Destination Resources Research Articles

Destination social capital and innovation in SMEs tourism firms: an empirical analysis in an adverse socio-economic context

This study examines the structural relationships between internal and external resources that explain the innovation of small tourism firms in adverse socio-economic contexts. Specifically, it analyzes two internal resources, human and organizational-technological capital, and the valuable intangible resources derived from social interactions between the agents in the destination (other companies, institutions, and community). The research hypotheses are tested by means of structural equation analysis applied to an empirical study of 180 tourism firms located in Isla Margarita (Venezuela). The findings confirm the importance of external resources derived from relationships with destination agents in the innovation behavior of tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While business social capital affects innovative behavior directly, other types of internal intellectual capital mediate the relationship between innovative behavior and institutional and community social capital. It is the first to address the local community’s role in the innovation of tourism SMEs. The importance of integrating firm and destination resources should inform SMEs’ innovation policies in adverse contexts where the scarcity of resources make vulnerable the economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Co-management of Capitals for Community Wellbeing and Sustainable Tourism Development: A Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACTA broader view of sustainable tourism development is becoming increasingly apparent, in which the discourse of sustainability has been extended to include notions of tourism/community capitals, sustainable livelihoods, quality of life (QoL) and community wellbeing. This research note employs a qualitative literature review approach to set out a conceptual framework by revisiting the existing Sustainable Livelihood Framework for Tourism (SLFT). The framework contributes to the existing sustainable tourism development and/or destination development literature by introducing “co-management” as a balanced decision-making tool (representing transforming structures and processes) for destination resources (being referred as capitals). In so doing, the governance aspects of tourism destination resources are underpinned with a view to generating sustainable livelihood outcomes. From an operational perspective, the framework allows policy makers to think of alternative structures at destination level to create sustainable livelihood impacts and thereby facilitate sustainable development of tourism.

Emerging Travel Trends: Joy of Missing Out (JOMO) Vs Iconic Landmarks

Tourism derived from many criteria ranging from activities, attractions, location, travel style and the tourism product category preferred. The present paper aimed to examine the two travel trends The Joy of Missing Out (JOMO) and Iconic landmarks and sites by reviewing relevant literature review from both travel trends, and critically analyse which of one of the two trends is likely to dominate. A comparison of the two trends reveals that JOMO is a type of journey that emphasises with the isolation against technology, with motivation for relaxation, escape from everyday routine and commitments. Meanwhile, iconic landmarks and sites travel trends have the characteristics in novelty seeking to visit exciting places, viewing the scenery and related to tourist self-development. These studies provide valuable insights into the JOMO concept related to the motivation of relax and iconic landmarks and sites tourist attraction described as a ‘flagship, which is highly noticeable as the strongest pull-factors of a destination and regarded a primary growth destination resource. The scope of this study was limited in terms of travel trends from the literature review. Further studies need to be carried out in order to validate the experiences of the traveller within these two travel trends by comparing their expectations, perceptions, and motives.

The UAE's tourism competitiveness: A business perspective

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the most popular tourism destinations and the most competitive in the Middle East and North Africa region. Currently, the country aims to reach its full potential to better compete on a global scale. This paper examines factors influencing the competitiveness of the UAE as a tourism destination from the business perspective. The data were collected from a convenience sample of 311 business entrepreneurs and analyzed using a hierarchical regression. The results suggest that destination resources, destination infrastructure and support services, and the general business environment have a significant influence on the UAE's tourism competitiveness. The implications of the study's results are discussed.

Estimation of the Spatial Suitability of Winter Tourism Destinations Based on Copula Functions.

Climate and weather are important factors that determine winter tourism destinations and snow resources and temperature affect the income of the winter tourism industry. Against the background of climate change, abnormal fluctuations in climate elements bring a series of challenges for winter tourism and cause potential losses to the tourism industry. To effectively assess and plan winter tourism destinations, this study establishes the snow abundance and meteorological suitability indices from snow resource and weather conditions to express winter tourism resources, respectively. The coupling relationship of the two indices was used to analyze the spatial suitability of winter tourism destinations based on the copula function. By case analysis, it was found that the Frank copula one is the best fitting function for winter tourism suitability analysis. The Yushu–Jiutai–Yitong–Dongliao line is the boundary of spatial suitability in the study area. The eastern areas of the boundary have great potential for winter tourism and could strive to develop ice-snow projects, whereas the western regions are relatively weak. This study has guiding significance for winter tourism destination development and resource spatial layout.

Destination competitiveness from a tourist perspective: A case of the United Arab Emirates

AbstractThe main purpose of this study is to determine the major factors that influence destination competitiveness from the tourist perspective. The focus is on tourism competitiveness of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A convenience sample of 218 international tourists was surveyed. A hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the effects of destination resources, infrastructure and support services, human resources, and business environment on the UAE tourism competitiveness. The results show that destination infrastructure and support services, followed by destination resources, had the highest significant effect on the UAE's tourism competitiveness as perceived by tourists.

Factors influencing Chinese tourist flow in Japan – a grounded theory approach

ABSTRACTThis study examined the factors influencing Chinese tourist flow in Japan. The study used a grounded theory to obtain insight into the tourist flow through text analysis of 96 online travel diaries and used these data to propose a model of factors. The model constitutes five categories: tourist condition (travel purpose, time budget, travel companion, prior visit experience, and opinions of others), destination characteristic (destination resource and distribution of destinations), transportation characteristic (transportation expense and transportation network), macro environment (visa policy and political relationship), and unforeseen circumstance (weather condition and fortuitous event). The study established a model for comprehensive understanding factors influencing tourist flow at inter-destination level.

Local cuisines and destination marketing: cases of three cities in Shandong, China

ABSTRACTThis study analyzes how the three cities of Jinan, Qingdao, and Qufu in Shandong Province of China use their cuisines in promoting their destinations. Based on a critical review of previous studies, a conceptual framework was developed, which included five closely related areas: foods, beverages, dining, farming, and food festivals. All related texts, images, videos, brochures, booklets, and websites designed to market these three cities were content-analyzed. The study findings suggest that all the three cities have not yet fully utilized their cuisines in their destination marketing efforts. Although some of their culinary resources appear in their marketing materials, the local cuisines of these three cities are not yet skillfully integrated into their marketing efforts. The present study offers specific theoretical and practical implications on marketing the culinary resources of destinations that are in the early stages of their development.

A Functionality-Based Runtime Relocation System for Circuits on Heterogeneous FPGAs

Runtime relocation of circuits on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) has been proposed for achieving many desirable features including fault tolerance, defragmentation, and system load balancing. However, the changes in the architectural composition of FPGAs have made relocation more challenging mainly because FPGAs have become more heterogeneous. Previous and state-of-the-art circuit relocation systems on FPGAs have relied only on direct bitstream relocation which requires the source and destination resource layouts to be the same, as well as access to the design bitstream for manipulation. Hence, their efficiency on modern heterogeneous chips greatly reduces, and mostly cannot be applied to encrypted bitstreams of intellectual property blocks. In this brief, we present a circuit relocator which augments direct bitstream relocation with a functionality-based relocation scheme. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technique using a CORDIC application and show that an average of over 2.6-fold increase in the number of relocations can be obtained compared to only direct bitstream relocation at the expense of a small memory overhead and manageable relocation time for this case study.

Korean Golf Tourism in China: Place, Perception and Narratives

Tourism is a critical, cross-cultural social behavior in contemporary society and provides diverse experiences based on different regional resources in destinations. This research identified the attributes associated with Korean golf tourists’ images of seven destination regions in Mainland China. A content analysis of 328 golf tourists’ blogs indicated that each region had different combinations of destination attributes, but these were partially hidden in vivid descriptions of playing experiences. The narratives were coded with 15 golf destination attributes with 136 headwords and they reflected both place-centred images and interactions through perceptual experiences with different social groups. The golfers greatly appreciated congestion control at courses and social interaction during their tours, including the services of local human resources and play partners. The seven Chinese golf destinations had different perceived characteristics and relationships with South Korean society. Thus, they had dissimilar destination images for Korean golf tourists. Historical ties and geographical proximity played important roles, including, for example, the significant presence of ethnic Koreans in northeast China.

Decentralized Motion Planning and Scheduling of AGVs in an FMS

In this paper, decentralized motion planning and scheduling of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in a flexible manufacturing system is proposed. A motion planner is combined with a scheduler allowing each AGV to update its destination resource during navigation in order to complete the transported product. The proposed strategy is based on two steps. The first step consists in planning a presumed trajectory to avoid collision conflicts previously detected by a central supervisor, enabling more appropriate decentralized scheduling by AGVs. The presumed trajectories, which represent the intentions of AGVs, are then exchanged with neighboring AGVs. The second step uses the presumed trajectories of neighbors to compute a collision-free trajectory according to the priority policy. Numerical and experimental results are provided to show the pertinence and the feasibility of the proposed strategy.

When guests trust hosts for their words: Host description and trust in sharing economy

In order to better understand the dynamics of user behavior in the sharing economy platform, a multi-stage study was conducted on how Airbnb hosts articulate themselves online and how consumers respond to different host self-presentation patterns. First, using text mining techniques on a large dataset consisting descriptions of Airbnb hosts in 14 major cities in the United States, two patterns of host self-presentation were identified. Hosts generally present themselves online as (1) a well-traveled individual, eager to meet new people or (2) an individual of a certain profession. This contributes to the conceptualization of profile as promise framework for online self-presentation in mixed-mode interactions involving peer-to-peer accommodation platform. Second, consumers respond to the two host self-presentation strategies differently, demonstrating higher levels of perceived trustworthiness in and intention to book from well-traveled hosts. This has direct strategic implications for effective self-marketing of “amateur” tourism players as well as for the role of residents as resources in tourism destinations.

Choosing between exiting or innovative solutions for bed and breakfasts

Choosing between an exit and innovative solution are discussed in responding to the issues of oversupply and homogeneity facing bed and breakfast businesses in Taiwan. A grounded theory using semi-structured interviews was used to identify the form of stewardship-based exit strategy, as well as factors that determine the success of B&Bs. Face-to-face interviews with 30 B&B owners identified eight factors: personal values, thanksgiving, sense of happiness, dedication to community, family identity, provision of family-oriented and fun environment, experience of thematic B&B, and eco-tourism travelers. A competitive differentiation strategy drawing on one or many elements of these factors may be implemented, depending on the preference of B&B owners and the unique destination resources that they can integrate and reconfigure. Grounded theory helps clarify the innovative solutions with differentiation strategies that are important for sustainability of B&Bs when the market is in the saturation or decline stage of the product life cycle.

Dynamic Relationship Between Tourism and Homogeneity of Tourist Destinations

With the increase in tourism, the size of domestic and foreign travel destinations has also begun to increase. However, this growth is accompanied by the homogenization of each scenic spot, which results in the convergence of destination image and declining competitiveness. To address this problem, this paper is based on the dynamic competition relationship between homogeneous folk tourism destinations studied using the evolutionary game theory of homogenous competition environment, and the dynamic relationship between the destinations is examined through research and analysis. This paper studies whether the tourist destination can take the model of tourists in the case of this homogenization and analyzes the countermeasures that should be taken. This paper provides reference for improving the destination revenue and efficient visitor management. We hope to further clarify the essence of the competitive relationship between the tourism destinations and to make the tourist destination more competitive. At the present, product homogenization is ubiquitous. Homogeneous area is related to the development of the differences of the same area tourism scenic area, as the development intensity is increasing; because of the common cultural background, resources and environment are somewhat shared in the production of large numbers of similar tourist destinations, and homogeneity is inevitable. Therefore, the potential negative impact of the brand tends to place the scenic spot in an awkward position. Tourism must satisfy the psychological needs of tourists to seek something new and different. Difference development must begin from regional overall planning to such factors as the similar resources type, characteristic, formation, structure, and distribution. By careful and detailed investigation, examining the scenic spot’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges enables the evaluation of the system. We observe the breakthrough of “scientific development, resource complementation, mutual dependence, and common development” of homogenization of a tourist destination. Construction connotation differences from a tourist orientation leads to more comprehensive enjoyment of the high homogeneity of the scenic area and makes use of similar resources in tourist destinations due to changes in the environment and function of innovation of tourists’ recognition.

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.

자연재난이 관광수지에 미치는 파급효과분석: 자연자원중심지와 문화자원중심지를 대상으로

자연재난이 관광수지에 미치는 파급효과분석: 자연자원중심지와 문화자원중심지를 대상으로

자연재난이 관광수지에 미치는 파급효과분석: 자연자원중심지와 문화자원중심지를 대상으로

자연재난이 관광수지에 미치는 파급효과분석: 자연자원중심지와 문화자원중심지를 대상으로

Place branding in tourism: a review of theoretical approaches and management practices

This paper draws from the generic literature on branding to develop the idea of tourist based destination branding. In that process, it identifies various tourism related nuances that obfuscate brand building in tourism. Tourist based brand equity proposed as an alternative to the more traditional destination resource centered idea of brand equity. Measurement approaches to quantify destination brand equity are compared, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. Throughout the discussion, examples of successful destination branding practices are integrated.

English

Ecotourism is growing niche market with the potential of being sustainable development tool in protected areas. Ecotourism development needs preliminary assessment of the destination resources. This study was done with the objective of assessing ecotourism potential of Maze National Park for ecotourism development. The study used survey research design. Structured questionnaires and structured key informant interviews were used to collect data. Target population of the study was tourism experts. Samples are selected purposefully to gather genuine information from relevant respondents. The result showed that Maze National Park has high ecotourism potential in terms of its natural features, but it has moderate potential regarding provision of site infrastructure and human resource features. The local community residing in the vicinity of the national park has low potential of tangible cultural features but possesses various intangible cultural features which can attract tourists. Hence, the national park has good potential for ecotourism development. Key words: Ecotourism, Protected Area, Maze National Park, Ethiopia

Exhibition destination attractiveness – organizers' and visitors’ perspectives

Purpose The purpose of this study was to provide a holistic view of exhibition destination attractiveness by examining perceptions of two of the three key stakeholders (exhibition organizers and visitors) and contrasting them with those of exhibitors. Design/methodology/approach This research used a mixed method approach, collecting 535 responses from visitors attending nine business-to-business exhibitions in four major cities in China via structured surveys. In addition, eight in-depth interviews with CEOs/owners of leading global and Chinese exhibition companies were conducted. Findings The findings revealed that exhibitors may go almost anywhere where there is potential for successful business. In contrast, visitors prefer exhibition destinations with good accessibility to minimize travel time and an attractive leisure environment that offers a degree of enjoyment in addition to taking care of business. A destination’s “economic environment” and “cluster effects” were comparatively less important to them. Organizers were cognizant of these differences, contributing to their reluctance in taking large-scale, branded exhibitions to second-tier destinations, despite considerable efforts by these cities to improve their infrastructure. Practical implications This study offers practical guidelines for destination administrators and exhibition organizers with regard to evaluating destination resources for long-term exhibition development. Originality/value In contrast to prior studies, this research identifies significant differences in perceptions of exhibition destination attractiveness among all three key industry stakeholders. It also presents a persuasive case for the need to clearly differentiate between the attractiveness of a destination for attracting/hosting exhibitions versus conventions, rather than approaching the subject from a more generic meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) segment/business events perspective.