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1 – 10 of over 2000Jose Weng Chou Wong, Ivan Ka Wai Lai and Shan Wang
While travelling, tourists like to use mobile technology to share their travel experiences. This study aims to understand how the social value gained by tourists from sharing a…
Abstract
Purpose
While travelling, tourists like to use mobile technology to share their travel experiences. This study aims to understand how the social value gained by tourists from sharing a travel experience with mobile technology affects their satisfaction with the travel experience through onsite mobile sharing behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
A second-order hierarchical model is constructed to examine the moderated mediating role of onsite mobile sharing behaviour in improving tourists’ travel satisfaction. Through systematic sampling, 304 responses were collected at ten attraction points in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China.
Findings
The results show that, compared with self-centred values (self-presentation and self-identification), other-centred values (building social connection and reciprocity) contribute more to forming social values of sharing. In addition, onsite mobile sharing behaviour partially mediates and moderates the effect of social values on travel satisfaction.
Originality/value
This study applies the social capital theory to identify the value gained by sharing travel experiences and empirically evaluates the impact of these values on the overall value of sharing travel experiences. This study also contributes to tourism research by examining the moderated mediating role of onsite mobile sharing behaviour in improving travel satisfaction. This study helps destination marketing to make strategies to motivate tourists to use mobile technology to share their travel experiences while travelling.
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Hyangmi Kim, Junhyoung Kim, Kyoung Tae Kim and Ya-Ling Chen
To augment the current literature on the memorable travel experience, this research attempts to elucidate the complex meaning of memorable travel experiences. It deploys a…
Abstract
To augment the current literature on the memorable travel experience, this research attempts to elucidate the complex meaning of memorable travel experiences. It deploys a qualitative study to interview 17 participants in four study sites in the State of Indiana, US. From the personal interviews, this study discovers five thematic views entailing: (1) social interaction, (2) destination attractiveness, (3) excitement, (4) novelty, and (5) learning. Unlike most memorable travel experience studies in the existing literature which indicates knowledge as one of the components, this study finds that memorable travel experience involves in the learning process, not merely gaining knowledge. Relevance suggestions for future research are provided in the conclusion section.
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Songshan (Sam) Huang and Xiang Wei
This study aims to examine the demographic differences of Chinese nationals’ travel experience sharing through different offline and online platforms.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the demographic differences of Chinese nationals’ travel experience sharing through different offline and online platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-tabulation analysis was applied on a national sample of 6081 respondents in China.
Findings
The study found that Chinese women tend to share travel experience more often than Chinese men; old people in China tend to use the face-to-face approach more than online or social media to share their travel experience. About 66.5 per cent of the survey sample used WeChat Moments to share their travel experience, highlighting WeChat as the dominating social media platform in China for travel sharing. In general, people who share via online platforms (WeChat, Weibo, QQ Space) tend to be young, single or unmarried, well-educated and earning a high monthly income.
Originality/value
The study offers an in-depth understanding of travel experience sharing idiosyncrasies in China.
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DaPeng Xu, Lingfei Deng, Xiao Fan and Qiang Ye
Building on a small body of work, the authors' study aims to investigate some important antecedents of online review characteristics in the Chinese restaurant industry.
Abstract
Purpose
Building on a small body of work, the authors' study aims to investigate some important antecedents of online review characteristics in the Chinese restaurant industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a data set of restaurant reviews collected from a most popular review platform in China, the authors conduct a series of analyses to examine the influence of travel experience and travel distance on travelers' review characteristics in terms of review rating and media richness. The moderating effect of restaurant price on the influence is also investigated.
Findings
Travelers with a longer travel distance and more travel experience tend to provide higher and lower online ratings, respectively, which can be explained by the construal level theory (CLT) and the expectation-confirmation theory (ECT), respectively. Furthermore, these strong feelings can then induce travelers to post enriched reviews with more pictures, more words and more affective words to release consumption tension. Besides, restaurant price can moderate these relationships.
Originality/value
Distinguished from most studies which mainly focus on the consequences of online review characteristics or antecedents of review helpfulness, the authors pay attention to the effects of travelers' individual differences in terms of travel distance and travel experience on travelers' online reviewing behavior. In addition to review rating, the authors also focus on media richness in terms of visual and textual information. The authors' research findings can benefit restaurant consumers and managers for their online word-of-mouth utilization and management.
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This paper aims to examine the effects of travel experience dimensions on tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effects of travel experience dimensions on tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 457 international tourists visiting Phuket through a convenience sampling method. The structural equation modeling approach by AMOS was used to test the effects.
Findings
In case of island destination, beach attraction is not the only factor contributing to tourists’ loyalty, but hospitality of local people also plays an essential component to retain loyal tourists.
Research limitations/implications
This study examined only one construct (i.e. travel experience) affecting tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.
Practical implications
Tourist experience in beach attractions and local people are the key factors to retain royal tourists.
Social implications
Quality of beaches and friendliness of local people are important factors to promote island tourism.
Originality/value
Two key factors of tourist experience were found to affect tourists’ loyalty in the case of island destination: beach attractions and local people.
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Resat Arica, Cihan Cobanoglu, Onur Cakir, Abdülkadir Corbaci, Meng-Jun Hsu and Valentina Della Corte
This study aims to examine the factors influencing tourists to share their travel experiences on social media (SM).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the factors influencing tourists to share their travel experiences on social media (SM).
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire was administered to 1,280 American travelers, and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The PLS-SEM results indicated that non-participant sharing had a direct and positive effect on tourists’ tendencies to share their travel experiences on SM. Environmental, relational and security concerns had direct and negative effects on actual travel-experience sharing, whereas altruism, personal fulfillment and self-actualization had direct and positive effects on actual travel-experience sharing.
Practical implications
Travelers were found to attach importance to content shared on SM when they believed the content to be objective and reliable and were more likely to share such content on their own SM accounts. This finding suggests that tourist-created content is crucial. Tourism businesses, therefore, should reduce or eliminate inhibitory factors to increase content sharing. This research provides guidance for tourism businesses’ SM initiatives.
Originality/value
The study, first, contributes to an understanding of the factors affecting the sharing of travel experiences on SM. Second, this study develops a holistic approach that integrates the factors that might affect tourists’ SM content-sharing behavior into a single model.
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Cheng-Yue Yin and Patrick Poon
This paper aims to examine the impact of other group members on the travel experiences of Chinese tourists participating in domestic package tours.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of other group members on the travel experiences of Chinese tourists participating in domestic package tours.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the critical incident technique, usable responses were obtained from 253 tourists regarding the influence of other group members on their travel experiences in the same group package tour (GPT).
Findings
The results show that the travel experiences of Chinese tourists on a domestic package tour are affected by three general factors, namely, appearance, behaviors, and language of other group members.
Research limitations/implications
This research mainly involves samples of young tourists. The findings may not be able to generalize to elderly tourists. Future studies may involve samples from various age cohorts.
Practical implications
The findings offer new insights and directions for GPT operators and tour guides to improve tourism management and tourist experiences.
Social implications
This study contributes to tourism literature about customer-to-customer interaction by identifying the major categories of other customers’ characteristics or behaviors that may positively or negatively influence a GPT tourist’s travel experience.
Originality/value
This study enriches the existing literature by investigating the attributes of other group members that may affect the travel experiences of a domestic GPT participant. Tourism firms can formulate better strategies and staff training to enhance tourists’ travel experiences.
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Bahar Yasin, Fakhri Baghirov and Ye Zhang
This paper aims to identify the most popular travel information sources used among tourists and investigates how travel information selection differs across travel experience and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify the most popular travel information sources used among tourists and investigates how travel information selection differs across travel experience and gender.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used convenient and quota sampling strategy, questionnaires were distributed to 270 respondents at Sultanahmet and Grand Bazaar areas. A screening question was used to classify respondents.
Findings
First, past travel experience, travel agent, travel websites and hotel websites are generally the most frequently used travel information sources in destination selection due to conveniences and reliability. Second, first-timers prefer to use external information sources such as Facebook, guidebooks, travel agents and newspapers to gather information about destinations, whereas repeat visitors prefer to use internal information sources such as friends’ suggestions and past travel experience. Lastly, female visitors rely more on internal information sources such as friends’ suggestions and past travel experience. However, males prefer to use external information sources like Facebook, television, blog, travel agents, newspaper and guidebooks in choosing Turkey as a destination.
Research limitations/implications
Because factors studied, travel information sources selected, number of respondents and questionnaire distribution area are limited, future studies can expand to a bigger area so more respondents could get more reliable results.
Practical implications
This paper could help tourism industries understand searching behaviours among different types of tourists better to promote businesses in convenient sources and reach target customers easily.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified need to study how travel information searching behaviours differ among tourists.
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Maria Ek Styvén and Tim Foster
The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation Z consumers in three different countries.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was sent to consumers between 16 and 30 years in Sweden, UK and India. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis was conducted to compare results between countries and generations.
Findings
Young travellers’ need for uniqueness (NFU) and opinion leadership (OL) with regard to travel tends to increase their propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip. Reflected appraisal of self is strongly related to NFU and OL and may therefore indirectly influence the propensity to share. Some differences were found between generations and countries.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could consider comparisons between travellers from younger and older generations. The hypotheses formulated in this study could be tested in other countries. Further adaptions or extensions of existing NFU scales to fit in the travel and tourism context are suggested.
Practical implications
Millennial and Gen Z consumers will constitute an increasing part of travellers and visitors in the future. Through a better understanding of their behaviour, tourism managers can design strategies to engage them and increase electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).
Originality/value
This study contributes by addressing the lack of research on “self”-related drivers of eWOM in general social media during the trip, and by providing an international perspective through cross-cultural comparisons.
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Fangxuan (Sam) Li, Yuanyuan Shang and Qianqian Su
The purpose of this study is to propose and test a model that is composed of immersion, perceived attractiveness, happiness, satisfaction and behavioral intention in light of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose and test a model that is composed of immersion, perceived attractiveness, happiness, satisfaction and behavioral intention in light of the extended cognitive-affective-conative model.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the suggested research model, 271 genuine on-site questionnaires were gathered.
Findings
Immersion was found to positively affect perceived attractiveness and happiness. It is also suggested that perceived attractiveness and happiness mediate the association between immersion and tourist satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study also has advantageous marketing and management implications for destination managers and marketers to improve tourist satisfaction.
Originality/value
As per the authors’ knowledge, this is the very first study that inspects the mechanism by which how immersion influences tourist satisfaction.
目的
利用拓展的认知-情感-意动理论, 本研究旨在提出和测试一个将沉浸感、感知吸引力、幸福感和行为意图联系起来的模型。
设计/方法
本研究收集线下有效样本271份。
发现
本研究发现沉浸对感知吸引力和幸福感有正向影响。本研究还提出感知吸引力和幸福感在沉浸感和游客满意度之间的关系中起中介作用。
研究意义
本研究还为目的地营销人员提供有用的营销和管理启示, 以提高游客满意度。
创意/价值
这是探索沉浸感如何影响游客满意度的机制的研究首批研究之一。
Propósito
Este estudio tiene como objetivo proponer y probar un modelo que vincula la inmersión, el atractivo percibido, la felicidad, la satisfacción y la intención de comportamiento basado en el modelo cognitivo-afectivo-conativo (CAC) extendido.
Diseño/metodología/enfoque
Se recogieron un total de 271 cuestionarios in situ válidos para probar el modelo de investigación propuesto.
Hallazgos
Se encontró que la inmersión afecta positivamente el atractivo y la felicidad percibidos. También se propone que el atractivo percibido y la felicidad median la relación entre la inmersión y la satisfacción del turista.
Limitaciones/implicaciones de la investigación
Este estudio también proporciona implicaciones útiles de marketing y gestión para que los comercializadores de destinos mejoren la satisfacción del turista.
Originalidad/valor
Este es el primer estudio que explora el mecanismo detrás de cómo la inmersión influye en la satisfacción del turista.
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