The development of a destination brand identity: a story of stakeholder collaboration

Literature has demonstrated the central role of stakeholders and collaboration in destination branding. However, empirical studies on stakeholder interactions and their dynamics in destination and place branding are still rare. The objective of this study is to examine how different kinds of factors and internal stakeholders’ actions contribute to destination brand identity development. Drawing from social identity and place branding theories, and empirical research from a ski destination, we identify five factors and four actions contributing to the destination brand identity development process. Our findings indicate that a strong informal stakeholder group can take the leadership in brand development and that the role of the destination marketing organisation might be overemphasised in the literature on destination marketing and management.     

Why Do They Keep Coming Back? The Effect of Push Motives vs. Pull Motives,and Attribute Satisfaction on Repeat Visitation of Tourist Destinations

We conjecture that attribute satisfaction, push motives and pull motives will be positively related to return visitation of tourist destinations. We also hypothesize that push factors will be stronger related to return visitation of tourist destinations than pull factors, both directly and indirectly as mediators of the relationship between attribute satisfaction and return visitation. In addition, we predict that age and gender will moderate the effect of push and pull factors on repeat visitation. Finally, we argue that push factors and pull factors will be mutually reinforcing. To test these hypotheses, we conducted an online survey of repeat tourists’ motives, and received 986 complete responses. Survey participants were randomly chosen from a group that met a series or qualifying questions. PLS-SEM analysis of the data showed that, as we hypothesized, attribute satisfaction and push motives were positively related to repeat visitation. In contrast, pull motives were not related to repeat visitation, either directly or indirectly, but did reinforce the effect of push motives; gender did not moderate either push or pull motives and age moderated only pull motives. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Promoting Tourism,Projecting Power: The Role of Television Commercials

This paper analyzes television commercials (TVCs) launched by Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) from 1999 to 2012. By repeating shots of traditional and Korean popular (k-pop) culture, high-tech machinery, and sportsmanship, it is fair to say that Korean tourism TVCs both reflected and fueled the fad a target audience has for Korea. Hence the commercials not only promoted tourism, they were also projecting national power in general and cultural power in particular. It is surmised that through power projection the TVCs intend to create a country halo effect so that the country’s products and services may enjoy an aspired added value.     

Exploring factors determining the attractiveness of railway tourism

This study explored experts' opinions on the determinants of railway tourism attractiveness (RTA). The results showed the provision of heritage railway attractions, both on-board and off-board, constitutes an essential and important component of railway tourism experience, whereas the smoothness and comfort of a rail journey play a supporting role in enhancing RTA. It is concluded that Taiwan has long history with railroads and the historical values connected to rail infrastructure represent a unique part of railway tourism experience. The integration of those assets would diversify its tourism offerings and enhance its profile as one of Asia's leading tourism destinations.     

Analysis of congress destinations' competitiveness using importance performance competitor analysis

To be competitive and successful in congress tourism, destinations must learn which congress tourism-related attributes are important and how they perform against their main competitors. This study identifies the importance and performance of destination attributes in Antalya, Turkey, and compares the position of these attributes to those of its main rival in congress tourism, ?stanbul. Importance performance competitor analysis results show that, according to domestic participants, Antalya has to focus on “sight-seeing and cultural attractions” and “outside entertainment.” For international participants, “climate,” “choice of meeting and housing properties,” and “suitability of conference facilities” exhibit higher performance in Antalya than ?stanbul.     

Investigating the moderating effect of information sources on cruise tourist behaviour in a port of call

The aim of the study is to examine how destination knowledge acquired by cruisers through different information sources (online versus others) can moderate destination image formation and the relationship of image–satisfaction–behavioural intentions in a port of call. A multiple group analysis with partial least square method was carried out using data collected from a major tourism destination in Spain: Valencia. The findings revealed knowledge acquired through different information sources is a moderator of the image–satisfaction and satisfaction–behavioural intention relationships. The destination image formation is also significantly different from one group to the other. The findings of this study have a number of practical implications.     

Where to vacation? An agent-based approach to modelling tourist decision-making process

Agent-based models (ABMs) are becoming more relevant in social simulation due to the potential to model complex phenomena that emerge from individual interactions. In tourism research, complexity is a subject of growing interest and researchers start to analyse the tourism system as a complex phenomenon. However, there is little application of ABMs as a tool to explore and predict tourism patterns. The purpose of the paper is to develop an ABM that increases knowledge in tourism research by (i) considering the complexity of tourism phenomenon, (ii) providing tools to explore the complex relations between system components and (iii) giving insights on the functioning of the system and the tourist decision-making process. A theoretical ABM is developed to improve knowledge on tourist decision-making in the selection of a destination to vacation. Tourists’ behaviour, such as individual motivation, and social network influence in the vacation decision-making process are hereby discussed.     

Sport events and integrated destination development

Sport events are recognised as contributing to the development of tourism destinations, both through direct visitation and through destination image building, and yet they are not well understood in terms of their contribution to the development of destination networks. The development of the ‘tourism destination framework’ by Haugland, Ness, Grønseth, and Aarstad [2011. Development of tourism destinations: An integrated multilevel perspective. Annals of Tourism Research, 38(1), 268–290.] is supported by five propositions which are assessed here, in the light of the evidence collected from Sail Port Stephens and other published studies. Overall, the results support the propositions, and further suggest that sport events can become a mechanism through which destinations can develop products and services that utilise resources and competencies across several firms to contribute to destination development.     

Automatically extracting tourism-related opinion from Chinese social media

Existing tourism-destination investigations of Chinese texts remain weak, and no approach is available to realize Chinese context semantically and automatically. To resolve this, we provide a novel method based on qualitative analysis for studying the online opinions of Chinese tourists regarding the destinations to which they travel. Both traditional and simplified Chinese forums were chosen as the object of study. Spain was selected as a travel destination to evaluate the proposed method. After processing the natural language, unstructured Chinese content is analysed to derive the general sentiment and relevant topics regarding the destination through user comments on social media. The proposed method allows us to understand what tourists are interested in and how they form opinions about tourist destinations.     

Urban air pollution in China: destination image and risk perceptions

Inbound tourist arrivals into China have been declining in recent years, possibly in response to increasing levels of urban air pollution. To examine Westerners’ contemporary views on China as a travel destination, with a particular focus on air pollution, this research surveyed 600 US and Australian residents. An online panel survey collected data on cognitive and affective destination image, cognitive and affective risk perceptions, intention to visit China and key demographic variables. The findings show that, while China's cognitive image attributes were perceived positively, potential travellers expressed negative views about travel risks in China in general and about air quality in particular. Importantly, feelings towards the risk of air quality had a significant negative impact on destination image as well as intention to visit China. The research contributes to theory by highlighting the importance of considering affective risk perceptions in destination image studies. While some market segments seemed less sensitive to air pollution than others, this paper concludes that unless China proactively addresses the problem of air pollution, for example by seeking to stimulate positive feelings, international arrivals may continue to be compromised.