The influence of the political environment and destination governance on sustainable tourism development: a study of Bled, Slovenia

In the context of sustainable tourism development, there are many studies about the exchange process between residents and tourism, yet this issue is practically unexplored with respect to the political environment of tourism. Therefore, this paper introduces and posits that the political environment is a necessary enabler for implementing sustainable tourism. The authors extend the established three-pillar sustainability concept by adding in the political dimension. Then they surveyed how residents' positive and negative perceptions of tourism impacts determine their satisfaction with life in the tourism destination and thus their support for tourism in their community. The model was empirically tested within the context of the long-established Alpine destination of Bled in Slovenia. The findings confirm the importance of the political environment and question the sustainability of Bled's tourism development. It is suggested that the community has relatively weak destination governance due to the underdeveloped political environment. The survey expands and deepens the tourism sustainability debate by adding in the political environment and how it relates to the emerging growth of research on destination governance. The proposed model can be adapted and applied to any destination in order to improve its governance, including the implementation of sustainable tourism development

Characterization of cryogenic direct-drive ICF targets during layering studies and just prior to shot time

The characterization of OMEGA cryogenic targets is based on shadowgraphs obtained from multiple angular views taken with the target in the layering sphere. The D$_{2}$ ice has been observed to re-layer during slow rotations, leading to procedural changes that avoid re-layering thus ensuring high-quality, spherical-harmonic, 3-D ice layer reconstructions. Shadowgrams taken inside the target chamber within 20 ms of shot time have verified that the ice layers remain preserved during the transport