How can we manage the tourist-historic city? Tourism strategy in Cambridge, UK, 1978–2003

This paper draws on research into 25 years of tourism planning and management in Cambridge, UK, to explore the long-term effect that tourism strategies can have in managing the development of tourism in historic cities. It focuses particularly on strategic aims and the policies designed to implement them through regulating the city. It finds that five successive Tourism Strategies from 1978 onward have had consistent aims, strongly influenced by the locality characteristics of Cambridge. It explores how strategic aims are derived, focusing on the balance between local and external influences, and how policies to implement the aims are developed. It argues that locality factors, and the role of local regimes and policy communities are more important than national government policy in accounting for aims and policies. It suggests that tourism management issues are rarely finally resolved, and questions whether true ‘tourism management is currently achievable in a historic city.     

Tourist attractions in Bangkok and Singapore; linking vandalism and setting characteristics

The study adopts an exacting observational approach to vandalism and its site determinants in two pivotal Asian cities, Bangkok and Singapore. The study served three goals: to develop and evaluate an observational approach to auditing the damage to tourist attractions; to link the setting characteristics to the indicators of damage; and to explore the applicability of Western constructs of vandalism and control to these Asian settings. A cluster analysis identified five kinds of sites which differed systematically in levels of disrepair and the factors influencing that damage. Sites with higher and lower levels of vandalism appeared in both cities. Powerful factors limiting damage were identified. The western site determinants for vandalism applied to the Asian settings.     

旅游网站品牌化现状研究：以中国5A级景区为例

因特网在中国的快速普及给目的地营销组织带来了巨大的市场机会。目的地官方网站是一个重要的品牌化途径,而从品牌化角度研究我国旅游官方网站的信息内容,即如何使用品牌这一工具建立独特清晰的目的地形象,当前尚属于未探求的领域。该研究运用规范的内容分析方法评估我国5A级旅游网站品牌化现状,把我国5A级旅游网站划归为高品牌化、中品牌化和低品牌化三种类别,发现了目的地官方网站的品牌化有助于建立积极正向的目的地形象,并由此提出了重要的管理启示和未来的研究方向。     

对旅游业的再认识--兼与张涛先生商榷

由于旅游业的特殊性,关于其内部构成问题至今没有形成统一认识。本文认为,旅游业“支柱说”只是对旅游业的一种短期的、近视的、静态的认识,不具有普遍意义,不能全面反映旅游业的本质,不适合“大旅游”发展趋势。从旅游者需求角度和旅游业发展的实际情况看,旅游业是依托旅游吸引物、为旅游者提供综合旅游产品与服务的产业集群。     

Vacationers in the countryside: Traveling for tranquility?

Tranquility seeking is growing phenomenon in tourism. While tranquility has been frequently used in tourism motivation literature, it is unclear what it means in tourism and how to recognize it in tourism motivation. The study seeks to explore the forms of tranquility through a lens of motivational framework. Data collecting from Moganshan town, a well-known rural resort in China, revealed that vacationers acknowledged various forms of tranquility in holiday experiences in general. Specifically, the need of tranquil amenities rather than need of tranquil states was dominant trigger of the phenomenon; affective qualities of tranquility were the main source of information that influenced the destination choice. The inclusion of tranquility in tourism extends our understanding of tourism motivation and adds a new subject applicable to tourism.     

旅游资源与旅游吸引物:含义、关系及适用性分析

旅游资源和旅游吸引物分别是汉语界和英语界经常使用的重要概念,然而学术界对这两个概念的理解和使用方式不但存在国别差异,还存在概念内涵与外延理解的深层次分歧。文章通过梳理这两个概念的界定方式、含义理解、翻译使用等方面的分歧,从概念产生背景、语词本意、逻辑规则、现实含义等角度,逐一进行辨析,指出旅游资源和旅游吸引物这两个概念是中英文学术界创造的具有旅游学科独特含义的专属概念,它们总体上被用来指称旅游活动的对象。旅游资源一词容易引发诸多理解歧义,而旅游吸引物一词在含义上更为清晰、准确,有更大的使用空间;而常被我们用来作为旅游资源英文对译词的tourism resources,其在英语中的实际含义并非如此,使用频率也不高。文章还将旅游资源和旅游吸引物的概念界定方式进行了分类,概括了其间的核心差异,疏解了歧义,辨析了合理性。在此基础上,对利珀(Leiper)的旅游吸引物系统论做出了新的解读。     

Motives for a secular pilgrimage to the Gallipoli battlefields

Pilgrimage is a journey to a non-substitutable site embodying the highly valued, the deeply meaningful, or a source of core identity for the traveller. Secular pilgrimage is an important yet under-researched sector of the tourism industry. Where the motives for religious pilgrimage are well documented, little is known of the motives for secular pilgrimages. This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of one case of secular pilgrimage, the journey of Australians and New Zealanders to the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey. Five distinct motives for visits to the pilgrimage site are identified – spiritual, nationalistic, family pilgrimage, friendship and travel motives – and differences in their importance noted across seven visitor groups. These motives share some commonality with the motives for religious pilgrimage, and conversely, with the motives for leisure tourism; yet, other motives are unique to the secular pilgrimage. Suggestions for future research on secular pilgrimage are provided.     

HARNESSING ROMANCE: The effect of exposure to romance-themed attractions on tourists’ impulsive buying

Storytelling is considered an effective way to promote a tourist attraction. Developing a strong theme for stories is beneficial to the persuasiveness of storytelling. In the current research, we explore the effect of a pervasive but understudied theme of storytelling in tourism practice—romance—on tourists' propensity to engage in impulsive buying. In three experimental studies and an implicit association test (a pilot study), we show that exposure to romance-themed tourist attractions spontaneously activates a lay belief in tourists’ minds that “romance is uncontrollable,” and this lay belief elicits a perception of inability to exercise personal control, which leads to an increased propensity for impulsive buying. This effect is mitigated when the color red is salient in themed materials. We discuss the practical implications of our findings for the design and promotion of tourist attractions.     

The Baidu Index: Uses in predicting tourism flows –A case study of the Forbidden City

Tourist overcrowding of sites during the ‘Golden Week’ is a not an uncommon situation in China today. Consequently the prediction of tourist numbers is important for tourist attractions management and planning. Most existing methods rely on well-structured statistical data published by the government. However, this approach is limited in two aspects: 1) there may be significant delays in the publication of such data and 2) the sample size can be small, leading to inaccurate predictions. This paper proposes a novel approach for predicting tourist flows based on the Baidu Index. The Index provides search history containing different keywords on a daily basis dating back to 2006. The approach uses co-integration theory and Granger causality analysis to find the relationship between the internet search data and the actual tourist flow. The paper compares analysis results obtained by two kinds of predictive models, with or without considering Baidu Index. The study shows that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship and Granger causal relation between the observed number of tourists and a set of related keywords in the Baidu Index. It indicated a positive correlation between the increasing Baidu keyword search index and the increasing observed tourist flow.     

Flagship Attractions and Sustainable Rural Tourism Development: The Case of the Alnwick Garden,England

This paper proposes an alternative approach to rural tourism that returns to a more traditional model of development: large, flagship attractions that act as a ‘growth pole’ for the local economy and community. It questions some of the accepted beliefs about sustainable rural tourism development current in recent years. It is based on a case study of Alnwick Garden in Northumberland, England. It suggests that, under certain circumstances, flagship or mega-attractions can not only increase substantially the number of visitors to rural areas but also, through appropriate policies and processes, can underpin the longer-term, sustainable development of those areas.     

A New Environment for Coherent Heterogeneity

Abstract

Usually, a distribution channel is in charge of the packaged tours, but due to the concentration of distribution companies, and the tangential position of the intermediate regions, there is a lack of interest to commercialize the fragmented tourist offer in these regions. In such an environment, IT provides the possibility to implement reticular integration strategies without business concentration or homogenization, in order to facilitate the commercialization of intermediate regions. This article argues that in order to facilitate a more effective transition to complexity management IT is the suitable tool for a joint management of the small tourist business, not only in commercialization, but in the fields of customer relationship management (CRM), suppliers management, marketing, quality and economic resources planning (ERP), making available the migration from the actual “incoherent homogeneity” to the “coherent heterogeneity.” It also analyzes the opportunities, ways and steps of IT to assume reticular integrated strategies in the commercialization and management of tourist products and destinations, in intermediate regions.     

Urban tourism research: Recent progress and current paradoxes

Urban tourism has remained a consistent theme in the expansion of tourism research since the 1980s and several seminal papers (e.g. 1 and 2) have reviewed the state of research and its progress towards a greater recognition. This Progress in Tourism Management review article moves our understanding and knowledge of the research agendas within urban tourism by examining the paradoxes associated with such agendas thereby highlighting the need to adopt a less inward looking approach that interconnects with the wider domain of the social sciences, especially those of urban studies and the notion of world cities. We argue that understanding urban tourism will only progress by embracing these wider social science agendas so that tourism becomes integrated into these academic debates to progress the subject area.     

Visiting the trenches: Exploring meanings and motivations in battlefield tourism

This paper provides insights into the motivations and experiences of tourists who visit sites associated with war and conflict, specifically 25 individuals who participated in a tour of the World War One battlefields of the Somme and Ypres. The paper discusses the narratives of four of these individuals to illustrate in detail how such battlefield tours offer opportunities for pilgrimage, collective and personal remembrance and event validation. All of the participants had a prior interest in warfare, which was a key influence on their battlefield tour experiences. For the study participants battlefield tours emerge as complex, deeply meaningful and in some cases life-changing experiences.