Jewel Cave National Monument is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, not far from Mount Rushmore.  It is currently considered the second largest cave in the world (after Mammoth Cave in Kentucky), but only a small portion of it has actually been mapped, so it may be the largest cave system in the world. (Click Here for more information.)

I did the 1.5 hour tour of Jewel Cave last July and recorded the whole thing.  I have edited it down to about 11 minutes, which I hope will wet your appetite to visit the cave in person.  My visit was not a true spelunking experience, which they do offer, but which I don't think I could personally do.  Multi-day spelunking trips require that you crawl through 7 inch spaces and carry out all of your personal wastes!

Special thanks to the great Ranger guide who took us on our walk through Jewel Cave!

[OOPS! The original file I uploaded was saved at a rate of 24000Hz, instead of my usual 22050Hz.  This probably caused problems for most listeners.  sorry about that.  I have uploaded a new file that is correct.]

In today's podcast I interview Professor Claudia Jurowski of Northern Arizona University about her involvement with BEST Education Network and her research on different types of tourists to the Grand Canyon National Park, with some focus on the slippery topic of ecotourism and the ecotourist.  Claudia teaches in the NAU School of Hotel and Restaurant Management (not Hotel and Tourism Management, as I stated in the podcast intro -- oops!)

To see the Grand Canyon Visitor Study (upon which Prof. Jurowski based her research study), go to the Tourism Library page of NAU's Arizona Hospitality Research and Resource Center.  This site also contains many other tourism studies related to communities around the state of Arizona.

Length: 29min, 26 sec

There are two popular t-shirts that are sold at Ayers Rock/Uluru in the middle of the Outback of Australia.  One says "I climbed Ayers Rock" the other says "I Did Not Climb Uluru".  In today's podcast I talk about recent visit to Ayers Rock last summer, and about the issue of "to climb or not to climb."  As interesting as this issue is, most of the podcast is actually an even more interesting soundseeing tour of the Wala Walk along the base of Uluru. This is part of the podcast is only about a 22+ minute-long editing of the 1.5 hour long ranger-guided walk.

You can read more about my family's visit to Ayers Rock/Uluru National Park on either of these two travel blog sites:

MyLifeOfTravel

VCarious

Total Podcast Length: 33min 06sec

Another Presentation from the Graduate Workshop on Researching Tourism in Asia, sponsored by the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, and the Dept. of Tourism at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Today's presentation by Prof. C. Michael Hall of the University of Otago, New Zealand (cmhall@business.otago.ac.nz). The title is:

Studying the Political in Tourism: Ethics, Issues, Methods and Practicalities

Here is the original abstract from the workshop:

Issues of politics and policy are widely regarded as a significant factor in tourism. However, the number of studies that examine such issues remain small in relation to the supposed importance of tourism policy and politics. The presentation will arguethat this situation exists because of the very nature of what such studies entail, i.e. examining issues of power, and therefore this may create substantial stresses in terms of the relationship of the researcher to their subjects and the institutional environment within which they operate.  The presentation will discuss issues of method in examining tourism policy and politics and examine the practical dimensions of undertaking research that arise from different methods that are adopted and the aims and objectives of studies. Emphasis in placed on the importance of being aware of intended audiences for such research as well as the potential effects of such studies on research subjects, participants and other stakeholders, including the researcher. Key issues include the relative implications of prescriptive and descriptive approaches to policy analysis; describing power; and implications of scale of analysis. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of ethical considerations in conducting research on political issues in tourism and the importance of the development of policy arguments as a practical consequence of such research.
_______________________________________________________
Michael Hall is Professor and Head of the Department of Tourism, University of Otago, Dunedin and Docent, Department of Geography, University of Oulu, Finland. He is the co-editor of Current Issues in Tourism and has published widely on issues of tourism, regional development and environmental history including three books
on tourism policy and politics.

Released under a Creative Commons Copyright - noncommercial, attribution, share-alike.

This week's Geography for Travelers podcast starts a series of recordings that I will be doing that come out of a couple of meetings that I attended in Singapore last week.  The first was a graduate student workshop about doing research in Asia.  I was one of four keynote speakers at that workshop, and today's podcast is an edited recording of my talk.  The title was "Defining and Redefining Modenity in New Asia."  Not exactly tourism, but closely related.  The sound quality of the recording was not ideal, but I think I edited it to a level that can still be listened to.  Let me know if I am wrong.

The second meeting was a three-day conference on Asian tourism in Asia.  I hope to put presentations by other people from both meetings up over the next couple of months, along with some soundseeing audio.

Both meetings were sponsored by the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.

In this week's Geography for Travelers podcast I talk about my recent visit to Melbourne, Australia. We did a lot during outr three full days there, but the highlight for me was the Penguine Parade on Phillip Island, south of Melbourne.  There are a few soundseeing audio clips sprinkled in the podcast that I hope you will find of interest.  You can find photos and a travel diary of my Melbourne visit at both VCarious.com and MyLifeOfTravel.com.

This is a long one -- 41min, 40 sec. -- mostly due to the soundseeing clips

And what they say about doing soundseeing tours is right -- it sure takes a long time to edit those!!!

Visit the the full show notes page for the Geography for Travelers podcast at http://TravelGeography.info

Something really different this week.  Like last week, this one comes from my recent trip to Australia and the conference I attended in Brisbane.  David Timothy Duval (University of Otago, New Zealand) and I skipped out of a session of papers to sit down and talk about how we use technology in our tourism classes, and in everyday life.  I cut a few things out of our over and hour discussion, but I also inserted a few clarifications.  We cover a lot of territory, from podcasting to blogging to wikis to RSS aggregators to social bookmarking, and more. The result is my longest podcast yet, at 1 hr, 5 min, 44 sec.

I recorded this using my binaural microphones, with one mic set on one side of the coffee table and the other on the other side.  The result is mildly stereophonic, though the telephone ringing at the end is very directional -- it sounds like it is on the table across my office everytime I hear it!

Hopefully you will find it of interest, as David and I are planning to do this again, via Skype, and probably with a more narrowly defined focus.

Blogpage: http://travelgeography.info

Something new!  I recorded the paper I presented at the conference I just got back from in Brisbane, Australia.  This was at a meeting sponsored by the Tourism Commission of the International Geographical Union.  The title of my paper was: "Travel 2.0: The Emerging Virtual Travelscape."

Interestingly, when I asked how many people had heard of the concept of "Web 2.0," only two people in the 30 or so who were in attendance raised their hands.  As a regularly listeners of ITConversations.com, this was a shock to me.  This major (in my opinion) social trend is apparently not getting much play beyond the blog/podosphere!

Here are some links related to my talk:

- Web 2.0 Travel Tools (this is one my blogs)
- IGU Tourism Commission Website (I am the webmaster for this group)
- My Australia Trip travel blog (at MyLifeofTravel.com)

Planning theory is a subject that uban planning students love to hate.  However, most tourism planners have never even heard of it -- at least that is my impression from tourism planning textbooks.  I think planning theory has important lessons for tourism planning, and that is what this rather lengthy (27min 35 sec) podcast is all about.

http://travelgeography.info

This is another Tourism and Geography in the News episode, with a focus on two topics: Travel/Geographic Literacy and Physical Geography.  In the travel and geographic literacy news stories, both the American Automobile Association and the National Geographic Society held their geography contest these past couple of weeks, and  issued their geographic/travel literacy survey results, which once again showed how dismal  geographic knowledge is among Americans.

The physical geography news stories include volcanic activity at Mt Merapi in Indonesia and Mt St. Helens in the US, the May 27th earthquake in Indonesia, flood warnings to recreationists in California, and the world's largest artificial reef off the coast of Florida.

I close with a couple of not quite physical geography stories about futuristic proposals for New Orleans and an upcoming UFO Festival in New Mexico.

Show Notes at http://travelgeography.info
Show length: 22min, 41sec

Today is Mother's Day here in the US and I start with a story about the Best and Worst Countries in the world to be a mother today.  Not really tourism, but the list of worst countries turn out to be mostly in Africa, which is also where half of the countries are located that are on the current list of Travel Warnings on the US State Department's website.  Columbia is also on that list, but it is also on the Lonely Planet's list of Hot Destination for 2006.  I then talk about the recently released international arrival statistics for US States and Cities.  The last two items discuss agritourism at the last tea plantation in the US, and Dubai's plan to build the world's larges airport, along with a massive new city.  Finally, I discuss the geography implication of these varied news items.

Links to these stories are listed on the show notes page at http://travelgeography.info

Length: 23min, 29sec
Promo: TravelCommons podcast

Today's Geography for Travelers podcast is all about my first trip to Rocky Point (aka Puerto Penasco), Mexico.  I also talk about my open water SCUBA dive certification, which was what the trip was mostly about.

Length: 23min, 41sec
Shownotes: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com
Promo: Amateur Traveler podcast

Today's podcast starts off with some geography and tourism news items, including plans for a borderless East Africa, the Global Tourism Intervention Forum, 2005 hurricane names being retired, and the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake anniversay.  I then focus the discussion on a review of the newly published A Mis-Guide to Anywhere, which is a guidebook to experiemental tourism.  I finally talk about how experiemental tourism relates to academic tourism studies of how travelers "sense" the places that they visit.

Length: 20min, 55sec
Promo: The Wanderer (PCN)
Full show notes: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com/2006/04/sensing-places-through-experiemental.html

This week's podcast first discusses Newsweek's list of th Seven Most Endangered Wonders of the World (I spend more time on this than I did on the Travelography podcast).  Then I move into the focuson Tourism Policy Planning, which I conclude with a couple of examples from the Cherokee and Hopi Indian Reservations.

Show Length: 23min, 58sec
Full Show Notes at: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com
Promo: Home Based Travel Agent

Today's podcast discusses traditional rsource management approaches that are used the monitor and manage tourism and travel development and impacts, with a special focus on GIS.  Total length: 30min 19sec.  Full show notes are at http://travelgeography.info

This version fixes the sample rate so the speed is correct for most .mp3 players.

Spring Break brought me to the old mining town, and now upscale tourist and ski resort of Telluride, Colorado. With my less than trusty recorder in hand, I take you on an early morning walk through downtown Telluride, then up a chair lift to the Mountain Village resort area. I recorded some obervations while skiing down the 4.6 mile Galloping Goose run, and then some observations from my hotel room. Next week I will be back to my "normal" podcasts.

Full show notes at: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com
Length: 35min, 58sec)

The news items in this podcast are all about China, including the Great Wall and the "Great Green Wall", which is designed to stem the rapidly expanding Gobi Desert.

This is followed by a discussion of projected impacts of global warming on the major tourism regions of the world.

Full show notes at: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com
Length: 20min 54sec

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 focusses on the concept of Sustainable Development as it applies to the Travel and Tourism Industry. The News portion covers some Travel Quotes, Space Travel and the Mekong River Tourism Project. Detailed Show Notes can be found at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

Travel & Tourism Numbers and News

News items include a new Jetlag advisor website (link below) and a discussion of Turin/Torino, Italy where the Winter Olympic Games just opened last week. I then focus the on tourist arrival and expenditure numbers and impacts, first at the global scale and then at the local scale. [Show Length = 17min, 36sec]

Links to websited related to this week's podcast:

Scots scientist sheds light on problem of jet-lag misery
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=165952006

Winter Olympics boost Turin tourism
http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000075/007591.htm

Power of Travel - Travel and Tourism Information
http://www.tia.org/marketing/tourism_information.html

Did You Know? Fun Facts (TIA)
http://www.tia.org/marketing/toolkit_tourism_facts.html

Tourism Talking Points: Economic Impact of Travel & Tourism
http://www.tia.org/uploads/powertravel/pdf/talkingpoints.pdf

Office of Travel & Tourism Industries' Information on Inbound Travel to the U.S.
http://www.tinet.ita.doc.gov/outreachpages/index.html

WTO Tourism Highlights, Edition 2005
http://www.world-tourism.org/facts/menu.html

 

 

Tourism has played more of a role in the historical development of 'sustainable development' than you probably thought. Also discussed are Breakback Mountain movie tourism to Wyoming and Bali's slow tourism recovery from terrorist attacks. Shownotes at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com <18min 40sec long>

I discuss several travel news items, including 2006 being the Year of Study Abroad in the US, and efforts to stop Sex Tourism. Then I discuss issues realted to Sutainable Tourism Development in developing economies, with a focus on modernization. Show notes are at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com.

News items include the impacts of terrorism on UK residents' travel plans, drought in East Africa, and Bigfoot in Malaysia. Most of the 16min 30secs, however, are devoted to an introduction to Sustainable Tourism Planning. Show notes are at: http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

In this podcast I discuss atlases for travel, the top travel and tourism news and trends for 2005, and tourism and terrorism in 2005. Total length = 19min, 55sec. Show notes at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

This week's podcast discusses America's Playground", the Island of Maui in Hawaii, as well as some comments on owning a timeshare unit, and some sound scene clips from Hawaii. (Total Length: 33 minutes) Show notes can be found at http://www.travelgeography.blogspot.com

In this podcast I discuss the recent issues related to Chinese tourism to Malaysia. (Total length: 36 min). Show notes at http://travelgeography.blogspot.com

A short, 12 minute, look at Shah Alam -- the capitol of the state of Selangor in Malaysia. Includes of soundscene of the playground and Blue Mosque on the town lake.