Celebrity endorsement in tourism: Attention,emotional arousal and familiarity

Celebrity endorsement in tourism is utilised by global marketing practitioners to attract tourists to visit destinations. Despite this, studies are yet to assess the efficacy of two specific types of celebrity endorsement, a celebrity from the host country (host celebrity) vs. a celebrity from the country-of-origin (origin celebrity). Utilising the match-up hypothesis, this research applied a quasi-experimental design, consisting of a mixed method approach, which combined eye-tracking and self-report data. Convergent results across three studies demonstrate that an origin celebrity elicits a higher intention to visit, mediated by the emotional arousal evoked from the endorsement. Eye-tracking analysis demonstrated that an origin celebrity elicits a higher degree of visual attention and emotional arousal when the advertised scenery is familiar. However, this promotion effect disappears in unfamiliar scenery. This research contributes to an evolving debate on celebrity endorsement in tourism, revealing the psychological and physiological mechanisms underpinning the effectiveness of destination marketing campaigns.     

Evaluating museum visitor experiences based on user-generated travel photos

ABSTRACT

This research introduces online travel photos published on social media platforms as a complementary data resource to examine the behavior and experience of museum visitors. The practical value of online travel photos is demonstrated through a case study of popular Hong Kong museums, particularly by using the photo content and metadata available from the Flickr platform. The proposed approach is a generic method for understanding museum visitor behavior and preferences, and supports museum practitioners in developing improved products for visitors. The case study findings are particularly beneficial for tourism managers, especially those in Hong Kong, in promoting and attracting tourists to visit local museums.     

Differences in perceptions about food delivery apps between single-person and multi-person households

The growth in mobile communications is a significant reason attributed to the O2O commerce explosion in China. Mobile applications have seized this opportunity adapting it to restaurants and food delivery services, recognized as an alternative strategy to increase sales revenue and for consumers to conveniently receive products and services. This study was designed to specifically explore five salient quality attributes representing convenience, design, trustworthiness, price, and various food choices associated with food delivery apps in consideration of their impacts upon user-perceived value, attitudes and intention to continuously use. Results determined that user trustworthiness was the most important quality attribute of the food delivery app business. Additionally, this study found that single-person households placed most importance upon quality attributes for ‘various food choices,’ ‘price’ and ‘trustworthiness.’ Comparatively, multi-person households placed most importance upon ‘design,’ ‘convenience,’ and ‘trustworthiness.’ Managerial implications, limitations and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Exploring the male Chinese tourists’ motivation for commercial sex when travelling overseas: Scale construction and validation

Sex and tourism has long been understudied. Little is known about tourists' motivations for consuming commercial sex while travelling, and even less, if indeed anything, is known about that of Chinese outbound tourists in particular. Based on twenty interviews and two surveys with a sample of 534 male Chinese tourists who had engaged in commercial sex when travelling overseas in the previous 12 months, this study aimed first to explore why male Chinese tourists travelled overseas and purchased commercial sex, and second to construct a comprehensive scale for measuring male tourists’ motivations for overseas commercial sex. With acceptable reliability and validity, the measurement scale yielded in this study consisted of eight motivation dimensions labelled as socialisation, relaxation and escape, travel-related novelty, sexual desire fulfillment/excitement seeking, sex-related learning, sexual mastery, social prestige, and business/pragmatic purpose. Both the theoretical and methodological implications related to the developed scale are also discussed.     

Risk measures for variable annuities: A hermite series expansion approach

In this study, we propose an efficient approach to the calculation of risk measures for an insurer's liability from writing a variable annuity with guaranteed benefits. Our approach is based on a novel application of the Hermite series expansions on the transition density of a diffusion process to the insurance setting. We compare our method with existing methods in the literature, including the analytical method, spectral method and Green's function method, and illustrate its substantial advantages in calculating risk measures for variable annuities with different guarantee structures. The improved efficiency makes our method flexible to practical implementation in reporting risk measures on a daily basis. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis of the risk measures with respect to key parameters.     

A model of tourism advertising effects

This study develops the AIEDA tourism advertising effects model and examines this model by tourism destination types and advertising formats in a field experiment. The AIEDA model extends the traditional AIDA model in the advertising field and additionally considers the unique features of tourism products. It includes five hierarchical stages: Attention→ Interest→Evaluation (Perceived Usefulness→ Perceived Credibility) → Desire →Action. Findings of experimental research indicate that destination type and advertising format have main effects and interaction effects on tourism advertising effects. In addition, this study discovered that, for natural and cultural destinations, video ads yielded similar or more positive advertising effects than virtual reality ads, whereas print was the least effective advertising format.     

政府背景风险投资对创新的甄选与培育效果——不同区域环境视角的检验

以创业板企业数据为样本，使用Logit模型及工具变量法，研究不同区域环境下政府背景风险投资对企业创新的事前甄选与事后培育作用，并对其机制进行探讨。结果表明：①经济区域对政府背景风险投资行为影响有限，与非核心发达地区相比，金融发达地区的政府背景风险投资对企业技术创新没有表现出差异性甄选行为，但却有更好的事后培育作用，而且这种培育作用会随着地区投资环境优化而增强；②行政区域对政府背景风险投资行为影响显著，与异省投资相比，本省政府背景风险投资对技术创新的事前甄选具有显著优势，但对被投企业后续创新投入产生了一定的负面作用，这种作用会因政府背景风险投资占有董事会席位而加大。     

To Empower or Not to Empower? Multilevel Effects of Empowering Leadership on Knowledge Hiding

It is widely acknowledged that knowledge hiding persists and has detrimental effects in service organizations. With organizations increasingly becoming team based, understanding the interactions between supervisor and team members especially how team- and individual-level empowering leadership behaviors influence followers’ knowledge hiding is important. Using data on 527 followers from 60 departments in 19 Chinese hotels, the study proposes a multilevel model to examine the manifestation of two types of empowering leadership (individual-focused and differentiated empowering leadership) and the dual-level processes on followers’ knowledge hiding. Results show that differentiated empowering leadership is positively related to followers’ knowledge hiding via group relational conflict, whereas individual-focused empowering leadership is negatively related to followers’ knowledge hiding via their psychological safety. In addition, follower’s psychological safety buffers the positive relationship between group relational conflict and followers’ knowledge hiding. We discuss the implications on both theory and practice of empowering leadership on knowledge hiding.     

节事价值共创的非对称性及影响因素——基于观众和演职人员主体

主体间的价值共创是节事活动创新与发展的重要推力,既有研究指出价值共创机制受参与主体和多种因素的共同影响,但是各因素聚类特征、充要条件及共创路径稳健性之间的影响机理尚存争议。文章基于观众和演职人员价值共创的主体间性,调研了720份有效样本,基于三因素理论和结构模型定量研究节事价值共创参与度、原真性和地方依恋因素的非对称性及影响机理,得到如下结论:(1)因素聚类的非对称性是导致主体内行为策略非对称性的主因;(2)因素聚类的非对称性又是导致价值共创充要条件非对称性的主因;(3)主体间价值共创的充要条件影响共创路径的稳健性;(4)应重视研究价值共创机制中因素聚类、充要条件及共创路径稳健性之间的理论关系。     

政府角色定位对旅游治理的影响——以广西阳朔遇龙河景区为例

政府角色如何定位对旅游地能否实现可持续发展具有重要影响。文章以阳朔遇龙河景区为例,探讨其旅游地发展历程中政府角色定位的演变,解读不同阶段治理失灵的原因。研究发现:在旅游探查期,社区自主发展,政府基本缺位;在旅游参与期,政府以“规划者”角色介入,并主导运营管理,治理角色不中立,导致治理权威受损;在旅游大发展前期,政府治理目标部分错位加上在资源欠缺、政策准备不充分的情况下急于强制干预,最终导致治理失灵;在旅游大发展期,政府的治理能力和治理资源跟不上旅游规模的扩张,缺乏长效监管机制,难以实现有效治理。