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Foreign direct investment has been extensively recognised as an important resource of economic growth. Governments have been playing an active role in encouraging this type of investment. Despite efforts by governments, only a few countries have been successful in attracting investment for their tourism industry. The purpose of this paper is to detect meaningful relationships between government policies and investment.

This study utilizes statistical and machine learning techniques. A predictive model has been constructed and evaluated using a set of countries, which differ from those putatively used for model generation. Good governance indicators, together with data about investments in the tourism industry, are the main instruments used in the model.

The findings suggest that the formulation and implementation of sound policies, together with regulations, promotes the development of a private sector; and the private sector has a significant role in attracting tourism investment.

The study contributes to research in the tourism industry by using intelligent data analysis techniques.

The availability of comprehensive datasets and a very limited set of empirical studies, related to investment in the tourism industry, has stimulated this research to focus on integrating quantitative resources and assessing the significance of government policies.

This chapter investigates the current trend toward both creative and experiential tourism in cities in terms of the development and marketing of local attractions.

Creative tourism in cities is profiled through a literature review and further investigated by means of a case study at a local attraction in Toronto, Canada. The choice of a site was one of a creative city and the re-purposing of a formerly industrial site for visitation.

The study of Evergreens Brickworks demonstrated the use of marketing techniques to identify markets and match visitors with experiences. The visitor segmentation method determined that pre-scheduled and bookable activities offered for locals need to be offered on a different basis for tourists, who may be one time visitors to the site. The product-market match process suggested areas in which products could be modified or indeed created.

This practical study offers lessons for other local visitor attractions and their managers desiring to identify market segments and match them with appropriate activities creating experiential tourism at the site level within the creative city context.

While many studies of the creative tourism concept and cities have been undertaken within the context of destinations this research offers a site-specific perspective as well as marketing perspective that will be of practical value to attraction managers.

This paper aims to, by having a marketing perspective, assess the potential of Manisa for religious tourism and shed some light on the ways of increasing that potential and to add to the religious tourism literature and practice in general.

A number of depth interviews were conducted with the experts of culture, tourism, religion and religious assets in Manisa. People and institutions regarding religious tourism were called, visited and asked for the names of right interviewees. As a result, a total of 14 interviews were arranged and successfully accomplished. In addition to depth interviews, top 15 most popular travel Web sites (www.ebizmba.com/articles/travel-websites) are examined for tourist and guide opinions toward Manisa’s religious sites and its surroundings.

The findings indicate that Manisa has highly important religious monuments belonging to three major religions, including three of the seven churches mentioned in the Apocalypse section of the Bible. Many suggestions have been made regarding possible changes in products, referring to religious monuments and sites in this study, and other marketing mix elements like possible ways of promoting the product.

The findings are based on a qualitative study, which limit their generalizability. Yet, the sample of interviewees is fairly large and utmost attention is given to the selection of them. In the future, more stakeholders can be involved in the data collection process. Also, the views of general public on the topic can be investigated through surveys to determine the details of religious tourism activities.

Preparations for selling souvenirs (like miniatures of religious monuments) and other religious and cultural goods near the sites of attraction can be made. In addition to selling souvenirs (e.g. miniatures, postcards), local food (i.e. Mesir paste, Mesir delight) and local drinks (i.e. Mesir tea, Sübye) can be offered at gift shops or stores to be opened next to religious monuments.

With the rising popularity of experiential and event marketing, tourists coming to Manisa to see religious monuments will be better off experiencing the atmosphere of these monuments. A specific team of experts from each related organization can be formed and an action plan be prepared to determine the steps to be taken regarding religious tourism. A wise planning and an effective implementation of religious tourism efforts require an intense coordination.

Policy makers and managers who want to promote religious tourism need to determine the tourism products and services which appeal to a diverse types of tourists visiting any religious destination. Religious tourism products and services in other destinations can be offered in combination with such activities as camping, hiking and sightseeing or such other types of tourism as social and group tourism and adventure. Standard marketing strategies may not work for religious tourism because spiritual travel will take different forms and have different meanings. Promotional activities are utilized to make potential customers aware of products, induce demand and provide incentives to purchase.

Internet characteristics — enhanced distribution customer relationships and information access in an information intensive industry — fit the tourism industry. There is little sense having an Internet presence though if visitors cannot find and use the website or receive answers to their e‐mail inquiries. Research lauds online tourism initiatives, yet little research investigates Internet use in wine tourism. Given the competitive nature of wine tourism, an important research area is what website features and e‐mail policies do wine tourism operations use for better site navigation site popularity and relationship marketing? Two online analyses of eight wine tourism operations, within and outside Western Australia, illustrate a methodology and dozens of possible metrics for analysing the competition and marketing electronic wine tourism. The results give wine tourism managers insights into short‐term competitive advantages via website features and e‐mail policies, and add to the academic literature and future research of the Internet's role in wine tourism.

This paper aims to address the issue of balance of power among stakeholders in the context of destination marketing and to offer direction for managing its diverse set of stakeholders.

A qualitative approach is used to provide a clearer insight into the phenomenon of stakeholder management in the context of destination marketing. This research uses a combination of three sources of evidence – interviews, documents and physical artefacts (in the sense of the actual web site) – and is based on the in‐depth study of the case of the development of the official web site of Tourism New Zealand (www.purenz.com).

This study shows that a wide variety of organizations and even the entire population of the country who are affected by destination marketing decisions should be recognized as destination stakeholders. Tourism New Zealand's leaders' understanding of cooperation and its value emerged as a major factor having an effect on the cooperation in the purenz development. The different objectives and perspectives of key stakeholders come through clearly in the case study which suggests that different approaches for managing the diverse stakeholders in the context of destination marketing are required.

A key finding that cooperation is not uniform has several implications for national tourism organizations (NTOs) around the globe. Study shows that the expectations of a cooperative process in destination marketing differ from group to group. This provides a useful guidance for Indian NTOs and NTOs in other countries who are responsible for tourism‐related policies in their country. The study makes the clear suggestion to Indian and global tourism practitioners and policy makers that management of various stakeholders in the context of destination marketing is not a given but a strategic choice which is affected by the existing network structure and climate.

This research is based on the data from one of the world's popular tourism destinations – New Zealand – and therefore, provides very valuable and practical guidance for national tourism organizations around the globe. Besides being of immense value to global as well as Indian practitioners, this study opens an avenue for students and academics to determine if there are differences in the understanding and expectations of cooperation among stakeholders of other tourism networks and to investigate the implications of different expectations of cooperation on the balance of power issues in inter‐organizational cooperation.

The aim of this chapter is to delineate a product framework concerning managed visitor attractions (MVA), which highlights the supply-chain aspects of destinations. It first touches on the rationales for developing such a framework and then constructs a framework composed of a set of product components deriving from the extant literature. Consequently, an version of a product component framework, fastening on an accumulated sample of attraction cases, is presented through three illustrative cases. In the conclusion section, this study elaborates on the study limitation while connoting how the resultant data could shed light on the role of the components of the MVA product in the creation of visitor experiences.

Dark tourism is a topic of increasing interest, but it is poorly understood when considering its significance for mainstream and commercial tourism. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significance of dark tourism in the top ten most visited European tourist cities and propose a dark tourism index for Europe’s tourism cities.

Data were collected from the websites of the cities’ Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) using a content analysis methodology, based on keywords related to dark tourism taken from the research literature in this area. Descriptive statistics were produced and the variance between the frequencies of keywords related to each city was analysed for statistical significance. These results were then used to construct a darkness ranking of the cities.

There are significant differences in the extent to which dark tourism products and services are promoted by the DMOs of Europe’s top ten most visited European cities. The ranking of cities by darkness does not correspond to the ranking by visitor numbers, and further qualitative analysis suggests that, that the ranking is also independent of the actual presence of dark sites within the destination. This implies that European city DMOs are engaging with the emerging dark tourism market with to varying degrees.

The purposive sample of ten cities can be extended in future research to increase the validity of the findings of this paper. A further limitation is the selection of keywords for content analysis, which have been developed following the literature review contained below. Future research could develop an extended list of keywords using a systematic review process.

This paper shows that it is possible to create a ranking of tourist cities in terms of their darkness, and that this methodology could be extended to a much larger sample size. This links dark tourism research to the urban tourism literature and also offers possibilities for creating a global ranking that could be used by destinations to judge their success in engaging with the dark tourism market, as well as by tour operators seeking to develop products for the same market.

This paper will offer DMO’s and others the opportunity to hone their tourism products more effectively in a way which offers a better understanding of tourism, and therefore provides for better management of its issues.

Dark tourism is a growing niche area of study, and this paper seeks to provide a framework to better understand supply-side aspects of it.

The study uses a postcolonial lens to examine the historical interest of Western tourists towards dark tourism in the east, critically assess the current status of dark tourism in India, and recommend sustainable strategies that must be considered for promoting a dark tourism market in the future. The observations and recommendations for the study are based on primary fieldwork experience at different dark tourism sites in India besides an analysis of secondary data. A critical analysis in the context of dark tourism in India demonstrates several complex issues in terms of the existence and applicability of Euro-centric frameworks and concepts. Firstly, it is revealed that the Western fascination with death-related rituals in the east is rooted in notions of colonial discourse, authenticity and counter-culture movements. Secondly, although dark tourism has not been formally acknowledged or promoted in India, it already exists in the form of fragmented and informal markets across the country. Thirdly, the application of dark tourism frameworks and concepts in India requires careful consideration of contextuality and non-Western interpretations of death, disaster, heritage and processes of memorialisation to ensure that the marketing rhetoric does not reinforce colonial or neocolonial structures of power. Lastly, promoting responsible dark tourism in India entails minimising dissonance and decolonising the dark tourism narrative considering the larger goals of social sustainability and ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate red tourism in China and, in doing so, shed light on the complex relationships between tourism, heritage and identity politics.

Mixed methods – literature review, document analysis, interviews with government officials, travel agents and tourists.

Red tourism is an initiative to preserve, promote and pass down China’s communist past that is underpinned by political purposes. It has resulted in an imbalance between the government’s designation of communist heritage sites all over the country and the concentration of visitors in a small number of popular destinations. Red tourism fosters allegiance to the Communist Party of China. At the same time, it is expected to bring economic opportunities to remote locations through tourism spending and the branding opportunities that it provides. However, a different emphasis can be discerned at the national and local levels, whereby the former emphasizes political cohesion and the latter stresses local economic development.

Four sites are investigated in detail out of the hundreds that might have been explored.

Recommendations are made to: diversify the product, increase stakeholder involvement, enhance heritage conservation plans, improve interpretation.

Many implications for relationships between governments at all levels and the Chinese population. Also implications for the economic well-being of places and people adjacent to red tourism sites.

One of very few papers in either English or Chinese that addresses the red tourism policy in detail and with substantial empirical materials.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the progress of information and communication technology (ICT) based on a review of papers published in tourism and hospitality journals between 2009 and 2013.

Based on three major databases, 107 journal papers were retrieved and reviewed. The papers were grouped into two major categories, consumer and supplier, which generally comprise the key players in the industries.

A content analysis showed that hospitality and tourism industries use ICT in different functional units and for different applications. This, in turn, indicates their wide adoption in the industry. Industrial implications are discussed.

On the basis of the content analysis, industry practitioners can learn about up-to-date practices and decide how to take advantage of recent technological developments.

A major contribution of this paper is the comprehensive review of recently published papers in tourism and hospitality journals from the perspectives of consumer and supplier.