Reflections and Futures - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 252

personal fitness and health, both at individual and community levels. We
also make the case that trails and routes provide opportunities for enjoyable
and meaningful experiences in destination places. Here the seminal work of
Pine and Gilmore (1999) on the experience economy has much to offer, as
active participation in trail- and route-based tourism could be argued to be
both educational and escapist, the former involving some absorption in the
narrative being told on the way, whereas the latter relates to some people's
desires to make use of linear spaces to get away from the pressures of home
and immerse themselves in the natural or cultural environment.
Equally, concepts such as nostalgia, prominent within heritage tourism
discourse, are valuable in ascertaining why certain trails and routes have
certain appeal over others, but there remains a dearth of research that
addresses nostalgia in the context of linear space. A final consideration was
to examine the research on why there might be an absence of demand. The
findings presented here are not dissimilar to those cited in the broader recre-
ation and tourism literature where barriers that are intrapersonal (crowding,
safety concerns, lack of physical fitness, lack of interest), interpersonal
(lack of people to share the experience with), and structural (disability to
participate, too far away from home environment) exist. Yet another model
was presented which illustrates where there may be a range of factors that
help shape trail and route use demand (e.g. general trends in demand, elements
of location, trail uses, characteristics of trail users, experience-enjoyment-
satisfaction, barriers to use), but some are clearly more important than others,
such as the experience to be gained and the physical quality of the trail.
For our examination of both supply and demand, we have made exten-
sive use of the 'case study' approach, selecting cases to illustrate various
aspects of what is happening at a specific point of time in a specific context,
and to present real-life examples linked to wider issues being discussed in the
extant literature.
Impacts
A conventional approach addressed the impacts arising from trail and
route use, with the focus on the ecological, social and economic costs and
benefits. The ecological impacts for non-hardened, unmaintained, or poorly
designed countryside of wilderness tracks included soil compaction and ero-
sion, vegetation loss and damage, changes to wildlife and the loss of part of
a region's tangible heritage. The vast majority of this research has centered on
soil compaction, erosion and flora loss and damage with less attention devoted
to how trail recreation affects wildlife (Gaines et al. , 2003). Conversely a
much smaller literature exists on the positive physical impacts. The focus
in this topic of positive physical outcomes is conservation, interpretation,
education, urban renewal, as well as routes providing a natural corridor for
utility easements.