Understanding the travel motivation and patterns of international students in Korea: using the theory of travel career pattern

This study examined the travel motivation of international students in Korea using the theory of travel career pattern (TCP). In particular, latent profile analysis (LPA) was applied to identify latent classes within international students. Based on the results, four latent profiles were derived and named “Core,” “Longing,” “Middle,” and “Veteran.” The results described the travel motivation and patterns across these four profiles to enhance the understanding of international students in the context of tourism. There were significant differences in travel patterns (i.e. travel companion and information sources) among the profiles segmented by motivation. This study has expanded travel motivation research by (a) applying TCP to an understudied population (i.e. international students in a non-English-speaking country); (b) comparing travel careers between the home country, Korea (i.e. a study abroad destination), and the third countries; and (c) highlighting LPA as a clustering tool to understand travel motivation.     

The effect of international tourism on economic development: An empirical analysis

The expansion of international tourism in developing countries is generally considered to promote their economic development. In this paper, the impact of international tourism on economic development is modelled using an aggregate production function framework. It specifically investigates intersectoral externalities and marginal factor productivity differences between the international tourism sector and the rest of the economy. The net effect of international tourism on GDP per capita is examined via an empirical analysis of 37 developing economies. The results indicate that international tourism may positively affect economic development in these countries.     

Trends and patterns in sustainable tourism research: a 25-year bibliometric analysis

In the quarter of a century since the release of the 1987 Brundtland Report, sustainable tourism has emerged as the dominant paradigm in tourism development. However, the debate, discourse, and criticism of this subfield of tourism research continues. To address such concerns the purpose of this paper is to explore trends and patterns in sustainable tourism research over the past 25 years. A 25-year bibliometric analysis was conducted for the four highest ranked journals in the tourism field. Results indicate that the growth in sustainable tourism research has been remarkable, with 492 papers published in these four journals and almost half of these in the last two years of the analysis. The largest proportion of papers published on sustainable tourism was case studies, empirical studies, and critical reviews. This study found that while the theoretical and methodological approaches appear to have matured over time, the subjects and themes in sustainable tourism research, with some exceptions, have remained constant. However, the field is clearly maturing with a move away from definitional and conceptual papers to papers focused on testing and applying theory through empirical research.     

Competitiveness attributes of a medical tourism destination: The case of South Korea with importance-performance analysis

This study aims to explore the importance and performance of medical tourism destination competitiveness (TDC). The aims were achieved by collecting empirical data on the perceptions of stakeholders in the medical tourism industry in South Korea. Results from the importance–performance analysis (IPA) revealed that medical TDC is primarily influenced by medical treatments and services, destination attributes, and tourism-specific factors. This study not only enhances tourism literature, but also contributes significantly to the existing literature on competitiveness. The study provides useful marketing insights for medical tourism suppliers in South Korea and countries in similar situations with the relevant industry.     

Korean and conventional medicine tourism industry trends as indicated in medical tourism advertisement images: qualitative research using data from medical Korea 2015

This study analyzed advertisement images targeting international audiences of South Korean medical facilities (traditional Korean and conventional medicine) participating in Medical Korea 2015 using thematic content analysis. The image categories most often used in conventional medicine were medical procedures, facilities, and staff photos, while those for traditional Korean medicine were medical procedures, staff photos, and images. Conventional medicine consistently presented high SERVQUAL tangibility scores, whereas Korean medicine displayed distinct associations between SERVQUAL categories and image size. Analyses suggested specialty preference by language. These findings may be used to recognize key messages in medical tourism and contribute to its systematic promotion.

Abbreviations: KHIDI: Korea health industry development institute; SERVQUAL: service quality     

Generational differences in international stereotypes and destination images: tourism between partitioned states

Studies have attempted to understand tourism issues between politically divided countries, yet few studies have argued that tourism between such states has a strong generational component. This study examines the generational differences in South Koreans’ international stereotypes and tourism destination images of North Korea. While generational differences existed in international stereotypes, there were no differences in tourism destination images between generational cohorts. Young female South Koreans were likely to view North Korea more positively than males in the same generation, and generational differences were present in the intention to visit North Korea and the perception of peace through tourism.     

Climate change and tourism: a scientometric analysis using CiteSpace

The interaction between climate change and tourism has been one of the most critical and dynamic research areas in the field of sustainable tourism in recent years. In this paper, a scientometric analysis of 976 academic publications between 1990 and 2015 related to climate change and tourism is presented to characterize the intellectual landscape by identifying and visualizing the evolution of the collaboration network, the co-citation network, and emerging trends. The results show that the number of publications in this field has increased rapidly and it has become an increasingly interdisciplinary research subject. The most productive authors and institutions in this subject area are in Australia, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and European countries. In this paper, we identify the most pressing topics of climate change and tourism research, as represented in the existing literature, which include the consequences of climate change for tourism, necessary adaptations, the vulnerability of the tourism industry, tourist behaviour and demand in response to climate change, and emission reductions in the tourism sector. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of climate change and tourism research to better understand global trends and directions in this field that have emerged over the past 25 years.     

Understanding Medical Tourists in Korea: Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Medical Tourism among Patients from the USA,Russia, Japan,and China

A cross-cultural approach is adopted to examine factors related to perceptions of and attitudes toward medical tourism by American, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese tourists to Korea. Results from a survey with a sample of 883 tourists show that respondents' overall attitudes significantly differ across the four nations. Russian patients hold most positive attitudes, followed by Chinese and Japanese. Major perceptual factors are found to have different effects on overall attitudes among respondents. While travel-related risks are the most influential factor among Russian, Japanese, and Chinese patients, Americans are influenced mostly by health-related risks. American and Japanese attitudes are also affected by cost factor but not by convenience factor. On the other hand, convenience factor significantly affects Russian and Chinese attitudes. Additionally, post-operative risk, access to information, and availability of procedures have different effects across the four nations. Possible explanations and practical implications are discussed in conjunction with the cultural contexts of the four nations.     

Campsite choice and the camping tourism experience: Investigating decisive campsite attributes using relevance-determinance analysis

Camping tourism represents a growing part of the overall tourism industry. Despite this fact, this form of tourism has so far been rather neglected by tourism and hospitality research. Using a case study of a major campsite operator in the coastal part of Croatia, this study thus aims to contribute to the understanding of this specific tourist segment. In particular, a relevance-determinance analysis is conducted to reveal most decisive attributes for campsite choice, on the one hand, and for the actual campsite experience, on the other hand. Overall, the results provide valuable insight to practitioners, especially for the purposes of campsite marketing and experience management.     

Examining destination images from travel blogs: a big data analytical approach using latent Dirichlet allocation

ABSTRACT

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.     

Interactions between climate change and the tourism sector: Multiple-criteria decision analysis to assess mitigation and adaptation options in tourism areas

Tourism is one of the most climate-sensitive economic sectors, but also a contributor to climate change. With the effects of climate change becoming an increasing concern, the tourism sector must urgently and realistically respond by mitigating its emissions and adapting tourism businesses and destinations to the changing climate conditions. This work presents a generic methodological framework to plan, manage and implement climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in the tourism context. The methodological scheme is based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for prioritizing available options applicable to a defined tourism area. The proposed framework is implemented for Greece, one of the world's most popular tourism destinations, and optimally ranks 18 mitigation and 16 adaptation measures under 4 criteria i.e. environmental benefit, applicability, cost and social acceptance. The analysis indicates that rational energy use, improvement of energy efficiency and water management/saving measures should be primarily put forward for the Greek case.     

Industrial heritage tourism development and city image reconstruction in Chinese traditional industrial cities: a web content analysis

ABSTRACT

Studies on industrial heritage and industrial tourism development at the city level in China are limited. Through a web content analysis of the industrial components in cities’ images and tourism, this paper attempts to explore whether old industrial cities are promoting industrial heritage tourism and rebuilding postindustrial images. A total of 20 traditionally industrial cities were selected as samples for data collection based on the content of their official websites, and this study finds that industrial heritage and industrial tourism are rarely promoted or even mentioned on those websites, indicating that industrial culture is gradually being eroded in China. Traditional Chinese industrial cities tend to look for opportunities to participate in global competition rather than reflecting and preserving their past through the process of urban development. More attention should be paid in the future to integrating industrial culture into Chinese urban development, both in academic research and in practice.     

Online narratives about medical tourism in Malaysia and Thailand: a qualitative content analysis

This study explored the written online narratives about medical tourism in Malaysia and Thailand using qualitative content analysis. The Google search engine was used for narrative search. Multiple search terms including medical, health, wellness tourism; treatment abroad; medical or health travel; treatment, surgery, or plastic surgery; dental treatment or braces were used to obtain related blog posts, discussions, and forums via a purposeful sampling method. A total of 43 online narratives were included in this study. Themes were then created after an iterative analysis of the selected online comments or posts. The push factors that act as motivators were: cost (100%), attractions (81%), availability of facilitators (62%), physician’s background and expertise (58%), bandwagon effect (42%). The majority of the subjects (88%) stated that they were satisfied with the outcomes of their medical treatments received in Malaysia and Thailand.     

Using a network data envelopment analysis model to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of cultural tourism promotion in Taiwan

The importance of tourism promotion has been discussed throughout past studies, and the consequences of ineffective promotion have also been investigated. While tourism promotion is a topic of interest to many researchers, performance measurement used to assess the effectiveness of tourism promotion is a topic seldom discussed. The purpose of this study is to develop an approach based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate performance for tourism promotion. The main difference compared with previous DEA models is the evaluation of multiple efficiencies in a single DEA implementation, and the assessment of overall efficiency in a ratio index. In the assumption of variables, we use cultural tourism promotion as a foundation in formulating the empirical evaluation, and we test the proposed model by using data across 20 regions in Taiwan.     

Innovation,sustainable tourism and environments in mountain destination development: a comparative analysis of Austria,Slovenia and Switzerland

This paper contributes to the comparative tourism sustainability debate in the context of mountain tourism destinations. It is based on a published three-dimensional Mountain Destination Innovation Model (MDIM) which claims that tourism development depends on a destination's innovation levels, and is subject to different conditions in a variety of important destination environments (using that term in its broadest sense), including sociocultural, natural, political, legal and technological. The authors comparatively analyzed Austrian, Slovenian and Swiss mountain destinations, which are located in small countries in the Alpine region, and that makes their environments, innovation levels and stages of development relatively easy to compare. The analysis used 88 managers’ replies to a 72 element questionnaire employing both objective and subjective measures about performance with regard to MDIM dimensions. The findings confirm differences in the stages of tourism development, in innovation levels, as well as in the supporting role of their corresponding wider environments. Swiss and Austrian mountain destinations outperformed Slovenian in almost all respects, but not in protection and quality of the natural environment or in inherited sociocultural attractiveness, where significant differences were not determined. The findings could help development and tourism policy authorities to improve the factors that determine sustainable tourism destination development.     

Connecting with prospective medical tourists online: A cross-sectional analysis of private hospital websites promoting medical tourism in India,Malaysia and Thailand

Websites of private hospitals promoting medical tourism are important marketing channels for showcasing and promoting destinations' medical facilities and their array of staff expertise, services, treatments and equipment to domestic and foreign patient-consumers alike. This study examines the websites of private hospitals promoting medical tourism in three competing Asian countries (India, Malaysia and Thailand) in order to look at how these hospitals present themselves online and seek to appeal to the perceived needs of (prospective) medical tourists. The content and format of 51 hospitals are analyzed across five dimensions: hospital information and facilities, admission and medical services, interactive online services, external activities, and technical items. Results show differences between Indian, Malaysian and Thai hospital websites, pointing to the need for hospital managers to improve their hospitals’ online presence and interactivity.