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.     

Aspects of service-dominant logic and its implications for tourism management: Examples from the hotel industry

This paper introduces the concept of service-dominant logic as a research paradigm in marketing management. It does so in the context of tourism management’s need to engage with wider debates within the mainstream management literature. Moreover it demonstrates the importance of service-dominant logic in uncovering the role played by co-production and co-creation in the tourism industry. These ideas are developed in detail through a case study of the UK hotel industry that draws on new empirical research undertaken by the authors.     

Understanding strategic alignment for destination marketing and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games: Implications from extracted tacit knowledge

Major international hallmark events, especially the Olympic Games, represent a significant opportunity for marketing tourism to the host country. Due to the scale and importance of the event, the coordination between the Olympic organizing committee and the destination marketing organization of the host country becomes a knowledge-intensive and exceptionally complicated task. Analyzing on-site interview data collected from top executives of the two major organizations involved in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games (ATHOC and GNTO), this research achieved two objectives: (1) extracted and organized the tacit knowledge from both organizations to discover major issues concerning the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, and (2) identified the strategic alignment issues between the domains of Olympics planning and destination marketing and proposed a conceptual framework for the future Olympic host countries.     

Destination management organizations and destination marketing: adopting the business model of e-portals in engaging travel agents

ABSTRACT

Destination management organizations (DMOs) have an important role in engaging stakeholders in collaboration. Collaborating with stakeholders is useful for both stakeholders and destinations. However, it takes time and needs rigorous coordination to avoid conflicts with stakeholders. This study measures travel agencies’ attitudes towards engaging in online collaboration with DMOs for marketing purposes. It incorporates collaboration and technology acceptance models to predict the attitudes and intentions of travel agents using structural equation modeling. Data were collected from travel agents in Cairo, Egypt, using the random sample technique. This study will be useful for travel and tourism stakeholders and governmental marketing bodies.     

Destination Image and Brand Personality of Jamaica: A Model of Tourist Behavior

The study examines Jamaica’s destination image and brand personality, and how they relate to future tourist behavior. An integrative model of tourist behavior, involving destination image (cognitive, affective, and overall), destination personality, and behavioral outcomes was developed and tested for first-time and repeat visitors separately. In additon, qualitative questions about destination images and characteristics were used to reveal Jamaica’s specific brand image and personality characteristics. The study found varying influences of cognitive image, affective image, and destination personality on global image and behavioral intentions for first-time and repeat visitors. The qualitative responses revolved around attractions, culture, and environment. The practical implications are discussed.     

Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitor Bureau Websites in the United States

Search engines are playing an increasingly dominant role in providing access to tourism information on the Internet. As such, it is argued that destination marketing organizations (DMOs) must have a substantial understanding of the visibility in search engines in order to create competitive positions within this important marketplace. The goal of this study was to develop a process to assess the visibility of DMO websites in one of the major search engines (i.e., Google). A set of 18 cities in the United States were selected to be used as case studies of the visibility of their convention and visitor bureau (CVB) websites in relation to travel queries identified using Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The results indicate that there are substantial differences in the relative positions of CVB websites on Google. In particular, there seems to be huge gaps among the search domains within CVB websites in terms of their visibility to online travelers and volume of search within those domains. This study offers a number of implications for research and practice of search engine marketing for tourism destinations.     

Change or perish: Examining the role of human capital and dynamic marketing capabilities in the hospitality sector

Many researchers have endeavored to explain which factors contribute to sustainable competitive advantage. Toward this end, this study contributes to the marketing and hospitality management literature by providing empirical evidence on how human capital, dynamic marketing capabilities, and market dynamism influence competitive advantage in the hotel sector. We collected cross-sectional survey data from marketing and sales managers in 165 hotels, along with in-depth interviews in three hotels, based in four Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, namely, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The findings reveal that human capital directly, and indirectly through dynamic marketing capabilities, plays a critical role on developing competitive advantage. To contextualize this role, our research reveals that market dynamism moderates the mediated relationship between human capital and competitive advantage via market sensing capabilities. We discuss how the findings offer theoretical and managerial implications for the development of competitive advantage in the hotel sector.     

旅游地日常生活的康复性意义研究——以丽江古城为例

健康是人类关注的永恒话题,旅游和健康本源上存在密切联系,近年来已成为旅游学及其交叉学科关注的研究热点。旅游地如何促进旅游者健康体验、幸福感甚至社会福祉,是亟待回答的学理和实践命题。基于此,文章将旅游地日常生活与旅游者健康体验联系起来,以丽江古城客栈主与旅游者为研究对象,通过深度访谈和参与式观察,明晰旅游情境中日常生活对于旅游者主观健康体验的积极作用。研究发现:(1)旅游地从空间、时间、社会实践3个维度营造了特定时空中的生活新范式与典范形态,建构了环境、日常生活与健康交互新面向;(2)旅游地日常生活为旅游者提供了物质、社会和心理多重资源,形成了生理、心理和精神、社会人际交往能力三维康复性意义结构;(3)旅游地日常生活的康复性意义是在旅游者与旅游地复杂性、动态性关联中建构的,并从生产与消费两端对康复性意义进行共同塑造与整合。研究从微观层面的日常生活出发,以实证分析回应了旅游、日常生活、健康体验之间的互动关联,为深入理解旅游的意义提供了新思考,也为旅游业实现美好生活需要提供现实指导。     

Quality of service and segmentation in the MICE industry: An approximation based on fuzzy logic

This article aims to evaluate the service quality experienced at academic conferences held at the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja in Ecuador. Our approach is based on fuzzy logic and ideal solutions to calculate a global attendee satisfaction index for specific market segments: Gender, nationality, and age. Current literature on the service quality experienced by conference attendees is still scarce. Our results show that the analyzed segments experience varying levels of satisfaction, and that the more influential attributes to each of them are also different. Our results can be applied to improve the competitiveness of Loja and that of Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja.     

Factors Affecting Tourist Satisfaction with Theatrical Performances: A Case Study of The Romance of the Song Dynasty in Hangzhou,China

This study, for the first time, attempts to explore the factors affecting tourist satisfaction with a theatrical performance, The Romance of the Song Dynasty in Hangzhou, China. Four factors are identified to have affected tourist satisfaction: “Performance,” “Venue Environment,” “Service,” and “Stage Facilities.” These theatrical performance factors are examined to assess the relative influence on tourist overall satisfaction. Tourists have the highest satisfaction with “Stage Facilities” among all factors; however, “Service” is the most influential predictor of tourist overall satisfaction. Tourist demographic and travel characteristics toward these four theatrical performance factors reveal several significant differences. Discussions and implications are provided to theater operators to improve tourist satisfaction with theatrical performance not only in Hangzhou, but also in the whole of China.     

"形象遮蔽"与"形象叠加"的理论与实证研究

旅游地形象策划是旅游地策划的重要组成部分。本文提出了旅游地形象策划的核心理论——“形象遮蔽”与“形象叠加”,构建了旅游地策划和旅游地形象策划的理论框架,对产生“形象遮蔽”和“形象叠加”的原因、形象遮蔽的表现形式、作用机制、空间影响力和如何避免形象遮蔽,产生形象叠加效应等方面,结合作者在规划编制中的案例,进行了详细分析和实证研究。     

Personal values and the theory of planned behaviour: A study of values and holiday trade-offs in young adults

Prior studies have ignored information inherent in the structure of people's values when investigating their impact on tourism decisions. This study examined how personal values trade-offs along two bipolar values dimensions (self-enhancement versus self-transcendence and openness-to-change versus conservation) impacted young adults' travel decisions. A two-staged survey of 299 young adults obtained personal values (at time 1) and value-expressive holiday preferences within a theory of planned behaviour (at time 2). Both bipolar values dimensions predicted attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control towards value-congruent holidays. The total effect of personal values on intentions was larger than that of subjective norms for both dimensions and larger than that of perceived behavioural control for the self-transcendence verses self-enhancement dimension.     

旅游地名翻译的范式、管理与文化生态意涵——从李祁的《徐霞客游记》英文节译本谈起

传统地名翻译的不足在于对语言转换的理解存在表征性的偏狭。本文从千古奇书《徐霞客游记》现存英译本所涉及的地名英译切入,通过汉语拼音方案的运用之于国家统一形象、地名翻译的范式及其变通以及音译、直译与文化传神意译原则之于国际交流意象,引出对旅游地名翻译的范式及规范管理可能的向度的探讨,并上升到中国文化对外传播与文化软实力建设的关系问题。