This study explores the management of visitor sites and attractions associated with death, disaster and suffering, commonly referred to in the literature as ‘dark tourism’. Although gaining increasing academic attention, the supply-side perspective of dark tourism is poorly understood with scarce empirical evidence relating to management operations and practices. This may be due to management operations and practices that are perceived to conflict with the sensitive themes of visitor sites associated with dark tourism. Particular consideration is given to the management concept of innovation identified as a significant gap for scholarly exploration. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were carried out with senior management at 23 sites and attractions across the United Kingdom associated with dark tourism. The findings reveal that, contrary to suggestions that dark tourism sites may be restrictive in management practices, a wide array of innovative activities and marketing practices are widely conducted and innovation was viewed as a stimuli for repeat visitation. Furthermore, management operations are viewed as facilitating important stories of trauma for present and future generations. Omission of these stories would belittle the tragic circumstances in which people associated with the sites had died or suffered. Moreover, managers at dark tourism sites acknowledged the ethical and moral tensions surrounding management practices at dark tourism sites. Indeed, the majority of managers adopted both highly ethical processes resulting in ethical innovations and complex consultation processes in order to mitigate any potential concerns from stakeholders. The ethical stance underpinning operations positions the phenomenon of dark tourism as a subset within the tourism sector, distinct from its counterparts. Recommendations include calls to widen the study to explore visitor perceptions of innovative measures undertaken by managers, and to focus on specific commercial aspects, such as retailing, within the business of dark tourism.

This study investigates tourism micro firms’ innovative behavior amid the time of global pandemic Covid-19 within the geographical context of Dalarna County in Sweden. Moreover, this study explores the major factors that drive tourism micro firms for innovation during the pandemic. A qualitative approach is adopted to explore and understand tourism firms’ behavior from their perspectives. The results reveal that all tourism micro firms that participated in this research have adopted some changes during the pandemic. However, most of these changes are non-technological and incremental with high market orientation. When it comes to the driving factors behind tourism micro firms’ innovative behaviors, this study finds that tourism micro firms’ innovative behaviors are largely influenced by owner-managers’ personal traits, and the human capitals that tourism firms possess. Besides, the development stage of the firm and the industry where the firm is in can also affect micro firms’ decisions on innovations. In addition, the study identifies that tourism trends stimulated during the pandemic and the widespread ICT can trigger tourism innovation if tourism firms capture the opportunity and take actions on it. Findings of this study can help the regional government and destination management organizations to have a closer look at tourism micro firms’ business behavior during the pandemic, and to have a better understanding of the cause and means of micro firms’ innovation activities so as to provide better support and planning to help them to get back to the new normal.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:51:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BernardoMG_DISSERT.pdf: 4591185 bytes, checksum: c7ae79de538136930afccd5734d324de (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-20 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / Having as reference the fundamentals of regional innovation systems (RIS) and the policy guidelines defined in the regionalization program implemented by the federal government, this study focus on the analysis of the so-called "Landmark Region", northern coast of Polo Costa das Dunas-RN, in order to indicate how the historical and cultural resources can support innovation in the tourism of the region, represented here by the cities of Pedra Grande and S?o Miguel do Gostoso. This is a descriptive research, using qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, configuring, still, as a case study. Data were gathered from literature, documents, semi-structured interviews and mainly by participant observation methods. The results show a great diversity of cultural resources in the region, both material and immaterial, which however are disarticulated, and need to be worked in order to be included in the tourism productive chain. The main opportunity for innovation regards the return of the Landmark to the region, an invaluable monument, with the construction of a memorial. Taking in account the relevance of the monument and the growth of the region, we conclude that the return of the Landmark to its place of origin, in conjunction with other cultural resources, could attract a flow of cultural tourists. This fact could be, as the theory suggests, characterized as market or niche innovation, as the region is dominated by the sun and sea and wind sports tourism / Tendo como refer?ncia os fundamentos dos sistemas regionais de inova??o (RIS) e nas diretrizes pol?ticas definidas no programa de regionaliza??o implantado pelo governo federal, este estudo se concentrou na an?lise da denominada "Regi?o do Marco", litoral norte do Polo Costa das Dunas-RN, a fim de indicar de que forma os recursos hist?rico-culturais podem fundamentar inova??o no turismo na regi?o, aqui representada pelos munic?pios de Pedra Grande e S?o Miguel do Gostoso. A pesquisa tem car?ter descritivo, utilizando metodologia qualitativa no levantamento e an?lise de informa??es, configurando-se, ainda, como um estudo de caso. Os dados foram levantados a partir de pesquisa bibliogr?fica, documental, entrevista semiestruturada e, principalmente, pelo m?todo de observa??o participante. Os resultados mostram uma grande diversidade de recursos culturais na regi?o, tanto materiais como imateriais, que contudo se encontram desarticulados, e precisam ser trabalhados para que possam ser inclu?dos na cadeia produtiva do turismo. A principal oportunidade de inova??o diz respeito ? volta do Marco ? regi?o, monumento de valor inestim?vel, com a constru??o de um memorial. Pela relev?ncia do monumento e pela evidencia??o da regi?o, conclu?mos que a volta do Marco ao seu local de origem, em articula??o com os demais recursos culturais, poder? atrair um fluxo de turistas culturais, caracterizando-se assim, como sugere a teoria, como inova??o de mercado ou nicho, em um regi?o dominada pelo turismo de sol e mar e de esportes ? vela

Destination development has become a key issue in local and regional development. In particular, many governments recognize the industry's potential for fostering economic growth and development. The tourist destination is often conceptualized as a complex network with several levels of interaction – both networks of actors within the destination, but also networks linking it to its surrounding environment with potential and actual customers, other destinations, government bodies and so on. It is hence the assumption here that we cannot fully understand destination development in a particular community unless we have a good understanding of how the key stakeholders interact. By applying different network approaches that are based upon and united by a relational economic geography perspective to the study of destination development, we can widen our understanding of why some destinations struggle to survive and often decline, others maintain a threshold of success as tourist visiting areas, whereas there are still others, which exhibit a high level of competitiveness with local entrepreneurial milieus characterized by growth and long-term development. More generally, this thesis deals with a traditional core issue in economic geography, i.e., to explain what it is that makes a place or region characterized by growth and development. This thesis explores this issue, and expands our knowledge on the links between various types of network structures and growth in a destination context, as demonstrated by case studies of two successful tourism areas. These studies of the Swedish mountain resort of Åre, and of Icehotel in northern Sweden, explore relational destination development and the significance of tourism networks.