When most people think geologist in a natural tourist destination is only able to tell you the rock's history (geotourism or geological tourism), the author argue: geologist able to do more than just explaining the rocks!
The author offer new opportunities through his idea of tourism geology: increase visitor experience, increasing safety awareness, new tourist attraction / tourist destination, new tourism market, or even new tourism type.
Tourism geology idea is provided as the other new perspective on geology and tourism relation. It is about the future of tourism and also business opportunity where geological knowledge able to support various types of tourism markets, e.g. the markets of:
• Sun and Beach Tourism
• Adventure Tourism
• Medical Tourism
• Volcano Tourism
• Deep Sea Tourism
• Mars Tourism
Tourism geology idea provides what should be asked to geologist and what should be delivered by geologist to tourism-related professionals. Hence, those two professions able to communicate in the same content and same context. The content is to deliver proper geological knowledge, while the context is tourist attraction.
The book is the first tourism geology textbook, the real geological application for tourism to support tourism-related professionals.
When most people think geologist in a natural tourist destination is only able to tell you the rock's history (geotourism or geological tourism), the author argue: geologist able to do more than just explaining the rocks!
The author offer new opportunities through his idea of tourism geology: increase visitor experience, increasing safety awareness, new tourist attraction / tourist destination, new tourism market, or even new tourism type.
Tourism geology idea is provided as the other new perspective on geology and tourism relation. It is about the future of tourism and also business opportunity where geological knowledge able to support various types of tourism markets, e.g. the markets of:
• Sun and Beach Tourism
• Adventure Tourism
• Medical Tourism
• Volcano Tourism
• Deep Sea Tourism
• Mars Tourism
Tourism geology idea provides what should be asked to geologist and what should be delivered by geologist to tourism-related professionals. Hence, those two professions able to communicate in the same content and same context. The content is to deliver proper geological knowledge, while the context is tourist attraction.
The book is the first tourism geology textbook, the real geological application for tourism to support tourism-related professionals.
1.1. INTRODUCING THE IDEA
Within this work, you will find an idea of how geology studies tourism. It is about how utilizing geological feature to fulfill various tourist interest on earth surface, subterranean, ocean floor and on extra-terrestrial object like moon and mars. It also discusses the geological feature that might be harmful for tourists and impact because of tourist activity. Thus, this idea can be used in earth surface, also in ocean floor, and Moon and Mars. My faith is you can accomplish many things with this new understanding.
The centerpiece of this book, however, have small discussion on geotourism, geopark, geoheritage, natural conservation or geoconservation. Nevertheless, you will find different view when observe the geological features. It is what make this book unique compared with geotourism books.
If you are a geologist, geological discussion in this book is uncommon. Because discussion uses new perspective: tourism geology perspective. There is no geological data anomaly. Nonetheless, when geotourism and tourism geology analyze the same data, there are distinct outcomes.
Within tourism geology perspective, main effort of geologist is how to translate geological data tourism-related professionals your understandable language. Later, they will repackage the translation for tourist as thing to see and to do. Main concern on tourism geology is how geology acts as a best kind of contribution to support every tourism type.
Hence, tourism geology is user oriented, This means the task of the geologist is to fulfill geological data and information according to user needs. On the contrary, geotourism is (geological) conservation oriented.
The effort of geologist in tourism geology is similar with geological support in other applied geology. For instance, engineering geologist effort to support geological data for civil engineer during construction project where they understand what they should do from those data. Same case for petroleum geologist effort to support geological data for drilling engineer during exploration well drilling where they know the consequences of those data for drilling. Whether engineering geologist or petroleum geologist, their geological data support had translated to meet the requirement of civil engineer or drilling engineer.
If you are tourism academician or tourism-related professionals, I have two messages. The first, tourist attraction relates to geology is not only geological history. The second, there is more that geologists can do to support you. In this context, example of tourism-related professional types is park manager, recreation worker, tour and travel guide, tour operator, and park rangers.
In 2015, I published a book title “Introducing Tourism Geology (It is NOT Geotourism).” I used it to get feedback from selected people. So that, this book is the revised version where I put additional ideas.
My proposal of tourism geology is not to compete with geotourism. However, it is mainly to establish particular journal of tourism geology, and to establish new profession of tourism geologist. Other reason is to support tourism for more growth, to complete the geological contribution to tourism, to put the safety issue and risk value in tourism business, to establish a new scientific journal dedicated for tourism geology, to explore the use of geological knowledge for society need and want in the next decade, and new skill for geologist to be new professionalism (tourism geologist) are few of many motivations.
There are two parts in this work. The first part is getting familiarized to tourism geology, whilst I set the second part for research demonstration. I recommend to read the first part to have better understanding. To get deeper understanding, I present five chapters of my research in the second part, to prove the know-how knowledge. Those five researches reflects my idea development during the construction of tourism geology. What I need to show is what the investigation looks like in tourism geology.
I wrote the chapter one to chapter eight. Chapter nine and chapter ten were written in collaboration with my colleagues. Let’s have a brief look at the description of Part I and Part II.
1.2. SUMMARY OF THE PART I
Part I is composed of four chapters which describe the character of tourism geology.
· Chapter two. This chapter discusses tourism geology philosophy: reshaping geology and tourism relation. It provides know-why knowledge, that is rationale and what makes it differ with geotourism. When we grasp know-why understanding, we have better quality of know-how knowledge. This chapter discuss philosophical issues: extracting the new meaning and consequence from the known facts. I review the background of geology and tourism relation, philosophy of geology, tourism and established applied geologies. The main reason is a faith of more geology can do for tourism. In this chapter, I describe the case studies contained more detail in the second part.
· Chapter three. The chapter discusses the scope of work of tourism geology. The scope exposes tourist attractions relate to geological feature, activity with safety requirement, and impact issues. The purpose of scope of work is to build communication among geologist —as supplier knowledge— and the user. It means, geologist understands what should be delivered to the user. Likewise, a tourism-related professional as the user should recognized what should be asked to the geologist. Therefore, they communicate in the same scope, so that there is a commitment of supply and demand relation among them.
More interestingly, I describe many interests of many tourist interests that refer to geological features. To invoke your mind: interest relates to scenic beauty, curative and outdoor activity. However, there are particular features that are my favorite. It is the unique features such as drilling related accident, giant crystal cave, powerful geologic processes, moon and mars features and hydrothermal vent in the deep ocean floor. Let me tell you a few spectacular things within that particular feature.
· The largest mud volcano in the world, Sidoarjo, Indonesia, still erupt violently since 2006 and most likely will continue for the next decades.
· Only in the cave mine, the crystals grow to the giant size. For instance, researcher find gigantic crystals in Naica cave mine, Mexico (Badino et al, 2009, p.1767).
· Vacation to the extraterrestrial objects such as Moon and Mars is likely to occur in the coming decades. Where is it? Just a few examples: Sinus Iridium of Moon, Eberswalde fossil delta and a crater mimicking happy face on Mars.
· In the future, it is possible for us to perceive whether the incoming powers of landslide, earthquake, tsunami and volcano eruption are a threat or an attraction. The condition is when scientist able to predict accurately of when, where and how big the geologic power will come. For instance, if we choose the smaller scale of earthquake (4.0 to 5.5 magnitudes), then we have potential attraction average per year is ± 1,150 to ± 32,000 of earthquake annually (USGS, 2016).
· Hydrothermal vent in deep ocean floor is a place where mineral sources spewing out. It is the next interesting tourist attraction where available submarine able to take more passengers to the deep. Using inventory data by Beaulieu (2015), I select about 182 vents as future tourist destinations, which situated around the globe.
As a result, many tourism types influenced by tourism geology, e.g. sun and beach tourism, health tourism, sport tourism or adventure tourism. Let’s think the future: mars tourism, deep ocean floor tourism, volcano eruption tourism, or tsunami tourism. My attention lies in how geology contributes to every tourism market segments.
· Chapter four. I emphasize the research importance to strengthen tourism geology. I give several examples of research subject to invoke your imagination or experience. In addition to develop tourism geology, I describe the importance of cooperation of geologist with tourism-related professionals and practitioners.
This chapter is ended with comparison of geotourism investigation and tourism geology research. The underlining matter is despite geotourism and geology study the same subject-matter, both have a different focus of interest since they are designed for distinct purposes.
· Chapter five. My purpose in this chapter is to make obvious difference among tourism geology and geotourism. I give an imaginary case of the unique landscape where two settlements separated by a long hill.
Four imaginary geologist specialties are presented to show how they value the landscape according to their focus of interest, comparing their outcomes and the local people response.
To close this chapter, I give three possible challenges during developing tourism geology: scope definition, conservation mission and environmental issue.
1.3. SUMMARY OF THE PART II
I arrange Part II for research demonstration, uses tourism geology perspective. After reading the second part, I believe you will come up with a more challenging research subject and a better method. The research was performed in Kalimantan, Jawa, and Lombok islands.
· Chapter six. This chapter is about geological attraction identification in Samarinda City, Eastern Kalimantan Province. I found undeveloped tourist attractions relate to geological features such as hydrocarbon seepages, mud volcano, abandoned wells and rock exposure. Those attractions are potential to be developed into attractive destinations.
· Chapter seven. This chapter is the analysis of aesthetic and safe waters for swimming in Lebak, southwestern coast of Jawa. It is easier to define the aesthetic nearshore. But, different case for safety issues. Identification of safe waters for swimming falls to oceanography domain. However, my observation show the safest location is controlled geologically.
Originally, this paper was a part of Indonesian Geologists Association’s (IAGI) report for government of Lebak Regency, Banten Province. It is part of geological socialization program in 2002. During the program, I shared geological knowledge for tourism to the local government and encourage them to promote the breathtaking beauty of the locality. In this work, I repackage the report for research presentation.
· Chapter eight. This chapter is about the geological approach to develop a tourist destination. It is the case of Gunung Batu, Western Jawa. It is a small hill but proven attractive where we can adore scenic beauty of the Bandung Highland.
I conducted research to translate geological information into understandable information for tourist destination planners who usually are non-geologist. Outcome generates two maps that is the attraction and activity maps. It suggests where particular attraction and what activity might be performed.
My work was originally published in 33rd Indonesian Association of Geologist (IAGI) Annual Convention and Exhibition, 29 November - 1 December 2004. I translate the paper into English and repackaged for research presentation.
· Chapter nine. This chapter tells relation of geological variable to mountaineering difficulty rating. I wrote this chapter with Aridy Prasetya, Febrio Baroes, Joko Wiyono, Suwondo and Sapto Wibowo. They went to the mountains and collected data while I analyze the data to be synthesized.
There are many rating systems built but it did not satisfy me. Thus, we construct a new rating composed of four variables: terrain, route condition, weather and physical ability. Moreover, we describe several consequences of each rating in context of time, distance, special technique and probable geological hazard might be encountered.
The rating was applied during analyzing data from mountaineering on three volcanoes: Cereme, Slamet and Semeru Volcanoes. Rating application generates mountaineering route map with the difficulty rating on each route segments. Tables are generated to contain information such as distance, ascending duration, difficulty rating and potential geological risks. The table is accompanied the route map.
· Chapter ten. This chapter is about characterizing geological-related attractions in Lombok island, including the Rinjani-Lombok Geopark area in the northern part of the island. Since the geopark established in 2018, I interest to contribute my knowledge to the whole island.
Traditionally, when we talk about geopark, then we think that geotourism works for geoscientific tourist interest type, to learn geological information of a site. In reality, geological feature able to fulfill various tourist interests. It is such as, scenic beauty, outdoor activity and curative interests.
In addition, tourism development highlight is arranged based on particular character identified. It comprises of exploration (of new destination), mitigation (of injury and fatality) and impact monitoring (of tourist impact).
I wrote this chapter with Nicolaus Lumanauw (my mentor of tourism) and Heryadi Rachmat (Indonesian geotourism practitioner). This chapter was presented at the 6th Asia Pacific Geoparks Network (APGN) Symposium, 3rd – 6th September 2019 in Mataram, Lombok Island.
I arranged geologic term glossary at the end of this book, so you can examine the meaning. Moreover, you can find my update work of tourism geology, including free ebooks, in my website https://yudispurnama.com. Hopefully you enjoy reading this work.
Review of You Say Geotourism, I Say Tourism Geology! Second Edition, by Yudi Satria Purnama
Purnama is an Indonesian geologist with an impressive resume. This work reads like a doctoral dissertation, and this reviewer hopes Purnama is awarded the doctorate he deserves for it! This review relies on the English translation (2022), done by the author. Purnama’s ability to communicate in multiple languages is impressive, however, editing by a native English speaker would clarify this work.
Despite this small distraction, Purnama clearly demonstrates why and how a new field of geology — Tourism Geology — is needed and how it could benefit tourism around the world and eventually on Mars or the moon. He distinguishes Tourism Geology from the more familiar Geotourism.
Purnama supports his thesis that a new field of geology is needed with extensive detailed examples from his own fieldwork and that of other geologists worldwide. He cites reliable sources. He brings convincing evidence to bear showing how this new field of study could benefit tourists, tourism managers, and business people while preserving our natural geological treasures.
This reviewer found the book fascinating because of an interest in geology. It is written for geologists, not the general public. As Purnama points out, the scientific reports he provides to tourism management would need to be highly simplified and carefully illustrated for public use.
The many charts and graphs Purnama includes are beautifully constructed and informative. His abstracts of each chapter plus the illustrations would make a reasonable treatise by themselves. The entire text is overly detailed, dense, and repetitive for most tourism managers so a shortened version would more likely be read by someone other than another geologist.
Purnama is uniquely qualified to write this book, and he will certainly convince other geologists that this new field is valid.
I learned a great deal about tourism management and geology from this book. Purnama made an excellent case for Tourism Geology as a new field for geology careers and research. The title of the book fails to communicate the highly scientific nature of the work. I suggest a more descriptive title, such as The Need for Tourism Geology as a New Subset of Geology: A Distinction Between GeoTourism and Tourism Geology