Vikki Schaffer

Adventure tourism activities feature varying levels of physical exertion, risk, cognitive and sensory stimuli, are often located in natural environments and involve speciality transport or equipment – all potential barriers to people with disability. Normalising accessibility requires identifying barriers, motivations and opportunities. Thematic analysis of 12 in-depth interviews with tourism operators revealed inherent and perceived risks in adventure tourism activities, lack of awareness and education, and costs that inhibit participation by people with disability. Financial gain was not a key motivation. Operators indicated a strong desire, and open-mindedness underpinned motivation for inclusive approaches. Findings offer unique insights to advance the discourse. However, accessible adventure tourism will require broader financial support, directed education and training for staff and guests, and inclusive collaboration.

Immersive learning experiences support real-life contexts for meaningful teaching and provide authentic learning opportunities for tourism students. This empirically based study aims to investigate how the incorporation of immersive visualisation as a teaching technique enhances student engagement and learning abilities. Student engagement was examined within three key areas: active engagement, narration, co-presence. The research outcomes confirm that immersive visualisation (technique) enhanced students understanding, level of focus, their thinking skills and learning abilities. Further research is recommended into the application of immersive visualisation as a support tool to achieve student learning outcomes. Currently an extension of this study is being completed to further evaluate engagement and learning outcomes.

Indicators are the most popular sustainability assessment tools in the field of tourism, however after three decades of research, the current sustainable tourism indicators (STIs) still suffer from a difficulty in implementation. Our study aims to find the key issues hampering the process of indicator development in the field of sustainable tourism through a systematic literature review over 30 years of study by 1) highlighting the key limitations and challenges associated with STIs research and 2) identifying the main barriers to stakeholder participation in STIs development and implementation. According to this systematic review, data availability/reliability and insufficient stakeholder involvement are the main limitations in STIs literature. Providing a deep insight into issues challenging STIs development not only explain the current failures to practically implementation of STIs and provides great opportunities for future, but also contributes to understand why it has been difficult to motivate stakeholders to minimise unsustainable tourism behaviours.

International, national, state and regional tourism organisations are directing marketing efforts at emergent outbound markets. The diversity of emerging and existing markets present issues for resource- challenged regional tourism destinations. This dual phase comparative study focuses on two regional destinations: Sunshine Coast, Australia (Phase one) and Otago, New Zealand (Phase two). Semi-structured interviews with tourism industry stakeholders investigate emerging markets, the challenges of engaging with them, service delivery and perceived preparedness of the stakeholders for addressing the needs of emerging markets.

Although tourism businesses are increasingly tweeting, posting and blogging, many experience barriers that limit the effective use of these and other new technologies. The main barriers to active usage of social media include a lack of skill, knowledge, time and resources. With limited research into how businesses can overcome these barriers, this exploratory study proposes an approach for involving synergistic relationships between tourism-related business owners/managers and university students. This approach assisted participating owners/managers to gain skills and information while simultaneously providing students with real world experiences. This approach offers tourism business owners and managers a point of entry to understanding and utilising social media. Results also revealed additional network connections for knowledge and information sharing were extended beyond the classroom.

Social capital, networks and leadership have been noted by practitioners and scholars as important to small businesses success. Active networks with effective leadership can enhance positive business-related outcomes, improve information diffusion and reduce transaction costs by building and drawing upon social capital. Leadership has been identified as playing a crucial role in facilitating social capital creation and utilisation, in identifying market opportunities, encouraging transparency and relationships based on unity, equity and enhancing positive outcomes for small businesses and industries. During challenging times, leaders can facilitate the dissemination of knowledge, skills and resources embedded within industry networks and encourage strategic thinking and provide support for effective decision making. This study explores the network and leadership function and structure within an Australian prawn trawl fishery where small businesses are facing increasing pressures and challenges. Results suggest informal and distributed leadership approaches may identify opportunities and support collective action.

Small seafood producers make a significant contribution to the economic and social prosperity of many Queensland coastal communities. These contributions are enhanced through strong community relations, levels of interactions between fishers and their families, and relationships between different industry members, interest groups and regulators. This paper investigates the social capital within Queensland's East Coast Trawl Fishery (ECTF), and the implications for regional communities. The results suggest that despite the potential for doing so, social capital is not actively or purposefully created, utilised, maintained, or drawn upon within the focal fishery. A more collaborative approach to decision making is needed to gain the potential benefits from the extensive knowledge embedded within the industry. Recognition of the social value of the ECTF fishery derived through community cohesion, contribution, and diversity, is required for sustaining and balancing economic and social growth, whilst maintaining a healthy environment and viable industry.

Despite an increasing number of small businesses using social media, many seem limited in their ability to effectively respond in an environment where consumers speak freely to a potentially global audience. Barriers to adoption exist that limit the effective use of these and other new technologies. The main barriers to active usage of social media included a lack of skill, knowledge, time and resources. However, there is limited research into how businesses can overcome barriers to the adoption of social media. One approach for overcoming barriers includes a synergistic relationship between university students supported within an academic based, industry project assist small businesses to gain skills and information while simultaneously providing students with real world experiences. This opportunity can offer small businesses a point of entry to understanding and utilising new technologies. This exploratory research investigates how a student-industry project aided in reducing the barriers to social media usage by small tourism-related businesses.

Globally, fisheries are challenged by various issues such as ageing workforces, rising costs, reducing returns and management uncertainty. Increasing challenges and lack of recognition mean social capital and networks are not purposefully utilised, potentially negatively impacting social, economic and environmental sustainability. This paper investigates social capital within a large Australian Trawl Fishery, and the implications for associated regional communities. It is posited in the premise that industry identified problems may be addressed via improved community connectivity and industry co-operation. Semi-structured questionnaires within in-depth interviews revealed bonding capital was most prevalent within the focal fishery. The existence of, and potential for, bridging and linking capital was identified however this type of social capital was not purposefully created, utilised or maintained. Co-operative links were established for convenience or to accomplish specific tasks but many chose to act independently. Those in leadership positions felt "burned out" and "frustrated" by a lack of collaborative action. Recognition of the value, and the extensive knowledge embedded within the fishery is required in conjunction with collaborative decision making as the first steps toward changing the status quo. Further, stakeholders, despite their varying agendas, need to actively build social capital to engage strategic action. This is a challenging approach, but an important one in achieving economic and social growth, for a sustained, healthy industry.