Search results

The purpose of this editorial is to introduce the special issue of the International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research (IJCTHR) on “Decoding southern culture and hospitality”.

The editorial outlines the primary objective of the IJCTHR special issue and introduces a southern tourism schema.

The special issue serves as a valuable platform for new theory and research that integrates multidisciplinary perspectives in describing, explaining, predicting, and influencing culture, tourism, and hospitality in the US Southern States. This region of the USA is distinguishable from other regions by its cultural values and practices. Tourism in the US South is multi‐faceted and includes destination‐, ritual‐, heritage‐, and experiential‐based attractions. The articles in the special issue touch on these various aspects of southern‐based tourism and reveal its unique attributes as it relates to culture and southern hospitality.

This editorial provides an overview of the special issue and highlights key contributions of each paper.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the subculture of Southern Mardi Gras society in coastal Mississippi and Alabama.

Participant observation was used to explore the subculture as well as depth interviews with 42 informants who participated in Mardi Gras societies and/or balls.

The findings demonstrate that social identity theory is supported in Southern Mardi Gras society and that elements of racial divide, social stratification, and fixity of residence continue to support this subculture.

While most who are aware of Mardi Gras traditions associate it solely with New Orleans, this paper presents the rich subculture of Mardi Gras societies that extends along the upper Gulf Coast region of the USA. Tied to tourism in this region, these practices are explored for the nuances of this subculture and the Mardi Gras event myth.

The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer attitudes toward direct‐to‐consumer (DTC) advertising and whether consumer attitudes regarding these types of advertisements differ based on income.

A sample of 168 consumers completed the survey on‐site at a pharmacy while waiting for their prescription(s) to be filled.

The findings indicated that low‐income consumers were more likely than higher income customers to: report being persuaded by DTC advertising to ask for an advertised drug; go to the doctor based on symptoms described in DTC advertising; and to prefer branded medication over generic alternatives.

The results provide useful information to policy makers and drug companies. The finding that these advertisements appear to impact lower income consumers to a greater extent than their higher‐income counterparts has both positive and negative implications. On the positive side, these ads appear to influence unhealthy, low‐income consumers to seek medical treatment. The negative implication concerns the effectiveness of DTC advertising in persuading low‐income consumer to prefer more expensive, branded drugs over generic alternatives.

Limited research has been done on the relationship between consumer perceptions of DTC advertising and differences in consumer groups based on income.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of consumer sociability and service provider perceived expertise on service relationship success.

A sample of 281 consumers in the USA, randomly selected with the assistance of a commercial list service, completed the survey. Structural equations modeling, was used to test the proposed model.

The findings show that customer sociability and service provider expertise are important to relationship success. In addition, the duration of the relationship was found to be a consequence of satisfaction and a driver of social benefits, which strengthens customer commitment.

Personality traits have been previously examined in a low involvement retail setting and not found to be a significant influence on commitment. This study finds that sociability does have a significant impact on service relationship success; thus, providing support for the importance of customer traits in relationship marketing in some contexts.

While provider characteristics are expected to influence customer commitment, this study provides evidence that at least one consumer personality trait (i.e. sociability) appears to impact commitment to a provider in high involvement services. Healthcare providers should be aware that the personality of the patient may be a driver of satisfaction with and commitment to the physician, despite the doctor's perceived level of expertise.

This research fills a gap in the literature on the link between customer traits and service relationships in a healthcare setting. Since consumers are co‐participants in service delivery, it is important to understand how their characteristics impact service relationship success.

The purpose of this paper is to examine antecedents of consumer online spending.

A sample of 766 college students in the USA completed surveys using intercept interviews on a college campus. The research examines the consumer's level of technological savvy, experience with online shopping, level of confidence that online activities are not monitored, worry about other parties obtaining credit card information, comfort providing personal information online, and concern for online privacy when predicting the amount a consumer will spend online.

The findings reveal that consumer experience with online shopping and level of comfort with providing personal information online were significant predictors of the amount spent online. Surprisingly, privacy concerns were not a significant factor in online spending.

The results provide useful information to online marketers and privacy advocates by revealing factors that influence the amount spent by consumers via the internet.

This paper fills an identified gap in the literature on online shopping in that most research to date has either focused on regulatory issues or consumer demographics related to online privacy concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to present a moderated model of sport tourism as an economic development generator from a destination marketing perspective. The model takes into account the differing roles of sport tourism segments on the relationship between motivators of sport tourism and destinations outcomes.

This conceptual paper presents a framework for explaining the differential impact of factors that influence sport tourism based on the tourist segment attracted to the destination.

The proposed model, supported by extant literature, presents sport tourist types as moderating a variety of influencing factors that determine sport tourists’ interest in visiting a destination and the resulting economic impact on a destination.

Practical implications are discussed for managing and marketing destination‐specific factors to appeal to different segments of the sport tourism market in order to maximize the economic impact of sport tourism.

This conceptual model provides a contribution to tourism researchers by providing a comprehensive view of the complex nature of the factors that influence destination choice for different types of sports tourists and the possible economic outcomes that can result.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the ways various tourist attractions in the American South are presented to and experienced by tourists.

A sequence of photographs, made at tourist attractions across the south, is presented. Accompanying each photograph is a paragraph‐length text that draws from and expands upon information available in the visual image. In these texts, various observations about tourism in the south are made.

The paper comments upon the tourist experience in the south and highlights the central roles of historical tourism, heritage tourism, civil rights tourism, and cultural tourism. Highlights the problematic nature of packaging the region's sometimes troublesome past for tourist consumption.

Because the findings are grounded in photographs made by the author, they are inherently “anecdotal” in character.

This original photographic essay shows and comments upon a wide variety of experiences available to tourists in the American South. It cautions against trying to make the southern past more palatable to tourists by glossing over unpleasant historical facts.

The purpose of the paper is to look at the relationship between attitudes toward direct‐to‐consumer (DTC) advertising and its impact on consumer requests for a particular drug.

A sample of 154 consumers completed the survey on‐site at a pharmacy while waiting for their prescription(s) to be filled. Based on exploratory research (focus groups), survey items were developed to capture opinions of pharmaceutical advertising as well as the influence of DTC advertising on consumer behavior.

The findings show that consumers are skeptical of DTC advertising and believe that not enough information is provided about these products. Despite the high level of exposure and the opinions that these ads were effective and informative, few respondents believed that the ads motivated them to request these drugs or put them on a more equal footing with their physician.

The results provide useful information to policy makers, drug companies and researchers. Even though consumers appear to be critical of DTC advertising oversight, these ads appear to motivate consumers to seek more knowledge about drugs or medical conditions mentioned in the ads and request prescriptions from physicians.

This research fills an identified gap in the literature on DTC advertising and its impact on consumer decision making. Limited research has been done on the relationship between consumer perceptions of DTC advertising and its impact on consumer requests for pharmaceutical products.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the negotiation and otherization of the regional representations of southern foodways in public restaurants within a larger urban cultural setting often seen as its cultural antithesis.

The method and approach is multifaceted, including content and historical analysis and participant observation. The literature review lays the foundation for the otherization of the South in the USA. The content analysis explores various media publications relevant to southern food restaurants and the qualitative analysis demonstrates the nuances of southern restaurants in New York City.

The literature and content analysis demonstrates the socio‐historical grounding for the otherization of the South and southern foodways. The qualitative research demonstrates how southern restaurants are constructed and otherized differently in New York City depending upon their local context and the participants who are primarily involved.

A larger sample of restaurants could provide a potentially more valid and nuanced analysis of the phenomena.

Most research on regional, subcultural differences in foodways occurs within the imagined boundaries of that respective region, but this paper explores the historical proliferation of restaurants and the meanings of the production and consumption of southern regional foods in these restaurants within another region.

The paper's primary goals are three‐fold: to explore how disaster tourism serves as a vehicle for self‐reflection in respect to how the disaster tour affects the tourist; to understand how cultures adapt to abrupt change; and to understand how the tourism industry can lead to the cultural and economic revitalization of devastated areas.

This paper draws on sociological theory, experience, and participant observation to complete an autoethnographic study of a “disaster tour” in and around the New Orleans, Louisiana, metropolitan area.

Conveying information via auto‐ethnographic disaster tourism helps readers develop an understanding of others by being immersed in the tour experience. Placing the researchers in the midst of the analysis presents a perspective of the cultural mix of New Orleans as place set apart, even among places in the south. Finally, this study highlights the importance of a rapidly rebounding tourism industry by “branding” New Orleans as a “Come back city.”

Because the research employs an auto‐ethnograpic approach, it may not be possible to duplicate the observations and findings, which are subject to the interpretations of the reader.

The contribution of this work to the literature is its highlighting of the flexibility of the tourism industry after a catastrophe and noting that tour guides frame the reconstruction process as “signs of hope” and “rebirth,” rather than a city in decline. Readers come to understand that the key to the revival of New Orleans is how disaster tourists understand the disaster as well as the recovery process.