2017 Research Seminar

The School of Tourism and Hospitality Management

The University of The South Pacific

Research Seminar

No.10

Ethics of Chinese & Western Tourists in Hong Kong

Speaker: Denis Tolkach

Date: Tuesday 25th July, 2017

Time: 6.00 – 7.00pm

Venue: STHM Tutorial Room

Abstract

The potential for tension between tourists and residents due to tourist behaviour is rising. In such environment, understanding tourists’ ethical judgments of different scenarios is important. This study asks tourists and residents to ethically evaluate five different scenarios, using a multidimensional ethics scale and rate the likelihood they are to engage in these scenarios while at home and on vacation. An intercept survey of 1,827 questionnaires were collected from Hong Kong residents, Mainland Chinese and Western tourists. Teleological ethical theories may justify actions that are deemed ethically inappropriate by deontology or ethics of justice. Western tourists are more likely to engage in unethical behaviour on holidays than at home. For Mainland Chinese visitors, the opposite is true.

Biography

Dr. Denis Tolkach is an Assistant Professor in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Prior to moving to Hong Kong in 2013 he has undertaken teaching and research in Australia and Timor-Leste. He has received his PhD at Victoria University, Melbourne. Dr. Tolkach has been teaching a variety of subjects in the hospitality and tourism field including visitor management, contemporary issues in tourism and ethics & social responsibility. His other research interests include nature-based tourism, community-based tourism as well as politics and ethics of tourism.


The School of Tourism and Hospitality Management

The University of The South Pacific

Research Seminar

No.9

Fijian culture and the environment: A focus on the ecological and social interconnectedness of tourism development

Speaker: Apisalome Movono

Date: Wednesday 19th July, 2017

Time: 5.00 – 6.00pm

Venue: STHM Tutorial Room

Abstract

Understanding the complex and adaptive nature of Pacific Island communities is a growing yet relatively unexplored area in the context of tourism development. Taking an ethnographic research approach, this study examines how over 40 years of tourism development have led to complex and multi-scale changes within an indigenous Fijian village. The study establishes that tourism development has brought a range of ecological shifts that have, over time, spurred far-reaching changes within the embedded socio-cultural constructs of the community. The development of the Naviti Resort, a water catchment dam, a causeway, and a man-made island has created substantial changes in totemic associations, livelihood approaches, and traditional knowledge structures within Vatuolalai village. The emergence of internal adaptive cycles and new behaviors, practices, and values that redefine the cultural landscape will be discussed. This paper demonstrates the interconnectivity of nature, society, and culture within indigenous communal systems and asserts that ecological changes introduced in one part of a community stimulate complex, non-linear responses in other elements of the socio-ecological system of a Fijian village.

Biography

Apisalome is a final year PhD research student from the Department of International Business and Asian Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia and an assistant lecturer at the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, the University of the South Pacific.

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