Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Travel and Tourism/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Defintion of Tourism

I'm wondering how "WikiProject Tourism" will define its scope and limits. There are big differences between travel and tourism (see definition for Cultural Travel) and the accuracy and depth of travel-related definitions could easily be diluted if they were to be included in a "tourism" project. So what's the plan? Quietleader 06:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I personally think travel is the physical movement from place to place. For example, trains, airlines, and subway stations should be included in travel. However, these are not appropriate topics for tourism, unless there are special circumstances. Tourism is the act of going somewhere or doing something that is not done in the daily routine, or around one's hometown, for the act of leisure or recreational purposes. However, when a conflict arises, the best thing to do would be to leave it as it is for the moment, and bring the issue the WikiProject Tourism talkpage. From there, we can build concensus. If this were to be set, the debates should not be like XfDs in the term of the duration of debates. 2-3 days would be sufficient in most cases. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 16:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Hotels

I'm glad someone has gotten WikiProject Tourism going. Once participation increases, I suggest forming a Hotels work group as there may be sufficient interest.per my proposal. Luke! 03:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. However, I'm going to have to hold off on that until this project stabilizes. If you would like to add it, however, feel free to do so on the project page. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 16:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Definitions earlier

Inordinate amounts of time could be saved making sure all the ways of looking at tourism/travel/pilgrimage etc are defined before almost all else to reduce fly by smart alecs taking pot shot at issues of definition. Specific definitions or inclusions and exclusions should be there on the project page defined straight away SatuSuro 01:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC) Bold textA hotel can only be called a HOTEL if they serve an evening meal if they do not it can only be called an INN, LODGE or HOUSE or something on that line. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.232.48 (talk) 00:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Sahara Tourism

I just wanted to add that Sahara Tourism is developing as an independant activity, quite different from Safaris and the rest. Thanx Ouadoud

Collaboration of the Week

To get the ball moving here, I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Travel and Tourism/COTM. Check there for this week's new article. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 19:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Travel guide vs. tourism article

It would help the rest of the community if this project could better define the difference between a "travel guide", which is prohibited, and a "tourism article", which is permitted. For reference, here's some relevant text from WP:NOT#TRAVEL:

• Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook
• Travel guides. An article on Paris should mention landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but not the telephone number or street address of your favorite hotel or the price of a café au lait on the Champs-Élysées. Wikipedia is not a place to re-create content more suited to entries in hotel guides, culinary guides, popular eating guides, gazeteers, travelogues, and the like. Notable individual locations may meet inclusion criteria, but Wikipedia does not list every tourist attraction, restaurant, hotel, venue, etc. Such details may be welcome at Wikitravel, however.

I'm concerned that articles like Tourism in metropolitan Detroit may cross the line into travel guides. A legitimate tourism article for a city that treats tourism as an industry would probably focus on number of beds, bed taxes, tourism bureaus, transportation, business trends, and a dispassionate listing of attractions and liabilities. Anyway, more guidance would be helpful. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Sydney Coach Terminal

Sydney Coach Terminal (via WP:PROD on 3 October 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge of Tourist apartheid into Tourism in Cuba

Opinions are welcome. Thank you. --victor falk 00:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Have you checked out this wiki?

I'm not sure if it is what you are looking for, but I am heading to Campinas Brazil next month and wanted some good information. While scouring the internet I stumbled upon this page: http://www.wikiair.com/wiki/Campinas Upon further surfing, I found a lot of good info on Wikiair. Again, I'm not sure if this is something you are looking to include, but I couldn't find any reference to WikiAir on Wikipedia. Thanks! Jeff —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.44.23 (talk) 08:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Article for deletion: Virtual tourism

Virtual tourism at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Virtual tourism (10 November 2007 – 24 November 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/UniResMan

If anyone is knowledgeable about this software, comments are invited at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UniResMan. --Gavin Collins 10:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC) UniResMan at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UniResMan (12 November 2007 – 13 November 2007) Speedy Deleted as advertisement

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Article for deletion: Oxford River Cruises

Oxford River Cruises at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oxford River Cruises (28 November 2007 – 8 December 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: The Australian Crawl

The Australian Crawl (via WP:PROD on 19 December 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

update --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Britain on View

Britain on View (via WP:PROD on 26 December 2007) Redirected→VisitBritain

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:14, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Expedition cruising

Expedition cruising (via WP:PROD on 30 December 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Orient Hong Kong's Visitors' Newspaper

Orient Hong Kong's Visitors' Newspaper (via WP:PROD on 3 January 2008) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Tourism in Stockholm

Tourism in Stockholm (via WP:PROD on 31 December 2007)

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Asian American Hotel Owners Association

I thought this might fall in the scope of this project. If not, please let me know here. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC) Asian American Hotel Owners Association (via WP:PROD on 3 January 2008)

Category tagging

Anyone interested? I have found that that template relates cleanly to Class=NA - but there is a massive collection of Class=Cat which has a dangling importance item underneath - I assume that the Class-cat is the one somebody has done a lot of work on. Any comments would be appreciated though it seems few projects have eds who interested in this aspect - cheers SatuSuro 10:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I'm not clear exactly what you're asking here. I've been on a tagging mission with WP:MUSEUMS but haven't done much here TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 13:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

OK - depends who created the main template - and who has got enthusiastic - if the tag is put up and the class=cat is put in, the importance= not assessed comes up, but if class=NA then its clean and doesnt answer back but someone has done a massive tagging of class=cat at some point - the project (or active editor(s) ) have to decide which way to go if the project ever gets underway with thorough tabulation of assessment - either all class=cat, or all class=NA (in my understanding of the process) I could be wrong but it would seem that some projects take this stuff seriously - others dont. no big deal - just curious if someone was interested in the slightest in uniformity of tagging within the project - hope that explains, sort of SatuSuro 13:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. Uniformity is a very good thing when we all have time to do it TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Heheh therein lies the rub. Indeed when we all have the time SatuSuro 05:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

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Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 259 articles are assigned to this project, of which 99, or 38.2%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

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Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Tourism

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7. We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Tourism Destination Development

Introduction Tourism is a unique industry. It can effectively create its own demand through the creation of attractions and provision of supporting infrastructure, following the “build it and they will come” approach. This is why tourism has become what is sometimes the main source of income for remote and/or less developed countries and destinations - in particular those with significant natural attributes that can be exploited - and is often seen as the saving grace for struggling economies, on both macro and micro levels.

However, despite this recognition of tourism’s potential as an economic growth stimulant, it should also be recognised that the successful development of a tourism destination is not as easy as it sometime seems and that sustainable development of tourism infrastructure is dependent on a complex array of criteria, which are often case and destination specific. This article provides a brief overview of the fundamentals for the successful development of tourist destinations

Tourism Strategy In order to create a tourism industry, on a national, regional or local level, both the natural and man-made environment must be conducive to the development of supporting infrastructure to accommodate tourist demand. The legislative environment and financial commitments must be in place as well. A tourism strategy should be created, providing a tourism management and marketing structure, supporting research and product development and giving attention to risk management. It should also set out at protecting the very environment that provides the opportunity, and deal with issues such as environmental protection, heritage issues and limitations of carrying capacity. The strategy should be aimed at placing the tourism industry in a strengthened position for more holistic development over the long term.

A Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage The first logical requirement is the very heart of the industry: the attraction itself, the “raison d’etre”. This may be a natural phenomenon such as a beach or rainforest, a cultural attraction or based on other unique destination characteristics. It may also be a man-made attraction, such as a theme park, for example.

A Holistic Destination Approach Tourism development needs to be considered in relation to facilities and infrastructure already existing in any destination. New ventures should be complimentary to existing product and augment an existing destination ‘feel’. As visitors demand more ‘experiential’ tourism, the relevance of the “whole destination” and it’s ambience will become increasingly important.

Critical Mass The bigger the attraction base, the broader the appeal to a more diverse cross section of people, the more interest from transport carriers in servicing the destination and so on………. Critical mass drives the marketability and connectivity of a tourist destination. Ease of Access Cost-efficient access from large cities and medium sized population centres is a fundamental consideration. For regional and rural tourism attractions, ensuring a range of viable transport alternatives to meet target market affordability thresholds is critical to driving the success of any regional venture. Tourism is a competitive industry, even on a global scale. If access to a destination or attraction is too complicated, time consuming, expensive or not providing adequate capacity, even the most spectacular attraction will remain a secret to most tourists, as they will prefer competitive alternatives. Australia, for example, is considered by many as their most desirable tourist destination. However, relative distance and the associated cost of getting there are providing a significant barrier to most would-be visitors.

An Existing Population Base Related to the previous point is the need for a readily available demand base. Tourism attractions and facilities are often not solely developed for tourists, but also to appeal to the broader business and leisure markets existing within or close to the destination. Demand from a captive community helps to moderate seasonality and provides an opportunity to utilise promotion to stimulate consumption within a short timeframe, particularly in the case of accommodation establishments.

Political Buy-in, Local Support There is a lot to be said for gaining the support of key political influencers, particularly at the local Government level, where most decision-making occurs. Managing the expectations of the local community, gaining their support and keeping all stakeholders informed on the progress of any venture from the very outset should help alleviate conflict. That said, sometimes communities can be ‘parochial’ and sensitive issues need to be managed with great tact and professionalism.

The Right Financing Solution Less debt, more equity – in most instances. This is moving away from debt-led models to some of the more innovative and sustainable models encountered in the late 1990s and early 2000s including mixed-use developments using residential sales of residential units to fund tourism components.

Understanding Demand Fundamentals Understanding the demand fundamentals existing in any given tourist destination aids the modelling of realistic demand and revenue projections. The availability, timely provision and reliability of visitation data will assist financiers, developers, owners and operators in more accurately forecasting performance.

Marketing Prowess Marketing in tourism can be described as both science and art, or a complex interplay of the two. Developing the right marketing channels; the right contacts; understanding how the tourism distribution and promotion systems work in the regional and national context; taking a unique approach; and persistence. Attaining the mix right in the context of a regional destination and maintaining flexibility in the approach will most certainly drive performance.

The Right Staff As a service based industry, labour and payroll costs are usually one of the highest expenses incurred by tourism businesses. Access to a skilled pool of employees is a vital consideration, particularly in regional areas. Regional ventures need to address the cost of training, importing/attracting skilled professionals from other areas and managing the likely transient flow of casual employees. --Rutger Smits (talk) 02:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Destination Re-Development

The Market Evolution Cycle Once a tourist destination has commenced development and is maturing, it enters the market evolution cycle. Whether the development is carefully planned or just happened over time, at some point in time the carrying capacity of either the natural or social environment or the infrastructure may be reached. Saturation will occur, and the quality of the tourism product will decline, with a subsequent negative impact on the environment and the local community. As the quality of the attraction and/or the destination drops, so will the number of tourists visiting it. Their satisfaction level will also decrease or, worse, a less desirable type of tourism will develop. Typical evidence of this deterioration process include the following: • deterioration of the natural ecology due to over- development and intensive use; • pollution of beaches, lakes, rivers and underground water resulting from improper sewage and solid waste disposal; • visual clutter of poorly designed, intrusive buildings and signs; • pedestrian and vehicular congestion and pollution; • insufficient capacity of utility services, such as water supply, electric power and telecommunications during peak use periods; • changes in traditional land-use patterns, loss of open space, displacement of residents from prime land and deterioration of community character; • damage to archaeological and historical sites and scenic areas due to over-use or poor management; • friction and resentment between the host community and tourists because of over-crowding of the tourism area and pre-emption of amenity features by tourists so that residents cannot enjoy them; and • social problems including crime, drug abuse and prostitution.

Rejuvenation Strategies When developments or destinations reach a critical stage of capacity constraints, they may stagnate or begin to decline. However, if appropriate actions are taken, they can also be rejuvenated. Saturation levels of tourism sites and areas need to be anticipated and appropriate management strategies applied. The three strategies that can be considered separately or in combination are: • increasing the carrying capacity; • dispersing the pressure; and • limiting access.

Increasing the Carrying Capacity Studies can be undertaken to determine which elements of the environment are reaching saturation and how to increase these particular aspects of capacity. In some - but not all - cases, capacity can be increased. Some of the management techniques that can be implemented locally to increase capacity are as follows: • expand capacities of utility services such as water supply, sewage and solid waste disposal and telecommunications; • expand capacities of transportation facilities and road services, or limit the use of these facilities, for example by not allowing private car use on congested access roads but providing bus service access from peripheral parking lots; • relocate high-use attraction features closer to access points to reduce transportation demand; • disperse tourist attractions and facilities to avoid congestion; • replace multiple individual tourist facilities with larger group facilities; • create one-way traffic systems to regulate and improve visitor flows; • establish new trails and improve existing ones; • provide visitor education to modify visitor behaviour; • establish strict land use, design and environmental regulations on proposed new developments; and • take renewal measures to improve existing development. At regional, state and national levels, action may also be required to improve major support infrastructure such as airports and highways, adopting overall land-use and environmental standards and regulations, and providing grants or special loans to undertake necessary redevelopment in local areas.

Relieving Demand Pressure Dispersing the pressure within the tourism area or wider region requires development of new attractions and tourist facility areas and the connecting transportation linkages. This is possible and often desirable, assuming that tourism resources of natural or cultural attractions exist elsewhere or new man-made attractions can feasibly be developed. Opening up of new tourism areas not only relieves pressure on existing tourist destinations, but also provides economic benefits of additional income and employment elsewhere. However, opening of new tourism areas requires much public and private investment in facilities and marketing of these new places. Often intervention at the national or regional levels is necessary to develop new destinations. Another option is to extend the visit season. This technique is used in conjunction with an effort to de-market overused attractions and facilities during their peak season period and to increase marketing efforts for the shoulder and low seasons. This can sometimes be accomplished through pricing policies and other incentive or disincentive techniques. This technique has the additional benefit of spreading out the income from tourism for local residents.

Limiting Access An extreme and last-resort measure is to limit access to the number of tourists that can be handled within the carrying capacity levels. Access limitation techniques include the following: • imposing self-limiting measures, such as higher prices on room rates and admission fees; • closure of certain places, such as environmentally fragile nature areas at certain times (to allow time for rejuvenation or during critical periods such as animal breeding seasons); • limiting parking, passenger seat availability or another type of transportation capacity; • establishing a maximum number of accommodation units (rooms, camping sites, etc.) allowed in the areas reaching saturation levels; • establishing a maximum number of persons to be allowed at certain tourist attraction features at any given time; • re-routing of traffic around tourism centres and allowing only pedestrian access to popular places; and • prohibiting construction of new facilities through zoning or permit procedures. Often access limitation is achieved simply when all accommodation is booked or transportation passenger seats are fully reserved during the peak periods. Disappointed tourists will often digress to alternative destinations, thus dispersing pressure. As a general trend, tourists are tending to take shorter but more frequent vacations throughout the year anyway, thus dispersing tourist use seasonally as well as geographically.

Conclusions Government support at the macro level, including consolidating tourism organisations into more effective structures, enhancing the quality and quantity of information to guide tourism infrastructure development, product augmentation, diversification and rejuvenation as well as more focussed marketing activity should no doubt improve opportunities for tourism (re)development. However, it takes more than a policy platform to optimise the rate and style of tourism development. Professional planning and development assessments, the passion and commitment of local authorities and the community and the commitment of stakeholders who clearly understand the fundamentals of this unique industry are equally important. Existing visitation and product development trends show great promise for the future. Although mass tourism continues to drive visitor flows, there are shifts towards niche, special interest tourism and experiential tourism. Considerable opportunities are emerging to develop viable backpacker, food and wine, caravan, camping, cultural and heritage, nature-based and indigenous tourism products, for example, to attract more visitors and capitalise on higher visitor dispersal rates. In order to capitalise on these ever-changing opportunities, which are intrinsic to the nature of this wonderful industry, proper planning and a thorough assessment of development opportunities and constraints is vital. A moderate investment in professional support services will undoubtedly recoup itself through the long-term benefits derived from a sustainable and successful tourism project. --Rutger Smits (talk) 02:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

wikitravel, wikivoyage

Numerous articles throughout wikipedia contain links to wikitravel. I suggest you consider forming a policy of favouring other truly free sites. Wikitravel is not truly free/open (they are in fact a for profit company) as can be seen from:

1. http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Database_dump see also the discussion page for this page. As you can see they have refuse to provide database dumps and noone has succeeded in getting any form of xml backup in years!!
2. Despite widespread enthusiasm http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel_talk:Offline_Reader_Expedition for an offline reader. The refusal of wikitravel to open the DB means this project has not progressed.
3. It is causing a split in the community, most of the germans on wikitravel forked to wikivoyage.org. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.209.23.250 (talk) 05:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

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