Earth surface processes and landforms may have coadjusted with plant morphology, biomechanics and life-history. We suggest that the colonization of land by plants at the early Silurian, and their propagation inside continents, represent critical phases of the coupling between geomorphic and biological processes on the Earth at a global scale. The consideration of this coupling involving geomorp...

Many traditionally agricultural dependent economies have transformed towards service industries, such as tourism. This transformation resulted in significant impacts upon economies, communities and the environment. However, existing indicators to measure the impacts of tourism on regions have not been examined across the transformation process, leaving a gap in the understanding of long-range p...

Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concerns that negative impacts might be brought about by prosperous tourism have resulted in a recent focus on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism involves policies that acknowledge the interdependences among the environment, the community, and the economy. The goal of sustainable tourism is to enhan...

The member countries of World Tourism Organization (WTO) at its 13th General Assembly in Santiago, Chile adopted the new Global Code of Ethics for Tourism on 1 October 1999. Acclaimed for its lofty goals and coverage, the Code soon became the reference point for debates on a wide spectrum of issues relating to tourism such as sustainable development, equity and protection of local cultures. The...

The present contribution aims to propose some research on business models in tourism, with a particular focus on accessible cultural tourism. This chapter takes up part of a previous monograph on the reconfiguration of Abell’s model that, in the final part, is applied to accessible cultural tourism. The main objective is to bring some of the reflections and results obtained during these years i...

This paper deals with e-tourism, innovation and growth. The Internet is revolutionising the distribution of tourism information and sales. The Korean small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) with well-developed and innovative Web sites can now have “equal Internet access” to international tourism markets. This paper examines problems and solutions related to electronic commerce in the...

Discussion Papers are a series of manuscripts in their draft form. They are not intended for circulation or distribution except as indicated by the author. For that reason Discussion Papers may not be reproduced or distributed without the written consent of the author. Abstract The significant impact of international tourism in stimulating economic growth is especially important from a policy p...

Marine reserve design often considers potential benefits to conservation and/or fisheries but typically ignores potential revenues generated through tourism. Since tourism can be the main source of economic benefits for many marine reserves worldwide, ignoring tourism objectives in the design process might lead to sub-optimal outcomes. To incorporate tourism benefits into marine reserve design,...

The global importance of tourism is steadily rising,creating new job opportunities in many countries. Today’s information management solutions for the complex tasks of tourism intermediaries are still at an early stage from a semantic point of view. This paper presents some preliminary results of OnTourism Project. OnTourism is aimed at (1) applying, concretizing and evaluating Semantic Web tec...