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The current study aims at exploring China’s tourism sustainability issues as indicated in magazine articles related to China tourism. China’s environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability has been frequently discussed in Western media.

Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used to content analyze the textual data in one of the most popular US travel magazine – National Geographic in the past ten years (2003-2012).

This study presents the changes of topics on China tourism image conveyed by Western media in the past ten years (2013-2012). In addition, themes on China tourism sustainability issues are extracted from the China tourism image messages. The results reveal China tourism sustainability issues in two levels: sustainability issues directly related to China tourism with two dimensions of environmental sustainability and socio-cultural sustainability, and sustainability issues indirectly related to China tourism with two dimensions of economic sustainability and socio-cultural sustainability. Furthermore, the results delineate both positive and negative observations on environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability.

The findings of the study highlight challenges and successful practices of the sustainable development in China tourism destinations and the importance of incorporating tourism image in sustainable practices, as well as a need of better communication with foreign media.

Even if the relationship between travel bloggers and followers has implications for tourists’ decision-making process, the literature does not individuate the main determinants of this relationship. This paper aims to study the drivers and motivations to follow travel bloggers and the main consequences. Moreover, the paper seeks to highlight the metamorphosis of travel bloggers and their role in the tourism industry.

A systematic literature review was used, and 76 papers were selected. A thematic map of the literature and a summary of key findings are proposed.

Although authenticity is the main trigger for following travel bloggers, other factors (e.g. transparency and credibility), if lacking, can erode the relationship with followers. Results demonstrate that hygiene factors are important but that the relationship with followers can be compromised if motivational factors are lacking. Loyalty and the continued use of travel blogs are the main consequences of a relationship based on trust, credibility and engagement.

Tourism and hospitality managers must define sophisticated segmentation procedures to select the right travel blogger with which to engage for destination promotions. Travel bloggers must clearly define the role that they want to have in the market if they are to instill loyalty in their followers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts to identify the pillars of the follower–travel blogger relationship in the tourism and hospitality literature.

NO ONE WOULD ALLEGE that reading travel books can entirely take the place of real travel, but it is a very delightful substitute. The country I love most and wish to know better is Italy, a country which has always held a particular attraction for the English, who have been said to be ‘born with two ineradicable loves — one for the England that breeds them, and the other for the Italy that lures them’, and the result has been a number of fascinating travel books, which I have gradually discovered, and obtained from the library.

Studies about destination image have been discussed extensively in the literature due to its impact on tourist behavior. Despite the significant number of contributions, existing models are outdated in the context of globalization. This chapter synthesizes relevant literature and evaluates the effects of social media on destination image formation. Built on the seminal work by Gartner and that of Tasci and Gartner, the chapter extends the existing understanding with a conceptual model. The construct posits that, with the social media sites as the agent, an overall conative image of a destination can be formed by the overlap of provision and evaluation of cognitive and affective information by and among suppliers, consumers, and third parties.

This paper explores the way in which industrial pollution has been expressed in the narrative accounts of nature, landscape and industry by William Gilpin in his 18th-century picturesque travel writings. A positive description of pollution is generally outdated and unacceptable in the current society. The authors contrast his “picturesque” view with the contemporary perception of industrial pollution, reflect on these early accounts of industrial impacts as representing the roots of impression management and use the analysis to inform current accounting.

The research uses an interpretive content analysis of the text to draw out themes and features of impression management. Goffman's impression management is the theoretical lens through which Gilpin's travel accounts are interpreted, considering this microhistory through a thematic research approach. The picturesque accounts are explored with reference to the context of impression management.

Gilpin's travel writings and the “Picturesque” aesthetic movement, it appears, constructed a social reality around negative industrial externalities such as air pollution and indeed around humans' impact on nature, through a lens which described pollution as adding aesthetically to the natural landscape. The lens through which the picturesque tourist viewed and expressed negative externalities involved quite literally the tourists' tricks of the trade, Claude glass, called also Gray's glass, a tinted lens to frame the view.

The paper adds to the wealth of literature in accounting and business pertaining to the ways in which companies socially construct reality through their accounts and links closely to the impression management literature in accounting. There is also a body of literature relating to the use of images and photographs in published corporate reports, which again is linked to impression management as well as to a growing literature exploring the potential for the aesthetic influence in accounting and corporate communication. Further, this paper contributes to the growing body of research into the historical roots of environmental reporting.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The paper points out the image of a destination as a possible source of competitive advantage of the destination. A review of the literature is included showing the rising importance of the image of a destination. Slovenia's image as a tourist destination perceived by foreign tourist experts is analysed. Interesting mountains and lakes, beautiful natural attractions and interesting and friendly people were identified as the most typical attributes of Slovenia's image from the foreign tourist experts' point of view. The significant differences in Slovenia's image between those experts familiar with Slovenia compared to those experts who are only just aware of Slovenia are presented. The research shows that familiarity with Slovenia increases a tourist expert's image of Slovenia, especially the perceptual/cognitive component. According to the results of discriminant analysis, the discriminant attributes of Slovenia's image for each group are emphasised. Slovenia's appealing food and modern health resorts were the discriminant attributes for the group of tourist experts that is familiar with Slovenia, while traditional events were the distinguish attribute for the group of experts that is only just aware of Slovenia. Suggestions as organising familiarisation tours that include tour operators, travel agents and travel writers seemed to be a proper way of boosting Slovenia's image compared to other competitive tourist destinations.

This paper aims to examine the tourist business and marketing strategies of a US agribusiness giant, the United Fruit Company (UFCO), between its incorporation in 1899 and 1940. It considers how tourist marketing served the company’s public-relations interest and tourism’s broader connection to narratives of US ascendancy in the Caribbean Basin.

This study is based on original research in a series of published company materials, including annual reports and a wide variety of marketing materials, as well as a variety of rare primary sources documenting the experiences of US tourists on UFCO cruises.

From its incorporation in 1899, the UFCO developed a Caribbean cruise business as a vital part of its strategies of vertical integration and expansion around the region. Marketing tropical travel at a time when tropical disease dominated US perceptions of such places required a thorough conceptual makeover, and UFCO publicity played an important part in this process. The company advertised Caribbean destinations first for their therapeutic possibilities, but by the 1920s, a framework of anachronistic space and picturesque primitivism predominated in marketing campaigns. The structure of this narrative naturalized the company’s, and more broadly, US, hegemony in the region. While on cruises, tourists became witnesses to and participants in a series of spectacles and activities highlighting the company’s technological prowess and benevolence.

This analysis centers on a largely overlooked dimension of the famed banana company’s enterprise. It is grounded in a wide collection of primary sources largely untapped by researchers, a source base that brings tourist perception and experience into the story of this company’s marketing efforts. This research brings tourism and leisure into the historical discussion of US power in early-twentieth-century Latin America.