Current trends in the tourism industry indicate that most potential travelers purchase tourism products from online travel agents that provide price promotions. Even though the range of price promotions often varies, the tourism literature does not address potential travelers’ perceptions after purchasing products at various discount rates. This study examined the relationships among different discount rates, temporal distance, and counterfactual thinking—a mental undoing of existing outcomes. Results showed that the relationship between discount rate and counterfactual thinking had a U-shaped curve. Furthermore, the shape differed by temporal distance. The optimal discount rate for minimizing counterfactual thinking was 29.62% when the reservation was made 15 days prior to departure but rose to 33.33% when the reservation was made three months prior to departure. This study suggested that counterfactual thinking mediates the relationship between discount rate and perceived regret.
This study contributes to the development of knowledge on transferring the concept of customer-based brand equity to a tourism destination context. Keller’s brand equity pyramid is utilized as the comparison framework to reveal similarities, but also overlaps, differences and gaps on both the conceptual and measurement level of existing brand equity models for destinations. Particularly, the inner core of the model depicts the complex mechanisms of how destination resources transform into benefits for tourists overlooked by prior research. This study proposes a customer-based brand equity model for destinations, which consists of five dependent constructs, including awareness, loyalty, and three destination brand promise constructs constituting the inner core of the model, namely, destination resources, value in use, and value for money. The model was repeatedly tested for the leading Swedish mountain destination Åre, by using a linear structural equation modeling approach. Findings confirm the path structure of the proposed model.
This study develops a model based on the developmental theory of place attachment. The model considers the influence of tourists’ emotions on place attachment and the mediating effects of satisfaction and place attachment on the relationship between tourists’ emotions and intention to recommend. The model was tested using data collected from 464 international tourists at the end of their trip to Thailand. Results show that positive emotions, negative emotions and satisfaction are significant determinants of place attachment. In particular, negative emotions display a positive relationship with place attachment. In addition, only satisfaction mediates the relationship between tourists’ emotions and intention to recommend. Findings highlight the need for researchers to incorporate emotions in modeling place attachment and offer implications for marketers promoting Thailand as a tourist destination.
Appeals to people’s pro-environmental values have been shown to trigger pro-environmental behavior across a range of contexts. The present study tests the potential of such interventions in a hedonic context where behavioral change does not generate utilitarian benefits (tourism). Results from a field experiment in a four-star hotel in Slovenia indicate that appeals to people’s pro-environmental values fail to significantly increase tourists’ hotel towel reuse and decrease room electricity consumption, suggesting that interventions in hedonic contexts—such as tourism—may require the use of more tangible benefits in order to change behavior.
As online reviews have become increasingly prevalent in recent years and their influence on consumers’ purchasing decisions has grown exponentially, some companies have begun to ask people to write fake reviews about their businesses or their competitors while offering compensation in return. This process has drawn the attention of regulators because it knowingly misleads consumers. This article reports on two studies that looked at the effect of two types of incentives (self-benefiting or charitable) on individuals’ intentions to write fake reviews and examined the moderating role of a person’s sense of power on his or her propensity to post a fake review. The study findings indicate that powerless individuals are more likely to post a fake review when presented with a monetary incentive rather than a charity incentive, while powerful individuals are not impacted by incentive type. Moreover, when asked to post negative fake reviews about competitors, such effects are mitigated.
Many studies on risk and destination choice focus on specific destinations or tourist characteristics in an isolated way, resulting in a fragmented nature in research results without a comprehensive understanding. Therefore, an integrated research approach is applied using tourists’ self-assessments of risk and uncertainty in travel decision-making, as well as key characteristics of destinations at hypothetical and realistic stages of the destination choice process. The study uses data collected from a survey on German tourists’ destination choice behavior. The results show that high educational levels and high travel frequencies are distinct characteristics of risk-affine tourists, while higher age groups are more dominant in risk- and uncertainty-averse tourist types. Tourists with varying attitudes toward risk and uncertainty in travel decision-making differ strongly with respect to ideal destinations initially, but choose rather similar destinations when it comes to the final destination choice.
Residents are key stakeholders of tourism destinations. Yet, to date, no study has investigated if and how residents can contribute to destination recovery when a disaster hits. The emergence of peer-to-peer networks offers an efficient platform for residents to open their homes to displaced tourists. Such help is particularly critical if key tourist infrastructure is severely damaged. But are residents willing to open their homes and help in other ways? The present study adopts a scenario-based survey research design, including Australians who live in tourism regions and Australian tourists. Results indicate that (1) segments of residents willing to support the tourism industry in disaster situations exist, and (2) tourists are willing to accept residents’ offers of support. The more immediate the emergency, the higher the willingness to help and accept help. These insights point to the potential of involving residents in destination recovery efforts.
The travel and tourism industry is seeking to achieve consistently seamless experience for customers to stay connected with brands. This study offers an analysis of the interconnected customer experience journey based on an understanding of multichannel behavior. In particular, it identifies the psychographic and sociodemographic factors associated with three segments of multichannel consumers: multichannel shoppers, multichannel searchers, and store-prone shoppers of the travel and tourism industry. Data from a sample of 315 customers from the travel and tourism sector in Egypt were collected and analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. The findings indicate that psychographic variables (shopping enjoyment, convenience seeking, customer innovativeness, perceived risk, Internet experience, frequency of travel, and channel experience) and some demographic variables (i.e., age and income) distinguish among the categories of multichannel shoppers, multichannel searchers, and store-prone shoppers. The study concludes with useful insights into the potential for developing multichannel strategy to achieve superior customer experience.
In the travel and hospitality industries, categorization of products, brands, and experiences permits efficient comparison and evaluation that aids decision making—from consumer choice to organizational strategy. However, categories often involve self-categorization (e.g., marketer defined) that may not reflect the reality of dynamic markets and industries. In this study of the cruise industry, we derive a new categorization approach using consumer perceptions of their cruise experiences to challenge a long-standing industry typology. Results using a variety of statistical tests of J.D. Power data from more than 3,000 cruisers yield a new and more informative category structure and assignment of cruise lines to it. Analyses reveal differences between the new cruise categories in terms of determinants that influence customer choice. Discussion highlights benefits to travel practitioners of using dynamic and customer-based categories, as well as to researchers of applying advanced statistical techniques to expose unexpected and insightful patterns in secondary data.
Immigration crises are of increasing concern around the globe. Although most of these immigrants are fleeing violence and seeking a better life, residents and tourists to these destinations in crisis are concerned about crime and violence associated with an increase in such migration. Consistent with this increase, recent scholarly attention has begun to focus on the dynamics of group relations in the context of immigration crises. Using multigroup partial least squares to examine differences between residents and tourists to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, we examined the relationships between the perceived effectiveness of the security forces deployed to handle the crisis on emotional solidarity, emotional solidarity on perceived safety, and the relationship between perceived safety on likelihood to recommend the destination. We find a complex relationship for our proposed model where most relationships are significant for destination residents and for migrant tourists.
Economizing and spending priorities on different types of vacations are investigated during two periods: an economic downturn and returning prosperity. Two nation-wide samples of vacationers are used: one during a downturn, the other one at the start of the recovery period. Through comparing the results, conclusions can be drawn about symmetric or asymmetric tourist demand across the business cycle.
The main summer holiday has an asymmetric profile: being fairly crisis-resistant during a recession and showing considerable growth during an expansion. This does not apply to short vacations and day trips, each having a symmetric profile: during a recession they experience substantial reductions and during expansion comparable growth. So when talking about tourist demand in general, one cannot say that it is symmetric or asymmetric across the business cycle: it depends on the type of vacation. Differences in tourist demand are best explained by the role of Quality-of-Life for vacationers.
Despite the growing prevalence of smartphones in daily life and travel context, travelers still perceive an extent of risk associated with using their smartphone to book travel products. In order to alleviate or reduce perceived risk, it is important to better understand the dimensions of and the factors that contribute to perceived risk. This study analyzed 411 responses from an online panel to examine perceived risk in mobile travel booking and identified the following facets: time risk, financial risk, performance risk, privacy/security risk, psychological risk, physical risk, and device risk. Several antecedents of perceived risk were identified. Perceived collection of personal information via smartphones contributes positively, while consumer innovativeness, trust, and visibility contribute negatively to perceived risk. Further, the predictive validity of perceived risk is confirmed as it significantly explains perceived usefulness, attitude, and behavioral intention in mobile travel booking. Implications to manage perceived risk and its antecedents are provided.
The aim of this study was to empirically explore existential authenticity from the perspectives of visitors. Given that existentialism invites people to examine the authenticity of their personal lives and their society, an attempt was made in this study to examine the authenticity of visitors’ personal lives and their environments by conducting an empirical study concerning the Kaiping watchtowers site, a well-known Chinese heritage site. Two dimensions of existential authenticity were examined: intrapersonal and interpersonal authenticity. The results reveal that the authenticity of toured heritage sites and environments may be irrelevant to existential authenticity and that intrapersonal authenticity exerts a substantial influence on destination loyalty. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
This study highlights that accounting for the fact that tourism elasticities do not remain stable is crucial for forecasting situations. We demonstrate that approaches with constant elasticity assumptions might lead to substantial forecasting failures, especially in periods characterized by major economic fluctuations and changes in the macroeconomic environment. Therefore, in the course of distinct business cycles, we have to take into account that different price and income effects are to be expected. The main reasons why income elasticity may vary across the business cycle include loss aversion, liquidity constraints, and precautionary savings. By analyzing smooth transition autoregressive models and time-varying parameter approaches, we demonstrate that elasticities may vary as a result of structural changes in consumer behavior and/or policy regime shifts. Income elasticities may also change in the medium term in line with the worsening of the macroeconomic environment and indicate that tourism is no longer a luxury good.
This study aims to reconcile two contrasting research perspectives on tourist decision making. The first perspective contends that tourists are constrained with limited resources and are inhibited to travel, whereas the second perspective contends that tourists search for means to develop a career in traveling and are thereby intrigued to travel to more destinations. This study employs a multilevel design by assessing the relationships of tourist travel frequencies among three outbound markets, namely, in-state, out-of-state domestic, and international markets, through a longitudinal study. By modeling a situational factor—unemployment rate—at the macro level, this study reveals a significant cross-level moderating effect on the relationship between the travel frequencies of domestic and international markets. The findings not only reveal which of these two perspectives is more applicable at a particular situation but also enrich the theories germane to travel career, destination choice, and distance decay.
The benefits of utilizing storytelling at tourism destinations have been widely discussed, yet despite recent advances, it remains unclear which story elements comprise a good destination story and what the most effective modes are for story presentation. The current study examines the influence of story elements and presentation modes on memory performance and visit intention to the destination described in the story. The results show that the story elements of authentic cues and positive emotion increased the subjects’ perceived memory of the story and their visit intention. Moreover, subjects exposed to an audio-visual presentation mode demonstrated better perceived memory recall and higher visit intention. In today’s fiercely competitive climate, many tourism destinations use stories to attract visitors, and these findings can provide insights for destination managers and marketers to help them better utilize storytelling at their destinations.
Hospitality constituencies need accurate forecasting of future performance of hotels in specific destinations to benchmark their properties and better optimize operations. As competition increases, hotel managers have urgent need for accurate short-term forecasts. In this study, time-series models incorporating several tourism big data sources, including search engine queries, website traffic, and weekly weather information, are tested in order to construct an accurate forecasting model of weekly hotel occupancy for a destination. The results show the superiority of ARMAX models with both search engine queries and website traffic data in accurate forecasting. Also, the results suggest that weekly dummies are superior to Fourier terms in capturing the hotel seasonality. The limitations of the inclusion of multiple big data sources are noted since the reduction in forecasting error is minimal.
This empirical study developed and tested configural models for predicting residents’ support for tourism development (RSTD). The main contributions of this study are to propose a new analytical method for modeling the complex interactions of RSTD indicators, advancing the necessary theory to support both the ordinary and heterogonous relationships of RSTD and its antecedents, providing managerial guidelines for both promoting RSTD and controlling the negation of RSTD, and modeling RSTD in Hawraman, Iran, a location in which little information is available about host communities. We administered a survey to collect the views of 202 residents with varying demographic characteristics. To ascertain the occurrences of contrarian cases, cross-tabulation tests were performed, and their results helped to identify the functionality of fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and complexity theory for asymmetrical modeling of RSTD. The predictive validity of causal recipes was also checked. The results from the fsQCA revealed that conditions with a higher level of community attachment, community involvement, knowledge of tourism, power to influence tourism, perceived personal benefit, positive tourism impacts, and satisfaction with quality of life led to a higher RSTD score. The results also indicated that trust in government and tourism negative impacts both positively and negatively, depending on the attributes of other antecedents in the causal recipe, function as determinants of RSTD. This study presents deeper insights into the tourism literature by exploring conditions that indicate high/low RSTD scores, which are useable for modeling other complex tourism issues.
International tourism is considered an effective means of economic development. However, the effects of tourism are not evenly distributed between rural and urban households in China. In the wake of significant socioeconomic events, the uneven distribution of the economic effects has huge welfare implications for Chinese households. This study is the first attempt to evaluate the distributional effect of two large, recent, sequential events on China’s rural and urban households. It adopts an innovative approach that combines an econometric model and a two-household computable general equilibrium model. The results show that in terms of welfare, urban households were more adversely affected by the events than rural households. To mitigate the loss of welfare, measures should be taken to continually promote China as a destination and attract tourists after such events occur. Meanwhile, training and education should be made more accessible to rural households to increase their job opportunities.
This study empirically examines the dynamic relationships among tourism, economic growth, and CO2 emissions and compares the effects of tourism on economic growth and CO2 emissions between developed and developing economies. By employing robust panel econometric techniques, the results show that tourism has significant positive impacts on economic growth for both developed and developing economies, supporting the prevailing hypothesis of tourism-led economic growth. The results also reveal that the impact of tourism on CO2 emissions is reducing much faster in developed economies than in developing economies, providing evidence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis on the link between tourism growth and CO2 emissions. Our findings demonstrate the importance of the classification of countries by economic development level to obtain a deeper understanding of relationships among tourism, economic growth, and CO2 emissions. Policy implications are provided and discussed.
This study takes a temporal perspective on the analysis of politics, power, and tourism destination development. It analyzes past and contemporary consequences of the power relationships among different stakeholders. A qualitative inquiry includes semi-structured in-depth interviews with stakeholders, from local islanders to national-level politicians, complemented by secondary material. After identification of the key tourism stakeholders in the case study area, Maldives, the study details and analyzes, through consideration of contested policy formulation and implementation, why and how stakeholders have sought to gain, hold, and cede power. Accordingly, the study develops theoretical understanding that recognizes and evaluates patterns of stakeholder power dominance, subservience, and decline.
Although the significance of travel health risks is well documented, the process through which people assess their vulnerability and ultimately take on preventive measures needs clarification. The purpose of this article is to better understand factors underlying travelers’ health risk perceptions and their protective behavior. Using the health psychology literature, a conceptual model that incorporates multilevel psychological constructs was tested with 830 Australian outbound travelers. Worry was an important antecedent to both travel health risk perceptions and risk-protective behavior. Perceived control over health-related risks was not positively associated with risk perceptions but was positively associated with risk-protective behavior. Sensation-seeking propensity was negatively associated with risk perceptions but positively associated with risk-protective behavior. Travel risk perceptions mediated the relationship between the antecedents and risk-protective behavior. Implications for the design of health communication for industry and government are outlined, and future research avenues are also proposed.
A detailed understanding of decision rules is essential in order to better explain consumption behavior, yet the variety of decision rules used have been somewhat neglected in tourism research. This study adopts an innovative method, greedoid analysis, to estimate a noncompensatory type of decision rule known as lexicographic by aspect (LBA). It is quite different from the weighted additive (WADD) model commonly assumed in tourism studies. By utilizing an experimental research design, this study enables the evaluation of the two types of decision rules regarding their predictive and explanatory power. Additionally, we introduce a novel evaluation indicator ("cost"), which allows further investigation of the heterogeneity in the use of decision rules. The results suggest that although the out-of-sample accuracy is lower, the LBA model has a better explanatory performance on respondents’ preference order. Moreover, the different perspective provided by the LBA model is useful for obtaining managerial implications.
The constructs of country and destination images have been used to understand attitudes and behaviors of consumers and tourists toward products and destinations. The constructs have evolved theoretically in two distinctive streams of literature and their relationship and interactions have not been empirically substantiated. Building on Keller’s brand equity framework (K. Keller, "Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity," Journal of Marketing 57, no. 1 [1993]: 1–22) and biodiversity literature, the study proposes an approach to numerically describe and compare country and destination images of a place on ease of recall, richness and diversity of associations, as well as on strength, favorability, uniqueness, and types of these associations. The study empirically tests the proposed approach using the United States as an example. The approach contributes to better understanding of the two constructs and their relationships, and it is hoped that the study will aid countries and destinations in their branding and marketing efforts.
The present work examines the competitive strategies of tourist destinations and proposes that value-creation among tourists during their entire experience of a destination (before, during, and after their stay) is an antecedent of increased destination brand equity. This value-creation is conceptualized and measured from the service-dominant logic perspective. The research objective is achieved by (a) identifying the dimensions of customer-based destination brand equity and tourist value-creation; (b) validating the scales generated for the measurement of both variables; and (c) proposing a model that captures the antecedent effect of value-creation on customer-based destination brand equity. The findings reveal that value-creation is an antecedent by which the customer perceives greater destination brand equity. The results of the study make a contribution to the specialized literature on tourism and service-dominant logic and offer interesting implications for the professional domain.
While researchers increasingly address place meaning and place attachment as the cornerstones for understanding human–place relations, the factors that make a tourism destination meaningful have received less attention. Using Q method, this study investigated the dynamic nature of place meanings from the tourist perspective, and developed a theoretical framework to explain the construction of destination meanings. Data analyses identified four subjective views toward the meanings of destination and four underlying continuums that illustrate how a complex process of co-construction reveals distinct patterns of destination meanings. This study makes theoretical as well as practical contributions to the literature.
This article compares the effects of factors influencing residents’ perceptions toward tourism development in urban and rural World Heritage Sites (WHSs). This study has been conducted in the rural Lenggong and urban George Town WHSs in Malaysia. Partial least squares–structural equation modeling, using a number of recently developed advanced analysis methods, has been used to assess the proposed measurement and structural models, and to compare the relationships between the two groups. The results of this study reveal significant differences between the effects of economic gain and community involvement on residents’ perceptions in rural and urban contexts. However, the findings do not support differences between the effects of community attachment and environmental attitudes on residents’ perceptions. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution by comparing rural and urban WHS residents in the developing world. Furthermore, this study has a number of practical implications for the local authorities.
While there has been a growing interest in the relationship between perceived tourism impacts and residents’ quality of life, little is known about how residents’ well-being is affected by actual tourist arrivals. This article studies the effect of international tourist arrivals on the subjective well-being—happiness and life satisfaction—of residents in European countries. Data come from the six waves of the European Social Survey, conducted in 32 countries in 2002-2013. The results of the OLS fixed-effects and instrumental-variable estimations suggest that tourist arrivals reduce residents’ life satisfaction. This negative relationship tends to be more pronounced in countries where tourism intensity is relatively high, as well as among people living in rural areas. In addition, tourist arrivals have a greater negative relationship with the evaluative component of subjective well-being (life satisfaction) than its affective component (happiness).
Technologies have dramatically transformed tourist experience. However, research has largely focused on traveler attitudes and technology adoption rather than their experience with travel technologies. Taking a cross-country perspective, this study examines the role of technology readiness (TR) as a personality trait in shaping travelers’ satisfaction with travel technologies, using airlines as a case study. Results of an online survey of travelers in Australia, China, and the United States revealed the moderating effects of the TR dimensions of optimism and innovativeness as well as country of residence on the relationships between perceived quality of technology-enabled services (TESs), satisfaction with TESs, overall satisfaction, and future behavior. These relationships were stronger among travelers with higher TR and varied across countries. The results suggest that tourism and hospitality service providers should incorporate measures of traveler TR and TESs’ performance into their customer-experience monitoring system.
A concerning issue with Economic Impact Analysis (EIA) is that many EIAs give results for one year, without being explicit about how long impacts are expected to last. New tourism attractions should not be assumed to provide continuing positive impacts into the future. For instance, the Giant Pandas at Adelaide Zoo generated a positive economic impact in their first year of residence (22% of a sample of tourists visited Adelaide "due to pandas," additional tourism expenditure in the region was $27.7 million, with $2.3 to $4.6 million captured by the zoo); however, increased numbers visiting to see the pandas lasted only two years. Investment decision makers expected larger, longer-term economic benefits than eventuated, and the zoo experienced financial difficulties. This study provides advice for predictive EIA of new tourism attractions and prompts a call for tourism EIA studies to be explicit about the time period for which results are relevant.
The success of a city’s retail core is largely dependent on the composition and organization of its merchant constituents. Not only should the price-point and products of a city’s retail align with its resident and visitor demographics but the stores should be strategically balanced to maximize consumer spending and interest. Heritage destinations dependent on the tourism market should pay special attention to this issue, assuring their visitors a valuable shopping experience while simultaneously preserving the destination’s cultural appeal. This case study considers the rapidly evolving shopping district of Charleston, South Carolina, focusing specifically on the retail core’s recent influx of chain merchants to what was once predominantly a local main street. A historical account, paired with an in-depth survey of merchants, is presented. The research builds on previous studies that have considered the issue of merchant mix from the perspective of the city’s stakeholders, tourists, and residents.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate how the impacts from the 2022 World Cup preparations in Qatar influenced local residents’ attitudes, personal and community quality of life perceptions, excitement about hosting the event, and support toward the event. The examination of the way mega sport event impacts influence residents’ perceptions of personal and community quality of life is lacking in the literature. Data were collected using systematic sampling in October 2014 from Qatari nationals and white-collar expatriates. Overall, 2,163 interviews with Qatari nationals (1,058) and white-collar expatriates (1,105) were completed. The results revealed that eight years before the event, sociocultural impacts were the most influential type of impact for residents’ attitudes toward the event, community and personal quality of life, excitement about the event, and support of the FIFA decision to host the event in Qatar.
This article examines the contested area of the responsibility for destinations and tourists, within emergency settings. It incorporates a Delphi-Scenario technique to facilitate a structured discussion of emergency management for different destination stakeholders. The Delphi exercise engaged 123 senior international stakeholders, from 9 different industry sectors, across 34 countries to provide a global perspective. The study’s principal focus is on the notion of emergency management, to identify the challenges that stakeholders would face within a disaster scenario. The exercise asked stakeholders to identify with whom the responsibility rests for 18 distinct disaster-related activities. The study proposes a responsibility allocation building-block framework that could help speed up the emergency management responses by "knowing who is going to do what" with a particular focus on dealing with international tourists as a community in a disaster zone.
This study applies a threshold regression model and considers three tourism specialization indices as the threshold variables in order to explore the nonlinear relation among tourism growth, economic growth, and other macroeconomic variables for a cross-sectional data set of 84 countries. Our empirical results show strong evidence of a nonlinear relation between tourism growth and economic growth, suggesting that it is not continuous and constant. The results do not support the view that one size fits all, and therefore countries with different conditions of tourism development experience various impacts on the tourism–growth nexus.
Focusing on sporting events as an important segment within the tourism and travel industry, this study establishes that the service quality–delight–loyalty system complements a service quality–satisfaction–loyalty one. The findings highlight that prior consumption experience with a service coincides with lowered service evaluations while it amplifies the impact of customer delight on customer loyalty. In turn, this study provides practical insights into service quality dimensions for managing customer loyalty.
Experiential marketing and the quest to create memorable and extraordinary customer experiences have become central to tourism. However, implementing the concept of experiential marketing has been problematic due to a lack of knowledge regarding what makes experiences memorable, as well as inattention to the subjective and personal nature of experiences. This study explores the nature of individual experiences, particularly with regard to personal outcomes, emotions and meanings, by investigating tourists’ experiences of the same activity in three different consumption contexts. The influence of consumption context as well as significant differences in personal outcomes were evident, and more profound and meaningful than previous research suggests. Findings point to a need to understand tourist consumption experiences beyond hedonic enjoyment of the moment, and consider their broader implications on well-being and quality of life. Implications for tourism providers and experiential marketing are discussed.
Occupational uncertainty has a considerable effect upon consumer decisions during a recession, especially with respect to discretionary products and services such as tourism. Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), the study examines the complex relations among job vulnerability, disposable income for tourism, marketing activities, and price and quality issues for Greek holiday makers returning from their vacations. The article also compares QCA with the two dominant linear methods of analysis (i.e. correlation and regression) and highlights the suitability of QCA when dealing with complexity in tourism. The results reveal four configurations explaining the attributes of Greek residents’ tourism decisions, characterized by value-for-money orientation, achievement of best available purchase, psychological strengthening, and price sensitivity. The study also employs predictive validity for the presented models. The findings are valid from both a methodological and managerial perspective suggesting new research insights.
Studies focusing on the relationship between transnational terrorism and tourism examine the effect of terror on tourism, while this study looks at a different question: does international tourism affect transnational terrorism? We hypothesized that the higher the number of international tourist arrivals to a country, the higher the number of terror attacks, and examined this effect from four distinct aspects: perpetration by foreign attackers against local victims, perpetration by local attackers against foreign victims, perpetration by foreign attackers against foreign victims, and perpetration of terror attacks against foreign private parties. We conclude that there is an inverse U relationship between number of arrivals and number of attacks perpetrated by foreigners, and also a robust significant relationship between number of arrivals to a country and terror attacks in which both the attacker and the victim are foreigners. However, it is not unequivocal whether this is a positive linear or an inverse U relationship.
Couched in the context of the experience economy 3.0, this research conceptualized transformations as changes in existential authenticity and anxiety, and phenomenologically explored the essence of a transformative tourist experience and subsequent long-term changes. This research uncovered nine chronologically ordered themes in which existentially oriented concerns were prevalent. It found that tourists did not reflect on existential givens in situ until a triggering episode initiated the meaning-making process. Existential anxiety felt post-trip was found to motivate tourists to resolve pertinent existential dilemmas and to initiate meaningful life changes. Participants sustained enhanced existential authenticity and became more sensitive to existential anxiety in their lives thereafter.
This article investigates the relationship between tourism specialization and economic growth while accounting for the absorptive capacity of host (tourism destination) countries, defined in terms of financial system development. We use the system generalized methods-of-moments (SYS-GMM) estimation methodology to investigate this relationship for 129 countries over the period 1995–2011. The results support the hypothesis that the positive effect of tourism specialization on growth is contingent on the level of economic development as well as the financial system absorptive capacity of recipient economies. Consistent with the law of diminishing returns, we also find that for countries with a developed financial system, at exponential levels of tourism specialization, its effect on growth turns negative. Significant policy implications flow from these findings.
This study explores Chinese Generation Y’s perceptions of adventure tourism experiences and their reasoning in deciding to participate. Focus group interviews reveal that Chinese youths have a unique generational sociocultural perception of participation in adventure activities. Much like their Western counterparts, members of China’s Generation Y want to experience the freedom of international travel that enables self-development and maturity, but they also have a strong sense of familial obligation and distinctive cultural beliefs that underpin their consumer decision making. Safety concerns of both the young people and their parents, along with self-efficacy beliefs regarding their physical ability to participate in the experience, can also reduce their likelihood of participation in adventure activities that they consider to be too risky or physically challenging. The study emphasizes that the design and marketing of adventure experiences must consider the unique Chinese generational psychology of this cohort and has implications for practice and future research.
The study’s purpose was to examine and update the research methods and measurement issues associated with assessing the economic impact (EI) of an extended duration, regional tourism event. Specifically examined were the issues with the implementation of EI studies in regard to further testing and re-verifying the methods used in (1) measuring a representative sample from an information-seeking/sharing web site and social media registration and engagement lists; (2) comparing locals and nonlocals within a region using different definition techniques; (3) examining the impact of VFRs within the local markets; and (4) comparing the estimation of purchasing within versus outside an impact area. Recommendations for further analysis and implementation for EI studies and the management of tourism special events are presented.
The study develops a comprehensive picture of tourism demand trends at UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) with the aim of providing evidence of any growth in demand for specific destinations after the listing of their sites. In contrast to previous literature, this article focuses on the smallest statistical unit (the municipality) to examine WHS impact on the destination. Analyzing 16 Italian WHSs, we show the most relevant trends in hospitality demand, comparing tourism flows at destinations before and after listing. Data show that, on average, growth rates of tourism demand in the 5 years after WHS listing are not higher than growth rates in the 5 years before the listing, but a number of different patterns emerge. The policy and managerial implications of such findings are straightforward: at least for a mature destination like Italy, there is no statistical evidence that WHS listing is associated with accelerating market growth rates.
Destination image is among the most studied constructs in tourism research. Many researchers are still convinced that the rating scale method is the most accurate for assessing destination image. This study presents alternative methods of data collection, namely, free-sorting and reduced paired comparisons, and investigates their applicability in a Web-based environment. The study then subjects these data collection methods to empirical analysis and compares the judgment task’s effects on perceived difficulty, fatigue, and boredom, on data quality, and on perceptual maps derived with MDS. The findings demonstrate that these methods are more accurate whenever a large number of objects have to be judged, which is particularly the case for positioning and competitiveness studies.
One way national parks can sustain their societal relevance and ensure ongoing political and community support is through conscious and deliberate repositioning. This study investigates the potential for psychologically repositioning national parks using persuasive communication designed to shift public perceptions of the benefits of visitor experiences in parks. The experimental communication interventions were selected to target benefits where gaps were identified between the perceptions of park managers and the parks’ constituent publics. Using a pre–post design on 1,055 respondents split evenly across two Australian states, the experiment revealed that the website and the video used as interventions were highly effective at improving public perceptions of park benefits. This was attributed to the persuasiveness of the website and the video, which respondents rated as having positive valence, as highly vivid and as credible. This research provides theoretically informed insights into the application of persuasive communication theory to psychologically reposition national parks.
This qualitative study explores the flight experiences of obese people. The in-depth semistructured interviews (n = 24) with self-identified obese people revealed that they confront difficulties and barriers that arise from their interaction with the physical environment. While these entail some inconvenience, it is mostly the interaction with the social environment that results in a sense of embarrassment and humiliation. The aforementioned have an adverse effect on the flight experience. The flight is perceived as a three-part experience—boarding, flight, and deplaning—affected by mediating factors such as the staff approach, participants’ appearance, and the flight attributes (e.g., short/long, direct/indirect). An important finding is that people’s body, and specifically their self-perception of it as stigmatized, play an important role in the contextualization of the travel experience. The article concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for future research.
This study examines the influence of residents’ trust in government and organizing committee on their impact perceptions and support for a mega-event, namely, 2014 FIFA World Cup. Findings suggest significant relationships between impact perceptions and support. While trust in government is found to be a significant determinant of impact perceptions, findings indicate no significant relationship between trust in government and support, which suggest that the relationship is mediated by impact perceptions. While a positive relationship between trust in the organizing committee and positive impact perceptions is found, findings suggest no significant relationship between trust in the organizing committee and negative impact perceptions. Trust in the organizing committee is also found to have significant positive impact on support.
Heritage tourism is increasingly viewed as both an individual and experiential phenomenon as well as being related to specific attributes of a destination. Ancestral tourism fits the former perspective and centers on tourists traveling to sites which they perceive to be a "homeland" where, during the visit, they attempt to discover more about their own heritage. This study explores ancestral tourism from a provider perspective focusing on the delivery of tourist experiences and relationships between tourists and the place visited. The research is based on a qualitative study of tourist and nontourist specific providers across Scotland with data collected using in-depth interviews. This study reveals a phenomenon that delivers deeply personal experiences to visitors and where encounters involve intense, often lengthy, interactions between visitors and providers. Ancestral tourism experiences are also often centered on tourism provision within local communities, which can present challenges to both provider and tourist alike.
In line with recent tourism international organizations’ outcry on stringent visa regulations for short-term travel negatively impacting the tourism industry, this paper sheds light into why some countries have more tourist visa-free access than others. We contribute to the politics of tourism literature by providing an understanding of the underlying determinants of political decisions with regard to the number of visa-free privileges offered. The empirical analysis uses count regression models while guided by relevant theories borrowed from migration studies, given that some visitors overstay and become illegal immigrants, which result in visa policies mitigating this phenomenon. Findings underscore the role of public policies centered on improving governance and economic development, deepening their financial sector and engaging in appropriate social networking groups. Such policies will promote global economic welfare, which can eradicate poverty and ignite economic recovery. The results also inform theory in devising an appropriate framework for visa strategic analysis.
The proliferation of multidestination trips provides valuable opportunities for regions to benefit from spillover effects generated by other regions nearby. To better understand the spatial patterns of multidestination travel, we propose a two-stage distance-based model. Results suggest that long-haul tourists (i.e., those who travel far from home) tend to choose a subsequent destination that is closer to the previous destination but farther away from their residences. In addition to sociodemographic and tripographic factors, we recognize the importance of spatial structure effects in determining the travel distance for a multidestination trip. Based on the model estimates, we propose a tourism spillover index to reflect a region’s potential to receive spillover benefits from multidestination tourists leaving a particular region. Finally, we discuss implications for marketing strategies to enhance the attraction potential of specific destinations.
This study investigated African Americans’ travel behavior using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. In-depth and face-to-face interviewees were conducted with 13 middle-class African Americans. Vignette technique was used during the interviews. The study identified four salient themes: (1) racial discrimination during travel, (2) fear of racism, (3) storytelling and safety instructions: social reproduction of the fear of racism, and (4) race-related travel choices. The findings showed that informants’ travel behavior was linked to an acute fear of racism. They affirmed that African Americans’ travel patterns need to be conceived as a defensive mechanism against potential racial discrimination. Implications for research methods and tourism management are discussed.
Egypt is currently one of the leading nations especially in the Middle East region with a well-established e-commerce environment and advanced IT infrastructure, but rapid growth of e-commerce will soon occur in other nations with similar consumption patterns. This study tests a model of antecedents (consumer experience, propensity to trust, reputation, perceived website size, ease of use, perceived usefulness, and website quality) and consequences of consumers’ trust toward online travel websites. Trust is expected to predict consumer attitude, perceived risk, and intention to purchase travel online. Data of 1,431 users of online travel websites were selected from the Supreme Council of Universities Database–Egypt (SCU) and analyzed through structural equation modeling. The findings show that all the aforementioned factors with the exception of consumer experience influence consumer trust toward online travel websites. Trust influences consumers’ attitude, perceived risk, and intention to purchase travel online.
Tourism’s unique features limit the consumer behavior literature’s ability to explain consumer loyalty. More precisely, existing consumer loyalty models do not consider social and cultural dimensions highlighted by tourism literature. Using new institutional theory, this article proposes a new perspective to explain loyalty. This study of musical festival patrons and managers combines cognitive mapping and questionnaires. Findings demonstrate that shared values between managers and festival-goers influence the latter’s loyalty. More precisely, shared values impact attitudinal loyalty and word-of-mouth, but they do not affect behavioral loyalty. Results also show that festival-goer loyalty decreases more slowly over time when a high level of shared values exist. Beyond music festivals, this study highlights a more sociological approach to explain loyalty over time in tourism.
This article highlights the impacts on poverty, income inequality, and the macroeconomic and sectoral output resulting from increases in the value-added tax and sales tax on hotels and restaurants using Indonesia as a case study. While taxing tourism-related sectors was ineffective in reducing poverty and income inequality, using tax revenue from the value-added tax as a cash transfer policy was effective and more so in rural Indonesia. Tax revenue used for infrastructural development was however limited in its impact on poverty and income distribution. Overall, the negative effects of taxation on various industries and the contraction of GDP and employment in the economy need to be mitigated. This can be done with an appropriate policy mix for the use of tax revenue between cash transfers and expenditure in education and health, with the view to address potential resource misallocation and output contraction in other industries.
Despite its rapid growth across several social science disciplines, the use of the Bayesian approach to measure tourism performance has yet to gain strong attention in tourism research. This article reviews the foundation of the Bayesian approach and discusses its benefits and the flexibility it provides in the estimation of highly complicated performance models. With the lack of tourism studies focusing on the Bayesian approach, we take first a general approach and provide a description of the Bayesian approach, illustrating its advantages, and its key differences from the frequentist approach. We then discuss its specific benefits in the measurement of tourism performance within the context of stochastic frontier (SF) models. We introduce several advanced versions of SF where the use of the Bayesian approach becomes necessary. We also provide simulation evidence about the advantages of the Bayesian approach and discuss how it can be used to estimate various SF models.
Conversion studies are a standard technique by which marketers evaluate advertisement effectiveness. A review of the tourism literature finds that advertising conversion studies use a number of metrics that have evolved to include most aspects of visitor decisions; however, this literature also indicates that there are few comparative studies focusing on the variability of response. The overall goal of this study is to identify and compare estimates of impact on visitor expenditures using four different approaches ranging from traditional advertising models (i.e., gross conversion rate and net conversion rate) to a more comprehensive facets-based destination advertisement response (DAR) model. The various models result in a huge range of impact estimates and it is concluded that the DAR model offers, both theoretically and practically, a powerful framework for evaluating advertising response in that it incorporates the possibility that destination advertising affects decisions related to a range of trip-related activities.
Understanding consumers’ needs and wants has been a major source of success for hotel organizations. Notwithstanding, investigating the valence of online reviews and modeling hotel attributes and performance is still a rather novel approach. Using partial least squares path modeling, Swiss country-level data for online reviews from 68 online platforms, together with data from 442 hotels, we test 11 hypotheses. Our research model includes three distinctive areas of the hotel: physical aspects, quality of food and drink, and human aspects of service provision. RevPAR and occupancy are employed as performance metrics. We also test for mediation effects. Results indicate that hotel attributes, including the quality of rooms, Internet provision and building show the highest impact on hotel performance, and that positive comments have the highest impact on customer demand. This study contributes to theories of valence on hotel performance and presents salient implications for practitioners to enhance performance.
In the tourism industry, most customer feedback and searches for relevant information take place online. Therefore, it is important to improve understanding of the business consequences of both customers’ online comments and businesses’ online visibility. For this study, the authors collected comments and visibility data (advertising expenditures) from a leading rural tourism infomediary website, related to 408 French rural lodging establishments. A complementary survey provided information about the lodging establishments’ performance (reputation and profitability). The results reveal that tourists’ positive perceptions of global service quality, as reflected in their comments, depend on their dual perceptions of the lodging and the surroundings. In turn, positive global service quality perceptions and visibility on an infomediary website positively affect business performance. These findings have implications for tourism scholars, as well as for establishment owners trying to track the factors that affect tourists’ evaluations of their service provision.
Existing research on tourism social media users rarely extends beyond their role as appraisers of tourism and hospitality products. Such research fails to identify the different modes of experience and behavior that these users assume in their cyberspace interactions. This article demonstrates that user interactions entail much more than evaluating products. Using data from TripAdvisor, it identifies five additional user roles that define their experience and comportment online: troll, activist, social critic, information seeker, and socialite. Adopting a netnographic approach, these categories are interrogated to provide a more nuanced understanding of the online user experience in tourism social media space. Further, for each role, we glean the implicit uses and gratifications users seek from using the media. It is argued that the combined enactment of these roles creates a rich repository of experiential narratives that tourism businesses and destination managers can tap into for insights into the modern tourism consumer.
The destination is the focal point of tourism marketing activities. Many definitions of destinations have been proposed in the past, but it remains unclear what a destination is from a consumer perspective at early stages of the destination choice process. Yet, it is the consumer perspective that matters most. The present study investigates consumer perceptions of what a destination is. Results indicate that (1) consumers have a very broad position on what a destination is, (2) the distance between the destination and home affects the size of the geographical area perceived as destination, and (3) geographically larger destinations are severely underresearched. Findings have implications for both tourism research and tourism marketing, indicating that destinations need to be marketed differently to long-haul tourists.
Despite the growing complexity of structural equation model (SEM) applications in tourism, it is surprising that most applications have estimated these models without accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. In this article, we aim to discuss the concept of unobserved heterogeneity in more detail, highlighting its serious threats to the validity and reliability of SEMs. We describe a Bayesian finite mixture modeling framework for estimating SEMs while accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. We provide a comprehensive description of this model, and provide guidance on its estimation using the WinBUGS software. We illustrate the importance of unobserved heterogeneity and the finite mixture modeling framework using a didactic application on brand equity where heterogeneity is likely to play an important role because of the differences in how consumers perceive the different dimensions of brand equity. We compare between various models and illustrate the differences between the standard and heterogeneous SEM and discuss the implications for research and practice.
While the fluctuating price of gasoline has affected numerous industries throughout the world, very few entities in the global economy are more impacted than tourism and hospitality businesses located in destinations relying heavily on visitor demand generated by automobile travel. This study examines the effect of decreases in gasoline prices on travel expenditures and behavior among visitors arriving by auto to Florida destination areas. Data on travel expenditures, behavioral characteristics, selected demographics, revisit intention, and overall satisfaction with the on-site experience were collected at random from in-state and out-of-state travelers. A two-level hierarchical linear modeling approach was used to provide an accurate picture of the effects that decreasing gasoline prices have on auto visitor expenditures specific to restaurants, entertainment, admission to attractions and events, numbers of activities pursued during their on-site visit to the destination, and their impact on satisfaction and revisit intention.
This article aims to examine the conjecture that geographic dispersal of visitors follows the power law using data on international visitors’ spatial distribution in Australia. Our finding suggests that as tourism market matures, the pattern of tourist dispersal tends to converge toward a specific power law distribution. The article provides estimates of this unique power exponent for each country and tracks its temporal evolution using a novel method. One of the key implications for sustainable destination management is that for continued tourism growth, large destinations need a large number of small peripheral destinations. Our findings also shed light on the rich research literature that is fundamental in developing a power law–based theory to guide our understanding of the mechanics underpinning the spatial evolution of tourism.
A new model that links climate and seasonal tourism demand is developed to study the effects of home climate, destination climate, and climate difference between destinations and source markets on seasonal tourism demand. Using the dynamic panel data technique, the study focuses on the demand of tourists from Hong Kong for 19 of the major tourism cities in Mainland China. The results show that the home climate, destination climate, and the difference in climate between home and destination cities all have significant influence on tourism demand. Furthermore, demand for Mainland Chinese tourism among Hong Kong residents is found to be driven by the climate at the place of origin, while the effects of destination climate and climate difference are weaker.
The study tests a model that examines the influence of characteristics of associative slogans on tourists’ attitudes toward slogan, attitudes toward destination, and travel intentions as well as the moderating effects of the need for cognition and destination familiarity on these relationships. Findings reveal that extremity has negative effects on attitudes toward slogan, attitudes toward destination, and travel intention; specificity has a positive effect on attitudes toward slogan; and relevancy has positive effects on attitudes toward slogan, and attitudes toward destination. Need for cognition moderates the relationship between extremity and intention, relevancy and attitudes toward slogan and destination, and intention. Familiarity moderates the relationships between extremity and attitudes toward slogan, attitudes toward destination, and the relationship between relevancy and attitudes toward destination.
Any tourist evaluation of place is partly shaped by the tourist’s own culture, and this may be even more so when the site gazed upon is representative of a different culture and/or heritage. However, this article suggests that differences of evaluations may be overemphasized if the research concentrates solely on the variable of nationality. The physical characteristics of place, the interpretation offered, and possibly other features such as the level of crowding all have a role to play. The common experience of these factors by tourists of different nationalities may create a commonality of evaluation despite differences in tourists’ cultures. The study reported here of more than 200 respondents uses textual analysis to find similarities and differences between Australian, Chinese, German, and New Zealand visitors to a Maori cultural site in New Zealand.
The article examines the impact of political and economic freedom on inbound tourism for more than 110 countries during 1995–2012. Panel country fixed-effects techniques are utilized to examine the relationship after controlling for other factors that contribute to inbound tourism. The results show that civil liberties and economic freedom (among several other freedom measures) are positively and significantly associated with inbound tourism. Examination of the moderation effect reveals that civil liberties (economic freedom) tend to play a more influential role on inbound tourism when the level of economic freedom (civil liberties) is relatively low.
In this study, we quantify the link between climate variables, such as temperature, rainfall, humidity, number of tropical cyclones, and number of thunderstorms, and seasonal variation in the Hong Kong inbound tourism demand from mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan using the average Euclidean distance (AED) statistics and tourism demand modeling approach. Seasonal variation is measured as the fluctuation in the number of tourists from one season to another. Based on the smallest AED value, results of this study showed that climate variables play a dominant role in shaping seasonal variation relative to season and country. The fluctuation of tourist numbers from one season to another is determined not only by climate variables (e.g., the temperature of Hong Kong vs. the temperature in the country of origin of the tourist) but also by economic factors, including price and income. The variation in the impact of relative temperature depends on the country of origin.
This study extends social capital to specific types of personal relationships that encourage residents’ collective action for rural tourism development. Two communities in South Korea were examined using face-to-face interviews with community leaders, and a structured questionnaire with residents. Five hypotheses that frame tourism development as a coordinated effort of social networks were identified. Findings indicate that the quality of one’s social networks are relevant to the propensity to participate in tourism development. The closer one’s relationship to a community leader of tourism development, the more likely they are to be part of community-based efforts for tourism development. In addition, compared to individualized personal ties among residents, already existing social organizations were critical to enhance collective action of residents. An implication for increased participation in tourism development is for community leaders to reach out and learn from residents who are isolated or less central within community leadership networks.
Studies about measuring competitiveness of winter sport destinations are rare. Subjective measurements seem to dominate research mostly either from demand or supply side; however, seldom integrated approaches from both sides are used. Objective measures seem to be scarce, and comparisons of both subjective and objective measures seem to have been neglected so far. To increase the credibility of previous findings, this article relies on subjective primary data (demand and supply side), also named "soft" data, and objective secondary data (demand side), also named "hard" data, on the competitiveness of six Alpine destinations. Findings show evidence that subjective performance measures show deviations from the results based on objective measures.
The objective of this longitudinal study is to explore whether changes in tourists’ outbound travel behavior can be explained by their demographic characteristics and by economic fluctuations over time. A multilevel model of outbound travel behavior that incorporates both individual characteristics and changes in the economy is proposed. Based on a large sample from a 10-year longitudinal study, our findings show that both individual- and macro-level factors directly influence tourist behavior. The multilevel model suggests that tourist travel behavior and the effects of tourist demographics are time-variant, and can be best explained by economic fluctuations. In addition, the findings suggest that the tourist life cycle and the economic cycle, and the cross-level interaction of both, jointly influence tourist travel behavior, thus suggesting a new cross-level, dual-cycle model of travel behavior.
The current study explores the central elements comprising memorable tourism experiences. It does so by adopting a sequential data collection process along three main successive travel stages: (a) pre-, (b) during, and (c) posttravel. Findings suggest that while participants vividly recalled the process of collecting and negotiating information for travel planning as well as interactions with others, what they most recalled posttravel (i.e., once their travels were over) were unique and unexpected personal experiences that differentiated their experiences from others’ experiences. The implications of such findings for the understanding of memorable tourism experiences are discussed.
Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a way of representing complex systems of autonomous agents or actors, and of simulating the multiple potential outcomes of these agents’ behaviors and interactions in the form of a range of alternatives or futures. Despite the complexity of the tourism system, and the power and flexibility of ABM to overcome the assumptions such as homogeneity, linearity, equilibrium, and rationality typical of traditional modeling techniques, ABM has received little attention from tourism researchers and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to introduce ABM to a wider tourism audience. Specifically, the appropriateness of tourism as a phenomenon to be subjected to ABM is established; the power and benefits of ABM as an alternative scientific mechanism are illuminated; the few existing applications of ABM in the tourism arena are summarized; and, a range of potential applications in the areas of tourism planning, development, marketing and management is proposed.
The purpose of this study is to empirically test an integrative model linking tourists’ emotional experiences, perceived overall image, satisfaction, and intention to recommend. The model was tested using data collected from domestic tourists visiting Sardinia, Italy. Results show that tourists’ emotional experiences act as antecedents of perceived overall image and satisfaction evaluations. In addition, overall image has a positive influence on tourist satisfaction and intention to recommend. The study expands current theorizations by examining the merits of emotions in tourist behavior models. From a practical perspective, the study offers important implications for destination marketers.
As competition among destinations has intensified, researchers have increasingly advocated for a market-oriented approach to destination marketing. Unfortunately, the unique stakeholder structure of the destination marketing environment precludes a direct application of the traditional market orientation paradigm to this domain. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to empirically develop an operational definition of the market orientation construct that can be applied to destination marketing organizations. Based on the tenets of stakeholder theory, this research proposes a multiple-stakeholder view of the marketing concept and develops its attendant operational construct. Referred to herein as a multistakeholder market orientation (MSMO), this construct is proposed and operationalized as reflective of the extent to which a destination marketing organization (DMO) implements the marketing concept across the stakeholder spectrum. The nomological validity of this construct is established by testing the effect of the proposed MSMO construct on DMO performance.
Social media changes how travelers see and experience their trip. This study first proposes a framework which describes the relationships between social media and the tourism experience. Based upon this framework, it then examines the impact of social media when travelers share their emotions and perceptions after the trip. The results of the study confirm that sharing positive experiences post trip increases travelers’ positive affect while decreasing negative affect and therefore leads toward more positive overall evaluations. Further, we find that sharing unsatisfactory travel experiences through social media helps to reduce negative perceptions of the trip, which, in turn, enhances posttrip evaluations.
Although tourism destination image (TDI) has been extensively studied, the nature and scope of TDI remain vague. This study aims to address this conceptual problem from a modernist perspective. Forty-five representative TDI definitions are analyzed, and a new definition is proposed by adopting a "seven-step" procedure derived from definition theory in logic studies. Results show that (1) currently TDI is defined mainly as the mental/total impressions/perceptions held by tourists pertaining to a destination, (2) such definitions are quasi-theoretical in type and created by roughly following the connotative definition technique, (3) the quality of these definitions is generally low, and (4) the new definition proposed in this study better captures the essence of TDI and considerably reduces TDI’s internal and external vagueness. In defining a key tourism concept, this study has notable implications for advancing TDI research and defining tourism concepts more rigorously.
This study investigates whether money supply cycles in Canada, United Kingdom, and United States affect tourism demand cycles for Aruba and Barbados. Money supply data are, generally, more easily available than business cycle data (gross domestic product) and have the potential to influence tourism demand cycles. The study contributes to the literature by presenting an economically detailed and sophisticated approach for further understanding the dynamics of tourism demand, using money supply cycles as the explanatory factor. In addition, the study advances the theory through new propositions. The methodology involves data decomposition together with unit root, cointegration, and causality testing. The results show that money supply cycles can impact the cyclical movements of tourism demand and that the impacts are asymmetric, depending on the stage of development of the cycles. These findings implicate the need for adequate policies to counter expected tourism performances below their trend.
How different the world would be had countries not reopened their borders to welcome tourists after conflict, thus providing opportunities for travelers to learn, understand, and overcome potential stereotypes and negative perceptions of a country’s residents and environment. This study reveals preliminary results of an education initiative focused on understanding, addressing, and overcoming negative perceptions, with the possibility of creating interest in, and opportunities for, a revitalization of tourism in Afghanistan. The study offers contact theory as a way to present organic images of a place to help create perceptions of destinations that are more accurate than induced images. Results revealed that contact theory, through intergroup dialogue between residents of two countries with noted historic conflict, provided the means for reducing cultural ambiguity and overcoming stereotypes. The findings offer implications for both the tourism and education sectors and suggest that intergroup dialogue may be key to increasing visit intentions and, most importantly, enhancing a destination’s image after conflict.
The conceptual arguments and empirical analyses in the article illustrate that when tourism organizations replicate economic impact analyses and/or compare their results with those reported by others, perceived differences often are specious because they are attributable to artifacts in multiplier measurement as well as to changes in the structure of host economies. Four sources of variation in multipliers that may result in specious comparisons are addressed: differences in specifications of the three main types of models used in economic impact analyses, semantic and definition confusion, changes in communities’ economic structures, and calibration and decision rule changes.
This work analyzes the impact of potential life-threatening events at destination on the decision to undertake a leisure trip, and points out the trade-offs between such events and the attributes of a trip. Life-threatening events are a phenomenon of contemporary tourism. Even though, if they do happen, such improbable events have massive consequences, they seem to be implicitly accepted and taken into account by tourists visiting potentially risky destinations. To evaluate the acceptance of such life-threatening events, we apply a stated choice experiment and adopt an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable model. Our research framework considers four types of hazards—terrorist acts, political insurrections, natural catastrophes, and epidemics—focusing on Southeast Asia. A questionnaire was administered to university students currently living and studying in Switzerland. Results show how different hazards, their potential magnitude, and respondents’ risk perception influence decisions.
Debates about competitiveness and productivity are practically unexplored with respect to tourism. This article posits a productivity-related measure—total tourism contribution to GDP per employee in tourism—in order to examine destination competiveness. Comprehensive results based on a destination competitiveness model are obtained by analyzing tourism-specific and wider economy-based competitiveness factors. These are represented by six destination competitiveness factors measured by 55 indicators for 139 destinations over the period 2007–2011. Study findings demonstrate that tourism-specific factors, such as Tourism Infrastructure and Destination Management, are the major competitiveness drivers in developing countries, while destination competitiveness in developed countries depends on the tourism-specific factor of Destination Management as well as on wider economic conditions such as General Infrastructure, Macro-Environment, and Business Environment. The study offers a novel approach in the operationalization and estimation of a theoretically grounded and empirically validated tourism competitiveness model and discusses the implications for tourism policy.
This research utilizes theories of social influence and price anchoring to provide insights into the psychological processes underlying travel purchases in the presence of online reviews. Two experiments were conducted in which subjects chose between two resorts for a Las Vegas vacation in a 2 x 3 experimental design that manipulated social influence (unanimous, non-unanimous reviews) and price (10%, 30%, and 50% higher or lower). Social influence was in the form of negative (experiment 1) or positive (experiment 2) traveler reviews. Perceptions of quality and value as well as discount to purchase/willingness to pay were measured. Results indicate that no amount of price reduction was sufficient to offset the impact of unanimously negative reviews, although an extreme price reduction influenced decisions when negative reviews were not unanimous. Price anchoring occurred for positive reviews, such that a higher reference price increased willingness to pay.
Understanding disparities in visitation rates to heritage sites and patterns in public support for preservation and remembrance of African American heritage could greatly inform decision-making and management philosophies of park/historic site operators, preservationists, and other entrepreneurs. Informed by critical theory, this study examined heritage site visitation and attitudes toward remembrance and preservation of African American heritage among North Carolina (NC) residents. Telephone interviews were completed by 843 residents investigating their heritage site visitation patterns and support for African American heritage. The results suggest that race, age, education, income, frequency of travel, and voting record impact variation in heritage site visitation among NC residents while race, age, education, the presence of retirees or children in the household, voting record, and identification as a Southerner influenced attitudes toward African American preservation. This study contributes to the critical analysis of how patterns in heritage site visitation and public support of preservation perpetuate racialization of the travel experience.
As a result of the phenomenal growth of the sharing economy in the travel industry, investigating its potential impacts on travelers and tourism destinations is of paramount importance. The goal of this study was to identify how the use of peer-to-peer accommodation leads to changes in travelers’ behavior. Based on two online surveys targeting travelers from the United States and Finland, it was identified that the social and economic appeals of peer-to-peer accommodation significantly affect expansion in destination selection, increase in travel frequency, length of stay, and range of activities participated in tourism destinations. Travelers’ desires for more meaningful social interactions with locals and unique experiences in authentic settings drive them to travel more often, stay longer, and participate in more activities. Also, the reduction in accommodation cost allows travelers to consider and select destinations, trips, and tourism activities that are otherwise cost-prohibitive. Implications for tourism planning and management are provided.
When people choose they often prefer similarity, rather than complementarity. This paper argues that the evaluation of a holiday destination is no exception to this tendency. The study introduces tourist–destination personality similarity (TDPS) as a concept that is distinct from perceived overall fit (POF) between tourist and destination, and examines the effects of these two concepts of congruence on vacationers’ satisfaction and recommendation behavior. Examining a sample of actual vacationers (N = 308) in a holiday resort, TDPS and POF emerged as two related, but distinct concepts: TDPS was a driver of POF, which in turn increased tourists’ satisfaction and actual recommendations of the destination. Our results confirm TDPS as a valuable tool for tourism brand managers and tourism research.
The potential influence of eight decisions made by researchers that are unlikely to be reported in economic impact analyses are identified and empirically tested. The data set was comprised of studies undertaken at nine state parks in Texas. Four of the decisions were categorized as being potentially relatively malignant in that they used obviously inappropriate procedures and were likely to substantially exaggerate expenditure estimates: using group weighting rather than individual weighting; omitting a measure of the extent to which visiting a park was the primary trip purpose; retaining outlier values; and aggregating different visitor segments. The four relatively benign decisions were: convenience or probability samples; managers’ or samples’ estimates of number of nonlocal visitors; treating nonresponses as missing data or as zero expenditures; and sector selection for assignment of government expenditures.
The demand and offer of recreational activities on farms has increased over the last decades and promises increased growth in the future because of the benefits it brings to farmers and visitors. Despite this growth, a breadth of names (e.g., agritourism, farm visit) are used interchangeably to depict this activity. Such inconsistency reflects a lack of industry branding which diminishes marketing effectiveness and hinders stakeholders’ collaboration. Therefore, a study was conducted to evaluate the Memorability, Distinctiveness, Relevance and Flexibility and overall preference of eight typical names associated with recreation on farms among farmers and visitors. The multimodal approach employed reveals that efforts are needed to standardize and diffuse a brand name for recreation on farms because of reduced Memorability. Although "Agritourism" appears suitable to brand recreation on farms given its Distinctiveness, Relevance, and Flexibility, results are inconclusive and call for further efforts for educating the public about its meaning.
This article aims to measure the influence of two environmental strategies: "concerned citizen" and "proactive" strategies on firms’ performance. A two-step data envelopment analysis (DEA) procedure is therefore used on a sample of 38 French ski resorts. First, the DEA method is used to evaluate ski resorts’ operational performance. Second, the impact of environmental strategies on their performance is analyzed via a bootstrapped truncated regression model. Contrary to findings of current studies, these results show that a "proactive" environmental strategy is not more positively correlated with firms’ performance than a "concerned citizen" strategy. The research highlights an inflection point on the correlation between environmental strategy and organization’s performance. By clarifying which green initiatives lead to performance improvements, this study helps managers defining their most advantageous environmental investments.
In this article, the workings of tourism in areas of sociopolitical turmoil are critically examined. In so doing the aim is to scrutinize interconnections between tourism, safety, and conflict as I contend that tourism, tourists and the danger generated by ongoing sociopolitical conflicts are intimately connected. The empirical focus is on tourism in Jordan, a country in a region troubled by ongoing conflicts. Fieldwork for this project was carried out in 2009 and 2010. Data were collected from local tourism industry representatives and international tourists in Jordan. Findings indicate that a safety/danger binary is destabilized by industry representatives who operate a "sanitization" process in Jordan meant to erase danger and conflicts from tourism spaces. Tourists in the region also disrupt this binary as they travel to the region in spite of the conflict and downplay violent incidents.
Social exchange theory (SET) has made significant contributions to research on residents’ support for tourism. Nevertheless, studies are based on an incomplete set of variables and are characterized by alternative, yet contradictory, and theoretically sound research propositions. Using key constructs of SET, this study develops a baseline model of residents’ support and compares it with four competing models. Each model contains the terms of the baseline model and additional relationships reflecting alternative theoretical possibilities. The models were tested using data collected from residents of Niagara Region, Canada. Results indicated that in the best fitted model, residents’ support for tourism was influenced by their perceptions of positive impacts. Residents’ power and their trust in government significantly predicted their life satisfaction and their perceptions of positive impacts. Personal benefits from tourism significantly influenced residents’ perceptions of the positive and negative impacts of tourism. The study provides valuable and clearer insights on relationships among SET variables.
Low-priced tour packages are mass tourism power projection sites where providers attempt to restrict tourist power. This study adopts a hybrid design that incorporates dual analytic autoethnography and blog analysis, sharing not only the authors’ experiences and insights into the negotiation between supplier attempts to disempower tourists and reciprocal efforts of tourists to self-empower in all-inclusive tour packages, but also viewpoints of other tour participants collected during the tours and from the Internet. Tour experiences were negotiated through power exchanges. In this "powerscape," we were subjected to disempowerment strategies, including domination, intimidation, reliance creation, and trust building, while our self-empowerment ranged from active resistance to nonresistance. Different disempowerment strategies appear to solicit specific reactions. Our exploratory study provides insight into the power dynamics implicit in mass tourism and identifies several contextual factors that shape power relationships.
As adults continue to work longer and take less vacation days, relationship dynamics are changing to accommodate individuals’ responsibilities to career, family life, and self. Thus, the current study sought to understand how vacation satisfaction may enhance relationship commitment and possibly build stronger relationships and lessen the chance of relationship termination for adult couples. To do so, the current research applied the concept of vacation satisfaction to the Investment Model with the goal of better understanding the antecedents to relationship satisfaction and commitment. Results revealed that relationship satisfaction and quality of alternatives are good predictors of relationship commitment and that satisfaction with vacations assists the investment model in explaining couples’ relationship commitment. From a practical standpoint, results revealed that tourism suppliers could use this information to promote travel as a means for strengthening relationships.
This study uses a gravity framework to model tourism demand for the Caribbean. The basic model is augmented by Linder’s hypothesis—tourist flows are partly determined by the similarity in preferences between the destination and source markets—and climate distance, which measures the gap between climate conditions in origin and destination countries. The results indicate that traditional gravity variables are significant in explaining demand for the region. Habit persistence has the largest impact on demand, a result that holds promise for regional policy makers. Evidence is also unearthed that similarity in preferences between the region and its source markets, as well as climate distance, are important demand determinants.
Rapid technological change is leading to the introduction of new ways of providing services in the tourism industry. However, the human factor is also key in providing satisfaction to visitors. This article evaluates the preferences of visitors for different service designs at tourist information offices (TIOs). The methodology used is discrete choice experiments. Results show that visitors place higher values on information services received through personal interaction than through automated processes based on new technology. The implication is that the personal interaction continues to be an important element in the design of TIOs, but that new technology may increase the quality of the provision of services and visitor satisfaction. The methodology employed also allows us to identify different visitors’ segments based on their preferences for TIO services.
The article explores the concept of cocreation of value, defined as the tourist’s interest in mental and physical participation in an activity and its role in tourist experiences. Based on the theoretical perspective of "the new service-dominant logic," customer participation in tourist experiences is explored and tested as a moderating variable on the perceived value – satisfaction relationship. In essence, the customer partakes mentally and physically in an experience, which moderates the role that experience value has on overall satisfaction. The study thus hypothesizes that the higher the level of participation, the stronger the experience value–satisfaction link becomes and vice versa. Using a sample drawn from tourists in Norway, the results confirm that experience value is an effective predictor of tourist satisfaction. The study reveals that the level of cocreation moderates the effect between the experience value of winter tourism activities and satisfaction.
A central research topic in tourism management concerns tourists’ choice of specific destinations. The present article reviews and advances the extant literature on destination image. From this review, we suggest that individuals have a multitude of destination associations, the total imagery that relates to the destination, and label this concept destination imagery. Individuals also hold an overall image used as a heuristic or a mental shortcut, which is labeled destination image. The concepts of destination imagery and destination image are distinct, yet they have often been conflated within the literature. The article further provides an extensive review of the literature with regard to the definitions, dimensionality, antecedents, and outcomes of the focal concepts as well as geographical scope of destination imagery and image studies and methodologies. This review has led to a novel understanding and delimitation of the focal concepts within the imagery–image duality model.
This article analyzes new co-innovative sources of firm labor productivity. Using survey data for 120 small and medium-sized travel agencies based in Catalonia (a region in the northeast of Spain) and partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) estimation techniques, three main findings emerged from the study. First, labor productivity is directly explained by those agencies’ capacity to exploit their assets, to use local networks, and to make international transactions. Second, the analysis of indirect effects on labor productivity suggests a circular causality, which is determined by the influence of the workers’ local network use on a firm’s export capacity. In this circular relationship, a firm’s capacity to generate market-leading product innovations and the stock of human capital and training play a decisive role. Third, co-innovation practices exert a negative effect, which may be related to difficulties in terms of securing productivity improvements in the short term.
This study developed a behavioral model of intentions to purchase aviation carbon offsets, and tested the model through structural equation models. The model draws on the established hierarchical models of human behavior to hypothesize relationships between general and specific attitudes as predictors of offsetting intentions. The New Ecological Paradigm scale, the theory of planned behavior and variables from past literature were employed to measure general environmental attitudes, intermediate beliefs, and behavior-specific attitudes and norms. The current research represents a first attempt to build a theoretical model that helps to understand the relationships between factors that determine whether people will purchase aviation carbon offsets. The results show that a more positive orientation toward the environment could be an important predictor of environmental intentions operating both directly on intentions as well as guiding beliefs that relate to intentions. Policy implications of the findings are discussed, encouraging greater voluntary climate action.
Although the number of empirical applications of partial least–squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in tourism has increased in the last two years, Assaker, Huang, and Hallak have conducted the only assessment on the use of PLS-SEM in four studies and with a limited number of criteria. Thus, this study aims to critically analyze how the PLS-SEM method has been applied in 44 articles published in 11 leading tourism journals from 2000 to 2014 in terms of four key criteria: (1) themes explored and main motivations for using PLS-SEM; (2) characteristics of proposed models; (3) how the models were evaluated; and (4) the use of more advanced analyses within the method. The findings revealed that although applications in tourism have improved in recent years, problematic aspects in the application of PLS-SEM in tourism research still exist. The article provides suggestions on how to improve the use of PLS-SEM in future tourism applications.
This article aims to define tourism networks analyzing tourist mobility between destinations. The study adopts network analysis methods, testing a data processing strategy that combines descriptive measurements and clustering tools. A segmentation approach has been employed to investigate differences or similarities between the trip-related attributes of tourists within networks. Data are from a sampling survey carried out on tourists’ visit in Sicily. The results show that the tourist choice defined the role of a destination as "central" or "peripheral" within a network. Tourists build their own networks around nodal destinations, even if they are geographically distant. Thus, tourist mobility affects the shape, the dimension, and the structure of the networks, where tourists are different for characteristics, trip-related behaviors, and type of holiday chosen. The study provides some evidence that can be useful for planning tourism facilities, managing tourism routes, and defining destination management strategies.
This study utilized generational cohort theory to enhance understanding of the motivation and destination image of Mainland Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan (i.e., cross-strait tourism). With 350 Chinese tourists traveling to Taiwan, unique characteristics of four generations were identified (e.g., the Republican generation was more highly motivated to visit friends and relatives than the other generations, the Social Reform generation had greater hedonic motivation for visiting Taiwan than either the Consolidation or the Republican generations). The inconsistent characteristics between cohorts could be attributed to generational differences in past historical experiences. Thus, findings suggest that an individual’s life experience could play an important role in forming an image of the destination where the experience is related to, and also suggest that cross-strait tourism, one of the unique contexts of quasi-states tourism between politically divided countries, has a strong generational component, and tourism policies between such countries must take this into account.
International tourism is susceptible to fluctuations and shocks. The spillovers of international inbound tourism between Australia and New Zealand have been one of the key issues for both governments and tourism authorities to address. This paper used a bivariate GARCH model to investigate the spillovers of international tourist arrivals between Australia and New Zealand from seven countries (Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, and United States). The monthly international tourist arrivals between 2000 and 2012 were used for the empirical analysis. The findings suggested a significant spillover of Chinese and Japanese tourists from New Zealand to Australia, whereas New Zealand’s tourism demand from China and Japan was not significantly affected by that of Australia. However, New Zealand’s inbound tourism from Canada, Germany, and United States was significantly affected by tourism demand from those countries to Australia. Furthermore, symmetric spillovers between Australia and New Zealand (in both directions) existed for UK tourists.
This paper relies on social and economic psychology to explore how the travel choices of Portuguese citizens, with different status levels in their daily lives, perceive and adopt different conspicuous travel patterns because of public exposure. To account for the moderated role of public exposure on conspicuous travel patterns, 36 Portuguese citizens were interviewed. Q-methods were applied to explore the varying senses of conspicuous travel choices among citizens with different levels of public exposure, both individually and relative to each other. Complementary qualitative methods were applied, in order to explore how the interviewees construct tourism conspicuous meanings that match their social or self-representations. The results suggest that social contexts moderate the ways in which individuals perceive and experience conspicuous travel. Further, the results show that public groups with higher exposure tend to prefer subtle signals of conspicuousness, in order to differentiate themselves from the mainstream.
Destination photography communicates images that shape and reshape destination perceptions of past and potential tourists and, consequently, influence their decision-making process. Using theoretical underpinnings provided in works on culture, this exploratory study examines whether destination photographs taken by tourists and posted on social-network websites are reflective of culture to which those tourists belong. Content analysis of American and Korean photographs of Russia posted on Flickr and in Korean travel blogs, respectively, was followed by chi-square and co-occurrence analyses of destination attributes, as well as geospatial analysis of image locations using ARC GIS software. Although the core of Russia’s destination image—urban, contemporary, architecturally interesting, and spacious—is similar for both cultural groups, the study found differences in the way that American and Korean tourists represent Russia as a destination. These differences are discussed from the perspective of tourists’ respective cultures.
The purpose of this research is to compare the perceptions of Spanish and British tourists in the formation of the overall perceived value of the purchase decision-making process for a hotel stay. Comparison is made between two key tourism distribution channels: offline, via a travel agency; and online, via the Internet. The sample comprised 600 tourists. Of these, 300 (150 Spanish and 150 British) had purchased hotel accommodation for their last holiday via an offline travel agency, and the other 300 (again, 150 Spanish and 150 British) had done so via the Internet. Given that the two countries differ in their cultural dimensions, the results show that the "uncertainty-avoidance" and "individualism/collectivism" dimensions moderate the relationship between the antecedents of overall perceived value. These differences are not homogeneous, depending instead on the medium through which the service is purchased. The present research takes a comprehensive approach to overall perceived value formation, considering differences both in culture and also in distribution channel, and including different phases: purchase and use.
The Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS) has been widely recognized as a promising instrument for evaluating tourism sustainability. Scholars have successfully validated this scale across contexts. This study carries forward the fruitful outcomes of previous SUS-TAS studies by exploring some possible facilitations of the SUS-TAS application efficiency and scope. Using data from 11 Midwestern U.S. counties, this study (1) found a maximally parsimonious 20-item SUS-TAS that facilitates data collection efficiency without compromising the psychometrical properties, (2) verified SUS-TAS’s predictive validity as in predicting residents’ intention to engage in tourism planning at different levels, and (3) suggested that SUS-TAS is best interpreted by seven separate dimensions rather than a global factor. The extended applications and possible further refinements for the scale are also discussed.
Cultural characteristics that make rural destinations appealing to visitors could limit local engagement in rural tourism development as well. So, the paper looked at St. Thomas in Jamaica to determine the elements of their culture on which a strong rural tourism product could be built but could also limit local participation in the development of their rural tourism industry. St. Thomas is a rural island community with a rich history steeped in colonialism. Interviews and radio program transcripts as well as notes from a town hall meeting of residents were analyzed. Fifteen elements were identified in this community’s culture that explain their traditional, conservative, close to nature, and spiritual way of life; five were identified as possible drivers of community members’ nonengagement behaviors. A holistic approach to resolving cultural dichotomies in rural tourism communities that would preserve cultural characteristics treasured locally and improve local engagement behaviors was proposed.
The smartphone penetrates many facets of everyday life, including travel. As such, this article argues that since travel can be considered a special stage of technology use, understanding how the smartphone shapes the tourist experience cannot be separated from the way it is used in one’s everyday life. On the basis of a study of American travelers, this study uses adaptive structuration theory as a lens to identify a number of spillover effects from smartphone use in everyday life into travel. The results of this study offer several important implications for both research and practice as well as future directions for the study of mobile technology in tourism.
This study develops and tests a model of self-expressiveness in sport tourism, defined as the extent to which a tourist perceives that a sport activity is reflective of his or her personal identity. Self-expressiveness in a sport activity experienced by a tourist should depend on the activity’s perceived difficulty, perceived effort, perceived importance, and potential for self-realization. In turn, a tourist’s self-expressiveness in a sport activity should exert a positive influence on the tourist’s experience of personal happiness (subjective well-being). The results of two surveys involving 1,251 travelers who participated in a dance festival (study 1) and ski activities (study 2) during their vacations confirm the hypotheses, revealing several interesting theoretical and managerial implications.
Tourism development (TD) and quality of life (QoL) have been studied mostly from the perspective of how TD affects QoL, but the inverse relationship is less widely researched. Understanding this interrelationship will broaden the definition and goals of development, and will help shifting the debate from an income perspective to a QoL standpoint. This study assesses the linkages between TD, QoL, and economic growth for the island of Aruba. The study contributes to the literature by improving the understanding of the nature of the relationship between TD and QoL, by advancing the theory-building process. The methodology involves multivariate cointegration analyses and Granger causality testing. The results confirm the two-way direct relationship between TD and QoL, with proactive roles for both direct and indirect relationships. The findings highlight the need for recognizing the importance of QoL in determining TD, and understanding the workings of TD and economic growth on QoL dimensions.
It has been hypothesized that as individuals become attached to a place, they are more likely to protect that place. Managers of natural area tourism destinations may be able to use this relationship to assist in sustainably managing such places. An on-site visitor survey was administered at Ningaloo Marine Park, Australia, to examine the effect of a multi-dimensional place attachment construct on pro-environment behavioral intentions. The behaviors encompassed three categories based on the perceived level of commitment and where the behaviors physically occurred. They included on-site actions by visitors, visitors telling others how to act on-site, and off-site actions to conserve the Marine Park. Structural equation modeling revealed place identity directly affecting all three behavioral categories, the effect increasing with the level of commitment required to undertake the pro-environment behaviors. This suggests that a sophisticated understanding of place identity is essential for the management of natural area tourism destinations.
Despite the abundance of research in information technology and tourism, limited is known about online communication and networking in the tourism industry. Researchers have examined the overall structure of online destination network, but further investigation is needed to understand the networking patterns of different tourism stakeholders in cyberspace. This study constructed and analyzed a hyperlink network of 745 tourism stakeholders in Charleston, South Carolina. Link impact analysis, hyperlink network analysis, and statistical methods were employed for exploring the structural characteristics of the online networks among tourism stakeholders and their networking behaviors on the Web. The results revealed a sparse online network within the tourism industry of a destination, and suggested that tourism stakeholders’ online networking behaviors vary across sectors. The findings also confirmed destination marketing organizations’ central position in online tourism network, and validated the use of hyperlink network as an alternative and promising data source for destination network research.
Research on destination image has predominantly focused on tourists’ perceptions, with only limited attention being paid to the other stakeholders of the destination. The present study seeks to address this oversight by examining the images that tourists, local residents, and the tourism sector have formed of Eilat, a prominent resort town in Israel. Analysis was based on a sample of 608 stakeholders. Results indicate that there were significant differences in perceptions between the three stakeholder groups in regard to 27 of the 30 destination attributes examined. Tourists held the most favorable image of Eilat, while local residents chose the lowest scores for all destination attributes. The study expands current understandings of stakeholder theory in destination marketing and delineates practical implications for sustainable marketing and the design of internal campaigns aiming to enhance stakeholders’ images of the destination.
This study applied a shared heterogeneity duration model to tourists’ length of stay at different locations of multidestination trips. This analysis helps to understand tourists’ behaviors and to predict their length of stay according to relevant variables. Such information can be applied to the development of efficient marketing strategies aiming to push the average length of stay to the desired direction, and to develop "on the fly" service provision and revenue management strategies. The focus on multiple destination trips offers an innovative analytical perspective. A large data set of 309,000 visits to Brazilian destinations was analyzed. Several empirical findings regarding determinants of tourists’ length of stay were obtained. Positively skewed distributions for duration and hazard functions were found to best fit observed data. Shared heterogeneity was found to statistically improve the explanatory capacity of duration models when multidestination tourism trips data are analyzed.
The objective of this research is to explore cultural heritage transmission by means of documentary films. Based on a mixed-methods approach, the results suggest that there is a predominant stereotype of cultural heritage being portrayed by the media. A distinction between staged and genuine authenticity from the stakeholder perspective is also revealed. The results further indicate a cross-level linkage between national culture, tourist cultural interest, authenticity sought, and cultural motives. By using the hierarchical linear modeling approach, this research reveals cross-level mediation and moderation from the cultural level on the individual level. This study advances the literature by understanding the critical role of national cultural origin on tourist interest and the degree of authenticity that tourists seek, as well as on their cultural heritage motives and consumption patterns. It suggests a cultural divide in heritage tourism and shows that culture can be a barrier or a facilitator of mindfulness.
Chinese outbound tourists are pivotal global players in current international tourism. Their anticipated role in taking up new activities in the future warrants attention. This study focused on one emerging activity—drive tourism—as a model of the ways to manage the growth of new specialist interests. In detail, it examined Chinese recreational vehicle (RV) tourists’ self-reported safety concerns during their Australian RV trips. The study identified the successful coping mechanisms that Chinese tourists employ across the preparation, initial familiarity, and driving stages of their travels. A holistic safety and coping framework outlining 18 coping techniques was identified. The study revealed the symbiosis between tourists, tourism businesses, and associated organizations that can lead to positive behaviors to enhance safe and enjoyable experiences as new markets adopt novel activities in unfamiliar countries.
Volunteer tourism has attracted increasing attention among tourism industry practitioners and researchers. As an indication of the scale and scope of the phenomenon, most volunteer tourists have been residents of developed countries visiting developing countries to participate in community development initiatives, scientific research and ecological restoration projects. The researchers have reviewed the literature to determine the drivers of growth that have shaped volunteer tourism and have examined the trends affecting tourism and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region over the medium to longer term. These exploratory inputs serve to inform three scenarios about the likely shape of volunteer tourism within the region leading to 2050: the first scenario predicts a steady state, the second growing participation, and the final proposition, one of diminishing viability. The prospective implications for volunteer tourism arising from these various scenarios are discussed, together with a concluding agenda for future research.
Innovative experiences created by designers, architects, and artists are being combined with foods and services in the tourism industry. These experience products often combine subjective and objective attributes, and travelers’ evaluation of these attributes determine their willingness to pay. However, there is currently no structured approach for determining willingness to pay for the separate subjective and objective attributes of an experience product. This research adopts a categorical hybrid conjoint analysis for pricing such experiences within the restaurant industry, considering 13 attributes and 40 attribute levels under four facets, using data collected from 315 respondents in India. The study found that customers have a separate utility for subjective and objective attributes and will pay significant premiums for subjective attributes. There is scope for marketers to redesign experience products by combining different proportions of subjective and objective attributes. We thus define an optimal bundle of experience, and derive the price for this.
Social media are revolutionizing the way that destinations are being portrayed and perceived, yet remain underresearched in tourism. Netnographic analysis of 7,187 international comments on a YouTube video depicting an antitourist incident in the Maldives revealed two opposing social representations of the social-mediatized gaze. The first is hegemonic and tolerant, and indicative of resolution-based dialectics. The second is polemical and intolerant, and indicative of conflict-based dialectics, replete with anti-Islamic rhetoric. Social media, because of the interplay of proximity to and distance from the relevant inflammatory visual stimuli, attracts and amplifies the latter social representation and suppresses the former. However, because of viewer attention ephemerality, associated projections of power in the comments may not have a lasting negative impact on the destination.
Perceived value is a subjective and dynamic construct that varies among different customers and cultures. Although perceived customer value has been studied by many researchers, no research has been done into the measurement of Muslim Tourist Perceived Value (MTPV) where Muslim tourist evaluates both traditional and religious aspects of value. By means of a multidimensional procedure, the authors developed a scale of measurement of MTPV through 24 items grouped into six dimensions: quality, price, emotional, social, Islamic physical attributes, and Islamic nonphysical attributes. The importance of the proposed constructs was theoretically justified. Using a sample of 537 Muslim tourists, the constructs were tested and validated. The results supply tourism companies with a number of operative factors that may be essential if they are to remain competitive in the dynamic marketplace. This study is probably the first to provide an integrative perspective of MTPV constructs in the hospitality and tourism industry.
Theories of social influence (Crano 2000) and cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) have clear applicability to travel purchases, but have rarely been investigated in hospitality research. An experimental study of students’ travel decisions for a spring break vacation was conducted. Subjects chose between a green and nongreen resort in a 2 x 3 experimental design that manipulated social influence (majority, minority, none) and pro-environmental attitudes (high or low). Social influence was in the form of traveler reviews that were either favorable or unfavorable. Postdecision dissonance and dissonance reduction tactics were measured. Subjects were less likely to choose a green resort when a minority of reviews favored that resort. Subjects with strong pro-environmental attitudes experienced dissonance when making a nongreen choice in this situation. Consistent with dissonance theory predictions, people evaluated the chosen resort more favorably than the alternative. They sought out more favorable information about the resort when they experienced dissonance.
An understanding of generational shifts in tourist behavior facilitates the effective prediction and accommodation of future tourism trends. Such predictions are important if the Asia-Pacific region is to reach its tourism potential. This study investigates the domestic travel motivations of 632 Australian Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Generation Y travelers to uncover each generational cohort’s travel mindset. Specifically, it considers how the sociohistorical environment when its members "came of age" during adolescence (i.e., thus creating a generation), create a unique lifelong perspective that influences both current and future tourist behavior. Although the survey results show that the travel decision-making process is similar across cohorts, model comparisons reveal generational differences. This study advances the theoretical understanding of the implications of generational perspectives on future travel behavior and provides foresight into demand factors that will drive future travel growth in the Asia-Pacific region and particularly growth in domestic leisure travel by Australians.
This study uses meta-analysis to examine the relationship between estimated international tourism demand elasticities and the data characteristics and study features that may affect such empirical estimates. By reviewing 195 studies published during the period 1961–2011, the meta-regression analysis shows that origin, destination, time period, modeling method, data frequency, the inclusion/omission of other explanatory variables and their measures, and sample size all significantly influence the estimates of the demand elasticities generated by a model. Moreover, the demand elasticities at both product and destination levels are generalized by statistically integrating previous empirical estimates. The findings of this meta-analysis will be useful wherever an understanding of the drivers of tourism demand is critically important.
Climate change adaptation is a pressing need. However, local level stakeholders often find themselves overwhelmed with climate change information presented at both small temporal and spatial scales. To address this gap, and using a case study from New Zealand’s Southern Lakes region, this research links tourism operators’ information requirements with climate change projections. Interviews with 42 stakeholders provided exemplary storylines and insights into the climate parameters that would be useful for their planning (mean precipitation, extreme wind conditions, mean temperature, and frost days). These findings were then used to generate sector-relevant maps. Climate change maps were produced based on global and regional models to generate detailed climate projection information for the A2 emission scenario in the form of regional scale, color-coded maps. A final stakeholder workshop confirmed the usefulness of the maps as a planning tool but also highlighted a number of future challenges for climate change communication.
Many studies have confirmed the importance of market segmentation both theoretically and empirically. Surprisingly though, no study has so far addressed the issue from the perspective of leisure constraints. Since different consumers face different barriers, we look at participation in leisure activities as an outcome of the negotiation process that winter sports resort tourists go through, to balance between related motives and constraints. This empirical study reports the findings on the applicability of constraining factors in segmenting the tourists who visit winter sports resorts. Utilizing data from 1,391 tourists of winter sports resorts in Greece, five segments were formed based on their constraint, demographic, and behavioral profile. Our findings indicate that such segmentation sheds light on factors that could potentially limit the full utilization of the market. To maximize utilization, we suggest customizing marketing to the profile of each distinct winter sports resort tourist segment that emerged.
Recent crises have highlighted the increasingly important role of social media in crisis communications. Attention has been given to residents’ use of social media during a crisis; however, there is a lack of research which focuses on factors that influence tourists’ use of social media during a crisis. Understanding these factors can have practical implications for destinations in crisis. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether internal, travel-related, and demographic factors affect the likelihood to use social media to seek information if a crisis were to occur while traveling. Linear regression revealed that the countries of origin of India, Brazil, Australia, and South Korea; the age group 31–40; past international travel experience; and perceptions of crime, natural disasters, disease, financial, equipment failure, weather, cultural barriers, and political risk were positively associated with the likelihood of using social media in the event of a crisis during travel.
Dementia is emerging as a global issue. Increases in life expectancy create an older population structure with accompanying health needs but also high lifestyle expectations. For example existing generations have come to expect to be able to participate in leisure and tourism activities in later life, which can be constrained by the onset of dementia. Leading healthy lifestyles and engaging in tourism activities are viewed as fundamental to remaining active and contributing to slowing the progress of dementia. This study is the first to examine the challenges and implications of the growing scale of dementia and the business opportunities this may create for destinations wishing to achieve dementia-friendly status. The paper reports results from an initial scoping study with tourism businesses in a coastal resort in the United Kingdom with such ambitions to assess the nature of the issues that arose from a series of face-to-face interviews.
Tourism destinations are difficult to manage because of the complex relationships of their diverse public and private stakeholders. At the same time, strategic marketing efforts are important for destinations to foster positive consequences of tourism, particularly given the range of opportunities and challenges created by the emergence of social media that destinations can use advantageously. This article aims to explore future eDestination marketing from Australian tourism stakeholder network perspectives. Workshops were convened in July 2012 in Melbourne, Australia, for select stakeholders invited to contribute to the futures national tourism technology strategy. They presented a stakeholder network approach to futures strategy development that aims to contribute to that used in recent national tourism plans and strategies for Australia developed by the government. Building on theories of stakeholder networks and futures, the article demonstrates the value of a futures stakeholder network method compared to traditional government approaches by critically analyzing outcomes of both.
The analysis of risk in tourism is fragmented and uneven and focuses relatively narrowly on risk as a set of negative outcomes to be avoided by individuals, firms, or destinations. This article contends that, because of general, and sector-specific, limitations to knowledge, systematic and unsystematic risks are central to all forms of tourism activities. There is a need for a stronger theoretical understanding of the different concepts of tourism risks and tourism uncertainties that engages with how these are manifested at different scales, and can be analyzed from competing perspectives. The contribution and potential of both rationalist and constructivist approaches are assessed, focusing on individuals, firms, intermediaries, and destinations. The article concludes by identifying priorities for future research relating to both theoretical positioning and scale-specific issues ranging from individual decision making to the securitization of national tourism policies.
The influence of the Internet on our social and economic life is well documented. However, few studies have been conducted to assess how travelers have adapted to the Internet over time. Using a series of national surveys conducted over the past 6 years (2007–2012), this study describes important changes taking place in the use of the Internet by American travelers. The results point to a number of key trends in travelers’ use of the Internet and suggest that there is a growing "bifurcation" between traditional online travelers, that is, those who use the Internet for standard travel products and those who are beginning to adopt alternative channels and products in search of deeper and more authentic experiences. This article discusses several important implications of these trends for both research and practice.
This study uses content analysis to identify the perceived destination image held by Chinese tourists to New Zealand. In this study, qualitative content analysis is the primary mode of analysis, but quantitative methods are used as a support. The findings reveal the main components of New Zealand, as perceived by Chinese tourists, as being the possession of a protected ecological environment, a variety of activities, and a highly developed society with a "Pakeha" culture. The study also indicates that Chinese cultural norms play an important role in the process of perception formation and interpretation. These norms include the desire for harmony, Li, and a respect of authorities. It is suggested that blogs are an important resource by which destination marketing organizations can seek to influence potential tourists and by which tourist perceptions of place can be assessed.
This study evaluated the impact of actual weather encountered and perceptions of the comfort of the weather on tourist movements in Hong Kong. Data were collected using both questionnaire surveys and Global Positioning System tracking devises. Prior research conducted in nonurban areas suggests that weather has a significant impact on tourist behavior. This study determined that urban tourists are more weather resilient, as neither actual nor perceived weather affected behavior to any great extent. Perceived comfort levels did affect satisfaction for a small minority of visitors.
Despite the widespread use of travel websites, our understanding of how best to capture users’ value experiences when using such websites is limited. This article introduces a multidimensional measurement of a user’s value experience on a travel website (e-Value). We then assess the extent to which website users contribute to their own value experience. Based on 175 UK survey respondents, e-Value is formed mainly by cognitive effort, utilitarian value/control, and to a lesser extent by perceptions of emotional value and value for money. Social value experiences do not contribute to e-Value. A user’s own activities on a website (i.e., participation) affect most value dimensions but at different magnitudes. Our findings suggest that website "participation" should be seen as phenomenologically determined by the user as perceived participation affects e-Value dimensions more strongly than actual participation.
While most work focusing on emotional solidarity has examined its antecedents, this work highlights outcomes of the construct in the form of visitor expenditures among nature tourists. During the peak tourist season for birders and other outdoor enthusiasts in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, on-site survey data were collected from individuals visiting key nature tourist attractions. In examining the relationship between emotional solidarity and visitor expenditures, results revealed that five of the eight multiple regression models were significant. Of the three Emotional Solidarity Scale (ESS) factors used to predict expenditures, feeling welcomed explained the most variance. This work provides continued support for extending Durkheim’s model of emotional solidarity by including expenditures as an outcome of the construct.
This study is an extension of Hosany and Gilbert’s original research on the development of a scale measuring the diversity and intensity of tourists’ emotional experiences toward destinations: the Destination Emotion Scale (DES). The DES consists of 15 items, representing three emotional dimensions: joy, love, and positive surprise. Although the DES displays solid psychometric properties, additional evidence is required of the scale’s validity. Using data collected from international tourists visiting two distinct destinations, Petra (Jordan) and Thailand, this study further examines the scale’s construct validity. Adopting state-of-the-art procedures guiding scale validation, results confirm the unidimensionality, reliability, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of the DES. In particular, discriminant validity tests show that emotions and place attachment are related but distinct constructs. The DES provides a useful tool for marketers and researchers to measure tourists’ emotional responses toward destinations.
The implementation of national tourism policy is manifested in the development of destinations and in patterns of tourism activity. Based on Brenner’s notions of spatial rescaling and spatial selectivity, this study assesses the changing distribution of domestic tourism in South Korea between 1989 and 2011, and relates these changes to the national tourism policies put in place during those years. Spatial statistical techniques including Moran’s global I statistic and local indicators of spatial association are employed. Findings suggest that while domestic tourism activity became less concentrated at the macro level during the study period, at a finer scale it is clear that this deconcentration is nevertheless occurring in a clustered manner. Thus, while the traditional emphasis on Seoul and the southeast appears to have declined, the distribution of tourism’s benefits is still uneven. Observations with regards to future tourism policy and concomitant spatial patterns of development and activity are provided.
Increasingly, tourism businesses introduce authentic concepts to address tourists’ search for authentic and natural experiences. This research investigates how such concepts influence tourists’ experiences. A field experiment was carried out at four mountain lodges where two authentic concepts—a local meal concept and a storytelling concept—were offered to some tourists but not others. Results showed a significant moderator effect of each of the two authentic concepts on the relationship between attribute satisfaction and overall satisfaction; when tourists experienced the authentic concepts, the influence of food and service satisfaction on overall satisfaction became stronger. These results indicate that introducing authentic concepts may strengthen the importance weight tourists place on relevant aspects of experience during evaluation.
Tourism has been studied and researched in higher education for more than 40 years and in many ways it has now established itself as a significant part of the academy. However, at a time of change and rationalization in higher education, tourism, along with other areas of study, needs to be able to justify its position. Increasingly, academic managers are seeking such justifications, often using readily available metrics. The purpose of this study is to examine the position of tourism using these same metrics, for teaching, research, and impact and for three different countries, Australia, China, and the United Kingdom. In doing so, it highlights tourism’s strengths and weaknesses from a managerial perspective but at the same time it exposes the relative narrowness of this managerial gaze. It points to the need for the tourism community to strengthen its provision and broaden the gaze of the decision makers.
The present study contributes to the current localization literature by revealing the effects of localizing cultural values on tourism destination websites on users’ destination image and willingness to travel. Reporting on two tests, the first is an analysis of the depiction of cultural values on 48 New Zealand, 36 Indian, and 46 Chinese destination sites. Results indicate significant differences in the cultural values exposed among the three countries. The second study reports on an experiment requiring 400 New Zealand participants to visit four versions of a fictitious experimental destination website. Commensurate with motivations for holiday tourism, results indicate that the depiction of incongruent cultural values to a target audience on destination websites generates a more positive destination image and greater willingness to travel, contradicting the current localization literature. Finally, managerial implications are also discussed.
Special events can have a sizable economic significance (ES) and economic impact (EI) in host communities. This study’s purpose was to update the input measurement concepts in assessing the EI for a short-term special event. Specific EI measurements were examined as suggested by Crompton, Lee, and Shuster (2001) and Stynes (1997) that differentiated between types of attendees. A trade market analysis (TMA) technique was applied to refine the measures of locals and nonlocals and to reconsider locals who have visiting friends and relatives (VFR) in their group profiles. Further refinement of day-trip attendees and visitors expenditure impacts were identified and used to adjust the EI when applied to a sales multiplier. Self-administered online surveys were emailed to 2,678 group leaders from a registration and on-site intercept population with a response rate of 46%. Measurement improvements were found for local, nonlocal, casual, time-switcher, and VFR attendees in EI application.
The article discusses how the role of gender, residence, and past experience with hurricanes affects tourists’ voluntary evacuation in the event of hurricanes. The study examines how the aforesaid variables influence the perceived credibility of the information source and how such perceptions are translated into voluntary evacuation decisions. The findings indicate that the aforesaid variables significantly influence the perception of the credibility of the information source and information search behaviors leading to a voluntary evacuation decision. Implications of the findings are also discussed.
This article addresses the challenges of long-term planning for a tourism workforce at a regional level, a significant yet underconceptualized area in the literature. We draw on Yeoman’s future thinking techniques to generate a four-quadrant matrix designed to facilitate the development of scenarios that identify workforce challenges the tourism sector in the Asia-Pacific is likely to face through to 2030. Applying a modified Delphi technique, an expert panel aided in the formulation of dimensions on which our matrix is based. Their inputs over three rounds informed the development of four scenarios for the future of the tourism workforce in the Asia-Pacific. Utilizing these scenarios or "possibility spaces," the article provides a framework for discussion and a platform for workforce planning and policy within this region.
Envisaging the future of tourism anywhere is difficult but is amplified when making predictions for the dynamic and rapidly changing Asia-Pacific region. The purpose of this conceptual article is to problematize a 2030 Asia-Pacific tourism future by modeling one polarized and probable scenario, theoretically framed within the mobilities paradigm and the core–periphery model. This scenario proposes that planning for the development of Asia-Pacific tourism will be heavily influenced by a growing tourist trend for experiences in the "pleasure periphery" while the contemporary pattern of increasing urbanization will continue to mobilize the required workforce toward the core. This scenario models divergent tourist and worker mobilities between the core and periphery. By focusing a scenario on this increasingly important discrepancy between labor supply and tourism demand, we can identify the challenges for those areas representative of this divergence that tourism development and destination stakeholders must plan for before 2030.
This study attempts to integrate social exchange theory (SET) and social representations theory (SRT) in understanding residents’ perception changes throughout a mega-event’s full life cycle. A three-wave survey approach was employed to track local residents’ evolving attitudes toward the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Results showed that Shanghai residents’ perceived impacts at the community level were more positive than at the individual level. Residents’ visit status (i.e., whether they attended the event or not) did not appear to substantially influence their perceptions of impacts at either level, albeit attendees did demonstrate more favorable attitudes on several aspects. Most residents held similar perceptions at the beginning of and six months after the Expo had concluded, but their perceptions at the Expo’s conclusion were the most negative. This study supports that SET and SRT are distinctly operative in different contexts but can complement each other in explaining residents’ perception changes.
China outbound tourism contributes substantial foreign receipts but also creates carbon and water footprints at destinations. This study is set out to analyze whether this tourist segment is a preferred market from the economic and environmental perspectives. Using Taiwan as an example, the direct carbon emission per dollar and total carbon footprint per Chinese inbound visitor is about 20% more efficient than other markets because of a high consumption pattern, longer length of stay, and closer distance between the two regions. However, one unsatisfactory area is the total water footprint because of their high spending on food-related souvenirs that generates substantial water requirements from the agriculture sector. When forecasting the estimated growth of Chinese visitors in Taiwan to 2016, an additional 0.8% increase in economic output is expected at the expense of a 2.7% increase in CO2 emissions and a 3.0% increase in water use.
This study analyses the contribution of holiday trips to the levels of life satisfaction reported by individuals with and without disability by using an approach in which life satisfaction is seen as a combination of various life satisfaction domains (health, job, housework, household income, dwelling, and leisure). Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate a two-layer model which proposes that satisfaction with different domains of life are interrelated and wherein life satisfaction depends on the weight that the individual allocates to each of these domains. The results show that disabled people who participate in holiday trips obtain higher levels of satisfaction with health, job, and housework than do nondisabled ones, especially when this participation is more intense. In addition, satisfaction with health and household income has a significant effect on the overall life satisfaction reported by disabled individuals. Public policy recommendations are given.
Experiencing the context of a rural environment is the fundamental aspect of rural travel. In order to estimate quantitative influences of the rural environment, this paper proposes to proxy rurality through two indicators: isolation and remoteness. The estimation of a hedonic pricing model with the use of both Geographic Information Systems and spatial econometrics allows obtaining the specific influence of these factors on rural lodging room prices. The methodology is applied to two tourist destinations with similar characteristics from Eastern (Taiwan) and Western (Spain) cultures. Results show that visitors’ preferences for isolation are significant but differ between these two regions. The main reasons that explain this divergence are population density differences between origin and destination, domination of international versus domestic visitors, and the intrinsic destination characteristics and perceived image. Managerial recommendations on how to emphasize the factors in the promotion of accommodation services are derived from the present study.
There appears to be widespread respect for and interest in nature among Asia-Pacific societies, which has strong cultural and religious roots, contrary to the popular view that this is mainly a Western concern. This article projects the growing demand for nature-based tourism in the Asia-Pacific region into the future, using examples of protected areas, zoos, and nature-based spas. The current status of nature-based tourism in the region is discussed, before exploring future scenarios. Findings suggest that this strong attachment to nature may manifest itself in overdevelopment and overuse of natural attractions by 2050, based on seven key drivers identified in this study, including the rise of an affluent and educated middle class, increased urbanization, and a "development at all costs" mentality.
Free-riding behaviors exist in tourism and they should be analyzed from a comprehensive perspective; while the literature has mainly focused on free riders operating in a destination, the destinations themselves might also free ride when they are under the umbrella of a collective brand. The objective of this article is to detect potential free-riding destinations by estimating the contribution of the different individual destinations to their collective brands, from the point of view of consumer perception. We argue that these individual contributions can be better understood by reflecting the various stages that tourists follow to reach their final decision. A hierarchical choice process is proposed in which the following choices are nested (not independent): "whether to buy," "what collective brand to buy," and "what individual brand to buy." A Mixed Logit model confirms this sequence, which permits estimation of individual contributions and detection of free riders.
This study forecasts international arrivals to regional China, using international guest arrival data at accommodation establishments in 31 regional provinces. The research takes tourism forecasting into a new and significant area of study by examining intra country regional forecasting. The objective is to determine whether regional forecasting models can be used, in responding to demand from regional governments and industry in China to accurately forecast international regional tourist arrivals that increasingly underpin the success of tourism development. The study examines whether modern techniques (Basic Structural and Time Varying Parameter Models) can accurately forecast international regional arrivals with regional data. A significant contribution is testing theory for selecting new explanatory variables specific to regional tourism, which are different from those used in national forecasting. The conclusions are that regional forecasting can be accurate though not always using an econometric method, and regional forecasts are a practical management tool.
This study examined the effects of both cognitive and affective tour guide interpretation outcomes on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intention in a heritage tourism context. Data were collected via a survey of 282 inbound mainland Chinese tourists to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, a heritage tourism site in Victoria, Australia. A hierarchical structural model was constructed based on a comprehensive literature review of tour guiding, interpretation, and tourist satisfaction and was tested applying partial least squares structural equation modeling. Results show that cognitive interpretation outcome has a greater impact on tourist satisfaction and sustaining visitor arrivals than affective interpretation outcome, whereas satisfaction with the guided tour experience directly affects behavioral intention and largely mediates the effect of cognitive interpretation outcome on behavioral intention. The study offers both theoretical insights in relation to interpretation and tourist satisfaction and practical implications for interpretive tour guiding.
This case study explores the psychological concepts of stress and coping as experienced by residents of a host community. Stress can negatively affect communities and individuals in myriad ways, leading to community dysfunction, negative health outcomes, and psychological consequences. Successful coping actions can moderate the effects of stress on individuals and communities. Over the span of two years, the community of Sitka, Alaska, undertook two tourism planning processes in response to the proposed development of a cruise pier. Thematic analysis of 29 interviews of Sitka residents and tourism planning participants revealed that the tourism planning process was a form of community coping with the stress of proposed tourism development. Interviews also revealed that individuals engaged in coping to address stressors that manifested during each planning process. Understanding how residents of host communities respond to stresses brought about by tourism development is a step forward in understanding the host–guest relationship.
This article provides a systematized and analytically concise collection of 100 innovations that were not specifically invented for tourism but nevertheless affected tourism to a significant extent. The article is a contribution to tourism history, and it introduces a new facet of tourism innovation research. Scientific and technological progress facilitates the development of tourism, but often with some delay. The trickling down depends on institutional changes and absorptive capacity in the tourism sector. The impacts contributed mainly to the social and physical efficacy of tourists, including reduction of risks and improved mobility and accessibility. Innovations also laid the ground for entirely new touristic experiences. Numerous innovations were implemented to increase the productivity and performance of tourism enterprises. The article provides examples of innovations that led to the opening of new destinations. Institutional and informational innovations proliferated into critical modernization. A deeper comprehension of dissemination patterns can be useful toward future tourism innovation policies.
The collective influence of destination personality and affective image on overall image formation of a domestic urban destination and subsequently its influence on tourists’ behavioral intentions were examined in this study. The sample consisted of 361 urban tourists and included both past visitors and nonvisitors of the urban destination under study. Data analysis confirmed the influential role of destination personality and affective image in the formation of overall destination image in both samples. In turn, overall image was a mediator of the relationships of destination personality and affective image with tourists’ behavioral intentions (i.e., intention to revisit the urban destination and intention to recommend the destination to others). Analysis of the data supported a two-factor solution of the destination personality construct, with the personality traits of sincerity and excitement emerging in the domestic urban context to influence past visitors’ and nonvisitors’ overall destination image perceptions.
This article aims at providing a theoretical framework for the practice of experience design in tourism drawing from a comprehensive review of literature from different disciplines relevant to tourism as a design context. Three fundamentals in tourism experience design are suggested: human-centeredness, iterative designing process, and a holistic experience concept as an outcome of designing. These call for four approaches to experience design in tourism: naturalistic inquiries and empathic design to target experience narratives, participatory design involving tourists at every stage of designing, integrative design research that include explorative, generative, and evaluative research as essential parts of designing, and the orientation of concepts and theories from multiple disciplines as applied to tourism contexts. Finally, tourism experience concept is elaborated into meta-concept, representing the value propositions of tourism destinations, and operational concept that allows for the orchestration of design elements within tourism destinations to allow for and facilitate desired experiences.
Drawing on theories from environmental psychology, social psychology, and entrepreneurship, this study examines a nonrecursive (simultaneous equation) model of entrepreneurs’ place identity, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and performance across male and female tourism entrepreneurs. Data were collected from 150 male and 148 female tourism business owners in Australia. The results found that place identity (sense of identity with their town of residence) was positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy (beliefs in their capabilities as entrepreneurs). Furthermore, self-efficacy is a direct driver of performance, and not vice versa, for both male and female entrepreneurs. However, multigroup invariance analysis suggests that the nonrecursive model is partially moderated by the entrepreneurs’ gender. The relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and performance was significantly greater for the male group. The findings have implications for scholars in tourism and entrepreneurial studies, and for policy makers trying to support the sustainable development of tourism destinations.
At the core of travel demand theory is separating short- and long-term responses to events and determining how quickly potential travelers respond, if at all, to current events. Using habit persistence models applied to air travel to Florida, air travel demand models are estimated that measure habit persistence while accounting for economic and noneconomic travel demand variables. Along with the traditional economic demand drivers, the models account for weather, wildfires, and adjustments to post-9/11. Elasticities are shown and then simulations are used to fully illustrate the impacts of changing ticket prices, incomes, seasonality, Florida storms, and the recovery from 9/11. The degree of habit persistence is measured and then the short- and long-run adjustments in air traffic destined for Florida are shown.
The opportunity to experience nature-based activities at a destination with climate variations is a major driver of visitation for tourists. Despite significant research into seasonality and nature-based activity preferences, academic researchers are not profiling activity-oriented tourists into segments based on temporal factors such as seasons. To address this research gap, an expert panel was first asked to classify activities collected in a large secondary Norwegian tourist questionnaire into seasons. Next, 8,962 potential nature-based tourists were segmented based on summer, winter, and year-round activity preferences. When seasonality was taken into account, four clusters were identified. A combined model where seasonality was not addressed yielded fewer segments, and differing variables indicating that segmentation researchers may benefit from considering a fifth segmentation factor, namely temporal, in future. Theoretical and practical implications from this research are outlined and opportunities for future research are provided.
Park, Nicolau, and Fesenmaier proposed the Destination Advertising Response (DAR) model as a means to more effectively evaluate destination advertising campaigns by incorporating the key decisions or components (i.e., facets) that comprise a trip. While this model appears to be an attractive alternative to traditional destination advertising evaluation, little research has been conducted to examine its validity. The goal of this study is to evaluate the potential usefulness of the DAR framework based upon current understanding of the travel decision-making process and industry practice. Additionally, the framework is evaluated based on a series of empirical analyses that consider the impact of destination advertising on the destination decision as well as on several trip-related decisions. The implications of this model for destination advertising are substantial in that it provides a much richer foundation for the development of destination marketing strategies.
Market segmentation is ubiquitous in marketing. Hierarchical and nonhierarchical methods are popular for segmenting tourism markets. These methods are not without controversy. In this study, we use bagged clustering on the push and pull factors of Western Europe to segment potential young Chinese travelers. Bagged clustering overcomes some of the limitations of hierarchical and nonhierarchical methods. A sample of 403 travelers revealed the existence of four clusters of potential visitors. The clusters were subsequently profiled on sociodemographics and travel characteristics. The findings suggest a nascent young Chinese independent travel segment that cannot be distinguished on push factors but can be differentiated on perceptions of the current independent travel infrastructure in Western Europe. Managerial implications are offered on marketing and service provision to the young Chinese outbound travel market.
Having recognized the importance of tourism to economic growth, most international organizations have begun to argue that tourism growth can influence, as well, the economic and sociocultural development of society. However, recently, a new approach that criticizes the relationship between both dimensions has begun to be developed; suggesting that this is not an automatic relationship.
In this context, the aim of this study is to determine whether the economic growth experienced in some countries as a result of the expansion of the tourism activity over the last two decades influences an increase in the level of economic development. To that end, a sample of 144 countries has been used, which verifies that this relationship occurs, especially in more developed countries, which calls into question the conception of tourism as a driving force of economic development for the least developed countries, and even in developing countries.
Given that there is scarcity of evidence on travel/tourism of resident populations, a study was undertaken to explore the perceptions of domestic visitors on being a tourist in their own country. For this purpose, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted into the Israeli sense of "being a tourist" in Israel. Analysis of interview data from Israeli Jewish participants generated two primary themes, namely, homeland entitlement and othering. The emergence of these themes lends to the development of a framework of reference toward furthering our understanding of domestic tourism. The article concludes with suggestions for a future research agenda in domestic tourism.
High year-to-year retention of seasonal employees can be a source of competitive advantage for tourism organizations. Past studies of seasonal employee retention have examined the issue from the perspective of job satisfaction. However, many tourism jobs have similar responsibilities from organization to organization suggesting another construct might also affect employee retention. The purpose of this study was to examine retention through the lens of employee sense of community (SOC) toward the tourism organization. Significant differences were found in SOC levels between those who returned to work at resorts and those who did not. Moreover, a logistic regression model showed SOC to be a good predictor of retention. Like in previous studies, factors that impact retention appear to be different for first year employees than experienced ones. However, the results suggest that somewhat different approaches for improving retention should be taken than the recommendations from past studies of seasonal employee retention.
Recently particular attention has been devoted to the relationship between leisure activities and subjective well-being. Less attention has been dedicated to tourism as a life satisfaction domain, despite it being one of the most relevant leisure activities. The aim of this article is to contribute to expanding this line of investigation. Building on the Dunlap and Heffernan hypothesis and employing activity-based segmentation, it verifies to what extent environmental attitudes are related to activities that tourists perform during their vacation, and whether a relationship exists between the activities performed and life satisfaction. The hypothesis is that tourists involved in more appreciative activities are normally more concerned about the environment, more beneficial for host territories, and happier. The article demonstrates that a positive association exists between these aspects and the way tourists "use" nature.
Despite the popularity of festivals and events across destinations, many have failed because of tight budgets and a lack of marketing knowledge. Accordingly, this study aims to assist festival organizers understand more about their target audience. The present study examined the utility of psychological commitment for segmenting festival visitors. We first profiled festival visitors based on their commitment levels and then investigated whether the segments differ in their sociodemographic characteristics, satisfaction, and loyalty. The results demonstrated the presence of three segments, each of which displayed meaningful and significant variation in the intensity of their festival commitment. The groups differed in age, education, and past experience. We also observed that the more committed visitors were to the festival, the higher their overall satisfaction was with the festival experience, and the more likely they were to exhibit loyalty intentions toward the festival. Based on these findings, practical and theoretical insights are provided.
Many travel destinations across the world have endured sporadic or prolonged violence that significantly impacts their respective region’s tourism-reliant economy. This research addresses the issue of violence and travel by examining talk of violence, perceptions of the worsening of crime, fear at the destination, destination satisfaction, and their effects on return intention within the context of travelers who are very familiar with the destination. Study results, obtained from migrants who had spent many winters in the area that borders on a region that had recently erupted in drug-related violence, found the significant effects, direct or indirect, of all variables. Importantly, fear at the destination was found to subsume satisfaction with the destination, which directly impacts intention to return to the destination.
The purpose of this study was to understand the role of other customer perceptions (OCP) in the formation of luxury cruise travelers’ social value, brand attachment, and willingness to pay a price premium. Based on a literature review, theoretical causal relationships between study variables were proposed. During the theory-building process, it was hypothesized that travelers’ face-consciousness levels could play a moderating role in the relationship between OCP and social value. The proposed hypotheses were empirically tested using data collected from 342 U.S. travelers who had taken a luxury cruise. Based on the results of data analysis, it was found that all three dimensions of OCP are critical factors in the formation of social value. More importantly, it was revealed only face-conscious travelers feel social value when they identify with the other upper-class passengers on a luxury cruise. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed.
The purpose of this study is to develop a destination image model that shows how the overall destination image of a winter sports destination is defined and how it affects the intention to revisit. The article undertakes a review of the relevant literature and develops a structural equation model for destination image, which is tested with data from a survey of n=795 winter sports tourists in Oberstdorf (Germany) and Saalbach-Hinterglemm (Austria), collected between February 14 and 28, 2011. The model depicts that destination image is a multidimensional concept including important sports characteristics and has an impact on tourists’ intention to revisit the winter sports destinations. Practical implications for tourism marketers, for instance, include that more structural development and architectual changes have to be implemented carefully to maintain the tourists’ perception of landscape or their overall image of the destination.
Explaining human behavior is a primary concern for tourism research and a substantial body of research concludes that highly satisfied tourists are more likely to return to a particular destination. In this article, we provide an analysis of this body of work, arriving at three concerns relating to the strength of association between satisfaction and behavioral intention: (1) the link between constructs is complex, resulting in the frequent omission of causal factors; (2) inconsistency with construct operationalization impedes cumulative knowledge development; and (3) explainable variance is impeded by between-study heterogeneity. We illustrate these problems by analyzing empirical guest survey data and conducting a meta-analysis of published papers in the three top tourism journals between 2002 and 2011. We offer four recommendations for future research investigating the link between satisfaction and behavioral intention.
The article introduces an integrated market-segmentation and tourism yield estimation framework for inbound tourism. Conventional approaches to yield estimation based on country of origin segmentation and total expenditure comparisons do not provide sufficient detail, especially for mature destinations dominated by large single-country source markets. By employing different segmentation approaches along with Tourism Satellite Accounts and various yield estimates, this article estimates direct economic contribution for subsegments of the UK market on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Overall expenditure across segments varies greatly, as do the spending ratios in different categories. In the case of Cyprus, the most potential for improving economic contribution currently lies in increasing spending on "food and beverages" and "culture and recreation." Mass tourism therefore appears to offer the best return per monetary unit spent. Conducting similar studies in other destinations could identify priority spending sectors and enable different segments to be targeted appropriately.
Perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty are essential concepts for running a successful and profitable modern company, and therefore defining a model of perceived value and value dimensions is a primary goal of marketing management. The theoretical propositions in this article are tested in relation to the tourist destination of Dubrovnik, Croatia. The author has defined a model of tourist perceived value, satisfaction, and behavior intentions. The model was tested using the structural equation modeling. The results show a significant effect of perceived value on the satisfaction and intended future behavior of tourists. In addition, tourists’ perceived value associated with Dubrovnik was affected primarily by destination appearance, followed by the emotional experience, while the impact of cost was significantly lower.
The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of tourism-specific consumer innovativeness (i.e., domain-specific innovativeness) on their information search, purchasing, and communication behaviors on tourism websites. The methodology employed is based on a combination of data from website log files and questionnaires (n = 207). The results show that tourism innovativeness is positively related to the frequency and density of site visits, downloading of information brochures, use of the online purchasing mode, and the volume of online purchases. Tourism innovativeness is also positively associated with consumer chatting and e-mailing. The study reveals that consumers high on tourism innovativeness maintain active and cooperative communications with the firm. In summary, the behaviors of innovative consumers that have been documented in traditional offline settings are also exhibited in the online environment. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
The purpose of this study is to add to the literature on consumer financial guilt in hospitality and tourism by exploring the circumstances in which it occurs and investigating antecedents that influence the experience of consumer financial guilt. Using an impulsive travel purchase as the context, this mixed-methods study examined the effects of gender and prepurchase mood on feelings of postpurchase guilt and satisfaction. Qualitative and quantitative results indicated that women were more likely than men to experience consumer guilt following an impulse travel purchase, and that this effect was moderated by prepurchase mood. Hierarchical regression analysis also indicated that consumer financial guilt affected levels of anticipated satisfaction with the purchase, over and above the effect attributed to prepurchase mood and gender.
This study focuses on commitment as a key factor for successful collaboration in tourism. Taking a corporate governance perspective, we studied directors in tourist organization boards and examined possible effects of directors’ strategic orientation (holistic orientation vs. stakeholder orientation) and compensation on organizational commitment. In line with recent behavioral perspectives on boards, this study accounted for board processes, including variables measuring intragroup conflict and effort norms. The sample included 307 directors in 98 Norwegian organizations. Findings underline the importance of recognizing the benefits of joint attempts and a community mindset among collaborators in tourist organizations. The results further indicated that board processes influence directors’ organizational commitment. The effect of a holistic orientation toward the destination and the goals and values of the collaborative organizations was mediated by both the perception of intragroup conflict and effort norms in the board. In addition, effort norms mediated the relationship between compensation and commitment.
This study challenges the way the research community has approached issues and implemented concepts in the field of destination management. In contrast to previous contributions that deliver a particular framework, this study aims to literally deframe the construct of the destination. To this end, we propose an alternative and dynamic viewpoint for researchers and practitioners that might have evolved decades ago, if the research community had not tried to constrain or reduce the phenomenon of the destination to a comprehensive and inherently static system. We identify the main problems of destination management and attempt to explain the reason for the many failures and shortcomings in practice. Building on an alternative concept, we present its applicability to the case of the currently ongoing reform of the destination management organizations (DMOs) in Switzerland. The study has a conceptual character, although its practical relevance has been proved over the past two years.
Tourism is a complex system within a dynamic framework that is exposed to rapid and challenging developments. The existing tourism research does not fully address the nature of the global, intertwined challenges that may affect and shape the worldwide tourism system in the future with respect to both the industry and society. This article contributes to eliminating this knowledge gap using an exploratory Delphi survey that seeks to identify the most prominent challenges to global tourism through 2020 and to understand their nature, drivers, and effects. The five proposed meta-challenges demonstrate the complexity of the interrelations and interdependencies affecting the future of the global tourism system. These meta-challenges may also be regarded as constituting a strategic road map for global tourism in a complex and dynamic world.
This article utilized content analysis of seniors’ narratives on the Internet to uncover the central themes related to their perceptions of travel constraints and the ways through which seniors negotiate such barriers. The study results suggest that aging is associated with alterations in the order of salient constraints proposed by the hierarchy of leisure constraints theory, which in turn affect seniors’ preferences for "safe" options such as packaged tours. Using gerontology and decision-making theories, the article provides conceptual and methodological contributions to the literature. It also offers practical recommendations for businesses responding to the tourism needs and expectations of the fastest-growing tourism market segment worldwide: the senior population.
Tourist information offices (TIOs) are an important external information source in the tourists’ decision-making process. Assessing the quality of TIO information services implies measuring both technical quality, that is, the outcome of the service performance, and functional quality, that is, the quality of the whole delivery process. The article presents a methodology to correlate and combine mystery shopping and customer satisfaction research in order to assess the overall performance of TIOs at destination and discusses the effectiveness of this approach compared with a separate application of the two methods. The study is part of a project aimed at providing local authorities and TIO office managers in the mountain areas of Italy and Austria with an integrated and user-friendly tool to monitor the quality of information delivered to tourists both before and during their visit, evaluate the management of information services and make benchmark comparisons in the future.
In this study several extrinsic and intrinsic variables, from different theoretical approaches, have been integrated with the object of building an explanatory model for residents’ attitude toward tourism development. This model is applied to a destination not yet overcrowded but with a high, and increasing, seasonality. Its most notable contribution is in its findings regarding the influence of seasonality on the residents’ attitudes and in the factors impacting on it. These findings show that, in the low season, the effects of tourism, and tourists themselves, are perceived more favorably, leading to a more positive attitude toward further tourism development. Two hypotheses in the proposed model reveal a disparate seasonal behavior: only in the high season does the perception of the level of tourism development determine the net perception of the effects of tourism, and residents’ community attachment exerts a direct and negative influence on their attitude toward tourism.
This article looks at King Street, Charleston, South Carolina, the main street of a successful historic tourism city that in recent years has seen a steady transition in tenant mix from one dominated by local merchants, to one today that features such national chain merchants as Victoria’s Secret, Banana Republic, Gucci, and many others. The issue considered herein, based upon survey data collected from both local residents and tourists, is the effect of the city’s changing merchant mix. The findings offer insight that should be helpful to tourism and government officials in any city experiencing, or concerned about, a similar metamorphosis in their community. Helping to explain the community attitude toward change, a new model, the Cycle of Acceptance, is presented.
The "flyers’ dilemma" describes the tension that now exists between the personal benefits of tourism and the climate concerns associated with high levels of personal aeromobility. This article presents the first international comparative analysis of attitudes toward climate change and discretionary air travel, providing insights into areas of convergence and divergence across three European societies—Norway, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Employing a critical interpretive approach and drawing upon 48 in-depth semistructured interviews, we document evidence of widespread neglect of the flyers’ dilemma. Our comparative analysis confirms that although current discretionary air travel practices are deeply embedded and resistant to change, attitudes toward the climate crisis and barriers to behavior change offer points of important contrast between different societies. Efforts to reformulate excessive discretionary air travel in response to accelerating global climate change must accommodate the unique issues and contrasting perspectives that exist in sections of these societies.
This study uses the web traffic volume data of a destination marketing organization (DMO) to predict hotel demand for the destination. The results show a significant improvement in the error reduction of ARMAX models, compared with their ARMA counterparts, for short-run forecasts of room nights sold by incorporating web traffic data as an explanatory variable. These empirical results demonstrate the significant value of website traffic data in predicting demand for hotel rooms at a destination, and potentially even local businesses’ future revenue and performance. The implications for future research on using big data for forecasting hotel demand is also discussed.
Backpacking travel has become a global trend among young people. Despite the importance of personal development among the youth, research has rarely probed the construct of backpackers’ personal development (BPD). The purpose of this study was to develop a scale to measure backpackers’ personal development. The study developed 30 measurement items to construct a survey instrument. The instrument was then administered to collect data from a sample of 397 Chinese backpackers. Following a rigorous process of scale development, a five-dimension (Capability, Emotion, Worldview, Skill, and Self-consciousness) personal development model was identified. A refined scale consisting of 16 measurement items was finally derived meeting both reliability and validity requirements.
On November 1, 1994 an Air Passenger Duty (APD) was introduced in the United Kingdom, and since, this tax continues to be controversial. This article examines the effect of the ADP on UK outbound tourism demand for 10 international destinations. An autoregressive distributed lag model is developed and income, price, and tax elasticities are estimated. The income and price elasticities obtained, ranged between 0.36 and 4.11 and –0.05 and –2.02, respectively. The estimated tax elasticities suggest that the implementation of APD had a negative effect on UK outbound travel for five destinations and the demand is inelastic to changes in taxes although the magnitudes vary across destinations. The general message is that although the stated objective of APD is to reduce travel and associated carbon emissions, the effectiveness of APD, however, has been marginal; travelers are prepared to pay more in the main to maintain their demand.
Online group buying has become increasingly prevalent, and people frequently shop on group buying (GB) sites. This study examines the relationships among transaction cost advantage, preview, trust, satisfaction, and repurchase intention within online tourism GB environments. To investigate differences in the constructs between the high and low emotional loyalty (EL) groups, this study draws on the moderating role of EL. The results reveal that transaction cost advantage, preview, and trust significantly and positively affect satisfaction, which, in turn, influences repurchase intention. The high-EL group shows stronger relationships between preview and satisfaction and between satisfaction and repurchase intention than the low-EL group. The low-EL group shows stronger relationships between transaction cost advantage and satisfaction and between trust and satisfaction than the high-EL group. The findings have implications for tourism academics and the tourism industry.
Innovation has become a buzzword, regularly cited to convey any improvement made, regardless of the extent of newness. Tourism innovation has historically been viewed as either incremental or radical, a binary developed within manufacturing. However, given that incremental improvements are the norm in the tourism sector and that radical innovation is an abnormality, the binary is not representative of tourism innovation. We suggest a three-level typology, based on field research in Europe and Australia, and informed by Rogers’s innovation diffusion model; the concept of liminality and its role in the search for tacit knowledge through weak network ties; and the need to ask ultimate (why) rather than proximate (what, how) questions. Since the term innovation is overused, we introduce three alternate concepts: the "artist," who is comparable to the innovator; the "artisan," who represents early innovation adopters; and the "painter," who epitomizes the early and late majority.
The efficient targeting of destination marketing depends not only on identifying markets that are currently or potentially "high yielding" but also on the cost effectiveness of marketing expenditure in different markets. At least three different types of yield measures that are relevant to "return" on marketing investment have not been clearly distinguished in the literature. One relates to the expenditure associated with the additional tourism flows generated as a result of the marketing effort—this is a well-used measure. Another relates to the economic contribution associated with different inbound market segments. A third measure relates to the (economy-wide) impact of the visitor spending. The article uses each measure, combined with marketing elasticities, to estimate the return on investment associated with promoting Australia in nine key markets. While Australia provides a context for study, the approach taken and the results have relevance to destination marketing organizations worldwide.
Data analysts in industry and academia make heavy use of market segmentation analysis to develop tourism knowledge and select commercially attractive target segments. Within academic research alone, approximately 5% of published articles use market segmentation. However, the validity of data-driven market segmentation analyses depends on having available a sample of adequate size. Moreover, no guidance exists for determining what an adequate sample size is. In the present simulation study using artificial data of known structure, the impact of the difficulty of the segmentation task on the required sample size is analyzed in dependence of the number of variables in the segmentation base. Under all simulated data circumstances, a sample size of 70 times the number of variables proves to be adequate. This finding is of substantial practical importance because it will provide guidance to data analysts in academia and industry who wish to conduct reliable and valid segmentation studies.
The purpose of this review was to examine existent research on the benefits of travel applicable to working adults, couples, families, and extended family members. While travel is often perceived as an outlet for relaxation, education, and a chance to escape the mundane, recent research suggests that travel has several deeper benefits for families, relationships, and the individual. Findings from an extensive review of literature revealed that tourism provides positive benefits for adults, children, and couples. Several studies cited time allotted for family bonding is decreasing, likely attributed to increased career demands and changing family structures. These studies further showed travel as a means to utilize limited family time to help improve communications within a relationship, reduce the possibility of divorce, strengthen lifelong family bonds, and increase a sense of well-being in adults and children. Gaps in the existent research were noted, and potential suggestions for future research are addressed.
This aticle is the first application of the contingency behavior model to understand the behavior of grey nomads to changes in the availability of accommodation facilities when visiting regional Queensland of Australia. Using a pilot survey of 90 respondents, it was found that grey nomad future visit trip would be adversely affected by a decrease in accommodation facilities and an increase in travel costs. However, for an increase in accommodation facilities, repeat visitation takes place but with a smaller impact (than the decrease) and, interestingly, travel costs become insignificant. In addition, income levels proxied by education, and social events are significant determinants of future visits. These findings provide important policy considerations for effective management and understanding of the self-drive silver market for tourism.
This study examines residents’ preferences for agricultural landscape features when engaging in agritourism activities by addressing two objectives: (1) to identify the features of agricultural landscapes that are more appealing to current and potential agritourists and (2) to compare those perceptions across respondents from different genders, agritourism experience, and agricultural attachment. Data were collected through an online survey conducted among three nonrandom panels of residents from Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas (250 per state). Results showed that respondents liked most landscape features commonly found in an agritourism farm, especially natural and cultural ones. Among these, the most preferred features they would like to see are wildlife, water resources, historic elements, and farm animals, suggesting that these can serve as farm pull attractions. Multivariate analyses of variance showed significant differences in landscape preferences across gender, levels of agritourism experience, and agricultural attachment, suggesting critical marketing and managing implications for farmers offering agritourism opportunities.
Destinations are a fundamental focus of much tourism research. How we conceptualize and frame destinations is critical not only for the research that we do but also for practical matters such as destination management and marketing. To date, however, work on the conceptual and theoretical foundations of destinations has been fragmented, incomplete, and without much general sense of direction. Through a wide-ranging review, this paper seeks to develop an integrative conceptual framework of destinations by systematically identifying and then synthesizing the key elements of five major sets of concepts used to depict and analyze destinations: industrial districts, clusters, networks, systems, and social constructs. A set of recurring elements is identified, grouped under three major dimensions—geographic, mode of production, and dynamic—and presented in an initial integrative framework. Issues of extending and operationalizing the framework are outlined and the implications for destination management discussed.
Given that brand meanings are socially constructed and culturally dependent, we advocate that a destination branding strategy should begin by understanding what constitutes sense of place as experienced by local residents. The constructs of time, ancestry, landscape, and community were identified as determinants for the sense of place by inhabitants of the Chatham Islands of New Zealand. These constructs comprise meanings that influence the habitus and define sense of place. This article contributes to our understanding of place by providing a sense of place model to support scholarship in destination and place branding. Destination branding activity ought to be significantly influenced by an in-depth appreciation of the sense of place for those whose place it is. Our emergent model emphasizes the importance of understanding sense of place and positioning the people of the place at the centre of a branding strategy for the development of an effective destination brand.
This destination-wide, longitudinal case analysis provides an examination of the growth of strata titled tourism accommodation (STTA) on Australia’s Gold Coast. The observations signify that the first decade of the 21st century has seen a continuing amplification of the dominance of STTA developments on the Gold Coast. Data supportive of the view that an attempt to consolidate an old STTA complex into a larger rejuvenated tourism complex can become an insurmountable challenge is also provided. Noting the extent to which this challenge can jeopardize the long-term sustainability of a tourism destination core that has a high STTA density, has resulted in the development of a provocative analogy that likens STTA intensification to the growth stages of cancer.
Looking at the current political turmoil across the globe, this study aims to analyze the effects of interaction between political instability and terrorism on tourism development using panel data from 139 countries for the period 1999–2009. The study measures the extent to which a country’s political conflicts and terrorism can negatively impact its tourism industry. The results reveal that the effect of political instability on tourism is far more severe than the effects of one-off terrorist attacks. Surprisingly, the findings suggest that terrorist attacks increase tourism demand for those low- to moderate-political-risk countries. However, countries that experience high levels of political risk witness significant reductions in their tourism businesses. In addition, political volatility and terrorism together can cause serious damage to the tourism industry.
Tourism has been widely regarded as a mentally and physically healthy pursuit. Thus, recent studies in tourism have paid more attention to the benefits of travel experiences. However, most studies pertaining to the topic have been conducted in the fields of organizational behavior and health science. Therefore, this research attempts to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on the health and wellness benefits of travel. The results revealed that positive effects of travel experiences on perceived health and wellness have been demonstrated by multiple studies. These benefits have been found to gradually diminish after a vacation. It was also found that there is a lack of research demonstrating the positive effect of travel experiences on physical health. Based on these findings, directions for future research are addressed.
This study examines the structure and effects of intercultural interactions between international tourists and local residents. It develops the variables affecting intercultural relationships, the process and outcomes of interactions, and any resultant attitude changes. An integrated model of intercultural interactions was derived from the shared themes, meanings, and patterns that shaped the participants’ tourism experiences. The model is composed of the structures and the effects of the intercultural interactions. These interactions, through reflective, comparative, and comprehensive experiences, impact international tourists’ attitude toward the local people and their culture. This study overcomes the limitations of the existing contact model by presenting a new approach on intercultural interactions and establishing the developed grounded theory derived from the intercultural interactions in the tourism field.
This study aimed to understand travelers’ perceptions about the benefits of tourism crisis preparedness certification and its potential to positively influence the travelers’ destination decision-making process. A survey of U.S. households revealed that, in general, travelers are neutral or not sure about certification and its relationship to safety, benefits, and future travel. The main predictors of likelihood to travel to a certified tourism prepared destination were as follows: (1) I have a great deal of confidence in such a crisis certification process; (2) I would feel safer when visiting a certified crisis prepared travel destination; (3) A certified crisis prepared destination would be safer to visit than one that is not; and (4) a crisis prepared certification benefits the visitor. The findings imply a need for a clear definition and conceptualization of tourism crisis preparedness certification. By extension, the benefits of certification should be articulated to travelers so they can make informed travel decisions.
Travel is beneficial. It creates opportunities for people to see other cultures, experience history, learn, strengthen bonds with loved ones and might even be beneficial to one’s health. Yet research that empirically shows benefits beyond assisting communities with their economy is lacking. This article articulates the need for further benefits research and, we hope, will serve as an impetus for extensive academic and practical work in this area. It also unveils the overriding methodology used in the subsequent articles in the current special series and attempts to reveal the role the U.S. Travel Association has played in creating inertia in this topic of study.
The present study seeks to establish the cross-cultural validity of the memorable tourism experience scale (MTES), a recently developed measurement scale designed to assess individuals’ memorable tourism experiences (MTEs). Since the psychometric properties of the MTES have only been examined within a sample of American college students, the aim of this study was to replicate the previous psychometric findings using a sample of Taiwanese respondents. The data confirmed the validity of the previously established seven dimensions of MTES in the Taiwanese sample. Thus, the findings of the study suggest that MTES can generally be utilized to assess individuals’ MTEs in cross-cultural settings.
The purpose of this study is to empirically assess the mediating effects of the impact of the perceived image of celebrity endorsers on tourists’ intentions to visit, using celebrity-endorsed print advertisements for travel destinations. The results indicate that celebrity endorsers have a significant impact on people’s attitudes and visit intentions, thus verifying the mediating effects of this variable. The study also provides clues to what extent celebrity-endorsed advertisements differ from nonendorsed advertisements and explores such differences in terms of destination match-up between native and nonnative celebrity-endorsed advertisements.
The objective of this study is to examine the dynamic nature of tourist destination image and the influence of tourists’ overall satisfaction on image modification. The empirical data were collected in Seoul, a major tourism destination in South Korea. A total of 520 usable survey data were analyzed using paired t-test and analysis of variance. The results supported the proposed research hypotheses: (1) there were statistically significant differences with respect to all image dimensions between their pretrip and posttrip images at the α = .01 level, and (2) tourists’ satisfaction was statistically related to the extent of destination image modification. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed based on the study findings, and recommendations for future research were presented.
Affiliate marketing is a prominent, contemporary type of performance-based Internet marketing whereby a company compensates affiliates for each customer referred through the affiliate’s marketing efforts. It is regarded as one of the most promising customer acquisition tools in eTourism. The present study aims to identify the key variables affecting consumer trust in tourism-related affiliate websites. A mixed method approach was adopted to explore both the consumers’ perspective, via focus-group interviews, and that of tourism affiliate practitioners via an online questionnaire. The main findings suggest that there is a distinction between pivotal determinants of trust and trust-enhancing factors. It is suggested that affiliates need to expose their competence and integrity to consumers. Affiliates that feature integrated booking engines need to reduce consumer’s uncertainty by structural assurances and by providing background information on their websites.
This article examines the internationalization of tourism research in the context of the worldwide growth in tourism and a marked increase in tourism studies. Its goal is to stimulate debate, to encourage further analysis of the directions tourism research is taking, and to foster discussion of the implications of the trends identified. The article is based on a systematic and wide-ranging review of the literature. Five major questions are addressed: what is meant by internationalization; what patterns are emerging; what is driving internationalization; what is the role of language in internationalization; and what is the significance and impact of internationalization? The types and levels of internationalization of tourism research vary considerably but overall levels are rather low. The benefits and disadvantages of internationalization are then discussed in terms of the underlying tension between standardization and diversity. Finally, ways forward are outlined.
We explore the contribution of interdestination ties to destination development. As destinations search for practices that can be used to improve their co-producing efforts, they make use of actors connecting them to other destinations. Thus, interdestination bridge ties have important roles as information conduits in destination networks. We present a case study showing how public sector actors, multidestination actors, and industry-specific product and service providers play important and complementary roles in this developmental process. The study also indicates that bridge ties can initiate network dynamics. We present a novel set of propositions advancing a network perspective of destinations.
The aim of this study is to provide a theoretical understanding and empirical examination of the psychological responses of tourists attending a mega-event hosted in a tourism destination. A conceptual framework—the event–destination image transfer model—was developed from an extensive literature review and related theoretical discussion. A survey was conducted in Shanghai during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo to test the model. The findings show that the event image directly and positively affected the destination image, providing empirical support for the image transfer theory. Tourists’ psychological responses—their overall attitude and behavioral intentions toward the destination—were positively and significantly affected by the destination image. However, the direct effect of the event image on tourists’ overall attitude toward the destination was statistically non-significant due to the mediation effect of the destination image.
Using resolution-based dialectics, sustainable tourism is contextualized as an evolving synthesis arising from the need for the capitalist-based mass tourism thesis and the ethics-based alternative tourism antithesis to amalgamate because of internal contradictions that limit their contribution to development. That this synthesis is skewed to mass tourism is accounted for by the four alternative tourism contradictions of unrealistic and unrealized expectations, functional incompleteness, the growth implications of success, and nonreciprocal accommodation. Mass tourism, faced with a prime contradiction of self-destruction, is experiencing limited paradigm nudge characterized by the opportunistic adoption of practices that complement the dominant capitalist paradigm. Opportunities for expanding the ethical bridgehead in mass tourism created by adherence to corporate social responsibility policies derive from the integration of alternative tourism products within mass tourism destinations and itineraries, accompanying possibilities for transformational tourist learning, and the reassertion of indigenous rights. The desired outcome is termed "enlightened mass tourism."
This study investigates how three contextual cues—researcher identity, sponsor identity, and incentive type—affect response and conversion rates of online conversion surveys. Applying an experimental design via an online survey of information inquirers to a tourist destination, the study demonstrates that researcher identity and sponsor identity affect the response rates, and the specific arrangement can increase the response rate substantially. The three contextual cues do not affect conversion rates significantly.
This study explores whether various distance trips and age stereotypes affect tourists’ perceptions of tour leaders’ roles. This research also identifies the moderating effects regarding tour leader age stereotype, age in-group bias, and the respondents’ age on the perceived roles played by tour leaders. A total of 447 subjects participated in the study with a 2 (role-play scenarios: short-distance trip vs. long-distance trip) x 2 (appearances of the tour leader: middle-aged vs. young) between-subjects factorial design. The results showed that the respondents’ perceived roles of a middle-aged appearance tour leader were better than some young appearance counterparts’ components under short- and long-distance conditions. Furthermore, the tour leader age stereotype and age in-group bias could influence respondents’ perceptions of care and interactional and communicative dimensions. In addition, respondents’ age could affect the perceptions of some components of the tour leaders under short- and long-distance conditions.
Tourism as one of the most economically important industries is also one of the most vulnerable to crises and disasters. This study is focused on measuring the short-term impact of a recent incidence, the 2010 BP Gulf oil spill, using a systems perspective. Drawing from two datasets measuring the performance of the hotel and vacation rental industries, a major part of the accommodation industry, this study reveals the complex changes that occurred across a region that experienced this man-made disaster. The data clearly shows the complexity of the impact, generating both winners and losers on an industry and geographic basis. In addition, the results underscore the difficulties in determining damages at the macro level that in this case has resulted to date in US$13.5 billion of out of court settlements paid by BP to settle business owner claims. Practical implications and future research avenues are highlighted including the availability of secondary data sources.
The study explores visitors’ image of a destination using online visitor-generated photography and compares the findings with images of the same destination that marketers create and control on the Internet. The two studies are conducted with Taiwan as the context-destination. Online visitor-generated photography yielded more than 100 photographs from visitors to Taiwan, and indicates that visitors’ holistic image encompasses notions of Taiwanese uniqueness, ancientness, and authenticity through their perceptions of the natural landscapes, traditional local cuisine, and culture. The second study yielded 1,526 visual image representations of Taiwan collected from a variety of website sources, and findings highlight the disparities between the holistic image construed by visitors to Taiwan and the image created by marketers on the Internet. The findings yield important implications for the effective positioning and promotion of tourism destinations as managers should consider visitors’ holistic images in their attempt to create destination images through online visual representations.
Online reviews (ORs) are continuing to foster a renewed spread of word-of-mouth in the travel industry. Travelers are increasingly using ORs to inform them about accommodations and other tourism-related products. As such, it is important to improve our understanding of the behavioral consequences of e-word-of-mouth. In this article, we adopt the elaboration likelihood model to identify what influences travelers to adopt information from ORs in their decision making. We measure the influence of six dimensions of information quality that are part of the central route and two dimensions that are associated with the peripheral route of persuasion. The results of this study reveal that product ranking, information accuracy, information value-added, information relevance, and information timeliness are strong predictors of travelers’ adoption of information from ORs on accommodations. These results imply that high-involvement travelers adopt both central (information quality) and peripheral (product ranking) routes when they process information from ORs.
This study investigates cultural differences in tourist preferences for climate change adaptation strategies of cross-country skiers in Austria and Finland. We used the value orientation approach to empirically test whether this concept is sensitive to skiers’ climate change adaptation preferences in the two respective countries. The comparisons between the two countries were made even more specific with three identical motivation-based segments that accounted for heterogeneity within the respective samples. All comparisons were based on either regular survey questions or on the results of a choice experiment. The results reveal significant differences between skiers for the overall national samples, as well as for numerous comparisons between specific segments. Thus, we conclude that adaptation strategy planning should consider cultural differences and that the transferability of strategies even within the western cultures of Europe is limited.
Growth in tourism has resulted in escalating competition among destinations. Understanding destination competitiveness and its determinant factors is thus critical to tourism researchers and policy makers. Using partial least squares path modeling (PLSPM) on a cross-sectional sample of 154 countries, this study examines relationships among destination competitiveness and its predictors, including the economy, natural environment, and infrastructure. Results indicate that the economy has a positive, indirect impact on tourism competitiveness mediated through the infrastructure and the environment; moreover, infrastructure and environment have a direct, positive impact on tourism competitiveness. PLSPM was also used to compute composite scores for overall destination competitiveness, thus assigning rankings to the 154 countries assessed. This study contributes to extant theories on destination competitiveness, presenting important implications for policymakers on how to strengthen destination competitiveness, and providing an empirically based tool to help benchmark a country’s competitiveness in relation to other destinations.
Tourist satisfaction analysis provides important information that contributes to design public and private policies in tourist services and destinations. However, the responses to tourist satisfaction scales can lead to biased results when comparing tourists from different nationalities and backgrounds, since they might use different internal scale interpretations to assess their satisfaction level in a survey. In this article, the anchoring vignette methodology is used to test and correct for scale response bias in tourist satisfaction surveys. The results of the empirical application find out that scale response is not homogeneous across tourists from different nationalities and that the correction for scale differences can lead to an evaluation of tourist satisfaction that more accurately informs and facilitates improvements in policy decisions at tourist destinations and operators.
Different programs designed to develop rural areas in Europe grant significant funds to support several economic activities. In particular, rural lodging establishments have been key recipients of many development investments. Therefore, identifying the determinants of business success for these establishments is important for authorities, who must allocate their funding accordingly. The establishments themselves can benefit from such knowledge as well. This article examines the influence of three general factors related to the business and the entrepreneur—product, knowledge, and promotional tools—on performance, measured as occupancy, prices, sales, and profits. A survey conducted in a rural Spanish region produces results that largely confirm the proposed hypotheses.
This article provides a meta-analysis of a selected sample of 87 estimates from studies based on panel data techniques published through until 2012. The purpose is to obtain a summary measure of the effects of tourism on economic growth by applying models for both fixed and random effects. The results show a positive elasticity between GDP and tourism, although the magnitude of the effect varies according to the methodological procedure employed in the original studies for empirical estimates. In this sense, when estimates exclude other explanatory variables of economic growth, elasticities are overvalued.
This study reviewed use of covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) in 209 articles published in nine tourism journals between 2000 and 2011. Time-series analysis suggested that the number of SEM publications is explained by linear and quadratic time effects. Results indicated that although SEM practices have improved in some areas, tourism researchers do not always engage in the recommended best practices. Problematic areas were related to testing of alternative a priori models, reporting of multivariate normality, estimating effect size, and assessing reliability and validity. Some of the recommended fit indices were also underutilized. The review also found few differences in SEM practices between top-tier journals and other publications in the tourism field. On the basis of these results, suggestions to improve use of SEM in tourism studies are discussed in the light of recent developments in this technique.
The study provides critical tests of the usefulness of four alternative theories, proposed by Hofstede, Inglehart, Schwartz, and Steenkamp, of national cultures’ influences for explaining consumers’ consumption of international services. The study applies critical testing of these four theories in two research contexts: visiting Australia by holiday (vacation) travelers from 5 Asian and 5 Western nations and visiting the United States by holiday (vacation) travelers from 12 nations. The study is unique and valuable in proposing and testing configurational perspectives of cultural influences rather than testing via "unpacking" the net effects of cultural dimensions separately. The findings indicate that cultural configurations do impact consumption behavior of international services beyond the influences of demographic conditions (distance and national wealth) and that Schwartz’s theory is useful in particular in explaining unique aspects of consuming international services.