The empirical development of a taxonomy for classifying recreation participants based on their attitudes toward the public and commercial sectors

Abstract

This study examined attitudes held toward the public and commercial sectors as variables relevant to classifying the recreation participants. The data were collected in a controlled experimental setting. A taxonomy was developed which can be used to categorize individuals on the basis of their attitudes toward the two sectors. Discriminant analysis was used to place individual subjects into one of nine groups in the taxonomy. The discriminant analysis identified statistically significant differences in the attitudes of individuals who were placed into the various groups. Further analysis revealed that the taxonomy may be simplified by collapsing the nine groups into three groups. The three groups include: (1) people who have more favorable attitudes toward the public sector than toward the commercial sector; (2) people who have more favorable attitudes toward the commercial sector than toward the public sector; and (3) people who have similar attitudes toward both sectors. Limitations of the study, implications for managers, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Socioeconomic variations in perceived barriers to recreation participation among would‐be participants

Abstract

The effects of fifteen barriers to participation were examined among people who expressed a desire for but were unable to participate in a new recreational activity. Work commitments, overcrowding of facilities, and lack of partners were the three main barriers. The effects of barriers were not perceived uniformly across the sample but varied between subgroups defined according to socioeconomic variables: the people most likely to be affected by barriers to participation included the poor, the elderly, and single parents. The extent to which recreation practitioners can and should respond to these kinds of research findings is discussed, and several ways in which the effects of barriers to participation might be modified or alleviated are evaluated.     

Integrating Persons with Disabilities into the Work Force

Abstract

Despite increased innovations in rehabilitation and laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), the unemployment rate for individuals with disabilities has consistently hovered in the 60%-70% area for decades. Extensive literature reviews indicated that one of the biggest barriers to employment opportunities for people with disabilities is employers' negative attitude. The purpose of the study is to measure the attitudes of foodservice employers toward hiring persons with disabilities and to assess the effects of these attitudes on employers' hiring practices. The survey population was foodservice employers who are members of Oklahoma Restaurant Association (ORA), and a simple random sampling approach was used to survey 500 ORA members. Factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and one-way ANOVA were employed for data analysis. The study revealed a somewhat favorable attitude towards workers with disabilities among Oklahoma foodservice employers. The results also showed that prior positive working experience with persons with disabilities people contributed to favorable employer attitude. It was concluded that the more positive employers' attitude towards persons with disabilities employees, the more likely they are going to hire or continue to hire persons with disability.     

Company Values and Ethical Leadership

Abstract

Decisions and behaviors are influenced by values. Because people today have differing values, it is necessary for organizations to foster common value systems within their organizations if decisions and behaviors are to be consistent with the objectives of the organizations. This consistency is only possible if the organizations' values are identified, people are hired who are willing and able to embrace the organizations' values, systems of operation support the value systems, and management and staff are trained to honor and follow the rules.     

People with disabilities visit art museums: an exploratory study of obstacles and difficulties

Visits to art museums are a major component of culture and heritage tourism. This study focuses on the obstacles that Israelis with disabilities – 30 people who use wheelchairs or crutches and 15 visually impaired people – face while visiting art museums. The in-depth interviews revealed that people with disabilities are not able to experience the museum as they wish, despite museum efforts toward becoming accessible to all. Participants emphasize the non-physical elements of the museum environment (e.g. staff attitudes and interaction with other visitors), as being major difficulties in achieving a full museum experience. The study shows that visitors often turn the barriers they confront into a difficulty, nevertheless the struggle itself has a negative effect on the visit experience.     

Skills and Competencies Needed for the Hong Kong Hotel Industry

ABSTRACT

The tourism industry is one of the main sources of income to Hong Kong. If qualified employees provide better service, Hong Kong can potentially attract even more visitors. The training of new recruits and existing staff is therefore vital, but views on the value and the type of training vary amongst the stakeholders. This study of the views of hotel human resources managers revealed that they considered that people who were interested in developing their career in the hospitality industry must be prepared to start at the bottom. The hotel human resources managers strongly believe that employees must have a positive service-mind and commitment to the industry with a certain degree of working experience. Employers perceived these were important components to success for every member of staff, rather than having a good educational background. Such qualifications will raise the status of the hotel industry in general and enhance the status of the service providers as professionals.     

To Hell and Back: towards protecting our natural assets through tourism?

We have neglected our past and present, so that the future of our natural and built heritage is uncertain. Recent and current work, including an EU-supported joint project between the National Trust for the Cayman Islands, National Parks Trust of the Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos National Trust and UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum, are providing a future for natural and historical assets. We can now contemplate our future with a sense of optimism. We can imagine grandparents walking with their grandchildren, telling them tales of how their ancestors built forts with only their hands; school teachers leading trails of excited children through forests that have provided ecosystem services to generations.

The approach is to improve facilities for conducting ecologically sustainable visitor tours, with trained staff generating self-sustaining income; to provide and implement environmental educational and public awareness material, involving local consultations and designed to provide information to decision-makers, developers and planning authorities; and to implement conservation measures to provide increased protection for key vulnerable ecosystems.

In Cayman, one can send a postcard from a town called Hell. The preservation and sustainability generated through these projects is bringing the natural and built heritage a future, perhaps on a route to Hell and Back.     

Heritage tours and trails on foot in Hong Kong: towards a typology that crosses the tourist-local divide

Hong Kong's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 initiated intense interest in cultural heritage on the part of divergently positioned actors, including activists, the state, and entrepreneurs. Heritage walking tours have proliferated, providing a wide range of examples suitable for comparison. This article develops a typology of heritage trails and tours in order to consider how they are situated in relation to the tourist economy and local context. Theoretically it builds on insights in new walking studies and debates in tourism and heritage studies on the ‘tourist-local divide.’ The article relies on qualitative research conducted in Hong Kong, including participant observation and interviews, and a review of various secondary sources. The typology distinguishes between government-generated, market-oriented, and community-based heritage walks. Three key issues are discussed: the ways that tours and trails develop, how they engage with official and unofficial heritage places, and how they reference urban issues including state-led urban renewal and redevelopment. The article argues that, while walking in general is a format that is suited to both tourist and local visitor engagement, some trails and tours reinforce dominant narratives of heritage and urban space, while others challenge them.     

Ecotourism in Antarctica. The role of the naturalist‐guide in presenting places of natural interest

Tourism in Antarctica has seen rapid development over the last ten years, based mainly on the American market, and on special interest environmental discovery tours. This report discusses the key role of the naturalist‐guide in Antarctic tourism, and the importance of leadership, scientific knowledge, conservation and social skills in the work of a guide. The report suggests that the profession needs greater recognition: they have a critical role to play in developing sustainable tourism in environmentally fragile areas.     

Determinants of convention attendees’ willingness to pay for additional programs

Abstract

Prior to developing addition programs in a convention a convention organizer wants to identify attendees’ willingness to participate in the program. One of the most important factors which lead to their participation is price. Therefore, this study aimed to explore factors which can determine convention participants’ willingness to pay for additional programs. According to the results of binary logistic regression analysis, attendees who wanted to expand their knowledge and socialization showed a willingness to pay for extra programs for post-conference local tours. Based on investigating the significance level (p?<?.001) women showed a higher intention to pay for the extra programs than men did. Those who had their own company had a higher intention to pay for the 1:1 private golf lesson with a former LPGA star than did those who were working for a private company or others. Results of this study help development of additional programs in a convention.     

Adolescent Summer Camp Volunteers' Attitudes Toward Peers with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

This study explored the malleability of adolescent attitudes toward their peers with disabilities after volunteering in a summer day-camp. The Contact with Disabled Persons Scale (CDP) and the Multi-Dimensional Attitude Scale (MAS) were used to collect data in order to determine the association between volunteering in a recreation-based summer day camp and adolescent attitudes toward disability. After a covariate-adjusted regression analysis, contact with individuals with disabilities was found to significantly predict change in attitudes toward disability. Dyadic interviews were held after camp participation to provide additional sources of data with potential for deeper understanding of the camp experience for volunteers. The data suggested that participants perceived camp as a setting for the development of relationships with peers who have disabilities. These relationships further framed participants' understanding of the experience as fun, difficult, and resulting in perceived personal change. Implications for future research are discussed.     

An Assessment of Self-Selected versus Instructor-Assigned Teams in an Introductory Tourism Course

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this team-based learning classroom venture were to (1) assess students' attitudes toward and satisfaction with team-based learning; (2) compare students' attitudes between self-selected and instructor-assigned teams; and (3) make suggestions for team-based learning in future classes. Attitudes of students in self-selected teams were generally similar to those in the instructor-assigned teams at the end of the semester, although those who were in the instructor-assigned teams were initially more apprehensive toward the teamwork concept. The students' overall positive attitudes and the benefits of team-based learning warrant the use of teams to enhance the classroom experience.     

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.     

The Leisure Behavior Paradox

Abstract

The literature does not fully explore why some people do not like to travel for pleasure. This exploratory study uses a secondary database to explore those who respond that they do not really like to travel for pleasure. The study then profiles those who travel and those who do not travel. Implications for the travel industry are discussed.     

Where are the enslaved?: TripAdvisor and the narrative landscapes of southern plantation museums

ABSTRACT

This study examines two southern Louisiana plantation museums: Laura and Oak Alley, using a framework that stresses the narrative power and politics of these heritage sites. Located a mile from each other along the Mississippi River, they present two similar yet different narratives of the antebellum American South. Laura places more emphasis on the enslaved who inhabited the plantation than does Oak Alley, whose narrative centers upon the opulence of the plantation home – that is, ‘the big house'. This study explores what visitors take away from their plantation tours. Specifically, it examines their thoughts about how the enslaved are represented at these two museums. The study's data come from visitors’ comments posted on the travel website TripAdvisor. The object of the study is to gain a greater understanding of what visitors learn about the history of the enslaved on these tours and how they participate, along with site managers, in the narrative construction of the plantation and negotiating the divide between tourism as amusement and tourism as memorial.     

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.     

Packaging a Resort: An Analysis of Japanese Ski Holiday Package Tour Brochures

Summary

This paper examines the characteristics of contemporary Japanese package tourism, through an analysis of tour brochures. The brochures are analyzed in terms of functional components of the tours, as well as the visual images that are represented. Drawing on a sample of 15 brochures that contain winter ski package holidays for Japanese travelers in Whistler, British Columbia (Canada), this study identifies several key elements in the promotion of Japanese package tourism. These elements include the lean and flexible nature of the functional components of package tours, and the use of both concrete, and abstract images of tourists and tour experiences in the brochures.     

中国老年人出国旅游需求与制终——基于北京中老年人市场调查

老龄化背景下,出国旅游不仅关乎国家的国际利益,更关乎民生关怀、社会稳定。研究中国各类老龄群体出国旅游客源需求特征、制约因素。有助于这一市场前瞻性开拓的同时,更是为老年人谋福祉,有助于“健康老龄化”。文章运用主成分因子分析等方法对1044个中老年人有效样本的研究发现,比以往老年人更加积极的消费理念决定了当代及下一代老年人的出国旅游需求特征;除了自身、外在、惯常生活和消费理念制约因素以外,与中年人相比,老年人出国旅游更容易受到安全因素,特别是心理安全因素的制约;主观年龄与老年人出国旅游活动之间产生交互影响。满足中老年人的出国旅游意愿是其精神慰藉的重要途径。国家层面应尽快完善出境旅游统计调查制度。     

A probabilistic analysis of guided tours for tourists during the slack season

Issues germane to the provision of guided tours for tourists wishing to visit a particular location during the slack season have received scant theoretical attention in the tourism literature. Therefore, we conduct a stochastic analysis of guided tours for tourists during the slack season. We first delineate a general model that accounts for the common features of guided tours to city attractions and to other scenic locations. Second, we determine the long run fraction of demand that is lost to the firm providing the guided tours. Third, we ascertain the long run fraction of time that the guided tour providing firm is unable to satisfy the demand for such tours. Finally, we use the stationary Poisson process and show how our previous two general results might be used to shed practical light on the slack season provision of guided tours to tourists.     

Charleston,South Carolina Tourism and the Presentation of Urban Slavery in an Historic Southern City

ABSTRACT

Heritage tourism's depiction of slavery makes for an interesting study. Several years ago, David Butler published an article in this journal that was highly critical of the depiction of slavery by Southern US plantations during tours offered to visitors, indicating that these attractions “whitewashed” this aspect of their history. The current study, intended as an extension of Butler's work, focused upon urban slavery versus plantation slavery and the handling of the issue by historic antebellum houses now opened as heritage tourist attractions in Charleston, SC. Encouragingly, it was learned that these historic homes are doing a much fairer job of exposing their guests to the issue than had been noted by Butler's plantation tours.