Protected Areas, Tourism, and Rural Transition in Aysén, Chile

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript deals with an interesting topic and uses an appropriate methodology. However, from my point of view, some aspects must be improved.

First, Introduction is too long and repetitive. This section would benefit from a reduction and focus on the gap covered by the paper. In general, this recommendation could be applied to the whole paper because the main idea about the issue analysed is explained several times throughout the document.

Second, qualitative techniques should be explained more clearly, especially as regards the focus group and the “additional documents and artifacts”. For example: How many focus groups have been used? Who are the participants? How many additional documents of each type have been included? In addition, the validity of the analysis should be clarified; the authors should clearly explain the techniques used to ensured reliability, the techniques used to ensure validity, the types of triangulation used and the utility of using those types of triangulation.

Third, there is no Conclusions section and the Limitations section is in the middle of the paper. The manuscript needs to be restructured to clearly show the conclusions of the study and its limitations at the end.

Finally, according to the Instructions for Authors, the authors should include an “Author Contributions” section after the acknowledgments.

Author Response

Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to start my comments and suggestions for the authors with acknowledging the hard work put in by the authors for the research on which this paper is based.

My first recommendation is to reconsider the title of the paper so it would reflect better the purpose and results of this study. The paper does not refer to tourist circuits nor it represents some global trends...Moreover, there is a lack of coherence between title, abstract, the purpose of this study and the research questions (as mentioned between the lines 127 and 140). In the abstract (lines 12-14) you state that your paper investigates the perceptions of local residents regarding the social, economic, and ecologic changes related to tourism development in CCNPA while in lines 127-134 you mentioned that your study explores local responses to centrally-driven development and that the research questions focused on understanding the lived experience associated with livelihood and cultural shifts driven by changing development, perceptions of the central-periphery relationship and the identification of important aspects for protected area management, so no connection to tourism. 

Concerning the research process, you should give details about the participants in the interviews. How many focus groups were organized? By whom? Who were the participants? What were the topics of these focus groups? You extracted the same type of data from both interviews and focus groups? If yes, then you should provide arguments for the use of two research tools for obtaining the same data.

The results of your study show the perceptions of residents or that of stakeholders? In the abstract you mentioned residents, in the Introduction (line 130) you mention local peoples' perception while the research questions (lines 135-140) and the section The research process (lines 178-181) mentions that stakeholders were the participants in this study.

You mentioned three narratives (lines 377 to 380) but I don't think that the third one was addressed: lines 381 to 440 refer to the narrative focusing on rural development and changing land ownership structures, lines 441 to 466 refer to second narrative focusing on center-periphery dynamics.

Another recommendation is to include a concluding phrase in each subsection of the Discussion section of the paper. Also, you should revisit the numbering of the subsections as you start the numbering from 4.2 (there is no 4.1).

My last suggestions are aimed to improve the structuring of the paper that will increase readability:

the research questions should be included in the material and methods section of the paper and to move the paragraph that stresses the relevance of the paper (lines 222 to 234) in the Introduction section; the section 2.2 Context of the study should become section 1.2. Also, you could introduce in this section information regarding demographics' evolution and also details about the evolution of the livelihood practices in the region (CCNPA); I would include research limitations and future research in a Conclusion section of the paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript is a product of a very well designed and precisely conducted research. The focus of the study is the Cerro Castillo National Protected Area (CCNPA), located in the Aysén Region of Chile. I think the title is too general, the article discusses protected and not rural areas. 

 row 28 References [5], they are too general and do not correspond well to the article's themes.

I recommend reading the items:

Tewnty Years of Polish Agritourism: the Past and the Future

 http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/handle/11089/29278 

THE TOURISM FUNCTION OF RURAL AREAS IN POMERANIA PROVINCE: DIVERSITY AND CHANGE  http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/handle/11089/18347

 

Approaches to Active Tourism in the Urals and in Perm Krai http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/handle/11089/22304

Natural and Cultural Education Opportunities in Protected Areas in Poland

http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/handle/11089/28879

THE DEMOGRAPHIC ASPECT OF THE URBANIZATION PROCESS AT TOURISM DESTINATIONS IN THE RURAL-URBAN FRINGE OF ŁÓDŹ http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11089/29178/Turyzm_2006_2_Makowska.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

row 216 - 2017 "The outcomes of this study have been produced in a valid, reliable and ethical manner, followin the methodological guidance of qualitative experts, such as [26-31, 33, 34, 36-39]" too many references. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx