Anatomy of a flipped classroom

A well-designed flipped course requires a significant amount of planning and preparation, but has great benefit to both students and instructor. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide, one can design effective online and in-class components that maximize benefits to students. A flipped classroom allows students more time to interact with peers and their teacher, and collaborate with teams. This paper will describe how one tourism educator flipped an advanced marketing course, as well as the technology tools used in content creation.     

A proposed configurable approach for recommendation systems via data mining techniques

This study presents a configurable approach for recommendations which determines the suitable recommendation method for each field based on the characteristics of its data, the method includes determining the suitable technique for selecting a representative sample of the provided data. Then selecting the suitable feature weighting measure to provide a correct weight for each feature based on its effect on the recommendations. Finally, selecting the suitable algorithm to provide the required recommendations. The proposed configurable approach could be applied on different domains. The experiments have revealed that the approach is able to provide recommendations with only 0.89 error rate percentage.     

Perception of tourism development and subjective happiness of residents in Mashhad,Iran

Tourism development affects various aspects of a populace’s life, such as environmental, social, economic, and other areas. This study examines the effect of perceived tourism development on subjective happiness and quality of life among residents of Mashhad City, Iran. A sample size of 384 residents completed a survey. Data analysis was performed using WarpPLS. Results indicated that tourism development had an effect on the residents’ subjective happiness and quality of life (QOL) and the effects of social and micro economic factors on the residents’ subjective happiness and the effects of cultural, environmental, and macroeconomic factors on the resident’s QOL.     

The antecedents of tourists’ gaming spend: does the brand prestige matter?

This study endeavors to empirically analyse the influential effect among brand prestige, service quality, casino visitor satisfaction and spend. Data from 304 tourists who had travelled to Macau and had participated in gambling activities were used and structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis were employed in hypotheses testing. The findings demonstrated that both brand prestige and perceived service quality are determinants of satisfaction and gaming spend, and that brand prestige also affects service quality positively. Furthermore, past experience moderates the service quality and visitors’ satisfaction relationship, also service quality and visitors’ gaming spend relationship.     

Eudaimonic tourist experiences: the case of flamenco

In recent years, participation in flamenco, as a cultural art form, has gained momentum within Spain and internationally. Engagement in flamenco music and dance workshops in Spain has also become an increasingly significant tourism activity. Despite this trend, little research has looked into the nature of leisure experiences of flamenco. This paper seeks to address this knowledge gap by exploring how tourists experience flamenco music and dance courses in the city of Seville. Through a grounded theory research strategy in which in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 participants, the study reveals that four key themes characterise tourists’ experiences of flamenco. These are: the social and physical environment, which refers to physical flamenco spaces in Seville and tourists’ interactions with instructors and peers; secondly, the experience of challenge, characterised by hardship and sacrifice in the pursuit of flamenco; thirdly, activation of the sensual body or a sense of arousal; and lastly, an intrinsic and deep desire for self-discovery. The study demonstrates that the flamenco tourist experience strongly contributes to self-realisation and fulfilment of those who engage in it, or in other words, that the flamenco tourist experience is eudaimonic in character. The interview findings were linked to literature on self-realisation, self-fulfilment, true self, stress-related growth and related eudaimonic themes. Eudaimonia, or a sense of personal expressiveness and self-realisation, has not been previously established in this context. Therefore, the research findings provide a theoretical understanding of what a eudaimonic tourist experience of dance and music may look like.     

乡村生态旅游促进新型城镇化的实证分析--以西安市长安区为例

在生态资源富集又邻近大城市的乡村地区发展乡村生态旅游,能够有效地促进新型城镇化、助推新型旅游小城镇的形成。文章在界定核心概念并进行理论机理分析的基础上,以西安市长安区为例,对其2002—2014年间乡村生态旅游与新型城镇化之间的关系进行实证检验,结果表明：二者确实存在高度的正相关关系,且前者是后者的重要原因。因此,应采取有力措施发展这些地区的乡村生态旅游：第一,进一步加大政府对乡村地区基础设施的投资,彻底实现城乡公共产品供给的均等化;第二,引导民间资金、技术、管理等有序合理、规模适度地投入乡村生态旅游业;第三,务必加强乡村生态旅游业发展过程中的环境监管等。     

Rural tourism quality of services: fundamental contributive factors from tourists’ perceptions

Despite the importance of quality of services in the rural tourism sector, it is somewhat surprising that little study has been done to delve into the fundamental contributive factors that contribute to quality of services from the tourists’ perceptions. This is the first known study undertaken with a view to understand the fundamental contributive factors (i.e. climate change, carrying capacity, relaxation environment, and community support) from the environmental perspectives that link with quality of services in rural tourism destinations. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed to the tourists who visited four study sites from Borneo Heights, Sarawak, and 215 were returned and used for analysis. To assess the developed model, SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) is applied based on path modelling and then bootstrapping. Interestingly, the findings revealed that tourists are more concerned about the changing of climate and relaxation environment at the destination. They also agreed that community support plays a significant role in the development of quality of services in the rural tourism. This study further discussed on the implications of the findings, limitations, and directions for future research.     

Residents’ attitudes toward future tourism development in terms of community well-being and attachment

This study explores residents’ attitudes toward future tourism development based on their community well-being (CWB) and community attachment. Focusing on the case of Gamcheon Culture Village in Busan, South Korea, which was developed during an urban regeneration project in 2009, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. The main findings of this study are: (1) CWB is supported by five variables including income effects, social participation, safety service, infrastructure service, and environmental effect; (2) not only does CWB influence community attachment but attachment also effects residents’ attitudes; and (3) the most effective variable of CWB is income effect, and safety service for community attachment. These results can help to provide effective strategies to encourage residents to have positive attitudes about further tourism development in a community-based tourism destination.     

Sustainable tourism development and residents’ perceptions in World Heritage Site destinations

Set in Malaysia’s Lenggong Valley World Heritage Site (WHS), this paper uses stakeholder theory to explore the heterogeneity of positive and negative perceptions among residents and their effects on residents’ support for and participation in sustainable tourism development. Data from 221 completed questionnaire surveys revealed heterogeneous negative perceptions across residents’ age, level of education and economic involvement in tourism. Moreover, residents’ positive perceptions had a positive effect on their support for and participation in tourism development. This study contributes to the resident perception literature by using stakeholder theory to conceptualise the heterogeneity of residents’ perceptions and by examining the effects of those perceptions on their support for and participation in tourism development in a rural WHS destination in the developing world. Furthermore, the findings of this study have practical implications for local authorities aiming to improve residents’ support and participation in tourism planning for sustaining tourism development.