Key issues in the conceptualization of tourism destinations

The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of how the term ‘destination’ has been used, critiqued, and analyzed. While the traditional view of a destination has largely focused geographical features and the systemic concept of tourism destinations has focused on the interaction between tourists, the staff in industries providing tourism services, and the local population, more recent conceptualizations of tourism destinations treat destinations as complex adaptive systems that adapt to ever-changing economic, political, and social trends. As well, recent work on integrative conceptual frameworks of tourism destinations highlights the importance of particular geographical elements in the emergence and development of destinations which affect the structure of the mode of production, the range of stakeholders involved in tourism activity, and the entire process of destinations evolution. Although the traditional – geographic concept of destination, from today's point of view, is one-sided and not comprehensive, geographical elements, however, are the nucleus from which a tourism destination occurs and develops. In this regard, it is indisputable that the geographical attributes of tourism destinations represent the key component of their resource base. This fact should be borne in mind in future conceptualizations of destinations.     

The aeromobile tourist gaze: understanding tourism ‘from above’

ABSTRACT

While the impact of aeromobility on the growth of tourism and its destinations is well documented, the role of aeromobility in the process of experiencing and shaping place with specific regard to tourist destinations has received little attention from scholars. With the growth of commercial aviation and the increasingly mundane nature of the experience within mass tourism, I draw attention to the touristic experience of flying as the activity beyond its role in arriving at the destination. After a brief review of the genealogy of aeromobility and tourism, I reflect on examples of tourist aeromobility in Cape Town, South Africa in order to theorise the aeromobile tourist gaze. This paper analyses mobile testimonies from online travel reviews from airborne tourists performing helicopter ‘flips’ over Cape Town. Results highlight the need to focus on flying as tourism itself while they illustrate the role it plays in the aeromobile tourist gaze, a unique perspective and experience of the tourism destination as ‘tourism from above’ that emerges from the touristic dimensions of flight including the destination, the flying device and flight route. The findings underscore the role of flying-as-tourism. The aeromobile tourist gaze thus spectacularises the destination and disrupts the relationship between tourists and place.     

湖南旅游线路设计与开发中的几个问题

本文对开发湖南旅游线路的基础与条件、必要性与可行性进行了论述,提出了湖南旅游线设计方案,对所设计的四条线路的品牌定位与市场定位进行了研究,对开发措施及营销策略作了探讨。开发出具有湖南特色的旅游热线,对于促进湖南由旅游资源大省向旅游强省快速转化,有着十分重要的意义。     

关于旅游现象的生存论本质

旅游现象的生成是建立在生存论的前提基础上,即人首先要满足生理生存需求和谋生生存需要,才会有旅游需求和行为的发生。人们在居住地惯常生活环境的生存谋生状态,决定了休闲和旅游的本质差异。旅游研究只有回到生存论前提,旅游现象和概念的本质才有可能得到深刻揭示：旅游就是人们通过筹划,离开和返回惯常生活环境,体验并满足非谋生需求的生存活动。     

旅游公共服务体系与旅游目的地满意度的结构关系研究——以桂林国家旅游综合改革试验区为例

在整理及分析国内外相关研究文献的基础上,本文以桂林国家旅游综合改革试验区为例,运用结构方程模型(SEM)模拟游客感知的城乡旅游公共服务体系与旅游目的地满意度的结构关系。结果表明:(1)旅游接待服务感知成为影响旅游地游客满意度最为关键的因素;(2)政府主导下的旅游公共服务体系感知也被证实为影响旅游接待服务感知、游客满意度的显著因素;(3)政府主导下的旅游公共服务体系建设是桂林提升旅游竞争力的关键。最后针对研究结果提出一些建议,并指出本文的不足及今后的研究方向。     

避暑旅游指数概念模型及评价指标体系构建

气候变暖背景下避暑旅游成为夏季旅游市场的主旋律。地方政府及旅游主管部门在培育避暑旅游目的地时应从何入,手旅游者如何能够准确地做出避暑旅游决策等是一个现实问题。本文在综述国内外相关研究与实践的基础上,认为舒适凉爽的夏季气候条件只是避暑旅游的最基本条件,创新性地提出应侧重从产业发展的角度,引入旅游休闲度、游客满意度和综合风险度等指标。避暑旅游评价指标体系的构建为目的地避暑旅游条件评估提供了理论框架,有助于游客准确地做出避暑旅游决策,同时也为目的地避暑旅游发展与提升提供一个具操作性的管理工具。     

旅游情境中的形象一致性理论评述

形象一致性理论涵盖消费者评价产品/品牌的两个视角:自我一致性和功能一致性。随着目的地品牌营销兴起,该理论已被用于解释旅游者出游行为,却尚未有研究总结其在旅游情境中的发展脉络。本文首先从概念的界定、维度和测量方法等方面梳理形象一致性的理论发展演变,然后归纳出主要结果变量、内在作用机理和边界条件,明晰其在旅游情境中的研究进展。结论如下:1不同维度的自我一致性对旅游者行为的影响不同。2功能一致性会直接影响自我一致性,但尚未引起足够重视。3自我一致性通过不同中介变量间接影响出游行为。4多类调节变量均会影响形象一致性与出游行为之间的关系。文章探讨了形象一致性理论在旅游情境中的应用,为后续研究提供借鉴。     

Matter in or out of place? Bicycle parking strategies and their effects on people,practices and places

This study explores what bicycle parking strategies tell us about the place of mobility objects in contemporary urban streetscapes. It examines the bicycle's liminality by combining approaches from practice theory with Mary Douglas' concept of ‘matter out of place’. Much research on cycling has concentrated on the bicycle in movement, yet in our research, based in four relatively high-cycling English urban areas, a common theme was concern about the bicycle when not in use. Bicycles at rest were perceived as threatened or threatening, risky or at-risk; affected by theft, vandalism, the weather, official and familial disapproval. In the study, we link this to the tenuous place of urban cycling in England; while bicycle ownership is widespread, everyday cycling remains marginalised and this shapes the place of the bicycle resting on city streets, in homes and in workplaces. Bicycles waiting for their owners are often ‘matter out of place’. This is seen within the context of broader motorised landscapes which have made driving easier through locating driving competences in the car itself, while comparable cycling competences remain on the outside—with the cyclist.     

Homecoming or tourism? Diaspora tourism experience of second-generation immigrants

Diaspora tourism is often considered a form of ‘homecoming,’ but for the children of immigrants who are born in the new country, the question remains as to whether they perceive their parents’ homeland as ‘home’ or destination. Moreover, advancements in transportation and communication technologies allow contemporary immigrants to maintain transnational ties to their homeland, which in turn may affect the nature of diaspora tourism. The purpose of this study is to understand the lived experience of second-generation immigrants when they travel to their ancestral homeland, and explore the extent to which second-generation transnationalism shapes their diaspora tourism experiences. Using a phenomenological approach, 26 second-generation Chinese-Americans who had the experience of traveling in China were interviewed. Four themes were identified from semi-structured interviews: language and appearance, search for authenticity, family history, and sense of ‘home.’ Proficiency in their parental language was found to be a main cause of negative experiences, yet occasionally a source of pride and attachment. Their search for authentic experiences was not unlike other tourists, while familial obligations sometimes limited their experience. Traveling back to the homeland not only allowed them to understand their parents and family history, but also reflect upon their life through experiencing contemporary China. Finally, as the transnational attachment of second-generation immigrants was not rooted in a specific locale, they could feel connected to the homeland without actually visiting their family's place of origin. Findings contribute to transnationalism and diaspora tourism literature by comparing first- and second-generation immigrants and identifying the difference between contemporary transmigrants and classic diaspora groups with regard to their diaspora tourism experience.     

Wine tourism development in South Africa: a geographical analysis

ABSTRACT

Wine tourism, which is growing and developing on a global scale, is widely considered a driver of economic and social development in rural areas. Limited job opportunities and unemployment are prevalent in most rural areas, particularly in South Africa. In 2015, the South African wine industry generated close to 300,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities. A geographical analysis of the development and current state of wine tourism in the region can assist in the country's efforts to develop a new strategy to enhance and preserve wine tourism in the future. Wine tourism development is analysed from a nodes, network and winescape perspective using the results from a national questionnaire survey. This mostly quantitative approach explains the wine tourism development over more than 40 years from a supply-side perspective including its wine tourism product portfolio and in terms of its physical footprint. Wine tourism development commenced from only three pioneer open cellar doors in 1971, to network formation of 21 wine routes and today boasting well-established wine tourism destinations. The Stellenbosch-Franschhoek-Paarl nexus emerges as South Africa's premier winescape, as being a well-established destination in its mature life cycle phase. Strong evidence of hierarchical differentiation between the wineries of the more established wine tourism regions has emerged. The impact of the wine tourism resorts on the smaller wineries has yet to be determined in the context of the resilience of the whole region. The development of wine tourism is also responsible for the transformation of rural landscapes and especially in the regions that have the most developed wine routes. These regions need higher-level protection (especially the cultural and natural resource bases) in the form of an ‘agricultural reserve’ or the declaration of a ‘national heritage site’.     

The challenge of proximity: the (un)attractiveness of near-home tourism destinations

ABSTRACT

Imaginaries of touristic otherness have traditionally been closely related to geographical distance and travel far away from the everyday. But in today's context of sustainable tourism, a moral and behavioral shift may be expected, toward traveling near home. Distance may actually become a disadvantage and proximity a new commodity. This implies a need to disentangle subjective understandings of both distance and proximity in relation to perceived attractiveness of and touristic behavior in places near home. Thus, it is aimed to shed light on how ‘proximity tourism’ is constructed, endorsed and appreciated (or not).

An online survey (N = 913) was administered to residents of the Dutch province of Friesland, exploring their attitudes toward their home province as tourism destination and representations of proximity and distance in relation to preferred vacation destinations. We grouped respondents into four categories, reflecting destination preferences: (1) proximate, (2) distant, (3) intermediate and (4) mixed. These groups were differentiated and characterized using quantitative and qualitative analyses. The ‘proximate’ and ‘distant’ preference groups, respectively, were most and least engaged in proximity tourism. However, the perceptions of proximity and distance expressed by the ‘intermediate’ and ‘mixed’ preference groups were associated in a nonlinear way with appreciation of the home region as a tourism destination. Additionally, respondents used proximity and distance in various ways as push, pull, keep and repel factors motivating their destination preferences.

Interpretations of both proximity and distance were thus important in determining engagement in proximity tourism and, in turn, the potential for proximity tourism development in the region. This implies that such development will require a balanced consideration of the relative, temporally sensitive ways that people negotiate distance and proximity in their perceptions of being at home and away. Our results advance the discussion about imaginaries of travel, distance and proximity, and their impact on regional tourism.     

Beautiful face,beautiful place: relational geographies and gender in cosmetic surgery tourism websites

Cosmetic surgery tourism is a significant and growing area of medical tourism. This article explores the gendered construction of cosmetic surgery tourism in different geographical locations through an analysis of destination websites in Spain, the Czech Republic and Thailand. We examine the ways in which gender and other intersections of identity interact with notions of space, place and travel to construct particular locations and cosmetic surgery tourist experiences. The relational geographies of skill, regulation and hygiene in discourses of cosmetic surgery risk are also explored. We conclude that accounts producing cosmetic surgery tourism as undifferentiated experience of ‘non-place’ fail to acknowledge the complex constructions of specific destinations in promotional materials targeting international consumers in a global marketplace.     

The tourist gaze: cycling tourists’ impressions of Victorian and Edwardian Ireland

Cyclists’ written records of their Irish tours in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been overlooked by those scholars who have studied travellers’ impressions of Ireland in this period. The tricycle and the bicycle opened Ireland to a new form of tourism in the form of cycling tourism, and many of these holidaymakers, both Irish and foreign, were keen to record their experiences and impressions awheel, either in the cycling press or in other publications. This article is the first sustained effort to present a scholarly analysis of this material. It shows that the cycling tourists’ writings, as is the case with other travel writings, reveal more about the authors’ prejudices and their preconceived ideas about the places that they would visit and the people that they would encounter than they necessarily do about the realities of Irish life.     

Sustainability of the tourist supply chain and governance in an insular biosphere reserve destination: the perspective of tourist accommodation

ABSTRACT

Small islands in peripheral regions are currently perceived as attractive tourist destinations. Governance plays an important role as a strategy for the revival of such destinations to achieve a more productive, environmental, social and sustainable management structure. ‘Good’ governance of a destination depends on all the actors involved in the tourism network. Such governance requires a redefinition of relations between government and society and minimal boundaries between public and private sectors. This paper has analysed the level of implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a tourist destination that is a biosphere reserve (BR), the island of Fuerteventura (Canary Islands, Spain), from a comprehensive approach involving a tourism supply chain (TSC) with private and public agents. The focal firms analysed within the TSC have been tourist accommodation establishments in Fuerteventura. The paper shows that the level of involvement of tourist accommodation in CSR is positive. However, this involvement is not sufficiently high to meet the requirements of a destination designated as a BR. Therefore, coordination policies should be developed that promote governance systems and further enhance sustainability in the destination.     

旅游目的地形象测量内容的研究综述

本文将形象界定为用于记录与外界相互作用过程中事物所呈现的状态及属性的信息,从而实现中西方学者在旅游目的地形象内涵理解上的对接。在此基础上,本文将目的地形象分成本体形象、传播形象与感知形象三个层面,就每个层面形象测量的内容进行归纳综述,从而将目的地形象测量内容的众多观点置于一个可统一、可比较的框架中,从而为我国的目的地形象测量研究与实践提供参考。     

Marketing Destinations with Prolonged Negative Images: Towards a Theoretical Model

Abstract

While there is a great deal of research on destination branding in general, the study of tourism marketing that deals specifically with destinations suffering from prolonged image problems is less well developed. We integrated theories from crisis communication, image restoration and destination marketing to examine media strategies used by such destinations to attract tourism, and then classified them. We utilized qualitative content analysis of tourism campaigns for destinations – primarily in problematic areas such as the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe – that appeared in international tourism magazines, destinations’ websites and video-sharing websites. We classified two approaches of media strategies: the ‘cosmetic approach’, relating to strategies that focus mainly on altering the destination's image and the ‘strategic approach’, relating to strategies that take comprehensive action, changing both the negative image and the problems causing it.     

Liminality at-sea: cruises to nowhere and their metaworlds

Abstract

The concept of liminality informs the experience of tourism, yet little is known about how liminality is performed in the context of ‘cruises to nowhere’ that sacrifice terrestrial destinations for endless ‘seascapes’ of liminality. Fuelled by alcohol, round-the-clock parties and endless buffets, cruises to nowhere are an increasingly popular addition to the Southern African cruising season. Understood through a sample of South African based multi-day ocean-going cruises without a destination, results take literally the notion that tourist liminality involves boundary crossing into the unknown on the limitless horizon of the high seas. Using netnographic methods, boundary crossings are traced through the intended and practiced activities on-board cruise-to-nowhere experiences. Involving a mix of sun, sea, sex and especially alcohol, cruises to nowhere engineer the destination-free seascape as a liminoid playground. Reflecting on South African-based cruises to nowhere offered during the southern hemisphere summer cruising season, the findings of this research call for a more deliberate focus on the liminal aspects of ship-based tourism. At the same time, conclusions chart a course for what may be termed debauchery tourism. Building from work in cruise tourism geographies, alcotourism and party tourism, findings do not intend to moralise debaucherous shipboard tourism, but rather to explore the liminal setting of the cruise ship and the sea where cruises to nowhere offer round-the-clock drinking and partying as a liminal destination in and of itself.     

Destination attributes,satisfaction, and the cruise visitor's intent to revisit and recommend

The cruise industry has seen its revenues more than double since the year 2000. Hence, it has become even more important for planners and managers to pinpoint those destination attributes that make a difference in satisfying cruise ship passengers. This is especially crucial since the extant literature established that visitors' overall satisfaction with the destination strongly influences intent to return or recommend the destination to others. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the satisfaction of cruise visitors regarding various destination attributes may relate to their satisfaction with the destination and how this may influence declared intent of repeat visits or intent to recommend the destination to those within their social and professional networks. This study is based on the data collected for the island of Oahu in 2013 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Our analysis makes use of the logistic regression, and our results indicate that distance deters passengers from repeat visits, whereas the influence of satisfaction with the destination is positive not only for revisits, but also for word-of-mouth recommendations. Satisfaction with attributes such as transportation, safety and prices strongly influences satisfaction with the destination, whereas satisfaction with other attributes such as on-shore activities or sightseeing tours were found not to be as influential. The results delineate the factors planners and managers should focus on in their efforts to increase visitor satisfaction with a destination and thereby increase the likelihood of repeat visits and positive word of mouth.     

Visitors’ place-based evaluations of unacceptable tourism impacts in Oulanka National Park,Finland

Visitors’ assessments of the negative impact of tourism, on physical and social environment, vary based on the location where the evaluation occurs. Research that focuses on identifying visitors’ norms within outdoor recreation settings has not been able to link the geographical location with the corresponding evaluation of unacceptable levels of impact. This study combines a traditional on-site visitor survey with a Public Participation Geographic Information Systems survey to produce spatially explicit information on visitors’ acceptance of tourism impacts. Using a web-based participatory survey, visitors were asked to indicate specific locations where they felt the effects of tourism disturbed the quality of their experience in Oulanka National Park. These evaluations were analyzed at multiple scales – destination, specific zones, and sites – to promote more efficient park management. Based on visitor evaluations, we found a collection of hotspots in the park where tourism has already caused unacceptable impacts. Visitors noted that crowding and erosion disturbed their experiences, especially along highly visited trail sections, while littering was considered problematic near wilderness huts. However, participant satisfaction at these sites was not lower than elsewhere in the park. This indicates that the association between negative impacts of tourism and visitor satisfaction is not straightforward, but complex. This study encourages the collection of spatially accurate data on visitors’ assessments of the effects of tourism because it has the potential to more efficiently direct park management policies. In addition, spatial techniques provide a new means to monitor the impacts of tourism, acknowledging that visitors’ perceptions of acceptability of tourism impacts also vary within tourism destinations, such as parks.     

目的地居民对旅游影响的评价研究——来自山东省的实证检验

运用Ap和Crompton（1998）提出的旅游影响量表,本文从经济、社会文化、拥挤程度、环境、服务和社区态度等方面实证检验了山东省的目的地居民对旅游影响的感知程度、对旅游影响的态度以及对旅游影响的综合评价,探讨了目的地居民对旅游影响的感知与他们对旅游影响的态度之间的关系。研究结果表明,多数情况下目的地居民对旅游影响的感知与态度之间并不相关。