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Tourism is an emotional sphere, and researchers focus on emotions to optimize tourism experiences. Tourism studies on emotions mostly ignore differences in emotions across demographic tourist groups by gender and age, thus limiting the understanding of emotions to the explicit characteristics of tourists' emotions. On the basis of geotagged facial expressions on social media platforms, this study aims to visualize the emotions of groups in scenic spots and then reveal the variations between groups' emotions within theme parks. By employing a facial recognition algorithm, an emotion distribution graph was proposed to represent groups' emotions in detail. Some analytical methods were combined to characterize of the emotion distribution of each group. Through a comprehensive comparison, the results suggest that there are unique characteristics of emotion distribution for each group and considerable variations between them. This study helps researchers achieve a deeper understanding of tourists' emotional differences and enhances the theorization of emotions. This research also highlights the advantages and significant practical implications of our method framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Tourism is an emotional sphere, and researchers focus on emotions to optimize tourism experiences. Tourism studies on emotions mostly ignore differences in emotions across demographic tourist groups by gender and age, thus limiting the understanding of emotions to the explicit characteristics of tourists’ emotions. On the basis of geotagged facial expressions on social media platforms, this study aims to visualize the emotions of groups in scenic spots and then reveal the variations between groups’ emotions within theme parks. By employing a facial recognition algorithm, an emotion distribution graph was proposed to represent groups’ emotions in detail. Some analytical methods were combined to characterize of the emotion distribution of each group. Through a comprehensive comparison, the results suggest that there are unique characteristics of emotion distribution for each group and considerable variations between them. This study helps researchers achieve a deeper understanding of tourists’ emotional differences and enhances the theorization of emotions. This research also highlights the advantages and significant practical implications of our method framework.

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Understanding the relationship between theme park ride experiences and visitor loyalty is crucial yet still not fully elucidated, particularly regarding differences between first-time and repeat visitors. Drawing upon the experience economy framework and the theory of experienced utility, this study explores how various aspects of theme park ride experience (education, aesthetics, entertainment, and escapism) influence visitor loyalty (revisit and recommendation intentions), considering the moderating effect of past experience. Structural equation modeling and invariance tests were conducted on data collected from 412 theme park visitors in China. Results indicate that the four dimensions of theme park ride experience have varying impacts on patrons’ revisit and recommendation intentions. Additionally, first-time visitors’ intentions are more influenced by active participation experiences compared to repeat visitors. This study advances the theoretical knowledge of theme park ride experience and offers practical implications for park management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Travel & Hospitality Management / Seyahat ve Otel İşletmeciliği Dergisi is the property of SIMEDYA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After presenting the historical and tourism context of Sabah in Malaysia, this paper analyses the staging of ethnicity for tourists within Sabah Village. Depending on the socio-cultural profile of the tourists, the visit can be perceived as: a reinforcement of nationalist sentiment, a reinforcement of a sense of superiority and difference between 'us' and 'them', or as a visit that fosters a quest for exoticism and primitivism. These different types of visits are linked by the playfulness of the activities offered.

During the peak tourist season, large theme parks often experience a simultaneous influx of visitors, resulting in prolonged waiting times for popular attractions. This extended waiting significantly reduces tourists' satisfaction and may negatively impact their willingness to revisit the theme park. In Taiwan, schools at all levels often plan graduation trips to theme parks for their students. Students are divided into groups and must enter and exit the theme park at the same time. This article presents a new theme park problem with multitype facilities (TPP-MTF) for student groups. Based on the group's preference for theme park facilities, multitype reserved tickets with popular facilities are designed for groups, so groups do not need to wait for the reserved facilities. Since the waiting time for groups can be reduced, the theme park can also obtain ticket fees in advance and estimate the number of visitors to the theme park, so the theme park and the group can achieve a win-win situation. This article proposes a new decoding approach for a random permutation of integer sequence and embeds it into an immune-based algorithm, genetic algorithm, and particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve the TPP-MTF problem. A theme park in Taiwan was taken as an example and numerical results of the three algorithms were analyzed and compared to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study underlines customers' value to contemporary theme parks in terms of customer citizenship behavior (CCB). Considering the frequency of customer-to-customer interaction and its impacts on tourist experience, this study aims to explore how other customers influence CCB in theme parks. Based on the cognition-affect-behavior model and the affect theory of social exchange, a model is constructed and tested with covariance-based structural equation modeling using survey data from 409 theme park visitors in China. The results show that the focal customers' perceptions of others (i.e. similarity and suitable behavior) can elicit customer-customer rapport (i.e. enjoyable interaction and personal connection), which in turn promotes target-based CCB (i.e. towards organizations, employees, and other customers) via affective commitment. This study extends the current theoretical knowledge on customer-customer rapport and CCB, and provides practical guidelines for theme park managers. • The formation of customer citizenship behavior is revisited from customer-customer interaction angle. • Customers′ cognitive perceptions of fellow visitors will affect their citizenship behavior. • Customer-customer rapport and affective commitment play critical roles of mediator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]