This thesis explores the current trend for pole dancing as an increasingly popular fitness activity for women, taught in health and fitness clubs across the country. With the use of participant observation in classes and in-depth qualitative interviews with women who take these classes, as well as women who teach them, I explore what these types of class mean to these women, how pole dancing classes fit into contemporary feminist debates around the nature of and the future of feminism, and the pressures and expectations placed upon women to look and act in a feminine and sexualised way. Moving beyond what I see as the quite limiting previous accounts of these classes, which have debated whether or not they are empowering or degrading for women, my research suggests that pole dancing classes are complex, may be neither empowering nor degrading, for these concepts are complicated and problematic, and that the pole dancer cannot be seen as one dimensional. Women describe their participation in pole classes in a discourse of choice and control yet I show that their choice to participate is constructed somewhat by the media and the advertising of these classes which presents them as enabling women to create a particular desirable feminine and sexy self, perpetuated throughout our culture as the 'ideal'. Exploring the ways in which women attempt to manage impressions of themselves and present themselves as ‘respectable’, examine how the women in this study wish to dis-identify with both women who work as strippers and women who are feminist, seeing both identities as contradictory to the feminine image that they pursue. I explore the capacity of these classes to offer women feelings of agency, in particular through the fun, fitness and friendships that women gain from classes, but I challenge the idea that participating in pole dancing can offer empowerment, arguing that ultimately we can view these women's participation in terms of both their active engagement and enjoyment of these classes and in terms of the structures and pressures which continue to shape their lives.

The primary purpose of the study is to develop a better scale of measuring resident attitudes toward impact of tourism development in Langkawi, Malaysia. The second objective is to test whether or not culture is a factor determining resident attitudes. This is determined by having residents with different racial groups as respondents. The study was comprised of six stages which followed the procedure suggested by Churchill (1979) and DeVellis (1991). The first stage began with generating all the items of tourism impacts. The items were obtained from interviews, the Tourism Impact Attitude Scale (TIAS) developed by Lankford and Howard (1994), the latest scale developed by Ap and Crompton (1998) and the current literature. The analysis ended with 48 items. For the next stage, nine judges were selected and were asked to assess the content validity and clarity of the scale. This deliberation eliminated four items to leave it with 44 items. Next, based on Fishbein's attitude model, the items were carefully worded to avoid bias and ambiguity in the questions. The items were then purified by using factor analysis and Cronbach's coefficient alpha. 220 students were used for the pretest analysis and the results ended with 29 items. The next stage of the scale verification involved the same analysis and was tested on 145 residents of Langkawi. The results ended with 13 items and five domains of tourism impact. Finally, the scale was tested for convergent validity and the result indicated a moderate relationship between the scale and the question used to measure the same thing. The study also confirmed that culture is a factor in determining resident attitudes towards impacts of tourism in Langkawi. The Langkawi Tourism Impact Attitude Scale (LATIAS) has been successfully developed and its shows strong reliability and good content and convergent validity. The scale encompasses 13 items and five domains to fit the Langkawi community's cultural background. Thus, the study makes a methodological contribution to developing an attitudinal scale which is reliable and valid. In addition, it allows for greater understanding of the resident attitudes toward tourism development in the area. However there is still a need to further verify the scale in other communities in order to substantiate it.

The Maltese Islands, traditionally renowned for their mild Mediterranean climate and sea, are a mass tourist destination. Recent tourism policy has increasingly aimed at promoting the extensive historical and cultural heritage of the islands as a market diversification tool; resulting in the development of cultural tourism. Literature on cultural tourism focused on its relationships to cultural tourists and the local community, and on its marketing and management. A macroscopic study on cultural tourism was conducted using a Grounded Theory approach which looked at the understanding and interactions of a number of stakeholders (MTA, tour-operators, cultural providers and the local community) as they promoted the local cultural tourism product through marketing and management practices. The research findings showed that the Maltese cultural product on offer needed consistent renewal as there was a lack of consensus amongst stakeholders, on what should be promoted as culture a nd consequently what were cultural tourism and the cultural product. These perspectives often resulted in stereotypical Mediterranean imagery which detracted from proactive marketing campaigns. Furthermore, the study showed that the institutional organisation of culture was fragmented, with limited collaboration amongst stakeholders, which effectively hindered a comprehensive management of cultural tourism. The study called for a comprehensive definition of Maltese culture, widely endorsed by stakeholders, reflected in an extensively diversified cultural tourism product that would introduce elements such as gastronomy and crafts to complement the already established heritage and festivals. Moreover, the fact that many aspects of the cultural product were closely identifiable with localities suggested that the eventual success of its marketing and management depended to a large extent, on getting local communities more involved and/or to claim ownership. Finally, there was a need for 'cultural intermediaries', intent on promoting a cultural product via a quality service with a solid education in cultural-related matters.

This study aims to develop a holistic view of the politics of tourism development in China. It examines how political ideology intertwines with tourism development and the same time identifies factors which are relevant to the issue. From the political science point of view, international tourism may be regarded as part of foreign affairs. This study adopted the case study approach linked to a chronological framework. China's tourism industry has been transformed from a political activity to an economic activity. In Mao Zedong era (1949-1976), international tourism was virtually non-existent. The phenomenon was a result of both internal factors, including the dominant role of dogmatic socialist ideology, and external factors, such as the Cold War. China's rapid development in tourism since 1978 was under the pragmatic leadership of Deng Xiaoping. With the shifts of internal and external environments, China's tourism industry and development is now based on market-driven policy instead of ideological-driven policy. The development of international tourism in China is the evolution of development theories from underdevelopment theory to modernisation theory and now globalisation theory. Based on the findings of this study, an explanatory framework was formulated by incorporating factors including perspective on the external and internal environments, and economic and tourism issues. The future of China's tourism seems to be a movement from the socialist market economy model to a more capitalistic model.

This study has three main objectives. The first is to examine the role of international tourism corporations in determining the direction and volume of international tourism development in developing countries. The second is to consider one type of international corporation - tour operators - in the context of Turkey; the focus is on the economic opportunities and problems that arise as a result of the activities of international tour operators in their relations with the accommodation sub-sector in Turkey. Finally, the third is to suggest policies which will increase the benefits of international tourism to developing countries and reduce the negative aspects of dependency on international tour operators. In order to achieve these objectives, the study was carried out in two main stages. The first was an extensive literature survey to provide a background to the field research, which provided information mainly on 'Tourism in Developing Countries' and 'International Corporations in International Tourism'. The second stage was the field research. Two surveys were conducted; the first was the tour operators survey in the UK and the second was the accommodation sub-sector survey in Turkey. During the accommodation sub-sector survey in Turkey, both primary data and secondary data were collected. While the secondary data was used to make a general analysis of Turkish tourism development, the primary data helped to determine the international tour operators' relationships with the accommodation sub-sector in Turkey. In conclusion, a number of suggestions are made as to ways to reduce the negative aspects of dependency on international tour operators.

The research in Talent Identification and Development (TID) in sport comprises a wide literature that is categorised into five key constructs in the second study of this thesis. The fifth construct concerns the role that the stakeholders (the sport organisation, coaches and parents) have in athlete development. However, this construct has attracted less research attention, despite its obvious and important contribution to athlete success. The second study indicated low degrees of stakeholder understanding of all five constructs of TID and poor levels of coherence between them, (as described by their perception of each other’s views of the research constructs). Further investigation endorsed this lack of coherence, and suggested specific areas of knowledge that would be helpful for coaches and parents in particular. There were very apparent perceptual differences between what parents wanted to know and what coaches thought they should know. Subsequently, testing the impact of parent workshops gave a clear indication that such an intervention could increase understanding of the key issues of athlete development and lead to improvement in coach-parent relationships. The different studies were based primarily in the UK and in one sport, but cultural differences suggest that the findings of this thesis may not pertain to other sports and nations. To this end, the final study compared TID systems and coach- parent coherence in three different cultures. Very few significant differences existed either in each nation’s TID process or in coach-parent coherence, suggesting a substantial influence of sporting over national culture. The conclusion is that the many and consistent outcomes of TID research are largely ignored by sport systems. Where TID processes are put in place for junior athletes by sport systems, they appear to contribute to low levels of coherence between the stakeholders and to the lack of success, as adults, of selected junior athletes.

Britain is widely considered to be the birth place of modern sport. Given this fact, it could be expected that the representation of sport within British museums would be extensive. However, the discussion of sport in museums within the existing literature is limited at best and, where it does occur, has a focus primarily on sport specific museums. Therefore, this thesis examines the development of sport in museums and the motivations and barriers which have influenced its development. Placing sport in museums within the wider context of cultural policy between the period of 1997 and 2012, the study explores the impact of sport in museums within wider social and economic agendas. Due to the lack of existing evidence concerning the subject area, the study draws on extensive fieldwork conducted by the author with individuals working in the fields of cultural policy, museum practice, and academia. In addition, focus groups and questionnaires were carried out with members of the public to ascertain perceptions towards sport as a subject matter for museums and the potential of sport to increase and change museum audiences. In addition, there is an in-depth evaluation of the Our Sporting Life exhibition programme in order to establish the impact of sport in museum against the widely used museu-m methodology frameworks, the Generic Learning *Outcomes and Generic Social Outcomes. The findings of this research demonstrate that sport in museums responds to a range of wider cultural policy objectives which support economic and social outcomes. These include: improving individual’s knowledge and understanding; providing enjoyment; supporting health and well-being agendas; and building stronger communities. In addition, the evidence establishes that sport attracts new and different audiences to museums and suggests that this may impact on the visiting habits of these individuals in the long-term. However, the findings also demonstrate that there are significant barriers to the delivery of sporting exhibitions in museums, most notably access to sufficient funding and inadequate knowledge and availability of relevant sporting collections. Therefore, this thesis presents the first conclusive evidence that sport in museums is both relevant and valuable as a subject matter for museum discourse, and argues that this alone suggests a need for increased funding to support further development of activity in this field.

Over the last two decades, the concept of dark tourism has attracted ever-increasing attention in both academic and media circles. At the same time, not only has there been an apparent growth in the supply of ‘dark’ tourism sites and attractions, but also such demand for dark tourism experiences is also evidently on the increase. Hence, academic research has and continues to be concerned with both the consumption (demand) and development (supply) of dark tourism sites and experiences, reflected in a now extensive and diverse dark tourism literature. Nevertheless, significant issues with respect to dark tourism remain unresolved, not least the validity of the term itself. That is, dark tourism is considered by some to be a pejorative term, particularly in the context of the tourist experience. However, of greater concern is the lack of attention paid to the role of local communities in dark tourism destinations. In other words, there is limited understanding of how local communities respond to becoming the object of the dark tourist ‘gaze’, and the subsequent implications for the development and management of tourism in ‘dark’ destinations. The purpose of thesis, therefore, is to address the gap in the literature. Based on a case study of L’Aquila, a city in Italy that in 2009 was struck by a powerful and deadly earthquake and that subsequently became (and continues to be) a new dark tourism destination, it sets out to explore how ‘dark’ tourism has evolved and, in particular, the local community’s understanding of and responses to their city becoming a dark tourism destination as a result of the disaster it suffered. More specifically, in order to address these issues, the thesis focuses initially on relevant background theory, including a critical review of both the emergence of the concept of dark tourism and its wider application within the field of tourism studies and contemporary theory of host-tourist perceptions. Subsequently, the formal literature review explores critically contemporary approaches to theorising disasters, the disaster recovery process and disaster tourism, as well as broader theoretical constructs relating to the social construction of reality. Collectively, these inform the construction of two conceptual frameworks which are subsequently applied to guide two stages of empirical enquiry. The research in L’Aquila reveals that, overall there has been a lack of any significant guidance or leadership in tourism development within the city. As a consequence, the city has in effect become an unplanned open museum for tourists, whilst the residents themselves feel betrayed by the authorities for the lack of progress in the redevelopment of their city and feel exploited and or treated with a lack of understanding and respect by tourists who come to gaze on their misfortune. Thus, it is argued that a more recognised and established tourism presence on behalf of the local community might have ensured that the conduct of tourists was effectively controlled and managed, thereby reducing the negative impacts of tourism on the local community. That is, it is suggested that, had the local community been better placed to manage the influx of ‘dark’ tourists into their city, they would have been more accepting of tourism and tourists in the initial stages of tourism development following the disaster. Consequently, through a combination of stakeholder development theory and the empirical data generated by this research, the thesis proposes a ‘Post-disaster tourism development stakeholder model’. Of most significance, however, is the manner in which the city’s social and cultural environment has limited the individual and the collective attitude amongst the local community in L’Aquila towards tourism and tourists; that is, it is identified that L’Aquila’s collective social mentality has been a major barrier to the potential development of tourism since the disaster. With respect to the concept of dark tourism in particular, the research reveals that for, the local community in L’Aquila, tourism since the earthquake is best defined or thought of not as ‘dark tourism’ but as disaster tourism. Indeed, it became evident through the research that the labelling of L’Aquila as ‘dark’ not only stigmatised the location and the victims of the earthquake but, importantly, also influenced the residents’ perceptions of tourists. That is, tourists are seen as ‘dark’ by the local residents, heightening negative feelings towards them and consequently, reinforcing the unwillingness of many members of the community to support or engage in promoting dark tourism. Additionally, the research found that local residents experienced higher levels of negative emotions towards tourists in the initial stages following the disaster. Of significance, is that, over time, the local residents have become more willing to accept tourism and tourists who are engaging with ‘dark’ tourism practices relating to the earthquake that destroyed their city. This temporal element is recognised and proposed in a ‘Host-Reactions to Post-Disaster Tourists / Tourism Model’. This thesis also proposes a more rounded perspective of host-tourist attitudes to dark tourism, focusing on the individual attitude of a local, rather than that of a collective societal position. Overall, then, this research reveals that there are significant and varied implications in the development of dark tourism from the perspective of the local community, not least with respect to the term 'dark tourism' itself. That is, dark tourism is shown to be an inappropriate label to attach to either the destination of tourists who visit, enhancing as it does the negative perceptions towards tourists whilst stigmatising the local community as victims. Thus, use of the term 'dark tourism' may be best restricted to academic contexts. Nevertheless, the attitude or perceptions of the local community to becoming the object of the 'dark' tourist gaze can only be fully comprehended within a wider analysis of the local socio-cultural environment and, in particular, the disaster recovery process. In this case study, the local community's perceptions of tourism are influenced by failures in the disaster recovery process and, hence, the proposed frameworks offer a valid basis for future research in alternative dark or disaster tourism contexts.

<p> Carry in/ Carry out (CICO) policies have been used in front-country parks for a long time. According to the National Park Service (2013), &ldquo;trash free parks&rdquo; are ones that implement carry in and carry out policies; the manager of a park removes all or most of the garbage cans in hope of having park patrons carry out the refuse that they generate and dispose of it at home. Managers use this policy as a way to reduce the costs associated with hauling trash out of the park, and to deter patrons from leaving garbage in the park. Reducing the amount of trash clean up also gives the park staff the ability to focus on other operational needs and park projects. This study looks at the effectiveness of carry in/ carry out policies in federal parks, state parks, and NGO-managed lands by interviewing sixteen managers (n=16) of these areas in the Northeast. This exploratory study used grounded theory. Two strategies were used to collect data (online survey and phone interviews). Data was analyzed by coding. Results suggest that the number one barrier for getting visitors to comply with CICO policies is a lack of awareness about littering. The most common benefit for using a CICO system is to save money, followed by creating public awareness about the items brought into parks. This study found that 67% of NGO managers and 75% of federal managers think that CICO is an effective policy; state park managers were mixed on whether CICO policies are in fact effective. The one thing that federal, state, and NGO agencies agree on is that there is always litter to be picked up by staff or volunteers. The amount of that litter varied from park to park, and there does not seem to be one strategy that works for everyone.</p>

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