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This paper considers whether an inductive, collaborative information and communication technology-based approach to learning promotional language may help non-native English speakers produce destination material that can be effective in a real-world context. At a Japanese university, tourism communication students collected examples of professional language from the web in a shared database which they subsequently consulted in producing domestic destination websites in English. Text written by students for a destination was compared in a survey to text from an official English website for the destination. The survey measured the reaction of potential tourists in terms of trust in accuracy, expectations of service, and destination interest. Results indicate that the student material engendered stronger overall destination image, based on source credibility, interest in travel to the destination, and higher service expectations. The study considers implications of the results in terms of the effect of writing quality on destination image, and argues for the importance of cross-cultural marketing competence in tourism education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary theorists, Schechner, Fisher-Lichte, Bharucha, Holledge and Tompkins and others, have written extensively on the global discourse of intercultural performance and its attempt to intermingle such cultural traditions as the textual borrowing of Peter Brook's Mahabharata or Tadashi Suzuki's Trojan Women, the integration of physical styles of Ariane Mnouchkine and the conscious cultural negotiations of such productions as Ong Seng's Masterkey, a collaboration between Japanese and Australian performers. While these theorists acknowledge that the performer's body is an integral part of intercultural performance, the majority of their discussion has centered on materialist readings of colonialism, race, gender, authenticity, cultural ownership, and the political empowerment of post-colonial subjects. At the margins of their discussion has been the subjective knowledge or phenomenological experience of the ethnic communities, in some cases immigrant communities, whose expertise, directly or indirectly, contributes to the style of performance. This essay examines the role of Japanese Americans, as immigrants and citizens, in the evolution of cultural life and performance training in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, sports tourism has become significantly popular worldwide. Marathons, an especially popular type of athletic event, have both influenced and been influenced by tourist activity. In this regard, profitable and sustainable marathons may necessitate that event planning practitioners understand event participants’ attitudes and needs, contributing to repeat attendance. Furthermore, cross-cultural research may help marathon organizers understand how cultural and other similarities and differences might relate to increased fulfilment of participants’ needs and wants. The purpose of this study is to make a preliminary assessment of the expected relationship between event participation and loyalty in a marathon event in two countries. A total of 420 participants, of whom 200 participants were from the United States of America's event and 220 participants from the Japan event, were included in this study. In the result, marathon participants’ attitudes towards and loyalty concerning the events indicated no significant differences stemming from gender, age, or full-versus-half marathon participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]