How smartphones enhance local tourism experiences?

This study investigates the application of smartphones in providing local tourism experiences in Isfahan, Iran. A self-administrated questionnaire, employing the theory of planned behavior was developed, and distributed among international tourists visiting Isfahan. The results showed that tourists’ attitude towards smartphones positively influences the intention to participate in local tourism experiences. Findings confirmed that tourists’ perceived behavioral control has a positive and direct influence on their travel intention, while surprisingly no association was found between tourists’ beliefs, subjective norms, and travel intention. Findings also revealed that tourists’ beliefs and subjective norms have a positive and direct influence on participation in local tourism experiences.     

The role of trust and religious commitment in Islamic medical tourism

This study has examined the effect of trust and religiosity on Islamic medical tourists’ attitudes, and consequently, satisfaction by considering age, gender, and education as moderators. A survey was undertaken of 227 Muslim medical tourists who had been treated in Islamic hospitals in Iran, and the data were analysed using partial least squares techniques. The results showed that although trust has a significant effect on Muslim medical tourists’ attitudes, religiosity has no significant effect. The relationship between attitude and satisfaction towards the Islamic medical treatment practised by the healthcare providers is also supported. Gender and education moderate the relationship between religiosity and attitude. In addition, education moderates the relationship between trust and attitude. The results of this research can provide useful insight into the needs of Muslim medical tourists, which would be useful for Islamic hospitals to provide higher quality healthcare services.     

Gender differences in the relationship between justice perceptions and job insecurity in hotel outsourcing

Discrimination against women, injustices, and job insecurity are three issues in hotel outsourcing that have not been examined together. This study uses conservation of resource (COR) theory to investigate whether male and female internal staff have lower job insecurity when they perceive external peers’ fair treatment by management or when they perceive such treatment for themselves. Using a pen-and-paper survey, data were collected from 215 internal staff who worked side by side with external peers in 14 Spanish hotels. Results indicate that female internal staff reduce their job insecurity when observing acts of interpersonal justice towards external peers, and male internal staff reduce their job insecurity when perceiving themselves as recipients of acts of procedural justice. No results were found for internal staff who observed acts of distributive justice towards external peers. Findings suggest that job insecurity threatens outsourcing’s success unless different kinds of justice are managed according to gender.     

Moderating Role of Gender in the Relationship between Hotel Service Quality Dimensions and Tourist Satisfaction

Gender has frequently been identified as one of the key attributes and predictors in developing marketing strategy. This study examines the moderating role of gender in the relationship between hotel service quality dimensions and tourist satisfaction with hotel service delivery. The results derived from multi-group structural equation modeling via the AMOS 5.0 computer program revealed that gender significantly moderated the relationship between service quality dimensions and tourist satisfaction with hotel service delivery. Empathy and tangibles both contributed as the most important significant predictors of tourist satisfaction with hotel service delivery for male tourists as opposed to female tourists. It is statistically confirmed that men and women appear to respond to different aspects of a service encounter when making judgments about their satisfaction.     

Theory of planned behaviour: predicting tourists’ pro-environmental intentions after a humpback whale encounter

Nature-based experiences can contribute to individuals’ connection to nature and intentions toward sustainable environmental behaviours. Conservation psychology can use tourism as a platform to modify tourists’ intentions and behaviours regarding key marine threats such as single-use plastics. This study examined changes to pro-environmental intentions, particularly regarding plastic use, in 267 nature-based tourists from Australia and Tonga who completed a whale watching/swim experience. A theory of planned behaviour (TPB) framework was used incorporating moral norms and environmental identity, which have been previously implicated in explaining pro-environmental actions. This study found that including moral norms in the TPB model significantly increased the ability to predict pro-environmental intentions. Further, when controlling for the TPB and moral norm variables, environmental identity explained a further 15% of tourists’ pro-environmental intentions. The findings suggest the original TPB model may be less suitable within a marine conservation context. Collectively, positive nature-based experiences, environmental identity, and moral norms are important in understanding tourist’s intentions to engage in sustainable environmental behaviours.     

Wellness tourism and spatial stigma: A case study of Bama,China

This study focused on the stigmatisation of an emerging wellness tourism destination due to patient travel for tourism. The concept of spatial stigma was adopted to explore how local residents perceive, experience and manage the particular negative effects of wellness tourism. The study investigated Bama Yao Autonomous County, colloquially known as ‘Bama’, in China, to which many tourists with cancer and other chronic diseases travel. The results showed that the influx of wellness tourists brought significant challenges in this area. The residents reported ambivalent experiences of and feelings about wellness tourism in local communities, and disagreed with the vilification of wellness tourists. However, they were concerned about the potential consequences of wellness tourism. To manage and resist spatial stigma, the residents deliberately separated themselves from the places occupied by wellness tourists. The theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the study are discussed.     

Forms of body usage in tourists’ experiences of flamenco

This study explores the role of the human body in tourism and focuses on cultural tourists’ experiences of flamenco dance and music in Seville, Spain. It is suggested that the tourists who fully engage in flamenco activities use their bodies towards different ends. First, through disciplined practice, tourists seek to remedy a lack of self-esteem. Second, bodies are used in order to fulfill the need for self-expression and self-exploration. Third, tourists use flamenco as a means to differentiate themselves from other social groups, and bodies are used to contest established social structures. These findings point to the centrality of the body in understanding tourists’ practices and the construction of embodied identities.     

Leisure,gender and family: the influence of social policy

A number of authors have recently called for reconsideration of the way in which gender and the family are investigated within leisure studies. This paper proposes that future analyses should include more explicit recognition of the ideological and practical influence of social policy on contemporary gender relations. The paper suggests that social policy has particular significance for debates within leisure studies, about the relationship between men and women's market and domestic labour, and their access to leisure. The paper investigates the influence of social policy on male and female adult life patterns through comparative analysis of social policy interventions and labour market outcomes in the economically advanced nations. It focusses on the policy stance in relation to paid work, especially maternal and paternal employment. It is shown that ‘family-related’ social policies universally support fathers' employment, but vary in the extent to which they encourage mothers' labour market activity. The implications of this for gender differentiation in leisure are explored through analysis of cross-national data for male and female sports participation in Europe. The analysis shows a strong correlation between gender discrimination in family-related social policy, and differentials in male-female sports participation rates. The paper next considers the implications of policy intervention for divergence within the female population. A detailed case study of the UK examines how family-related policy may differentially affect women in different socio-economic situations. The paper concludes that whether family-related policies encourage women to see themselves primarily as caregivers within the family unit, or as citizens with individualized rights, is likely to affect both their sense of entitlement to personal leisure and their ability to access it.     

Gender Matters in Hospitality (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

This article is a review paper, which examines the place of gender in hospitality research and education and discusses the significance of hospitality for women's employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. The paper’s main purpose, however, is to speculate on the future of hospitality gender research and women’s employment prospects in the industry. It suggests that, despite the emergence of gender perspectives in hospitality research and the recent rise of popular feminism in response to high-profile sexual harassment cases and a well-publicised gender pay gap, gender still does not occupy mainstream territory in the field. The paper stresses the continued missed opportunities of neglecting female talent and calls on female and male leaders to shape a gender-just future in hospitality study and practice by mentoring and holding hierarchies to account. The paper identifies AI and robotics and sexual exploitation and harassment as two areas in which hospitality gender scholars could lead scholarship and policy debates on gendered human experiences.     

Shopping experiences: International tourists in Beijing's Silk Market

This study examines international tourists' experiences in Beijing's Silk Market, one of the China's most well-known tourist markets. Tourists' spontaneous reviews on TripAdvisor were analyzed through Leximancer, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. The study confirms that markets can be major tourism attractions and can provide important experiences for international tourists. Most international tourists were impressed with their Silk Market trip. The dominant narratives of their experiences were the “price” of the items they “bought”, the “fun” of “bargaining”, and the “fake” quality of the products. Further analyses show that different satisfaction groups used somewhat different narratives to represent their shopping experiences and that male international tourists enjoyed the Silk Market experiences more than their female counterparts.     

Islamic beliefs and host-guest relationships in Iran

This study examines how Islamic beliefs affect host-guest interactions from the perspectives of local people in two Islamic heritage villages in Iran. Face-to-face interviews with 51 people across the two settings highlight the significant influence of Islamic beliefs on host-guest interactions and indicate that these beliefs can be supportive of tourism. However, religiosity also significantly influenced the nature of resident interaction with tourists. The result also showed that whether villagers were of the Sunni and Shia Islamic traditions had little difference to villagers’ perceptions of host-guest encounters. In addition to religion the host-guest interactions were influenced by traditional Iranian culture with respect to hospitality.     

Beyond irrationality and the ultras: some notes on female English rugby union fans and the ‘feminised’ sports crowd

In the Academy, female fandom is often conceived of in ways which consciously exclude sport, and women are often marginalised by research on sports fandom. There is also little convincing qualitative research on the experience of mainstream female sports spectators, despite competing claims about the meaning and nature of today’s alleged ‘feminised’ sports crowds. Much of the qualitative work which does exist in this field focuses on younger male soccer fans and pathologises, the experience of female spectators. Instead, in this paper we explore the experiences of mainstream female fans from a sport which is much under‐researched, English rugby union. Drawing on qualitative data from semi‐structured interviews with female rugby union fans from Leicester, we explore these women’s fan experiences in the context of claims about the recent ‘feminisation’ of the late‐modern sports crowd. We focus empirically on three key issues: the early sports encounters of female spectators and their possible links with fandom; changes in women’s access to leisure time and to spectator sport; and women’s shifting experiences of watching rugby union in the new ‘professional’ era of the game. We end with a call for more qualitative work on the changing experience of female sports fans and for more theoretical and empirical work on the supposed ‘feminised’ sporting cultures of late‐modernity.     

The relationship between involvement with travelling to Islamic destinations and Islamic brand equity: a case of Muslim tourists in Malaysia

The growing number of Muslim tourists in the world has urged many destinations to embrace the concept of Islamic tourism. Malaysia as an Islamic country has been serious on establishing a halal hub for tourism products, however, activities such as drinking alcohol, wearing scanty clothing, sun bathing naked, and serving pork in restaurants are found in this country. Therefore, it is vital to explore on how Muslims who are involved with travelling to Islamic destinations evaluate the country’s Islamic brand equity. A number of 384 Middle Eastern tourists were surveyed in Malaysia. Using structural equation modelling, the relationships between Muslims’ involvement with travelling to Islamic destinations and dimensions of brand equity (awareness, image, quality, value, and loyalty) were explored. Results showed that involvement positively influences all five dimensions of brand equity. The strongest relationship was found between involvement and awareness followed by involvement-quality, involvement-image, involvement-value, and involvement-loyalty.     

“Pre-topsurgery,the body scanning machine would most likely error:” Transgender and gender nonconforming travel and tourism experiences

Utilizing a qualitative, grounded theory approach, we examined the travel experiences of transgender and gender non-confirming tourists, an under-researched segment of the tourist population. We report findings based on 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed for emergent themes. We found that traveling as a transgender and gender non-confirming individual can be complex with at least some or many additional considerations, behavioral changes, and emotional labor related to their gender identity and gender expression when moving into different spaces or situations. Transgender and gender non-confirming tourists often have feelings of fear and anxiety related to sharing and avoiding sharing their gender identity when going through tourist processes related to identification documents, security thresholds, and check-in procedures. However, participants also reported having positive experiences while traveling. Based on these findings, a substantive theory of transgender and gender non-confirming tourist experiences was developed.     

Hotel managers' intentions towards female hiring: An application to the theory of planned behaviour

Hotel managers who run daily operations and interview new employees play a vital role in gender equality. Based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this paper examines the factors that affect hotel managers' intentions to hire females. Furthermore, this paper integrates gender attitudes into the TPB framework. Structural Equation Modelling was conducted with a convenience sample of 201 managers in Egypt. Results support the usefulness of the TPB framework. Specifically, managers' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control were positively associated with female hiring intentions, which, in turn, predicted female hiring behaviour. Results, however, reveal negative effects of gender attitudes on the TPB predictors. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the capacity of the TPB to predict female hiring intentions and extending this model by including gender attitudes as a relevant background variable. Results position gender attitudes as an effective window of intervention for influencing female hiring.     

Tourists’ happiness: are there smart tourism technology effects?

The purpose of this study is to develop a research model demonstrating tourists’ value-seeking processes through the tourism services and travel experiences of a destination. The model suggests that tourist happiness is assessed by tourists’ perceived experiences, which are formed by two motivational values: smart tourism technology (STT) and destination value. Despite a large quantity of research attention on destination tourism, the relation between tourists’ destination experience and STT has been less enthusiastically studied. Therefore, this study proposes to test an integrated model with attributes of STTs and destination values that contribute to tourists’ life happiness. The results of this study, from a survey of 191 foreign tourists in Seoul, South Korea, indicate that tourists are likely to put more value on what they perceived from their destination travel experiences than what they perceived from their experiences with STT services when they evaluate their overall happiness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Body Relationships in an Urban Adventure Setting

This article examines a recent tendency amongst researchers of sex tourism to include women within the ranks of sex tourists in destinations such as the Caribbean and Indonesia. It argues that a careful attention to the power relations, context, meanings and effects of the behaviours of male and female tourists who engage in sexual relations with local people, makes it clear that the differences are profound. The similarities and differences are analysed here with the conclusion that it is the different positions of men and women in the sex class hierarchy that create such differences. The political ideas that influence the major protagonists in this debate to include or exclude women will be examined. The article ends with a consideration of the problematic implications of arguing that women do it too .     

‘It made me feel powerful’: women’s gendered embodiment and physical empowerment in the martial arts

This paper presents data collected from 11 females and explores their gendered and embodied experiences of the martial arts. Our research suggests that through their involvement in the martial arts, women develop physical strength, which leads to individual physical empowerment. Furthermore, the women note their involvement in the martial arts increases their confidence to defend themselves and challenge their gendered embodiment. However, despite acquiring physical strength that challenges their previous forms of gendered embodiment, their experiences remain predominantly at the level of individual empowerment. Thus, the women do not problematise normative views of gendered embodiment which position women as weak and men as strong. Nor do the women in this study question the pressure on females’ bodies to be toned and feminine. Drawing predominantly on physical feminism, we question and problematise the concepts of women’s empowerment and gendered embodiment through women’s experiences of the martial arts.