Dispositions to Buy Postcards with Aboriginal Designs at Ulu ru-Kata Tjuta National Park

This research note assesses the probability of visitors to the cultural centre at UluruKata Tjuta National Park, Northern Territory, Australia, buying a post card bearing traditional Aboriginal designs. The sample comprised 358 respondents interviewed at two locations, the Desert Park, Alice Springs, and the cafeteria of the cultural centre at Uluru-Kata Tjuta NationalPark.Of the respondents approximately one-third indicated on a Juster Scale that there was a likelihood of 70% or more to purchase such a postcard. However, no specific socio-demographic variables were found to be associated with this group other than they were more likely to be female. It was also found that this interest in postcard purchases bearing 'Aboriginal designs' had no correlation with other items on the scale that related to Aboriginal culture. There is a discussion of ethical issues of any decision to produce 'Aboriginal postcards'.     

Visitors to Litchfield National Park,Australia: A Typology Based on Behaviours

Litchfield Park is located in the Northern Territory, Australia, and attracts over 280,000 visitors a year. The paper reports results derived from a visitor monitoring system established by the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory in 1997. Specific attention is paid to the development of clusters of visitors. Five such clusters were identified and the paper reports not simply the results of a cluster analysis, but additionally provides an importance–satisfaction matrix for the total sample. These five clusters were described as 'day visitors', 'hedonists', 'generalists', 'four-wheeldrive enthusiasts' and 'information seekers'. It was found that there was a desire to limit commercial activities within the park. It is suggested that the Parks and Wildlife Commission might have to view advertising parks as a series of complementary attractions linked to specific usage patterns rather than simply regard each park as an isolated unit. The paper also provides background data about the park, and the activities undertaken by visitors.     

Managing for sustainable tourism: a review of six cultural World Heritage Sites

The paper reports findings derived from questioning 471 visitors to Katherine, Northern Territory. A questionnaire was constructed using Juster Scales and items based upon the items of the Beard and Ragheb Leisure Motivation Scale. Respondents were asked to rate existing and potential tourism products, among which were those based on Aboriginal culture. It was found that generally interest was higher in nature rather than culturally based tourism, but about a third of the total sample rated Aboriginal tourism products highly. However, it was also found that this sub-sample showed high rates of interest in natural and adventure based tourism and hence their interest is based upon ‘active information seeking’ that encompasses many needs. However, as the paper describes, Aboriginal entrepreneurs are already active in many different aspects of tourism. It is thus argued that while a demand for culturally based products exists, a wider market may be attracted by offering more mainstream products with Aboriginal culture representing, in marketing terms an added product value.     

Identifying and mapping forest-based ecotourism areas in West Virginia – Incorporating visitors' preferences

This study identifies and maps forest-based ecotourism areas in West Virginia by incorporating visitors' preferences. Relative weights for ecotourism destination criteria were obtained using the Analytic Hierarchy Process based on a survey of 777 participants. The study classified the state into five levels of naturalness with areas under Class I being the least natural and Class V being the most natural. The presence of wildlife was found to be the most important criterion and slope was found to be the least. Results also showed significant variations in visitors' preferences. Areas under Class IV and Class V in both weighted and unweighted ecotourism maps covered more than half of the state's area, suggesting high prospects for promoting forest-based ecotourism in the state. The results further showed that each class changed in size when visitors' preferences were applied. The ecotourism maps created provide useful insights for visitors, destination managers, and decision makers.     

South Korea's Medical Tourism Destination Brand Personality and the Influence of Personal Values

Adopting Aaker's brand personality scale, this study aimed to determine South Korea's medical tourism destination personality. Based on a survey of US consumers, the results indicate that South Korea's medical tourism destination personality comprised three dimensions: sincerity, competence, and ruggedness. Furthermore, sincerity and competence positively influenced consumers' willingness to travel to South Korea for medical care. This study also found that personal values, in particular excitement, self-respect, sense of belonging, and being well respected, were significant positive predictors of South Korea's medical tourism destination personality. Marketing implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered. This study serves as a starting point for further research on medical tourism destination brand personality.     

Assessing holiday satisfaction of Australian travellers in Vietnam: An application of the HOLSAT model

The hotel business model has been diversified in response to the various needs of consumers. Many previous studies focused on the alteration factors of the hotel business model from the consumer's point of view. Although it is one of the factors that affect alteration of the hotel business model, the manager's perspective is also an important alteration factor. This article emphasizes that it is necessary to consider not only the consumer side, but also the management side based on two approaches of the strategy theory: the positioning approach and the resource-based approach.

Surveys were conducted by mail in order to gather information regarding what managers in Japan consider to be important components of a hotel. As a result, “location” was found to be the most important component, followed by “annex facilities” and “deployment system”. Once the components were ordered according to their relative importance, a strong relationship was found between the managers' preferences and the characteristics of “syukuhakusyutai-type” hotels, which are ‘direct management’ (DM) hotels located usually in the city. In Japan, the number of “syukuhakusyutai-type” hotels has recently increased, therefore capturing the spotlight in the hotel industry. However, the results of this research are not compared with those of much previous research conducted on hotel choice attributes, because the measured variables differed significantly.     

Indigenous tourism from a visitor's perspective: an empirical examination of Valene L. Smith's 4Hs at a Sámi festival in Norway

Over the past three decades, indigenous tourism has received a growing amount of attention from both the tourist market and tourism academics. The research conducted regarding indigenous people has often treated the subject from a conflict perspective. In this study, a symbiotic perspective is employed in that visitors' attractions built upon indigenous resources may positively contribute to indigenous hosts. Nevertheless, to do so is dependent upon acquiring an understanding of visitors' preferences in an indigenous tourism context. To empirically ascertain visitors' preferences, a framework proposed by Valene L. Smith has been adopted. This framework operationalises the indigenous tourism product as consisting of four primary components: habitat, handicrafts, heritage, and history. This study first identifies these four components, and then examines the magnitude of their effect on visitors' experiences and perceptions at a Sámi festival in Northern Norway. The findings indicate that habitat is clearly the most salient component of this particular indigenous event in that it positively influences the visitors' satisfaction with the festival, their willingness to recommend the festival to others, and their willingness to pay to attend the festival. Further details of the findings as well as the study's implications are also provided.     

Facial attractiveness and stereotypes of hotel guests: An experimental research

The purpose of this research was to determine social interaction between hospitality employees and their guests, and consequently assess how front-line employees categorize and stereotype hotel guests based on their facial attractiveness with reference to three main characteristics. Social stereotypes represent a means of information transmission in the communication process and can enable a more rapid transfer of information during the service delivery in the hospitality industry. The experimental research was conducted with 113 hospitality employees at seven hospitality organizations on the Slovenian coast. The results showed a correlation between the perception of hotel guests' facial attractiveness with their assumed characteristics that can lead to stereotyping. Hotel employees often link the guest's facial attractiveness with three common perceived characteristics – guests' propensity to spend, guests' predisposition to being demanding and guests' ‘kindness’, and tend to stereotype them on the same basis. These research findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex interactions that occur during a service encounter and show how facial attractiveness of guests plays an important role in the construction of stereotypes by the hospitality employees.     

The Role of Chinese Students as Tourists and Hosts for Overseas Travel

With more visas being granted and application processes streamlined, more Chinese students are studying abroad. These students have an influential and continuing effect on the host country's tourism industry over and above their own education-related activities and expenditures because they attract family members and friends to visit the countries where they study. Unfortunately, the research on the role of Chinese students as hosts for overseas travel is quite limited. Therefore, this paper provides some insights into this issue by looking at the influence of students' satisfaction on their role as hosts for the friends and family sector while also providing some data on the students' own holiday motives and assessments of New Zealand. The data were derived from 504 self-completed surveys by Chinese students from four universities in North Island, New Zealand. Evidence was found of students fulfilling a number of roles as guides, sources of information and acting as hosts, but the relationships between their own holiday experiences and satisfaction and the degree to which they fulfilled these roles was weak at best, indicating, therefore, the importance of other variables.     

Wildlife Tours in Australia: Characteristics,the Place of Science and Sustainable Futures

Wildlife tourism is one of the fastest growing tourism sectors worldwide. Across the world the number of tourists seeking close interaction with wildlife in their natural environment is growing. Understanding the interface between visitors (social) and wildlife (environmental) can make a critical contribution to the sustainability of this industry. This study examined wildlife tours in Australia. Questionnaires were posted to wildlife tour operators in Tasmania, Western Australia and Northern Territory, seeking information on the characteristics of tours, and the place of science and monitoring in their business. The results illustrate several similarities between wildlife and ecotourism, suggesting the benefits of increasing education and interpretation, both central features of ecotourism, to enhancing the sustainability of wildlife tourism. For tour operators, interactive activities included feeding, swimming with and touching wildlife, and the level of interaction was identified as high, making it imperative to better define interaction and develop species or group-specific protocols for sustainably managing these interactions. Lastly, this study showed a low level of engagement of scientists in protecting the wildlife of interest to tours. Given the centrality of science to sustainability, mechanisms for increasing this involvement particularly in impact research, through partnerships and other means, are critical for the long term sustainability of this industry.     

Effects of hotel employees' perception of wage justice: the case of South Korea

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the results of the previous studies on the relationship between wage justice and employees' attitude are also found within Korean hotels that have adopted a unique wage system. The data were collected through a survey done with employees of five Korean hotels. The results are similar to those of previous studies. However, the present study found that employees' satisfaction with the wage system is also important, and job insecurity partially affects the relationship between wage justice and employees' attitude as well as the relationship between employees' satisfaction with the wage system and their attitude. Managerial implication, limitations and directions for future studies are suggested.     

Road Travelers' Motivations and Loyalty: Train Versus Bus Services

ABSTRACT

Railroad and highway travel may differ not only in terms of their nature but also in terms of their appeal to travelers. Travelers may have different motivations to use either transportation mode in either inbound or outbound directions. Travelers may also demand different services or service traits of the provider in order to gain satisfaction in the short-term and/or become loyal customers in the long-term. This study uses a 2?×?2 design to compare train and a bus service between two cities 250 km apart in a country where these two means of transportation are equally essential. The study also compares the outbound and inbound routes in order to acknowledge additional differences in both the travelers' motivations and the customers' loyalty formation. The results show that travelers' motivations for choosing train or bus transportation differ based on whether they are leaving from or returning to the city that was the original point of departure. They also show that customers' long-term relationships with the provider significantly differ according to means of transportation and routes used. Characteristically, customers in the studied sample prefer train transport to leave and bus to return based on their idiosyncratic motivations of seeking value or money savings and their expectations of mutual loyalty. This research suggests practical consequences both for understanding travelers' motivations and customer loyalty formation and for managing policies regarding train and bus services competing for specific segments of travelers.     

Measurement scale for eco-component of hotel service quality

Growing acknowledgement of the need to achieve more sustainable forms of development has resulted in environmentally conscious tourists who have indicated a dissatisfaction with existing hotel service quality. The objective of this study was to investigate tourists’ ecological expectations referring to the quality of spas and wellness hotel services in order to develop and test a scale for measuring the ‘eco-component,’ a new component of hotel service quality. The findings revealed four dimensions of the eco-component: hotel staff's eco-behaviour; environmentally friendly and healthy equipment; efficient use of energy and water; and bio-food. Tourists also demonstrated a hierarchy of eco-dimensions, with the most important being hotel staff's eco-behaviour and the least important being bio-food. Tourists’ expectations about the level of eco-dimensions differ significantly with respect to their income, nationality, and the hotel certification. However, no significant difference emerged in their expectations due to different educational levels.     

Australian indigenous tourism policy: practical and sustainable policies?

This paper reviews the development of Australia's policies for indigenous tourism and analyses those policies for their sustainable tourism content. It notes that in Australia, tourism is increasingly seen as an instrument for sustaining indigenous communities, many of whom look to tourism for a better future. Growing intervention from Australian federal and, more recently, State/Territory governments has sought to create tourism policies to facilitate market growth and product development in the indigenous sector. Yet the effectiveness and appropriateness of these policies, particularly in terms of a sustainable approach to development, has been questioned. A qualitative study of Australian State/Territory governments' policy for indigenous tourism examines the extent to which sustainable development principles are addressed. The results revealed that 32 of the 35 analysed policies demonstrated “sustainability rhetoric” that lacked the rigour and depth to realise any legitimate moves towards achieving sustainable tourism development for indigenous peoples. Based on the study's findings, this paper recommends that there cannot be a “one size fits all” framework for indigenous tourism development to suit all circumstances. Policies need to draw upon indigenous diversity and, in a consistent, collaborative, coordinated and integrated manner, provide the mechanisms and capacity-building to facilitate long-term sustainable indigenous tourism.     

Planning and developing tourism within a public sector quagmire: Lessons from and for small countries

This paper examined public sector tourism in Northern Ireland, a small country on the periphery of Western Europe which is notorious for being over-governed. The authors found that its complex web of public sector tourism bodies created confusion and duplication within the industry. There was a lack of coordination and clear policy guidelines and many of the organisations were suffering from ‘partnership overload’. To make matters worse for Northern Ireland its National Tourism Organisation, faced with a reduced remit and shrinking budget, was not capable of making decisions and providing the strategic leadership that is required to drive the tourism agenda forward. Northern Ireland, and indeed any small country involved in tourism, could learn valuable lessons from Northern Ireland’s Celtic neighbours, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, countries which have taken action to remove some of their layers of administration and bureaucracy and make public sector tourism more streamlined and manageable.     

Providing a More Successful Education Experience for Asian Hospitality Management Students Studying in Australia

ABSTRACT

Economic necessity and political influence has resulted in many western universities striving to increase the number of international students choosing their institution. The consequences of increased numbers of international students has implications for teaching staff and domestic students. This research is focused on international students from Asia studying the Bachelor of Business (Hospitality Management) at The University of Queensland and is set in the context of those students' learning experience. Focusing on issues of teaching and learning styles, the research is based on the suggestion that Asian students have to make a substantial adjustment in terms of their learning styles in order to succeed in a Western University.

The empirical research focuses on Asian students' motivation, choices and expectations of their learning experience in Australia and identifies difficulties those students have experienced. Insights of staff within the School of Tourism and Leisure Management at the University of Queensland are also discussed, particularly focusing on cultural issues.

This article concludes with several recommendations concerning strategies that could be, and are being adopted by The University, academic staff and Asian students.     

What Facilitates a Festival Tourist? Investigating Tourists’ Experiences at a Local Community Festival

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of festival attributes and tourism facilitators on tourist satisfaction. The results of this study show that festival attributes has a positive and significant effect on tourists' satisfaction. Data analysis also revealed a positive and a significant effect of intrapersonal facilitators and structural facilitators on tourists' satisfaction. However, interpersonal facilitators do not allow a significant impact on tourists' satisfaction in the festival context. One of the most important findings is that festival commercialization is the strongest predictor of tourists' satisfaction. Structural facilitators are regarded as of primary importance in determining the satisfaction of festival tourists. Future research is needed to investigate other important antecedents of tourists' satisfaction across other festivals or locations, and to identify the complex nature of festival tourists' satisfaction. Finally, a longitudinal approach will better elucidate the relationships between measurement variables and their antecedents.     

Exploring the links between destination attributes,quality of service experience and loyalty in emerging Mediterranean destinations

Since the publication of the “Experience Economy” work by Pine and Gilmore in 1999, understanding the increasing complexity of the customer experience within the customer journey in the tourism industry is a priority for researchers and destination management organizations. This study contributes to the extension of the Experience Economy in tourism research by examining the links between tourists' assessment of destination attributes, their perceived quality of the service experience and loyalty, in seven emerging Mediterranean destinations. To date, little research has explored the aforementioned aspects, even though the Mediterranean region is the leading tourism destination in the world. With a sample of 1365 Mediterranean tourists, the analysis reveals differences between tourists' perceptions in Northern and Southern Mediterranean destinations. In addition, empirical support to the proposed model proves the direct impact of both variables on loyalty. The study outlines implications to both practitioners and researchers.     

Segmentation of Special Event Attendees Using Personal Values

ABSTRACT

This article presents the findings from research undertaken within a conceptual framework that included personal values, satisfaction and post-consumption behavioural intentions. The findings of a quantitative study (n = 354) conducted at a theatre-event indicate that attendees who were more inclined to place importance on their 'connectedness' with others were generally more satisfied with their attendance overall and with most of the attributes of the special event that were measured. Similar results were also found for attendees' post-con-sumption behavioural intentions; however, other personal value systems, such as that associated with hedonism, also emerged as important. These results can be used by managers and marketers of special events to enhance the special event experience and contribute to the industry's sustainability.