Surf Tourism in Uncertain Times: Resident Perspectives on the Sustainability Implications of COVID-19

R4

Authors Response

Please, be careful with some grammatical errors, like Line 34 pandmeic. Line 37 repoerted Line 96 and Line 104 there is the same mistake Invalid source specified

Thanks for the constructive comments throughout. These grammatical and spelling errors were addressed in this draft.

In the introduction, authors should state clearly the aim of the research, they say what are they going to analyze but not the aim of the study

Thanks for this suggestion. I added this language in the introduction to make the aims clearer “the aim of this article is to analyze how COVID-19 has impacted resident surfers’ sustainability concerns in Bocas del Toro, Panama. The goal being to better explicate why it is important to look beyond tourists’ willingness to travel during crises and to prioritize more effectively understanding how travel during crises impacts local communities and ecosystems.

In the manuscript author/authors writes/write (See figure 1 or See figure 2) but these figures are not included in the file, this is a problem to check the results. This last mistake should be fixed in order to understand the results of the article

Figure 1 (a map of the surf break locations) was included and figure 2 was dropped. I hope this brings the needed clarity to the manuscript.

R2

Author’s response

The article presents interesting ethnographic research in surf communities in the context of the pandemic confirm the need to balance development, taking into account the needs of all stakeholders and environmental protection. Two-phase research allowed to identify attitudes against the pandemic and during the covid-19 pandemic. The applied methods and the interpretation of the results are correct.

Thanks for this feedback.

In the discussion, you can consider the possibility of using tools for balancing tourism in tourist destinations described in the article by A. Szromek Stakeholders' attitudes towards tools for sustainable tourism in historical cities, Tourism Recreation Research,
DOI: 10.1080 / 02508281.2021.1931774.

I found this paper very helpful to my understanding on resident perspectives on tourism growth post-pandemic. Thanks for sharing!

In my opinion, it is worth including a map locating the research site.

I appreciate this suggestion. I will ask the editors, if they would like me to add one.

R3 – comment

Author’s response

GENERAL OPINION: Interesting job. Well written and easy to understand despite errors

It does not follow the style sheet or the way of citing set by the journal. Even within its style, it lacks homogeneity or consistency. It should be revised because it has editorial errors (pandmeic, Invalid source specified).

I apologize for this oversight. This correction has been made.

More critical content and practical implications of the work are needed.

I work hard in both the intro and conclusions to make sure this was clear in this draft.

ABSTRACT: It is very brief. It should be developed further to closer to 200 words. The abstract must respond more clearly to "Why did you do the study? What did you do? What did you find? What did you conclude?

Thanks for this suggestion. The abstract was lengthened, and these suggestions were each addressed specifically in the new draft.

INTRODUCTION: Correct, but should "highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the principal conclusions". I think this does not do it adequately and can be improved. 

Thanks for this suggestion. I moved up some discussion about surf tourism up front and included this statement about the aims in the third paragraph: “the aim of this article is to analyze how COVID-19 has impacted resident surfers’ sustainability concerns in Bocas del Toro, Panama.”

Furthermore, in general, the introduction should place the research in a broad context and emphasize its importance. It should better define the purpose of the work and its meaning. This would make everything clearer. When necessary, they should also highlight controversial assumptions. They should clarify the objectives and present the work structure well because sometimes it is not well understood. 

The main controversial assumption is that, during crises, many suggest crisis resistant tourists are important to keep tourism industries alive, however, few studies discuss the nuanced sustainability implications of receiving tourists during pandemics. The aim of this work to address this controversy through a relevant case study was made clearer in this draft.

Interesting. They should focus the method followed within the open-ended qualitative interviews. I prefer a larger sample, but OK.

I larger sample would have been very difficult given the COVID. Also there are only probably 60 to 70 resident surfers, so I interviewed more than a quarter of the sample.

What does "Site context and rationale" mean? More official statistics should be included in this part to describe the region studied.

I have seen this language used often, but I have changed the heading to” Case study background”

RESULTS. This section should make it clear that it is indeed that. Very brief. Only two pages? They should be enriched because they are somewhat poor. What is the difference between sections 3 and 4? Is 4 a sub-heading of 3? I don't quite understand this structure and why it is followed. 

This was a problem with the automatic transfer to the template. To address this concern. I combined the results and discussion with three subheadings. I think the structure works better and helps to enhance manuscript clarity.

DISCUSSION: Although the structure is free, I think it should include a section on discussion of results, even if it is joined with Conclusions. The author should discuss the results and how to interpret them based on previous research. I think that part of the current conclusions can serve as a discussion.

Combing the results and discussion in this draft I think helped address this concern.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings and their implications should be discussed. The limitations of work and future research directions should also be emphasized.

Future research directions were discussed and included in the conclusions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Good, but it can be enriched with more "MDPI" sources. It does not follow the journal's style guidelines. There are errors of consistency.

The style guide was followed in this draft.

R3

A note to the editor: are words like “”shitty” allowed as a direct quotation in the social science research? (several times throughout the text, see for example line 494)

I edited this language out of the direct quotes in mostly all occasions, besides where I felt it was important to leave in as indicative of the language used by the informants..  

Please refere to instruction for authors to change the citation style to a numbered list. An MDPI citation style can be downloaded for most of the most importatn citations management software: Endnotes, Zotero, Mendeley.

I apologize for this oversight. This correction has been made.

Lines 96, 104, : please correct this citation- “Invalid source specified“

This was corrected.

Line 59-114, 204-235, 261-276: please clarify why are there bullets used for each paragraph? I don’t see it fit, these are normal paragraphs.

I did not initially submit using the journal’s template and this was truncated when my draft was transferred. There should not have been bullets. I apologize for that.

In the results section, having retracted paragraph fort he quoted interview parts is desirable, but no bullets are needed. Futhermore, please add opening and closing citations for each direct citation from the interviews. Please format the text in this way consistently throughout the manuscript.

I addressed this concern in the new version.

Please revise the first sentence of the abstract. It is not understandable right now: “Coastal destinations…attract…development”.

Thanks for this suggestion, it was changed to: Surf tourism is the principal development driver in many coastal communities around the world.

Lines 5-6: please reformulate “Born from…” to “Based on” or “Building on..” or similar

Thanks for this suggestion. “Building on” I agree is better phrasing.

The whole sentence could be divided into two sentences: One covering the methodology of data collection, sample size and similar. The following sentence can cover the major results presented by the study.

This suggestion was utilized in the revised abstracted.

Line 10: I think a saxon genitive is due at this point, the following formulation should be used in my understanding: “…potential shift in traveling surfer’s consciousness…”

Changes were made to improve the syntax.

Lines 14-24:

Here are some further examples of demand oriented studies dealing with sustainability and resilience (crisis-management capability) in tourism:

Mamula Nikolić, T., et al. (2021). "Sustainable Travel Decision-Making of Europeans: Insights from a Household Survey." Sustainability 13(4).

Please see further examples of managerial research on crisis reposnse in the tourism industry:

Radic, A., et al. (2020). "Apocalypse Now or Overreaction to Coronavirus: The Global Cruise Tourism Industry Crisis." Sustainability 12(17).

Thanks for the suggestions.

Line 34: Please correct “pandmeic”

Line 37: please correct “repoerted”

Both changes were made.

Lines 45-47: please rephrase the syntax as it is not understandable: “need to be addressed as not only environmental issues, but with added urgency as community social and health issues.“

Correction was made

Also, please see further literature related to host-community perspective on nature-related tourism:

New sources were included on this topic.

Lines 136, 139: Are this kind of political statements and classifications necessary- “successive dictatorship” ? Please clariffy or delete.

In this case, I think it helps set the context for why tourism development lagged prior to the 2000s.

Line 155: please correct “characature”

Correction was made

Lines 198-203, 206: the authors should not refer to themselves in the article- the narration approach should be neutral and in the case of methodology presentation directly to the point. It should explain the technical aspects of data collection and exclude irrelevant content, such whether the researcher himself is a hobby surfer or in which professional positions he or she might have worked in at the time of data collection. The part from line 207 is much more relevant for methodology than the lines 198-206.

In ethnographic work, it is important for the researcher to position themselves in the study. I tried to limit this, but its important to give some indication of who conducted the research in the context.