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Refereed/Peer-reviewed Academics have long regarded air travel as vital to pursuing a successful career. Meanwhile, many academics are at the frontline of climate change science and advocate the urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The conflict between combating global warming and high aeromobility practices traps academics in a loop of hypocrisy. However, COVID-19 presents an opportunity for academics to advance their research and careers with reduced aeromobility. This research investigates how academics have adapted to virtual working experiences during COVID-19 and the implications for establishing changes in aeromobility practices. Informed by the theory of practice change, this paper reports the findings of a comprehensive survey and interview programme in New Zealand. It provides insights into the prospects for reduced aeromobility and the institutional policy frameworks required to embed a new normal, considering the unique circumstances faced by academics working at geographically remote institutions. The findings reveal that instead of being trapped in a loop of hypocrisy, New Zealand academics face a moral quandary in being concerned about climate change and wishing to reduce aeromobility practices, while wanting to avoid compromising career success. Recommendations for academics to face this moral quandary and their institutions to support practice change are proposed.

The Rich Kids of Instagram (RKOI) portray luxury lifestyles on social media. The potential roles of travel and transport within these online displays of affluence have not yet been examined. This paper’s purpose is to analyse how transport modes and luxury travel are depicted and interrelated through RKOI images. Co-occurrence analyses were conducted using a data set of Instagram posts with RKOI as a hashtag (2012–2018) to visualize the roles of transport modes and luxury travel in RKOI image construction. The findings demonstrate that both energy-intensive transport modes and luxury travel, whether through air/watercraft or luxury cars, play a vital role in signaling RKOI’s self-image on Instagram, with gendered differences. The article contributes an original conceptual model of how RKOI construct their image using transport modes and luxury travel. Implications for the social normalization of carbon-intensive transport choices, coupled with luxury destinations as a backdrop, are discussed.

Aviation remains a problematic sector of the global economy in times of climate emergency. Grounded in the ideology of reconfiguration, we adopt a system transitions perspective to address high emissions leisure travel. Our focus falls on the marketing communications of airlines as a critical component in the prevailing sociotechnical regime. Thematic analysis of the e-mail marketing communications of selected airlines revealed three prominent tropes: adventure and discovery; privilege; and urgency. These communications bring air travel into the everyday lives of consumers and accelerate the turnover time of tourist consumption. Time is mobilized to create a sense of resource scarcity and urgency to consume, paradoxically in a situation characterized by oversupply. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a unique opportunity for structural reform of the airline industry. Component substitution to address airline marketing is required as an important step toward overcoming consumer moral disengagement and reconfiguring the airline industry.

The paralysis of global tourism caused by COVID-19 made it possible to conduct a unique and nearly real-time online survey to investigate adaptations and reactions to sudden severe leisure travel r...

In times of upheaval and uncertainty justice has come to the fore as a key principle to guide tourism development and policy. Justice is being sought by individuals, groups and societies, as vulner...

Theoretical integration has been called for in sport tourism research in order to capture the synergies of existing contributions. In response, this article proposes a conceptual framework of suppl...

Biennials, regional hubs and virtual attendance can slash emissions, new calculations show. Biennials, regional hubs and virtual attendance can slash emissions, new calculations show.

To stay within the safe boundaries of global warming, the world now has 30 years to decarbonize its economy. This represents a very significant challenge for tourism as a growth system. Much attention has been paid to different tourism subsectors such as aviation, accommodation, and activities to reduce emissions, mostly on the basis of (future) technology. However, the Paris Agreement demands immediate action and significant year-on-year progress on a zero-carbon trajectory. This article discusses destination management under the new low-carbon imperative. It analyses challenges, including economic viability and resilience, that have also gained importance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and explores opportunities for better profitability on the basis of a leakage/spending value dichotomy proposition. The final section highlights the foremost role that destination managers must play in building prosperous and resilient low-carbon tourism destination systems and discusses the key insights for destination managers.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the past 75 years of sports tourism and explore the potential of the next 75 years. Design/methodology/approach This is a personal perspective paper that reflects upon the emergence and development of the field of sport tourism, contemporary challenges and future pathways. Findings Research must extend to wider manifestations of sport, and sport-related tourism, in response to the growth of participation and pleasure sports and the increasingly important roles of those sports in addressing the growing social and environmental challenges of contemporary life. Originality/value This paper offers insights into the future of sports tourism.

Refereed/Peer-reviewed The high carbon emissions arising from academic air travel has become a priority issue for university sustainability programmes. However, efforts to mitigate academic air travel emissions requires the commitment and attention of a range of actors. It is essential to comprehensively identify and understand the factors affecting academics’ established aeromobility as a critical step towards system-wide practice change. This research explores this issue by proposing a practice-based academic flying framework and empirically applying the framework. This research found that cognitive norms are the key to affecting academic air travel decisions. The change of cognitive norms depends on collective action of all stakeholders. The empirical application allows the framework to align with university practices and provide stakeholders with a sufficient understanding of factors affecting academic air travel practices. We conclude with a call for all stakeholders to collaboratively create an environment that supports academics through a period of post-COVID practice transition.

As primary producers of knowledge, academics are required to create and disseminate research. The advent of internationalisation has given great emphasis to the importance of travel as it pertains to the success of an academic career and the international standing of an institution. However, academics who are highly aeromobile—particularly researchers working in the field of climate change—are now facing allegations of hypocrisy that in some cases may compromise the efficacy of their (climate) research. The novelty of this chapter arises from the application of the cultures framework to the study of academic air travel. It highlights three key elements—cognitive norms, practices and material culture. In this chapter, the cultures framework is adopted to provide a structure within which to consider individual and institutional pathways to achieve a reduction in academic flying. By exploring the interplay of cognitive norms, practices, material culture, support and barriers, the gap between academic theory and institutional realities and practices can be systematically explored and fully elaborated. Furthermore, in doing so, academics may be encouraged to engage in critical self-reflection of the cognitive dissonance between personal intentions to reduce air miles and behaviours to the contrary.

Academics are part of a small minority that are responsible for disproportionate air travel emissions. Responding to high aviation emissions requires that the complexities of academic air travel practices are understood in specific geographical and institutional contexts. This chapter addresses the work-sociology of academic aeromobility in the context of the global periphery. We report on a programme of interviews conducted prior to COVID-19 with academics at the University of Otago (Aotearoa/New Zealand), where the aeromobility practices of academics are uniquely shaped by extreme geographical distance. Our empirical contribution is presented in the four themes that emerged from our analysis: complex drivers; selective substitution; ‘Don’t weaken me!’ and assorted scalar accountabilities. We then discuss aspects of resistance to change but also avenues of opportunity to reimagine academic air travel practices, which have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We specifically address the emergence of a post-COVID ‘new normal’ and conclude with the urgent need for collective action that is coordinated among individual academics, institutions, disciplinary associations and conference organisers. Entrenching the ‘new normal’ will be critical to resolving the unsustainable aeromobilities of academics and institutions that are globally distant.

Academia is generally carbon intensive. Many academics are highly aeromobile to an extent that is now being framed as a form of ‘climate hypocrisy’. Technological advances are not enough to...

Whale watching around the world has experienced explosive growth, driven largely by environmental marketing that presents it as a green alternative to whaling, leading to widespread questions of su...

This study focuses on the role of science communication for sustainable whale watching management. It uses a pragmatic mixed-method approach to present a critical analysis of the potential role of ...

Forecast growth in global demand for air travel is incompatible with emissions reduction targets. Scholarly attention is urgently needed to address attitude and behaviour change that supports sector-wide emissions reduction. Informed by the longstanding field of consumer psychology, the innovative approach adopted in this paper is to critically address air travel behaviour change through the application of attitude function theory. An analysis of the literature reveals that current attitudes reflect industry myths, and are further hampered by travellers' knowledge gaps regarding the relationship between aviation and climate change. Five attitude functions are analysed in the context of attitudes to air travel; knowledge, utilitarian, value-expressive, ego-defensive and social adjustive functions. A conceptual framework is presented that integrates attitude structure, attitude function and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion as an innovative approach to address discretionary air travel and behaviour change at the level of the individual consumer. Utilizing this framework, future research can help develop a critical understanding of the antecedents that shape attitudes. Researchers will be better positioned to create persuasive messages aimed at changing attitudes towards air travel, as arguably the key step towards the illusive goal of significant behaviour change and a shift towards more sustainable tourist mobilities.

Three small conductance calcium-activated potassium channel (SK) subunits have been cloned and found to preferentially form heteromeric channels when expressed in a heterologous expression system. The original cloning of the gene encoding the intermediate conductance calcium-activated potassium channel (IKCa) was termed SK4 because of the high homology between channel subtypes. Recent immunovisualization suggests that IKCa is expressed in the same subcellular compartments of some neurons as SK channel subunits. Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy super-resolution microscopy revealed that coexpressed IKCa and SK1 channel subunits were closely associated, a finding substantiated by measurement of fluorescence resonance energy transfer between coexpressed fluorophore-tagged subunits. Expression of homomeric SK1 channels produced current that displayed typical sensitivity to SK channel inhibitors, while expressed IKCa channel current was inhibited by known IKCa channel blockers. Expression of both SK1 and IKCa subunits gave a current that displayed no sensitivity to SK channel inhibitors and a decreased sensitivity to IKCa current inhibitors. Single channel recording indicated that coexpression of SK1 and IKCa subunits produced channels with properties intermediate between those observed for homomeric channels. These data indicate that SK1 and IKCa channel subunits preferentially combine to form heteromeric channels that display pharmacological and biophysical properties distinct from those seen with homomeric channels.

Comprehensive measures for reducing transport emissions were absent from the 2015 Paris Agreement yet without radical transformations in mobility systems and travel behaviour, transport emissions will continue to grow rapidly. This study investigated perceptions of travel in the year 2050 to see whether expectations of future travel align with lower carbon mobility systems. Data were collected through an international, online survey in 2016, targeting young adults with high levels of climate change concern. Thematic content analysis of responses (N = 401) revealed that 48% (n = 192) of participants described travel in 2050 as using low carbon mobility systems. This transition was predominantly attributed to improved technology (26%), rather than a shift in transportation mode (17%) or trip avoidance (12%). Expectations of future travel that could perpetuate high carbon mobility systems were mentioned by 53% (n = 212) of participants while only 23% (n = 94) mentioned factors that could reinforce low carbon mobility systems. These results show that even amongst people with high levels of concern about climate change, anticipated travel patterns have the potential to lock in high carbon transport and undermine progress. To achieve low carbon mobility transitions, strong international commitment must be supported by coordinated efforts of both governments and individuals.

Theoretically framed by the concepts of networks, co-presence and proximity, we explore the interplay of corporeal and virtual academic mobilities in the context of ‘remote institutions’ to advance the work-sociology of aeromobility at a time of climate crisis. Empirical insights are drawn from 31 in-depth interviews conducted with academic staff at the University of Otago (New Zealand), to explore the complex personal and professional decisions that underpin academic mobility practices, and shed light on why levels of academic aeromobility have not diminished with the growing capacity for virtual substitution. Our findings inform discussion of the concepts of ‘necessary’ travel, and virtual travel as a substitute for non-participation. We conclude with reflections on the scope for social (practice) and institutional (policy) reform, and avenues of future research.

Significant hallmarks of aging are immune function decline and rising cumulative inflammation. These immunosenescent signatures are also found in individuals who experience chronic social adversity, independently of age. However, no studies to date have examined how social adversity alters immune function across the lifespan –data that are essential to identify the molecular routes through which social adversity might lead to increased aging-related disease. Over a two-year period, we investigated how age and social adversity (quantified by low social status) affected immunity. We measured immune cell proportions at baseline and their gene regulation after in vitro stimulation with pathogen molecules that stimulated both Th1 and Th2 immune responses in a population of free-ranging rhesus macaques. We first performed flow cytometry on peripheral whole blood to quantify changes on immune cell proportions across the lifespan (n=235) and in animals of different social statuses (n=141). We found significant decreases in CD20+ B cells and CD3+/CD4+ T cell proportions with age, suggesting diminished antibody production and adaptive immune responses in older individuals. Age-associated increases in CD3+/CD8+, CD3+/CD4+/CD25+ T regulatory cells and CD14-/CD16+/HLA-DR+ non-classical monocytes indicated heightened baseline inflammation in older animals. Social adversity recapitulated the effects of aging in CD14+/CD16-/HLA-DR+ classical monocytes, indicating immune deficits in phagocytosis and pathogen clearance in older and lower status individuals. Using RNA-seq, our stimulations (n=1,320) will allow us to identify molecular immune pathways that are disrupted by age and social adversity, similarities in response between age and adversity, and how the effect of adversity varies across the lifespan.

Cetacean tourism in Aotearoa New Zealand is now over 30 years old and has experienced substantial growth in visitor numbers and operations. The industry is remarkably diverse, targeting several dolphin and whale species, and encompassing varied habitats in coastal waters, fiords and submarine canyons. The knowledge and experience collected over these past 30 years has both advanced the global understanding of cetacean tourism, and influenced scientific practices for its study and management. Here we review the approaches taken in quantifying the impact of cetacean tourism in New Zealand, and critically assess the efficacy of the research and management strategies adopted. We place particular focus on the Bay of Islands, Hauraki Gulf, Kaikoura, Akaroa and Fiordland, areas that include the oldest, and longest studied industries nationally. We propose a set of best research practices, expose the most notable knowledge gaps and identify emerging research questions. Drawing on perspectives from the natural and social sciences, we outline the key determinants of failure and success in protecting cetacean populations from the detrimental impact of tourism. We suggest four golden rules for future management efforts: (1) acknowledge cetacean tourism as a sub-lethal anthropogenic stressor to be managed with precaution, (2) apply integrated and adaptive site- and species-specific approaches, (3) fully conceptualize tourism within its broader social and ecological contexts, and (4) establish authentic collaborations and engagement with the local community. Lastly, we forecast upcoming challenges and opportunities for research and management of this industry in the context of global climate change. Despite New Zealand's early establishment of precautionary legislation and advanced tourism research and management approaches, we detected flaws in current schemes, and emphasize the need for more adaptive and comprehensive strategies. Cetacean tourism remains an ongoing challenge in New Zealand and globally.

In an online survey of 1071 Americans conducted in October 2016, we found technological optimism, environmental beliefs, and gender to be better predictors of climate change concern than respondents’ perceived ability to visualize the year 2050 and their future optimism. An important finding from this study is that in October 2016, just before the 2016 Presidential election, 74% of responding Americans were concerned about climate change. Climate change ranked as their second most serious global threat (behind terrorism). However, when asked to describe travel in the year 2050 only 29% of participants discussed lower carbon options, suggesting that actively envisioning a sustainable future was less prevalent than climate change concern. Enabling expectations and active anticipation of a low carbon future may help facilitate mitigation efforts.

Despite increasing attention on air travel’s significant and disproportionate contribution to climate change, meaningful reduction in consumer demand is nowhere in sight. Taking a consumer behaviou...

The national policy context influences micro-level management actions for natural World Heritage facing the challenge of climate change in the developing world. Little is currently known about how climate vulnerable natural World Heritage is managed to build resilience within the socio-ecological system. Management actions based on conservation, biodiversity, community and tourism policies are important determinants of socio-ecological resilience. The aim of this study is to present a critical crossborder comparative analysis of climate change management responses for building resilience in the Bangladesh and Indian Sundarbans World Heritage area. Drawing on semi-structured stakeholder interviews and document analysis, this research finds that along with the modification of conventional biodiversity conservation practices, management agencies address community needs such as adaptation, livelihoods, involvement and empowerment to build resilience by minimising communityinduced forest depletion. The management regimes of the Sunderbans in Bangladesh and India have relative advantages in biodiversity conservation in response to climate change. This research also finds that biodiversity conservation actions are challenged by poor enforcement systems, destructive land use policy, and uncontrolled economic activities including tourism which may threaten the socio-ecological resilience of the World Heritage area.

This overview article for the special issue on ‘Desirable Transport Futures’ sets out with a brief introduction of the current development of the global transport system, suggesting that it remains unclear whether transport systems are heading towards desirable change. This desirability is defined as a reduction in the system's negative externalities, including accidents, congestion, pollutants and/or noise, while retaining its functionality. There is evidence that transport externalities continue to grow with an increasingly mobile and growing global population. Against this background, the article discusses what may constitute more desirable transport futures, as well as the barriers that have to be overcome to move towards such futures. The article concludes that transport governance will be essential to far-reaching change, and that greater focus has to be placed on individual and societal socio-psychological perspectives shaping mobility consumption. Nine papers contained in this special issue provide in-depth analyses of transport systems, as well as insight into how these may be changed in more systemic ways. A concluding research agenda is offered that outlines a number of innovative approaches researchers may pursue as part of further efforts to engender desirable transport futures.

While transportation currently accounts for 23% of total global energy-related CO2 emissions, transport emissions are projected to double by 2050, driven significantly by continued high growth in global passenger demand for air travel. Addressing high growth in aviation emissions is critical to climate stabilization. Currently we rely on individual decisions to forego air travel as the means of reducing these high-risk emissions. In this paper we argue that encouraging voluntary responses to such risks cannot succeed because of the nature of human reason and the structure of the problem itself. We use decision-making theory to explore why individuals have been generally unwilling or unable to act upon these risks, and collective action theory to illustrate the futility of relying on uncoordinated actors in such cases. Participation in the high-carbon air travel regime is a social convention, and transition from social conventions requires coordination among players. Our theoretical discussions lead us to conclude that it is our moral duty to promote coordinated collective action, via national or global policy mechanisms, to address tourist aviation emissions. We offer various avenues of future research to advance this moral duty.

Extreme adverse events such as natural disasters can accelerate disease progression and promote chronic inflammation. These phenotypes also increase in prevalence with age, suggesting that experiencing adversity might accelerate aging of the immune system. Adversity can induce persistent gene regulatory changes which may mechanistically explain the immune similarities between aging and adversity. To test how immune system aging is accelerated following a natural disaster, we measured the impact of Hurricane Maria on peripheral blood immune cell gene expression in a population of free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) from before (n=435) versus after (n=108) Hurricane Maria. Experiencing Hurricane Maria altered the expression of 260 genes (FDR

Dominant sustainability discourses commonly situate Earth as the singular realm of human influence and position modern mobility as one of the primary means through which we are destroying the biosphere. The commercialisation of activities in outer space and the development of space tourism have resulted in drastically reduced launch costs, enabling an increased human presence beyond the biosphere. This paper argues that current debates concerning the relationship between tourism mobilities and sustainability are marked by increasingly untenable assumptions concerning the spatial and temporal parameters of human influence. We critique those assumptions by introducing the concept of a sustainable trajectory to examine the relationship between modern mobility and sustainability, a relationship that is being redefined by the rapidly advancing fields of commercial spaceflight and space tourism. Greater attention to space tourism and commercial spaceflights is required in order to develop a coherent, lo...

“Sustainability” has endured as an important concept for tourism scholars, and volumes have been written about how to achieve this holy grail of the tourism industry. Sustainable tourism destinations are often promoted as the ethical choice for discerning travellers, with some marketers taking full advantage of the widely acknowledged ambiguities implicit in the term. More recently “resilience” has generated appeal in the academic tourism literature as a term that might capture core aspects of sustainability, while acknowledging the considerable influences that multiple contexts have on the capacity of communities to adapt and ultimately sustain their tourism enterprises. The resilience concept encompasses an inclusive and integrative “social ecological systems” approach which gives it a firm interdisciplinary underpinning in its application in tourism. While in a tourism context sustainability and resilience are kindred terms, relatively little scholarly effort has been committed to a critical tr...

Despite increasing geographic mobility among academic staff, gendered patterns of involvement in academic mobility have largely escaped scrutiny. Positioned within literatures on internationalization, physical proximity, gender and parenthood in academic mobility and understandings of gender as a process enacted through both discursive and embodied practices, we use discourse analysis based on interviews with academics in New Zealand to examine differences in language that create differing realities with regards to gender and obligations of care in academic mobility decisions. The findings reveal how academic mobility is discursively formulated as ‘essential’ to successful academic careers, with the need for frequent travel justified despite advances in virtual communication technologies. Heteronormative discourses are shown to disrupt and fragment the opportunities female academics have to engage in academic mobility. However, we also uncover ways in which these discourses are resisted, wherein fathers articulate emotional strain associated with academic mobility. The article shows how discourse works to constitute the essentialization of academic mobility, and the uneven gendered practices associated with it, whilst also giving voice to gender inequities in academic mobility from the southern hemisphere.