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It is salient to be acquainted with the key elements that determine educational tourists’ decision in selecting an overseas destination while considering the rise of international competition amidst nations concerning international students. There has been a growth in the number of nations committed to attracting educational tourists. This issue is evident in countries involved in higher education (HE), such as Northern Cyprus, identified as an edu-tourism destination. Northern Cyprus can attract a whopping number of tourists, and the higher population is most likely to be made up of international students regardless of its interdiction on direct flights and political pressure. This chapter centres on analysing educational tourists’ motivators in selecting a tourism education destination abroad and on revealing effective recruitment and promotion plans towards attracting them. The chapter includes the descriptions and discussions of educational tourism, the HE industry over the years, globalisation and internationalisation of educational tourism, factors influencing educational tourists’ decision-making process and key elements influencing educational tourists’ decisions in HE institutions. At the end of the chapter, a case study is presented that reports the findings of interviews with educational tourists, overseas recruitment agents and Eastern Mediterranean University staff responsible for promoting the institution. The results identified eight factors affecting educational tourists’ decisions on study destination. Those factors comprise cost, ease of access, location, social factors, quality of education, instruction language, cultural environment and communication quality. The sub-factors of the main eight factors are scholarships, destination’s scenery, safety, friends’ and relatives’ influence and cultural differences. This chapter brings a significant knowledge about the motives that affect educational tourists in selecting at a particular HE destination. Based on the study’s findings, educational institutions may consider various recommendations to redesign their strategies towards attracting educational tourists more effectively. Generally, this study promotes an apprehension about the diverse elements that affect educational tourists’ selection of a destination study. An in-depth understanding of these factors will help education institutions’ decision-makers better develop plans of action to provide desired services to educational tourists, attract and keep them in return.

In the last decade, the concept of Islamic attributes of destination (IAD) has emerged due to Muslim tourists’ need to visit a destination that complies with Sharia law. Since then, the IAD concept has been popular to increase the destination’s attractiveness and travel satisfaction for Muslim tourists. This concept evolved from evaluating the Muslim tourists’ perception of IAD to non-Muslim tourists and from assessing the Islamic attributes in Muslim-majority destinations to non-Muslim majority destinations. Furthermore, the literature showed several measurement scales to assess tourists’ satisfaction with IAD, and scholars were varied in the methods of analysis used to assess tourists’ satisfaction with IAD. The purpose of this study is to perform a systematic mapping study on satisfaction with IAD by answering five research questions.

This study used the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses framework to guide the search process and search for relevant studies between 2012 and 2022 from two scientific databases, Scopus and Web of Science.

The search revealed 387 studies. In total, 31 articles met the eligibility criteria. This study indicates the journal considered research studies on tourists’ satisfaction with IAD the most, the method of analysis used in the previous studies, the Islamic destination attributes considered in the previous studies, the research distribution by counties, the research trend and the future direction.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic mapping study that delivers a summary of empirical research studies on tourists’ satisfaction with IAD.

The purpose of this study is to examine if consumers have substantially common color preferences in hospitality uniforms for destination brands. Employee uniforms with their dimensions of style, material and color are a crucial part of the coordinated brand message of a business or a destination; however, this has been a void in tourism and hospitality literature. Current visitors to Hong Kong were studied using intercept surveys in four different groups controlling for potential confounding factors. Although results reveal the common perception and preference for black-white-formal uniforms for Hong Kong’s hospitality industry across different treatment groups as well as different cultural groups, implications and discussions are provided as a call for further research in this venue of inquiry.

This is a cross-sectional study using a site intercept survey with structured questionnaires on Chinese and international travelers in Hong Kong. Four different surveys were used as different treatments for four groups of respondents that were randomly assigned into each group. Each group was presented with a different default pair of male and female uniform pictures for the initial evaluation on the first page of the survey, followed by a list of uniforms with different colors and styles on the second page of the survey to select and evaluate their own pairs of male and female uniforms.

Results revealed that consumers’ general favorite colors may not apply to their preferences for the employee uniforms for a destination they visit. Also, there were similarities in the favorite color and choice uniform color for the three general culture groups, such as Chinese, Asia-Pacific and Western consumers, included in the study. Besides, findings implied that Hong Kong may be a strong brand with a uniform color preference for hospitality uniforms for different consumer segments.

This study needs to be considered as an exploratory attempt to bring researchers’ attention to the several questions still to be answered by future research. The results and discussions provided in this study are beyond being robust or conclusive; insights about potential brand connotations with employee uniform colors need to be taken as potential leads for future studies because there is a need for further study in this area.

The importance of hotel employee uniforms for quality hotel experience was the highest for the Chinese group, whereas it was the lowest for the Western group. Chinese and Asia-Pacific respondents placed more importance on uniforms as a cue for a quality hotel experience, which signal a higher level of involvement in visible cues in the consumption environment. Hence, hotels as well as destinations catering to these groups need to take their market segment preferences into consideration before making decisions about brand cues for their products.

There is a lack of attention to the color aspect of service encounter in tourism and hospitality literature. Therefore, color needs attention from researchers as a new venue of research in tourism and hospitality, especially in the tourism destination context. This study is a spearhead to generate interest by intriguing questions for future attention from researchers.

This research aims to examine the role of perceived threat (i.e. COVID-19) on people’s preferences for destination logo designs. In addition, it investigates the influence of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and sensation seeking on the aforementioned effect.

Five experiments are used. Studies 1 A and 1B examine the impact of the threat of COVID-19 on visiting intentions as influenced by different destination logos. Study 2 replicates the previous studies and tests for evidence of mediation by the perceived risk. Studies 3 and 4 investigate the moderating role of childhood SES and sensation seeking.

The results show that a salient threat of COVID-19 leads people to display higher visiting intentions when presented with simpler (vs complex) destination logo designs. The perceived risk mediates this effect as well. This preference is evident only for people with low (vs high) childhood SES and only for relatively low sensation seekers.

This study contributes to the branding literature by investigating how situational factors can influence affective reactions to brand logos and to the tourism literature by further investigating the impact of logos on visiting intentions.

This study provides actionable insights for tourism marketers and logo designers, allowing them to select or create positively perceived destination logos during a potential global crisis.

This research offers the first evidence that pandemic-related threat perceptions influence people’s visiting intentions when presented with different destination logos, and that these effects are influenced by individual characteristics such as childhood SES or sensation seeking. In doing so, the current study offers a more sophisticated understanding of the potential boundary conditions driving people’s brand logo evaluation.

This study aims to explore the relationships among destination brand equity, brand authenticity and revisit intention. The mediating role of tourist satisfaction and the moderating role of destination familiarity in these relationships are also investigated.

Based on the stimulus–organism–response theory, a structural equation model was constructed to test the relationships among the study variables. The original data was obtained using a questionnaire survey method from domestic tourists who have traveled to Guilin in China.

The findings revealed that brand equity and brand authenticity not only positively and directly affect revisit intention but also have an indirect influence on revisit intention through the mediating role of tourist satisfaction. Destination familiarity positively moderates the direct influence of brand equity on revisit intention. Furthermore, brand authenticity significantly and positively affects brand equity.

The findings of this study provide a certain enlightenment for brand marketing and tourist destination management.

This study reveals the impact path of brand equity and brand authenticity on revisit intention, compensating for the lack of attention on impact mechanism among them. This study proves the impact of brand authenticity on destination brand equity. This compensates for the deficiencies that ignore possible antecedents affecting destination brand equity and the impact of brand authenticity on brand equity in the context of tourism destination. This study also confirms the specific dimensions of brand equity and brand authenticity in the context of Chinese tourism destinations in response to the current controversy.

旅游目的地品牌资产、品牌真实性与重游意愿: 游客满意度的中介作用与目的地熟悉度的调节作用

摘要

本研究致力于探究旅游目的地品牌资产、品牌真实性与重游意愿之间的关系。本文也研究了游客满意度在这些关系中所起的中介作用以及目的地熟悉度的调节作用。

本文以刺激-机体-反应理论为基础, 通过构建结构方程模型来对变量之间的关系进行检验。原始数据是通过问卷调查法从曾在桂林旅游的国内游客中获得。

目的地品牌资产和品牌真实性在直接正向影响重游意愿的同时, 还通过游客满意度的中介作用来间接影响重游意愿。目的地熟悉度在品牌资产对重游意愿的直接影响中起着正向调节作用。此外, 目的地品牌真实性对品牌资产起着显著正向影响。

本研究揭示了目的地品牌资产与品牌真实性对重游意愿的影响路径, 弥补了对其中影响机制关注不足的缺陷。本研究证实了旅游目的地背景下品牌真实性对品牌资产的具体影响, 弥补了现有文献较少关注影响目的地品牌资产的可能前因以及旅游目的地背景下品牌真实性对品牌资产具体影响的不足。此外, 本研究以中国旅游目的地为研究背景, 证实了品牌资产与品牌真实性的具体维度, 回应了当前的争议。

本研究结论对旅游目的地品牌营销与管理提供一定的启示。

Valor de marca de destino turístico, autenticidad de marca y voluntad de volver a visitar：El papel mediador de la satisfacción del turista y el papel moderador de la familiaridad con el destino

Resumen

este estudio tiene como objetivo explorar las relaciones entre el valor de la marca de destino, la autenticidad de la marca y la intención de volver a visitar. También se investiga el papel mediador de la satisfacción del turista y el papel moderador de la familiaridad con el destino en estas relaciones.

con base en la teoría Estímulo-Organismo-Respuesta, se construye un modelo de ecuación estructural para probar las relaciones entre las variables de investigación. Los datos originales se obtienen mediante el método de encuesta por cuestionario de turistas nacionales que han viajado a Guilin en China.

los hallazgos revelaron que el valor y la autenticidad de la marca no solo afectan positiva y directamente la intención de volver a visitar, sino que también tienen una influencia indirecta en la intención de volver a visitar a través del papel mediador de la satisfacción del turista. La familiaridad con el destino modera positivamente la influencia directa del valor de la marca en la intención de volver a visitar. Además, la autenticidad de la marca afecta de manera significativa y positiva al valor de la marca.

este documento revela el camino del impacto del valor de marca y la autenticidad de la marca en la intención de volver a visitar, compensando la falta de atención al mecanismo de impacto entre ellos. Este trabajo demuestra el efecto de la autenticidad de la marca en el valor de la marca del destino, que compensa las deficiencias que ignoran los posibles antecedentes que afectan el valor de la marca del destino y el impacto de la autenticidad de la marca en el valor de la marca en el contexto del destino turístico. Este estudio también confirma las dimensiones específicas del valor de marca y la autenticidad de la marca en el contexto del destino turístico chino, respondiendo a la controversia actual.

los hallazgos de este documento proporcionan cierta iluminación para el marketing de marca y la gestión de destinos turísticos.

This applied neuroscience study aims to understand how direct and unconscious emotional and cognitive responses underlie travel destination preferences. State-of-the-art neuroscience tools and methods were used, including stationary eye tracking and brain scanning electroencephalography (EEG) to assess emotional and cognitive responses to destination images and assets. To the researchers’ knowledge, this study is the first applied neuroscience study in tourism research and thus opens a new path of research and enquiry to this area. This paper is an attempt to understand specific mental processes in human tourism behaviours, and it is suggest that unconscious emotional and cognitive responses are natural processes that need to be studied and understood, not as special cases, but embedded as natural parts of tourism research.

To better understand consumers’ unconscious responses to possible travel destinations, a 3 × 5 factorial design was run with the factors being stimulus type (images, printed names and videos) and travel destination (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, New York and London). Eye-tracking calibration was done with a nine-point fixation test and the EEG calibration was done using functional localizer tests based on the ABM B-ALERT calibration process. This calibration procedure allows reliable tracking of emotional and cognitive responses over time. Thirty Emirati (nationals of the UAE) participants, consisting of equal numbers of males and females (15) were recruited from the UAE and signed informed consent. Each participant was positioned in front of an eye tracker and computer screen, and brain-scanning equipment was mounted; then, each participant underwent eye-tracking and neuroimaging calibration procedures. A Tobii T60XL eye tracker and an ABM X-10 EEG brain scanner, both running iMotions v5.1 in a Windows 7 environment, were used.

General emotional and cognitive differences were identified between the channels through which travel destinations are presented. Words about and names of travel destinations cause higher cognitive loads, which may not be surprising, given the greater associative load that words have than images. Of particular interest is the hypothesis that images evoke stronger affective responses than verbal representations. However, as previously noted (Holmes and Mathews, 2005), empirical evidence for this assumption seems surprisingly sparse. The present study and the context provided here suggest that decisions on travel destination have an unconscious component and a direct component that may drive or affect overt preference and actual choice.

The limitations of this paper is that first, neuromarketing is not dependent on sample sizes; however, future studies could build on this paper to understand why there is a preference for cities. It is suggested that unconscious emotional and cognitive responses are natural processes that need to be studied and understood, not as special cases, but embedded as natural parts of tourism research.

Thus, tourism research may indeed be a suitable field for understanding the brain bases of complex preference formation and choice. Various researchers have found that a destination image is typically measured using cognitive, affective and behavioural components, and further stated that the cognitive image component of a destination was found to have a significant positive effect on the affective image component and overall destination image (Stylidis et al., 2017). Therefore, this research which has introduced brain scanning can be used to better understand the underlying unconscious emotional and cognitive processes that affect consumer thought and action. An understanding of what goes on in the human unconscious mind is very important for destination marketers, this can help in the integrated marketing communication process to create a destination image and brand.

Thailand's Halal-friendly destination attributes are the focus of this study. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Halal-friendly attributes on tourists’ intentions to visit non-Muslim destinations. Also, this study analyzes the impact of Muslim tourists’ attitudes on Halal-friendly characteristics and their intentions to visit countries that are not predominantly Muslim.

To accomplish objectives, a survey was used to gather the data by using a convenient non-probability sampling approach from Muslim-majority countries Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. A proposed structural equation model was used to assess the influence of the variables above on the outcomes.

This study found that the factors of Halal-friendly facilities and Halal-friendly service positively influence the visiting intentions of Indonesian, Malaysian and Brunei Muslim tourists. In contrast, the social environment, food/beverages and local and staff attributes do not influence visit intentions. The tourist attitude mediates the relationship between the intention to visit and three dimensions of Halal-friendly attributes (social environment; food/beverage; and locals and staff).

This study did not investigate different kinds of dimensions for Muslim tourists visiting Thailand, such as preferences regarding personnel and families, cultural and artistic characteristics and the attributes of events and festivals. These dimensions cover a wide range of Halal-friendly tourism aspects. Second, this research did not investigate the associations between the demographics of Muslim tourists (age, gender, education level and income level) and the model variables. Such an investigation could have helped business developers and marketers in Thailand develop an efficient strategy for target marketing. The results of this research provide fundamental guidance and information for tourist enterprises in non-Muslim nations on how to enhance Muslim travellers’ images and intentions. However, because of the influence of other variables, locations in various areas of Asia, Africa and Europe may exhibit somewhat different effective qualities (e.g. environment, culture, history, etc.).

This study sheds light on the factors contributing to visitor satisfaction in the context of a desire to go to a Halal-friendly site. This insight from this study can be adapted and applied by tourism managers and marketing executives to build or develop the Halal-friendly destination image of a tourist destination (Phuket) in the right dimensions. It is a possibility that the image of a tourist attraction has a tight relationship with travelers’ perceived value, contentment and loyalty (Hsu et al., 2008; Khunrattanaporn, 2013; Pike, 2008). Battour et al. (2022) found that Muslims’ behavioural intentions are affected by the Halal attributes of the destination. It indicates that Halal attributes are very important for Muslim tourists when selecting a destination. To attract Muslim tourists, this study can be used for strategies and planning.

This study sheds fresh light on the concept of Halal tourism. It examines the perspective of Muslim tourists using Halal goods or services in anticipation of a future trip to a non-Muslim location (Phuket). This study is crucial for destination tourism operators, managers and marketers who lead Muslim tourists to non-Muslim destinations.

This study aims to predict the effect of cultural distance, perceived risk and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on higher education institutes' students' destination image. In addition, it examines the mediating role of destination image in relation to students' travel intentions.

An online survey was employed to collect data from 200 graduate and postgraduate students. The partial least squares was employed to analyse the hypothesised relationships.

The results of this study found support for the positive effect of cultural distance and eWOM on destination image. Additionally, the mediating effect of destination image was also supported.

This research confirms the vital role of destination image as an antecedent of students' future intention to visit the destination. Moreover, this study contributes to marketing theory by predicting the critical drivers of higher education students' destination image and discussing their applications in the education sector.

This paper aims to examine the role of social media communication, tourist satisfaction and destination brand equity components in enhancing destination brand equity based on the Stimulus – Organism – Response (S-O-R) theory.

The conceptual model and research hypotheses were assessed using covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM). An online survey was used to collect data from 369 domestic tourists who had traveled to Danang and knew about content related to Danang generated by either DMOs or other users on social media.

Except for the effect of DMO-generated social media communication on tourist satisfaction and the impact of destination brand awareness on destination brand loyalty, the findings confirmed the sequential causal relationships between research concepts based on the S-O-R model.

Future research should explore the proposed model based on comparisons of different nationalities to better understand the impact of cultural factors.

DMOs should associate social media with their marketing strategies to enhance destination brand equity, using cutting-edge technologies to create content and update information in a significant way to make communications by DMOs more effective. The findings especially suggest that UGC plays a vital role in improving brand equity dimensions, so DMOs could exploit UGC to engage existing customers and build relationships with potential customers. This research provides guidance for DMOs to improve their brand equity based on social media.

This study has contributed to the destination marketing literature by applying the S-O-R theory to propose a pathway for effectively increasing destination brand equity and highlight the importance of social media communication as a driver to achieve a hierarchical relationship between destination brand equity components and tourist satisfaction from stimulus to organism (e.g. cognition to affect).

This study aims to explore university students' push and pull motivational factors towards their study tour destination choices and to investigate the differences between experienced and non-experienced students concerning their push and pull motivational factors.

The study collected surveys from Hong Kong university students. In total, 248 usable responses were gathered. Among the 248 respondents, 148 university students from various universities did not have experience on a study tour in their university lives while 100 students did. The study also conducted interviews and collected qualitative data to supplement the survey findings.

Top push and pull motivational factors were highlighted in the study tour context. This study also indicated that non-experienced students relatively have more concerns about geographic location, political stability and financial budget as pull factors and education as the push factor than experienced students. Education, as a high-level human need and push motivational factor, becomes less important for experienced students.

A large number of Asian university students participated in study tour programmes each year. Nevertheless, there are few research papers relevant to exploring university students’ motivation to choose study tour destinations. This study provides useful insight for the universities to design and implement appropriate study tours according to students’ motivation.