This book is a reflection of my thinking and travelling on an interesting journey of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in tourist attractions in China. As ICH became a hot topic in China and the world over the past 20 years, ICH tourism has developed in many parts of the world. Nevertheless it is important to note that many theoretical and practical issues have emerged alongside the development of ICH tourism, such as the dilemma of authenticity and commodification, as well as the empowerment and marginalisation of ICH practitioners etc. The more I am involved in the discussion of these complicated issues, the clearer it becomes that these issues cannot be addressed before I understand what ICH means to different people.
Thus, a critical approach is needed to understand what ICH means. As I studied in China and Australia, cross-cultural education enables me to look at ICH tourism through the lens of critical heritage studies and critical tourism studies, which breaks through traditional understanding that ICH tourism is just a niche market of tourism where ICH is commodified for tourists. With the “ICH practitioner-based approach”, I argue in my book that ICH tourism is more than that, as it is a way of making ICH through commodification in tourism so that it can be sustained and/or re-created in tourism. Rather than a traditional tourism study, this book examined the understandings of ICH tourism from the perspective of ICH practitioners, government officials and experts, rather than tourists. I believe ICH practitioners should be privileged and empowered for their role in tourism development; therefore, I proposed the concepts of “subjective authenticity” and “subjective integrity” to describe their abilities and agencies.
As China has been active in the protection and use of ICH since its ratification of UNESCO’s ICH Convention in 2004, a study of ICH tourism in China is needed in the fields of heritage studies, tourism studies and Chinese studies. Among many ICH tourist attractions in China, Lijiang, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a typical case. Although there have been rich studies on ethnic/cultural tourism in China, this book takes ICH tourism as a new perspective to look at the relationship between the making of ICH and the development of ICH, revealing the dynamics of the power relations from national to local official levels.
This book is largely based on my PhD research on ICH and heritage tourism in Yunnan Province, China from 2012 to 2017, fieldwork that I was carrying out until recently, extending the discussion beyond China. After experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, we care more about the sustainability of heritage and tourism in a changing world. I hope this book will provide some useful thoughts on the understanding of sustainable ICH tourism.
Junjie Su
For more information about this book please see our website.
Woo-hoo! 2020 is kicking off with a month in which all the books we’re publishing are Channel View Publications titles – five tourism books published in January! This is the first time this has happened in CVP/MM history (we usually publish far more linguistics titles than we do tourism) so it’s very exciting 😊
Here are the books we’ve got coming your way this month:
This book offers a multidisciplinary, holistic appraisal of the implications of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) for tourism and related mobilities. It attempts to look beyond the short- to medium-term consequences of these processes for both the UK and the EU.
This revised edition incorporates new material on the sharing economy, AI, surface and marine transport, resident quality of life issues, the price mechanism, the economic contribution of tourism, and tourism and economic growth. It remains an accessible text for students, researchers and practitioners in tourism economics and policy.
The term ‘contents tourism’ has been defined as ‘travel behaviour motivated fully or partially by narratives, characters, locations, and other creative elements of popular culture…’. This is the first book to apply the concept of contents tourism in a global context and to establish an interdisciplinary framework for contents tourism research.
This book offers an essential introduction to the use of various modelling tools and simulation techniques in the domains of tourism and hospitality. It aims to encourage students, researchers and practitioners in tourism and hospitality to enhance and enrich their toolbox in order to achieve a better and more profound knowledge of their field.
This book offers insights into the demands made on staff in service encounters in tourism, events and hospitality roles. It hinges upon storied incidents offered by workers about which the reader can reflect and apply theoretical knowledge. Each chapter includes learning objectives, questions and summaries.
Continuing the excitement, a brand new textbook follows in February – Sustainable Tourism by David Fennell and Chris Cooper, which we expect to be a bestseller. We are also hoping to get a few more titles published in the second half of 2020. Some titles to watch for are Archaeology and Tourism edited by Dallen Timothy and Lina Tahan; a second edition of Dallen Timothy’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism textbook; Tourism and Earthquakes edited by Michael Hall and Girish Prayag; Gamification for Tourism edited by Feifei Xu and Dimitrios Buhalis; Sustainable Space Tourism by Annette Toivonen and Wildlife Tourism Futures edited by Giovanna Bertella. Watch this space…
Sarah
Seen something you like? Get 50% off all our titles this month using the code JANSALE at the checkout on our website!
Sarah with Heike Schanzel and Brooke Porter – authors of forthcoming book Femininity in the Field
The last CTS conference I went to was CTS II in Split, Croatia so it was high time Channel View attended another one! There is a definite buzz around these conferences and this one did not disappoint, with many high quality papers and a wonderful location.
As always, it was great to be able to catch up with current and prospective authors and meet so many new people with such interesting research underway.
Sarah taking part in the publishing panel
This conference was a first for me as I had been asked (along with the other publishers present) to take part in a panel on editing and publishing in tourism. I already had a great deal of respect for academics presenting their papers on a regular basis but being on the other side of things for once was pretty nerve-wracking (although it was a good experience). I hope the audience members found it as useful as I did.
The conference finished off in style with a beautiful gala dinner and the evening closed with line-dancing to a Spanish-version of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ – brilliant!
Not a bad setting for a conference!
After the conference it was lovely to spend a day wandering around beautiful Palma – including a trip to the beach!
This month we are publishing the second edition of Quantitative Methods in Tourism by Rodolfo Baggio and Jane Klobas. In this post Rodolfo answers a few questions about the book and the work of a tourism academic.
It’s been six years since we published the first edition of Quantitative Methods in Tourism. What can we expect from the second edition?
First of all let me say that I’ve been quite surprised and amazed to see that our little work received so much attention as to deserve a second edition. We (my coauthors and I) are very grateful to the readers and to find out that our idea of providing a “practical” handbook has worked well. In this edition we have essentially done two things. One has been (rather obviously) to amend the little inaccuracies or errors that inevitably escape in a work like this one, even after a good number of checks. Then we have improved and updated examples and references and added some new materials on data screening and cleaning, the use of similarity and diversity indexes, path modelling and partial least squares, multi-group structural equation modelling, common method variance, and Big Data.
What is the collaborative process like between you both?
For this book (as for the previous edition), after having agreed on the topics to include, we split them based on our expertise and interests so that each one of us wrote the different pieces, then we swapped the chapters and cross checked all the materials.
What is the most rewarding and most difficult thing about writing a book?
The most rewarding thing is for sure the moment in which you get the book in your hands. The most difficult (probably better to say tedious, tiring or grim) comes when you have finished writing and you have to start checking, refining, correcting, reworking, etc.
As a tourism academic, what’s the favourite place that you’ve travelled to in the course of your research?
Contrary to what many might think, working in tourism, whether as an academic or industry practitioner, does not necessarily mean travelling. There are hotel employees that have never seen places different from their hotel or teachers that have never been in a city different from the one in which they give classes. I have been privileged and, due to personal attitude and life chances, have so far had an incredible number of possibilities to travel to many parts of this planet. I do not have a favourite place. All are interesting and exciting in one way or another. Probably my truly favourite place is one (and there are many) in which I have not yet been.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing books?
Well, not being a writer most of my life is spent NOT writing books, so I do what anyone else does. Personally I enjoy reading, walking around, listening to good music, travelling and so on. But I also very much enjoy studying and researching new avenues for the difficult work of understanding a complex and complicated domain such as the tourism one.
For more information about this book, please see our website.
With the recent publication of the 6th edition of Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, we hit a real milestone and published our 1000th book since the company began. In this post, Tommi reflects on the last 35 years leading up to this point and discusses how the company and wider world of publishing has changed over time.
Tommi and David Singleton at the MM drinks reception at AAAL
At the recent AAAL conference in Portland, OR, we celebrated the publication of our 1000th book, the 6th edition of Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, co-authored by Colin Baker and Wayne E. Wright. Since I remember the publication of our very first book in 1982, Bilingualism: Basic Principles by Hugo Baetens-Beardsmore, this led me to reflect a little on what has changed at Channel View Publications/Multilingual Matters (CVP/MM), in the world of academic publishing, and attitudes to bilingualism since then.
Marjukka and Mike at Frankfurt Book Fair
Many of you will know that CVP/MM is a family business, founded originally by my parents in response to being told by our family doctor not to speak Finnish to my brother and me, stating that “they didn’t know what damage they were doing”. Fortunately, being a formidable combination of a stubborn Finnish mother and an entrepreneurial Essex-man father, they not only refused to take such unwelcome advice, they took it as an opportunity to find and publish world-class research focusing on the many positive benefits of bilingualism. Although we now publish in a very wide range of topics – including applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, educational research, language disorders and translation studies under our Multilingual Matters imprint and, under our other imprint Channel View Publications, tourism studies – language rights and positive attitudes to bi- and multilingualism remain at the heart of what we do. We believe that no mother or father should ever be told not to speak the language of their heart to their children without extremely well-informed reasons for doing so.
Although in many cases attitudes towards bilingualism may have switched towards the more positive and even aspirational, this is often only the case if the languages you speak are privileged western languages, and in many cases only if you are of the majority population. It is fine and admirable to learn Spanish or Arabic if you are white, but society might be less positive about you retaining your Spanish or Arabic if you are an immigrant. There is still much work to do in changing attitudes towards languages where these languages are associated with immigration or are minority indigenous languages.
Some of my first memories include sitting under our dining room table, “helping” my parents stick the mailing labels onto envelopes that would carry our first catalogues out into the world. Among the many addresses we sent catalogues to, 252 Bloor Street West stuck in my mind. As a 6 year old child I struggled to understand how so many people lived in this one house! In the years since then I have come to know the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) well, and have got to know the very many authors and friends who are based there. We no longer pack and mail our catalogues ourselves, this is one of those tasks that computers and automation have simplified, but as the editor of my local orienteering club newsletter I have to pack and mail all the copies to our members, so I like to think that I have retained those valuable skills!
The office in Clevedon before everything was done on computers
In 1982 we were already using computers for journal subscription processing, but all correspondence with authors and editors was by mail. We used to do so much mailing back and forth that the local post office gave us our own postcode! All of our records were kept in large filing cabinets and a system of racks, T-cards and folders would track the process of book and journal manuscripts from initial proposal to published book. Sales reports from our distributor would be couriered once a month to us in a large box, and even as recently as the late 1990s we would wait with excitement to go through the monthly sales reports and see how well our books had been selling. These days everything we do is reliant on computers, the internet and data. We only have to log in to our distributors’ reporting sites to get the sales figures from the day before, and we can communicate easily even while travelling. This availability of data and immediacy of communication brings with it a new set of demands and challenges. There is a sense that we must respond to everything as quickly as possible and that we absolutely have to know how many books were sold in the last 24 hours. A lot of time is taken up by responding to queries that in the past would have waited for a single letter, and of course we put the same pressures on to other people.
In the early days of our company the only reliable way to purchase books was via the bookshop, or to put a cheque in the post with an order form from our catalogue. These days the rise of companies like Amazon, Books etc. and the Book Depository, as well as our own website, means that wherever you are you should be able to order a print copy of our books and have it posted to you quickly. If you choose to purchase an ebook, you can place an order now and have the full text, even in some cases with embedded video files and links to relevant websites and resources, delivered direct to your computer, tablet or reading device within seconds.
Libraries are able to buy one multi-user license of a digital book, which does not degrade with age and usage, and are able to share this with multiple users of the library, even off-site users of the library, at the same time. Shelf space is making way for more computer spaces and learning environments, and university campuses are changing accordingly. Of course the downside of this is that the number of copies required to service the same population has fallen, and so in general across the publishing industry we have seen the total number of sales of any one academic title fall quite dramatically in the past 10 years or so. Since the majority of overhead and fixed costs of publication have not fallen, this means that book prices have risen much faster than inflation in order to cover those costs.
While it is interesting to look at what has changed, it is also very instructive to consider what has stayed constant over all this time. Digital technology and distribution has meant that the barriers to entry into the publishing industry have fallen dramatically. In a world where anyone can write, typeset and publish a book relatively quickly, easily and inexpensively, the role of the publisher in providing a measure of review, revision and quality control is just as important as it was in 1982. It is arguably even more important now, given the recent attention to fake news stories and alternative facts. CVP/MM has always believed in reviewing manuscripts thoroughly and as transparently as possible, and while peer-review is not a flawless system, it is a vitally important step in ensuring that the books we publish can be trusted by students, researchers, parents and policy-makers.
Flo, Sarah, Anna, Tommi, Elinor and Laura
We continue to grow as a business, this year we will publish 60 titles across all of the various subject areas, where just 10 years ago we would schedule 30 titles. But we remain a small and friendly operation with approachable staff. We have fostered an atmosphere where we can thrive and grow within our jobs, and so our staff turnover is extremely low. It is highly likely that you will deal with the same people through the life of your book project, if not your whole career! You will have seen me at every AAAL for the past 19 years, but you may not be aware that Sarah and Anna will this year celebrate their 15th anniversary of working for Multilingual Matters, and Elinor and Laura are not that far behind. Our most recent full time colleague, Flo, already feels like part of the family, and our intern, Alice, reflects the values that we all share.
Although my father, Mike, is no longer around to see the progress we have made since he and my mother, Marjukka, retired, he would still recognise everything that we do and be proud of how we have continued to build on what they started 1000 books ago. We would not have been able to publish 1000 books if it wasn’t for the many authors, series editors, reviewers and readers who have contributed in so many different ways. There are too many to name here, but I hope you know just how important you are to us. It has been a pleasure to work with you all and I hope that you will continue to partner with us, to work with us and to hold us to account when we do occasionally get things wrong, so that as we go on to publish books together we can all grow and improve, and look back on the next 1000 books with just as much pride!
This month we published Challenges in Tourism Research, a comprehensive volume in which renowned scholars discuss contemporary debates within the field of tourism studies. The book is based on ‘Research Probes’ originally published in the journal Tourism Recreation Research. In this post the editor of the book, Tej Vir Singh, answers a few questions about the book.
What makes the ‘Research Probe’ format of this book so unique? Intelligent use of collective wisdom of known multi-disciplinary scholars, strategic application of elenctic approach (debates, discussions and discourse), quintessential knowledge at one place, interesting readability, and direction for future research.
How does this book complement the previous volume Critical Debates in Tourism? It complements Critical Debates in Tourism by identifying leftover problems (vast tourism cannot be confined to one volume) – more, it meets the needs of freshers and juniors.
What is your next research project? Ah!! Next project? Possibly a magnum opus of tourism….
What do you find rewarding about editing books? The joy of creation and dissemination of knowledge plus scholars’ satisfaction with the book.
What advice would you offer to other academics editing their first book? They should identify the demand of the curricula and market needs; it might be better that they undertake a preliminary training course in editing.
How would you compare the experiences of writing a book and writing a journal article? Almost the same – just like writing story or a drama.
Do you find that the role of books in the tourism research community has changed over the years? Are they valued more or less today than they were a decade ago? Can’t say precisely, but I can speak about tourism, where books are more valued than the journals, specially in the Third World.
Animals and Tourism edited by Kevin Markwell was published earlier this month and offers a fascinating insight into the relationships between tourists and animals.
Photo: Brian Gilligan
Most of us can probably remember an encounter we’ve had with some kind of animal while on holiday. Maybe it was watching in amazement at a humpback whale launching its massive bulk out of the ocean or admiring a flamboyantly coloured parrot dodging the trunks of trees as it flew, unerringly, through an otherwise verdant rainforest. Perhaps it was simply an exotic looking butterfly, delicately landing on some equally exotic tropical flower in the garden of a resort you might have been staying at.
When you start to think more deeply, you soon realise that animals are incorporated into many of our tourism experiences; sometimes willingly, other times, not so willingly. They entertain us at tourist attractions such as zoos and aquaria; they provide transport at some destinations; most of us eat them as part of the local cuisine; we photograph them; we buy souvenirs that look like (or in some cases, are made from) them; and increasingly, many of us are taking our own cats and dogs with us while on holidays.
And not to forget the animals that annoy and irritate us such as mosquitoes and midges, ticks, and centipedes, and those which may present a threat to our safety – scorpions and venomous snakes as well as lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!
The book, Animals and Tourism: Understanding Diverse Relationships, emerged from a growing interest, which many scholars now share, in understanding critically the dynamics of our relationships with non-human animals. These relationships are often contradictory, ambiguous, inconsistent, and, increasingly, contested. The tourism arena is an ideal place to place these relationships under scrutiny because of the variety of relationships that exist.
I was fortunate enough to be joined in this book project by 22 well-qualified authors who contributed 16 chapters which I then organised into three themes: ethics and animal welfare, conflict, contradiction and contestation and shifting relationships. The topics that the book covers are quite varied and chapters cover issues like the ethical implications of the use of animals such as elephants and killer whales in tourism performances or as hunting targets, the paradoxes associated with eating ‘game meat’ within the context of safari tourism, conflicts between various stakeholders in bird-watching tourism, the potential of the creepy crawlies, insects and spiders as tourist attractions and the ramifications of travelling with a pet dog, among others. Case studies and examples are drawn from all over the world including Australia, Brazil, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Africa and the US.
Photo: Kevin Markwell
I think the book sheds light on a number of important issues. There is a tendency in tourism to think of animals as ‘products’ or ‘commodities’ that are made available for our touristic pleasure and enjoyment. The interests of the animal are often regarded very much as secondary to the interests of the paying tourist. Often tourists are unaware of these issues and in doing so, maintain a market for performing elephants or photographic opportunities with gibbons and pythons. Yet, there are also examples where tourism can play a positive role in the conservation of species and we must not lose sight of this capacity of tourism to contribute to conservation and education.
Animals and Tourism aims to make a contribution to a better understanding of the intersections of animals and tourism, but as will be made clear in the book, there is still so much more to understand!
For further information about the book please see our website.
The new series aims to focus on key topics in the field of tourism studies and the books will provide an essential resource for tourism students and researchers.
The first book in the series is Tourism and Oil by Susanne Becken which was published in January. It is the first book to examine oil constraints and tourism and offers an analysis of the economic implications of increasing oil prices for tourism and discusses key dimensions relevant for tourism in a post peak oil world. Richard Butler describes it as “a measured and realistic appraisal of tourism in the future in relation to the availability or otherwise of oil.”
Following this, the next book in the series is Tourism and Water by Stefan Gössling, C. Michael Hall and Daniel Scott which was published earlier in April. This volume is a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between tourism and water. Michalis Hadjikakou from the University of New South Wales, Australia calls the book “a quintessential addition to the sustainable tourism literature.”
For more information about the series please see our website.
This year I got to escape the February weather in England with a trip to the Gold Coast! CAUTHE 2015 was hosted by Southern Cross University at their Beachside campus in Coolangatta. We were very happy to launch Betty Weiler and Rosemary Black’s book Tour Guiding Research at the conference. Many of our authors were in attendance and it was great to catch up with everyone as usual!
The Tour Guiding Research launch was one of many highlights, others including the welcome drinks at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where delegates got to be up close and personal with snakes and koalas!
The CAUTHE conference dinner never fails to disappoint, this year there was an excellent Nutbush City Limits routine by many of the delegates and a conga to round things off!
Coolangatta Beach
As you’d expect at the Gold Coast the beaches were beautiful and only a short walk from the conference hotels. Definitely useful to clear the head the morning after the gala dinner 🙂 Next year’s conference will be hosted by the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School in Sydney.
This book is a reflection of my thinking and travelling on an interesting journey of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in tourist attractions in China. As ICH became a hot topic in China and the world over the past 20 years, ICH tourism has developed in many parts of the world. Nevertheless it is important to note that many theoretical and practical issues have emerged alongside the development of ICH tourism, such as the dilemma of authenticity and commodification, as well as the empowerment and marginalisation of ICH practitioners etc. The more I am involved in the discussion of these complicated issues, the clearer it becomes that these issues cannot be addressed before I understand what ICH means to different people.
Channel View Publications and Multilingual Matters 