Search results
1 – 10 of 114Vincent Wing Sun Tung and Rob Law
The purpose of this study is to review recent work in the robotics literature and identify future opportunities for consumer/tourist experience research in human-robot…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to review recent work in the robotics literature and identify future opportunities for consumer/tourist experience research in human-robot interactions (HRIs).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins by covering the framework of robotic agent presence and embodiment that are relevant for HRI. Next, the paper identifies future opportunities for hospitality and tourism scholars to undertake consumer/tourist experience research in HRIs.
Findings
The result of this study provided potential directions for advancing theoretical, methodological and managerial implications for tourism experience research in HRI.
Research limitations/implications
Concepts from robotics research are diffusing into a range of disciplines, from engineering to social sciences. These advancements open many unique, yet urgent, opportunities for hospitality and tourism research.
Practical implications
This paper illustrates the speed at which robotics research is progressing. Moreover, the concepts reviewed in this research on robotic presence and embodiment are relevant for real-world applications in hospitality and tourism.
Social implications
Developments in robotics research will transform hospitality and tourism experiences in the future.
Originality/value
This research is one of the early papers in the field to review robotics research and provide innovative directions to broaden the interdisciplinary perspective for future hospitality and tourism research.
Details
Keywords
Marcello Mariani, Maria Ek Styven and Julian K. Ayeh
This paper aims to investigate antecedents of using non-travel-specific social media (specifically Facebook) for travel decision-making before a leisure trip.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate antecedents of using non-travel-specific social media (specifically Facebook) for travel decision-making before a leisure trip.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an online survey of 426 young travel consumers from Italy and Sweden, this work applies structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.
Findings
The study finds support for most of the conventional TAM-related constructs: perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and intention, while ease of use is not found relevant in this context.
Research limitations/implications
Results shed light on the antecedents of using non-travel specific social media in two countries. Future research might focus on validating the factors identified and add others that might shape usage in the selected countries. Future studies could further investigate possible differences arising from culture, country of origin and age. The analysis can also be extended to other countries.
Practical implications
The analysis might help managers in the hospitality and tourism sector by providing an understanding of the cognitive factors which determine travelers’ decision to use Facebook for trip planning. Thus, managers should get to know these factors in their effort to influence social media in hospitality and tourism settings.
Originality/value
The findings offer interesting perspectives on the applicability of conventional models to the context of non-travel-specific social media platforms. The exploration of cross-cultural differences also adds to the extant body of knowledge.
Details
Keywords
Giacomo Del Chiappa, Cem Tinaz and Douglas Michele Turco
This paper aims to examine the differences in expenditure and satisfaction level between first-time and repeat spectators to a motor sport event, as well as differences in their…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the differences in expenditure and satisfaction level between first-time and repeat spectators to a motor sport event, as well as differences in their intention to return and to recommend the host destination.
Design/methodology/approach
A structured questionnaire was developed and data were collected on-site during the 2012 Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC) in Sardinia via 210 interviews. A series of descriptive analysis, independent t-tests, chi-square tests and regression analysis were run for the purposes of the study.
Findings
Findings showed first-timers spend more and are more satisfied than repeaters, even if no significant differences were reported. Repeaters reported to be more willing to return and to recommend, with significant differences, only in the intention to return.
Research limitations/implications
The study is based on a convenience sample of a relatively small size, and it might be influenced by the idiosyncratic characteristics of the location. Further, it does not consider the mediating effect that the budget of spectators and their travel/event career ladder can exert over their behaviour.
Practical implications
Destination marketers and event organizers need to run their marketing operations to renew their customer mix and/or to increase the standard level of quality to be delivered to repeaters. Further, their marketing and communication strategy should be personalized, and incentives should be given to encourage both groups to purchase multiple products simultaneously.
Originality/value
The paper adds to the growing, and often still inconsistent, research aiming to compare first-timers’ and repeat visitors’ behaviours by offering insights from the context of motor sport events, where no published paper exist so far.
Details
Keywords
Victor Oluwafemi Olorunsola, Mehmet Bahri Saydam, Taiwo Temitope Lasisi and Ali Ozturen
Archaeological heritage tourism has great potential for development in numerous destinations. However, literature on archaeological heritage tourism is scarce and empirical data…
Abstract
Purpose
Archaeological heritage tourism has great potential for development in numerous destinations. However, literature on archaeological heritage tourism is scarce and empirical data are minimal. This paper aims to identify the main themes shared in online reviews by tourists, as well as identify factors known as satisfiers and dissatisfiers based on Herzberg’s two-factor theory among tourists who visited Petra UNESCO heritage site.
Design/methodology/approach
The research used content analyses to analyse 1,419 tourist’s online reviews on TripAdvisor. Leximancer software provided computer-assisted qualitative data analysis that pinpoint the dominant themes, after which further qualitative analysis found the main narratives associated with different satisfaction groups.
Findings
Successively, seven themes were revealed: entrance, trip, monastery, buildings, animal, carriage and safe. Furthermore, a four-dimensional model was postulated to help understand the components and flow of visitors’ experiences in an archaeological heritage site. In addition, the findings of the study revealed that tourists who scored their experience as 4 (very good) or 5 (excellent) (satisfiers) commonly shared perceptions about architecture, buildings, safe, temples, monasteries, tours, tombs and helpful. Contrarily, reviewers that rated their experience as 1 (terrible) or 2 (poor) (dissatisfiers) shared narratives around concepts such as expensive, animals, carriages, locals and shops.
Originality/value
The results offer valuable understandings of cultural heritage tourists’ overall experiences based on TripAdvisor reviews and facilitate the identification of the dominant themes associated with drivers of tourists’ satisfaction/dissatisfaction.
Details
Keywords
Nurul Diyana Md Khairi, Hairul Nizam Ismail and Syed Muhammad Rafy Syed Jaafar
The paper aims to comprehensively use the knowledge of tourist spatial behaviour to improve World Heritage Site (WHS) management. Efficient heritage management can be achieved if…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to comprehensively use the knowledge of tourist spatial behaviour to improve World Heritage Site (WHS) management. Efficient heritage management can be achieved if critical aspects such as tourist spatial activities were better and comprehensively understood, primarily at the micro-level. Inaccurate information on these essential aspects will potentially cause problems in managing a WHS and compromises its Outstanding Universal Value. This study aims to extend the knowledge of tourist spatial behaviour by including the non-spatial and spatial characteristics of the tourists to better manage a WHS.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a trip diary and a GPS tracking app with 384 free independent tourists as the study respondents. Melaka WHS was chosen as the study area. The data were complemented by an aggregative analysis method to extract different discrete patterns based on individual itineraries.
Findings
This paper indicates a noticeable relationship between individuals’ non-spatial and spatial characteristics. It suggests that integrating these two characteristics can provide more comprehensive knowledge of tourist behaviour.
Originality/value
This paper provides a different perspective to improving WHS management by determining the operative tools to develop an effective visitor management plan.
Details
Keywords
Daria Soldatenko, Elisa Zentveld and Damian Morgan
To succeed in a competitive tourist market and attract more foreign tourists, it is essential to have a clear understanding of what travellers are seeking and endeavour to meet…
Abstract
Purpose
To succeed in a competitive tourist market and attract more foreign tourists, it is essential to have a clear understanding of what travellers are seeking and endeavour to meet those needs, as well as key influential factors in their travel decision-making process. The purpose of the study is to develop and examine tourists’ pre-trip motivational model using the push–pull theory.
Design/methodology/approach
A tourists’ pre-trip motivational model was developed and then tested based on a sample of 320 Chinese and non-Chinese visitors to Melbourne, Australia, to assess the suitability of the new model. Data were analysed by descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, such as principal component analysis and independent T-tests.
Findings
The analysis revealed statistically significant differences between studied samples in terms of the push and pull factors. In comparison with non-Chinese tourists, Chinese visitors to Melbourne assigned higher importance to resting and relaxing opportunities, family-oriented activities, as well as safety and a high level of service. The identified differences should be reflected in marketing and promotional activities provided to Chinese and non-Chinese travellers.
Practical implications
The study provides useful information for Destination Marketing Organisations in tourism cities wanting to develop specifically customised tourist products, services and promotion programs tailored to each market.
Originality/value
The proposed extended push–pull model represents a holistic and complex model of the travel decision-making process with the multiple linkages between motivations for travelling, preferences of destination attributes, information source usage, trip expectations, possible constraints for travelling and evaluation of destination choice criteria. Understanding all these factors, their relationship and their influence on the final destination choice is a prerequisite for effective and successful actions on attraction and retention of visitors for all tourist destinations. The developed tourists’ pre-trip motivational model may be used as a conceptual framework to guide subsequent motivational studies in tourism.
Details
Keywords
Drew Martin and Arch G. Woodside
This paper aims to introduce a structuring and processing model (SPM) as a framework for tourism decision making research.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce a structuring and processing model (SPM) as a framework for tourism decision making research.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs McCracken's long interview to collect data in field settings. The study introduces advances in Mintzberg et al.'s approach to structuring seemingly unstructured decision making to explain travelers' decision‐making processes.
Findings
SPM enables mapping and comparing visitors' plans, motivations, choices, and consequences. The results demonstrate nuanced decision‐behavior dynamics and complexities of visitors' travel‐related unconscious/conscious thinking and behavior.
Research limitations/implications
SPM does not attempt to generalize findings to large survey samples.
Practical implications
Travel planning and execution dynamics dictate that a decision‐making funnel metaphor in consumer research does not capture such trip complexity because additional decisions are made when the traveler arrives at the destination.
Originality/value
SPM is dynamic and inclusive explaining simultaneous planning elements as well as considering sub‐decisions occurring before and after different phases in the process. This model includes both conscious and unconscious internal retrievals as well as contextual influences relating to current planning affect the decision‐making process.
Details
Keywords
Guliz Coskun, Laura W. Jodice and DeWayne Moore
Through application of multi-level structural equation modeling as the data analysis technique, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the group-level impacts on a couple’s food…
Abstract
Purpose
Through application of multi-level structural equation modeling as the data analysis technique, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the group-level impacts on a couple’s food choices during travel at a coastal destination.
Design/methodology/approach
Researchers obtained 380 individual questionnaires from 190 mixed gender couples (who eat oysters) in Charleston and Beaufort County, South Carolina, USA. Data were collected from both members of the couple during their vacation. Due to missing data and normality issues 5 couples and 30 individuals were eliminated. The remaining data were analyzed with SPSS 21 and EQS 6.2 with advanced confirmatory factor analysis and multi-level (ML) regression techniques.
Findings
The study results indicated that while women have a more negative attitude than men toward oysters, their intention to eat oysters during vacation is not different from their partner. By detecting the interdependency of responses of individuals within a couple, this study revealed that a ML approach is a more powerful way to understand the decision-making process of couples. Additionally the difference in the results of single- and ML models showed that the latter approach lowers the chance of Type 2 error and provides more accurate results.
Originality/value
In tourism decision-making literature, the focus has been mostly on the individual despite the collectivistic nature of tourism activity. The current study is the first to analyze a couple’s decision-making process at the group level. Furthermore by collecting data from both members of the group during their vacation, this study has distinguished itself from previous studies.
Details
Keywords
Peter Björk and Hannele Kauppinen-Räisänen
To provide insights into holiday well-being, the purpose of this paper is to examine two inevitable traveller activities related to destinations’ gastronomy: pre-trip food…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide insights into holiday well-being, the purpose of this paper is to examine two inevitable traveller activities related to destinations’ gastronomy: pre-trip food information sourcing and the daily meals consumed.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was carried out among 243 Finnish travellers. The findings are based on univariate analysis (t-test, ANOVA and regression analysis).
Findings
Pre-trip behaviour to ensure holiday well-being is based on travellers’ interests in food, an emotional desire for a sense of safety and a functional desire for convenience, while they collect information from the internet and guidebooks about recommended food places and local food as well as food safety and price level. Travellers’ place the highest importance on dinner for their holiday well-being, especially foodies – those travellers with a keen interest in food. Breakfast is the second most important meal contributing to holiday well-being.
Practical implications
These findings inform destination marketing organisations about what food dimensions they should emphasise in destination gastronomy-related marketing communication for tour operators and hotel and local restaurants about the essence of dinner and breakfast for holiday well-being.
Originality/value
The study provides insights into the role of destinations’ gastronomy in holiday well-being, which deserves to be studied in the current era of experiences and food interest.
Details
Keywords
Eleftherios Varkaris and Barbara Neuhofer
The purpose of this study is to explore “how social media influence the way consumers search, evaluate and select a hotel within the ‘evaluation stage’ of the wider hotel…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore “how social media influence the way consumers search, evaluate and select a hotel within the ‘evaluation stage’ of the wider hotel decision-making process”.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory qualitative research has been carried out, conducting 12 individual face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with social media users, followed by a qualitative thematic analysis.
Findings
Social media transform the consumers’ hotel decision journey by influencing the way consumers search, decide and book hotels. The findings reveal the determinants shaping this process, by shedding light on the perceived value of using social media, consumers’ information search behaviour “then and now”, the advantages and disadvantages of social media use for decision-making, their trustworthiness and the factors that influence the consumers’ hotel decision-journey. The findings are conceptualised in an integrated theoretical model, entitled “hotel consumer decision-journey through social media”.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s scope for qualitative in-depth insights into the “hotel consumer decision-journey through social media” asked for a compromise on a larger sample size and in turn the transferability of the theoretical model beyond service, hospitality and tourism consumer decision-making contexts.
Practical implications
This paper provides strategic implications for hospitality marketing and management for a better understanding of the influence of social media on the hotel customer decision journey. The study shows that a variety of social media with associated content sources and levels add to the complexity of hotel-related information search and decision behaviour. The developed framework not only helps hotel professionals understand consumers’ different levels (e.g. type of content, content source, content level) through which social media might influence decision-making. Various real-life scenarios presented also help practitioners understand the fine nuances of how consumers are influenced by social media and how this causes them to iteratively change their minds and make a final decision towards the rejection or selection of a hotel.
Originality/value
Consumers use social media for a wide spectrum of scenarios in tourism and hospitality, while the influence of social media on the consumers’ hotel decision-making process remains little understood. This study makes a theoretical contribution in that it addresses these existing gaps and bridges consumer behaviour and social media literature in the hotel context to shed light on the “hotel consumer decision journey through social media”. The core contribution is an integrated theoretical model and real-life scenarios that depict the impact of social media on the hotel decision-making.
Details