Defining Place Authenticity: My Heritage Can Beat Up Your History

This is a recording of a classroom presentation made by me in April 2008.  The entire podcast is 50+ minutes long.

The powerpoint slides can be found here:
http://www.slideshare.net/alew/slideshows

No news items for this week. For weekly travel news, please visit my weekly Travelography podcast.

Rather than news, I discuss an article from my Tourism Geographies journal on the topic of travel and geographical (actually mapping) knowledge.

The main topic then switches to issues of private and public goods, and the justification for government planning and regulation. The goal in this discussion is to define the role of government in planning for tourism in a community -- and the responsibility of the private sector in its reliance on public resources for tourism development. A bit theoretical, but I hope you enjoy it.

Cheers - Alan

Geography for Travelers blog (Length: 27min 0min)

Today's podcast focuses on the natural environment: how tourists relate to the natural environment, the impacts of tourism on the natural environment, and closing with a few words on ecotourism.

Ecotourism -- Personally, I prefer to pronounce ecotourism as 'ee-co-tourism' - with a long 'e', which I derive from the world "ecology." Some people (maybe the majority?) prefer to say 'e-co-tourism' - with a short 'e', as in 'elephant'. I assume they are basing this on the word 'ecosystem', which is sometimes (often?) pronounced with a short 'e'. Dictionary.com uses the long 'e' pronunciation, so perhaps I am in the majority.

If you have any thoughts on this feel free to leave a comment, or email me at travelgeographer@msn.com

Here are the links to items mentioned in today's podcast:

* Australia Garners Friendliest Nation in the World Award - Travel News Wire
<http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000063/006311.htm>
* Grand Canyon to Get Glass Bridge - National Geographic News
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0826_050826_grandcanyon.html>
* City OKs Subsidies for Downtown Hotel - Los Angeles Times
<http://www.knowledgeplex.org/news/118690.html>
* Cruise Ship Repels Somali Pirates - BBC News (also has a link to a video news clip)
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4409662.stm>
* The Amateur Traveler Podcast
<http://amateurtraveler.com/>

(Total Length: 30 minutes, 19 seconds.) Full show notes are at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com/2005/11/travel-tourism-and-environment.html.

This version fixes the sampling rate, providing a normal speed on .mp3 players.

This is Part 2 of an interview with my sister who was in Cozumel during Hurricane Wilma. In Part 2 we discuss how other visitors survived the hurricane, how the city recovered from the hurricane, and the trials of leaving Cozumel after the hurricane. (SHOW LENGTH: 19min 14sec) Show Note are at http://www.travelgeography.blogspot.com

This is part 1 of an interview with my sister who was on the island of Cozumel, Mexico when Hurricane Wilma passed over it. Part 1 discusses her experience in living through the worst of the hurricane. (TOTAL LENGTH 24min 30sec)- Show notes are at: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

Travel news and a discussion of how social scientists vies tourist attractions. Show notes: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

Travel and Tourism News & Comments, and an Intro to the Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa. See Show Notes at htt-://travelgeography.blogspot.com

My New Promo (45 seconds long)

Travel and Tourism News, Geography of the Middle East (defined as Central Asia, Southwest Asia, and North Africa). See full show notes at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

Please visit my show notes at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com/2005/10/tourist-travel-motivations.html

Tourist Motivation is the maint topic of this week's discussion, although I only spend the last 10 minutes on it. These news items were presented to show the importance of people's desire to travel (or perceived inability to not to). The travel public is a major source of income for destinations, and spawns entire sub-industries that employ large numbers of people. Understanding why people travel is important to a tourism destination's success...
* Firm Expects outbound Chinese tourists to top 115m [Travel News Wire]
* New era in Indian leisure crusing begins [Travel News Wire]
* TIA’s Overall Traveler Sentiment Index Remains Weak: Consumers Lack Time not Money for Travel [Travel Industry Association, 27 Sept 05]

Discussion of international travel arrivals statistics - which countries get the most visitors! There is some mic noise for about 10 minutes of this 25 minute podcast -- my apolgies. Please visit the full show notes at

http://travelgeography.blogspot.com/2005/09/travel-and-tourism-statistics.html

My Geography for Travelers Blog is at:

http://TravelGeography.info

This file was updated and reposted on 24 Sept 2006.

A general geography of New Orleans, intended to provide a context to be many news stories following Hurricane Katrina. Please visit the show notes at

The First Podcast in the Geography for Travelers blog. Please go to http://travelgeography.blogspot.com for program notes.