Search

Rural residents' enthusiasm and persistence for participation in tourism employment contribute to the sustainable development of destination tourism. Taking Majiagou village in Hebei Province as a case study, this research focused on changes to residents' participation behavior in tourism employment, using unstructured interviews and observations. Bounded rational decision theory was applied to delineate the decision-making process of tourism employment participation. The results indicated that rural residents' participation in tourism employment was subject to a dynamic process of change across three phases: trial participation, herd participation, and selective withdrawal. This evolution is specifically guided by an internal mechanism consisting of "tourism industry attributes—individual bounded rationality—individual employment decision-making." The study provides an effective analytical framework for characterizing the behavior of rural residents in a tourism community and offers managerial implications for the government to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of community participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable tourism has been a popular topic in tourism research. However, there are limited studies on tourists' perspectives from the angle of sustainable tourism. This research intends to develop and test a destination loyalty model which introduces destination image in the form of the pillars of sustainability. Questionnaires were distributed to tourists at five tourist destinations in Shanghai. The analysis showed that tourist satisfaction fully mediated the effect of cultural image and partially mediated the effects of socioeconomic and environmental images on destination loyalty. Implications were derived from the findings and future research recommendations were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent music tourism researches are notable owing to growing socioeconomic significance of music. But the question about how music affects tourists' behaviors in travel practice remains there. This study explores the effects of music on tourists' behaviors by deploying a survey of tourists in Lijiang old town which is famous for abundant musical cultures. Results show that tourists' behavioral intentions are influenced by music-induced emotions which are stimulated by music perception and music cognition. This paper provides a new insight into music characteristics in tourism and new ways for how tourism destinations engage with music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify residents' heterogeneity beyond a perception lens, this research seeks to cluster urban and rural residents based on their emotions, commitment and behavioral intentions toward tourism performing arts (TPA) development. A survey comprising 438 urban and 435 rural respondents was collected in Hangzhou and Yangshuo, China. A two-step cluster analysis revealed that residents' length of residence and birthplace were the most significant model predicators. Different cluster profiles labeled as "enthusiasts", "committed supporters", "appraisers" and "critics" were identified. Findings provide targeted strategies to cultivate resident commitment and reduce hostility toward TPA development in different types of communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the big data era, destination images have played an increasingly important role in tourism development. However, seldom tourism research has utilised big data analytics to examine destination images from travel blogs. Therefore, this study proposes and evaluates a big data analytical approach using latent Dirichlet allocation to extract attributes of online destination images from 140,286 travel blogs about 20 cities in China. Results reveal 14 dimensions with 54 attributes of destination images of the studied cities. Interesting findings are discovered between online destination images and tourism cities. This study also summarises the implications for tourism research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to display the role of hotel restaurants in gastronomic place branding. The authors view hotel restaurants as having a great potential in the promotion of local gastronomy. Design/methodology/approach – The research was done in several stages. First, the authors selected six destinations (Lapland, Catalonia, Saint Petersburg, Marseille, Parma and Munich) according to the classification of gastronomic brands based on the settlement type. Second, the authors studied conceptions of hotel restaurants located in these destinations to see how they reflect local gastronomic brands. For this purpose, restaurant menus, verbal descriptions of interiors and names of establishments were analyzed using elements of content analysis. Finally, the authors conducted several interviews with hotel managers in one of the destinations to distinguish the challenges of gastronomic branding within hotel restaurants. Findings – The results allowed defining the role of hotel restaurants in gastronomic branding depending on the following factors: hotel’s affiliation with a chain, hotel’s star rating and destination type. Practical implications – The authors argue that gastronomic branding raises attractiveness of hotels, its restaurants and destination on the whole. This research was presented to the Tourism Committee of St Petersburg, resulting in increased attention to gastronomic branding among the city authorities. Originality/value – The role of hotel restaurants in gastronomic branding has not been studied previously. However, hotel restaurants differ from other actors of gastronomic branding due to the necessity to comply with hotel’s conception, brand and standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comparative study of the destination competitiveness of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau and those strategies developed to enhance their future positions in the global destination "marketplace." The methodology adopted is secondary in nature in that a critical review of the existing literature was conducted along with a synthesis of current practices across the three city-state destinations. The 15 Cs Framework provides the research parameters for the study in that it advocates an inclusive approach to those challenges and opportunities facing destinations as they seek to enhance their overall competitiveness. In particular, the study explores the specific approaches of the three destinations in terms of their similarity to thematically grouped clusters of the 15 Cs. The article closes by highlighting particular opportunities and challenges and potential management approaches that could be adopted within the destinations for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of China Tourism Research is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)

The Chinese tourism market is currently enjoying a new trend of popularization, individualization, and normalization, but public tourism services have become the key factor affecting tourist satisfaction and destination competitiveness. Because the tourism industry was regarded as a highly market-oriented industry for a long time in China, there is a lack of awareness of the significant reasons for establishing a public tourism service system. This lack of awareness leads to several obstacles in our practical exploration of this field. Lagging academic circles and ambiguous theoretical studies on this topic also restrict the practical development of public tourism services. Here, we first examine the existing research arguments related to the understanding of public tourism services. We then focus on Li Shuang's discourses on public tourism services by pointing out the inconsistency in her understanding of some core concepts and the misuse of some theories borrowed from other fields of social sciences, together with her erroneous understanding of the practice of public tourism services. We argue that Li Shuang wrongly understood and applied the theory of new public administration and Ostrom's polycentric governance theory into public tourism services, because the variety of public tourism services does not mean that the government is not responsible for the delivery of tourism services by providers. Polycentric governance theory is not suitable for application in the field of public tourism services because tourists, who are in an unusual environment, cannot become protagonists in influencing the governance of the tourist destination. Economic theories--such as the public goods theory--cannot completely explain why we need to provide public services in the tourism market or who should bear the primary responsibility for them. Nevertheless, political science and public administration theory could be better suited to answering those basic questions. On this basis, we raise our understanding of public tourism services, in which we articulate their attributes, contents, subject and object, temporal-spatial conditions, modes of providing, and the reason for their existence. We argue that the main content of public tourism services includes three aspects; tourism infrastructure, destination promotion, and an equality guarantee. These three aspects include 11 factors; tourism infrastructure, tourist attractions, availability of destination-convenient public transport, tourism planning, regulation of the tourism market, tourism equality guarantee, tourist quality training, tourism consumption environment, destination promotion, destination information services, and destination market cultivation. We further argue that the public tourism service itself is nonprofit and for the common benefit. The public tourism service provider is intrinsically the government and its public sectors. The object of tourism services is the visitor. Attractive destinations are marketed so that visitors will contribute to the economy. The government may have several providing mechanisms, but the provider of public tourism services is still the government. The commonality and objectivity of tourist needs and the local interests of the destination mean that the government must provide public tourism services. The general Chinese economy, the tourism service system, and non-governmental organizations are currently imperfect. The tourism administration system manages the majority of the public tourism service functions, but they do not understand the nature of these, and the quality and effectiveness of services are far from realizing tourists' expectations and needs. Therefore, at this stage, simply copying and practicing a misunderstanding of the Western theory of new public management in China would be misguided. Both improvement of service practices and theoretical clarification are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a tourism destination development sequence for Dali, Yunnan Province, China. The development of Dali highlights limits in the power of the local government as the lead stakeholder, which took a top-down approach to economic development. The government sought to address increasing control of the tourism sector by external tour operators through increasing its own control of local tourism attractions. This approach has been only partially successful in reducing distortions in the tourism channel. The origins of these distortions are described and analysed. A number of additional responses are suggested to improve the local benefits obtained from the inflow of tourists to this new destination area including development of a more market oriented competitive strategy that seeks to co-opt stakeholders into collaborative activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to identify the underlying benefits sought by international visitors to Macau, China, which has emerged as a popular gambling destination in Asia; (2) to segment tourists visiting Macau by employing a cluster analysis based on the benefits sought; and (3) to examine any salient differences between the segment groups with regard to their behavioral characteristics, socio-economic characteristics, and demographic profiles. A convenience sample was used to collect data in the Macau International Airport, in the Macau Ferry Terminal, and at the border gate with Mainland China. A total 1,513 useful surveys were retained for data analysis. Cluster analysis discloses four distinct clusters: 'convention and business seekers,' 'family and vacation seekers,' 'gambling and shopping seekers,' and 'multi-purpose seekers.' Based on the results of our findings, several managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research is often considered the immediate precursor of economic success and innovation but from a knowledge management (KM) perspective it is only an input into a system with knowledge production, adoption, and innovation as components. This article examines and compares the history and characteristics of tourism research in Australia and China to analyse areas where improvements in KM implementation may be made. Overall the amount and breadth of research in tourism in both countries appears to have improved over the past several years. The paper suggests a need for research into improving the transfer of knowledge to tourism business operators and different models of knowledge transfer applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While protective measures in response to infectious diseases may reduce the freedom of tourists (regarding their behaviors), few studies have documented the effects of destination protective measures on the self-protective behaviors of tourists. By applying the protection motivation theory, this study examines the effects of perceived destination protective supports on the social distancing intentions of tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results reveal significant relationships among perceived destination support, coping appraisal, threat appraisal, and the social distancing intentions of tourists. Moreover, two cognitive appraisals-toward the pandemic-partially mediate the relationship between perceived destination support and social distancing intention, and this mediational process is 'intervened' with by social norms. This has implications on whether tourist destinations apply more rigorous social distancing polices during the COVID-19 pandemic, to enhance the coping confidence behaviors of tourists, without causing anxiety and fear, and to achieve the goal of enhancing tourists' intentions to protect themselves.

Fostering tourist environmentally responsible behavior is critical for sustainable destination management, pertinent to both rural and urban settings. Tourist negative impact perception and social responsibility awareness are identified as important factors in shaping tourist environmental behavior. However, the influencing mechanism is not yet fully understood. Taking Yuelu Mountain, a key tourism attraction in Changsha City, Hunan Province of China, as an example, this study explores the influencing mechanisms of tourist negative impact perception, the self and public dimensions of social responsibility awareness on the complying and promoting environmentally responsible behaviors. On site tourist questionnaires were collected and the structural equation model was used to empirically test the proposed theoretical framework. Results suggest that negative impact perception (NIP) has a direct and significant positive effect on public responsibility awareness (PRA). The latter demonstrates a significant positive impact on complying environmentally responsible behavior (CERB) and promoting environmentally responsible behavior (PERB). Public responsibility awareness (PRA) is found to play an important intermediary role between negative impact perception (NEP), self responsibility awareness (SRA) and environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). Accordingly, suggestions for managing and promoting tourist environmentally responsible behavior are proposed for Yuelu Mountain. Management implications are then extended to other destinations at a broader context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enormous tourism boom raises concern about possible negative environmental impacts worldwide. One of the risks posed by tourism may be heavy metal pollution. On the example of the volcanic island of Santorini, a popular tourist destination, pollution of soils categorized according to the tourism load was monitored. Significant anthropogenic contamination by heavy metals, especially Cu, Cr and Pb, was found out. This contamination may constitute a moderate ecological risk to the island ecosystems. Tourism has been shown to be a significant pollution factor as evidenced by the contaminated soils near the airport. Simultaneously, airport traffic has been proved to be an important emitter of Co, Cr and especially Zn. The comparison with other volcanic islands has shown that on Santorini the content of heavy metals in soils is significantly lower, despite frequently higher tourism intensity. On this basis, it can be concluded that in case of volcanic islands the dominant factor determining the content of heavy metals in the soil is the parent rock. Given high and ever-increasing intensity of tourism on the island, it can be assumed that soil contamination will continue to rise rapidly. Therefore, without proper steps reducing tourism, increase in soil degradation, growing negative impacts on local ecosystems as well as on the quality of produced wine can be expected on Santorini., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)