Motivations to engage in last chance tourism in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area and Wapusk National Park: the role of place identity and nature relatedness

• Published in: Journal of Sustainable Tourism
• Main Authors: Groulx, M, Lemieux, C, Dawson, J, Stewart, Emma, Yudina, O
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2016
• Subjects: last chance tourism; place identity; nature relatedness; climate change; protected areas; ANZSRC::3508 Tourism; ANZSRC::4406 Human geography; Wapusk national park
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10182/7137; https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=elements_prod&SrcAuth=WosAPI&KeyUT=WOS:000385814300003&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=WOS; https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2015.1134556

The threat that climate change impacts pose to rare and vulnerable destinations has given rise to a phenomenon known as last chance tourism. This travel behaviour involves tourists increasingly travelling to destinations they perceive to be critically threatened, while contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts in these very places. For last chance destinations to be managed effectively in the face of climate change, a clearer understanding of what drives this travel behaviour is needed. Drawing on the importance of place and nature to identity construction, this research uses a structural equation modelling approach to examine last chance tourism motivations in Churchill, Canada. Results provide evidence of a motivation to engage in a last chance experience. They also indicate that this motivation is related to a desire to share a connection to nature with similar individuals, and to become part of the local story. Beyond this, results show that visitors’ sense of place identity and nature relatedness contribute significantly to their motivation to engage in last chance tourism. Findings from this research are important to the management of last chance destinations, including protected areas that are legislated to preserve significant natural and cultural features.