Ringer, Greg
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Greg Ringer, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor
International Studies Program
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403 USA
tel: +1 541 346-5051
fax: +1 541 346-5041
email: gringer@uoregon.edu
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Browsing Ringer, Greg by Subject "Alaska"
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Item Open Access Beyond the cruise: Navigating sustainable policy and practice in Alaska's Inland Passage (Chapter 13)(London: Earthscan Ltd., 2010) Ringer, GregIn the middle of a global economic recession, cruise tourism continues to be one of the major growth engines of international travel. With “average annual increases in passenger numbers of 8.2% over the last two decades”, and sustained “growth in cruise capacity averaging 7.6% annually,” the resilience of the industry is clearly displayed in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, one of the fastest growing cruise destinations in the world. In ports from San Francisco to Seward, passengers are enticed aboard ships with onboard credits and free upgrades to “[e]xplore breathtaking landscapes and come face to face with the people and wildlife [who inhabit] the stunning alpine meadows and glacial wonders of Denali and the Talkeetna Mountains . . . This is the perfect non-camping itinerary for those looking for comfort in the natural wonderland of Alaska.” For residents, however, the experience of cruise tourism is often less well described:, inundated by summer passengers and s, carrying the and the costs of funding and maintaining community infrastructure for a seasonal industry that is known to relocate vessels to competing ports whenever financial incentives warrant.Item Open Access Cruising North to Alaska: the new 'gold rush'(CABI Publishing/Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006) Ringer, GregMore than six thousand years after humans reputedly first reached the North America continent by land, Vitus Bering led a Russian expedition aboard two ships to explore Alaska in 1741. Four decades later, Captain James Cook arrived by boat to map Alaska’s extensive coastline for Great Britain. Soon thereafter, intrepid Russian colonialists sailed from Siberia to establish the first European settlement on Kodiak Island, and almost 30,000 adventurous goldseekers disembarked from steamships in 1897 in transit to the Yukon and Klondike mines. Today, almost one million visitors reach Alaska by boat each year during the brief summer season (May-September). Though many come aboard ferries of the state’s famed Alaska Marine Highway System, most sail on one of 32 vessels owned by twelve cruise lines that now ply the inland waters of Alaska and the Canadian Pacific – and their popularity is growing almost exponentially.Item Open Access Wilderness images of tourism and community(Elsevier, 1996) Ringer, GregInternational tourism is now the dominant force in the world economy and consequently, is heavily promoted as a source of funding sustainable community development. Developing and marketing communities as tourist destinations rarely comes without human costs, however, including a transfiguration of the inhabitants' social history and the dynamics of their place. As a result, there exists tremendous need for additional research on the long-term effects of tourism on emergent destination communities. In response, this study presents the preliminary findings of research among residents and visitors to the twin Alaska "ghost" towns of Kennicott and McCarthy and the implications for a new direction in tourism studies, one that recognizes a socially-defined landscape often overlooked in the traditional literature of tourism and outdoor recreation in protected areas in Alaska and worldwide.