Visitation at capacity-constrained tourism destinations: Exploring revenue management at a national park

This study explores issues related to the introduction of revenue management principles in the mechanism of allocating permits to visitors. Specifically, the study looks at ways in which backcountry hikers in Grand Canyon National Park, a World Heritage Site listed among America’s most visited tourism attractions, value a particular allocation mechanism for a permit application. From a stratified random sampling scheme with a 76% response rate, over 1400 overnight backcountry hikers reported the potential for considerable increased revenues. At the same time the findings indicate that certain demographics and user groups will not participate in the modifications, and thus, may be less likely to get a permit when they apply for one. Any policy implementation from such an analysis needs to consider the implications of privileging those who are both willing and able to pay more for access, and effectively excluding others from the same opportunity.     

Cultural variation in the use of leisure time: Foreign tourists at the Grand Canyon

Abstract

Though time has often been treated as a sociological variable in the study of leisure, common assumptions about cultural variation in the use of leisure time remain largely untested. This study examined the time‐budgets of foreign visitors on organized tours at Grand Canyon National Park. Using over 1,400 observations of 40 tours, we examined the time‐budgets of Japanese, French, and other European tour groups. Significant differences in the allocation of time were found among the Japanese and European groups. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and of time‐budget studies in general for research and leisure behavior.     

Perceptions of crowding and resource quality by early and more recent visitors

Abstract

Previous literature suggests that a recreationist's current evaluations of a natural setting are influenced by the conditions that existed during the individual's initial exposure to the environment. Given the rapid growth in backcountry use and the ecological impairments associated with this use, it follows that each new generation of visitors will experience a different set of initial conditions. This paper explores the relationship between the year boaters made their first trip to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and their current evaluations of the resource. Results indicate that those who made their first trip prior to the area's national designation, when use levels were lower, perceived significantly greater levels of environmental damage to the islands and evaluated perceived increases in visitor numbers more negatively than the more recent boaters. The implications of these findings for managing the recreational experience are discussed.     

Predicting Behavioral Intentions to Comply with Recommended Leave No Trace Practices

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) for predicting backcountry visitors’ behavioral intentions to comply with recommended Leave No Trace practices. Once confirmed, factors predictive of behavioral intentions can be used to inform the development of more effective persuasive communication strategies and educational messaging. Study participants were overnight backcountry visitors to either Olympic National Park, Washington, or Glacier National Park, Montana. The final model explained over 44% of the variance in the dependent variable, but significant predictors differed between the two parks. Discussion is provided as well as suggestions for those charged with disseminating Leave No Trace messaging.     

Exploring Visitor Acceptability for Hardening Trails to Sustain Visitation and Minimise Impacts

Protected natural area managers are challenged to provide high quality recreation opportunities and ensure the protection of resources from impacts associated with visitation. Development of visitor use facilities and application of site hardening practices are commonly applied tools for achieving these competing management objectives. This study applies stated choice analysis to examine visitor opinions on acceptability when they are asked to make tradeoffs among competing social, resource and management attributes in backcountry and frontcountry settings of Acadia National Park. This study demonstrates that asking visitors about recreation setting attributes uni-dimensionally, a common approach, can yield less informative responses. Analyses that considered direct tradeoffs revealed more divergent opinions on acceptability for setting attributes than a unidimensional approach. Findings revealed that visitors to an accessible and popular attraction feature supported trail development options to protect resource conditions with unrestricted visitor access. In contrast, visitors to a remote undeveloped island expressed stronger support for no or limited trail development and access restrictions to protect resource conditions.     

Visitors’ acceptance of negative ecological impacts in national parks: comparing the explanatory power of psychographic scales in a Norwegian mountain setting

Even in protected areas, it is inevitable that any human use will produce some impact on natural resources. This study identifies visitors’ tolerance of potential negative ecological impacts from tourism activities and facilities in a Norwegian national park context, based on park visitors’ expressed degree of acceptance of negative effects on particular species of wildlife (wild reindeer and raptors) and on vegetation. Attitudes were analysed using psychographic scales, reflecting respondents’ nature orientations, their specific facility desires, their preferences in a wilderness setting and their concerns about human interaction with the natural environment. Fourteen research hypotheses were tested. Findings demonstrated that the psychographic scales explained more variation in attitudes than most social background and trip characteristics. Higher levels of education among visitors were strongly associated with increased ecological concern; age and gender were not. There was generally strong ecological awareness and eco-centrism among park visitors in general, with a small proportion of wilderness purists. Better trail conditions, signposting and interpretation were sought. But park visitors were also found to possess a complex mixture of needs and drivers. The study found significant potential for strategic alliances between tourism and conservation interests, and key value issues for park governance systems.     

Assessing the economic impact of a UNESCO World Heritage designation

Grand Pré Historic Site in Nova Scotia (Canada) is in the process of applying for a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site (WHS) designation. Conventional wisdom is that such a designation would generate public awareness and increase visitation to the site. The goal of this paper is to estimate the impact of a WHS designation on tourist visitation and related expenditures. Various tourism statistics (covering 1990–2008) for Nova Scotia and its only other established UNESCO site – Lunenburg (designated in 1995) – served as data. Regression analysis produced an estimate of the tourist visitation impact that a WHS designation had on Lunenburg, and could be expected to have on Grand Pré. An increase of 6.2% in tourist visitors due to a WHS designation was estimated. Survey data collected at Grand Pré provided average spending per visitor. The economic impacts were analyzed under both a projected and a historical scenario of visitation. Based on its 10-year historic visitation average, a WHS designation for Grand Pré would generate an increase of 3000 visitors per year. These visitors would generate spending of approximately $200,000 annually in the local economy. Such spending would provide a boost to the local tourism industry, which has experienced significant decline in recent years.     

Shopping experience evaluation: a case of domestic and international visitors

Understanding domestic and international visitors and delivering service quality that meets the expectations and needs of these markets should be among the key objectives of retail and commercial sector in tourist resorts. Shopping is an important tourist activity and its contribution to the economy is significant. For many visitors no trip is complete without having spent time shopping and tourists often feel they cannot return home without buying ‘something’. Shopping on vacation goes beyond functional utility and task orientation and provides other experiential benefits. This research examined domestic and international visitors’ perceptions of service provided in shops and attempted to understand whether domestic and international visitors differed in their service evaluation and shopping item preferences. The analysis was based on Kusadasi Chamber of Commerce database. Mann–Whitney U-tests indicated significant differences between domestic and international visitors’ evaluation of service delivered in shops. Domestic visitors were more negative in their service evaluations than their international counterparts. Chi-square tests revealed that these two groups also differed significantly in their shopping preferences. Management implications of the study are discussed and recommendations are provided.     

Tourist Satisfaction and Destination Image of Vietnam's Ha Long Bay

Although considerable work has been done on destination image as a whole, far less research has investigated the differences in destination image assessments for domestic versus international visitors in developing countries. This study offers findings that illustrate the differences in perception of destination image, satisfaction attributes, and intention among domestic and international visitors to Ha Long Bay, a United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site in Vietnam. The results of a survey on 650 tourists suggest that international visitors to the Ha Long Bay region have higher standards and are more critical in their evaluation of services than domestic visitors when judging this destination. Destination image is a common factor determining the level of satisfaction of both groups. Basic and augmented services were found to influence international visitors’ future intention toward the destination. This finding implies that the destination managers of Ha Long Bay need to improve current standard of augmented services to yield higher visitors’ propensity to recommend and return to the destination.     

Nature-based Tourists: The Relationship Between their Trip Expenditures and Activities

This paper investigates the relationship between four groups of trip activities and the daily expenditures of a sample of visitors at two nature-based attractions in Northern Norway. The paper also examines some other potential factors by adopting a widely utilised twofold segmentation approach: light versus heavy spenders. The results of the logistic regression analysis indicate that there is a significant relationship between the importance attached to travel activities by nature-based tourists and their daily expenditure on a current trip. More specifically, the more individuals consider visiting historic/cultural sites as an important activity on their journey, the more likely they are to be light spenders, whereas the more they consider ‘challenging nature-based activities’ as important, the more likely that they will be classified as heavy spenders. The investigation additionally finds that travel motives, though to a lesser degree, when taken in tandem with variables such as trip length, trip purpose, age and household income, influence nature tourists’ daily expenditure.     

大陆赴台自由行游客地方认同与休闲效益关系研究

台湾是许多大陆游客向往的休闲胜地, 大陆游客赴台自由行热度的持续升温, 这既给台湾带来巨大的旅游经济效益, 更可增进海峡两岸的民间交流和人民情谊。文章通过实证研究探讨大陆赴台自由行游客对台湾的地方认同及其在台从事休闲活动所获得的休闲效益等程度表现的差异性, 并检验地方认同与休闲效益间的相关性。研究表明, 大陆赴台自由行游客对台湾的地方认同以环境认同程度最高, 依恋程度最低, 其在台湾从事休闲活动所获得的休闲效益以社会效益最高, 生理效益最低;不同个人背景与游程规划的大陆赴台自由行游客在地方认同与休闲效益程度方面有显著的差异;地方认同与休闲效益间呈显著正相关且彼此间存在典型相关关系。研究成果可作为海峡两岸旅游职能部门及旅游企业完善休闲法规、环境与产品组合的参考。     

Marginal economic impacts of inbound tourism to Taiwan and policy evaluation†

This paper presents the economic impact estimation for international visitors to Taiwan using an Input–Output Model to demonstrate the differences of economic contribution by market segments. Economic impacts are compared based on visitor segments by country of residence and travel purpose. The results indicated that high spenders contributed two to three times more expenses in Taiwan than low spenders. In 2000–2001, excluding airfares, business visitors from North America (US$1,360), Japanese sightseers (US$1,323) and Singapore/Malaysia sightseers (US$1098) were the top three segments in terms of per person per trip expenditure, whereas tourists from Korea with a purpose of visiting friends and relatives spent approximately US$314 per party per trip. Type I multipliers on sales, personal income and value added were similar across all visitor segments. Type I jobs to sales multiplier, however, had stronger variation by segments, depending on the relative composition of different items/services that visitors consumed during the trip. Policy implications are proposed for the Taiwan national tourism policy, “Doubling Tourist Arrivals Plan”, which aimed to increase inbound tourism from 2.7 million person visits in 2002 to 5 million person visits by 2008. It is suggested that multiple indicators, such as length of stay, segment shares, and daily spending by individual visitor segments, should be concurrently incorporated in the policy formulation and evaluation process. Relying on one measurement objective, such as 5 million yearly visits, is inadequate in determining the overall achievement and efficiency of tourism policies.     

Generalizing the Encounter--Norm--Crowding Relationship

Theory predicts that when encounters exceed a visitor's norm for seeing others, crowding will increase. This article examines this relationship using data from 13 different studies ( n = 10,697) that included both high- and low-density study sites, and 12 different activities. Measures of recreation encounters asked respondents to indicate the number of people they remembered seeing in different contexts. Crowding was measured using a 9-point Likert scale. An indicator of the individual's tolerance norm was obtained by asking respondents to specify the highest number of encounters they would tolerate for a given situation. As hypothesized, perceived crowding was significantly higher for individuals indicating more encounters than their norm ( t = 12.70, p < .001). Overall, when the number of encounters was less than the norm, crowding scores averaged 2.02 (i.e., Not at all crowded). When encounters exceeded the norm, respondents felt "Slightly" to "Moderately" crowded with an average score of 4.01. Measures of effect size indicated that the strength of this relationship could be characterized as medium ( r > .3 to r < .5, n = 35 correlations) to large ( r S .5, n = 29 correlations). This pattern of findings was also observed for three predictor variables: type of resource (backcountry versus frontcountry); type of activity (e.g., canoers, hikers, hunters, anglers); and type of encounter (conflict versus no conflict). By contrasting identical measures of the same concepts across a number of activities, resources, and evaluation contexts, the generalizability of the hypothesized relationship is more readily apparent.     

The Wildlife Tourism Market to Kenya (2002–2003)

An understanding of the wildlife tourism market is fundamental for the development of a competitive and sustainable tourism industry. It is imperative to product development and segmentation, especially with regard to understanding trends in the market place. This study was undertaken to understand better the demographic preferences of wildlife tourists and to determine their preferences, expectations, and choices. Various personal and trip attributes of the visitors were considered. A linear structural relationship (LISREL) approach was applied in order to estimate the structural equation systems by using its maximum likelihood estimator. Using data from 1,566 tourists who had completed their holidays in Kenya, it was found that various forms of travel based on packaging do not significantly affect the preferences of tourists. However, tourists' characteristics and their trip attributes have significant effects on these variables. Advanced age, higher socio-economic status, larger group size, and shorter length of stay are associated with higher preference for wildlife viewing.     

Mining meaning from online ratings and reviews: Tourist satisfaction analysis using latent dirichlet allocation

Consumer-generated content has provided an important new information medium for tourists, throughout the purchasing lifecycle, transforming the way that visitors evaluate, select and share experiences about tourism. Research in this area has largely focused on quantitative ratings provided on websites. However, advanced techniques for linguistic analysis provide the opportunity to extract meaning from the valuable comments provided by visitors. In this paper, we identify the key dimensions of customer service voiced by hotel visitors use a data mining approach, latent dirichlet analysis (LDA). The big data set includes 266,544 online reviews for 25,670 hotels located in 16 countries. LDA uncovers 19 controllable dimensions that are key for hotels to manage their interactions with visitors. We also find differences according to demographic segments. Perceptual mapping further identifies the most important dimensions according to the star-rating of hotels. We conclude with the implications of our study for future research and practice.     

Alone with others: The paradox of privacy in wilderness

Attitudinal studies of wilderness visitors have indicated that people seek opportunities to limit interaction with other visitors so as to achieve privacy and solitude. This conventional interpretation of wilderness recreation was evaluated by comparing measures of visitor attitudes and social behavior in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park. Results show no association between visitor attitudes toward crowding and observed social interaction or behavior to avoid such social interaction. These findings suggest that subjective responses of visitors measured by questionnaires and interviews are often of debatable validity. Greater validity can be achieved by avoiding reliance on common‐sense interpretations in theory formulation and by employing multiple measurement techniques.     

Outcomes of Destination Marketing Organization Website Navigation: The Role of Telepresence

This study explores how informative and entertaining features of destination marketing organization (DMO) websites affect a sense of telepresence, and how these features affect visitors’ evaluation of the utilitarian and hedonic performances of such websites. This study further examines how DMO websites affect visitors’ familiarity with, interest in, and knowledge about a destination and their consequent intention to visit the destination. A total of 433 responses from United States (US) Internet users were collected in an online survey. The study results suggest that informative and entertaining telepresence is crucial in DMO web performance, making a destination appear more familiar and interesting to prospective visitors. This increases the likelihood that potential tourists will plan a trip to the destination.     

Visitation of tourism attractions and tourist expenditure patterns ‐ repeat versus first‐time visitors

Marketing wisdom suggests that it is less expensive to reattract previous customers than to acquire new ones. Yet, few tourism destinations are actively trying to understand their current visitors in order to more effectively market to them. The present study analyzes international repeat and first‐time visitors to Rotorua, New Zealand, in order to gain insights into their respective visitation patterns of tourist attractions in the area, as well as their trip and expenditure patterns. The results of this study indicate that there are significant differences with regards to trip characteristics, and it offers a few insightful differences with respect to the attractions frequented.     

Travel Personae of American Pleasure Travelers: A Network Analysis

Travel style has been shown to be a useful concept for understanding travelers. In this study it is argued that the portfolio of trips (specifically, the portfolio of various trip styles) one takes can be used to describe his/her overall travel persona. Network analysis was used to examine the structural relationships between types of trips based upon the assumption that each travel style may be considered as a “node,” and its association with other travel styles may be represented by the links within the network. Analyses indicate that American travelers take on a wide range of different travel personae which, in turn, are related to their choices of places visited and their response to advertising materials. It was concluded that the framework provided by these findings along with new tools on the Internet offer the potential to develop highly personalized communications with existing and potential visitors.