Recreation Specialization and Site Choice Among Vehicle-Based Campers

Recreation specialization theory predicts that individuals will differ in their physical, management, and social setting preferences. Few studies, however, support the hypothesis that individuals choose recreation settings consistent with their level of specialization. This study examined the association between behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions of specialization and site choice among vehicle-based campers in Alberta, Canada. Data were collected using on-site interviews and a mail survey. Campers at unmanaged sites (no facilities and services) had higher centrality scores, had greater familiarity with the site and more experience with unmanaged sites, and a higher level of bush skill than campers at managed sites. An ordered multinomial logit model showed that the more familiar individuals were with the site and campground type, the higher the level of bush skill, and the more important and central camping was in an individual's life, the greater the probability of choosing a campground type that required a higher degree of self-reliance and decreased dependence on facilities and services. Higher household income increased the probability of camping at managed sites, suggesting that income might limit the expression of specialization by constraining choice to affordable options.     

Using a Delphi approach to identify managers' preferences for visitor interpretation at Canterbury Cathedral World Heritage Site

Religious heritage sites have seen a remarkable increase in tourist visitation. To cater for the changing, and sometimes conflicting needs of visitors, many religious sites are developing interpretive plans to enhance the provision of on-site experiences. Interpretive plans are normally negotiated between the owners/managers of a site and an interpretation team. This study uses a Delphi approach to ‘negotiate’ owner/management preferences regarding key interpretive topics and themes to inform the development of a visitor interpretive plan for the Canterbury Cathedral World Heritage Site. Sixty-eight interpretive topics were reduced to twenty-one grouped under three themes: past, present and future spiritual development; aesthetic and architectural features; and the cathedral as a working community. The usefulness of the Delphi approach as a means to negotiate a consensus view of owners/managers' interpretive priorities and preferences within a planning context is discussed. Methodological issues arising when using a Delphi approach are also addressed.     

Mapping Cilento: Using geotagged social media data to characterize tourist flows in southern Italy

New sources of geotagged information derived from social media like Twitter show great promise for geographic research in tourism. This paper describes an approach to analyze geotagged social media data from Twitter to characterize spatial, temporal and demographic features of tourist flows in Cilento - a regional tourist attraction in southern Italy. It demonstrates how the analysis of geotagged social media data yields more detailed spatial, temporal and demographic information of tourist movements, in comparison to the current understanding of tourist flows in the region. The insights obtained from our case study illustrate the potential of the proposed methodology yet attention should be paid to biases in the data as well as methodological limitations when drawing conclusions from analytical results.     

Local and public heritage at a World Heritage site

The World Heritage Rock Art of the Sierra de San Francisco site in Mexico maintains some of the oldest and largest prehistoric murals in North America. The local ranching community is the custodian of a double heritage, the UNESCO-sanctioned rock art and their own ranching heritage. The rock art heritage is both tangible and public, known to and authenticated by professional archaeologists, while the ranching heritage is largely intangible and private, a lived and remembered experience known within families. As economic conditions deteriorate, the ranchers seek to expand their tourism activities to include their ranching heritage. Understanding their double heritage along tangible/intangible and public/private axes clarifies the challenges they face.     

Marin Držić: A Case for Croatian Literary Tourism

In spite of the positive experience with literary tourism worldwide, Croatian tourist destinations do not recognise the value of literary heritage as a potential key tourist attraction. This is not an indication that Croatia has nothing to offer; on the contrary, Croatia boasts of strong literary figures throughout history, in the fields of prose, poetry, and drama. Croatian tourist destination managers, it seems, perceive tourists primarily as consumers of sun, sand, and sea, and are not aware of key trends in contemporary tourism. Simply, they are far too complacent with the present ideology of Croatian tourism. This article explores the possibility of turning Croatian literary heritage into a cultural tourism product. Using the example of Marin Dr?i?, a Dubrovnik-born Renaissance playwright, it shows how a literary figure can be commodified, and how new destination image(s) can be constructed and communicated.     

The Great Halls of China? Meeting Planners’ Perceptions of Beijing as an International Convention Destination

This research focused on meeting planners’ perceptions about selecting Beijing as an international convention destination. Twenty-three convention destination site selection criteria organized into five categories were identified. It was found that, with respect to Beijing, the importance of site selection criteria has changed since the late 1990s, with meeting planners now attaching more weight to the quality of convention services, quality of convention planning assistance, and city image. The meeting planners who had previously held international conventions in Beijing attached greater importance to research and development cooperation opportunities and choice of accommodations than those who had not. They rated Beijing's performance lower on the convenience of the application process (required by Chinese governments) and government support. It was concluded that Beijing needs to improve most on the quality of convention services and convention planning assistance, and by relaxing government policies related to the holding of international conventions.     

Adapting Rubbish Theory for heritage tourism

Michael Thompson's Rubbish Theory explains how the values of objects change and that to understand how we value objects we need to understand ‘rubbish’, that is, objects which hold no value. He explained that most objects lose value after they are created and eventually become rubbish. However, there are some objects that maintain their value, which he calls ‘durables’. His theory explains how some objects move from rubbish to having durable value. When this theory is adapted to illustrate the multiple values attributed to objects at heritage sites, it is possible to explain how heritage tourism can result in conflict at a destination and how durable objects can lose their value, which is not possible according to Thompson.     

A Text Mining and Multidimensional Sentiment Analysis of Online Restaurant Reviews

This study aims to identify the structure of online restaurant reviews and examine the influence of review attributes and sentiments on restaurant star ratings. While past research indicated four attributes specific to restaurant reviews—food, service, ambience, and price—this study proposes context as the fifth attribute unique to online reviews. Sentiment analysis of online restaurant reviews has confirmed the proposed underlying structure of online restaurant reviews. Results showed that consumers’ sentiments in these five attributes significantly explained the differences in star ratings. Food, service, and context are the top three attributes affecting star ratings, followed by price and ambiance.     

工业经济增长与主要经济指标作用机制的量化分析 ——经济指标系统自组织模型研究

本文运用自组织数据挖掘方法,在经济指标系统中对工业经济增长的动态变化规律及其影响因素进行了量化分析,从而发现在经济指标系统中,工资总额是工业经济增长最重要的影响因素;减少农林牧总产值,对工业经济增长有较大促进作用;居民人均消费水平为经济指标系统的外生变量。增大工资总额,减少农林牧总产值,提升居民消费水平是提升工业经济增长的有效方式。