Spatial Pattern of Tourist Flows Among the Asia-Pacific Countries: An Examination over a Decade

The spatial dimension of tourism provides insights about travel demands and travel flows and helps destinations in planning, development and management. The last decade has witnessed a steady and rapid growth in the Asia-Pacific region's tourism industry, in terms of both inbound and outbound travel. This particular study aimed to: (a) provide information and explore the changes on the nature of travel flows as measured by the tourist arrivals among the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) member countries for the years of 1995 and 2004; (b) assess general propensity to travel among PATA countries using the concepts of Country Potential Generation Index and Gross Travel Propensity; and (c) examine the shift in the past decade in terms of the relative tourism generation power of PATA countries by comparing and contrasting the 1995 and 2004 indices. The results of the study provide an overview of the spatial patterns of travel flows and travel propensity in Pacific Asia region over a 10-year period. The study demonstrates that the functions of travel flows and indices are complementary and provide an informative picture of spatial travel behavior and demand.     

Cost Efficiency of International Tourist Hotels in Taiwan: A Data Envelopment Analysis Application

This paper uses the data envelopment analysis approach to measure cost, allocative and overall technical efficiencies of international tourist hotels (ITHs) in Taiwan during 1997–2006. There are three outputs, three inputs, three input prices and four environmental variables in the empirical model. The cost inefficiency of these hotels is from overall technical inefficiency. International tourist hotels in Taiwan have an average efficiency of 57%. Chain systems, non-metropolitan areas and occupancy rate have significantly positive impacts on all efficiency scores of Taiwan's ITHs. The distance from the nearest international airport significantly worsens their efficiency scores.     

Exploring Critical Factors of Macau's Heritage Tourism: What Heritage Tourists are Looking for when Visiting the City's Iconic Heritage Sites

Although Macau is widely stigmatized as a gambling paradise, its colonial past has left the city with a wealth of heritage and cultural attractions that can be converted into priceless tourism resources. Macau's status as world heritage city further creates opportunities for the city to develop its heritage tourism business. This requires Macau to understand heritage tourists whose needs and wants may vary from ordinary travelers. A review of the literature, however, indicates that most academic discussions of Macau heritage are from a history or conservation perspective rather than from the prism of tourism; because of this, the present study aims to explore, from a tourism perspective, the critical factors that are essential to enhance tourist experience when visiting Macau's major heritage sites.     

Too Much of a Good Thing? Visitor Congestion Management Issues for Popular World Heritage Tourist Attractions

World Heritage Sites (WHS) are often popular and primary attractions for a destination for many reasons, in particular the economic benefits they bring in terms of increased visitation and extension of stay. However, without active management to reduce negative impacts, such as congestion, both tourists and the host community can become caught up in a downward spiral of poor visitor experiences and degradation of World Heritage values. Accordingly, this paper examines the nature of congestion and its impact on visitor experience at two popular WHS attractions in Macao. It also provides some insights into Chinese outbound tourist behaviour and visitation patterns. These observations should be of interest to planners and site managers of popular World Heritage attractions elsewhere in the world as China begins to adopt mass international leisure travel.     

Overlooked encounters: young tourists' experiences at dark sites

This research note reviews the existing literature comprised of dark tourism articles and chapters mentioning children. Publications meeting the search criteria were few. Accordingly, we offer possible reasons for the scarcity of research on children in dark tourism, including the legal constraints when researching with minors, the academic risk in undertaking a new field of research, and the substantial expertise needed to engage children in studies. We conclude with the compelling reasons to undertake such research: to inform interpretation of emotionally provocative sites for children, to understand and mitigate children's psychological distress at dark sites, and to advance theoretical work on children as tourists.     

Selfie-taking as touristic looking

This paper reconceptualises the tourist gaze as facilitated by smart phones and social media, with a focus on selfies. It presents selfie-taking as a new way of touristic looking in which tourists become the objects of the self-directed tourist gaze. The paper suggests that the practice of selfie-taking in tourism is constituted by othering, stylized performing and producing/consuming visual culture of the self. Through these processes, tourists are able to ascribe the characteristics they otherwise associate with tourist sights onto themselves. Rather than fetishizing the extraordinary at the tourist destination, tourists seek to capture the extraordinary within themselves. Traditional tourist sights and attractions take on different relative importance.     

旅华英国游客O→D旅游客流动力机制研究

文章在分析目前客源地→目的地旅游客流动力机制相关研究理论现状与不足的基础上,提出了＂推—拉—阻＂旅游动力机制。然后,在10个热点旅游城市采用100分制6点等距量表,以537份旅华英国游客有效问卷数据为依据,对旅华英国游客来我国城市旅游的旅游动力中的推力因子、拉力因子、阻力因子及其权重进行了研究。研究结果表明,旅华英国客流旅游动力中主要有8大推力因子、9大拉力因子和7大阻力因子,推力在促动力中占44%,拉力在促动力中占56%,阻力相当于促动力的39%。     

文化创意旅游需求及其差异性分析——以上海世博会为例

大众对文化和精神的消费需求为文化创意产业的发展提供了广阔的市场前景,世博会就是文化创意旅游产业在特定空间高度集聚而成的产物.文章基于旅游者的问卷调查,从核心内容和衍生产品两方面对上海世博会文化创意旅游需求及其差异性进行分析.结果显示,旅游者对文化创意旅游需求呈现多元性、娱乐性、符号性、实用性和虚拟性体验的趋势.在核心内容的需求方面,旅游者需求较高的依次为:展馆、文化演艺活动和论坛;在衍生产品的需求方面,旅游者对特许旅游纪念品中的世博护照、海宝和世博纪念徽章的需求较大,对出版发行服务中地图的需求较多,对网络文化服务的需求度正逐步提高.分析发现,基于不同的人口统计学特征和旅游行为特征,旅游者文化创意旅游需求存在显著差异,主要体现在年龄和月均收入因素的影响,而性别、职业、文化程度、进园次数和出游方式的影响较小,文章并据此探讨未来文化创意旅游的发展方向.     

试论"主题山水"及其构思与营建

针对自然景观旅游地目前存在的诸多问题，借鉴“主题公园”的构建理念，本文提出“主题山水”的建设方法。认为应当在山水自然景观的开发、建设和经营管理中，提炼或塑造出一个适当的文化主题作为引力源；即在对自然山水景观的本底进行严格保育并使其自身的生态机能向良性方向发展的基础上，发掘或赋予其具有较高审美价值的文化因素作为整个旅游地的文化主题，景区内部的实体环境建设、无形氛围营造以及游程和解说系统均围绕这一主题展开，并以之作为旅游管理部门或企业的整体形象和经营理念，向外传播。并具体阐述了构建“主题山水”的思路和方法，包括深化、扩展和移植三种。