbon emissions in the long term. It also aims to profile carbon offsetting groups to support communication activities to increase the size and value of offsets.Read moreRead less
Understanding cross-cultural consumer behaviour and implications for effective segmentation, targeting and positioning of Western Australia as a tourism destination. This research extends a model of cross-cultural consumer behaviour suggested by the first CI (Lee, 2000) that provides richer specification of the antecedents of people's actions than previously suggested models. The model will be compared with these models, which have been successful in Western, but less successful in Eastern, cult ....Understanding cross-cultural consumer behaviour and implications for effective segmentation, targeting and positioning of Western Australia as a tourism destination. This research extends a model of cross-cultural consumer behaviour suggested by the first CI (Lee, 2000) that provides richer specification of the antecedents of people's actions than previously suggested models. The model will be compared with these models, which have been successful in Western, but less successful in Eastern, cultures. The model will be tested in the tourism domain to predict intentions and behaviour of potential visitors. Results will be used to improve the effectiveness of Western Australia's tourism marketing. In addition, a method to reduce social desirability bias will be tested, as will two scales measuring aspects of culture. Read moreRead less
Human-animal relationships in zoos: Optimising animal and visitor experiences. Extensive research on human-animal relationships in agricultural and domestic settings shows that human-animal interaction affects animal behaviour and welfare, which in turn affect human attitudes to animals. As conservation and welfare organisations, zoos aim to provide visitors with opportunities to closely interact with animals to improve visitor experience and conservation outcomes, whilst maintaining good animal ....Human-animal relationships in zoos: Optimising animal and visitor experiences. Extensive research on human-animal relationships in agricultural and domestic settings shows that human-animal interaction affects animal behaviour and welfare, which in turn affect human attitudes to animals. As conservation and welfare organisations, zoos aim to provide visitors with opportunities to closely interact with animals to improve visitor experience and conservation outcomes, whilst maintaining good animal welfare. Some visitor interactions may be stressful for some animals creating conflict between animal welfare and visitor experience. By determining visitor effects, this project aims to provide zoos with practical animal management and educational strategies to optimise both animal welfare and visitor experience.Read moreRead less
Beijing: China's Heritage and the City as Spectacle. This project will provide the major national focus for trans-historical research on China, that is research that is grounded in traditional Sinological skills but that addresses some of the most important and long-term issues of Chinese history, culture and society and their contemporary relevance in North-east Asia and the Asia Pacific. It will provide a national hub for the focused study of late-traditional China and its contemporary relevan ....Beijing: China's Heritage and the City as Spectacle. This project will provide the major national focus for trans-historical research on China, that is research that is grounded in traditional Sinological skills but that addresses some of the most important and long-term issues of Chinese history, culture and society and their contemporary relevance in North-east Asia and the Asia Pacific. It will provide a national hub for the focused study of late-traditional China and its contemporary relevance to Australia.
This project through publications and an innovative web-presence will provide a unique opportunity for a multifaceted understanding of the underpinnings of the cultural heft that China will increasingly demonstrate in the years to come.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100385
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$366,000.00
Summary
Cyberactivism, tourism and trophy hunting ethics 2.0. This project aims to analyse the effectiveness of anti-trophy hunting cyberactivism at hunting destinations. After the 2015 shooting of Cecil the Zimbabwean lion, trophy hunting tourism and its ethical ambiguities re-entered the public consciousness globally. Australian tourists have been implicated in the controversial practice, and Australia has recently had to reconsider its laws in this respect. At the same time, cyberactivist movements i ....Cyberactivism, tourism and trophy hunting ethics 2.0. This project aims to analyse the effectiveness of anti-trophy hunting cyberactivism at hunting destinations. After the 2015 shooting of Cecil the Zimbabwean lion, trophy hunting tourism and its ethical ambiguities re-entered the public consciousness globally. Australian tourists have been implicated in the controversial practice, and Australia has recently had to reconsider its laws in this respect. At the same time, cyberactivist movements in social media have taken a stance against trophy hunting. This project aims to improve the effectiveness of cyberactivism to protect endangered species in trophy hunting destinations, particularly Southern Africa, and to guide Australian policy frameworks.Read moreRead less