As a result of academic research into the effects of mass travel, an industry of alternative tourism has emerged. Application of this research has resulted in myriad forms of tourism, two of these being ecotourism and educational travel. Ecotourism represents a response to what is the destructive nature of the mass tourism industry and its damage to host communities' social, economic and environmental systems. Educational travel is an attempt to use tourism for education, such as trips arranged by university study abroad programs. I contend that both forms of alternative travel represent a reactive approach to mitigating the impacts of mass tourism. The potential of educational travel is not realized as it provides no framework or guidelines as to how students can apply the information and knowledge they have acquired on their trip. I will define a new type of tourism, advocacy travel, which seeks to address the shortfalls of ecotourism and educational travel. Advocacy travel is tourism as a strategy used by activists to educate, promote ideological awareness and motivate participants to work for social change. Global Exchange, a non-profit organization, has been using organized tours as one component of their activist strategy since 1989. Tours to destinations that are politically charged are used as a tactic to create a more politically aware and active citizen from an average person living in the United States. The ultimate goal of the tours is to promote change in the participant that will translate into an increased level of activism around the international issue about which Global Exchange is attempting change. This study is specifically aimed at determining whether tourism utilized in this manner can have a successful outcome for the organization employing it. I developed and distributed a survey questionnaire to Reality Tour participants from both the Cuba and Chiapas programs. Results reveal that the trips do promote an increased awareness of general news and world events and, to a lesser degree, serve to make the participant more politically active overall. However, this result is not equally applied to all participants. Those who indicate a previous awareness of the specific situation of their destination or a more general political knowledge are more likely to report that the Reality Tour inspired them to change. Also, I found that the Reality Tour participant differs greatly from the average US citizen in terms of education level, income, area of residence and occupation. / Graduation date: 2002

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Arwen P. Mohun, Dept. of History. Includes bibliographical references.

Background: It has been shown that people travel much more nowadays than ever before. Since the Internet and the e-commerce have been developed the ability to book trips online has been enabled. There are now two dominant ways of buying trips, online or offline. The survival of traditional travel agencies has been questioned and some thinks that there will be no need for them in the future. Therefore it would be interesting to see who books trips at traditional and online travel agencies.  Purpose: The purpose with this study is to understand which segments that are purchasing travels at traditional travel agencies and online travel agencies by examine demographic, psychographic and behaviouristic segmentation in the region of Jönköping. Further, in the region of Jönköping, examine advantages and disadvantages of buying trips at an online versus offline travel agency.  Method: In order to fulfil the purpose and answer the research questions the authors will use a quantitative method. The quantitative data will be gathered through a questionnaire after pilot studies have been conducted. SPSS 19.0 will be used in order to analyse the data from the questionnaires.  Conclusion: The segment of traditional travel agencies is older people with high income while the segment of online travel agencies is younger people with lower income. Advantages of traditional travel agencies are their ability to provide service, customize a trip and give expert advice. Online travel agencies have its availability, price comparison service and comfortable way to buying trips as their advantages

This study is more or less of an exploratory research style. It is aimed to find out what the impact of the travel information appearing on a company web site that is run by a travel agent, upon traditional customers in a sense of interactive marketing. It is hoped that through the subject study we can much understand traditional customer expectations and perceptions in using of the internet. It would also equip the agents in a better position to fulfill the customer requirements when they map out the content of the travel company web site and implement the information communication. And finally it will lead to the best marketing strategy planning.

Electronic commerce model has made an impact on the travel industry of Taiwan. There are multiple distribution channels in the Internet while new technology customers have already inclined to buy straight from the supplier¡¦s Web site, especially a price-sensitive customer who loves to shop around will remain the natural constituent of an on-line travel agency. In my view, Travel agencies should know their resource including brand image, travel professional knowledge, selling capacity and E-Commerce management know how. In order to get travel product, brand, service, and price competitive advantages. How to adopt an optimal EC strategy in order to acquire travel reputation, financial, product, market, and employee performance advantages is the key issue of travel agencies. Furthermore, considering the environment, company, behavior, procedure and product uncertainties and transaction costs; travel agencies may construct an optimal transaction model for consumers; related business industry and themselves. This study uses multiple methods to collect data from multiple sources in order to improve its validity including qualitative and quantitative surveys. Besides, adopting longitudinal survey and three-stage research designs. The results provide us with an in-depth understanding of the impact of EC on the performance of travel agencies and explore more effective mechanisms for maintaining their competitive advantages. The high development of EC which has had revolutionary effect in the travel industry, especially travel agencies. Finally, the study has proposed an optimal EC business strategy model and contributed travel EC business theory to the travel agent business management.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2009. / "Fall 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-55).

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The thesis evaluates mobility based on mobile phone positions. The aim is to develop and assess different methods for travel demand estimation based on CDR data. Besides this estimation location data in cellular data is explained in more detail and a previous work based on mobile phone data and travel demand estimation is reviewed. The different methods of travel time estimation include both static and dynamic estimation. The static travel demand estimation evaluates movements in the city based on predefined time periods, whereas the dynamic estimations are based on different definitions of a trip. A trip can be defined as movements between important places, or just simply count a trip between each position, or a filtering of active states to create more accurate origin-destination matrices. The second part of the thesis includes evaluation of travel time based on CDR data before the final conclusions are drawn. The main finding of the thesis is that it is possible to assess mobility in a city based on CDR data, even if there are no validation data available.

This thesis is concerned with the pleasure travels of British middle class men and women during the 1860s to World War One. I have considered pleasure travel as any type of travel primarily motivated by the desire to entertain and amuse oneself in a place other than home. It had become a popular leisure activity during this time period for a wide range of people, partly due to improved methods of transportation, increased monetary capabilities and the availability of free time. / Paying special attention to the highly visited Italy and Switzerland, I have examined travel writings from this period to gain insight into both the individual perceptions of pleasure travel and the pleasure traveller and the general current of thoughts of the time. Travel writings include guidebooks and handbooks, personal memoirs and journals. Having become an integral part of middle class life during this period, pleasure travel also became the subject of many novels and articles which provide additional insight, mostly through criticism and mockery of the traveller.

New Zealand has a well-established network of accommodations, transportation, and visitor activities developed specifically for backpackers. These tourists account for almost ten percent of the country’s international visitor expenditure. To date, the majority of backpacker research has focussed on the traditional market segment of student and youth travellers, though a few quantitative studies have also researched the needs and preferences of older travellers using hostels and backpackers’ accommodations. Though more than 50 percent of New Zealand’s international visitors are over age 40, few currently stay at this type of accommodation. Using New Zealand as a case study, this thesis explores, qualitatively, the perspectives of older backpackers: their self-perceptions, their travel motivations, their needs and expectations in accommodation. In addition, it examines the points of view of the owners of small, independent backpackers’ accommodations to gain their perspectives on hosting a multi-generational clientele and on what the implications might be of expanding this market. Key findings show that older travellers who use backpackers’ accommodations technically meet all Pearce’s (1990) original definitions of “backpacker” – they prefer budget accommodations, they are socially interactive, they travel independently and flexibly, they travel for longer holidays than do most, and they choose informal and participatory activities. However, these travellers reject the self-definition of “backpacker”, an impasse that presents a lexical challenge to both scholars and tourism marketers. The final section addresses the impacts and implications of “backpacker” nomenclature on baby boomer travellers, academia, and the backpacker industry at large.