Advancing destination image: The destination content model

Knowledge of the mental representations that individuals hold about tourist destinations are important to understand their intentions. These mental destination representations have often been investigated by applying the concept of destination image. This study argues that the extant literature is often rather atheoretical and lacks operational rigor. These are major shortcomings which undoubtedly hinder the development of academic and managerial insights. In response, this study draws on contemporary psychology to develop the destination content model, comprising three informational components held in individuals‘ minds about destinations. The present study further outlines preferable methods and measures for each component, thus aiding researchers to investigate mental destination representations.     

Representing tourists’ heterogeneous choices of destination and travel party with an integrated latent class and nested logit model

Aiming at a better understanding of heterogeneous interdependencies between destination and travel party choices in tourism, this study attempts to simultaneously represent these two choices by integrating the nested logit model with the latent class modeling approach to accommodate both types of nested model structures together. Empirical analysis confirmed the effectiveness of the developed model, using a data collected from more than 2000 tourists in Japan. It was observed that on average the two types of nested model structures are almost equally shared by samples and the model structures could significantly vary with income level and gender. Influential factors related to choices of destination and travel party were also explored. Concretely speaking, travel time, attractiveness of destination and number of tourism spots were found to be important influential factors in destination choice, and gender, age, marital status have important effects on travel party choice.     

基于出游动机的游客目的地选择的离散选择模型研究

旅游目的地选择是游客选择行为研究中研究较为广泛的领域之一.现有文献利用了社会、经济、地理等诸多模型和理论对目的地选择进行了研究和探讨.基于随机效用最大化的离散选择模型在游客目的地选择研究中有广泛的应用,但是缺乏属性交互项对于目的地选择的抑制或者激励作用的研究.本文利用2002年江苏省国内游客抽样调查原始资料数据这一选择完成式类型的数据构建了两个二项Logistic回归模型,讨论了寻求闲适安静环境、探亲访友、公务出游3种出游动机对于出游距离以及旅行花费的影响.研究发现寻求闲适安静环境出游动机的游客倾向于选择远距离的目的地,且这类游客也愿意增加旅行花费;出于探亲访友这一动机出游的游客则更愿意选择靠近自己居所的旅游目的地,且不倾向于增加自身的旅行花费;公务出游的游客倾向于选择远距离目的地,也倾向于增加他们的旅行花费.     

Exploring Family Roles in Purchasing Decisions During Vacation Planning

Abstract

Family decision making not only has been an interesting subject to consumer behavior researchers but also has served as a valuable source in shaping marketing strategies adopted by the tourism and hospitality industry. However, little research has been devoted to understanding the roles of family members in the decision-making process during vacation planning. This paper attempts to provide further understanding on the nature and the importance of family roles played in making travel purchase decisions. The authors conceptually reviewed past studies to explore different roles played by the core family members in the decision-making process and developed research propositions along with a conceptual model regarding family vacation planning. Relevant marketing implications were discussed and unique research methods were also recommended for further study.     

Tourists’ digital footprint: The spatial patterns of tourist flows in Qingdao,China

Spatial patterns of tourist flows represent the movement of tourists and show differences in tourism resources giving advice for promoting balanced and sustainable tourism development. This paper proposes a novel framework for analyzing these patterns based on tourists' digital footprint data collected from online travel diaries. Based on illustrative case study data from Qingdao (China), the framework, combining traditional quantitative and social network analysis, is able to pinpoint: (1) The influence of distance decay and attractions’ popularity on the spatial patterns of tourist flows; (2) The uneven distribution of the core tourist nodes and the existence of the structural hole phenomenon, which form a network pattern with unbalanced power and intense internal competition; (3) The formation of the core area for tourism along the coastline – as is typical for coastal tourism cities. This difference of tourism resources between coastal and inland areas, thus, remains a challenge for future tourism development in Qingdao.     

Does Gender Affect Korean Tourists' Overseas Travel? Applying the Model of Goal-Directed Behavior

Tourism is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries, and female travelers continue to contribute to the growth of the industry. However, little conceptual research has been conducted on overseas travel behavior and the role of gender in the decision-making process. Thus, this study examined the sophisticated decision-making process of overseas travel and the moderating effect of gender in the decision-making process, using the model of goal-directed behavior (MGB). The results indicate that the MGB is a powerful framework for explaining overseas travel behavior and that gender plays a critical role during the decision-making process. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the discussion section.     

Overseas travelers’ decision formation for airport-shopping behavior

In this study, we investigated international travelers’ decision-making process for airport shopping by considering the moderating impact of the perceived disadvantages of airport-shopping behavior. The model of goal-directed behavior, including volitional/non-volitional, motivational, and affective components of decision-making, was employed to create an accurate prediction of intention. Findings from the structural equation modeling indicated that significant amounts of variance in intention were accounted for by the proposed model, and the mediating impact of the motivational component was detected in the proposed theoretical framework. In addition, the results from the invariance tests revealed that perceived disadvantages of airport shopping acted as a significant moderator in determining intention. Our results imply that these perceived disadvantages can be a threat to airport operations and retailing.     

Deciding on Family Holidays—Role Distribution and Strategies in Use

The article discusses holiday-related decision making in families by exploring the role distribution and strategies employed by family members, with particular attention given to the influence of children. Based on the theoretical discussion, a model is developed that highlights the influence of a number of contextual factors on role distribution and decision-making strategies, and which is found useful in the analysis of qualitative interviews with German and Danish families. The empirical analysis demonstrates patterns in the role distribution of family members in line with the existing literature; however, diversions from established knowledge also appear as children occupy a multitude of roles, and the role of the mother to some extent differs across the German and Danish data. Contextual factors like parental perceptions of children and societal structures are useful in explaining this complexity in role distribution. Likewise in relation to decision-making strategies, contextual factors are helpful in explaining the strategies used, in particular the convention that holidays are an extraordinary “free space” which allows for more negotiation power being bestowed on children than in everyday life.     

The choice between business travel and video conferencing after COVID-19 – Insights from a choice experiment among frequent travelers

COVID-19 has accelerated the substitution of videoconferencing for business travel. However, little research exists about the decision-making behavior of business travelers considering virtual alternatives. We fill this gap by reconceptualizing the decision-making process and investigating the fundamental choice between face-to-face (FtF) and virtual communication (VC) using an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis. We argue that the process of decision making of business travelers is distinct to that of leisure travelers, as the fundamental decision between FtF and VC occurs prior to subsequent travel decisions. We show that the purpose of the meeting, the character of the message, and the location of the meeting are the decision attributes of greatest importance. Using a novel methodology we present a holistic decision model that increases the theoretical understanding of business traveler decision-making and provide practitioners with comprehensive insights relevant to travel policy development, and executives in the business travel market with guidance with management decisions.     

Photograph's role in tourism : Some unexplored relationships

Chalfen, Richard M., “Photography's Role in Tourism: Some Unexplored Relationships,” Annals of Tourism Research,” October/December 1979, VI(4):435–447. While photography is one of the most common attributes of tourist behavior, its role in tourism has never been studied. Tourist photography is understood as both photographs made by tourists and photographs made available to tourists by members of the host community. This paper draws attention to three unexamined topics: the relationship between certain tourist types and patterns of photographic behavior and/or content of photographs; the culturally variable standards of appropriate subject matter and camera use in different parts of the world; and the variety of responses exhibited by host communities to being photographed. Examples are given of host sensitivities and camera related disturbances. A trend is noticed in which host communities specify which images are appropriate and inappropriate for tourist photography.