Family satisfaction and social networking leisure

The purpose of this study was to explore the bidirectional relationship between the use of social networking sites (SNS) for leisure, and family and leisure satisfaction. The sociotechnological model served as a sensitising theoretical framework for this study. Seven families (22 individuals) took part in group and individual interviews. The data obtained from interviews were analysed using constant comparative method. The results showed that influences of SNS on satisfaction with family leisure and family satisfaction varied: the use of SNS helped families to build enjoyable family leisure, stay connected with family members and increase a sense of belonging. In some cases, however, it also decreased the amount of time spent with family, lowered attention during face-to-face interactions, provided opportunity for negative comparisons and caused concerns about the development of social skills among youth. In turn, family relationships and satisfaction with family life influenced the way family members used SNS for leisure. Some participants increased the use of SNS during times of family conflict in order to seek support and as a way to distract themselves from unpleasant thoughts. Others limited their use of SNS due to lack of interest in social pursuits and to avoid sharing information about family conflicts.     

Redefining Boundaries in Families through Social Networking Leisure

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence the use of social networking sites (SNS) for leisure has on boundaries between families and the outside world, as well as boundaries between family members. The family systems theory and the concept of boundaries served as a basis for this study. Seven families (22 individual family members) took part in the study. Group and individual interviews were conducted for this study. The data supported previous research claiming that connection with the outside world was among the major reasons for using SNS. The findings also suggested that families tried to preserve clear boundaries between themselves and the outside world by controlling who can access their accounts, what information can be shared and what is appropriate time to use SNS. The findings also suggested that the boundaries between family members are constantly being redefined to meet the changing realities of technological world.     

Role of Social Network Services (SNS) Sales Promotions in Generating Brand Loyalty for Chain Steakhouses

This research aimed to explore the impact of social network services (SNS) sales promotions on the brand loyalty generation process by considering the role of brand attitude, awareness, service quality, experience, trust, and attachment in the chain steakhouse industry. A field survey was conducted to collect data in a metropolitan city of South Korea. According to our structural equation modeling results, SNS sales promotions significantly increased loyalty and its antecedents, and brand attachment had the greatest influence on brand loyalty. The mediating impact of study variables was also identified. The proposed model had a satisfactory level of prediction power for loyalty. Overall, our findings provided important insights into how steakhouse practitioners can deal with SNS as essential promotional tools and provided valuable insights into why using SNS sales promotions is critical in the fast-changing chain restaurant industry.     

Tourism expenditure patterns in China

Using China’s urban household survey data for 2002–2009, this study compares the impacts of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of urban household expenditure on tourism in different age cohorts. The life cycle age profiles of group-tour and non-group tour expenditures are obtained by decomposing total household expenditure. The results show that the age profile of total tourism expenditure is hump-shaped, which conforms to consumers’ income discretionary expenditure cycles. The age profile of group-tour expenditure is hump-shaped whereas that of non-group tour expenditure is S-shaped, corresponding to the substitution of group and non-group tours as children grow older. The implications are discussed in the context of tourism marketing with a view to providing useful segmentation information for tourism decision makers.     

Consumerism in Sustainable Tourism: A Survey of UK Consumers

This article presents the results of a survey of tourism consumers from the Destinations Travel Show in the UK in 2000. Four hundred and eleven tourism consumers were interviewed over four days at the show on the type of information that they used in the selection of their holiday destination. This article posits that the power of the consumer can be a major force for progress towards greater sustainability by the tourism industry, acting as a rationale for change, which is often missing from more traditional planning, management or regulatory techniques. The research shows consumers are already making decisions based on environmental, social and economic quality for day-to-day products and are keen to transfer these habits to the purchase of tourism products. Recommendations are made, highlighting the need for the tourism industry to capitalise on this demand for a wider range of product information and so promote moves towards greater levels of sustainability in the industry.     

网络旅游消费者参与心理与行为的实证研究

互联网技术在全球的迅猛发展为网络与旅游的结合提供了重要的基础,并为现代旅游业开启了一个崭新的时代。网络旅游作为一种日益兴盛的现代旅游方式,已经成为旅游业信息化发展的重要表现形式之一,同时也是当今世界旅游业发展的重要方向。因此,了解和分析消费者网络旅游参与的心理和行为对旅游企业的营销和管理也变得越来越关键。然而,现有网络旅游研究主要探讨旅游网络消费者参与行为的特征,对旅游网站特性影响作用、网络旅游消费者参与动机、参与过程和参与心理机制的研究深度还不够。为了揭示现阶段我国旅游网站特性对网络旅游消费者参与心理和最终参与行为的影响作用,该研究在充分总结有关研究的基础上,构建了网络旅游消费者参与心理和行为的概念模型,随后对参与到旅游网站中的397名消费者进行调查分析。研究结果发现:旅游网站的熟悉度和服务规范度会有效影响消费者参与心理的自我决定需求,进而对消费者参与旅游网站的感知卷入和信息搜寻行为产生影响作用。研究结论建议,旅游网站吸引消费者参与的同时需要切实提高企业的品牌知名度和服务规范度,这是进一步提高网络旅游消费者对网站忠诚度的重要基础。     

The effect of social capital and altruism on seniors' revisit intention to social network sites for tourism-related purposes

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among social capital, altruism, common bond and identity, and revisit intention using social capital, altruism, and attachment theories. A total of 452 responses were generated from consumers 50 years of age and older (seniors), qualified as having used a social network site (SNS) for tourism-related products and services within the past 12 months. Results show that social capital has significant effects on common bond and identity while social capital has a slightly greater effect on common identity than common bond. Altruism has significant effects on common bond and identity whereas altruism has a greater effect on common bond than common identity. Common bond and identity both have significant effects on revisit intention. Noticeably, revisit intention is highly influenced by common identity. Therefore, this study provides new knowledge and recommendations to SNS administrators addressing why seniors use SNSs for tourism-related purposes.     

Disclosing personal information via hotel apps: A privacy calculus perspective

In an era dominated by mobile apps as the final element of the value chain, hotel: firms strive to offer their guests new levels of personalization. To obtain such personalization benefits, consumers need to disclose personal information to hotels, thus threatening their privacy. Engaging in a calculus of benefits and risks associated with information disclosure, consumers may overcome their risk perceptions and opt to disclose personal information. Using data from a sample of hotel: guests from the U.S., this study developed and empirically validated a conceptual model based on an extended version of the privacy calculus model that explained consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information via hotel: apps. It was found that trust in the app and the overall value of information disclosure has significant impacts on personal information disclosure via apps. Several important implications for theory and practice of these findings are discussed.     

Dynamic,Interactive Survey Questions Can Increase Survey Data Quality

Survey research is critical to the development of knowledge and market insight in hospitality and tourism. Survey research quality depends on the willingness of respondents to participate, and this is decreasing. The recent development of dynamic, interactive online survey question formats may contribute to solving this problem by making surveys more engaging for respondents. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study which compares traditional and dynamic interactive answer formats using objective and subjective assessment criteria. Results indicate that using a simple dynamic, interactive question in a study on tourism and quality of life improved the objective quality of the data and made the survey experience easier and more fun for respondents, thus leading to higher quality data for users of market research on this topic. Given the wide variety of dynamic question formats, users of market research data need to, however, assess on a case-by-case basis if survey questions are merely more entertaining or whether they indeed increase the validity of data.     

旅游客源市场抽样调查信息有效化途径研究

旅游客源市场调查是获取旅游市场基础资料与信息的重要途径,多采用抽样调查方法完成,因此,抽样调查获取的信息有效性是旅游市场研究科学性的前提与基础.在抽样调查具体实施过程中,发现该方法在信息有效性方面存在不尽完美的地方,需要加以研究与改进.本文在细致考察旅游客源市场特殊性的基础上,对旅游客源市场抽样调查信息有效化途径进行分析,提炼了一套技术线路,提出多时空配比抽样调查方法,以提高旅游客源市场抽样调查信息有效性,为旅游业发展提供可靠的市场信息支持.     

Nostalgic Tourism

This article presents exploratory research that focuses on a segment of cultural consumers who possess a yearning to connect with their ancestry. The article presents a conceptual framework to better understand the market segments within the cultural tourism industry and argues for the need to better understand and study the segment of consumers who rely on tours to search for their own ancestral roots. A multimethod study conducted over the course of a 23‐day bus tour is presented. Observational, interview, and survey data gathered from tourists of British and Irish descent are used to test the proposed relationships.     

When rich pictorial information backfires: The interactive effects of pictures and psychological distance on evaluations of tourism products

Using data from five studies (i.e., a pilot study and four experiments), we examine the interactive effects of pictures and psychological proximity on consumers' evaluation of tourism products. The extant literature has suggested that providing rich pictorial information or construing a psychologically proximal tourism product can independently increase consumers’ generation of mental images and render a positive attitudinal judgment. However, our findings on the effectiveness of these two strategies in combination are mixed. Specifically, we find that if the tourism product is a psychologically distal one, consumers evaluate it more favorably when rich pictorial information is provided than when the information is not available. If the product is a psychologically proximal one, the reverse is true. Our findings, therefore, suggest an important situation that might be intriguing to both tourism product managers and advertisers --when rich pictorial information backfires.     

The stratification of professional sports following: social position and the consumption of major professional sports leagues in Canada

ABSTRACT

The existence, nature, and social make-up of the cultural omnivore has been a topic of consistent scholarly inquiry in recent decades. Studies exist examining these dynamics both across cultural fields (inter-domain) and fully within them (intra-domain). However, even as one of the most culturally salient domains of leisure, sport is often relegated to the side-lines of these debates. This study sets out to analyse the leisure ‘following’ of professional sports. Using large-scale survey data from Canada, and employing a variety of statistical methods, this paper finds numerous distinct omnivorous categories, as well as a univorous group of professional sports consumers. The results reveal that the omnivorous groups have elevated levels of cultural and economic capital. However, it is two more selective omnivorous profiles, rather than the most omnivorous group, that show the highest concentration of cultural and economic capital. These results shed doubt on the status of intra-domain omnivores by volume as the consumption profile of high status groups. This paper also presents gendered results from these consumption groups in the first large scale investigation of female professional sports following in Canada or elsewhere.     

The effect of 99-ending calories and anticipated guilt on restaurant menu development strategy

This study focused on the “just below calorie labeling (e.g., 199 vs. 200)” effect on consumers’ responses to purchasing indulgent foods. Based on the price context (e.g., $10.00 vs. $9.99), this study conducted a scenario-based online survey and found the interaction effect between anticipated guilt and the left-digit calorie effect to predict restaurant consumers’ choice of indulgent foods (i.e., hamburger advertisement with its calorie information, such as 399 vs. 400). The empirical findings showed that the calorie amount manipulation led to different levels of anticipated guilt for ordering the food and beliefs in the food’s calorie information (i.e., 399 < 400 calories) regardless of consumers’ level of health-related personal value.     

Social Media as a New Play in a Marketing Channel Strategy: Evidence from Taiwan Travel Agencies' Blogs

With social media playing an increasingly important role in marketing strategies for travel agencies, this study explores travel agencies that develop their own travel blogs as a marketing channel in order to differentiate their products or services and their strategic performances. The paper herein adopts a two-stage research design, with the first stage developing a three-round Delphi research. According to this research, Taiwanese travel agencies consider four external environment forces, five internal motivations for investment, four developing differentiated strategies, and four channel performance measurement indicators for managing travel agencies' own blogs as a marketing channel. The second stage explores a quantitative survey, Structural Equation Modeling, with the structural equation testing the business model of a travel blog marketing channel strategy. Finally, the findings provide innovative approaches for effectively exploiting differentiated marketing channel strategies when targeting maximum profits.     

Application of the extended VBN theory to understand consumers’ decisions about green hotels

An increasing number of hotels are altering their operations proactively to include more environmentally friendly practices. Despite the greater interest in consumers’ green behaviors, the theoretical application of the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory has been used only rarely to investigate consumers’ intentions to visit a green hotel. The purpose of this study was to expand existing knowledge of hotel consumers’ green behaviors by developing and testing an extended VBN theory used in the hospitality literature. More specifically, this study incorporated subjective norms and green trust into the original VBN model as a theoretical framework to understand comprehensively consumers’ decision-making processes with respect to their intentions to visit a green hotel. A web-based survey was used to collect data from a convenience sample of faculty members working at an institution of higher education in the Midwestern United States who have been lodging consumers. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses. The results showed that all but subjective norms were successful in explaining consumers’ decision-making processes regarding their intentions to visit a green hotel. The results can assist hotel managers in the adoption and implementation of hotel operations based on the needs of environmentally conscious consumers.     

Analysis of the perceived value of online tourism reviews: Influence of readability and reviewer characteristics

Online reviews provide additional product information to reduce uncertainty. Hence, consumers often rely on online reviews to form purchase decisions. However, an explosion of online reviews brings the problem of information overload to individuals. Identifying reviews containing valuable information from large numbers of reviews becomes increasingly important to both consumers and companies, especially for experience products, such as attractions. Several online review platforms provide a function for readers to rate a review as “helpful” when it contains valuable information. Different from consumers, companies want to detect potential valuable reviews before they are rated to avoid or promote their negative or positive influence, respectively. Using online attraction review data retrieved from TripAdvisor, we conduct a two-level empirical analysis to explore factors that affect the value of reviews. We introduc a negative binomial regression model at a review level to explore the effects of the actual reviews. Subsequently, we apply a Tobit regression model at the reviewer level to investigate the effects of reviewer characteristics inferred from properties of historical rating distribution. The empirical analysis results indicate that both text readability and reviewer characteristics affect the perceived value of reviews. These findings have direct implications for attraction managers in their improved identification of potential valuable reviews.     

An analysis of information overload with implications for survey design research

Abstract

A laboratory‐type experiment was conducted to examine potential information overload causes and solutions. It was found that both information quantity and information complexity are potential causes of information overload. The experiment results also suggested that information overload problems may be reduced through carefully designed information display patterns. When designing survey questionnaires, attention must be given to potential causes of information overload. Methods of presenting information that ameliorate information overload must also be considered. As demonstrated in this study, survey designs can be tested in controlled, laboratory‐type experiments. The results of these experiments can then be used to improve the design of field survey questionnaires.     

A critical review of determinants of information search behavior and utilization of online reviews in decision making process (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

This conceptual paper provides a brief review of hospitality consumers’ information search behavior and the factors that are likely to influence their information search behavior and their utilization and processing of online reviews. This study focuses on the factors such as information overload, confusion, information processing, information presentation format, trust and evaluation mode that has not received much attention from hospitality scholars in addition to discussing the impacts of perceived risk and familiarity on information search and information processing approaches utilized by hospitality consumers. This study also discusses opportunities for hospitality researchers to empirically examine the extent to which each of the factors discussed might influence hospitality consumers information search, information processing and especially their utilization of online reviews in their decision making process.