The influence of artistically recreated nature on the image of tourist destinations: Lanzarote's art,cultural and tourism visitor centres and their links to sustainable tourism marketing

Can distinctive natural assets in tourist destinations be artistically recreated and used to improve destination image and attract more visitors? This paper analyses the formation of the tourist image based on artistically recreated local nature icons, and shows how those images can enhance the overall destination image. It focuses on the island of Lanzarote, a destination with its development based on promoting an environmental image founded on the creation of a network of multifunctional, high-quality art, culture and tourism centres exhibiting artistic recreation of its unique environmental assets. The methodology utilizes a questionnaire (n = 453) structural equations modelling approach in which the overall image of the destination is directly dependent on the image of the environmental conditions and indirectly influenced by the image of the artistically recreated centres. Results show that the destination's image is significantly grounded on the image of the art, culture and tourism centres using art based on Lanzarote's natural assets. They suggest that destinations have relevant opportunities to artistically enhance natural assets to improve their tourist image and marketing, that quality multi-functional visitor centres can be important within a sustainable tourism policy, and part of the emerging breadth of approaches taken by sustainable tourism marketing.     

The development of nature based-tourism in Tembarak District,Temanggung Regency

Tembarak District is one of the areas with abundant natural resources. That has an important role for the development of tourism that related to the increase of resource productivity in the context of economic development. But, there are obstacles related to lack of facilities and infrastructure and as well as the ability of human resources. This article aims to examine the concept of nature-based tourism development in research location. The result of this study is landscape image design that can support the development of nature-based tourism potential.     

Elucidating the relationships among destination images,recreation experience,and authenticity of the Shengxing Heritage Recreation Area in Taiwan

A destination's image and on-site recreation experience can be regarded as precedents of the authenticity perceived by heritage tourists. Historic images attract tourists to experience the authenticity of a heritage destination. This study examines the linear relationships among destination images, recreation experience, and the perceived authenticity experienced by tourists at the Shengxing Heritage Recreation Area in central Taiwan. In total, 536 usable questionnaires were collected. Analytical results indicate that the cognitive and affective images of a destination directly and significantly affect the recreation experience of tourists at a heritage recreation area. Additionally, recreation experience directly and significantly affects perceived authenticity. Moreover, recreation experience has a significant mediating effect on the relationship between cognitive image and perceived authenticity. We conclude that when tourists visit a heritage-based tourism destination, such as the destination under consideration, these tourists gain tourism image and recreation experiences, which strengthens their perceived authenticity of heritage tourism; as a result, these tourists are more likely to contribute to the development of heritage tourism. Applying this theoretical framework to research on heritage tourism further extends our understanding of the behavioural model of heritage tourists. Finally, this study provides a valuable reference for managers striving to develop heritage tourism.     

Photographs in tourism research: Prejudice,power, performance and participant-generated images

Photography has often been considered tainted as a source of research data, even in tourism, its natural habitat. This situation is undoubtedly a legacy of the prejudice that many social scientists held toward the use of visual data when the academic study of tourism took off in the 1970s and 1980s. Tourism research has therefore persistently favoured textual data over visual data. This paper argues that the power of photography to prove and move can be harnessed to bridge this theoretical and practical cognitive gap. Issues relating to the performance of photography, including those of timing and intent, as well as the speed of information exchange, need however to be considered when designing and implementing research using photographic data. This implies a need to review the 'circle of representation' of tourism destination images, as well as to divide participant-generated image methods into two strands: found photographs and commissioned photographs.     

Sustainable tourism and the question of the commons

Sustainable development calls for wise management of natural, built, and sociocultural resources in destination areas. Resources created mainly for tourism are used in time by the local population as well. Many others are shared in common with local people in everyday life. More often than not, resources are overused and degraded, as is the unfortunate fate of most ‘common pool resources’. When this happens, sustainable development is severely threatened: economic wellbeing declines, environmental conditions worsen, social injustice grows, and tourist satisfaction drops. This paper analyzes the central role that common pool resources play in sustainable tourism development, outlines policy design principles for their management, and offers future research directions.     

Sustaining the Physical and Social Dimensions of Wilderness Tourism: The Perceptual Approach to Wilderness Management in New Zealand

The dynamics of the tourism industry are well illustrated by the case of New Zealand's tourism development over the last decade. The number of international tourists visiting New Zealand has doubled in the last ten years to approximately 1.5 million annual visitors. Associated with this growth has been a significant shift in patterns of tourist demand. No longer do most tourists simply comply with established tourist routes linking the high profile scenic attractions. Rather tourists have demonstrated a preference for more independent and dispersed patterns of travel, including an increase in demand for settings that offer subjective qualities of wilderness experience. This poses a complex but intriguing management challenge. If wilderness recreation involves pristine natural settings in the complete absence of facility development and visitor management, then these resources are more prone to degradation so than any other natural tourism resources. This paper suggests that an understanding of tourist perceptions of wilderness is crucial to the management of wilderness tourism, and considers the application of the perceptual approach to wilderness tourism as a means of sustaining wilderness values while promoting the satisfaction of visitor expectations.     

Anime consumer motivation for anime tourism and how to harness it

Although a niche, the consumption of Japanese anime and related products is extensive and expected to grow. This study explores Chinese anime consumer motivation to participate in anime tourism. A mixed method is applied to identify travel motivation factors and to examine their importance across three levels of involvement (anime audience versus anime fans versus otaku), and as based on sociodemographics. Three motivation factors were identified: (1) Blending reality and fantasy, (2) Social belonging, and (3) Self-development, with the latter considered as most important. Results show that the importance of Blending reality and fantasy is higher for consumers with a greater level of involvement in the anime subculture, and the otaku is the most promising group in terms of tourism motivation. Recommendations for anime destination and attraction marketing are suggested.     

Diaspora,authenticity and the imagined past

Ancestral tourism in Scotland, a sector of the heritage tourism market sensitive to consumer personalisation, has particular propensities towards process-driven co-created experiences. These experiences occur within existing categories of object-based and existential notions of authenticity alongside an emergent category of the ‘authentically imagined past’. The latter of these modes reveals a complex interplay between professionally endorsed validation of the empirical veracity of objects, documents and places and deeply held, authentically imagined, narratives of ‘home’. These narratives, built up in the Diaspora over centuries, drive new processes towards authenticity in tourism. We conducted 31 interviews across 27 sites throughout Scotland with curators, archivists, and volunteers to explore these notions of authenticity within the ancestral tourism context.     

City Image and Perceived Tourism Impact: Evidence from Port Louis,Mauritius

Research suggests that the images residents hold about their community influence the political support for tourism. Yet, few researchers have investigated the image that local residents have of their own area. Borrowing from the existing literature on place image and residents' perceptions of tourism impacts, a theoretical model incorporating these two lines of research is developed and tested using data collected from residents of the city of Port Louis, Mauritius. It proposes four city image attributes as the independent constructs influencing residents' perceptions toward the overall impact of tourism development. These include social attributes, transport attributes, government services attributes, and shopping attributes. Overall impact of tourism development is considered to be a determinant of the level of support for the industry. Results of the structural equation modeling analysis indicate that residents' perceived levels of shopping attributes, transport attributes, and social attributes of the city influence their level of support for the tourism industry. The hypothesis relating transport attributes to overall impacts of tourism was not supported. The study provides some important considerations for local planners attempting to make tourism more supportive in the city.     

An exploration of tourist motivation in rural settings: The case of Troodos,Cyprus

Following the decline of traditional agrarian industries, tourism has become one of the most popular rural development strategies adopted by destinations. Rural tourism has been regarded for years as a means of economic and social development in rural areas; particularly, in destinations where tourism has been concentrated in coastal areas, rural tourism development has been considered as a means of diversification of the tourism product. The popularity of tourism as a means of development in rural areas is reflected in academic research; nevertheless, vagueness still exists over what constitutes rural tourism. Whilst several studies have been undertaken investigating the reasons for rural tourism development, little is known about what attracts visitors to rural areas. The aim of this research paper is to enhance understanding of rural tourism by examining rural tourists' motivations. Qualitative research, in the form of unstructured interviews, was performed with both the supply-side and the demand-side sectors of the Cyprus tourism industry to identify the factors that motivate people to visit rural areas. Research findings reveal that different types of rural tourists exist as respondents expressed different levels of interaction with the rural environment and varying interest in rural activities. Also, it was found that people travel to rural areas for various reasons, whereby often the main motivation is not related to the rural setting. Hence, the findings verify the complexity of defining rural tourism and create implications for tourism planners and managers regarding the interaction of destination-specific and personal-specific attributes in attracting tourists to rural settings.     

The Relationships of Destination Image,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions: An Integrated Model

Built upon the tourism and marketing literature, a conceptual model depicting the relationship among tourism destination image components, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions was proposed. A conceptual model consisting of six hypotheses was empirically tested using survey data from 550 Chinese tourists who visited Zhang-Jia-Jie, a major Chinese tourism destination shown on the list of the World Natural Heritage. The empirical findings reveal that: (a) overall tourism destination is reflected by both cognitive image and affective image, and (b) overall tourism destination image has an indirect impact on behavioral intentions through satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed before the article concludes with limitations and directions for future research.     

Destination Visual Image and Expectation of Experiences

A unique experience is the essence of tourism sought by tourists. The most effective way to communicate the notion of a tourism experience at a destination is to provide visual cues that stimulate the imagination and connect with potential tourists in a personal way. This study aims at understanding how a visual image is relevant to the expectation of experiences by deconstructing images of a destination and interpreting visitors' perceptions of these images and the experiences associated with them. The results suggest that tourists with different understandings of desirable experiences found different contents and notions of images inspired them to visit a destination. Several managerial implications are discussed.     

Computer Simulation as a Tool for Planning and Management of Visitor Use in Protected Natural Areas

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Principles on Implementation of Sustainable Tourism suggest that implementing sustainable tourism must include monitoring visitor use of protected natural areas and directing it to areas where the environmental and social impacts of tourism are minimised. Thus, sustainable tourism management requires information about the spatial and temporal flow of visitor use in protected natural areas to help identify potential tourism-related threats to the natural and cultural resources of an area and the quality of visitors’ experiences. Recent research has identified at least four ways in which simulation modelling of visitor use can facilitate more informed planning and management of sustainable tourism in protected natural areas, including (1) describing existing visitor use flows; (2) monitoring the condition of ‘hard to measure’ indicator variables; (3) testing the effectiveness of alternative visitor use management practices; and (4) guiding the design of research on public attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, using findings from studies conducted in the Inyo National Forest and Isle Royale National Park, USA, each of these four potential contributions of computer simulation to sustainable tourism management and planning. The paper concludes with an assessment of the limitations of existing applications of computer simulation to nature-based tourism and recommendations for future research.     

Natural soundscapes and tourist loyalty to nature-based tourism destinations: the mediating effect of tourist satisfaction

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of natural soundscapes on tourist behaviors in a nature-based tourism destination. A behavioral model depicting the relationship among tourist attitudes to natural soundscapes, natural soundscape image, tourist satisfaction, and loyalty is examined using structural equation model and bootstrapping analysis. Results indicate that tourist attitudes directly affect natural soundscape image but do not affect tourist satisfaction and loyalty. The natural soundscape image directly affects tourist satisfaction and indirectly affects tourist loyalty when mediated by tourist satisfaction. Positioning natural soundscapes as a novel tourism attractor, theoretical and managerial implications are presented.     

Market research in tourism : How important is it?

Even though tourism is probably the world's largest industry, only 5% of total market research turnover is in travel and tourism, indicating the relative underuse of research in the industry. The intangible nature of tourism and the lack of a truly free market place certain limits on market research's relevance, but the article suggests that the major barriers to its effective use are managerial attitudes and a lack of appreciation of how effective research can lead to increased profitability. In addition, the very areas where research would be most beneficial may well be those where it is most unlikely to be used: in understanding consumer motivations and in planning for the future.     

Midnight in Paris: on heritage and nostalgia

Heritage tourism has attracted attention academically and in the industry. We study how preference for heritage tourism is motivated by individuals' need to belong, which varies as a result of differential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In two studies, we measure this natural manipulation of need to belong and study its impact in a quasi-experimental manner. We find that need to belong affects preference for heritage tourism through its effect on nostalgic feeling. Individuals with higher need to belong have higher state nostalgia and prefer heritage tourism that may help satisfy their nostalgic yearning. In addition, we identify the moderating role of trait nostalgia proneness. Individuals who are more nostalgia-prone are more susceptible to this need-to-belong effect.     

Residents' place image: a cluster analysis and its links to place attachment and support for tourism

While there is a plethora of studies segmenting the lucrative tourism market, limited attention has been given to identifying potential segments of local residents based on their image of the place they live in as a tourist destination. This study aims to address this gap by (a) clustering local residents of a tourist destination based on their images of that place; and (b) identifying whether those image-based resident groups share similar/different levels of place attachment and intentions toward tourism (support for tourism, intention to recommend it to others). Analysis was based on a sample of 368 residents of Eilat, Israel. The findings suggest the presence of three resident groups with different images of Eilat – called Nature Aesthete, Appreciator, and Critical – and provide support that these groups exhibit dissimilar levels of attachment and intentions/behavior toward tourism. The Appreciator (residents with the most favorable image) were reported exhibiting higher levels of place attachment, support for tourism and were more likely to recommend their place to others as a tourist destination than the Critical (residents with the least favorable image). The implications of these findings to tourism theory and practice are discussed.     

What No Pasties!? Reading the Cornish Tourism Brochure

This article introduces a conceptual model for the analysis of tourism marketing texts, and provides a social semiotic reading of the Visit Cornwall brochure to demonstrate how the model may be applied. The conceptual model provides an insight into how the cultural meaning of tourism moves from culturally constituted world of tourism marketing, to that of the individual consumer. By understanding how individuals interpret marketing texts, and how they relate to the signs and images used within tourism marketing, it is possible to develop coherent strategies that are tailored to market segments or groups, while identifying the significance, ethics, and validity of the discourses utilized within contemporary tourism marketing practices.     

地域文化差异对旅游者的旅游地意象感知影响——以内蒙古自治区草原旅游地为例

在旅游地意象研究中,学者们一直很重视地域文化差异对旅游地意象感知的影响。文章基于旅游地意象构成模型,采用主成分分析、方差分析等定量方法,以内蒙古草原旅游地为例,对比分析了内蒙古自治区区内和区外两个地域文化组旅游者的草原旅游地意象的认知、情感以及整体意象感知的变化和差异。研究得出以下结论:(1)两个地域文化组旅游者的草原旅游地意象感知都是积极正面的,草原旅游地意象在市场中发挥着积极的作用。(2)区内文化组旅游者的整体意象感知高于区外,但区外文化组却拥有比区内文化组更高的情感意象。在7个认知意象维度中,多数认知意象维度的感知都是区内文化组高于区外文化组。(3)地域文化差异对旅游者的草原旅游地意象感知没有显著影响。本文的研究对于同一文化体系内部的文化差异对旅游地意象的影响研究具有一定的参考价值。     

Korean and conventional medicine tourism industry trends as indicated in medical tourism advertisement images: qualitative research using data from medical Korea 2015

This study analyzed advertisement images targeting international audiences of South Korean medical facilities (traditional Korean and conventional medicine) participating in Medical Korea 2015 using thematic content analysis. The image categories most often used in conventional medicine were medical procedures, facilities, and staff photos, while those for traditional Korean medicine were medical procedures, staff photos, and images. Conventional medicine consistently presented high SERVQUAL tangibility scores, whereas Korean medicine displayed distinct associations between SERVQUAL categories and image size. Analyses suggested specialty preference by language. These findings may be used to recognize key messages in medical tourism and contribute to its systematic promotion.

Abbreviations: KHIDI: Korea health industry development institute; SERVQUAL: service quality