New interests of urban heritage and tourism research in Chinese cities

ABSTRACT

Towns and cities have been one of the key areas where Chinese civilization is embodied. China has a history of urban development reaching back over 5000 years. However, cities in China in the past century are also places which have experienced modernization and rapid progress. As a result, the conservation and reuse of the built heritage in China’s cities confronts great challenges. This paper stresses these challenges as well as a few other institutional, cultural, social and economic issues related to urban heritage conservation and utilization. It raises some new interests of urban heritage and tourism research in Chinese cities, and calls for more research on this topic, especially in less researched areas such as industrial heritage in medium-sized cities and cities in peripheral areas.     

The Japanese Travel Life Cycle

Summary

This paper offers an alternative way of segmenting a non-western travel market, namely, the Japanese outbound market. The segmentation schema comprises several institutionalised forms of travel likely to be undertaken by a Japanese individual in the course of his or her life. Coined the ‘travel life cycle,' the concept fits Japanese society well due to the highly organized and group-oriented patterns of travel that have emerged over the past one hundred years. While this form of segmentation is unlikely to be usefully applied to western travel markets, its application in the Japanese context may suggest that it has relevance when examining the travel patterns of other tradition-bound and group-oriented Asian travel markets such as Korea, China or Indonesia. The paper's conceptual contribution lies in the implicit suggestion that particular cultures may develop and exhibit unique forms of consumption behavior that lie outside the conceptual framework normally adopted by western academics and marketing practitioners. Manageri-ally, the paper suggests ways by which tourism operators and tourism promotion bodies can more efficiently and effectively target Japanese travellers according to the stage of travel life cycle.     

From Guanxi to customer relationship marketing: How the constructs of Guanxi can strengthen CRM in the hospitality industry

Abstract

Business today has recognized the cost advantages of customer retention. In reaction to decades of industrialization and mass production, the pendulum has slowly swung back toward more one‐to‐one customer relations and mass customization. One‐to‐one personal attention and relationship building is widely perceived as a desirable method for increasing customer loyalty. Such concepts, however, are not new. Over thousands of years, the Chinese have been practicing “Guanxi,” which Davies (1995) defines as the social interaction within a networked group where repeated favor exchanges ensure a measure of trust among the participants of this network. The constructs of Guanxi, namely bonding, trust, empathy, and reciprocity, can be combined with customer relationship marketing (CRM) and strengthen what a business can offer its customer. This paper, therefore, discusses the history and development of Guanxi in China and its similarities to customer relationship marketing that is practiced today in the Western world. It also presents how the constructs of Guanxi can be combined with CRM. Tips for good Guanxi and CRM to ensure success are also highlighted.     

‘Once More,With Irony’: Karaoke and Social Class

Abstract

Karaoke’s mimetic character can provide a conduit for personal growth and interpersonal empathy. Yet karaoke is not always understood this way, and one factor determining how it is understood is social class. Karaoke’s class markers have been clear, though very different, in Eastern and Western cultures. Whereas in Japan karaoke first became popular among the upper‐middle class, in the US it was popularized by the working and lower‐middle classes. As karaoke gained a following among working‐class Americans it was often shunned by the urban middle class. Yet by the late 1990s an alternative aesthetic of karaoke, characterized by an ironic performance style, developed among middle‐class urbanites. This essay attempts to describe these opposing styles of mimetic and ironic performance, to explain the motives behind them, and to consider what happens when they come into contact.     

Is digital technology the magic bullet for performing work at home? Lessons learned for post COVID-19 recovery in hospitality management

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly brought about a number of disruptions to when and where work is undertaken for hospitality employees. The rapid spread of COVID-19 forced many hospitality managers to use digital technologies to perform work from home, termed digital work connectivity. Yet little is known about how hospitality employees cope with it. The purpose of this study is to investigate an important yet underspecified issue as to how digital work connectivity can be detrimental for employees’ work behavior.Design/methodology/approachWe test our hypotheses using multi-wave and multi-source data collected from 467 middle managerial-level hospitality employees in China.FindingsThe findings show that digital work connectivity can lead to self-control depletion, which in turn is associated with disengagement from work. Further, the findings show that relational energy is an important resource that can buffer the detrimental effects of digital work connectivity on hospitality employees.Practical implicationsThe association of digital work connectivity with employee withdrawal behavior highlights the urgent need for hospitality enterprises to have clear guidelines that regulate technology use at home for work purposes.Social implicationsOur research shows that the absence of clear guidelines in relation to the use of digital technology for work at home risks producing unintended consequences for both hospitality employees and their enterprises.Originality/valueOur research draws from recent advances in resource allocation theories of self-control and adopts a more nuanced approach to uncover a counterintuitive reality that while people use digital technology to remain connected with work, doing so can actually contribute to their withdrawal behavior.     

An Overview of Benchmarking Literature

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review the concept of benchmarking with emphasis on its strengths and weaknesses and the methods by which it can be applied to tourist facilities and destinations. To achieve its aim, the paper presents several approaches to the benchmarking and benchmarking development. In doing this, it examines the perceived benefits and costs of benchmarking and the implementation process. It then examines the different benchmarking methods using qualitative and quantitative research to identify performance gaps. From this, weaknesses of past benchmarking research are addressed. Finally, it analyses the development of benchmarking within the tourism industry together with some examples and its limitations.     

Tourism Education in Canada

SUMMARY

This paper explores the past, present, and future directions of tourism education in Canada, from its origins in the late 1960s until today. The study reviews the development of tourism education over four decades, with a particular focus on developments in Ontario. The influence of tourism organizations, and the impact of legislation on tourism and hospitality education in developing future industry leaders capable of sustaining and growing Canada's tourism industry are discussed. The paper also reflects on the current status of tourism education in Canada, the lack of government support for tourism research initiatives, and the loss of research talent to overseas universities. The research discovered a paucity of past historical documentation of tourism education in Canada and this paper is perhaps the first concerted effort to chronicle the 40-year cumulative history of formal tourism education in Canada.     

Culture and evaluation of service quality — a study of the service quality gaps in a Taiwanese setting

This research is built upon the work of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) by exploring the service quality gap within a Taiwanese hospitality setting and reports the findings from 164 interviews among hotel managers, service staff, and hotel guests. One motive for the research was whether concepts derived from an American‐Euro‐centric conceptualisation of service relationships was transferable to another cultural setting. It was found that the influence of national, ethnic culture on perception of service is limited, but the factor of kuan‐hsi (personal relationship) and mien‐tsu (face) had some role to play in guest‐staff relationships. However, it is concluded that the globalisation of hotel corporate modes of operation have more influence in shaping expectations and thus the ServQual model has validity in such settings.     

Strategies for minimising tourism leakages in Indo‐Chinese development countries

For developing countries in Indo‐China embarking on tourism for economic growth, their success hinges on minimizing three types of tourism leakages, namely financial, structural, and operational leakages. This paper proposes financing and market strategies for those countries to reduce tourism leakages. The strategies suggest that Indo‐Chinese developing countries should target fairly‐developed countries in Asia as their main capital markets and tourist feeders at the early stage of tourism development. In later phases of tourism growth and expansion, they may seek tourism capital and tourists from both fairly‐developed and well‐developed countries. The recent Asian financial crisis has presented new challenges to Asia Pacific tourism. It may, however, create opportunities for developing countries in Indo‐China to attract more regional tourists and investors and reduce tourism leakages.     

Plantation Homes and Veneto Villas in the United States and Europe

Abstract

This paper explores the issues and challenges that are facing Lebanon as it attempts to reposition itself as a leading tourism destination in the post-war years. A discussion about the Lebanese government reconstruction plan and its role in shaping tourism policies is offered. A discussion about post-war tourism development in Lebanon is offered.     

Announcements

Abstract

In this study we examined the effect of specialization on behavioral choice among Wisconsin goose hunters, who were able to choose a relatively easy hunt at the Horicon Marsh or a more complex hunt in the exterior zones. Past research has shown that more specialized recreationists have differing motives, attitudes, satisfaction levels, crowding perceptions, environmental preferences, and management preferences. Our goal in this study was to extend this research to behavioral choices and to learn more about the dimensions of specialization in goose hunting. Specialization did not predict behavioral choice among the sample. Specialization, as measured by past experience, commitment, media involvement, club membership, and preferred hunting style, did not differ significantly when comparing Horicon goose hunters and exterior zone hunters. Novice hunters hunted alongside experienced hunters, and behavioral choice appeared to be more a function of structural constraint than attitu‐dinal preference. Specialization did explain differences in hunter judgments of quality, correlating negatively with shooting and bagging and positively with social and natural components of a quality experience. These findings indicate that although the specialization framework can effectively predict attitudinal differences among participants in a given activity, it is less efficient at predicting behavioral choice. Consequently, specialization researchers need to be cautious about inferring levels of specialization from observations of locational choice.     

Moving Beyond Conspicuous Leisure Consumption: Adolescent Women,Mobile Phones and Public Space

Abstract

In this paper we explore mobile phones as a form of fashion accessory for young women in contemporary culture and the possible value of such fashionable items as a source of identity and self‐worth. Despite reliance on the usual stultifying stereotypes produced by marketeers to promote mobile phones, we explore the possibility that increased access to public space generates for adolescent girls alternative choices of leisure experiences and possibilities of multiple enriching identities. The findings suggest that mobile phone use can impart a sense of self‐confidence, sexuality and autonomy which defies the male gaze in public spaces and may allow adolescent women to reject traditional images of femininity at a formative stage in the life course and take steps to a further array of leisure choices. It may only be a temporary image that assists a sense of self at a vulnerable time in life, or it may infiltrate other aspects of subjectivity and assist an ongoing sense of self‐confidence. However, this particular leisure activity can be seen as enabling, allowing entry to an arena, that of public space, that has hitherto been limited by the male gaze and other stereotypes of adolescent women. Through in‐depth interviews with teenage mobile phone users and a review of the literature we have examined the success that this form of technology has had with this social group.     

Sources of Slavery-Destinations of Slavery

Summary

This study seeks to account for differences between the UK and US in including sites of black slavery as part of their heritage tourism and museum agenda. Both countries were heavily involved in the slave trade and both currently have immigrant communities with an appreciation of their origins. However, and unlike the American situation, it is only recently that Britain has opened the contentious issue of slavery to public gaze. In this regard, attention focuses specifically on the mounting of a pioneering Slave Exhibition at Liverpool's Maritime Museum and, by interviewing its chief curator, various insights are gained as to the potential and pitfalls of such a permanent display of an inglorious past. Further interpretation is added by references to the general literature on heritage tourism, the emerging context of “thanatourism” and the framework of a Force Field model that can usefully accommodate the competing interests of rival stakeholders.     

Come Downtown & Play

Abstract

The newly anointed American cities of the late capitalist moment appear preoccupied with the reconstitution of urban space. More accurately, select parcels of urban America have been reconfigured into multifaceted sport, leisure and tourism environments designed for the purpose of encouraging consumption‐oriented capital accumulation. Within this paper, the focus is a critical exploration of the ways in which tangible and intangible forms of heritage have been employed, utilized and exploited within these urban transformations. Through focus on a city emblematic of the processes that have molded downtown cores under US capitalism – Memphis – the paper points to the role of heritage in the reconfiguration of the Memphian ‘tourist bubble’. In particular, discussion centers on the often problematic selection of histories and historical elements, forms and practices within the interests of capital space and thus raises a host of localized questions about whose collective memory is being performed in the present, whose aesthetics really count and who benefits. Conclusions address how such urban space is imbued with power relations, that is, how increasingly leisure‐oriented spaces can be seen as important sites of social struggle in which dominant power relations can be constructed, contested and reproduced.     

Spatial–temporal distribution characteristics of industrial heritage protection and the influencing factors in a Chinese city: a case study of the Tiexi old industrial district in Shenyang

ABSTRACT

In this article, the temporal and spatial distribution of industrial heritage protection was presented, using the Tiexi old industrial district of Shenyang as a typical case. An explanatory framework was constructed to explain the selected process of industrial heritage. The findings indicate that the highly selective process and the temporal spatial transformation of industrial heritage have been driven by economic, cultural and institutional factors. Tiexi old industrial district is not a single case, but reflects the history and general problems of conserving industrial heritage in China. The case of Tiexi contributes to understanding Chinese industrial heritage in three aspects. First, as to temporal character, there is an excessive concentration ignoring modern and contemporary industrial heritage. Second, from the perspective of space, the fragmented protection mode makes industrial heritage an ‘enclave’ like lonely islands, thus affecting the overall image of industrial culture. And third, as far as institutional factors are concerned, the government plays the leading role while the workers and other important stakeholders are missing.     

Past,Present, and Future of Tourism Education

SUMMARY

Tourism education in Korea, mandated by the Higher Education Act, has evolved rapidly in response to the tourism industry's growth and labor demands for the last four decades. As tourism education has matured and become increasingly recognized as a legitimate academic field of study, the Korean tourism education has attempted to generate future quality workforce and to establish the status of tourism as a prominent research oriented discipline. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the Korean tourism industry and tourism education over the past four decades and to suggest future directions for Korean education in the 21st century. By improving current curricula according to today's fast changing tourism business environment and cooperating with the tourism industry with the aid of the government on policies and regulations, Korean tourism education will continue to contribute to the Korean tourism industry as a legitimate partner.     

Targeted poverty alleviation in China: segmenting small tourism entrepreneurs and effectively supporting them

Abstract

Cultivating and encouraging local small tourism enterprises (STEs) is considered an effective way to alleviate poverty. Chinese local governments tend to concentrate their limited policies and initiatives on targeting STEs and effective ways to achieve better performance, following the proposed government policy called Targeted Poverty Alleviation by Tourism Development (TPATD). To discover which group is targeted and how, this study classified small tourism entrepreneurs and examined determinants of their performance. A quota sampling survey of 273 entrepreneurs in five tourism communities within a scenic area known as Yuntai Mountain was conducted in 2016. Seven determinants were identified: business skills, leadership, innovation, social relations, governmental support, autonomy, and locus of control. Three distinct small tourism entrepreneur segments were classified as independents, followers, and autodidacts. Each segment is worth helping but in different ways. Leadership, business skills, and innovation are key determinants of performance for all segments. Governmental support should be more visible, targeted, and recognized by locals. The administrative subcontract of TPATD in China is also discussed.     

Franchising opportunities in China for American fast food restaurants

The fast food industry is one of the fastest growing industries of this century. Global expansion has become an important strategic development tool for many American based fast food restaurant chains. American fast food franchisers wanting to operate restaurants in China have to be aware of an environment that imposes a number of constraints upon prospective restaurant franchisers. The goal of this paper is to analyze a range of factors, which may affect American restaurant operations in China. The environmental scanning model is used to identify social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulatory environmental factors. With more understanding of China's unique market characteristics, franchisers will be able to reduce some of the inherent risks they may encounter while investing in China.     

Heritage Management and Control

ABSTRACT

Tourism is one of the most important economic activities. Historical heritage has been identified by both administrators and the private sectors as major touristic assets. It has been a myth that the more heritages a country own, the better it would be. Some recent reports, however, revealed that heritages, in fact, could be a burden to the concerned government and the economy. This paper is to review the situation in Egypt in relation to the issues of discovering, preserving and commercializing of historical heritages. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the community, which has the gift of heritage, and heritage preservation of Egypt and to the improvement of our knowledge of the discipline of tourism.