The impact of tourism activity type on emotion and storytelling: The moderating roles of travel companion presence and relative ability

This research starts by distinguishing how different emotion components may be stimulated by different product types. Based on initial findings, a conceptual model is developed and tested that investigates a tourist's emotional arousal as a mediating variable between the tourism activity type and subsequent storytelling intentions. Based on social facilitation theory and self-expansion model, this research further investigates the potential moderating effect of having a travel companion and that companion's relative ability related to the tourism activity type on the impact of tourism activity type on emotional arousal. Four experiments are used to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings indicate that an experiential purchase has a greater effect on emotional arousal (not pleasure) than the purchase of a physical good. A more challenging(relaxing) tourist activity has a stronger(weaker) positive impact on emotional arousal and a tourist's storytelling intentions. Emotional arousal fully mediates the effect of tourism activity type on storytelling intentions. Having a travel companion, or not, was found to moderate the relationship of tourist activity type and emotional arousal. A challenging tourism activity has a stronger positive effect on a tourist's arousal when traveling with a companion. The arousal effect of engaging in a challenging tourism activity is attenuated when traveling alone. Moreover, based on the moderating effect of having a companion, or not, the perceived ability of a travel companion regarding the type of activity engaged in, was also found to moderate the link between activity type and emotional arousal. The greater the traveling companion's relative perceived ability, the greater the effect on emotional arousal for challenging tourism activities. This effect is attenuated when the ability of the traveling companion is perceived as less than that of the tourist. The paper closes with a discussion of theoretical contributions and managerial implications derived from the findings.     

The contributions of economics to tourism

Both the logical and empirical dimensions of economic analysis have contributed to the quality of decisionmaking in the tourism industry. In particular, the recognition of the potential contribution of economic rent derived from tourist attractions and the complex role of public goods have aided the understanding of the functioning of tourism. On more practical levels, market segmentation has a part to play in maximizing revenues by reducing the adverse effects of seasonality, and empirical research on tourism demand has provided basic underpinnings for national development programs and project research. Finally, cost-benefit analysis allows the industry to judge its contributions more correctly in the light of other applications of scarce resources.     

The thorny path to sustainable tourism development

A range of interacting issues has promoted calls for sustainable tourism development. This paper defines the subject and discusses in detail some suggestions from the well known Tourism with Insight’ group about how to achieve sustainability. It goes on to examine why sustainable tourism is, however, very difficult to achieve in practice, noting the plethora of theoretical statements, the shortage of implementation skills, demand pressures, hedonism, and the impact of extended discussions — ‘hectic continuity’. A number of ways forward are suggested, including new forms of taxation, open discussion of conflicts and environmental audits: it concludes that a search for a complex perfect formula may be counterproductive, and that simple solutions may be best.     

The anthropology of tourism

This paper considers some of the issues in the anthropology of modern tourism, emphasizing comparative and dynamic perspectives. Building on the works of MacCannell, V. Turner, and E. Cohen, the relations of tourism to ritual, play, and pilgrimage are considered. Two kinds of tourism are identified: periodic or annual vacations, paralleling cyclical rites of intensification, and arduous, self-testing tourism, paralleling rites of passage. The relation of tourism to class, life style, and cultural change are examined, focusing on the factors; discretionary income, cultural self-confidence, and socio-symbolic reversals. The paper concludes with an examination of research methodology and suggests important avenues for further research, including studies of non-Western tourism, of tourism in relation to such institutions as museums, festivals, and theme parks, and of individual biographical recreational and tourist growth patterns.     

The resilience of formal and informal tourism enterprises to disasters: reef tourism in Phuket,Thailand

This paper explores the resilience of vulnerable tourism sectors to disasters in a period of global change and interdependence. The coral reef tourism industry is highly vulnerable to natural disasters and economic and political shocks. The paper also explains why enterprise resilience is central to sustainable tourism management, for economic, socio-cultural and environmental reasons. It extends the concepts of ecological and social resilience to that of enterprise resilience. Using scenarios and interviews with key enterprise staff, the study contrasts the levels of resilience of formal and informal reef tourism enterprises, and the factors associated with the enterprise resilience in Phuket, Thailand, following the 2004 tsunami and the 2008 political crisis. Informal enterprises reported better financial condition in a crisis scenario and higher levels of social capital in the form of government, family and community support than formal enterprises. Formal and informal enterprises both enjoy high lifestyle benefits from reef tourism, which supports resilience. Most formal enterprises had part foreign ownership/management (61%); no informal enterprise had any foreign ownership or management. Management policies supporting reef tourism should consider local nuances and the importance of lifestyle benefits for both formal and informal enterprises, and take steps to enable enterprise flexibility and cost-cutting during crises.     

Local reactions to mass tourism and community tourism development in Macau

By 2014, it became apparent that a popular debate was emerging in many destinations about the “annoyances” felt by local residents in the face of an upsurge in inbound tourism. This study investigates residents’ attitudes toward mass tourism and tourism development in Macau. It comprises an examination of three emotional solidarity factors of residents’ perceptions of the contribution of tourism to the community and the community's experiences of so-called “annoyances” from tourists that may ultimately influence residents’ attitudes toward community tourism development. The results of this study reveal that three emotional solidarity factors play different roles in influencing residents’ attitudes about community tourism and community tourism development. The theoretical contributions, as well as implications, are discussed and future research opportunities are proposed.     

European government approaches to tourism

There are signs that governments are increasingly ‘officially’ recognizing the economic and social implications of the recent growth in tourism. The responses from different governments are varied, but on the whole are becoming more internally coordinated and less ad hoc. This article considers the experience of Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, the UK and West Germany as individual nations and as members of the EEC.     

Ecological approach to tourism marketing

This article describes the changing composition of the tourist population and the changing aims and lifestyles of the more important market sectors. People are becoming more determined to derive satisfaction from all areas of life, and travel must provide something extra to attract the potential tourist away from a fulfilling job and pleasurable home life. Tourism marketing will have to become more environment-orientated and socially responsible. An ecologically-minded tourism industry will safeguard its prospects for growth in the 1990s and 21st century.     

Anthropological contributions to tourism studies

What have we learned since anthropologists first realized that tourists alter the societies they study? Intended for non-anthropologists, this paper explores this question and critiques the hegemony of business perspectives in tourism studies. It discusses tourism as a complex and fluid set of phenomena that cannot be reduced to one dimension, highlighting five points: (1) Tourism is one of the names of power. (2) The complex nature of tourism cannot be understood without studying socio-cultural processes. (3) The socio-ecological processes that construct territory determine and are determined by social space. (4) The industries of seduction create a corpus of desires through which socio-cultural groups forge their own identity. (5) Anthropological studies allow researchers to propose alternative forms of tourism development.     

The contribution of social tourism to sustainable tourism: a case study of seasonally adjusted programmes in Spain

Recent policy from the European Union has attempted to justify social tourism initiatives on the basis that they lead to a more sustainable tourism industry. However, the majority of latest research in the field has been focused on the benefits for participants, with the addition of some evidence on the economic impacts of such programmes on destinations, which have pointed towards sustainability outcomes including: a longer tourism season, more even spread of demand, and longer periods of employment for tourism workers. Yet there is a lack of direct evidence linking such programme to these outcomes. This paper aimed to explore this important disconnect between policy assumptions and evidence-based outcomes through an analysis of the deseasonalising effects of the Spanish social tourism programme for older people. The research found that this programme does have an effect on the seasonal nature of employment and economic activity in most regions studied, but that the huge volume of demand from international tourists in the high seasons masks the quantitative effects in the regions with the highest seasonal concentration of international tourists. Recommendations for policy and practice in sustainable tourism are made that are transferable to many countries and regions that adopt social tourism programmes.     

The economic organization of tourism

This paper argues that it is inappropriate to portray tourism organisation as involving the coordination of firms producing conventional well-defined commodities with marginally differentiated technologies as in a conventional industry. A number of alternative theories of corporate and industrial organization are contrasted with respect to their applicability to the imperfectly specified tourism commodity. A perspective on firms and industry which emphasizes the coordination of changing technological and marketing competencies through network relationships is believed to be particularly suitable to represent the tourism learning system and to provide an alternative outlook on tourism industry, coordination and organizational structures.     

Territorial tourism planning in Spain: from boosterism to tourism degrowth?

Abstract

Tourism saturation and unsustainability have been studied in urban political ecology. Both of these problems are inseparable from tourism planning and they have resulted in proposed solutions based on growth containment and even degrowth. These types of measures have been applied to varying degrees in mature coastal destinations in Spain since the 1990s, and they are currently being used for the country's main urban destinations due to problems generated by tourism saturation. This study examines the progressive incorporation of these measures in territorial tourism planning in Spain and it points out that the traditional emphasis on urban-tourism growth is declining and that more restrictive policies are now being implemented. This shift is illustrated through the analysis of three innovative territorial tourism planning instruments in Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and the Autonomous Region of Valencia. These ostensibly progressive processes suffer from crippling contradictions due to their inability to directly confront the capitalist accumulation model underlying the tourism growth they address. Consequently, much stronger measures capable of transcending this accumulation model in pursuit of genuine, and fair degrowth without systemic constraints are needed.     

The tourism and peace nexus

Tourism has been heralded as a contributor to peace, however, the inconclusive findings of empirical studies render the need for a consolidation of theory that has in so far relied on case studies and the adoption of the contact hypothesis. Informed by political science theory, this paper proposes a methodological framework that can guide future research and aims to serve as a benchmark for researchers interested in temporal issues pertaining to conflict, peace and tourism. Signalling a departure from the simplistic notion that contact through travel contributes to social integration, the paper adopts a holistic conceptualisation of the multi-faceted and complex system of actors, sectors and dimensions of tourism spanning at the social, economic, political and environmental levels.