Dear Colleagues,

WITH APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING

As you may know, the annual meeting of the Royal Geographical Society
(with Institute of British Geographers) will take place in London in
2005 from 31st August to 2nd September.

As part of the annual conference, the Geography of Leisure and Tourism
Research Group (GLTRG) is proposing, inter alia, a session on Transport
and Tourist Destinations.

The call for papers for this session can be found below.  The deadline
for the receipt of abstracts is 31 Jan 2005.  I hope that this session
might prove of interest to some of you and look forward to receiving
your abstracts.

Dr Karen Thompson
Lecturer in Tourism
Scottish Hotel School
University of Strathclyde
94 Cathedral Street
GLASGOW G4 0LG

Tel. +44 141 5484801
Fax. +44 141 5522870

TRANSPORT AND TOURIST DESTINATIONS

The tourist destination consists of a range of products and services
which the tourist consumes normally at the point of production.  Among
these, transport is often conveniently overlooked, notwithstanding it
makes a highly significant contribution to the overall tourism product
both as a facilitator, providing access to and from the destination, and
as a provider of tourist mobility around the destination area.  The role
of transport in contributing to the destination product is the focus of
this paper stream.  Although currently under-researched, the role of
internal accessibility in destination quality is increasingly being
recognised.  While the delivery of a superior destination product is a
key pre-requisite for creating competitive advantage, the division of
responsibility for the planning and delivery of quality tourist
transport between various stakeholders at the destination remains
imprecise.  Moreover, the impacts of destination-level transport quality
and availability on the way in which visitors experience the destination
merit further investigation and discussion.  The convenors especially
wish to invite papers which address the role of internal accessibility
of transport destinations.  Key themes may also include:

.Destination transport management, politics and policy;
.Management of the environmental impacts of destination transport;
.Management of the car in destination areas, particularly fragile
sensitive  rural areas;
.The contribution of public transport to the tourist experience and
perceptions of the destination;
.The impact of transport supply on visitor mobility and behaviours;
.Assessment of best practice from domestic and international examples of

approaches to destination transport; and
.The utilisation of the transport vehicle as a tourist attraction.

For more details and to submit an abstract, please email:

Karen Thompson
Scottish Hotel School
University of Strathclyde
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