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The aim of this paper is to investigate whether tourism awareness can be created through introducing tourism as a subject in high schools in South Africa. It also explores if studying tourism as a high-school subject has an influence on the travel patterns of students and their parents, and if it stimulates students to pursue a career in the tourism industry.

The study is exploratory in nature. Based on a literature review, a questionnaire was developed and administered to 250 students with tourism as a high-school subject (research group), 250 students without tourism as a high-school subject (control group), 250 parents whose children have tourism as a high-school subject (research group) and 250 parents (control group) whose children do not have tourism as a high-school subject in South Africa.

Data revealed that introducing tourism as a high-school subject created tourism awareness among students. The travel patterns of those parents whose children studied tourism were also influenced. Results also indicated that students who studied tourism at high-school level are likely to pursue a career in the tourism industry.

The study was conducted on learners who had been exposed to the tourism curriculum for only a year-and-a-half and therefore did not measure the full impact of the three-year curriculum. The study was also conducted in only one of the nine provinces of South Africa and the demographic location of the learners could have had an influence on the findings. More advanced statistical analysis could have been performed to increase the value of the study. The Bartlett Tests of Sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin overall measure could also have been reported. The study can be replicated in other countries, where tourism is currently being offered as a school subject to measure the effectiveness of the tourism curriculum as an awareness tool. The influence of children on their parents' travel patterns should also be further studied as it can assist in strategic development, planning and marketing of tourism attractions.

Introducing tourism as a high-school subject in other developing countries can be considered as a way of creating tourism awareness, and to stimulate the domestic tourism market and the tourism industry as a whole. If tourism can be introduced as a subject at a younger age students will be able to influence their parents' travel patterns and are likely to pursue a career in the tourism industry.

This study is one of the first to measure the effectiveness of a tourism curriculum as a tourism awareness tool. It also adds to a limited body of knowledge on how children influence their parents' travel patterns. Last, it shows the effect that tourism awareness has on students in their decision to pursue a career in the tourism industry in South Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant literature on travel motivation and provides a scenario‐based discussion on the applications of travel motivation theories in the industry practice. The paper offers an invaluable practical interpretation of travel motivation and related management issues.

A comprehensive literature review on travel motivation is conducted to acknowledge the major theories. Two scenarios are presented and discussed by linking two motivation conceptual schemes, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and Plog's allocentrism/psychocentrism model, to practical issues in travel management.

The literature review discloses that travel motivation theories have evolved over time. By linking theories to industry practice, the paper advocates that travel managers be more conscious of travelers' internal psychological needs when designing travel services/products.

This paper offers a good understanding of travel motivation by discussing theoretical applications in real‐world situations.

The purpose of the study is to compare features of career development and fandom in frequent festival attendance in the context of Finnish music festivals.

The study uses a mixed methods research approach and employs two theoretical frameworks: theories of career development and fandom.

In frequent festival attendance, both festival career development and festival fandom are most clearly present in motivation development and social dimensions.

Strategically, frequent festivalgoers should be considered as crucial stakeholders, who might mobilize the co-creation of a sense of community or festival brand.

Music-related fandom has been previously investigated in relation to artists and specific musical genres, but not so much in relation to music festivals in general. Career studies, on the other hand, concentrate heavily on sports events. There is a scarcity of research scrutinizing both career development and fandom in the festival context within the same study, and festival attendance as part of music tourism is an under-researched area.

This paper aims to explain and resolve the paradoxical situation in China regarding how it is difficult to get an offer of employment in China while people are unwilling to pursue or embark on a career in the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) industry. Therefore, the MICE industry career path should be carefully explored.

The paper used semi-structured interviews with more than 30 representative managers from key MICE companies, a social community perspective and conceptions of the social world combined with the traditional career-ladder model.

The study’s key findings are: a general career path exists in the MICE industry in China; there are three main types of career paths and two different kinds of promotion mechanisms, which vary according to the type of ownership, scale or other characteristics of companies; and a feedback mechanism, linking social-world events and social community characteristics, affects individual employees and their career paths in the MICE industry, leading to promotion in or retreat from the industry. Typically, the mechanism fits high-level employees better than the freshmen, which leads to high turnover in the MICE labor market.

This paper provides a better understanding of MICE industry and facilitates people’s employment choices.

This paper provide a new social community perspective for exploring the MICE career path; there are also significant practical implications for MICE elites, which present a new framework for future research and industry applications.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This paper aims to investigate the socio-demographic variables that affect the motivation of Muslim tourists in Malaysia, and to examine the travel characteristics factors that affect the motivation in decision making of Muslim tourists travelling to Malaysia.

The study surveys questionnaires for data collection. Convenience sampling technique was used on the selected sample. The study was conducted in Malaysia, where the target respondents included Muslim family tourists with ages ranging from 18 to 64 years.

The findings show that motivation differs significantly among different levels of the socio-demographic characteristics except for gender and income. The result also reported that a majority of tourists’ travel behaviour was significantly different unless when it comes to seeking accommodation. Results also revealed a tendency for long holiday stays among Muslim tourists in Malaysia.

In this study, the examination of motivation on the Muslim family tourists has provided significant influence in managing the family tourist experience. On the other hand, most previous studies have shown that motivation is positively guided by general “push and pull” factors. However, this research demonstrates that components such family financial income and age of respondents has an effect on Muslim family tourists’ motivation, thus justifying the experience effect.

It is crucial for the service provider and destination management organizations to differentiate their products and services so that the packages and experience will be more meaningful.

Destination packages should be appropriately designed and positioned in the target markets to meet the needs and wants of different Muslim family groups. Communication should emphasize not only the most distinctive characteristics but also the most suitable holiday packages that the family tourist can afford to pay. This would assist the family in the decision-making process and choice processes and facilitate the family’s expectation.

This research paper related to Islamic tourism marketing which can be used to formulate appropriate marketing strategies, build a viable market segment and design practical marketing strategies to attract potential Muslims travellers.

Although experiential consumption has received some attention from tourism and hospitality researchers in the past decade, the profile of experiential consumers has not been discussed thus far. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: to test the sociodemographic antecedents of experiential versus utilitarian consumption for profiling purposes and to examine the potential behavioral consequences of experiential versus utilitarian consumption tendencies.

On an online research platform, 413 respondents answered questions concerning logic-based/emotion-based decision-making traits, as well as sociodemographic characteristics and several travel behavior variables.

Data revealed that emotion-based decision makers are more likely to be females, who are more passionate about their travel needs than are logic-based decision makers. Results also revealed that the importance that emotion-based decision makers place on travel preferences, potential travel risks and travel information sources is higher than that of their logic-based counterparts.

The current study used one personality trait, emotion-based decision-making, as a proxy for experiential consumption. There are other potentially explanatory traits that should be investigated in future studies.

Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) promoting destinations with historical and cultural attractions can capitalize on the finding that these attractions are highly demanded by both types of decision makers, whereas DMOs of man-made attraction destinations may need to find ways to embellish the significance of these attractions for both types of decision makers.

Even though social risk was the lowest-rated item in general, both decision-making traits were highly correlated with social risk. The higher the tendency in the decision-making style, either logic-based or emotion-based, the more important how a trip would make them look within their social circle. Social risk concerns for both types of decision makers should be addressed in marketing messages.

The current study represents one of the earliest attempts to draw a picture of experiential consumers in comparison with utilitarian consumers in sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics.

The study aims to explore the intellectual structure of wellness tourism (WT) research by performing a two-phase methodological approach.

Citation and co-citation analysis were performed on 209 articles published up to October 2021 in Scopus, and the results were visualised with the VOSviewer software. Furthermore, to assess clusters in-depth, qualitative thematic content analysis was used.

The findings indicate that the main articles of WT research examine the demand side of WT. Five clusters were explored by co-citation analysis. Each cluster is discussed by presenting the main theme, key theoretical framework, and characteristic methodological perspective. Accordingly, no dominant theory stands out in research on wellness tourism. Most of the study has been done through cross-sectional surveys.

The authors anticipate that by the recommendations outlined in this study, WT research will progress and provide significant insights to WT practitioners in the coming years to meet tourist expectations.

Via this research, which shows the discovery of the intellectual structure of WT and its holistic picture, the deficiencies in the picture will be seen, and practitioners will be provided information based on evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the benefits sought by three different types of wellness tourists: beauty spa, lifestyle resort, and spiritual retreat visitors.

Based on the findings from 27 semi‐structured interviews with wellness tourists a benefits of wellness tourism scale (BWTS) was developed. It was used to measure 46 benefit items and was mailed to people included on the client/member lists of three Australian wellness tourism organisations.

In total, six benefit factors emerged from a principal axis factor analysis: transcendence; physical health and appearance; escape and relaxation; important others and novelty; re‐establish self‐esteem; and indulgence. A one‐way MANOVA, followed by a series of ANOVAS, revealed significant differences between the three types of tourists regarding the importance attributed to each of the six benefit factors. While all participants in the study sought transformation of the self, each identifiable group of tourists placed different emphasis on physical, psychological or spiritual transformations. Moreover, each group differed significantly in terms of demographic and travel behaviour characteristics.

The relevance of this paper lies in its adoption of a comprehensive approach to the investigation of the potential differences between three wellness tourist groups regarding the socio‐demographic profile, travel behaviour, and the benefits sought. Previous studies have focused on a single particular wellness tourist group. Furthermore, the BWTS may be applicable for use in future comparative studies of wellness tourist motivation.

Despite the increasing recognition of coffee tourism, there is limited research on the influence of memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) on coffee tourist behaviours. This investigation attempted to fill the gap in extending the MTE model by integrating travel motivations and expectation–confirmation theory (ECT).

A mixed-method approach was employed. A survey questionnaire containing closed- and open-ended questions was used to obtain quantitative and qualitative information. Interviews with coffee shop owners were also conducted to obtain greater insight.

Both the quantitative and qualitative findings confirmed that coffee tourists’ revisit and word-of-mouth intentions were strongly influenced by satisfaction and MTEs, which were predicted by confirmation of expectations (CoEs) and travel motivations.

The findings confirmed that travel motivation is one of the most important precursors of MTEs. CoE was also determined to be a precursor of MTEs. MTEs had positive influences on satisfaction, word of mouth (WoM) and revisit intentions.

The results offer insights by identifying vital factors linked to coffee tourist experiences and satisfaction, which will aid practitioners developing better marketing strategies.

The memorable tourism experience scale has rarely been applied in food tourism and particularly in relation to coffee consumption. Moreover, this research is unique in investigating the relationships among motivations, CoE, MTEs, satisfaction and WoM and revisit intentions.