Airports as liminal space

More than a mere transport facility, airports serve as a multifunctional space for social interactions and individual/personal experiences that break geographical boundaries and secular distinctions. This study explores the liminal nature of airports as a micro-destination and presents a phenomenology of passenger experience in accordance to their familiarity with the space. The nature of airports as a liminal space ranges from touristic experience of first-timers to consumer rituals of frequent visitors. Liminality is derived from passenger watching and assistance offering to strangers, whereby a sense of communitas is felt in a secure and often facilitating environment. For frequent flyers, airports are utilized as mobile office space or “free time”, indicative of contemporary travelers’ need for slow life and quality alone-time.     

Responses to replica (vs. genuine) touristic experiences

A growing trend in tourism is the use of replica experiences. Yet, consumers' responses to replica (vs. genuine) touristic experiences are mostly overlooked in the literature. In this paper, we propose that consumers' perceptions of authenticity of the replica (vs. genuine) touristic experiences mediate their responses to these experiences. We define three theoretically driven factors that influence the authenticity perceptions of consumers—experience characteristics (restricted experience vs. not restricted experience; within close vs. distant geographical proximity to the genuine) and a consumer characteristic (salient goal: collecting experiences vs. having fun/pleasure), which influence consumers' responses to replica and genuine touristic experiences. We found support for the proposed theory using two field studies from Egypt's Luxor Tutankhamun tomb and three experimental studies.     

Consumer Behavior and Tourism:

Consumer behavior research constitutes a cornerstone of marketing strategy and practice, and an increasing number of tourist behavior studies have been published in the past few years. This paper examines the current literature related to four prevalent topical areas associated with consumber behavior in recreational and touristic contexts: Ego involvement, loyalty and commitment, family decision-making, and novelty seeking. The paper's primary focus is on conceptual and measurement issues, but implications of each of these areas to marketing practice are also considered.     

Airport subsidies and domestic inbound tourism in China

Since 2013, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has subsidized small and medium-sized airports. The key objective of this study is to empirically validate the benefits and impacts of airport subsidies in facilitating domestic tourism development. This study contributes to the aviation and tourism literature and offers important insights to policymakers regarding airport subsidies and tourism promotion. The empirical results show that increases in airport subsidies increased airport passenger throughput and indirectly brought more tourists to the cities where airports are located. In addition, the airport subsidy scheme has had a stronger effect in boosting domestic tourist arrivals in inland regions compared with coastal regions. This study empirically finds that the government's airport subsidy scheme for small and medium-sized airports has been effective in supporting aviation and tourism development in ethnic minority areas, poor or remote regions with inconvenient land transportation.     

Learning about leisure

‘Leisure, Labour and Lifestyles’ was the theme of a second conference held in Brighton by the Leisure Studies Association, 29 June–3 July 1988. Tourism, though only one of the areas covered, was well represented. Graham Brown and Dr Jonathan Edwards, Senior Lecturers in the Department of Tourism at the Dorset Institute review the conference's touristic content.     

How Global Airports Engage Social Media Users: A Study of Facebook use and its Role in Stakeholder Communication

Examining airports’ use of Facebook, particularly the types of information they have provided to, and established with, users, this study was conducted using the framework of the five functional aspects: communications, promotions, product distribution, research, and management relationship building. The results show that the airports studied used Facebook for various aspects of communication with users, different airports concentrating on different areas. The study also supports previous findings in revealing a lack of strategic marketing, and showing that the limited uniformity of airports’ Facebook pages lessens the effectiveness of communication. The findings of this study benefit airports, especially those with limited budgets and limited human resources for social media. The findings also imply and highlight actions and strategies being used to successfully promote posts on Facebook. The use of such strategies is expected to gain airports greater popularity and enable them to develop a more positive public image.     

“We had a ball … as long as you kept taking your painkillers” just how much tourism is there in medical tourism? Experiences of the patient tourist

The debate over ‘medical tourism’ versus ‘travel for medical treatment’ largely centres on the role of the voluntary leisure or touristic component. This study provides empirical evidence regarding the nature of leisure tourism occurring during medical travel, drawing on interviews with individuals who have returned from travel overseas for medical treatment. We identify four influences: the medical procedure; personal factors (e.g. travel experience, resilience, accompanying companions); destination factors; and financial matters. The most significant of these is the nature of the medical procedure, its level of invasiveness and requirements for post treatment recovery, and whether or not the patient-traveller suffered any complications. The ‘hotel-isation’ of hospitals (‘hospitels’) contributes to participants' perceptions of this type of travel being touristic in nature, even if no other conventional touristic activities are engaged in. We also observe similarities between medical tourism and business travel, both being hybrid forms of tourism, with variable leisure components.     

The cost efficiency of Australian airports post privatisation: A Bayesian methodology

This paper reports on the cost efficiency of Australian airports using a Bayesian panel stochastic frontier model. With data from 2002 to 2007, the paper focuses mainly on the post privatisation period of Australian airports. The results show that the cost efficiency of Australian airports has increased over time to reach a high value of 90.08% in 2007. The paper discusses the potential impact of factors such as privatisation, price cap regulations and capital investments on the current efficiency level of Australian airports.     

Football tourist trips: a new analytic for tourism studies

This article explores the significance of touristic trips by European football fans. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with supporters of the Turkish team Beşiktaş, I argue that journeys to watch sides play constitute an ‘exceptional habit’, a ritualised shot of unorthodoxy that provides structure for other practices of football support. These trips are characterized by bodily practices less common in everyday life, such as mass imitation, fighting and drinking to excess. Yet examining fans' home lives also shows how they draw on exceptional practices to prepare for and memorialise the away match experience. Tracking both everyday and exceptional aspects of football support helps rebalance tourism studies: away from disproportionate focus on the touristic moment to considering its interpolation with everyday life.     

Sustainable development of industrial heritage tourism – A case study of the Industrial Monuments Route in Poland

The main goal of our research was to identify, characterize and discuss the main types of business models that can be found in touristic heritage sites that have been transformed into such from former industrial facilities or were newly created to pass on the heritage values. The research is a continuation of our study that started in 2017 on on Polish touristic sites, that are associated on a touristic route – Industrial Monuments Route of Silesian Voivodeship. This route is located in southern part of Poland and it is the largest industrial route in the country. Our research revealed, organized and complemented the different types of business model transformation that took place in the analysed sites, among them is the post-production organization model which is the most frequently occurring one. This model applies to touristic ventures or cultural institutions that are former production or extraction facilities. Thanks to the transformation of those sites they suite now to fulfil their new touristic function, even if originally they have been designed for other purposes. The use of such transformed business models has also proven itself as an effective and in many cases the only way to preserve and save cultural heritage from degradation.     

Language and tourism

The sociolinguistic study of verbal encounters in touristic situations provides an opportunity to exanine communication between different linguistic groups under unusual circumstances: the high temporariness of the foreigners and the high degree of linguistic accommodation of the locals to them. This state of affairs stands in marked contrast to the tendency of guestworkers and immigrants who are less temporary and usually of lower status, to accommodate linguistically to the locals. While accommodation by locals is common to virtually all touristic situations, the degree of proficiency of locals in the tourists' language varies considerably and hence also the extent to which tourists are forced to accommodate linguistically. In an effort to organize the linguistic variation in tourism, a typology of tourist roles is used as the principal framework. The notion of “language brokerage” is introduced. The integration of sociological and sociolinguistic analyses is illustrated by incidental data from the literature on tourism and from fieldwork in Thailand.     

Touristic Development and Water Sustainability in Banff and Canmore,Alberta, Canada

During the past decade the towns of Banff and Canmore, located in the Bow Valley Corridor of Alberta, Canada, have faced intense touristic, recreational and residential developmentpressure.Both communities have experienced significantinvestment and obvious growth in residential, resort and other tourism infrastructure. These changes have stimulated concerns regarding ecological,economic and social impacts of touristic development and triggered questions regarding its sustainability. This paper outlines the nature of touristic development activities in the Bow Corridor and, in particular, identifies water supply and waste water treatment issues related to touristic and residential growth in the towns of Banff and Canmore. Efforts of local municipal officials to deal with the impacts of residential and visitor demand on water supply and treatmentinfrastructure,including demand-and supply-side managementactions, are noted. Sustainability principles for water management, produced by the Canadian Water Resources Association, are used as touchstones to identify the incorporation of sustainability concepts and principles in planning and management of water resources in the Bow Valley Corridor. The paper concludes with comments concerning efforts to attain sustainable water managementas a componentof sustainable tourism in the Bow Valley Corridor.     

Airports and tourism in Mozambique

This paper analyses airport efficiency in Mozambique from 2000 to 2012, estimating a cost function with random and fixed effects stochastic frontier models. A robustness test is undertaken with a Bayesian stochastic frontier model. The airports are ranked according to their technical efficiency (TE). The policy implication is that Mozambique should upgrade its managerial procedures to cope with the frontier of best practices.     

Customer segmentation for marinas: Evaluating marinas as destinations

Marinas are a significant part of marine tourism activity and they are complex organizations having a highly heterogeneous business structure with many different companies trying to provide the various services that altogether compromise the so called “marina services”. From this perspective, they can be described as destinations and analyzed with a destination marketing perspective. This study aims to conduct a benefit segmentation approach to marinas as destinations, in order to identify the existing market segments based on yachters' expectations from them. Data were collected from 261 yachters of seven marinas located on Turkey's Aegean coast in 2014. The five identified segments are labelled as socially oriented, indifferent, supportive facilities oriented, service and prestige oriented, and touristic attractiveness oriented clusters. Clusters are validated by nine independent variables that define their socio–demographic characteristics and individual motivations for traveling to marinas. The results offer important implications both for practitioners and scholars.     

The eruption of Airbnb in tourist cities: Comparing spatial patterns of hotels and peer-to-peer accommodation in Barcelona

In recent years, what has become known as collaborative consumption has undergone rapid expansion through peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms. In the field of tourism, a particularly notable example is that of Airbnb. This article analyses the spatial patterns of Airbnb in Barcelona and compares them with hotels and sightseeing spots. New sources of data, such as Airbnb listings and geolocated photographs are used. Analysis of bivariate spatial autocorrelation reveals a close spatial relationship between Airbnb and hotels, with a marked centre-periphery pattern, although Airbnb predominates around the city's main hotel axis and hotels predominate in some peripheral areas of the city. Another interesting finding is that Airbnb capitalises more on the advantages of proximity to the city's main tourist attractions than does the hotel sector. Multiple regression analysis shows that the factors explaining location are also different for hotels and Airbnb. Finally, it was possible to detect those parts of the city that have seen the greatest increase in pressure from tourism related to Airbnb's recent expansion.     

Cost Efficiency and the Choice of Operation Type: Evidence from Taiwan's International Tourist Hotels

This study investigated the endogenous relationship between the differences in cost efficiency and hotel owners' choices of either remaining an independently operated establishment or joining an international chain. We applied observations of 72 international tourist hotels in Taiwan from 1997 to 2008 to a simultaneous equations model with qualitative and limited dependent variables. The study results suggest that joining international chains significantly improves cost efficiency. We also found that net gains from improving both cost efficiency and hotel location are the two foremost determinants for an owner's decision to join an international hotel chain.     

Tourism attraction systems: Exploring Cultural Behavior

Attractions are vital sub-elements in all whole tourism systems, and yet their study suffers from lack of theoretical depth and empirical foundation. This paper presents an empirical exploration of the attraction system model, based on a survey of over 6,000 tourists to cultural attractions. The results provide strong support both for the general structure of the model and for the idea that tourists are “pushed” towards attractions by their motivations. Visitation is shown to be strongly related to motivation, attraction markers, use of different media, and touristic characteristics. Potential areas of development for the model are suggested, including more consideration of the relationship between agency and structure.     

The iconography of the tourism experience

Guides to tourism planning typically lack a language for dealing with the destination's experiential content. This article argues that tourism planning has as its central challenge the design of effective touristic experiences, and can find conceptual sources for this task in iconography, the field that studies the meanings of images. In search of iconographie principles for tourism design, the article investigates Niagara Falls, still one of the foremost attractions in North America. At Niagara Falls, the article identifies two main compositional elements: staging, which situates a desirable motif (in this case a waterfall) in a stage setting; and thematizing, which links the motif to concepts (like terror or romance) that make it evocative.     

The Amazing Race to India: Prominence in reality television affects destination image and travel intentions

Considering the increasing popularity of reality television shows, this research investigated the impact of a destination placement in reality television on tourism. Two experiments reveal that a reality show can change the image of the destination in which the show is set. This positively affects cognitive, affective and behavioral outcomes. Specifically, it changes perceptions in accordance with the depiction of the destination in the reality show, increases knowledge about the destination, favorably affects viewers' attitude toward the destination, and even more importantly, increases the intention to travel to the destination. Our findings are of interest to destination marketing organizations; they inform them on how to promote touristic destinations.     

Marginal paradises: Bungalow tourism on the islands of Southern Thailand

In a longitudinal comparative study, some current issues concerning the nature, penetration, and impact of youth tourism on two beaches on two differentially developed islands in southern Thailand are examined. The beaches are “marginal paradises”—touristic paradises marginal to both the life plan of the tourists and the ecology and economy of the native society. Contrary to a widespread idea, vacationing youth tourists seek mainly “recreational” experiences, resembling those sought by most mass tourists, and show marked narcissistic tendencies. They have few relations among themselves or with the natives. Superficial native friendliness covers up a deeper resentment of the foreigners; while nude bathing causes inter-cultural misunderstanding, animosity finds expression in tourist- oriented crime. Though tourism development is of the small scale “craft” type, its benefits for the surrounding native villages are few, especially on the more developed island, where urban businessmen control the beach. The study lends some support to the multi-lineal model of touristic development, with the two beaches mainfesting differential development dynamics