Tourism is a very important industry for the economy of South Africa. Although the country leads the market in Africa, the potential to expand this sector to generate more income, employment and tax revenues are enormous, considering the current level of tourism development. However, tourism growth is dependent on a number of factors, notably, developing a trained and skilled labor force. Capacity building and institutional development through training is a key component for the vitality and sustainability of the tourism industry in South Africa. The purpose of this project is to formulate a partnership between the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, United States and Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in Tshwane, South Africa to strengthen its teaching, research, service and faculty development initiatives in tourism management. The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development and administered by Higher Education for Development, Washington, DC. http://www.hedprogram.org/

The purpose of this project is to create a community of practice in southern Africa to collect, organize, create and consolidate Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) curricula and materials in durable formats including published books. Practitioners (e.g. WWF, AWF, IUCN-SASUSG), policy-makers (through AWCF), and CBNRM scholars (Universities of Cape Town, Rhodes, Nelson Mandela, Western Cape, Zimbabwe) will work with Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST), University of Botswana (UB), South African Wildlife College (SAWC) and Sokoine Agricultural University (SAU) (and others) to institutionalize CBNRM training in the form of 1) practitioner /vocational certificates, 2) short courses and modules for private sector and NGOs, 3) undergraduate minors, and 4) in-depth graduate courses and research. The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development and administered by Higher Education for Development, Washington, DC. http://www.hedprogram.org/

This project will identify, map and document facilities and characteristics of public beach access sites for 10 west Florida counties from Hernando to Monroe counties, that residents and tourists utilize to access the Gulf of Mexico. It also will provide county level information on coastal attractions (e.g., lighthouses, fishing dependent communities, nature centers, birding sites) and information sources (e.g., offshore buoy data, web cams, coastal state parks, etc.). The information recorded will be uploaded into a publicly accessible state web site in 2011. The project is funded by the Florida Coastal Management Program, Tallahassee, FL. http://www.floridadep.org/cmp/default.htm

The goal of this project is to obtain current information on the demographic, economic, species targeting information, operator attitudes and business characteristics of the offshore recreational charter and headboat fleets of Florida (Atlantic coast), Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. The project will describe the distribution of charter/head boats by type of boat and location; report information on the demographics, economics and business characteristics of charter/head boat operations; estimate the economic impacts of these regions’ charter and head boat recreational fishing related expenditures on the Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina economies and report operators perceptions of problems in their industry and degree of cooperation with relevant agencies. The project is funded by the NOAA Marine Fisheries Initiative program, National Marine Fisheries Service, Washington, DC. http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/

The Tourism Crisis Management Institute (TCMI) was established in 2007 to assist the tourism industry in Florida and beyond with respect to comprehensive tourism crisis management initiatives. The Institute is housed within the Center for Tourism Research and Development in the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management. The mission of the Institute is to develop research-driven solutions to crises that address planning, preparedness, response, and recovery in local, state and national tourism economies. The vision of the Tourism Crisis Management Institute is to be the premiere North American tourism crisis management institute providing innovative, scholarly, and applied research driven service to private and public sectors. Quality research is facilitated through interdisciplinary teams of experts with experience and knowledge in problem solving. The project is funded by the University of Florida. http://www.tourismcrisis.com/

Tourists are an under-studied population that is vulnerable when faced with natural disasters. Florida receives more hurricane landfalls than any other U.S. state, and is also one of the top three states for inbound tourism. This pilot study examines how tourists' evacuation decisions vary based on the content of the hurricane-warning messages they receive. It is hypothesized that the content of the risk communication has a strong impact on the tourists' evacuation decisions, and that given a risk-communication message, the hurricane knowledge and experience of the tourists affect the evacuation decision (after controlling for other tourist characteristics such as socio-economics, and travel behavior). The proposed research will employ novel techniques to address the clear lack of empirical data on the behavioral responses of tourists. The mode of data collection will focus on a group of tourists in Orlando and stated-preference surveys, which will be administered to tourists at several locations within Orlando and Clearwater regions. These modes will elicit the behavioral intentions of tourists under scenarios that do and do not currently exist. The project is funded by the Eric Friedheim Foundation. http://www.tourismcrisis.com