This study tested a conceptual model in which photo-sharing behavior during travel elicits tourists’ emotional state, and in turn improves evaluation of the tourism product. The research results in the context of tourist attractions and restaurants provide support for the proposed model. Specifically, tourists’ photo-sharing behavior was significantly associated with more positive product evaluation, both directly and indirectly via the emotion of pleasure. These associations were stronger when the interdependent self-construers had good social experience. The results provide (...) practical guidance for marketers to developing marketing strategy. (shrink)

This work aims to increase the consumption of online tourism products and promote the development of the tourism economy. Based on this, it first analyses the Internet market under the guidance of consumer psychology. Then, the influencing factors of online product decision-making for the tourism economy are discussed. Finally, based on the above analysis, it discusses and evaluates the main factors affecting the consumption of online travel products. The research method of this work is set based on psychology so (...) that it can analyze the psychological state of consumers more deeply and promote the development of the consumer market. The results show that the main factors affecting the consumption of online travel products include online travel platforms and user characteristics. Specifically, approximately 80% of users consume online travel products based on platform reviews, approximately 10% of users consume online travel products based on platform recommended content, and approximately 5% of users consume online travel products based on platform search content. Users vary mainly by age, gender, and region and have different preferences for different platforms. Among the four major platforms, Ctrip occupies the most consumers. The conclusion is that the main way to develop the tourism economy is to build a better online travel platform. At the same time, it is necessary to promote online tourism according to the characteristics of users and increase the marketing of online tourism products. This work not only provides a reference for promoting online tourism product marketing but also helps to promote the development of the tourism economy. (shrink)

Source: Author: Ahamed Lebbe Mohamed Aslam Nowadays, policy makers believe that the tourism is a positive tool for economic growth of nations because which helps to economies of countries by several ways. In Sri Lankan experience it was not statistically confirmed. The aim of this study was to test the nexus between the tourism earnings and the gross domestic product in Sri Lanka. To test this nexus this study used time series data during the period of 1970 to 2014, (...) and employed the multiple regressions model. In this study, the gross domestic product in constant price was used as dependant variable and exchange rate, foreign remittance, tourism earning, and inflation rate were considered as independent variables. Based on the regression outcomes, this study found that the tourism positively maintained the nexus on the gross domestic product in Sri Lanka at five percent significant level. ]]>. (shrink)

Despite the variety of banalities that are often associated with trips and vacations as mass consumption, the study of tourism – due to the commitment of social, economic, political and cultural energy - remains one of the predominant inputs for understanding contemporary society and the new social hierarchies that distinguish it. Tourism, which is increasingly seen as a process that has become integral to social and cultural life, also plays an essential role in the social and spatial dialectic that gives (...) meaning to the places. Focusing tourism through the lens of "productive consumption" developed by Cultural Studies, the paper moves from the assumption that responsible tourism can be analyzed in the broader paradigm of relational goods to explore the role of responsible tourism as a possible way of sustainable and responsible development.A pesar de la variedad de banalidades que a menudo se asocian con los viajes y las vacaciones, como el consumo de masas, el estudio del turismo –debido al compromiso de la energía social, económica, política y cultural– sigue siendo una de las fuentes predominantes para la comprensión de la sociedad contemporánea y las nuevas jerarquías sociales que la distinguen. El turismo, que se está viendo cada vez más como un proceso que forma parte integral de la vida social y cultural, también juega un papel esencial en la dialéctica social y espacial que da sentido a los lugares. Analizando el turismo desde el punto de vista del consumo productivo desarrollado por los estudios culturales, el artículo parte de la asunción de que el turismo responsable puede ser analizado en el paradigma más amplio de bienes relacionales para explorar el papel del turismo responsable como una forma posible de desarrollo sostenible y responsable. (shrink)

The current research is based on Senninger’s Learning Zone Model applied to the tourists’ comfort zone. This model was created in 2000 and it proved to be useful in many applied areas: Psychology, Sociology, Marketing and Management. This modes is a behavioral one and shows how a person can justify his action based on previous tested experiences or dares to step beyond in fear, learn or growth zone. Our research is extending the existent area of expertise to tourism. We aimed (...) at exploring whether the tourists’ apprehension toward choosing their next destination from a comfort zone perspective or rather from the other zones’ perspectives such as fear, learning or growth. To meet this purpose we conducted a mixed method: firstly a qualitative one, an in-depth interview based on Delphi method with 10 tourism specialists and secondly an online survey on 208 Generation Z tourists. The interviews were meant to help developing a 20 items scale to measure from which of the 4 zones are the respondents making the choice of the future travel destination. Our conclusions show that Gen Z tourists display behaviors that can be associated with learning or growth zones rather than the comfort zone. This is relevant when choosing the next travel destination, because our findings could bring about a new approach to promoting tourist destinations as part of various products. As a result, a large range of managerial tools can better adapt the promotion messages to the target market from a new psychological perspective. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for art historians and philosophers of art to deride the kinds of aesthetic experiences tourists seek out by characterizing them as bowing to the will of the herd, succumbing to peer pressure, or simply seeking out what is popular. Two charges, in particular, tend to be levelled against tourists. The first, which I call the motivation problem, contends that tourists are motivated to seek out aesthetic experiences for the wrong kinds of reasons. The second, which I (...) call the appreciation problem, maintains that tourist tastes are aesthetically uninformed and are thus the inauthentic product of aesthetic luck. But there is a better way of thinking about aesthetic tourism, one that can capture both the tourist’s motivations and the role of aesthetic luck. I argue that aesthetic tourists, like many experts, subscribe to the acquaintance principle, and that doing so generates aesthetic obligations to their practical identity. The tourist, in the end, is no more – and no less – a product of aesthetic luck than the expert connoisseur. (shrink)

For centuries pilgrimages are present in Christianity. For Catholics, the importance of devotions and visits to the Marian sanctuaries is indisputable. The number of visitors and pilgrims to these temples make the local economy an important destination of religious tourism. In order to understand the economic determinants of religious tourism, two sanctuaries were studied, namely, Aparecida and Fatima. Given the large collection of statistical information of the Portuguese Sanctuary, it was verified through the Vector Autoregressive model that Gross Domestic (...) class='Hi'>Product and Unemployment have a causal unidirectional relation with the pilgrimages. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag model revealed that an increase in Gross Domestic Product and international arrivals in the short term positively impacts the number of pilgrims. Through the Ordinary Least Squares regression, significant statistical relationships between climatic factors and visitors in the Sanctuary of Fatima were found. The Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average forecast method was applied to the number of monthly visitors to the Sanctuary of Aparecida and to the number of pilgrims in the Sanctuary of Fatima, the results show a strong seasonality and that the first and last months of the year are periods of low demand. The results of this study allow a new look at religious tourism in the Marian context, the empirical results allow those responsible for establishing public policies, tourism agents and the administration of the Sanctuaries to direct their actions. Measures planned and executed jointly between the various agents can benefit residents, visitors, pilgrims, the tourism sector, the local economy and the Sanctuaries themselves. (shrink)

Tourism, as an industry, has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy these days and has specific features that are different from other industries. In the tourism industry, production and consumption points occur spatially at the same time. In addition, the tourism industry contributes to the economic growth of developed regions and can simultaneously distribute the wealth created geographically. It is notable that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many challenges in the tourism industry (...) regarding the presence of tourists in tourism centres and the closing of all tourism service chains, including food, entertainment, transportation and travel services worldwide. Tourism-related businesses, which are considered as invisible export and one of the engines of development and occupation, have been rendered obsolete. In other words, the businesses, as well as multiple units and activities in the related chain, have been damaged and employees of this industry have lost their jobs. This has led to the recession and regressive course of the developing and large industry of tourism in the world. It is worth noting that the tourism industry includes various sections, the most important of which is religious tourism. All religions in the world have different religious places, works, traditions and customs, which have become amongst the most important tourist attractions. Meanwhile, Muslims and the religion of Islam play a significant role in this branch of tourism. The Hajj, pilgrimage to holy places and the existence of mourning ceremonies or religious celebrations of Muslims are amongst the largest religious tourism events in the world. Given the importance of this issue, the present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism in Iraq in 2021. This field study was conducted on 4500 Muslim managers and staff of restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, clothing stores and souvenir shops around the holy shrines of imams and religious places in Karbala, Najaf, Kufa, Samarra and Kazemi. According to the results, the tourism of Iraq, which is mainly limited to Muslim religious sites in several major Iraqi cities, has also seen a decline in the number of religious tourists. The negative effects of COVID-19 on religious tourism have also been proved statistically by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), as µ ≥ 3 has been counted in all indices.Contribution: Our findings offered new insights into the impact of COVID-19 on tourism, based on statistical analysis. In this study, the authors showed how COVID-19 affects various aspects of religious tourism, which has not been addressed in previous researches. (shrink)

Tourist destinations with cultural heritage have arisen as a prominent issue in tourism literature. Creating a positive image of the destination can influence tourists’ satisfaction and willingness to return. The goal of this research is to investigate the relationship between destination image formation (DIF), tourist satisfaction (TS), and tourist trust (TT). As a result, the structural relationships between local community participation (LCP), authenticity (A), access to local products (ALP), TS, and TT were investigated in this study. This (...) study used a quantitative approach based on a survey of 644 domestic and foreign tourists visiting the Guangdong cities of Guangzhou, Foshan, and Shenzhen. The statistical software SmartPLS 3.3.3 was used to determine the relationship between variables in the research model using structural equation modeling. The outcomes show a positive correlation between LCP, A, and ALP, which led to tourist satisfaction and, eventually, tourist trust. It is concluded that the DIF and TS may result in increased tourist trust. There is also a discussion of additional theoretical contributions, practical implications, and limitations. The outcomes of this study will help to shed light on the variables that encourage and promote tourism in developing countries. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze historical evolution, and perspective vis-à-vis prospects of tourism development in Pakistan, especially in the wake of ongoing CPEC projects. It is a well-known fact that development of tourism over the years has been greatly influenced by the overall human development, therefore industrial revolution led to the development of economic corridors, integration and connectivity among societies. Consequently, industrial society initiated the process of globalization and activities of mass tourism. However, owing to rapid technological advancements postmodern society (...) started looking for personalized and diverse tourism products. Travel and tourism is one of the leading industries that is contributing to the World economy in a big way. It has phenomenal economic impact including transportation, entertainment, accommodation and other related aspects. However, despite having an abundance of cultural resources, Pakistan ranks abysmally low on travel and tourism competitiveness index developed by the World economic forum. Besides hosting six UNESCO World heritage sites and host of other attractions, Pakistan is only harvesting 2.7 % from the tourism industry to its GDP as compared to its 10% contribution to World GDP. Thus, huge potential awaits tapping with commitment and ingenuity. (shrink)

Tourism is capable of distributing wealth and participating substantially in the economic development of many countries. However, to ensure these benefits, the planning, management, and monitoring of a sustainable offer become crucial. Despite the increasingly widespread attention to sustainability in this sector, however, the concept of sustainable tourism still appears fragmented and fuzzy. The theoretical frameworks used in many studies often reduce sustainability to its environmental or social aspects and consider such pillars as separate issues. Furthermore, although most studies acknowledge (...) that a potentially wide number of stakeholders play a role in sustainable tourism production, they have so far focused on host communities, tourism producers, or tourists themselves independently. Fewer explorations have addressed simultaneously different stakeholders, their perceptions of sustainable tourism experience, and the various concerns and tensions that may arise. This study aims to investigate sustainability issues in tourism by considering the voices of two relevant stakeholders involved in “co-producing” the tourism experience: tourists and tour operators. Based on a qualitative study conducted in Italy, the article critically discusses how travelers and tour operators craft the sustainability idea, the implicit assumptions that rely on their different perspectives, and their practical implications. The results highlight four different narratives on sustainable tourism, which are related to different assumptions on sustainability and actions legitimated to generate sustainable value. Finally, the article offers insights into how to develop a more holistic and critical approach to sustainable tourism through education and communication. (shrink)

Community-Based Tourism (CBT) has been presented as an alternative to sustain tourism development in developing countries. This tourism model offers local residents an opportunity to manage natural and cultural resources in order to promote local economy and generate greater benefits. The objective of the study is to investigate the benefits, challenges of CBT and solution to address identified shortcomings by studying Muen Ngoen Kong community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In order to achieve these objectives, qualitative methods; field observation and interview (...) were employed and qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis. The results of field observation and interview data from local residents were reported, analyzed, and discussed. To practice CBT, the findings indicated that several challenges; conflict over resource ownership and benefit leaking, financial issues, and problems of community participation had been experienced in implementation of CBT. However, abundance of tourism resources and security related concerns were identified as benefits of CBT in the area. In close collaboration with government agency, product development was recommended to create a unique condition for CBT and address shortcoming. It is crucial to involve local residents, empower the local community, conserve and cultivate cultural resources, and finally, maintain the sustainability of overall tourism resources. (shrink)

This article aims to explore and make theoretical sense of a stream of tourism that blurs the boundaries between sex, romance and intimacy, and diffuses the line between affectionate and economic relations. The empirical scope is the expanding international tourism of tango dancing—meaning the increasing number of people from all over the world travelling to Buenos Aires to dance tango and engage with the local tango culture. In contrast to women's sex tourism on the beaches of Jamaica and Ghana, the (...) relationships evolving in the Argentinean dance halls only occasionally lead to sexual affairs and temporary romances, but they are still part of a sensual geography made up of a transnational skin-to-skin intimacy. In addition, the relations between local dancers and tourists rarely result in economic transactions of sex for money; however, they engage with a growing market of intimate dance services and are part of the economic injustices and exotified projections of our post-colonial time. Hence, this article seeks to shed critical light over a broader area of transnational romance. The case of tango evokes new sets of critical queries regarding the trade of bodily intimacy and affection; the consequences of economic inequality in the area of heterosexual romance; and the production of class morals and racialised gender regimes. Through an exploration of these intimate practices, discourses and sets of emotions produced in this particular context, a complex landscape of market forces and close-embrace dancing unfolds. (shrink)

The rise in Study Abroad participation among college students has increased interest among educationalists wondering about the impact of SA on students, particularly when students return home without evidence of deep engagement and understanding of other cultures and people. The purpose of this case study was to locate one potential source of the meanings ascribed to the SA experience, through analysis of multimodal representations on the institutional website of a popular SA program provider. In this study, Kress’ model of multimodal (...) social semiotic communication was employed in the analysis of the ensemble of modes of communication on the website, and their role in the production and dissemination of discourses of SA. Findings indicate that discourses of tourism prevail over discourses of education, and the representations enacted on the institutional website are mirrored in the discursive practices of students. (shrink)

In the analysis of Shaanxi Red Tourism Development status and existing problems, based on the proposed development of red tourism strategic positioning, strategic objectives and strategic measures, through the implementation of the "1312 Project", that is to cultivate a red tourism capital, northern Shaanxi, Guanzhong , 3 large red tourism sector in southern Shaanxi, and 12 fine line, as the red following the Warriors travel to create a new ace after the Shaanxi tourism products. Based on the analysis of the (...) current situation of Shaanxi red-tourism development, strategic positioning, goals and corresponding measures of developing Shaanxi red-tourism are put forward. Through implementing the project of 1312, which stands for one red-tourism center, three red -tourism regions and twelve red-tourism routes, the red-tourism products of Shaanxi would become new trump tourism products. (shrink)

Investigating maternity tourism to the United States from Russia through the lens of technological mediation, this study foregrounds the geopolitical patterns of human reproduction that shape, and are shaped by, individual choices of maternal healthcare in a neoliberal healthcare market. Following the history of a highly popular Russian-language forum, I demonstrate how this online community gets imbricated into communicative biocapitalism – a neoliberal logic that commodifies the voice of an online user, turning networked publics into markets for medical services. Adding (...) to the literature on data colonialism, I explore a case in which data-driven algorithms effectively alter geographical distribution of reproductive bodies, outsourcing the production of new generations of neoliberal subjects through regimes of technological mediation. (shrink)

On the twelfth anniversary of the name of Mexican Gastronomy as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, its safeguarding continues in different contexts. Nayarit stands out for its natural and cultural wealth which is reflected in the local gastronomy, whose recognition attracts locals and foreigners to taste the delicious dishes. This text contains research results whose purpose is to document the cultural and natural elements that make up the gastronomic heritage of Nayarit with potential for the development of tourism products. Through (...) a qualitative, applied, descriptive research, historical sources were consulted and contrasted with the information collected through interviews, for the integration of a non-exhaustive inventory of the north coast region of Nayarit, which serves as a basis for the tourist product design. (shrink)

Experience marketing plays an important role in improving the quality and upgrading tourism services in cultural tourism cities and helps guide the planning and development, commodity design, and business management of cultural tourism products. However, the urgent problems that need to be solved are as follows: How does experiential marketing in cultural tourism cities affect tourists' consumption behavior? How to adjust consumption emotion in tourist experience and revisit intention? Starting from the experience needs of tourists, this study selected Jinan (...) city, represented by “Qilu culture,” as the research object; discussed the relationship between experiential marketing, consumption emotion, and revisit intention; and used a structural equation model to verify the relationship between the three. This study divided the perception of experiential marketing into four dimensions—sensory experience, action experience, emotional experience, and thinking experience, and divided tourists' revisit intention into two dimensions— “revisit” and “recommendation”. Totally, 305 tourists were randomly selected to participate in the questionnaire survey, and they came from 34 provinces in China. The results showed that cultural tourism cities can enhance tourists' positive consumption emotion through experiential marketing over time, and high-quality tourist consumption experience directly motivates tourists to revisit intention and then promotes tourists to go to cultural tourism cities for secondary consumption. These results suggest that cultural tourism cities should start from Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, pay attention to the needs of tourists at different levels, and adopt effective experiential marketing strategies from tourism experience to improve the quality of tourists' travel experience and promote tourists' revisit intention. (shrink)

Abstract.Agricultural restructuring has disproportionately impacted smaller US farms, such as those in Michigan where the average farm size is 215 acres. To keep agricultural land in production, entrepreneurial Michigan farmers are utilizing agritourism as a value-added way to capitalize on their comparative advantages, their diverse agricultural products, and their locations near large, urban, tourist-generating areas. Using focus groups, this paper illustrates how entrepreneurial farmers have strengthened Michigan agritourism by fostering producer networks through brochures and web linkages, information sharing in (...) refining the agritourism product, referrals to other agritourism businesses that serve different markets or offer different products, purchase linkages, and a regional approach to establishing agritourism destinations and increase visitation. Successful entrepreneurial, agritourism developers thus work cooperatively, rather than individualistically and competitively. Agritourism destinations facing stiff competition from alternative venues for leisure time and food purchases benefit from supportive linkages that help sustain a critical mass of producers who offer diverse goods, maintain land in agriculture, and thus, reinforce Michigan’s image for agritourism. (shrink)

“Mega” tourist spaces are named as such because of both their physical scale, which encompasses many square miles of land, and their economic scale of billion dollar investments and profit-making. The paper examines two of the most prominent examples — Las Vegas, Nevada, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Tourist locations seek to differentiate themselves using signs that distinguish one place from another through the symbolic mechanism of theming. This constant differentiation creates a sense of place for (...) locations that, otherwise, offer essentially the same product such as opulent leisure activities and, in the case of Las Vegas, casino gambling. The semiotic process of differentiation through theming façades and décor has become the major tool of marketing to tourists who can always choose from among many alternative destinations. This socio-semiotic perspective stands in contrast to the thesis, often associated with Michel Augé, of uniform homogenization as the aesthetic imperative of contemporary global architectural practice. Examining the distinctive elements of the sign systems in Dubai and Las Vegas, the paper argues that Dubai is organized under the sign of excess, while Las Vegas's semiotic is more complex. (shrink)

This study aimed to explain the development of tourists’ pro-social intentions during heritage tourism within the pandemic context by combining the norm activation model and two significant variables in the theory of planned behavior. The quantitative data analysis results indicated that the proposed hypotheses have been partially supported, which resonated and enriched the existing studies on COVID-19-related pro-social tourism and tourist behaviors from a theoretical angle. Based on the research outcomes, the corresponding managerial implications for heritage tourism practitioners and (...) meaningful references for future researchers to promote sustainable and pro-social heritage tourism products have been discussed. (shrink)

The tourism economy has become a new driving force for economic growth, and film-induced tourism in particular has been widely proven to promote economic and cultural development. Few studies focus on analyzing the inherent characteristics of the economic and cultural effects of film-induced tourism, and the research on the dynamic mechanism of the sustainable development of film-induced tourism is relatively limited. Therefore, from the perspective of the integration of culture and industry, the research explores the dynamic mechanism of sustainable development (...) between film-induced culture and film-induced industry through a questionnaire survey of 1,054 tourism management personnel, combined with quantitative empirical methods. The conclusion shows that the degree of integration of culture and tourism is an important mediating role that affects the dynamic mechanism of sustainable development of film-induced tourism, and the development of film-induced tourism depends on the integration of culture and industry. Constructing a diversified industrial integration model according to local conditions and determining the development path of resource, technology, market, product integration, and administrative management can become the general trend of the future development of film-induced tourism. (shrink)

The contrast between the nostalgic pictures on maple syrup packaging and sophisticated technologies actually used in the sugarbush and sugarhouse suggests disjunctures between image and practice in the contemporary North American maple syrup industry. This paper argues that although evidence of a “technological treadmill” exists within the maple syrup industry, as it does in other rural production sectors, such a trend is incomplete due to the increasing importance of consumption-based activities and concerns in the countryside. In response to the interests (...) of tourists, second home owners and other increasingly influential non-producer groups, “traditional” maple enterprises persist, demonstrating a logic and appeal unaccounted for by treadmill theory. By addressing growing consumer concern about the appearance of the rural landscape, the health of the environment, and the quality of food, these “traditional” maple practices can provide distinct advantages for producers over technological modernization. The tension between technology use and tourism in the maple syrup industry offers insights about the role of small-scale specialty agriculture for sustainability in rural areas of advanced industrial countries undergoing social and economic change. (shrink)

Since 1952, Spanish has been included as a Degree in the Foreign Language Studies in the higher education system of China. The number of Spanish students has gradually increased and, until March 2020, with 6 Universities recently approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are 102 Chinese universities that teach Spanish as a university degree. In 2017, the MOE of the People's Republic of China published the Curriculum Plan in the Higher Secondary Schools, which incorporated the teaching of Spanish (...) as a teaching option along with other languages, such as English, Japanese, Russian, German, and French. In the following year, during the Chinese President's state visit to Spain, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Royal Spanish Academy and SISU, under which a RAE-SISU Joint Research Centre was established. This study aims to publicize the situation of Spanish teaching in China, showing how a language can become a cultural and language tourism resource for Spain. An empirical study of student profiles was carried out at one of the most prestigious universities with reference to Spanish teaching in China, SISU. The data were obtained through primary sources employing a survey sent to the Chinese students studying their bachelor's degree of Spanish Philology, obtaining a sample of 159 students. The results revealed information on the studies carried out, also reviewing the most popular universities among the Chinese students in Spain, their stay period, and the destination image that the students have. The data will serve to show the opportunities for Spain as a destination for language tourism for the Chinese market. One of the implications of this study would be that it helps to explain how Spain can design a product for a niche market that demands Spain as a destination for language and cultural tourism. (shrink)

Poverty alleviation through tourism is an important way for China to achieve targeted poverty alleviation and win the battle of poverty alleviation. As a region with deep poverty and great difficulty in poverty alleviation, whether tourism development has injected key impetus into ethnic minority areas needs to be tested by both qualitative analysis and quantitative measurement. This paper takes eight ethnic provinces in China as an example to conduct an empirical study. Based on the Data Envelopment Analysis -BCC model and (...) Malmquist index, it evaluates the tourism investment and tourism poverty alleviation efficiency of the ethnic regions in the two stages of tourism poverty alleviation, and analyzes them by classification. The results of the study show: The pure technical efficiency in the first stage is relatively high, but the total factor productivity of each region is declining; The pure technical efficiency in the second stage is also relatively high, but the scale efficiency is low, and the change rate of total factor productivity of the provinces in China has increased significantly; The “double high” type includes Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, and Guizhou, and the “double low” type includes Qinghai, Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Ningxia. The results of the study generally show that tourism poverty alleviation has brought about the improvement of the living standards of residents and the development of local economy, but the efficiency of tourism poverty alleviation needs to be improved. On this basis, the article puts forward corresponding improvement measures, in order to further help the ethnic minority areas get rid of poverty in a comprehensive way by promoting the efficient and sustainable development of tourism. (shrink)

As a product of the tourism performing arts industry in culture–tourism integration development, to develop a featured culture–tourism town is a new trend for tourism development in the new era. To analyze the social benefit of the culture–tourism industry, in this study, an artificial intelligence model for social benefit evaluation is constructed based on backpropagation neural network and fuzzy comprehensive analysis, with Yiyang Town taken as an example. The criterion layer in the model includes three indexes, and the index (...) layer contains 11 indexes. The weight values of cultural inheritance and protection, ecological environment improvement, and commercial economy development to the social benefit of the town are 0.522, 0.570, and 0.424, respectively. For G1, 41.20% is excellent; for G2, 39.5% is excellent; and for G3, 40.5% is good. In general, 30.76% of the total social benefit is excellent, with 37.69% being good, 21.48% being qualified, and 10.07% being unqualified. It is inferred that the total social benefit level of Yiyang Town is good according to the constructed model. Therefore, the culture inheritance and protection, the ecological environment improvement, and the commercial economy development are the key evaluation factors of social benefit. (shrink)

Souvenirs play an important role in tourism development. They act not only as mementos, enabling tourists to relive and retain the memory of a particular journey, but also as main income sources for tourism destinations and stakeholders. Many intangible cultural heritages have been developed into souvenirs, especially products made by traditional craftsmanship. ICH souvenirs facilitate cultural value that is understandable to tourists, who appreciate the design of the ICH souvenirs and their contributions to a pleasure and memorable journey. Based on (...) the theory of beauty and the preference-for-prototypes theory, this study explored how symmetry design of ICH souvenirs influences tourist’s aesthetic pleasure. As ICH souvenirs development is a commercialization process, and over-commodification would lead to cultures being lost and tourists’ disappointment, the authenticity concept is applied in order to address over-commodification. Thus, this study analyzed the moderating role of tourists’ authenticity perception of ICH souvenirs. Two lab-based between-subjects design experiments were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Data analysis entailed multiple regression analysis, one-way ANOVA, and two-way ANOVA. The findings showed that symmetry of ICH souvenir design had a positive impact on tourists’ aesthetic pleasure. Under the symmetric-design condition, tourists’ typicality perception of ICH souvenirs positively mediated the main relationship, while under the asymmetric-design condition, tourists’ novelty perception had a negative mediating effect. The moderated mediation effects were in accord with hypotheses to some extent; at a relatively high level of authenticity perception, the indirect effect of symmetry on aesthetic pleasure via typicality perception increased as authenticity perception rose; at a relatively low level of authenticity perception, the indirect effect of symmetry on aesthetic pleasure via novelty perception declined as authenticity perception rose. This study identified critical factors influencing tourists’ aesthetic pleasure with ICH souvenirs, and it revealed the internal influencing mechanisms and moderating effects under different design conditions. These findings give some insights to ICH practitioners for using souvenir design to improve tourists’ aesthetic pleasure. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. Social distancing measures coupled with national lockdowns have reduced work opportunities and the overall household incomes. Moreover, the disruption in agricultural production and supply routes is expected to continue into 2021, which may leave millions without access to food. Coincidentally, those who suffer the most are poor people. As such, food security and tourism poverty alleviation are interlinked when discussing social problems and development. While the corporate interest (...) in tourism poverty alleviation is as old as the industrial revolution, little research has been conducted to show how social innovation can be leveraged to reinforce food security and alleviate poverty. Thus, this case study examines the food industry in rural China to establish how it conducts social innovation in food production and distribution to facilitate social development and mitigate poverty. (shrink)

Despite the widely disseminated assumption that metaphors are the key persuasive devices in promoting tourist destinations, specifically those located in tropical regions, there has been to date no systematic research investigating the use of figurative language in tourism promotional discourse. Using a corpus-assisted approach to the identification and analysis of metaphors supported by Wmatrix, this study attempts to establish empirically whether promotion of destinations culturally and geographically faraway does deploy more metaphors than marketing of tourist places “closer” to (...) home and what kind of conceptual mappings and metaphorical expressions are utilized. The results point to a significant increase of metaphor use in the descriptions of tropical destinations. Five domains—“BODY,” “NATURAL PRECIOUS ELEMENT,” “COLOR,” “TASTE,” and “RELIGION”—prove especially productive. The combinations of metaphorical expressions from these domains generate sensory fusions that appeal to multiple senses at once including vision, taste and imagination, and in doing so, potentially increase the “appetite” for “consuming” a destination. They also perform ideological work as devices in discourse that clandestinely perpetuates colonial legacies. (shrink)

With the improvement of the material standard of living, the demand of the people for spiritual culture continues to increase. In terms of tourism, people have gradually shifted from simple tourism needs to integrated tourism needs. Tourism has become an effective way for people to expand their horizons and enrich their spiritual world. Tourism is one of the first industries to apply network technology. After long-term exploration and innovation, tourism e-commerce has developed rapidly. Coupled with the advent of the era (...) of big data, the concept of customized tourism has gradually entered people’s lives. This paper mainly introduces the research on the impact of e-commerce tourism on custom tourism in the EBD and intends to provide some ideas and directions for the good development of custom tourism. This paper proposes a research strategy on the impact of tourism e-commerce on customized tourism in the EBD, including related theoretical research methods, random forest algorithms, support vector machine classification algorithms, and Bayesian estimation algorithms, which are used to customize tourism e-commerce in the EBD, and research experiment on the impact of tourism. The experimental results show that 79.84% of customers are willing to purchase related products again after experiencing travel customization services using big data technology. By using the various characteristics of tourism big data for data mining and classification, it provides users with personalized travel search services. At the same time, big data technology can provide basic technical support for customized tourism development, which shows that it can also provide customized services for users. (shrink)

Competitive advantage and core competency are the unique capabilities and assets of an organization to provide valuable products or services to customers, thus giving the organization a better competitive position in the market than its competitors. In addition, how to create a competitive advantage is also one of the main objectives of business strategy. Therefore, this study focuses on understanding the decisive factors in regional revitalization and the relationship between business strategy, strategic alliance, and alliance performance through small and medium (...) enterprises in Taiwan. This study selected a sample of 220 SMEs in Taiwan that had participated in the SME regional revitalization counseling program. The results showed that competitive advantage, core competency and strategic alliance partner selection had significant effects on alliance performance. In addition, core competency had an indirect effect on alliance performance through strategic alliance partner selection. However, competitive advantage did not have a significant effect on strategic alliance partner selection. Finally, this study proposes management implications and practical suggestions for SMEs’ competitive advantage, core competency, and alliance performance. (shrink)

This paper explores foreign travel as an affective experience, embodied practice and form of learning. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on tourism and pilgrimage in the Himalayan region, the phenomenological notions of “home world” and “alien world” are employed to discuss how perceptions of strangeness and everyday practices are shaped by enculturation and socialisation processes. It is shown that travellers bring the habitus and doxa acquired in the home world to foreign situations, where these embodied knowledge schemes and abilities for skilful (...) coping can break down. In a home world, cultural patterns offer actors “trustworthy recipes for interpreting the social world” that allow everyday experience to go largely unnoticed and unquestioned. In alien worlds, however, travellers – as strangers – encounter differences and disturbances that disrupt experience and cause things normally overlooked to become “lit up”. Using Husserlian and Heideggerian notions of “light breaks” and Dewey's theory of challenge, the author argues that foreign travel generates a form of embodied learning. This occurs first on the level of the pre-reflexive body that is affected and solicited by the new and unfamiliar demands of an alien world. Ultimately, through continuous adjustment of habits and practices in foreign environments, an embodied cosmopolitanism is generated via accumulated travel experience. This calls attention to the role of the lived body in travel experience, as well as the role of place and environment in shaping human practices, perceptions and modes of dwelling. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present and analyse the biography of a passionate 20th century Romanian tourist who lived in Bucharest and travelled across Europe, bringing his (subjective) travel experiences of Western countries to private and public audiences curious about the unknown “abroad” during the 1980s. This case study is about the life and travel experiences of Vasile A. Marinescu, and deals with their visibility and interpretation during the communist era. The research is based on unpublished sources (...) – visual and audio sources, as well as manuscripts (between 1970 and 1980), interviews – and other already published archive materials. The research describes, in particular, how the West was perceived and presented in those semi-private shows, and how (and which of) those unofficial sources influenced the imagination of Romanians, aside the official propaganda. (shrink)

This article presents a review of Hard to Believe, a compelling documentary reporting the forced organ procurement and death of Chinese prisoners of conscience. The documentary is targeted to ignite political and public pressure to stop these practices that are thought to be motivated by financial and political gain. Narrated by journalist and author Ethan Gutmann, the documentary pricks at the collective conscience, as credible witnesses provide evidence that point to an abrogation of every ethical principle ascribed to legitimate organ (...) procurement. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is research of various aspects of imitation modeling as effective method of the analysis and optimization of the pricing process on the tourist enterprise. In article the methodology of imitation modeling of the pricing process for a tourist product is investigated. For formation and realization of model of pricing it is offered to use imitation modeling which allows to receive the expected size of the price under various operating conditions of the (...) class='Hi'>tourist enterprise. It is shown that imitation modeling of economic process contains 7 main stages: the formulation of a problem and definition targets than imitation research; development of conceptual model of the modeling object, formalization of the imitation model, choice of software and control of the imitation model; complex testing of the model; planning and implementation of imitation experiment; analysis of results of modeling. The main purpose of imitation model consists in adjustment of level of the price depending on influence of pricing factors. In article the main advantages of the imitation modeling in comparison with other methods of modeling are marked out. Imitation modeling considers influence of a large number of uncertain factors, which cannot be precisely described by means of analytical models. The methodology of the imitation modeling allows to analysis expensive and not expensive elements of the price of a tourist product. Imitation modeling allows estimating efficiency and productivity of the prices of new level until their introduction at real process. The imitation model allows investigating system of pricing in dynamics and allows change of its functioning at any stage of modeling. It is possible to implementation new variables and conditions into model, to replace values of factors and so forth. The imitation model of pricing process allows uniting models of separate subsystems in one complex model, which considers influence of separate subsystems on behavior of the whole system. Based on the conducted researches advantage of a method of the imitation modeling to optimization of management of the pricing process at the tourist enterprise is proved. (shrink)