Book reviews

The widespread use of festive promotions, in the urban management of the 1990s, represents an extension in the practice of city marketing. This interest in festivity might be accounted for in two ways; as an economic strategy to combat the deleterious impacts of globalization on local economies, and as a social strategy to combat the growing alienation and insecurity felt in public space. However this paper offers an additional, more cultural, reading. Because of its highly competitive character, the practice of city ‘imagineering’ demands continuous innovation. Recent attention has turned to the liminal possibilities of ‘economically underexploited’ temporal periods. Temporal patterns of celebration are being mined for their touristic potential in a process that robs them of their commemorative depth as it simultaneously strives to retain their festive form. This paper examines two such initiatives- the ‘Night-Time Economy’ and the Hogmanay Street Party. While these have been promoted for economic and social gain this discussion, employing Giddens' concept of ontological insecurity and Lebfevre's concept of rhythmanalysis, explores the links between such innovations and their impact on place making.     

Book reviews

Abstract

WORKING AT PLAY: A HISTORY OF VACATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES by Cindy S. Aron. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 1999, ISBN: 0-19-505584-5, 324 pp. $35.00. Reviewed by John D. Keiser.

ECOTOURISM: AN INTRODUCTION by David A. Fennell. London: Rout-ledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE UK, LSBN: 0-415-20168-3, 1999, xx + 315 pp. (tables, charts, photographs, references, bibliography, index) $75.00 (cloth), $22.99 (paper). Reviewed by William N. Chernish.     

Book reviews

Abstract

This article examines the cultural field of fitness as a network of producers, consumers, products and practices that has developed around the care of the body through physical exercise. Drawing on a thematic text analysis of US exercise manuals, the paper focuses on how the commercial fitness field naturalizes associations between physical exercise and leisure, and between leisure and self‐work. In particular, the analysis examines three themes and their relevance to our broader understanding of leisure in contemporary consumer society: the management of leisure time; the use of leisure for self‐investment strategies; and the promotion of consumption as the framework for leisure and an accompanying notion of pleasure. The fitness field casts light on how leisure more generally is constructed as a sphere of obligations to make productive use of one’s time, to improve one’s body and self, and to do so through the wares of the consumer marketplace. The cultural imaginary of leisure as a time of freedom from work and responsibility is thus recast, in an age of individualization, as a time of freedom to accomplish the work of self‐production.     

Book reviews

There is growing evidence that young tourists at nightlife resorts have a propensity for risk-taking. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at an international nightlife resort in Bulgaria, this article examines how guides help tourists lower their inhibitions and reach states of collective effervescence. Focus is on young guides and tourists from Denmark. The article argues that the guides use four basic techniques to stir up effervescence: body techniques, speech and sound effects, crowd effects and alcohol.     

Book reviews

Jackson, Edgar L., and Burton, Thomas L. 1990. Understanding Leisure and Recreation: Mapping the Past and Charting the Future. State College, PA: Venture Press. ISBN 0–910251–34–7. 653 pp. Hardcover, $25.56 (plus $1.50 P&H).

Barnett, Lynn A. ed. 1988. Research About Leisure: Past, Present, and Future. Champaign, IL: Sagamore Publishing. ISBN 0–915611–13–9. 232 pp. Paperbound, $19.95.     

Racism in tourism reviews

Racism is increasingly recognised as a key driver of unfair inequalities in power, resources and opportunities across racial groups. A comprehensive understanding of racism is beneficial to activist groups, policymakers and governments. Traditional approaches, such as surveys and interviews, are usually time-consuming and inefficient in capturing the occurrence of large-scale racism. In this study, we utilise routinely collected data available on tourism websites to assess self-reported racism in the tourism domain. We present a data acquisition procedure that collects racism-related reviews from the Internet at the global scale and then utilise statistics and natural language processing techniques to analyse and explore racism in terms of its tendency, distribution, semantics and characteristics. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in a case study, in which we acquire racism-related data at the global scale and validate the impact of racial discrimination on tourists’ experience.     

Smiley guests post long reviews!

The inclusion of a photo in users’ profile provides information about them and shows a higher sense of self-expression and potential engagement. On peer-to-peer rental platforms, profile images may be useful for hosts and guests to infer individual characteristics and expectations. We try to fill a gap in the literature by inferring guests’ posting behavior through their profile image. Using Airbnb data and deep learning techniques, our empirical analysis reveals that guests who upload profile images—especially profile images displaying happy emotions—are more involved in posting long reviews. As theoretical implications, these results add knowledge to the application of the Five Factor Model of Personality, deep learning, image recognition, and emotion recognition in hospitality. As managerial implications, the prediction of posting behavior through the mining of visual information can be a relevant tool in the age of big data.     

Bragging and humblebragging in online reviews

Tourists often brag about their exclusive vacations, preferential treatments, and extraordinary adventures on social media. However, the existing digital marketing literature offers little guidance on whether bragging is an effective communication strategy. The current research investigates the joint effect of bragging type (bragging vs. humblebragging) and reviewer expertise (low vs. high) on brand evaluation in the online review setting. The results show that when reviewer expertise is high, humblebragging leads to more favorable brand evaluation compared to bragging. However, the opposite is true when the review is posted by a non-expert. We further reveal that the impact of bragging type on brand evaluation is serially mediated through reviewer likability and benign envy. Implications for managing travel platforms are discussed.     

Book Review

Qualitative Research in Tourism: Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies. London: Routledge, 2004. 0-415-28086-9     

Book Reviews

Abstract

China's Outbound Tourism. By Wolfgang Georg Arlt. Oxon and New York: Routledge, ISBN 10: 0-415-36536-8 (hard back), 2006, xv + 300 pp. (tables, figures, notes, bibliography, index), £85. Reviewed by Tony Tse

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2005. Edited by Andrew J. Frew. Springer-Verlag Wien New York (New York), ISBN 3-211-24148-5, 2005, 576-pp (figures), US$ 169.00 (paperback). Reviewed by Rob Law