Exploring the influence of tourists’ happiness on revisit intention in the context of Traditional Chinese Medicine cultural tourism

Based on how tourists interpret the destination experience and on attachment theory, this study investigates the influencing mechanism of tourists' happiness on revisit intention for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) cultural tourism destinations. Three tourist samples confirm the three dimensions of tourists' happiness: positive emotions, engagement, and meaning. Two surveys were conducted to test the direct and indirect influence of tourists' happiness on revisit intention and the moderating role of tourists' health consciousness. The results show that tourists' happiness promotes memorable tourism experience and place attachment, in turn stimulating revisit intention. The results also support health consciousness as a significant moderator between happiness, place attachment, and revisit intention. The findings enrich theoretical understanding of tourists’ happiness and provide marketing and management advice for TCM cultural tourism destinations.     

Service encounter failure,negative destination emotion and behavioral intention: An experimental study of taxi service

The relationship between transportation and tourism has not been fully explored in tourist research. The effects of transportation services at destinations, particularly with service encounter failures, on tourists' perceptions of the destinations and their behavioral intentions have not been considered. We examine taxis, a main form of tourist transportation, and assess how tourists evaluate the service encounter failures. Our sample of 308 residents in Hong Kong participated in an online experiment with a 2 × 2 between-subject experimental design. The results indicated that both dishonesty and inhospitality were regarded as attributes of taxi service failures and can contribute to tourists' negative emotions regarding destinations. The negative emotions were found to be a strong predictor of tourists' negative behavioral intentions, including their intentions to post negative online reviews and not to revisit. The implications are also discussed about managing transportation services such as taxis for destination marketing and management.     

Mobilising identity and culture in experience co-creation and venue operation

This paper examines the multiple ways in which notions of identity and associated cultural values are entangled in the management and operation of commercial hospitality spaces. The paper reviews literature on experience, identity and hospitality operations management within the experience paradigm and argues that existing work provides limited insights into how identities are ‘experientialised’ within hospitality venues. Empirical data are used to demonstrate how management and consumers mobilise direct and associative references to identity. The paper conceptualises the processes involved in venue operation through the notion of inducement, and it discusses the spatial, material, performative and representational practices in the creation of hospitality experiences.     

Tourist self-presentation and diet regulations

This study examines tourists' dietary behavioral changes associated with how they are concerned with self-presentation. A within-subject mediation analysis reveals that tourists' self-presentational concerns can influence their diet regulations. Such concerns tend to be lower in the destination environment than in the familiar home setting. Thus, tourists at their destinations engage less frequently in diet regulations for self-presentational purposes. Key findings suggest that, although the effects of tourism on health are multifaceted, the products and services offered by hospitality organizations and businesses in the tourism system may negatively affect tourists' health owing to the relief of diet regulation and other health-related self-presentational concerns that are strongly present at home.     

Connecting tourists to musical destinations: The role of musical geographical imagination and aesthetic responses in music tourism

While the value of music in connecting tourists to destinations is recognized, its mechanism remains unclear. This study adopts aesthetic responses to explore how musical geographical imagination influences tourists' place bonding and subsequent behavioral intentions. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study: 1) elucidates the connotation and effects of musical geographical imagination integrating with aesthetics in tourism research; 2) shows that tourists' aesthetic cognitive and affective responses to musical geographical imagination strengthen place bonding, and buttresses the importance of affective responses in leveraging behavioral intentions; and 3) indicates that tourists’ responses to musical stimuli differ in direct and indirect destination experience contexts, demonstrating that musical stimulus context moderates on associations of imagination with cognitive responses, and affective responses with behaviroal intentions. This study empirically expands the imagination from individual auditory spaces to a destination and advances tourism aesthetics research; it guides using music in tourism sensory marketing and tourism soundscape design.     

A predictive model of tourist destinations based on tourists' comments and interests using text analytics

Data provided by tourists always benefit tourism managers and help them offer customized services, products and destinations to future travelers. This research investigates the effect of interests on Iranian outbound tourists, especially their selection of a destination and then, using text and data mining algorithms, it introduces a model to predict tourists' destinations based on their interests and travel backgrounds. In the current study, a dataset of 244,980 travels, consisting of 6661 people, was extracted from social media to discover the relationship between tourists' interests and travel destinations. Hence, it represents a model that is created using data and text mining from travel agencies to design their marketing plans by offering and advertising destinations to travelers with specific interest categories. The model has also shown promising accuracy and interesting results for the future tourist destination data and text analysis.     

Keep it real: Assessing destination image congruence and its impact on tourist experience evaluations

Inaccurate promotional information about tourist destinations may result in tourists' negative evaluations. This study proposes a new approach to measure the congruence between projected and received images of a destination's attractions. Based on online textual data, this study investigates how image congruence influences tourists' evaluations of their destination experiences. Using promotional messages and reviews of attractions in Hainan, China obtained from a leading Chinese online travel agency (Ctrip) and a three-way fixed-effects regression model, this study demonstrates that image congruence positively affects tourists' appraisal of their destination experiences. External crises (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic), the readability of promotional messages, and tourists' expertise moderate this relationship, reducing the positive impact of image congruence on tourist experience evaluation. This study bridges theoretical and empirical gaps in destination image (in)congruence research, informing tourism marketing agencies of effective promotional strategies in different contexts.     

Reconciling unsatisfying tourism experiences: Message type effectiveness and the role of counterfactual thinking

While attracting new tourists is an important issue in destination marketing, it is also imperative to manage tourists' experience post-trip, particularly in cases of unsatisfying experiences. Yet, the questions of how to rectify unsatisfying tourism experiences received little attention in tourism scholarship. In the present research, we investigated the effectiveness of different forms of marketing messages and the role of counterfactual thinking in the ability of a marketing message to improve tourists' attitudes towards the destination and intentions to recommend, when a tourism experience was not up to tourists' satisfaction. A scenario-based experiment was conducted with 480 respondents. The results showed that user-generated messages and the messages employing emotional appeal were more impactful than destination-generated or rational messages. Respondents who engaged in downward counterfactual thinking, that is imagining the situation in which their experience could have been worse, was shown to have a greater positive effect on unsatisfied tourists.     

Temporarily returning to an ideal life: Research on Chinese rural tourists' home experience

Home and away’ makes up a fundamental dichotomy during journeys. However, the knowledge of tourists' home experiences is limited. This study investigates Chinese rural tourists' home experiences to extend home research to more general tourism patterns and short-term tourist groups. Adopting a qualitative method to collect tourists' home experience data with the help of pictures that they prepared in advance, the study found that home experiences are an important motivation for Chinese rural tourists. It was immersion in nature, connection with history, sense of ease in interpersonal relationships and engagement with the true self and inner freedom that provided rural tourists with home experiences. The home experiences are mainly inner feelings that manifest as identity awakenings and senses of belonging and are also a manner of dwelling in the world. Rural tourism destinations should pay more attention to the construction of homey surroundings to attract more itinerant urbanites to them.     

Does destination nostalgic advertising enhance tourists’ intentions to visit? The moderating role of destination type

This study investigates the impact of nostalgic advertising and perceived destination types on tourists using four experiments. Study 1a and Study 1b revealed that destination nostalgic advertising is more likely to evoke tourists' history sense and further trigger visit intention, while destination non-nostalgic advertising is more likely to evoke tourists' fashion sense and further trigger visit intention. Study 2a and Study 2b revealed that perceived destination type plays a moderating role in these effects. Nostalgic advertising in utilitarian destinations is more likely to evoke tourists' history sense and further trigger visit intentions, while non-nostalgic advertising in hedonic destinations is more likely to evoke tourists’ fashion sense and further enhance visit intentions. These findings have valuable implications for destination marketers seeking to develop effective marketing strategies.     

Service robots or human staff: How social crowding shapes tourist preferences

Service providers in tourism and hospitality are beginning to welcome robots as a customer service option. Given this trend, it is important to explore the factors driving tourists' willingness to adopt such new technology. This study focuses on the role of crowding, an environmental factor widely observed in destinations susceptible to over-tourism, in shaping tourists' willingness to adopt service robots. Based on one survey and two experiments, the present research demonstrates that a destination which is more (vs. less) crowded generally motivates tourists to favor robot-provided services rather than those from human staff. Furthermore, findings reveal that this pattern manifests because more (vs. less) social crowding reduces tourists’ motivation to interact with others, as evidenced by social withdrawal tendency.     

Effects of Authenticity Perception,Hedonics, and Perceived Value on Ceramic Souvenir-Repurchasing Intention

This study examines a ceramic souvenir-repurchasing model for understanding the effects of authenticity perception, hedonics, and perceived value on the souvenir-repurchasing intentions of tourists. A total of 419 tourists at the Yingge Ceramics Area in Taiwan were administered an on-site questionnaire. The sample was divided into two data sets. Analyses of structural equations and competing models were employed to test hypothesized relationships and determine the best fitting model. The results indicate that authenticity perception and hedonics are important determinants of perceived value, which in turn influences souvenir-repurchasing intention. The findings suggest that in addition to further strengthening the value of souvenirs, the future efforts of destination marketing organizations to understand tourists' souvenir-repurchasing behaviors should consider the authenticity and hedonic needs of repeat tourists.     

Investigating the motivation–experience relationship in a dark tourism space: A case study of the Beichuan earthquake relics,China

This study identifies implications of dark tourism and describes how tourists and destinations, which are principal collateral cores, define what constitutes “dark” travel. The study also examines the dimensions of dark tourism motivation and experience and finds that the former partly affects the latter. The exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis aimed to examine why tourists approach and engage with disaster sites and how such experiences may affect tourists motivation and emotional reaction. It is the first paper that applies structural equation modelling to dark tourism research. We focus on the causal relationships between dimensions of motivation and experience, and the relationship that the emotional reactions effect on tourist experiences. We find that the curious visitors are likely to engage cognitively by learning about the incident or related issues and tourists' emotional reaction to the “dark” space influence more heavily emotional tourist experiences than cognitive experiences do.     

Tourists' memories,sensory impressions and loyalty: In loco and post-visit study in Southwest Portugal

This study aims to offer some insights on the contribution of sensory diversity as perceived by tourists to memorable destination experiences and to explore the connection between long-term memory of sensory impressions and destination loyalty. The vital role of the sensory dimension of tourist experiences is stressed by current tourism research and supported by a multidisciplinary view on the role of the five external senses in human perception, memory, and behavior. While the marketing management approach highlights the importance of considering multisensory information in the process of facilitating positive and memorable destination experiences, there is a lack of empirical research to validate the theoretical literature. A two-step exploratory study was conducted in loco and six months after tourists' visits to Southwest Portugal. The findings suggest that perceived richer sensory tourist experiences may have a significant role in the long-term memory of individuals’ experiences, encouraging favorable tourist behavior towards destinations.     

The ‘magic of filter’ effect: Examining value co-destruction of social media photos in destination marketing

Excessive filter processing of social media photos may cause viewers to question the authenticity of the photos. From the value co-destruction perspective, this research examines the effect of photo filtering on consumer perceptions. Study 1 ran content analysis of 2035 social media user posts and identified that destination marketing failure caused by filtered photos is a process involving tourists' negative emotions and multi-stakeholder (including platform, travel blogger, and destination) value co-destruction, represented by a chain relationship mechanism of “stimulation of filtered photos→ negative emotions of tourists→ failure of destination marketing.” Study 2 applied an experimental design and found that filtered photos have a significant effect on tourists' negative emotions, which play a complete mediating role in the relationship between filtered photos and value co-destruction of destination marketing. Additionally, the moderating effect of tourists’ aesthetic and authenticity pursuit in the influence mechanism was partially verified. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Exploring cultural tourist towns: Does authenticity matter?

This study applies various conceptualisations of authenticity to explore to what extent tourists appreciate the authenticity of cultural tourist towns. Using the visitor-employed photography (VEP) method, this study collected visitor-employed data in two cultural tourist towns in Shanghai, China to analyse tourists' personal enjoyable aesthetic experience. Results show that tourists were not overly concerned about objective authenticity as long as they had a positive and enjoyable experience, and that some tourists experienced and favoured existential and postmodern authenticity in the tourist towns. Results highlight the importance of designing entertainment activities and iconic attractions in a strip shape to engage tourists and enhance their enjoyment. Overall, results suggest that sophisticated design characterised by interaction of four townscape factors – nature setting, emotional design, spatial configuration, and commercialised elements – can shape tourists' enjoyable authentic experience. Findings have implications for tourism and tourist attraction operators in their planning, design, conservation, and promotional efforts.     

Ancient poetry in contemporary Chinese tourism

Classical poetry is an important part of Chinese culture. This study explores its roles in contemporary Chinese tourism based on participant observation of tourist destinations in the Three Gorges and surrounding area along the Yangtze River and content analysis of tourism guidebooks. Classical poetry is used to guide Chinese tourists in terms of what to gaze at and how to gaze. Specifically, first, poets and their poems create historical and cultural value for a place, which forms an essential foundation for its attractiveness as an object for Chinese tourists gaze. Second, poems may be used to enhance tourists' aesthetic appreciation of a landscape along the spatial and temporal dimensions, creating transcending poetic experiences. Such influence of classical poetry exemplifies the cultural continuity in China that should be well understood and considered in contemporary tourism. Implications in tourism development and marketing, aesthetic experience creation, environmental interpretation, and literary tourism are discussed.     

Craving alterreal authenticity through the post-postmodern lens: An experimental inquiry

This research takes a post-postmodern stance to investigate tourists' predisposition toward alterreal authenticity (i.e., altered reality). It draws on Schachter's two-factor theory of emotion to highlight a model that examines the effects of authenticity and cultural difference, and their interactions on cultural-heritage consumption, through a field experiment. Results point to a two-step mechanism in authenticity negotiation in which psychological arousal is diffused through exposure to authenticity stimuli followed by cognition of the arousal situation conditioned upon tourist cultural background. This research not only heeds the call from the literature to enrich the methodological silos in authenticity discourse through causal inferences; it also provides early empirics to the post-postmodern view of authenticity, which conjectures means for tourists to imaginatively authenticate their experiences.     

Tourists' Perception of Authenticity in Indigenous Souvenirs in Taiwan

This study contributes to a body of knowledge concerning tourists' perception of authenticity for indigenous souvenirs in Taiwan. Researchers evaluated, designed, and produced souvenir cups chosen to represent Taiwan's indigenous Paiwan culture. Markers, designs, and materials were researched and selected in order to examine tourists' perceptions of authenticity. Tourists were asked to evaluate the cups and to explain their perceived authenticity and willingness to purchase. The findings suggest that tourists perceive modern design combined with indigenous markers to be more authentic than traditional design. The apparent traditionalism of aboriginal souvenirs does not determine the degree of authenticity. Tourists' perception is specifically grounded in the visuality of the souvenir and their willingness to purchase is also associated with authenticity in design.     

From sad to happy to happier: Emotion regulation strategies used during a vacation

Emotion regulation is a psychological intervention tourists use to maximize the positive outcomes of their travel experiences. Tourists either down-regulate negative emotions (e.g., from sad to happy) or up-regulate positive emotions (e.g., from happy to happier). The construct of emotion regulation was used as a guiding framework to uncover which emotion regulation strategies tourists used during their vacations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Study findings revealed tourists used three phases of emotion regulation strategies—interpersonal, situational, and intrapersonal—during their vacations. These findings not only contribute to tourism research by documenting the transient, dynamic and variable nature of emotions, but also provide a glimpse into how tourism and hospitality professionals should modify programs/experiences in response to tourists' emotions.