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This is characteristic of the general lack of futures content in the book, and the authors' seeming lack of aversion towards projecting into the future. The first chapters are an introduction to the drivers of change, and the following chapters provide an in-depth analysis of certain sectors such as hospitality, visitor attractions and film tourism. The latter chapters cover several issue-based concepts such as the demise of tourism and examine futures methods or building scenarios. [Extracted from the article]

The relationship between theory and practice has been an area of investigation since Aristotle. In the young domain of futures, methods dominate the literature and practice is over-represented. Nonetheless, futures theories and frameworks with an epistemological base do exist. This special edition of World Futures Review invited practitioners and academics to explore ways in which futurists could build a stronger bridge between theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Futures studies explore potential consequences of present day actions, and help in formulating desirable visions of the future, to guide action in the present. Although these aims have remained roughly the same, the practices and implicit theories supporting them have varied through time. This article looks at the evolution of futures through the framework of the long-wave theory, discussing the results of thematic interviews of futures professionals in three geographic areas: Finland, South Korea, and California. The long-wave theory sees societies changing in forty to sixty year cycles driven by technological development, around which social practices evolve. There have been five socio-technical waves since 1780s. Each wave brought about a set of policies and social models, and a shared mind-set. In the fourth wave, futures was mostly practiced with the spirit of the postwar economic expansion, techno-optimism, and linear worldview, with futures methods that reflected trust in scientific authority, and aimed at forecasting the most probable outcomes for the future. The fifth wave was defined by uncertainty, which was managed by using strategy tools like scenarios that prepared for various different short- and mid-term outcomes. For the sixth wave, futures practitioners are divided between the expertled quasi-predictive model that dominates especially in the technology forecasting work, and the systemic perspective, which questions the centrally organized process-view to futures. New methods, often developed outside the field, have in many ways inspired and shaped the intellectual space in which the evolution of both practices and theory may occur in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a theoretical foundation toward establishing a futures science requires reconstructing original roots, whereby this field is conceptualized at higher generality levels. This article aims to provide a unifying framework for expressing any of the futures (from possible to plausible, plausible to undecidable) plus the mechanisms for manipulating these futures, with a view to promoting genuine futures thinking. Despite more than sixty years of studies about "the future," the logical status of future-based conceptualizations still remains, at best, unclear. This article proposes to fill the continuity gap through designing a generative mechanism for expanding futures concepts based on formal theory. We use the well-developed Concept-Knowledge theory from Mines ParisTech, founded on set theory without the axiom of choice. The space K represents known/knowable things (present and past facts, available knowledge, what is known-to-be-known/to-be-not-known). The space C of concepts represents what is undecidable, neither provable nor unprovable at a given time. The C-K operating mechanism logically expands C concepts relatively to K, until they result in a conjunction with K—that is, become possible—possibly requiring extra development work. The article illustrates the approach on a series of field cases, whereby the path to futures robustness starts upstream at undecidable stages, as if to open up vast conceptual reservoirs of "futurabilities"—a foundational step transcending traditional futures studies. Futuring becomes a constructive and generative process, potentially leading to accepting infinities of futures formulations, where generativity is monitored as a design-oriented logic working on knowledge. Such an approach should improve the foresight practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reflective paper considers how Dr. Ian Yeoman teaches futures studies and scenario planning to tourism students across several undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. It is based on his teaching philosophy of visualization, authenticity, problem-based learning, scaffolding, and his understanding of how students negotiate their own learning. The paper examines the approach taken in three papers, where Yeoman is the primary lecturer. As part of the bachelor of tourism management degree, two papers are taught. TOUR104 is a first-year introductory paper addressing how the drivers and trends in the macro-environment influence tourism from a political, economic, social, technology, and environmental perspective. TOUR301 is a third-year paper that aims to help students develop the skills and knowledge necessary to understand and critically analyze tourism public policy, planning, and processes primarily within New Zealand. TOUR413 is a scenario planning paper, applied in a tourism context and taught to students in postgraduate programs. The contribution this paper makes is in its demonstration of the link between teaching philosophy and student learning, the challenges students encounter with futures thinking in a problem-based learning environment and the evolution of the papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asia Pacific region is the focus for the future of world tourism and thus the future catalyst for tourism research as the process of internationalization shapes academic knowledge and creation. This special issue of the Journal of Travel Research came about due to the formation of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) Asia Pacific Chapter, in which the guest editors pondered on the present state of tourism futures writing in the region. This Special Issue uses an ontological classification to view how researchers see the future of tourism. The classification is based on two dimensions: truth claim (or not) and explanatory claim (or not). Thus, four entities are formed: prediction, prognosis, science fiction, and utopia/dystopia. Seventy percent of articles published are based upon an entity of prognosis or prediction in which authors claim truthfulness, whereas a minority of the articles are classified as science fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including event management education, authentic learning, and tourism management higher education.

Authentic learning is well documented in the education literature, whether drawing upon the dimensions of social capital in which student learning is enhanced through partnerships and group learning or the teacher acting as facilitator. What does this all mean in practice? This reflective article observes a number of practical learning points that embrace the principles of authentic learning as described by the author when making a series of changes to a tourism postgraduate course. This article highlights the role of formalizing incremental learning as a feedback mechanism for nonclassroom learning, which includes the importance of variety in assignments to stimulate creative and critical skills. This article creates a sense of authentic learning through action research, which encompasses a student's construction and negotiation of knowledge, shows how the role of the teacher is that of a facilitator rather than a formal teacher, and finally, presents the difficulties students encounter engaging with this learning approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VisitScotland, the national tourism agency for Scotland, used a scenario-planning process to untangle the complexity of the forthcoming war in Iraq. The scenarios explored the impact of such a war on tourism against a backdrop of an economic environment of failing equity markets and GDP. In 2003, Scotland was on the verge of a recession, and VisitScotland wanted to know how war would affect this economic environment and, simultaneously, how this would affect different tourism markets. VisitScotland constructed four scenarios: how the West was won, global Northern Ireland, new dawn, and into the valley of death. The scenarios helped the organization develop policies and actions to deal with contingencies in each scenario. More importantly, the article shows how VisitScotland managed the process, what it did, and policy implications for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes that creativity and criticality not only can but should be entangled and elevated in participatory futuring engagements. Selected concepts from creativity theory and critical futures studies are applied to develop a set of futuring games through action research. We claim that participatory processes designed to entangle and elevate creativity and criticality produce more novel and varied ideas that better fit the purposes of futures studies. This article offers four arguments for combining creativity and criticality in participatory futuring engagements. First, due to complexity and uncertainty, the future is ultimately unknowable and requires tools to probe the unknown. Second, novelty is difficult to achieve in practice while creativity and criticality can help overcome these challenges. Third, discontinuities are the main sources of futures that are most radically different from the present and will have the biggest impact. Fourth, creativity and criticality support the rigorous imagining required for exploring and discovering new possible futures. This article analyzes three experimentations in entangling and elevating creativity and criticality in game-based futuring, stemming from Causal Layered Analysis. Based on these examples, we demonstrate that creativity and criticality, when combined, help people break through the limitations of current understanding, reveal approaching tipping points, and find the "unvisited cavities" through rhizomatic knowledge creation. However, there remain challenges in evaluating how well various participatory designs support creativity and criticality in practice. Context-sensitive evaluation tools and open sharing of outcomes are needed to develop participation design principles capable of supporting creativity and criticality in participatory futuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In industry exhibitions, the subsequent attendance of key companies within the industry reflects the brand influences of the exhibition. This article explored how to achieve exhibitor retention at an industrial exhibition, AgroChemEx. A qualitative research design using a case study approach was adopted, and 19 in-depth interviews were undertaken. The analyses identified that new exhibitors and repeat exhibitors had different emphases on attendance objectives. The most common motivators for exhibitors were networking, marketing and information exchange, whereas booth location was the main reason for exhibitor defection. Recommendations for practices which could facilitate exhibitors continued involvement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective crisis management requires information about the ways in which tourists of different nationalities respond to different types of crisis. This paper provides a model which can be used to quantify such effects. The model is applied to the case of American, French and German tourism demand in Scotland. The results show that French tourists were particularly affected by the foot and mouth disease crisis. Germans were most severely affected by the September 11 events. Although arrivals from the USA decreased after both crises, receipts were hardly affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenario thinking is one of the key elements of futures studies, and therefore, "Scenario Thinking" is one of the first compulsory courses in the Master's Degree Programme in Futures Studies at the University of Turku. Scenario methods are continuously evolving, and our educational practices must reflect recent developments while giving a clear outline of the big picture. Furthermore, increasing interest is being taken in hybrid methods, and such hybridity can also be introduced to teaching scenario thinking. This article discusses an experiment of using causal layered analysis (CLA) to complement and deepen scenarios made by student groups for a Finnish company during an introductory course on scenario thinking. During a first-year master's degree course, a two-hour CLA session was conducted, and student groups were instructed to include the results into their scenario reports. From a methodological point of view, we discuss using CLA as a disruption in the middle of the scenario process to increase reflexivity. From a pedagogical point of view, we discuss how a relatively complex method combination (CLA and scenarios) can be made accessible to first-year master's students conducting their first scenario study. As material, we use our own firsthand experiences from the scenario course and the CLA session as well as a subsequent survey with students. The intention of the paper is to quickly distribute educational practices for assessment by the futures education community and, thus, contribute to improving the state of futures studies and foresight education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]