Major infrastructural projects and tourist destination communities

Whilst the environmental impacts of NSIPs in tourism landscapes have been researched (e.g. Frantál and Kunc, 2011), their socio-cultural impacts on tourism communities and their sense of identity and belonging are much less understood (Nieuwenhuis and Crouch, 2017). Researchers have barely scratched the surface of the relationships between NSIP construction workforces and resident / visitor populations, nor have they examined the workers’ leisure experiences in those communities.

This project extends a British Academy Grant in which Professor Pritchard is Principal Investigator (with Finniear (Swansea) and Morgan (Surrey)). It will contribute to the emergent field of tourism and energy studies (Frantál and Urbánková, 2017). Utilising focus groups (6) and interviews (20) with tourist stakeholders, retailers and construction workers in Somerset (Hinkley Point), it explores NSIP impacts on tourism economies and local communities and worker leisure and tourism activities.

Transient construction worker populations at NSIPs work long and arduous shifts, in polluted environments, with limited scope for rest and play, straining lifestyles, social networks and family life. The project investigates worker leisure behaviour in the construction industry, which leads all global industries in worker deaths, records high levels of substance abuse and mental health issues and, together with tourism and domestic work, is the industry most linked to modern slavery (Mathieson, 2003).