Nika Balomenou Thesis

USING VOLUNTEER-EMPLOYED PHOTOGRAPHY TO INFORM TOURISM PLANNING DECISIONS THE CASE STUDY OF ST DAVID’S PENINSULA IN PEMBROKESHIRE COAST NATIONAL PARK Nika Balomenou A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences University of Wales, Aberystwyth August 2010 i ii DECLARATIONS AND STATEMENTS 1. This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. 2. This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated and acknowledged. A bibliography is appended. 3. I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Nika Balomenou 31 August 2010 iii iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors Dr Brian Garrod and Dr Mike Christie for their excellent advice and constant support throughout. I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr Liz Hughes, Director of the International Centre for Protected Landscapes, both for her invaluable moral and supervisory support, and for co-funding this project. This thesis would not have been possible without the support of Charlie Falzon, to whom I owe my deepest gratitude. I am grateful to Dr David Causton for his help in the area of Canonical Variate Analysis and also to Dr Amanda Lloyd. Likewise, I would like to thank Dr Ioan Fazey, Dr John Warren and Dr Tony Hyde for their help with my statistical analysis. Grateful thanks go to Tina Blackmore, Richard Kipling, Liz Conrad, Dr. Joseph Dzanja, Dr Mohamed Younes and Dr Stephane Duval for sharing their PhD journey with me and Iwona Cichon for double-coding my photographs. Heartfelt thanks also go to Helen Lloyd, Mary Craig, Kati Wilson, Margaret Evans, Hilary Worgan, Garry Easton and Mair Morgan for all their help and advice in difficult times. I greatly appreciate and wish to thank Paul Drew for managing the financial aspects of this project: also the staff in Hugh Owen and Thomas Parry libraries. I am grateful to all those who made this work possible through their participation. I would like to extend special thanks to Nona Rees, Sarah Middleton, Mark Horner, Phil Lees, Diane Alwyn and all the staff at the Tourist Information Centre in St David’s as well as the lifeguards in Whitesands who kept my camera return-box in their hut. I extend my deepest gratitude to many colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire: especially Dr Denise Ball for her help and encouragement, Andrew Francis for his support and understanding and Joel Shahar for taking on a great amount of extra work to allow me time to write my thesis. I am deeply indebted to Dr Mary Quek, Alethea Bradley, Brandon Crimes and my students, who have been a constant source of moral support. I am also indebted to Sophie N’Jai for her helpful advice and patient ‘read- throughs’. A number of people provided support, material and moral, in more indirect-but no less valuable-ways. I would like to thank in particular: Panos Rentzelas, Panos Karagiorgos, Isabella Margara, Harry-Babis Margiolakiotis, Elli Amanatidou, Kostas Bechlos, v Iraklis Oikonomou, Bethan Miles, Dimitra Vasilopoulou, Vangelis Papakonstantinou, Dr Anne Arnold and my extended family; especially Vaso Bartsoka, Chrysa Bartsoka for making the VEP posters and Takis Balomenos for roaming around Pembrokeshire with me. Finally, I would like to thank my mother and my brother who have encouraged and supported me throughout all my educational endeavours and my husband for always being there for me, unconditionally. vi ABSTRACT Tourism planning is widely regarded as being highly political, especially as tourism is usually one of a number of land-use options. The community at the destination level is at the receiving end of pressures caused by tourism development. In most cases, there are several interested parties trying to exert an influence on the tourism planning process. However, it is argued that the winners are most often those with the power. In this light, it is considered necessary to develop tourism planning tools that promote participation. The medium of photography is arguably more sensitive to the multidimensional nature of place experiences than is written text or the spoken word. A number of researchers have used volunteer-employed photography (VEP) methods such as photovoice and autophotography, all of which asked real-life protagonists to express their thoughts and feelings through photographs. However, despite the large number of researchers who have suggested that VEP is a powerful technique, it still remains underused, undervalued and relatively under-researched. The case study examined in this thesis was carried out on St David’s Peninsula in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in Wales. The area was chosen because of its National Park status, which means that it attracts very high visitor numbers, planning regulations are stricter and conflict between the area user groups is evident. Two user groups, locals and tourists, were given cameras and photo diaries, and were asked to capture what they do and do not appreciate about the area. They were also invited to make planning suggestions regarding existing problems or suggest ways to avoid potential problems. This thesis examines the appropriateness of VEP in assisting tourism planning and demonstrates this by applying VEP to the case study area. The results of the case study demonstrate depth and richness in the dataset and present an experiential technique that can be of great value to the tourism planning process by involving host communities and visitors in the process. Valuable information for tourism planners was collected: natural and built resources were evaluated, strengths, weaknesses and problems and conflict of interests discussed in depth, with the additional advantage of visually representing participants’ views. It is thus argued that VEP is a powerful tool that can be a significant addition to the toolkit for participatory tourism planning at the local level.laalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalal vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 1 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................ 1 3.1.12 THE USE OF VISUALS IN RESEARCH ...................................................................................... 2 3.1.13 VOLUNTEER-EMPLOYED PHOTOGRAPHY (VEP) .................................................................... 3 1.2 RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................................... 5 1.3 THE STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ....................................................................................... 8 2 THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH WITH A FOCUS ON PARTICIPANT-GENERATED IMAGE RESEARCH IN TOURISM .................................................................................................................. 11 2.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 11 2.2 ISSUES ON IMAGE-BASED RESEARCH IN SOCIAL SCIENCES ...................................................... 11 2.3 PHOTO-ELICITATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES .................................................................... 14 2.4 PHOTOGRAPHY AND TOURISM ...................................................................................... 16 2.5 THE USE OF PARTICIPANT-GENERATED IMAGES (VEP) IN TOURISM RESEARCH............................ 19 3.1.14 USE OF VEP TO INVESTIGATE DESTINATION IMAGE .............................................................. 20 3.1.15 USE OF VEP FOR PLANNING/MANAGEMENT PURPOSES ........................................................ 20 3.1.16 USE OF VEP TO INVESTIGATE VISITORS’ EXPERIENCES........................................................... 21 3.1.17 USE OF VEP TO EXAMINE DIFFERENT USER GROUPS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE SAME ENVIRONMENT . 21 3.1.18 USE OF VEP TO UNDERSTAND “ATTACHMENT TO HIGH AMENITY PLACES” FROM A LOCAL COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE ............................................................................................................. 22 2.6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 23 3 VEP: A METHODOLOGICAL OVERVIEW ................................................. 25 3.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 25 3.2 METHOD ................................................................................................................. 26 3.1.19 PUBLICATIONS USED....................................................................................................... 26 3.1.20 PUBLICATIONS NOT USED ................................................................................................ 28 ix 3.3 RESULTS .................................................................................................................. 28 3.1.21 SCIENTIFIC FIELDS .......................................................................................................... 31 3.1.22 SAMPLE GROUPS ........................................................................................................... 36 3.1.23 SAMPLING TECHNIQUES .................................................................................................

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