This timely book explores how hiking, trekking and climbing mountains, increasingly popular leisure activities, can stimulate change and create opportunities for sustainable development. Using empirical evidence from interviews held in the Himalayas combined with a theoretical grounding, it focuses on the socio-economic and environmental issues of the impact of mountaineering adventure tourism on local communities. Chapters highlight the progressive stages of the host-guest interactions between local communities and tourists, moving from initial, indirect and final tourism development, and the unique sociocultural phenomena these create. The book examines how, with a planned and systematic approach, mountaineering can be a key factor in promoting an overall improvement in local people's quality of life through initiatives in economic development and environmental conservation. It offers a look towards the future to create sustainable tourism development in mountain regions. This is an invigorating read for adventure tourism and human geography scholars, particularly with the blend of theory and first-hand studies of local impacts of mountain tourism. It will also be an interesting read for industry representatives, policy makers and professionals in the field.

This book offers a critical account of the historical evolution of mountaineering and its relation to the phenomenon of tourism, providing an overview of recent developments linked to the diversification, commodification and commercialisation of mountaineering activity. Mountaineering, broadly defined as hiking, trekking and climbing, is now a mass phenomenon, with continually growing numbers of trekkers, climbers and religious tourists hiking in mountain regions. Increasing visitor numbers require the current policies to be updated. The environments around high-mountain areas and their local resident communities, until recently cut off from civilisation, are sensitive to outside influences and have been abruptly exposed to the impact of mountaineering and related activities. This is the first book to disentangle overlapping terms and definitions related to mountaineering tourism. It identifies the key terms and turning points in mountaineering tourism and discusses the impacts of mountaineering tourism from an environmental, socio-cultural and personal perspective and identifies current tourism management policies. Finally, this book provides a continuum between the past and future of mountaineering tourism and aims to provide policy suggestions for sustainable management of fragile mountain regions. This will be of great interest to upper-level students and academics of tourism, as well as industry representatives and policymakers with an interest in adventure tourism and mountaineering.

This book provides holistic insights into management of protected areas across East Asia and identifies current trends in mountain tourism within the broader field of human geography and nature conservation. The book describes the diversification in visitors and expanding protected areas territories in different Asian countries during recent years. It also compares protected areas networks in the context of the changing demographic profiles of visitors and provides an interdisciplinary transnational appraisal of mountain-based tourism in Asia based on national and international statistics. The research combines specific case studies at the individual country and destination level with trans-regional trends, thereby offering analysis from both the perspective of supply (parks, protected areas, and stakeholders) and demand (mountain tourist market trends and segments). The book is a useful resource for students and academics in tourism and protected areas studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers interested in Asian countries.

This book brings together interdisciplinary perspectives with the aim of broadening understandings of poverty. It contains both empirical and conceptual chapters, including those by local researchers, on a range of topics highlighting the relationship between poverty and sustainability. It cover themes such as: changes in the environment that pose an existential risk to humans; new concepts in tourism development that consider it as one of the key contributors in the prosperity and well-being of all stakeholders; natural, social and economic aspects of human behaviour and environmental sustainability; the impact of global warming on human well-being; immigration and integration policies and analyses of public discourse on migrants; and overconsumption and its impact on sustainable development. It will be a helpful resource for students and researchers of environmental management, tourism, global justice and sustainable development.

This book provides holistic insights into management of protected areas across East Asia and identifies current trends in mountain tourism within the broader field of human geography and nature conservation. The book describes the diversification in visitors and expanding protected areas territories in different Asian countries during recent years. It also compares protected areas networks in the context of the changing demographic profiles of visitors and provides an interdisciplinary transnational appraisal of mountain-based tourism in Asia based on national and international statistics. The research combines specific case studies at the individual country and destination level with trans-regional trends, thereby offering analysis from both the perspective of supply (parks, protected areas, and stakeholders) and demand (mountain tourist market trends and segments). The book is a useful resource for students and academics in tourism and protected areas studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers interested in Asian countries.

This book brings together interdisciplinary perspectives with the aim of broadening understandings of poverty. It contains both empirical and conceptual chapters, including those by local researchers, on a range of topics highlighting the relationship between poverty and sustainability. It cover themes such as: changes in the environment that pose an existential risk to humans; new concepts in tourism development that consider it as one of the key contributors in the prosperity and well-being of all stakeholders; natural, social and economic aspects of human behaviour and environmental sustainability; the impact of global warming on human well-being; immigration and integration policies and analyses of public discourse on migrants; and overconsumption and its impact on sustainable development. It will be a helpful resource for students and researchers of environmental management, tourism, global justice and sustainable development.