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Is travel inherently beneficial to human character? Does it automatically educate and enlighten while also promoting tolerance, peace, and understanding? In this challenging book, Dean MacCannell identifies and overcomes common obstacles to ethical sightseeing. Through his unique combination of personal observation and in-depth scholarship, MacCannell ventures into specific tourist destinations and attractions: \"picturesque\" rural and natural landscapes, \"hip\" urban scenes, historic locations of tragic events, Disney theme parks, beaches, and travel poster ideals. He shows how strategies intended to attract tourists carry unintended consequences when they migrate to other domains of life and reappear as \"staged authenticity.\" Demonstrating each act of sightseeing as an ethical test, the book shows how tourists can realize the productive potential of their travel desires, penetrate the collective unconscious, and gain character, insight, and connection to the world.

The present study aimed to design, develop, operate and evaluate a sightseeing spot recommendation system that can efficiently and usefully support tourists while considering their visiting frequencies. This system was developed by integrating social networking services (SNSs), Web-geographic information systems (GIS) and recommendation systems. The system recommends sightseeing spots to users with different visiting frequencies, adopting two recommendation methods (knowledge-based recommendation and collaborative recommendation methods). Additionally, the system was operated for six weeks in Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, and the total number of users was 61. Based on the results of the web questionnaire survey, the usefulness of the system when sightseeing was high, and the recommendation function of sightseeing spots, which is an original function, received mainly good ratings. From the results of the access analysis of users’ log data, the total number of sessions in this system was 329, 77% used mobile devices, and smartphones were used most frequently. Therefore, it is evident that the system was used by different types of devices just as it was designed for, and that the system was used according to the purpose of the present study, which is to support the sightseeing activities of users.

Recently, the number of foreign tourists coming to Japan has increased explosively. In 2006, the number of the foreign visitors was 7.3 million people, 10 years later, it reached 24 million people in 2016. The reason is various Japanese tourism policies such as “Visit Japan Project” and “Cool Japan.” As a result, Japan's travel and tourism competitiveness of 2015 was one of the highest in the world. However, problems are still left in the current Japanese sightseeing situation. In addition, recently visitors are enjoying sightseeing Japan in various ways. As well as famous sightseeing spots, the number of foreign tourists and travelers to visit the “local-based type” stores has been increasing. But, it is not easy to find those kinds of “local-based type” places. To solve the problems, the authors develop “Multiple Sightseeing Spot Scheduling System” that enables a new sightseeing guide.

The Japanese government initiated the Go To Travel campaign on 22 July 2020, offering deep discounts on hotel charges and issuing coupons to be used for any consumption at travel destinations in Japan. In the present study, we aimed to describe the possible epidemiological impact of the tourism campaign on increasing travel-associated cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the country. We compared the incidence rates of travel-associated and tourism-related cases prior to and during the campaign. The incidence of travel-associated COVID-19 cases during the tourism campaign was approximately three times greater than the control period 22 June to 21 July 2020 and approximately 1.5 times greater than the control period of 15 to 19 July. The incidence owing to tourism was approximately 8 times and 2–3 times greater than the control periods of 22 June to 21 July and 15 to 19 July, respectively. Although the second epidemic wave in Japan had begun to decline by mid-August, enhanced domestic tourism may have contributed to increasing travel-associated COVID-19 cases during 22 to 26 July, the early stage of the Go To Travel campaign.

In recent years, tourist information collection using the internet has become common. Tourists are increasingly using internet resources to obtain tourist information. Social network service (SNS) users share tourist information of various kinds. Twitter, one SNS, has been used for many studies. We are pursuing research supporting a method using Twitter to help tourists obtain information: estimates of the best time to view cherry blossoms. Earlier studies have proposed a low-cost moving average method using geotagged tweets related to location information. Geotagged tweets are helpful as social sensors for real-time estimation and for the acquisition of local tourist information because the information can reflect real-world situations. Earlier studies have used weighted moving averages, indicating that a person can estimate the best time to view cherry blossoms in each prefecture. This study proposes a time-series prediction method using SNS data and machine learning as a new method for estimating the best times for viewing for a certain period. Combining the time-series forecasting method and the low-cost moving average method yields an estimate of the best time to view cherry blossoms. This report describes results confirming the usefulness of the proposed method by experimentation with estimation of the best time to view beautiful cherry blossoms in each prefecture and municipality.

With the recent shift in public aesthetics, tourism agriculture, which combines tourism with modern agriculture, has become a new and popular form of tourism, exhibiting great potential. Internationally, tourism is known as a sunrise industry that will never decline because the benefits and impact introduced by tourism are not only limited to the industry itself but also the development of other fields. It stimulates the labor force by creating job vacancies, consumption, economic benefits, and opportunities for the surrounding areas. Therefore, paying attention to the development of tourism and focusing on the trending frontier issues of the industry are of practical value to the development of social economy and culture. Traditional forms of tourism develop economic value by focusing on people’s direct experiences at specific times and places. However, this approach is somewhat limited by time and space constraints, preventing the full exploitation of the economic and cultural value of tourism landscapes. In contrast, modern rural tourism models based on virtual environment modeling and virtual reality technology can address this issue, enhancing the development of rural tourism industries. Virtual environment modeling designs specific spatial environments and simulates internal elements, providing authenticity to environments and a sense of reality using textures. Virtual reality technology goes further in creating highly realistic virtual environments that are generated by computers, encompassing visual, auditory, linguistic, force, tactile, motion, and olfactory elements, and enabling natural interactions between various sensory devices of the operator and the landscape model. The combination of these two approaches offers a broader scope and more nuanced physical and mental experiences for the rural tourism industry. This paper explores the optimization role of virtual environment and environmental landscape modeling based on virtual reality technology in designing rural tourism landscapes. It examines the specific elements of optimization within this type of technology and, using algorithms, demonstrates that these methods provide a 15.73% optimization rate in the sightseeing process compared to traditional tourism models, making them widely applicable in the design of rural tourism landscape environments.

In tourist areas, it is necessary to prepare a method that supports tourists’ activities by providing information concerning disaster support facilities during normal times, in addition to sightseeing spots and tourism-related facilities, because there is a risk of confusion during disasters, as tourists are not aware of the locations of disaster support facilities. The present study aims to develop a navigation system that supports the activities of users during both normal times and disasters by integrating augmented reality (AR) and web geographic information systems (Web-GISs), as well as by using pictograms. The system can not only effectively provide users with information concerning sightseeing spots and tourism-related facilities but also information concerning disaster support facilities. The system was operated over a period of 6 weeks in Chofu City, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. Based on the results of a questionnaire survey for 60 users, the system was highly evaluated for its originality in terms of displays and functions using pictograms, navigation using AR, and obtaining information during disasters. Additionally, based on the results of access log analysis, the system was continuously utilized by users during the operation period. Therefore, by continuously operating the system, it can be expected that users will further utilize each function of the system.

Geographical names, including speleonyms, which were once not registered in official sources, have been preserved in the form of missing words or errors in the Russian language. Therefore, the task of their collection and systematization is fixed by many resolutions of the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and other authorized bodies. One of the issues of determining the ways of implementing the project \"sacred geography of Kazakhstan\" and the direction of research work is aimed at restoring the names of caves. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the formation of cave names on the territory of Kazakhstan and the geographical prerequisites for their restoration. Research objectives: to determine the role of physical and geographical conditions of Kazakhstan in the formation of speleonyms; to reflect the patterns and areas of cave distribution in Kazakhstan and to analyze the geographical aspects of the formation of speleonyms; analysis of geographical aspects of the formation of speleonyms; determination of the place of speleonyms as tourist and recreational objects; making proposals for the preservation of caves and Speleonyms of Kazakhstan. The object of the study is caves and other underground parts distributed on the territory of Kazakhstan as special objects of the sacred regions of the country, the subject of the study is the conditions and meaning of the formation of the names of these caves, their geographical prerequisites and opportunities for restoration. The caves will be of great interest from a geomorphological, hydrological, bio-speleological, archaeological and paleozoological point of view. In recent years, they are studied as unique natural landscapes. The importance of caves for speleotourism is also difficult to overestimate.

The increasing prevalence of intelligent driving sightseeing vehicles in the tourism industry underscores the critical importance of real-time planning for effective local obstacle avoidance paths when these vehicles encounter obstacles during operation. To fulfill this requirement, it is imperative to establish real-time dynamic perception as the foundational element. Thus, this paper introduces a novel local path planning algorithm founded on the principles of spatial perception. In the diverse array of road environments characterized by varying spatial features, sightseeing vehicles can effectively achieve safe and comfortable obstacle avoidance maneuvers. The proposed approach employs a high-precision positioning module and a real-time dynamic perception module to acquire real-time spatial information pertaining to the sightseeing vehicle and the road environment. It comprehensively integrates spatiotemporal safety constraints and obstacle avoidance curvature constraints to derive control points for the obstacle avoidance path. Specific control points undergo optimization and adjustment, ultimately resulting in the generation of the obstacle avoidance spatiotemporal path through discrete interpolation using B-spline curves. These locally tailored paths are subsequently compared with local obstacle avoidance paths generated using Bezier curves. The empirical validation of the proposed local obstacle avoidance path algorithm is conducted through a combination of simulation analysis and real vehicle verification. The research outcomes affirm that the algorithm can indeed produce smoother local obstacle avoidance paths, resulting in reduced front-wheel steering angles and yaw angle variations. This enhancement substantially contributes to the overall stability of sightseeing vehicles during obstacle avoidance maneuvers.