From dreaming to believing: a review of consumer engagement behaviours with brands’ social media content across the holiday travel process

This paper reviews social media user engagement behaviours with brands and proposes a new stage within the travel process. Specifically, the pre-trip stage is examined and investigation into a two sub-stage split is proposed; pre-purchase and post-purchase. Dubbed the Believing phase, this paper calls for research into the patterns of engagement behaviour towards hotel brands’ content at this currently under-researched stage. Current social media-focussed research examines influence on purchasing decisions of users, social media usage on-site, and post-trip evaluation. There remains a conceptual gap highlighting the behavioural patterns of users during the period between initial purchase and subsequent departure.     

The Future of the Meeting,Incentive, Convention,and Exhibition (MICE) Industry Buyer-Seller Relationship

ABSTRACT

Business on the Internet and in the MICE industry are both experiencing rapid development. The construction of dedicated-convention centers, usually by the public sector, in large cities reflects this trend. In order to obtain a return on investment in the competitive MICE market, centers must competitively market themselves on the global stage, and the World Wide Web has provided the ideal vehicle. Findings from this study indicate that while the Internet and the Web are providing branding and information services, to date, clients still prefer printed promotional material and personal interface as a way of doing business. In the MICE market, marketing collateral appears to have a very short shelf life, with updates having resource implications for each center.     

A multilevel analysis of the service marketing triangle in theme parks

ABSTRACT

This study explores multilevel relationships between employees and visitors within 25 theme parks in Taiwan. The adapted constructs with corresponding items of interactive, internal, and external marketing were developed based on the service marketing triangle theory and previous literature. The results show that interactive marketing influences visitor satisfaction and behavioral intentions; internal marketing influences interactive marketing, and moderates the effect of interactive marketing on satisfaction; external marketing influences satisfaction; and satisfaction affects behavioral intentions. This study demonstrates that examining the influence of cross-level service marketing on internal and external customer satisfaction is crucial to the operational success of theme parks.     

Geographical aspects of state travel marketing in the USA

Almost all of the formal Federal and state government involvement in domestic travel marketing in the United States has been undertaken by state travel offices. Of particular interest to the geographer are state-to-state variations in the size and activities of these travel offices. In this discussion, differences in the total budgets of state travel offices are presented and compared to differences in state population and domestic travel expenditures by state. A three-fold classification of state travel marketing strategies with a geographical basis is then introduced. While the overall discussion provides some explanation for the differences observed, the conclusion is reached that political and other considerations regarding state travel offices are too subtle to be explained by just a few variables.     

Destination Marketing Organizations and destination marketing: A narrative analysis of the literature

This article presents the first narrative analysis of the areas of research that have developed within the destination marketing field since its commencement in 1973. Given the broad extent of the field, and the absence of any previous reviews in four decades, a key challenge is in providing a focus for such a disparate body of knowledge. The review is structured around one principal question: ‘To what extent is the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) responsible for the competitiveness of the destination?’. In pursuit of this underlying question, we address a number of themes including nomenclature and the DMO, the evolution of the destination marketing literature, competitiveness as the DMO reason d'être, and DMO effectiveness including issues of branding and positioning, and future research themes in the field.     

Implications of marketing and promotion for the development of tourism

The author considers some oft-neglected aspects of marketing and promotion in the development of tourism, with special reference to the implications of travel marketing and promotion for the tourism industries of developing countries.     

Packing for the trip: A model of competencies for successful expatriate hospitality assignment

This paper aims to propose a model to assist international hotel companies to prepare expatriate executives for their overseas assignments to minimize expatriate failure. Survey questionnaires measuring competences and skills of expatriation were administered to 66 representatives of the lodging associations and properties who are members in the International Hotel & Restaurant Association. Exploratory factor analysis findings indicate that three categories of attributes are keys for successful overseas assignments: personal competencies, global management skills, and expatriate adjustment. Human resource development professionals should be especially cognizant of identifying personal competencies as the distinguishing elements for selecting high-potential expatriate managers. Educational programs preparing students for work in international hospitality business should strive to expose students to all of the behavioral aspects of international hospitality business identified in this study.     

The Use of Consumer-Generated Feedback in the Hotel Industry: Current Practices and Their Effects on Quality

Consumer-generated feedback is hard to ignore these days. Word-of-mouth has expanded beyond a customer’s immediate friends and family; with the help of technology it reaches thousands of current and prospective guests. In light of this, scholars and practitioners are exploring the subject of consumer-generated feedback. Today, most of the research regarding this subject focuses on the use of consumer-generated feedback to make purchase decisions. In contrast, the present study explores the use of such information for the purposes of improving hotel operations. This article examines the amount of value placed on consumer-generated feedback, the relative importance placed on positive and negative feedback, and its effects on perceived quality. Furthermore, this study inquires as to the specific uses given to consumer-generated feedback in the hotel industry. It is the researchers’ contention that valuing feedback has positive effects on perceived quality. The findings conclude that hotels can use consumer-generated feedback to take actions such as modifying training programs and operating procedures, as well as identifying patterns of complaint and praise.     

内部营销视角下饭店员工忠诚度研究

目前随着饭店行业竞争的不断加剧,人才保留和员工忠诚受到了管理实践者的极大重视.本研究从内部营销视角出发,以中国饭店业为研究对象,分析员工信任、满意和组织承诺对饭店员工态度和行为忠诚的递推影响作用.实证研究发现,员工信任和满意通过组织承诺影响员工态度忠诚,最终影响员工行为忠诚.因此,饭店行业的管理者在强调通过物质利益树立员工忠诚度的同时一定不能忽视员工心理状态对于忠诚度的影响作用,更要充分利用组织承诺的效能来降低员工流动率.     

Travel queries on cities in the United States: Implications for search engine marketing for tourist destinations

Given the growing importance of search in online travel planning, marketers need to better understand the behavioural aspect of search engines use. Built upon a number of previous studies, the goal of this research is to identify patterns in online travel queries across tourist destinations. Utilizing transaction log files from a number of search engines, the analysis shows important patterns in the way travel queries are constructed as well as the commonalities and differences in travel queries about different cities in the United States. The ratio of travel queries among all queries about a specific city seems to associate with the “touristic” level of that city. Also, keywords in travelers' queries reflect their knowledge about the city and its competitors. This paper offers insights into the way tourism destinations are searched online as well as implications for search engine marketing for destinations.     

Mapping the progress of social media research in hospitality and tourism management from 2004 to 2014

ABSTRACT

One hundred and five articles on social media in hospitality and tourism during 2004–2014 were identified from three databases and seven journals. Seven dimensions were used for analysis. Results indicated that social media research in hospitality and tourism is in its early stages with two turning points. The number of articles rose dramatically in 2010 and unexpectedly dropped in 2014. Research gaps are apparent in several industry sectors in topics beyond online reviews and in research methods, where literature reviews suffer from small numbers and few prominent researchers. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

The image of the Third World in tourism marketing

The disparity between advertised image and reality has long been of interest to geographers concerned with settlers to or travelers in a new land. The new persistence of distortion is clearly manifest in the surprise and dismay that international tourists frequently experience when traveling in developing countries. The tourism industry continues to portray these places as “paradise,” “unspoiled,” “sensuous,” or other distortions, presumably to compensate for the obvious poverty beyond the hotel or sightseeing bus. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the inability of the tourism industry to represent destinations as real places. Themes and biases in advertisements, travel journalism, and the travel trade press are examined. It is maintained that the use of distorted imagery has adverse impact on the quality of the visitor's experience and on the receiving society. The disparity in image is increasingly assailed by local and foreign critics of mass tourism, yet public administrators are reluctant to force modification of the message. Some alternatives, including information and advertisements already in use, are presented.     

Collaborative marketing for the sustainable development of community-based tourism enterprises: voices from the field

This paper examines stakeholder engagement in the collaborative marketing of community-based tourism enterprises (CBTEs). The study explored the various collaborative marketing approaches shaped by diverse stakeholders’ perspectives on ways to achieve the sustainable development of CBTEs in Vietnam. The results of 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews from three CBTEs in Vietnam showed that three collaborative marketing approaches were prevailed among CBTE stakeholders and were categorised as commercial viability-driven, community development-driven and balanced approaches. The approaches’ differences were reflected in the marketing objectives to achieve CBTE sustainability, the central linkages of CBTE collaborative marketing, and the facilitators of stakeholder collaboration. The research found a knowledge gap between researchers and research participants and divergent perspectives among different categories of research participants regarding marketing and CBTE sustainability. This paper implies the role of a knowledge co-production approach to drive the stakeholder engagement in CBTE collaborative marketing for CBTEs’ long-term success. Additionally, this study provides insights into the discussion of marketing for sustainable tourism. Furthermore, the findings contribute to a better understanding of the collaborative approach at the organisational level.     

Cruise ship industry — patterns in the Caribbean 1880–1986

This article examines the historical development of the Caribbean cruise-ship industry from 1880 to the present. Cruise-ship itineraries from the New York Times and other sources were used to derive potential passenger statistics by ports of call and embarkation. The spatial development and growth of this sector in the Caribbean since World War II are shown and discussed in the accompanying figures and text. The highly dynamic nature of the industry, particularly with respect to changing ports of origin is revealed. Major influences in the patterns include legislation, external economic factors and political developments, as well as market shifts.     

Evolution and implications of a paradigm shift in the marketing of leisure services in the USA

The evolution of leisure services marketing in the USA has passed through five stages in the past half‐century: pre‐marketing (activity/custodial focus), selling, user benefits orientation, community‐wide benefits orientation and repositioning. The first two stages were supplanted by the user benefits orientation in the late 1970s. The user benefits focus transitioned into the leisure field from the business literature and remained pre‐eminent until the mid‐1990s. It was superseded because it had two conceptual flaws. First, it failed to address the notion of equity. Second, its focus on being responsive to individual users was inconsistent with the broader mandate of public leisure agencies to provide community‐wide services. The emergence of credible scientific research in the past decade to support advocates’ claims of community‐wide benefits has facilitated emergence of the most recent evolutionary stage of leisure services marketing which is repositioning. Repositioning seeks to connect community‐wide benefits the agency has the potential to deliver with an issue that is important to taxpayers and elected officials. It is argued that repositioning is the key to the future viability of public leisure agencies.     

The view from above: the relevance of shared aerial drone videos for destination marketing

ABSTRACT

The use of drones to produce videos has generated a large amount of visually appealing footage of various destinations. They attract much attention, but there are issues that affect their production, and their relevance to destination marketing. This research examines YouTube meta-data and spatial overlay analysis of shared aerial drone videos from the United Kingdom (UK). The results suggest that shared aerial drone videos have some unique user-generated content (UGC) characteristics and their spatial distribution tends to favor more populated areas. Theoretical and practical implications for destination marketing are further discussed.     

Possible marketing tools for heritage tourism: the potential of implementing information and communication technology

The prevalence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has major marketing impacts on both the demand and the supply side in cultural and heritage tourism. However, while there is quite substantial research on how ICTs affect visitors and their experiences, little can be found in the literature on the supply side. The purpose of our study is to fill this gap. To do so, we executed in-depth interviews with 20 experts from cultural and heritage tourism in Germany. Through the interviews we gained evidence from the supply side on five discourses, which evolve around the issues of the shift in visitor typologies and demand, marketing benefits of digital technologies, preconditions and barriers of implementation and currently relevant technologies. All in all, the results clearly increase our understanding on what experts think on the implementation and use of ICTs in cultural and heritage tourism. Recommendations for practice regarding, for example, cooperation and professionalization and for further research conclude our analysis.     

The influence of experiential marketing and activity involvement on the loyalty intentions of wine tourists in Taiwan

This study assesses a behavioural model that uses latent variables of experience of experiential marketing, activity involvement, satisfaction and loyalty intentions of wine tourists in Taiwan. A total of 871 usable questionnaires were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model analysis were performed using LISREL 8.70 for Windows. Analytical results, which further elucidate the behavioural models of wine tourism, suggest that experience of experiential marketing, activity involvement and satisfaction significantly affect the loyalty intentions of wine tourists. Satisfaction played a mediating role in the behavioural model. This study provides further insight into the behavioural modelling of wine tourism.     

Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Green Hotel Attributes in Tourist Choice Behavior: The Case of Taiwan

Although many companies in the hotel industry aim to pursue more sustainable and socially responsible practices, the present literature shows mixed results with regard to tourist reactions to such moves, especially for the service quality perception impacted by implemented green practices and the willingness to pay more for such actions. Unlike previous research examining tourists’ preferences for separate green hotel attributes, this study identifies the determinants of tourists’ choice of green hotel attributes. Additionally, the study measures the willingness to pay (WTP) for such services, in the context of the Taiwanese market, using the stated preference of combined green hotel attribute scenarios. A multinomial logit (MNL) model is employed to estimate the relative influence of behavioral and facility attributes on choice behavior. Furthermore, the study examines determinants influencing respondents’ choice of green hotel attributes. A latent variable class model (LVCM) approach is applied in the estimation of the unobserved heterogeneity, and a total of 390 valid respondents were used in the analysis. The empirical MNL results indicate that while tourists prefer luxury rooms and the provision of personal toiletries, they are also willing to accept reduced service quality. Additionally, sex, income, and age have significant influences on tourist choice behavior. The results of the LVCM model demonstrate that respondents with high levels of the green consumption trait are more likely to choose hotels that have a greater number of environmentally friendly attributes. The implicit amount that tourists are willing to pay for room quality is around US$13, for the provision of personal toiletries is about US$22, and for service quality is US$12, but they also require a discount of approximately US$11 in order to accept the common practices of green hotels. This study is useful in providing the hotel industry and government with quantitative information that can be used to develop and implement better green hotel policies.