This book explores river tourism from a range of perspectives including river uses, heritage, management, environmental concerns, and marketing. The book has 15 chapters and an index. The intended readership includes researchers and students of leisure and tourism.

This is an open access book. The 4th International Conference on Tourism, Gastronomy, and Tourist Destination (TGDIC 2023) has the theme “Rethinking Sustainable Tourism and Gastronomy in Global Context.” Unlike the previous conferences which were held in Jakarta, Indonesia, this year the conference was held offline in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 16th – 18th October 2023. TGDIC 2023 serves as a forum for knowledge and experience sharing and invites tourism scholars, practitioners, decision-makers, and stakeholders from various regions to share their knowledge, experience, concepts, examples of good practice, and critical analysis with their international peers. In addition to the organizing committee and keynote speakers, the conference was attended by international presenters and participants from Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Switzerland, Thailand, India, and Taiwan.

Dr Pechlaner and Dr Innerhofer, the editors of Competence-Based Innovation in Hospitality and Tourism, argue that the industry operates within highly challenging and competitive environments. Changing environmental and market conditions continually force hotel businesses and service providers to offer their customers new and modified products and services, in order to remain competitive; those which respect value perceptions of markets and sustainable stakeholder reactions. This then raises the question of how innovations within this industry must be developed in order to achieve competitive differentiation. The book demonstrates that the development and analysis of successful innovation strategies should integrate the resource-based view and its advancements, the competence-based view, as well as the dynamic capabilities approach and the relational view. Resource-based strategic management approaches view the firm as a bundle of resources and competences. They point to the importance of firm-specific resources and competences in explaining variations in competitive positions and performance differentiation between companies. The challenge of hospitality and tourism is to develop resources and competences that drive innovations. This book will serve to advance the status quo of tourism research literature by combining innovation theories with network theories and tourism and destination development, by illustrating the development of cooperative competences and innovations in tourism and by showing, in a tailored way, how the challenge of the development of resources and competences that drive innovations in tourism can be managed.

The contributions contained in this volume deal with two perspectives of ‘tourism and environment'; the 'role of the environment in tourism' and ‘environmental tourism'. The same message would be expected in both cases. The environment comprises the set of biophysical and cultural events surrounding us and influences the activities developed depending on time and site. Among the environmental characteristics of a region, climate is usually the most relevant and conditions almost all other components. Climate defines much of the natural, as well as the urban cultural landscape and the countryside of an area. Seasonal environmental change affects the life and culture of each place and largely explains the choice of destination of travellers. Environment and landscape therefore give rise to an interesting and varying relationship over the year. Thus, coastal landscapes are not inherently more beautiful in summer than in other seasons but environmental conditions cause a greater demand in this season. Certain places in the world captivate visitors who flock to them in large numbers. Local people recognize the benefit of this, employers become interested in the economic aspects and so the tourism infrastructure develops. The appeal of ‘good climate' has led to a change from a rural subsistence culture to a lucrative services economy in some areas. Unfortunately however in many cases short-sightedness and corruption can lead to the ruin of the natural landscape. Situations like this are now common throughout the world due to the environmental mismanagement of tourism. Local populations within emerging tourism-based economies should learn this lesson. The papers included in this volume address important issues related to tourism and the environment and offer a better understanding of some of the current challenges.

Tourism has become a major international industry, with many countries all over the world relying on the income it produces. Because it is a major source of finances and employment, government and other institutions activitely promote tourism, regardless of the impact on the environment, ecology and social structure of the region. The demands of tourism can contribute to the destruction of the natural and cultural environment upon which it depends. The natural and cultural landscape's capacity to accommodate the local and worldwide effects of tourism, the typology thereof and its implications for the economy and society constitute very important study objectives. The development of tourism can result in the degradation of natural landscapes that paradoxically attract tourists to such areas. Featured topics include: Tourism Strategies; Tourism as a Tool of Development; Tourism Impact; Tourism and Protected Areas; Rural Tourism; Community Involvement; IT and Tourism; Climate Change and Tourism; Environmental Issues; Art, Architecture and Culture; Modelling; Emergent Strategies for Tourism Development; Landscape and Tourism; Tourism and Urban Planning.

Rivers and their watersheds constitute some of the most dynamic and complex landscapes. Rivers have sustained human communities, and human societies have utilized and altered river flows in a number of ways for millennia. However, the level of human impact on rivers, and on watershed environments, has become acute during the last hundred years or so. This book brings together empirical research and theoretical perspectives on the changing conditions of a range of river basin environments in the contemporary world, including the history and culture of local societies living in these river basins. It provides theoretical insights on the patterns and nature of the interaction between rivers and their use by human communities. The chapters are written from a variety of positions, including environmental science, hydrology, human ecology, urban studies, water management, historical geography, cultural anthropology and tourism studies. The case studies span different geographical regions, providing valuable insight on the multifaceted interactions between rivers and our societies, and on the changing riverscapes in different parts of the world. Specific detailed examples are included from Australia, Brazil, France, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, UK and USA. Chapter 11 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book addresses the various factors affecting fluvial systems, the processes governing them, system responses arising from human-nature interventions, and geospatial and geo-ecological modeling to understand system behaviour better and restore degraded ecosystems around the globe. Thanks to their hydrological and agro-ecological advantages, humans have settled along riverbanks since the dawn of civilization. Thus, the ancient "ecumene" (settlements) were located near major rivers worldwide. This legacy of river-based civilizations continues to this day in many forms. However, in the course of the 'Anthropocene' era, countless fluvial systems have been altered by human interventions in the form of large-scale dams and barrages, changes in land use and land cover, road-stream crossings, mining of sand and gravel, mushrooming of brickfield, expansion of modern agriculture, industrial growth, and urbanization. Thus, the present-day development pattern threatens fluvial systems, especially riverine morphology and ecosystems. In brief, human-induced morphological changes, water pollution, eutrophication, and related damages to aquatic organisms are the major threats to fluvial systems. Thus, maintaining the 'environmental flow' of the world's major rivers to preserve the proper functioning of riverine ecosystems and promote sustainable development is a global challenge.

Tourism Risk: Crisis and Recovery Management provides a comprehensive collection of new insights for traditional paradigms, as well as exploring more recent developments in research methodology in the context of crisis management in tourism.

This book provides the reader with guidelines and approaches in the development of tourism that respond to community desires and needs. Planning techniques applicable to both developed and underdeveloped countries address tourist attractions, urban tourism, large resorts, and limited special interest tourism.

This textbook provides a comprehensive learning resource material for tourism transportation. Exploring the interrelationship between transport and tourism, it demonstrates how different types of transportation systems interact and are combined within the tourism destination framework. It addresses topics such as the geographical aspects of tourism transportation, technological advances in transportation, public transportation in tourism, drive tourism, recreational transportation, and various forms of tourism, including car, rail, coach, water, cycling, and space tourism. Readers will also learn about sustainability aspects, consumer behavior, and tourist behavior modelling. The book offers a valuable asset for graduate as well as master degree students in regional and spatial science, transportation engineering, and tourism and transportation economics, as well as for professionals in the travel, tourism, transport, and hospitality industries who are interested in the link between tourism and transportation, its benefits and impacts. Tourist destinations can strategically use this learning resource to gain a better understanding of the leisure and recreational aspects of the transportation system and consequently boost their appeal to tourists.