Examining the efficacy of self-classification approach in segmenting special-interest tourists: food tourism case

Self-classification is used as an a priori approach to tourist typology and market segmentation. However, skepticism still surrounds its ability to incorporate the multidimensionality of tourist behavior. This study seeks to empirically verify the efficacy of a single-item self-classification approach. The robustness of this self-classification measure is examined by comparing it to a data-driven multidimensional psychographic approach in terms of its ability to predict the behaviors of tourists toward food-related destination consumption. Results suggest that the single-item self-classification approach performs equally well as the psychographic approach in segmenting food-related consumption behaviors. The implications and limitations of this study are also discussed.     

Business models among SMTEs: identifying attitudes to environmental costs and their implications for sustainable tourism

This paper examines how environmental resources and costs feature in business models of small- and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs). Several studies have pointed to the generally positive nature of the relationship between the economic and environmental performance of tourism firms. Yet, although business models act as a vector between these aspects of firm performance, they have been overlooked in sustainable tourism discourse. The paper reports findings from discussion groups of SMTE businesses in South West England during the global economic downturn. Environmental costs and cost control were afforded relatively little importance in terms of value creation; conversely, there was a strong and predictable emphasis on revenue generation. Indirect tactics emerged for dealing with guests’ environmental behaviours which reflected this prevailing commercial logic. Green credentials were routinely de-emphasized, sometimes regarded as liabilities, in a form of greenhushing. Responses were framed by reference to social media and how online reviews may negatively impact on future value capture. Conceptually, the business model emerged as an important lens for understanding how environmental resources and costs were valourized. The paper highlights the need to ensure that contemporary approaches to environmental management in SMTEs reflect the current and fast-changing conditions that frame business models.     

Construction and validation of a scale to measure tourist motivation to consume local food

Although the importance of the role of local food in tourism has begun to form an academic debate in the last decade, little effort has been invested in understanding what tourist motivations influence consumption of local food and beverages in a tourist destination and to develop a measurement scale for those motivations. Thus, this study adopted the comprehensive procedures of measurement scale development recommended by prior studies. The scale development procedure yielded a five factor measurement scale with acceptable levels of reliability and validity. Five underlying motivational dimensions of local food consumption were labelled: cultural experience; interpersonal relation; excitement; sensory appeal; and health concern. The outcomes and applications of the developed scale are discussed both in terms of theoretical and managerial implications.     

经济条件、人口特征和风险偏好与城市家庭的旅游消费——基于国内24个城市的家庭调查

旅游者的旅游消费支出对旅游产业的发展至关重要。它是旅游者的经济条件、人口特征和行为特征等因素共同作用的结果。但国内现有的研究由于多采用宏观数据,缺少描述旅游者人口和行为特征的微观数据,对旅游消费支出的影响因素分析有失偏颇。文章采用2010年对中国24个城市的居民家庭进行调查收集到的旅游消费数据,综合考虑家庭的经济条件、人口特征和行为特征,以家庭为单位,采用广义线性模型定量研究了影响家庭旅游消费支出的影响因素。研究表明:除家庭资产和收入外,家庭对收入的预期显著影响家庭的旅游消费,这解释了旅游产业对宏观经济的变动比较敏感的原因。它折射的宏观经济意义是显而易见的:当经济不景气时,旅游业可能是率先遭受冲击的产业。反之,当经济向好发展时,旅游业也往往蒸蒸日上。以户主年龄作为代理变量,调查还发现城市家庭的旅游消费与家庭生命周期密切相关,当户主年龄在25~34岁时家庭旅游消费支出达到高峰。此外家庭的风险偏好也显著影响家庭的旅游消费支出。借鉴美国消费金融调查用分类变量测度风险厌恶的方法,文章发现风险厌恶程度越高的家庭越愿意将大部分收入用于储蓄,从而相应地减少旅游消费支出。由于家庭承受的风险多数无法对冲,因此提高风险厌恶程度较高的家庭的旅游消费,恐怕单靠旅游产业自身还无法解决,需要保险业等相关产业共同努力来创造一个较好的旅游产业发展环境。     

The Scottish Path to Capitalist Agriculture 2: The Capitalist Offensive (1747–1815)

The first in this series of articles left Scotland on the verge of agrarian transformation. Although the nation geographically nearest to England, it remained in 1745 considerably more distant in social structure. England was the first state unambiguously to complete the transition from feudal to capitalist agriculture. Unlike England, however, those that followed did not have a period of several centuries in which to undertake the process. Lenin identified the alternatives that they faced as the Prussian 'reformist' and American 'revolutionary' paths. Scotland was to prefigure the Prussian path, where the feudal landowners themselves instigated the transition to capitalism in the countryside. After the final defeat of Jacobitism at Culloden in 1746, the Scottish feudal landowners were juridically stripped of the powers (military tenures, local jurisdictions) with which a section of them had threatened the British state. They were, however, allowed to retain most of their power over their tenants. With no remaining alternative but to adapt to the capitalist mode of production, they systematically used these powers to reorganize their estates along existing English lines. The speed and extent of the transformation that followed remains unprecedented in Western European history.     

The ideology of class and tourism confronting the discourse of advertising

Starting from Baudrillard's analysis of the ideological character inherent in all consumption, touristic consumption, for many reasons ,has a special place in this social semantic. Here, advertising plays an important if not essential role because tourism is a product consumed outside of normal time and daily social space. Therefore the social semantic asserts itselfless through the product itself than through its representation: the discourse of advertising. But advertising discourse is plural, each form having its own ideology, competing with others. Behind the commercial competition lies a competition of social classes, but with a new typology, no longer based on the capital/favor relationship. Four ideological models are analyzed and illustrated with their advertising messages: the traditional model, the clerical/executive model, the youth model, and the “intellectual class” model.     

What Would Veblen Say?

It has been more than 100 years since Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class (TLC). The book was a scathing attack on the greedy leisure class of his day and described how people used wealth to elevate their social position in society. Surprisingly, few researchers use this book to understand leisure in contemporary society. TLC remains as relevant today as it did when first published. In this essay I elucidate some of Veblen's ideas and show how they shed light on leisure spending, emulation among birdwatchers, our display of books, boundary maintenance and social distance, and environmental destruction.     

中国收入分配结构演变对国内旅游消费的影响

国内旅游是成熟旅游业的主体，其发展与经济水平高度相关。本文从居民收入及其分配结构演变角度，对20年来中国国内旅游消费及其特征进行理论性分析。     

闲暇经济理论综述及最新进展

随着国外发达国家相继进入后工业化社会,闲暇经济理论尽管还远未成型,但已经成为国外经济研究的新兴课题,本文按照闲暇经济理论的发展历史和研究方向,从两个方向综述了该理论的内容,一是依据对不同类型闲暇时间的研究来进行综述,二是在此基础上从闲暇被引入进各类函数和经济系统的角度综述了相关研究的主要成果.     

华北地区近期用电量与经济增长反向的分析

分析了华北地区2009年一季度用电量负增长与经济正增长的原因。结论为投资和消费的高位增长支撑了经济增长的较高水平;出口和以高耗能为主的重工业产品产量的快速下滑是用电量负增长的主要原因,大宗商品价格暴跌后的去库存化过程加剧了这种反差。金融危机时期用电量负增长而经济正增长的反向现象是华北地区高耗能工业为主经济结构的必然反映。