Accessible tourism and sustainability: a discussion and case study

This paper explores the concept of accessible tourism and its links with triple-bottom-line (TBL) sustainability. Accessible tourism is reviewed through some of its central features including dimensions of access, universal design and the nexus between ageing and disability. The TBL is then examined to better understand the financial, environmental and social considerations that arise from accessible tourism. The research design used in this explorative research incorporated a case study approach, where a business case study instrument was developed. Methods included a Delphi group, review of management information systems, in-depth interviews with key informants, observation and participant observation. The study results revealed that rather than accessible tourism being a single construct, it forms one critical dimension of a series of interrelated, overlapping and interdependent business arrangements that extend beyond the business entity through a series of social networks within the destination region. It is argued that to properly satisfy the accessible tourism market, a more sophisticated understanding of accessible destination experiences is needed by tourism operators. The case study illustrates the considerable size and multi-niche markets served by accessible tourism destinations, the good fit between accessible tourism and TBL sustainable tourism, and the need for further research.     

Diaspora Chinese tourism: Cultural connectedness and the existing academic insights

Tourism scholars and practitioners tend to regard diaspora tourism as a homogeneous market, with needs that can be met through general types of products. Adopting a literature review approach, this article has conducted a review of the extensive research on the diaspora, immigration, and root-seeking tourism to China. The conceptual framework provides a holistic perspective for researchers and destination managers to study diaspora tourism. This shows that the demand dimension of diaspora tourists is related to the structure of diaspora communities. Place attachment (sense of nostalgia), transnationalism, cultural (re)connectivity, hybrid self-identity (re)constructions and the nation-state power metrics of China for overseas Chinese, are as identified as factors that determine motivation for “returning home”. Further research is suggested to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the typology of diaspora tourism that may need to be considered in order to meet the needs of diaspora tourists in future planning and strategy formulation.     

Understanding the past,anticipating the future – a critical assessment of China outbound tourism research

This paper presents a critical assessment of the current state of China outbound tourism research. It draws upon an extensive review of peer-reviewed literature on China outbound tourism published between 2003 and 2015. In seeking an in-depth understanding of the current literature and its implications, the researchers propose five potential directions for future investigation. These include a call for researchers to embrace alternative research techniques that will contribute to theory building, as well as for an alignment of research activity that provides insights into both the evolution and the transformation of China outbound tourism.     

Progress on image analytics: Implications for tourism and hospitality research

Despite the increased recognition of the importance of images as a rich data source, the full potential of images to advance tourism and hospitality knowledge, both conceptually and theoretically, has yet to be fully tapped. This study provides a critical review of image analytics, examining its broad implications for tourism and hospitality research. This paper offers the progress of image definitions, features and related theories, as well as presents a methodological framework for conducting image-related studies, complementing the dominant textual analysis used in tourism and hospitality research. The paper makes contributions to the tourism methodological literature by developing a point of reference for the application of image analytics in tourism and hospitality studies.     

Country Versus Destination Image in a Developing Country

In contrast to the country of origin studies in international marketing, the tourism literature fails to differentiate between the image of the country and that of the destination as a tourism product. The distinction is important for developing countries suffering from negative country perceptions, as opposed to more positive views regarding the tourism destination. Therefore, this research examines the difference between country and destination image in the context of Turkey, and proposes a scale to measure them. The study also provides evidence of this difference and suggests ways in which the destination's image may contribute to improve the country's general perceptions.     

Which accessible travel products are people with disabilities willing to pay more? A choice experiment

Despite the rapidly increasing number of tourists with disabilities, which is known to have a strong nexus with senior travel market, tourism industry has paid little attention to the distinctive preferences of these tourists for accessible travel products. Using a sample of Koreans with mobility disabilities, this study aims to better understand how they make decisions to choose optimal accessible travel products. The results of the choice experiment indicate that respondents place the heaviest weight on the accessibility of accommodation facilities for their maximization of travel satisfaction. The results also suggest that tourists with disabilities show higher willingness-to-pay values on particular tour buses equipped with more accessibility devices. Based on study findings, this study provides several management implications that help tourism professionals develop appropriate accessible travel products for their clientele with disabilities.     

An Investigation of Market Orientation (MO) and Tourism Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ (SMEs) Performance in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature

This paper aims to build a structured literature review of the field of market orientation and its impact on tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) performance in developing countries. This literature review will present a comprehensive survey of market orientation (MO) published articles to facilitate good understanding of MO. It serves as an archive and aims to help the scholars and practitioners to explore, analyse, and develop a clear understanding about the different research points and methodologies implemented in previous studies related to MO and its impact on tourism SMEs’ performance. The paper systematically reviews and categorizes the published literature implementing a three-stage methodology, and thereafter analyzes and reviews this literature methodologically. The review covered many areas and identified some factors that drive/hinder market-oriented activities within tourism SMEs. Furthermore, suggestions have been made to understand more thoroughly how market orientation influences tourism SMEs performance in developing economies. A research gap in the area of market orientation and tourism SMEs performance in developing countries was identified. The study provides great benefits for owner-managers, government policy makers, scholars, and educators by clarifying the concept of market orientation and its relationship with performance in the context of tourism SMEs.     

Politics of memories: Identity construction in museums

This paper adopts collective memory theory to reveal processes through which heritage tourism stakeholders (re)construct contested national identity. Theoretically sensitised to identity crisis, the study analyses how Hong Kong and Macao heritage managers utilise complex transnational memories to (re)construct an identity aligned with, yet distinct from, that of China. Through a critical discourse analysis of interviews and discursive exhibition and museum texts, the article reveals that museum managers formulate heritage imaginings and a sense of belonging(s) through defining the collective memory for “Self” and “Other”. The article concludes that, by collective memory-building, museum professionals make tangible statements of national identities through legitimating negotiations and resistance in heritage tourism discourse. Implications for heritage tourism studies and museum management are also discussed.     

Disability,social inclusion and the marketing of tourist attractions

The participation of persons with a disability (PWDs) in tourism has received growing academic interest in recent years. This paper contributes to a reflection on how accessible tourism relates to the sustainable development paradigm. To investigate this relationship, it goes beyond the question of PWDs’ access to tourism services, and adopts an inclusiveness perspective. Inclusion is examined in terms of legislation, marketing and imagery, and representations of PWDs as consumers embedded within social units – and families in particular. These dimensions are explored empirically in a study of visitor attractions in Cornwall (England) based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of brochures and websites. The study shows that the marketing materials of Cornish visitor attractions mainly focus on access, and the imagery used largely projects quasi invisibility or provides ambiguous messages. Communication with PWDs rarely addresses the family unit, making the family tourism experience intangible in the pre-trip phase. These results point at weaker implementation of inclusiveness, which corroborates previous findings of watered down definitions of rights to tourism under neo-liberal ideologies and economic crises. The paper discusses implications for social inclusion and highlights avenues for future research.     

旅游影响下的乡村重构研究进展

乡村重构已成为国内外乡村研究的重要内容和发展趋势,而乡村旅游被认为是促进乡村经济发展的重要手段与有效路径,进而成为乡村重构的重要驱动力。本文借助CiteSpace知识图谱可视化软件,对国内外旅游影响下乡村重构研究的相关文献进行系统梳理,从空间重构、经济重构、社会重构三方面进行分析,以期为中国新型城镇化与乡村振兴战略融合发展提供理论支撑。分析发现：（1）旅游语境下的乡村空间重构表现为三方面：乡村土地利用变化、村镇体系重构与乡村内部“三生”空间格局重构。（2）经济重构主要表现在产业结构变化与居民生计方式转变两方面。（3）乡村治理的改善、乡村文化重构是乡村社会重构研究的两个主要方面。此外,本文基于空间生产理论与行动者网络理论对旅游影响下乡村重构的理论基础进行探讨,从城乡融合发展、保育乡村性以及不同类型乡村的案例比较三方面提出未来研究展望。     

Film tourism – Evolution,progress and prospects

Film tourism has emerged as a major growth sector for research in tourism and it is widely recognised as a driver of tourism development for many destinations. To date, there has been a relatively substantial literature on the subject, little of which has sought to synthesise and engage with the wider social science paradigm of culture, film and media research. The aim of this Progress Review is to critically evaluate film tourism as a subject of cross-disciplinary academic study, highlighting the major research themes, issues and contributing conceptual frameworks, critiquing existing and developing perspectives and addressing critical gaps in knowledge. This review is particularly timely as the literature on film tourism has not been synthesised from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Accordingly, this paper seeks to provide a road map of the exponential growth in social science literature associated with the cognate areas that study, or contribute to, film tourism.     

The hidden risk in user-generated content: An investigation of ski tourers' revealed risk-taking behavior on an online outdoor sports platform

This paper investigates risk-taking behavior in the context of an online outdoor sports platform. Analyzing a unique behavioral dataset of 6242 ski tours completed over a time period of eight winter seasons, this paper shows that the accuracy of user-generated content on ski tours is limited and that more than one third of ski tours accessible on the respective online platform was relatively dangerous on the particular days according to a common avalanche risk assessment method. The quantitative analysis furthermore reveals that at avalanche danger level “considerable” more than sixty percent of ski tours were relatively dangerous. Overall, this paper provides novel insights into risks that come with user-generated content in the adventure tourism and adventure recreation domain and derives important implications for online platform users, online platform providers, public institutions, and tourism destinations.     

Tourism,hospitality, and DEA: Where do we come from and where do we go?

The primary goal of this paper is to present a literature survey on the application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) in tourism and hospitality studies. The secondary goal is to categorize the studies by tourism products and tourism industries according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The tertiary goal is to identify the gaps and challenges in the field. The paper presents a comprehensive review of 350 tourism-related articles that use DEA methodology and highlights several key issues. The publications were statistically classified by methodological innovation, input-output variables, sources of publications, and several other relevant attributes. The investigation reveals the importance of the DEA methodology in the study of the productivity and efficiency of hospitality and tourism. The results also show a high degree of industrial (hotel sector) and geographical (Europe and Asia) concentration of studies. Cultural aspects, tourism sustainability, as well as the efficiency of tourism destinations, have attracted much interest recently. In addition, the new DEA models are increasingly gaining ground in the literature. Finally, the present review highlights the limitations of existing studies and provides important directions for future research.     

Progress in tourism demand research: Theory and empirics

To explore recent progress in tourism demand research, we comprehensively survey current studies in the leading tourism and hospitality journals, asking six evaluative questions about the scientific merits of the studies and three explorative questions about emerging areas in the literature. The examination identifies potential flaws and their consequences in the field of tourism demand. A theoretical foundation is recommended for future tourism demand studies with a view to reduce bias in the empirical analysis of tourism demand. Several emerging areas of analysis in the field of tourism demand are recognized and discussed. Our study provides critical insights that will enable future tourism demand research to generate more reliable, impactful information than in the past.     

Vandalism and tourism settings: An integrative review

Although wide agreement exists in the literature concerning the presence of vandalism in tourism, very little attention has been given to studying the phenomenon. This paper reviews published literature that addresses vandalism, its manifestation in tourism and its prevention. The review provides a comprehensive analysis of empirical research on the motivations for vandalism, deviant visitor behaviour and intervention strategies to manage such behaviours in tourism settings. The paper reviews the micro-level and macro level forces influencing vandalism and provides a definition, thematic analysis of current literature on motivation of vandalism and common themes in vandalism prevention. The analysis demonstrates a range of intervention strategies to curb vandalism. An evolution towards the use of more refined proactive techniques is apparent in recent work. The review provides a foundation for further work by theorists and practitioners.     

Review and Application of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing in Tourism

Knowledge and its management are generally recognised as a strategic asset that provides organisations with a competitive edge. Prior research demonstrates that knowledge sharing (KS) is crucial because it helps organisations promote best practice, facilitate knowledge creation and enhance effectiveness. Although there is a growing realisation that KS is critical to knowledge creation and organisational performance, this is still an emerging area of inquiry whose key variables, relationships and implications for tourism organisations are not yet clear. In this paper, key concepts of knowledge, organisational knowledge, knowledge management (KM) and KS are reviewed. This paper would be of interest to readers who would like to understand more about how KM and KS can be applied to tourism.     

何为“表演”?——西方旅游表演转向理论溯源、内涵解析及启示

自20世纪90年代起,西方主流旅游研究中呈现出"表演转向"。历经近30年的发展,这一转向至今仍方兴未艾。"performance"(表演)作为一个具有强有力启发意义的隐喻,为西方旅游体验研究的深入推进提供了一条新路径。但国内学者对这一转向关注甚少,甚至对"表演"的理解还停留在通俗层面上。造成这种现状的根本原因在于英文"performance"一词与中文对应词"表演"在各自语言体系中存在着较大的含义差别。理解英文世界中"表演"隐喻的内涵,还需追根溯源,向西方旅游表演转向的理论基础寻求答案。文章对performance一词进行词源考察,探究不同语言环境中"表演"的含义及人文社科学术领域中"表演"的内涵,并且对西方旅游研究中表演转向的理论基础及发展历程进行了梳理,进而提炼出西方旅游表演转向的核心特点。文章最后指出西方旅游表演转向对未来旅游体验研究所给予的启示:第一,国内学界应该寻找一个替代性词语来表达performance在中文语境中部分失效的含义,以弥合语言体系转换所造成的裂隙。第二,表演转向中的温和模式和激进模式并不是替代关系,旅游体验研究不必在二者中选择其一作为立场。第三,旅游体验研究应面向过程,而不是结果。第四,旅游体验研究应面向关系,而不是元素。第五,旅游体验研究方法需要新的突破和尝试。     

Resilience and sustainability: a complementary relationship? Towards a practical conceptual model for the sustainability–resilience nexus in tourism

“Sustainability” has endured as an important concept for tourism scholars, and volumes have been written about how to achieve this holy grail of the tourism industry. Sustainable tourism destinations are often promoted as the ethical choice for discerning travellers, with some marketers taking full advantage of the widely acknowledged ambiguities implicit in the term. More recently “resilience” has generated appeal in the academic tourism literature as a term that might capture core aspects of sustainability, while acknowledging the considerable influences that multiple contexts have on the capacity of communities to adapt and ultimately sustain their tourism enterprises. The resilience concept encompasses an inclusive and integrative “social ecological systems” approach which gives it a firm interdisciplinary underpinning in its application in tourism. While in a tourism context sustainability and resilience are kindred terms, relatively little scholarly effort has been committed to a critical treatment of these concepts. Addressing this deficiency, we present a conceptual model to discuss the relationship between sustainability and resilience in tourism. Drawing on examples from New Zealand's nature-based tourism sector, this conceptual paper explores the insights that a critical treatment of the sustainability–resilience nexus might offer both academics and practitioners in the field of tourism studies.     

Market\industry confusion in tourism economic analyses

It is common to read reference to the tourism industry in scholarly works, but attempts at describing or defining tourism as one are not without difficulties. This paper considers whether, given the economic definition of industry, tourism can be called as such. Moreover, the paper offers a clarification of the distinction between the concepts industry and market and how they may be used in the economic analysis of tourism. Definitions of these two notions, extracted from the relevant economic literature, are suggested. Tourism cannot be defined as either an industry or a market. Clarification of this confusion has important implications for economic analysis in this field.     

Islamic pro-poor and volunteer tourism — The impacts on tourists: A case study of Shabake Talayedaran Jihad,Teheran — A research note

For the most part, researchers of pro-poor tourism have focused on the issues of poverty alleviation, and the recipient communities at the visited destination. By comparison relatively little has been said about the effect of travel and the tourist experience on the tourists themselves; a gap this study aims to correct. The present research is based on questionnaires from, and interviews with participants in the Shabake Talayedaran Jihad who were engaged in volunteer tourism in Iran. It was been found that pro-poor volunteer tourism has positive effects on attitudes about poverty, life attitudes, and personal and social skills. Further, based on the interviews, 16 other effect indices have been found which relate to the above classification. This paper contributes to the literature by filling a gap in the English language academic literature that relates to Iranian volunteer movements and its volunteers.