Film Tourism Town and Its Local Community

This study was designed to identify the relationships between place attachment, residents’ perceptions of tourism effects, and their attitudes toward tourism developments in the context of film tourism destination. A main survey was conducted at seven representative TV drama/film production towns in Korea. Among various findings, both the local communities’ beliefs about local development through the construction of TV drama/film production towns and their attachment to the communities had a significant positive effect on support for the development of film tourism. In addition, beliefs about local development significantly contributed to explaining the level of local community support for the development of a film tourism destination. Local communities’ beliefs also positively and significantly affected attachment to these communities. Interestingly, perceived negative social and environmental effects of film tourism did not indicate statistical causal relationships with the local residents’ beliefs about local development because residents may not tend to consider negative social or environmental effects seriously.     

The Relationships of On-Site Film-Tourism Experiences,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions: The Case of Asian Audience's Responses to a Korean Historical TV Drama

Despite the growing interest in film-tourism research, little research has explored the extent to which on-site film-tourism experiences influence tourist satisfaction and post-visit behavioral intentions. Within the context of Asian audience's responses to a Korean historical TV drama, Daejanggeum, this article adopted a structured quantitative survey instrument. Exploratory factor analysis identified three salient dimensions to represent the on-site film-tourism experiences: Novelty and Prestige, Beyond Screen Experience and Re-enactment, and Intimacy and Memory. The on-site film-tourism experiences had a significant influence on satisfaction, re-visit intention, and intention to recommend. Novelty and Prestige had the strongest direct effect on satisfaction and intention to recommend, whereas Intimacy and Memory was the main vehicle to influence film tourists' re-visit intention.     

An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents of Film Tourism Experience: A Structural Model Approach

This study aims to empirically examine the antecedents of film tourism experience associated with a serialized TV drama. Drawing on film tourism and media-communication studies, a theoretical model for the causal interrelationship between production values of the TV drama, audience involvement with it, and film tourism experience at its filmed location was tested empirically using structural equation modeling (SEM) methodologies. Responses were drawn from a cross-sectional data sample of international visitors via a survey executed at Daejanggeum Theme Park in Korea. The results indicate that production values and audience involvement have a direct, positive impact on film tourism experience. Moreover, the production values have a mediating, positive impact on film tourism experience through the audience involvement construct.     

Exploring tourists' perceptions of tourism impacts

Unlike how tourism is viewed by residents, little is known about how tourists feel about tourism in the destination. Nevertheless, studies have shown that tourists' emotional bonds with the destination positively affect their perceptions of and reactions to tourism in the destination. Such emotional bonds often vary based on tourists' previous experience in the destination. Thus, this study explored how tourists' emotional solidarity with residents influences their perceptions of tourism and how first-timers and repeat tourists differ in their views. To this end, 404 responses from South Korean sport tourists were analyzed. Though differences were not evident between first-timers and repeat tourists in their emotional solidarity or attitudes toward tourism, a positive relationship was confirmed between emotional solidarity and perceptions of tourism. The findings suggest that attitudes toward tourism is no longer a construct exclusive to residents and destination managers should also consider tourists' views.     

Residents' Perceptions Toward the “Chinese Tourists' Wave” in Hong Kong: An Exploratory Study

Mainland China experienced an extraordinary progress in its economy in the past two decades which directly stimulates more outbound travels. Considering the geographical proximity and political ties between Hong Kong and Mainland China, the share of inbound tourists to Hong Kong has been, and will continuously be, largely occupied by Mainland Chinese tourists on an uprising basis. The phenomenon of the “Chinese tourists' wave”, operationalizing as the influx of tourists from Mainland China, has brought tremendous change on Hong Kong's tourism industry, economy and local community. It is, thus, of necessity to understand the perceptions and response toward this phenomenon from local residents' perspective as they are the stakeholders of local tourism. Drawing on the findings from three focus group interviews with 18 Hong Kong residents, three conventional dimensions, namely “Economic”, “Social-cultural” and “Environmental” were identified and discussed to demonstrate the local residents' perceptions toward the impact of “Chinese tourists' wave” phenomenon. Generally, residents tend to recognize the positive economic impacts as well as negative social–cultural and environmental impacts generated from this tourism phenomenon. The recommendations suggested in this study also serve as a reference for tourism authorities concerned to redress the existing problems.     

Can craft beverages shape a destination’s image? A cognitive intervention to measure pisco-related resources on conative image

Assessing potential tourists' perceptions is vital to build a destination image and brand capable to attract new and repeated visitors. The increasing popularity of craft beverage tourism in recent years is incentivizing destinations to (re)design their offerings and (re)brand their image based on their craft beverages. This study investigated how the image of an emerging craft beverage tourism destination (Ica, Peru) is formed among potential tourists by inducing cognitive image (knowledge presented through picture-text dyads) of Ica's iconic resources, staple craft beverage (pisco), and resources associated with its production. Additionally, it measured the impact of local resources' characteristics, affective image, and personal characteristics on conative image (interest to visit and willingness to recommend) at different intervention stages. Results indicate that pisco-related resources are powerful enough to motivate travel, and that the characteristics of a mix of resources should be combined with beverage-specific information when developing branding strategies for craft beverage tourism destinations.     

Destination risk perceptions among U.S. residents for London as the host city of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games

Risks associated with the Olympic Games have been studied; however, there is lack of research that examines prospective tourists' perceptions of a host city in terms of destination risk. To examine prospective tourists' destination risk perceptions for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, a survey of 4000 American residents was conducted. Overall, U.S. residents perceived the host city to be safe. Hierarchical regression revealed that demographic factors were drivers of the intention to travel to an Olympic Games host city. While controlling for demographics, past experience traveling to a host city and attending an Olympic Games affected the likelihood to travel. Three destination risk perception items were drivers of the intention to travel to a host city, when controlling for demographics and past experience. Lastly, when controlling for all the independent variables, travel risk type index was a driver of the intention to travel to an Olympic Games host city.     

Resort hotel service performance (RESERVE) – an instrument to measure tourists’ perceived service performance of resort hotels

Based upon a rigorous psychometric process of scale development through preliminary qualitative studies and a subsequent survey in the resort hotel setting, the authors propose the RESERVE scale as a comprehensive instrument for assessing resort hotel service performance. The proposed scale conceptualizes resort hotel service performance as a second-order, three-dimensional construct that assesses tourists' perceptions of setting, audience, and actors. The data supports the dimensional structure of RESERVE, providing empirical evidence for the scale's validity. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications and future research directions.     

Audience involvement and film tourism experiences: Emotional places, emotional experiences

This study attempted to investigate the extent to which audience involvement or engagement with a serialised TV drama affects their actual on-site film tourism experiences at its former filmed locations. As an empirical study, an on-site survey was conducted at Daejanggeum Theme Park, the main filmed location of Jewel in the Palace, known in Korean as Daejanggeum, in Yangjoo, South Korea. The results indicated that audience’s emotional and behavioural involvement was the main driver that positively affected their on-site film tourism experiences. Cognitively oriented audience involvement including cognitive interaction and critical reflection, however, was not considered as one of the major vehicles to construct and influence audience viewing experiences and their subsequent on-site film tourism experiences. The results also identified that the more emotional involvement audience develops through viewing the TV drama, the greater the likelihood of them visiting film tourism locations.     

Does a Food-themed TV Drama Affect Perceptions of National Image and Intention to Visit a Country? An Empirical Study of Korea TV Drama

A Korean TV drama series (Daejanggeum), with a story line focusing on Korean food, was exported to over 50 countries resulting in a surprisingly popular mega-hit. The popularity of this TV drama, transcended across countries and cultural boundaries, has brought an enhancement to the national image of Korea or national brand, and led to a surge in sales of Korean industrial products, as well as an increased interest in Korean tourism resources. This study attempted to empirically investigate the effects of the TV drama series on the national image and intention to visit Korea as perceived by Chinese diners. Interestingly, the “peculiarity of Korean culture” was a main reason for preferring Korean cuisine, which positively affected the perception of the national image and the intention to visit Korea to partake in food tourism. Further, this study suggests that future studies are needed to compare the results of this research according to national, ethnic, regional, or religious boundaries. The comparison of other ethnic groups will be helpful for establishing different marketing strategies according to the different cohorts with different consumption patterns.     

Service encounter failure,negative destination emotion and behavioral intention: An experimental study of taxi service

The relationship between transportation and tourism has not been fully explored in tourist research. The effects of transportation services at destinations, particularly with service encounter failures, on tourists' perceptions of the destinations and their behavioral intentions have not been considered. We examine taxis, a main form of tourist transportation, and assess how tourists evaluate the service encounter failures. Our sample of 308 residents in Hong Kong participated in an online experiment with a 2 × 2 between-subject experimental design. The results indicated that both dishonesty and inhospitality were regarded as attributes of taxi service failures and can contribute to tourists' negative emotions regarding destinations. The negative emotions were found to be a strong predictor of tourists' negative behavioral intentions, including their intentions to post negative online reviews and not to revisit. The implications are also discussed about managing transportation services such as taxis for destination marketing and management.     

A Critical Investigation of the Bargaining Behavior of Tourists: The Case of Hong Kong Open-Air Markets

Shopping has long been recognized as an indispensable tourist activity. Hong Kong's open-air markets, where a multitude of bargaining activities can be observed, ranked as the second most popular of the island territory's diverse range of attractions in 2008 in terms of tourist arrivals. To develop cutting-edge marketing strategies that promote tourists' enjoyment of their bargaining adventure and ultimately enhance the overall shopping experience, the study reported in this article was aimed at identifying the dimensions underlying tourists' perceptions of the importance of 18 bargaining motivators and 12 bargaining attitudes and types of bargaining behavior, respectively, and subsequently evaluating the predictability of these underlying dimensions on tourists' shopping contentment indicators (overall bargaining satisfaction, the likelihood of a subsequent visit, and the likelihood of recommending open-air markets to others). A non-probability quota sampling technique was used to survey 203 Asian and non-Asian tourists in Hong Kong. A multivariate approach encompassing factor analysis and multiple regression was employed: Factor analysis delineated four underlying dimensions of factors affecting bargaining intentions. “Value for money” was shown to be the factor rated most important to tourists' bargaining intention; similarly, two underlying dimensions of bargaining attitudes and behavior—“bargain for psychological well-being” and “bargaining intensity”—were identified. Multiple regression results indicated the statistical significance of “bargaining for psychological well-being” and “bargaining intensity” to the existence of positive relations between shopping contentment indicators.     

Exploring cultural tourist towns: Does authenticity matter?

This study applies various conceptualisations of authenticity to explore to what extent tourists appreciate the authenticity of cultural tourist towns. Using the visitor-employed photography (VEP) method, this study collected visitor-employed data in two cultural tourist towns in Shanghai, China to analyse tourists' personal enjoyable aesthetic experience. Results show that tourists were not overly concerned about objective authenticity as long as they had a positive and enjoyable experience, and that some tourists experienced and favoured existential and postmodern authenticity in the tourist towns. Results highlight the importance of designing entertainment activities and iconic attractions in a strip shape to engage tourists and enhance their enjoyment. Overall, results suggest that sophisticated design characterised by interaction of four townscape factors – nature setting, emotional design, spatial configuration, and commercialised elements – can shape tourists' enjoyable authentic experience. Findings have implications for tourism and tourist attraction operators in their planning, design, conservation, and promotional efforts.     

Reputation,subjective well-being,and environmental responsibility: the role of satisfaction and identification

Based on signaling theory, this study investigates how the perceived reputation of a destination impacts the environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) and subjective well-being (SWB) of tourists through satisfaction and identification with a destination, respectively. The findings support the proposed behavioral model. A total of 539 valid questionnaires were obtained from tourists to a natural ecology and historical culture destination in China and analyzed. The results show that destination reputation has a direct impact on tourists' satisfaction and identification with the destination. Satisfaction and identification with the destination both partially mediate the effect of perceived destination reputation on tourists' ERB and SWB. Findings suggest that enhancing perceptions of a destination's reputation is an important step in increasing tourists' SWB and strengthening their engagement in ERB. Discussion of the findings, research implications, and future research directions are provided.     

Reality TV,audience travel intentions,and destination image

Film/TV induced-tourism research has proliferated in recent decades. Nevertheless, there is a lack of cross-disciplinary academic investigation into audiences' psychological processing of film tourism. In this study, the relationships and intervening mechanisms between audience involvement and tourist behavioral intentions were examined. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 355 respondents, with the use of structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analysis. A popular reality show “Where are we going, Dad?” was the focus of our study. The empirical results indicate that audience involvement influences tourists' behavioral intentions through the mediating role of cognitive and affective images. The findings contribute to an improved understanding of how audience involvement affects tourist behavioral intentions, and the extent to which destination image mediates the relationship. Practical implications of using reality TV shows for marketing are drawn from the findings of our study.     

An Examination of Changes in Residents' Perceptions of Tourism Impacts Over Time: The Impact of Residents' Socio-demographic Characteristics

This study investigates whether there has been a change in residents' perceptions of various tourism impacts over time and the impact of residents' socio-demographic characteristics on those changes. A survey of local residents (n?=?732 in 2004 and n?=?590 in 2009) was carried out for collecting the data for this study which was then followed by focus groups, conducted in 2012, consisting of academics, local residents and the tourism experts to validate the outcome from the survey. The results suggest that there has been significant increase in the level of agreement of the Sunshine Coast residents during this period on some of the tourism impacts such as job creation, attracting more investment, providing more business for local people and more cultural exchange between tourists and residents. The results also suggest that there is a significant decline in their perceptions of tourism negatively affecting the way of living of local residents and likelihood of residents suffering from living in a tourism destination. The residents also feel that there will be a decline in parks and other recreational areas for local residents with growth in tourism. The study also found that demographic variables such as age, gender, income, education and occupation are likely to influence residents' perceptions of tourism impact over time. Implications for future tourism development plans for the region are discussed.     

A systematic literature review of data privacy and security research on smart tourism

Smart tourism has gained popularity in recent years. While we praise the benefits it brings, we should not neglect the associated challenges of data privacy and security. This study intends to investigate the scope of data privacy and security research on smart tourism by analyzing 38 relevant contributions in multi-disciplinary fields systematically. Historical trends, disciplines, regions, themes, relevance, methods, and theories were analyzed to map out the existing research on data privacy and security in smart tourism. Findings reveal that although relevant studies have grown in frequency in recent years, there is still a lack of attention to tourists' information privacy and security in smart tourism research. Specifically, privacy-based conceptualized studies, theory-driven empirical research, and legal analysis in data protection deserve immediate attention. Tourism scholars should also consider proper methods to raise tourists' data privacy and security awareness and build an ethical relationship between tourists and smart tourism applications.     

Tour Leaders' Impression Management and Job Performance: Exploring the Moderating Role of Tourists' Self-Monitoring

A tour leader (TL) is a first-line service provider whose performance shapes a tourist's experience and satisfaction during a journey. We examine the moderating effects of the self-monitoring level of group package tour members on the relationship between the use of impression management (IM) tactics by TLs and tourists' subsequent job performance ratings (PRs) of a TL. Data from 485 responses of tourists from 59 outbound tour groups in Taiwan revealed that TLs' use of positive IM tactics – that is, ingratiation, self-promotion, and exemplification – is positively related to tourists' PRs. In contrast, their use of non-positive IM tactics – that is, supplication and intimidation – is negatively related to tourists' PRs. Furthermore, tourists' self-monitoring appears to weaken the effects of supplication and intimidation on their PRs. We also found that tourists' level of self-monitoring is a stronger moderator when TLs use supplication than when they use other tactics.     

Tourists' and tourism suppliers' perceptions toward crisis management on tsunami

This study describes tourists' perceptions toward the importance of safety measures across tourists who stay at different types of accommodation; compares the pre and post analysis of such safety measures during normal time and six months after the disaster and identify safety measures that contribute the most to the sense of beach safety. This study uses a survey, interviews, and observation. The target population was inbound tourists traveling to Thai beaches. It was found that respondents who participated in the survey six months after the March 2011 Japanese tsunami placed more importance on almost all tsunami safety measures than those who did the survey six years after the Indian Ocean tsunami. Guests at guest houses, placed the highest importance on all safety measures, whereas guests at upscale hotels, placed the lowest importance. Moreover, perceptions of beach safety were dependent on the availability of a tsunami evacuation system and a crisis management plan.