All Travel All the Time!

在普吉岛Karon海滩的慵懒阳光下,整个《时尚旅游》团队在做一件很无厘头的事情——“文身”。用这种植物萃取的染料可以将喜欢的图案拓印在身体的任何部位,15天之后就可以洗去。本期《环游世界24天》的作者 Patrick J.Kelly 在智利的复活节岛也做了同样的事情,他选择了8个拉帕努伊象形图案,让文身师将图案刻满了整个背部。用这种方式他永远纪念曾经呼吸过的这个文化——并将终此一生求解这些奇特图案的意义。在24天内,Patrick 的足迹遍及5大洲,10个国家,10种文化形态,历程36000英里。这次名为“传奇所在:坐私人飞机环游世界最伟大的文化遗产”的旅行令人毕生难忘。这一次和你分享的第一部分中包括秘鲁马丘比丘、智利复活节岛、澳大利亚乌卢鲁巨石、巴布亚新几内亚和柬埔寨吴哥窟。     

Does the Usability Experienced Performance of Travel Websites in China Meet Users' Expectation?

Despite the increasing use of the Internet in travel and tourism, the issue of usability on travel websites has been largely overlooked in the existing tourism literature in Mainland China (hereafter known as China), one of the world's largest markets for generating and receiving tourists. This paper reports on a study that investigated the perceptions of Internet users in China on China-based travel agency websites (henceforth referred to as travel websites). The expectancy disconfirmation theory was used to compare the expected performance and experienced performance of 24 usability attributes. Empirical results showed significant differences between perceived performance and expected performance for all included attributes.     

Customer’s Perception of Familiness in Travel Experiences

Festival-goers (“festinos”) put time and effort into deciding to attend a festival, and the way they decide what to see and the length of time they take to decide vary greatly. To attract those who buy tickets for shows—sales of which are crucial for the survival of festivals—and to know when to start promoting the event, festival organizers and marketers need to know how far in advance the visitors make their decision to attend and what influences their decision. This study categorized 438 visitors to the Innibos National Arts Festival, South Africa, using a survey of their decision-making time. Four groups were identified, and labeled “spontaneous,” “limited,” “extended,” and “routine” decision-makers. These market segments can be taken into consideration in the festival's marketing campaign so as to attract visitors to a variety of events and help ensure the long-term sustainability of the festival.     

Travel philanthropy and sustainable development: the case of the Plymouth–Banjul Challenge

Travel philanthropy is an evolving phenomenon. It owes its origins to rising frustrations with conventional aid and traditional philanthropic giving and is seen as development assistance enabling resources to flow directly from the tourism industry into community development and conservation initiatives. Philanthropists have long sought to achieve social transformation, and travel philanthropy in all its forms has evolved through the democratization of charity, as a kind of “doing good” through “giving back” whilst travelling. This paper evaluates values, practices and impacts of traditional, modern and post-modern philanthropy. Drawing upon evidence emerging from a longitudinal study, which involved the retrospective evaluation of personal diary entries, participant observations and semi-structured interviews about the transcontinental Plymouth–Banjul (car) Challenge (PBC), it exemplifies how an initiative can evolve across all three philanthropic approaches. It further debates critical understandings of the problematic travel philanthropy concept and its role in stimulating sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa.     

The catering industry as a source of campylobacteriosis in Europe—A review

Thermotolerant species of Campylobacter are the causative agents of the human illness called campylobacteriosis. The number of confirmed cases of human campylobacteriosis in the European Union followed a significant increasing trend in the period 2008–2012, and continued to be the most commonly reported zoonosis with 214,779 confirmed cases in 2013; the notification of human campylobacteriosis is today mandatory in most European Member States. Recent reports from the European Food Safety Authority have identified catering (catering services, restaurants, hotels, pubs, bars) as the most frequently reported setting for Campylobacter infection (EFSA and ECDC, 2015). As can be evinced from the analysis of the scientific literature, the quality of raw meat has been identified as a parameter of fundamental importance, but the contribution of incorrect food handling procedures is by no means negligible. In fact, poor hygiene during poultry meat preparation as well as inadequate cooking and cross-contamination between raw meat and ready-to-eat food were found to be the main causes for the spread of campylobacteriosis related to the catering industry.     

A review of the literature on culture in hotel management research: What is the future?

This paper aims to provide insights into the development of research on culture in the hotel industry by reviewing the existing literature. A total of 107 journal articles published between 1985 and 2010 were retrieved from 12 refereed journals, all of which could be accessed online. The papers were categorized into six major groups according to Pizam's (1993) hierarchy of cultures, and were further sorted by year of publication, source, subject area, region of focus, and the nature of the research. National culture, organizational culture, and cross-cultural comparison were found to be the most popular research topics. In contrast, few studies have investigated industry, occupational, and corporate cultures in association with hotel management studies, prompting concern for future research. In summary, this review paper offers a first and important attempt to understand the development of research on culture in the hotel management field and identifies future research opportunities.     

Building a Total Customer Experience Model: Applications for the Travel Experiences in Taiwan’s Creative Life Industry

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the concept of an “experience economy” and its four dimensions (education, escapism, esthetics, and entertainment), experiential values, experience process clues, and the theory of behavioral intention. Data were collected from creative life industry visitors to develop and test a proposed model of total customer experience concepts. We employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to assess the proposed research model. The results supported the dimensional structure of a total customer experience in Taiwan. Our study results suggest that establishing a perfect experience and understanding of customer evaluations for the creative life enterprise should be extended to customer behavioral intention.     

Why does a firm participate in a travel exhibition? A case study of the Taipei International Travel Fair

This study explores the reasons why an exhibitor participates in a travel exhibition and assesses this marketing strategy. A total of 15 representative exhibitors who participated in the Taipei International Travel Fair were interviewed between January and July 2016. The results of the analysis indicated that exhibitors’ selection of a travel exhibition was based on the exhibition’s performance and condition. The primary purposes for participating in a travel exhibition were to enhance the firm’s reputation and sales. The exhibitors’ marketing strategies primarily involved on-site promotional activity and relevant five-sense experiences. An assessment of exhibitors’ participation factors and marketing strategies can both help firms implement their goals and enable organizers to create sustainable exhibitions. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing both theoretical and managerial implications for the travel fair, service, and tourism industries.     

Examining Chinese College Students’ Intention to Travel to Japan Using the Extended Theory of Planned Behavior: Testing Destination Image and the Mediating Role of Travel Constraints

Understanding the decision-making process and predicting travel behavior are critical for destination tourism marketers. This study develops and tests a structural equation model using the extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explain Chinese college students’ intention to travel to Japan. Ten hypotheses were proposed regarding the relationships between destination image, travel constraints, and the original TPB constructs. The results of structural analyses reveal that the extended TPB has better predictive power for travel intention to Japan than the original one. Attitude is found to have the greatest impact on intention to travel to Japan. The mediating role of travel constraints shows a significantly negative effect on the relationships between the predictors and travel intention except for the relationship between perceived behavioral control and travel intention. The results of this study can help improve marketing promotions and the development of more effective destination positioning strategies for Japanese inbound tourism.     

Tourism in the 1990s — UK government view

Various developments and improvements are expected in the UK tourism industry over the next decade. The UK government would like to see the image of the tourism industry change to reflect the industry's significant contribution to the economy. Greater investment and more appropriate education and careers advice should aid the emergence of a flexible and effective tourism industry by the mid 1990s.     

De‐exoticizing Tourist Travel: Everyday Life and Sociality on the Move

Abstract

Tourism is traditionally treated as an escape from everyday life and tourism theory is concerned with extraordinary places. Tourism and everyday life are conceptualized as belonging to different ontological worlds. The former is the world of the extraordinary while the latter is one of the ordinary. This interdisciplinary review article argues that this separation is flawed by examining research that shows how leisure travel, tourism and everyday life intersect in complex ways. It begins with a conceptual discussion of the everyday, which works as the theoretical foundation for the article. Then the article outlines how everyday routines and conventions inform tourism performances: much traditional tourism revolves around socializing pleasantly with one’s co‐travelling family and friends, while more and more tourism concerns visiting friends and family members living elsewhere. The conclusion discusses what consequences an everyday life perspective has for future tourism research.     

Travel Behavior in Troubled Times: The Role of Consumer Self‐Confidence

ABSTRACT. The international travel and tourism industry has experienced the negative impact of a variety of both human‐caused and natural disasters and events or threats which appear to have increased in frequency and severity in recent years. The impact of these risks on travel consumers has been significant. An understanding of how travelers react to these risks is therefore of particular interest to tourism marketers. This study investigates whether traveler self‐confidence ameliorates the reaction to a variety of adverse events. A scale for measuring consumer self‐confidence when purchasing consumer products was tested and the results indicate that the scale functions well in terms of measuring consumer travel self‐confidence. The study also found significant associations between this self‐confidence measure and various measures of travel behavior in response to the influence of adverse events.     

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.     

Research on Foreign Tourists’ Satisfaction with the 2010 Shanghai World Expo: Based on the Blogs at a Travel Website

By applying the methods of content analysis and importance-performance analysis to the blogs on http://www.travelblog.org, a popular international website for travel bloggers, this study identifies that foreign tourists’ satisfaction with the 2010 Shanghai World Expo mainly depended on three dimensions: The urban environment, the quality of tourists’ visit to the Expo, and the tourists’ own status. Based on fuzzy evaluation and importance-performance analysis, the study concludes that foreign tourists’ overall degree of satisfaction with the Shanghai World Expo is 6.15 on a 10-point scale and suggests that the quality of exhibits, the touring environment, staff training, and tourist behavior are key elements in the on-site management of major events.     

Factors Influencing Chinese Students’ Behavior in Promoting Australia as a Destination for Chinese Outbound Travel

The importance of Chinese students in Australia has been largely neglected in the tourism development and place branding of Australia. This study explores the factors that influence Chinese students’ word-of-mouth behaviors, as well as other behaviors influencing Australia as a tourism destination. Following a literature review, a taxonomy of word-of-mouth behaviours is proposed in terms of the way information is communicated. “Place attachment to Australia”, “place attachment to China”, and “place satisfaction in Australia”, are proposed as the key factors that influence such behaviors. Using structural equation modelling, the authors find that “place attachment to Australia” and “satisfaction” with Australia are positively related to different behavior outcomes including Chinese students’ word-of-mouth, intentions to recommend Australia as a tourism destination, and willingness to help Chinese tourists to create satisfying experiences in Australia. Based on these findings, the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Age Diversity in Hospitality—Making a Case for the Mature Employee

Abstract

The changing demographics of the American population have forced businesses to reevaluate historical recruiting, hiring, and training practices. Mature adults are a viable option in staffing businesses. This is especially apparent in the manufacturing and service industries. The aging of America in concert with a shrinking birthrate has made seniors an attractive pool of potential job applicants. To be successful in the employment of mature adults it is necessary to understand the impact of this group on the American demographic profile. Selected strategies for training mature adults to transition back into the labor market are highlighted.