Articles tagged with: survey

  • Virtual tourism study seeking Brock students for short survey

    Master’s student Abigail Mensah has questions about the future of sustainable tourism — and she is hoping to get answers from fellow Brock University students.

    With supervisor and principle investigator Professor David Fennell in the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, Mensah has developed a survey that can be completed in about 15 minutes online to explore the use of technology to facilitate remote tourism.

    The project, “Rethinking Consumerism, Innovation and Tourism Sustainability in a Post-Viral World: A Case of Virtual Tour Innovation Usage in Niagara’s Geoparks,” supports Mensah’s thesis research in the Master of Arts in Geography program.

    Mensah, who holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and Tourism Management from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, says her research connects “the influence of the COVID-19 crisis on people’s future travel preferences and the role of virtual tour innovations, such as Personalized Interactive Real-time Tours (PIRTs), in meeting tourism needs while promoting sustainability.”

    Once completed, results of the study will be shared with the Brock community as well as the board of the Niagara Peninsula Aspiring Geopark.

    Mensah says that PIRTs are an “ethical and responsible alternative” to high-emission travel because they allow tourists to stay home and connect with local tour guides in a live, interactive, virtual experiences facilitated by technology.

    She adds that safe and accessible tourism opportunities for those with restrictions on mobility, transportation or costs for travel and revenue to support local employment, conservation and environmental protection are additional benefits to the model.

    All Brock students are invited to complete the survey.

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  • New paper co-authored by Julia Baird: “Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios”

    A new access paper co-authored by Geography and Tourism Studies Assistant Professor, Dr. Julia Baird, titled “Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios” was published in People and Nature. This paper is open-access and is available to download here.

    Abstract:

    1. Empathy for nature is considered a prerequisite for sustainable interactions with the biosphere. Yet to date, empirical research on how to stimulate empathy remains scarce.
    2. Here, we investigate whether future scenarios can promote greater empathy for the oceans. Using a pre-post empathy questionnaire, participants (N = 269) were presented with an optimistic or a pessimistic future scenario for the high seas in a virtual reality (VR) or written format.
    3. Results showed that post-test empathy levels were significantly higher than pre-test levels, indicating that future scenarios fostered ocean empathy. We also find that the pessimistic scenario resulted in greater empathy levels compared to the optimistic scenario. Finally, we found no significant difference between the VR and written conditions and found that empathy scores significantly decreased 3 months after the initial intervention.
    4. As one of the first studies to empirically demonstrate the influence of a purposeful intervention to build ocean empathy, this article makes critical contributions to advancing research on future scenarios and offers a novel approach for supporting ocean sustainability.

    Video Abstract: “Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios”

    Citation:

    Jessica Blythe, Julia Baird, Nathan Bennett, Gillian Dale, Kirsty L. Nash, Gary Pickering, Colette C. C. Wabnitz. (2021). Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios. People and Nature. Online: https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10253

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    Categories: News