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The current study was conducted to examine the consumption process of tourists through the SIPS model as they experienced tourism-related information and products on social networking sites. Data was collected online from Koreans who have experience in using social networking sites, and a total of 479 responses were used for the data analysis. The statistical package for social sciences 23 and analysis of moment structures 23 were used to evaluate stability, consistency for the measurement items, and to perform structural equation modeling to test hypotheses. There were three main results that emerged from the study. First, three dimensions of sympathy (emotional sympathy, content sympathy, and sympathy for situations and publishers) were extracted. Second, among the dimensions of sympathy, only “content sympathy” showed a significant impact on identification while all dimensions of sympathy significantly affected tourism participation intention. It indicated that tourists are willing to participate in tourism activities immediately if they sympathize with the information obtained from social media without going through the identification process, which is the opposite result of what the SIPS model argued. Lastly, travel content production experience has been shown to have a moderating effect in the relationship between identification and tourism participation intention. The current study will contribute to understanding tourists’ consumption process of tourism-related information on social networking sites and to establish efficient marketing strategies.

Service failures and complaints have been topics where there is an increasing interest among researchers as well as practitioners and it has been thoroughly examined in relation to the general traveling public.But this is not the case for tourists with disabilities.Therefore, the aim of the current research is to examine the relationship of service failure with complaint behavior based on the Affective Events Theory.An on-site survey was administered to collect data from Koreans with disabilities living in South Korea, and a total of 283 responses were used for data analysis. The findings showed that emotional evaluation had a significant relationship with regard to explaining cognitive evaluation, core service failure, and interpersonal service failure respectively. Emotional evaluation showed a positive relationship with complaint behavior. These findings provide insight regarding ways to provide better services for tourists with disabilities and for strategic planning and marketing purposes.

There is intense competition to host sports mega-events as cities and countries perceive that doing so will enhance their global image and make the destination more attractive to future tourists. Is there empirical evidence to prove that hosting a mega sport event really does stimulate international visitation and enhance the destination's image? In this paper we investigate this question in relation to the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan. To this end, 412 foreign tourists were surveyed during the World Cup about their image of South Korea. Differences in demographics, motive and perceptions between tourists travelling specifically for the World Cup, and those coming to South Korea for non-World Cup-related reasons, are noted. The study provides a baseline dataset from which future research on megasports events can build.

Mega events have many effects on host regions. Considering their influence on tourist behavior, image-related effects merit more attention. In spite of broad agreement among scholars regarding the influence of image on individual behavior, little empirical research has been conducted on this aspect. This study focuses on the influence of various dimensions of destination image on onsite experiences, of these on overall evaluation and behavioral intentions, and of the latter on behavioral intentions. The results show that the four dimensions of image have differential effects on these experiences, which in turn influence subsequent behavior.

Many researchers have investigated leisure experience as a process that includes interactions with others and the environment. Interactions during leisure are known to influence the experience. Based on this tradition, the purpose of this study was to investigate how emotions might relate to interactions that an individual has during leisure experience and to examine the relationships among emotions, episode-specific evaluations, and overall satisfaction. A research model was suggested based on Affect Control Theory, the confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm, Mehrabian and Russell's 1974 approach-avoidance concept, and the sub-domain dependency theory of leisure satisfaction. Findings from analyses of experiences suggested that linkages existed among confirmation of self-identity (a goal), resulting emotions, episode-specific evaluations, and finally to overall satisfaction with a leisure activity.

Leisure experiences are believed to be dynamic and to emerge through an interaction process. A lack of theoretically based research has kept leisure scholars from developing a systematic understand...

Sustainability has been a useful concept but one that has proven difficult to operationalize. The limits of acceptable change (LAC) planning system was used as a basis for research to exemplify a model that may be useful in applying the sustainability concept in regional tourism planning. A county on the coast of Texas, USA was used to examine regional attitudes toward tourism development and the perceived change that tourism might create. Respondent attitudes from three communities were compared. Results indicated that communities differed in the way they felt about tourism. These differences provided some justification for tourism development zones (TDZs) that can help separate development and activity types related to tourism. Communities also differed in perceived change that might occur due to tourism suggesting that different conditions and indicators might be needed depending on the TDZ of concern. Implications for application of the LAC planning system are discussed.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to investigate three different types of gamblers (which we label "non-problem", "some problem", and "probable pathological gamblers") to determine differences in involvement and motivation, as well as differences in demographic and behavioral variables. METHODS: The analysis takes advantage of a unique opportunity to sample on-site at a major casino in South Korea, and the resulting purposive sample yielded 180 completed questionnaires in each of the three groups, for a total number of 540. Factor analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Duncan tests, and Chi-square tests are employed to analyze the data collected from the survey. RESULTS: Findings from ANOVA tests indicate that involvement factors of importance/self-expression, pleasure/interest, and centrality derived from the factor analysis were significantly different among these three types of gamblers. The "probable pathological" and "some problem" gamblers were found to have similar degrees of involvement, and higher degrees of involvement than the non-problem gamblers. The tests also reveal that motivational factors of escape, socialization, winning, and exploring scenery were significantly different among these three types of gamblers. When looking at motivations to visit the casino, "probable pathological" gamblers were more likely to seek winning, the "some problem" group appeared to be more likely to seek escape, and the "non-problem" gamblers indicate that their motivations to visit centered around explorations of scenery and culture in the surrounding casino area. CONCLUSION: The tools for exploring motivations and involvements of gambling provide valuable and discerning information about the entire spectrum of gamblers.