Destination Planning Research Articles

How Can Big Data Support Smart Scenic Area Management? An Analysis of Travel Blogs on Huashan

Data from travel blogs represent important travel behavior and destination resource information. Moreover, technological innovations and increasing use of social media are providing accessible ‘big data’ at a low cost. Despite this, there is still limited big data analysis for scenic tourism areas. This research on Huashan (Mount Hua, China) data-mined user-contributed travel logs on the Mafengwo and Ctrip websites. Semantic analysis explored tourist movement patterns and preferences within the scenic area. GIS provided a visual distribution of blogger origins. The relationship between Huashan and adjoining tourism areas revealed a multi-destination pattern of tourist movements. Emotional analysis indicated tourist satisfaction levels, while content analysis explored more deeply into dissatisfying aspects of tourist experiences. The results should provide guidance for scenic areas in destination planning and design.

Business tourism development: a portuguese perspective

Over time, not only new leisure practices were developed but also new types of work, with globalization leading to a greater need for commercial, industrial and knowledge expansion, stimulating business travel. Therefore, long ago that tourism does not only refer on travel motivated by leisure and recreation. Travels motivated by business and professions, which consist of one of the oldest forms of travel, saw their “tourist status” officially recognized by the end of the twentieth century. Today, Business Tourism (also known as Meeting Industry) represents a significant role on local and regional economies and reveals a considerable potential for development. In this context, Destination Management Organizations (DMO), and more specifically Convention & Visitors Bureaus (CVB), play a key role in providing the structure associated with the territory and the management, planning and development of destinations, especially those who want to position themselves as Business Tourism destinations. This article aims to explore a few topics concerning the evolution of Business Tourism, its importance and context in Portugal.

A multi-stakeholder examination of destination image: Nanluoguxiang heritage street, Beijing, China

ABSTRACTPerceived destination image is rarely examined through the gaze of stakeholders other than visitors, in particular residents and tourism business operators. This hinders the comprehensive understanding of destination image and limits its practical implications for destination marketing and management. Therefore, this study proposes a multi-stakeholder approach to image evaluation to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the destination image and better inform destination planning and management. Taking Nanluoguxiang hutong tourism site in Beijing as an example, the image perceptions of residents, on-site business operators, and domestic and international tourists are compared. Questionnaire surveys with both types of tourists and semi-structured interviews with residents and business operators are the main research methods. Major between group differences are identified in the evaluation of the authenticity of this Beijing hutong area, its representation of traditional Beijing culture and whether or not it is a place in which to relax. Results demonstrate that visitors, residents and business operators share similar cognitive images of Nanluoguxiang as a traditional historical street and a special business street with Beijing character. However, the historical and cultural values of Nanluoguxiang are undervalued. Moreover, distinct differences exist between the actual motivations for visiting held by domestic and international tourists and their motivations as perceived by residents and business operators. Suggestions are made to better meet the expectations and desires of all stakeholder groups through the provision of participatory programmes and activities to enrich the visitor experience of hutongs and the hutong lifestyle while maintaining a boundary between tourists and residents’ personal space to reduce unnecessary interruptions to residents’ daily life.

PROBLEMS OF SECOND-HOME SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT IN PROTECTED AREAS. POLESIE NATIONAL PARK CASE STUDY

Purpose. To show the scale and direction of recreational housing development within an area with high natural value. Steps to ensure the sustainable development of tourist settlement are discussed. Method. GIS analysis was performed based on archival and current orthophotomaps and planning documents existing at the municipal level complemented by field inventory. Additionally, interviews with residents on PNP were employed. Findings. Four main categories of recreational housing were distinguished in the study area: compact second home estates around lakes, second home estates “attached” to villages; dispersed second homes, and old and new buildings integrated with the spatial layout of a village. The last category can be regarded as the most advantageous from an ecological, landscape and functional perspective but, unfortunately, it is the least common. The intensive development of the other categories poses a threat to the natural and tourist assets of a region. The area of recreational housing in the study area increased from 26 ha in 1992 to 156 ha in 2013, mainly in the form of separate, second-home estates. Another 169 ha have been designated for recreational housing in the current planning documents. Most of the new areas are in the immediate vicinity of the national park boundary or on lakeshores. In view of such planning arrangements, one can expect further development of the negative trends in the expansion of recreational housing and degradation of the natural and tourist assets in other areas. Research limitations and conclusions. The quantitative analysis outside PNP did not include the number of old cottages converted into recreational homes. Practical implications. The results show that greater emphasis on hierarchical planning is necessary, starting from the boundaries of the entire West Polesie Biosphere Reserve to the municipality level. The comprehensive planning of entire tourist destinations, integrating permanent and seasonal settlements and taking into account the protection of nature as well as the most valuable tourist attractions, is no less important. At the same time, more stringent limits should be imposed on dispersed housing and monofunctional tourist housing enclaves. Originality. The phenomena described coincide with trends showed by other authors but it seems that compared to other parts of Poland, the scale of negative spatial phenomenon is higher, and according to other countries the role of spatial planning in coordinating second-home development is much smaller. Type of paper. The article is a case study based on cartographic quantitative analysis.

The Mainland Chinese market for nature tourism in Hong Kong

ABSTRACTNature tourism has been emerged as an ecologically sensitive form of tourism in developed and developing countries. A large influx of tourists would have both benefits and adverse impacts on these destinations. With an increasing influence of Chinese market in many destinations and tourism activities worldwide, it is important to understand the perceptions and preferences of Chinese tourists toward natural attributes so that proper approaches to destination planning and marketing can be derived to better attract these segments of tourists and sustainably manage tourism resources. The results of an empirical study of a sample of Mainland citizens (n = 430) to Hong Kong's nature areas show that (1) they exert a high degree of interest in participating in nature tourism; (2) female and older people are more interested in visiting natural environment; (3) these potential nature tourists from China prefer going to places in association with sea views, and engaging in photo-taking, non-commercial activities and less artificial elements; and (4) the nature tourism attributes form two factors related to aspects of educational needs and relaxation (an experiential factor), and nature-oriented but also convenient (a functional factor). These considerations can lead to the development of ecotourism products that are better suited to meeting the interests of mainland Chinese tourists, while also enriching the host experience.

Self-determined travel motivations and ecologically responsible attitudes of nature-based visitors to the Ramsar wetland in South China

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the effects of self-determined travel motivations on the ecologically responsible attitudes of Ramsar wetland visitors. An on-site questionnaire survey was administered at the Ramsar wetland in Hong Kong to evaluate the self-determined travel motivations and ecologically responsible attitudes of visitors. The results show that Ramsar wetland visitors are likely to be motivated by intrinsic motives such as seeking relaxation and knowledge. Most visitors have a self-determined agenda for visiting the Ramsar wetland to fulfil their own intrinsically and extrinsically motivated desires. Our findings also suggest that the level of self-determined motivation is positively correlated with ecologically responsible attitudes, implying that if a visitor exhibits a high level of self-determined motivation to visit the Ramsar wetland, they also exhibit a more ecologically responsible attitude. The study concludes with practical implications for nature-based destination planning and management. This information can serve as an important reference for improving visitor management and planning in ecologically sensitive wetlands.

Spiritual (walking) tourism as a foundation for sustainable destination development: Kumano-kodo pilgrimage, Wakayama, Japan

Spiritually motivated travels and specifically pilgrimage, have been an important part of tourism, and today carries a much wider connotation beyond religion including health, wellness and self-improvement. Pilgrims, especially those travelling on foot, have specific interests closely related to sustainability and this mode of travel, which may be defined as slow tourism, helps shape the kinds of tourism services provided by surrounding communities and direct destination planning and development. This is observed in the case of the World Heritage nominated pilgrimage trail, Nakahechi, Kumano in Wakayama, Japan. Referring to the evolving meaning of spirituality and tourism globally and in Japan, the paper explores the significance of today's spiritualities in destination management from local communities' perspectives. This is part of an ongoing study that employs critical and hopeful tourism perspectives as a platform, situating spirituality as a basis for sustainability and advocating slow engagement with local place and its people.

Structured inter-network collaboration: Public participation in tourism planning in Southern China

Public participation is considered a cornerstone of sustainable tourism planning. Although this process is well established and tested in western democracies, there is an emerging trend of developing it within the liberalizing Chinese tourism economy. Using a qualitative research strategy, this paper applies the theoretical construction of community participation in tourism planning to the analysis of the planning process of a tourism destination in Jiao Chang Wei, Shenzhen, China. The paper finds that: 1) public participation has played a significant role in the formulation and implementation of the tourism destination plan in the case study area. 2) Structuralized inter-network collaboration led-by government organized non-governmental organizations has the potential to become dominant paradigm of public participation in tourism planning in China in the future. The paper concludes with the contributions of this research to wider theory.

Evaluation of the Implementation of the Trauma Triage and Destination Plan on the Field Triage of Injured Patients in North Carolina

Objective: Timely triage and appropriate destination decision making for injured patients are central challenges faced by emergency medical services (EMS) systems. In 2010, North Carolina (NC) adopted a statewide Trauma Triage and Destination Plan (TTDP) based on the CDC's Field Triage Guidelines to better address these challenges. We sought to characterize the implementation of these guidelines by quantifying their effect on multiple metrics of patient care. Methods: We employed a retrospective pre-post study design utilizing a statewide EMS medical record database. We assessed several metrics of patient care—including changes in destination choice, appropriateness of EMS destination, transit time to first hospital, transit time to definitive care, and others—in a six-month period in the year before and after the implementation of the guidelines. Results: We evaluated a total of 190,307 EMS encounters pre- (n = 93,927) and post-implementation (n = 96,380). Among all patients, there was not a significant difference in the percentage transported to a community hospital or Level I, II, or III trauma center as their first destination. Among those patients meeting TTDP guidelines for transport to a trauma center, the number transported to a Level I or II trauma center decreased 1.0% from 30.6% (n = 2,911) to 29.6% (n = 2,954) (95% CI: −0.2%, 2.2%). Those transported to a Level I trauma center decreased 0.4% from 21.2% to 20.8% in the post-period (95% CI: −0.7%, 1.5%). There were also no significant changes in EMS scene times (14.0 pre-, 14.1 post-) and transport times (12.9 pre-, 13.0 post-). While scene distance from a Level I trauma center showed a decreased likelihood of transport to that center, there was an overall post-implementation increase of 2.5% from 18.0% to 20.5% (95% CI: −3.6%, −1.3%) in transport to a Level I trauma center among patients meeting anatomic criteria across all distance ranges. Conclusions: We found that implementation of region-specific destination plans based on the Field Triage Guidelines had little effect on selected hospital destination, scene times, transport times, and other metrics of EMS decision making and effectiveness. We suspect this is due to delays in information dissemination and adoption by field providers.

Correlações entre Transporte e Desenvolvimento Econômico Aplicadas ao Turismo: Uma Análise a partir do Município de Calda Novas / GO - Brasil

Understanding the elements that potentiate the economic development of a certain locality becomes necessary in the managerial sciences and planning of touristic destinations. Collaborating with theoretical gaps related to the particular analysis of transport activities and their impact on tourism, this study seeks to identify the economic relations between tourism and road transportation of people in tourist cities, being adopted as a reference the case of Caldas Novas / Goias / Brazil, one of the main tourist destinations in the country. From the use of economic data and the characteristic of people transportation, statistical models has been used to analyze, for example, the impact of the increase of vehicles to public transport at the gross domestic product of the municipality, demonstrating the levels of impact between the variables considered. Such results can be used to manage the transport activities and for the planning of tourism.

Exploring Responsible Tourism in Upper Myanmar

The concept of “responsible tourism”, which has spread rapidly in recent years, evokes conscious tourist behavior so as to minimize negative impacts on destinations, from an environmental, economic and cultural point of view. While intuitively comprehensible, the concept is not easy to operationalize in empirical studies. Facing this difficulty, our contribution illustrates an attempt to operatively define the concept within the framework of the development of a sustainable destination plan for the Ancient Cities of Upper Myanmar (ACUM). The paper describes the index adopted to survey and measure responsible attitudes among tourists and the main results of the research.

Tourism planning and place making: place-making or placemaking?

ABSTRACTTourism destination planning and marketing are fundamentally place making actions intended to shape the image and imageability of a place. Place making is an innate human behavior, ranging from the organic and unplanned actions of individuals, defined here as ‘place-making,’ to planned and intentional global theming by governments and tourism authorities, defined here as ‘placemaking.’ Place-making and placemaking are ends on a continuum of options, with most places have a mix of local and global elements. These elements also range from the tangible (base in urban design) to the intangible (peoplescapes and imaginations). The tools of place making are essentially the same for both organic place-making and planned placemaking, but the intentions and outcomes can vary enormously. Tourism development, as an economic activity, almost always has a neoliberal planned placemaking agenda. Organic place-making emerges through individual agency, which if allowed to proceed, will make its imprint even in a heavily master planned tourism landscape. An understanding of place-making and placemaking gives insight into research questions on the political economy of tourism and the roles of hosts and guest in co-producing tourism places. Examining the elements of place making in a tourism landscape can more clearly identify how different worldview perspectives have contribute over time to the making of tourism places, and thereby assist in planning for the future development of destination communities.

Power in tourism stakeholder collaborations: Power types and power holders

Stakeholder collaboration is acknowledged as an important part of tourism destination planning and management. However, not all destination stakeholders have the same level of power and influence in collaborative activities or decision-making, with some groups able to exert more influence over the process. The purpose of this study was to identify and categorise the various types of power that influence stakeholder collaborations in tourism destination planning and management and determine which stakeholder groups hold these powers. A case study approach was adopted and data was collected from publicly available secondary resources. The study results show that four different types of power (coercive, legitimate, induced and competent power) were evident in stakeholder collaborations. Coercive power was mainly held by government and public sector agencies while DMOs and large private organisations were found to hold strong legitimate power. Induced power was exerted by federal, state and local governments; educational institutions and consulting firms tended to possess competent power.

The Importance of Documenting and Including Traditional Wisdom in Community-Based Ecotourism Planning

This article accords to the theory of community-based tourism, which represents a concept that respects natural and cultural resources of a particular community and encourages participation of its members in the process of tourist product creation. The article operates in the planning phase and aims to give insights into the process of establishing the groundwork for community-based tourism. The key element is documenting and illustrating everything that could be a part of what is known as “traditional wisdom,” namely, the skills and knowledge of traditional life practices. The methods of case study, content analysis, and observation of the village of Omoljica, Serbia, were used. The positive aspect of this locality is reflected in the existing short-term initiatives of organizations and individuals engaging in preserving traditional practices, but without systematic, long-term planning and management of community-based tourism, these individual efforts to revalue traditional life practices would stay unrecognizable and invisible for visitors and stakeholders. Thus, the main goal of this article is to understand the relation between short-term bottom-up initiatives and long-term top-down strategic planning of specific ecotourism destinations, one that would embrace the traditional ways of rural community life. The contribution of this study, in addition to documenting and illustrating “traditional wisdom” of the specific rural community placed in the protected area which encompasses a particular local social system, will be reflected in the creation of a set of guidelines for sustainable, rural, community-based ecotourism as a soft-driver development of protected areas near big cities of the postsocialist countries.

Post-visit and pre-visit tourist destination image through eWOM sentiment analysis and perceived helpfulness

Purpose This paper aims to explore the image of travel destinations after the visit by analysing sentiment orientation of the online reviews, and how this orientation, as well as other electronic word of mouth (eWOM)’s credibility sources, can affect the perceived helpfulness of shared opinions measured through the helpfulness score. Design/methodology/approach Tourist destinations are increasingly affected by travel-related information shared through the Web. More and more people first check the previous travel experiences of other people to build their own destination image and to help them in their choice of destination. This paper analyses the shared opinions related to the city of Barcelona in a well-known eWOM website. The reviewers’ opinion and the credibility sources of eWOM are extracted from the web using a webscraper, while the sentiment score to analyse the discourse orientation (positive vs negative) is calculated using computer-based sentiment analysis techniques. Findings Online reviews’ users are reluctant to provide extreme polar opinions (very negative, very positive) to any travel subcategory (hotel, restaurant, attractions and night-life) of a tourist destination. The results obtained also reveal that eWOM’s perceived helpfulness grows with the expertise of the reviewer. However, the helpfulness score given to the reviews posted is not influenced by the sentiment orientation of the author’s opinion. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to the case study of Ciao, which is a well-known consumer platform, and the city of Barcelona, which is a top touristic destination. However, the approach proposed can be easily extended to other similar consumer platforms and cities using the same methodology. Practical implications Understanding the information posted in the media environment is a major concern in the field of marketing destination planning. Positive and negative eWOM offers potential consumers a clear picture on the tourist destination, and this information can be used by Destination Marketing Organisations to meet customers’ needs and expectations. The perceived helpfulness of reviews analysed in this paper can also help practitioners and scholars to understand those factors that make reviews more trustable. Originality/value From a methodological point of view, the main contribution of this research is the utilisation of an unstructured approach to the measurement of the destination image based on the sentiment analysis of shared opinions. From a theoretical point of view, the study relates the post-visit destination image with the pre-visit image formation process, using the sentiment orientation of the former and the perceived helpfulness of the latter.

Destinations' relational dynamic and tourism development

Abstract Social network analysis is a very useful tool for planning and management of tourist destinations. This paper applies it to 16 tourist destinations in Andalusia (Spain) with different levels of tourist development in order to establish the extent to which this development is conditioned by the relational dynamics of its tourist stakeholders.Results obtained show there is a direct increasing relationship between the network characteristics of stakeholders for a tourist destination and its level of tourist development. In other words, when the operation of the stakeholder networks improves, there is an increase in the level of tourist development at destination.

Stakeholder Colaboration in Tourism Destination Planning – The Case of Montenegro

Summary The importance of involving diverse stakeholders in tourism planning is receiving growing recognition. Effective tourism destination planning is a complex process, due to the existence of a wide variety of stakeholders with a wide range of opinions, multiple problem visions and different interests. Despite the complexity of the planning process one feature acknowledged for successful destination management planning is a high level of stakeholder engagement and cooperation. The implementation and success of a tourism plan often relies on the support of destination stakeholders. The paper deals with the issue of effective tourism destination planning from the perspective of harmonizing stakeholders’ interests. It explores tourism destination planning in the Montenegrin tourist destinations, the level of stakeholder cooperation and correlation between destination plans implementation and stakeholder cooperation. An empirical research was carried on the population of 19 local tourist organizations in Montenegro. Findings and implications of the research are given in the paper. The results revealed the problem of insufficient implementation of tourism development plans and low level of stakeholder cooperation. Also, there are implications based on recently conducted research reported in this paper, that there is a strong positive correlation between the level of stakeholder cooperation and implementation of a tourism destination plans.

Evaluating the Competitiveness of the Northern and Southern Macro-Regions of Italy

This study uses the Crouch and Ritchie (1999) model of competitiveness to investigate/measure the competitiveness of northern and southern Italian macro-regions. Researching competitive advantages along with identifying strengths/weaknesses represent the objectives of this study. 156 responses were analysed, and findings show that northern regions tend to be more competitive than southern regions. While naturally endowed and created resources represent strengths in both regions, the competitiveness of all the determinant factors included in the tourism development, planning and policy of both tourist destinations are found to be quite inadequate. Moreover, the findings revealed that these mature destinations are experiencing the effects unleashed by a number of trends such as the development of new forms of tourism, the increasing number of tourist arrivals, the growth of the global economy and the sophistication of tourists’ tastes, representing both opportunities and threats that Italian destinations need to consider when planning/developing new strategies.

A Tri-Method Approach to a Review of Adventure Tourism Literature: Bibliometric Analysis, Content Analysis, and a Quantitative Systematic Literature Review

This article provides an objective, systematic, and integrated review of the Western academic literature on adventure tourism to discover the theoretical foundations and key themes underlying the field by combining three complementary approaches of bibliometric analysis, content analysis, and a quantitative systematic review. A total of 114 publications on adventure tourism were identified that revealed three broad areas of foci with adventure tourism research: (1) adventure tourism experience, (2) destination planning and development, and (3) adventure tourism operators. Adventure tourism has an intellectual tradition from multiple disciplines, such as the social psychology of sport and recreation. There is an underrepresentation of studies examining non-Western tourists in their own geographic contexts or non-Western tourists in Western geographic contexts. Our findings pave ways for developing a more robust framework and holistic understanding of the adventure tourism field.

Birding blogs as indicators of birdwatcher characteristics and trip preferences: Implications for birding destination planning and development

Abstract Birdwatching has evolved into one of the most popular nature-based recreational activities and a significant niche tourism sector, yet literature on birding destination development has been limited. Through a four phase, mixed-methods approach, coupling thematic content analysis, word frequencies and applying the recreational specialisation framework, 200 birding blogs were analysed from five English speaking countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to determine birdwatcher characteristics and trip preferences. The study identified seven birder sub-populations, including previously overlooked segments, such as family and couple birdwatchers. The results also illustrate that birding is much more multi-dimensional than previously thought, requiring a strategic planning approach that incorporates all features required to make a birding destination a complete tourist experience. Four figures are provided that demonstrate the necessary components family, couples, friends and individual birdwatchers identify as the most important features of a birding destination.