Destination Characteristics Research Articles

Risk Management Strategies in the Tourism Industry: Developing an ANP Model for Risk Reduction and Resilience Enhancement Amid Crises

This study investigates risk management strategies in the tourism industry by developing an Analytic Network Process (ANP) model that aims to increase resilience and reduce risks during crises. The tourism sector is inherently vulnerable to a variety of uncertainties, including natural disasters, economic fluctuations, and global health emergencies. Through a comprehensive analysis of key factors such as destination characteristics, stakeholder capacity, regulation, and market dynamics, the study identifies three key strategies: Integrated Public-Private Collaboration Model, Adaptive and Resilient-Based Model, and Smart Technology-Based Model. The results show that the Adaptive and Resilient-Based Model is a top priority for effective risk mitigation, emphasizing the importance of flexibility and adaptability. The results showed that the Adaptive and Resilient-Based Model is a top priority for effective risk mitigation, emphasizing the importance of flexibility and adaptability. Key elements supporting this model include robust infrastructure, advanced technology, skilled human resources, and strong collaboration between stakeholders. The findings provide practical guidance for policymakers and industry stakeholders, highlighting the importance of innovative and sustainable approaches to strengthen the tourism industry's resilience to dynamic risks and crises.

Modeling Population Mobility Flows: A Hybrid Approach Integrating a Gravity Model and Machine Learning

Population mobility between cities significantly affects traffic congestion, disease spread, and societal well-being. As globalization and urbanization accelerate, understanding the dynamics of population mobility becomes increasingly important. Traditional population migration models reveal the factors influencing migration, while machine learning methods provide effective tools for creating data-driven models to handle the nonlinear relationships between origin and destination characteristics and migration. To deepen the understanding of population mobility issues, this study presents GraviGBM, an expandable population mobility simulation model that combines the gravity model with machine learning, significantly enhancing simulation accuracy. By employing SHAPs (SHapley Additive exPlanations), we interpret the modeling results and explore the relationship between urban characteristics and population migration. Additionally, this study includes a case analysis of COVID-19, extending the model’s application during public health emergencies and evaluating the contribution of model variables in this context. The results show that GraviGBM performs exceptionally well in simulating inter-city population migration, with an RMSE of 4.28, far lower than the RMSE of the gravity model (45.32). This research indicates that distance emerged as the primary factor affecting mobility before the pandemic, with economic factors and population also playing significant roles. During the pandemic, distance remained dominant, but the significance of short distances gained importance. Pandemic-related indicators became prominent, while economics, population density, and transportation substantially lost their influence. A city-to-city flow analysis shows that when population sizes are comparable, economic factors prevail, but when economic profiles match, living conditions dictate migration. During the pandemic, residents from hard-hit areas moved to more distant cities, seeking normalcy. This research offers a comprehensive perspective on population mobility, yielding valuable insights for future urban planning, pandemic response, and decision-making processes.

Predicting Behavioral Intentions of Active Sport Tourists in a Non-traditional Event: The Case of Obstacle Course Runners in Spain

Non-traditional sport event has received much attention in recent years. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of sport event image and attitudes toward event in predicting satisfaction with event and behavioral intentions. A sample of 182 obstacle course runners in Spain was surveyed to test the research model using structural equation modeling. The results showed that event characteristics, which is one of the dimensions of sport event image, and participants’ attitudes toward event positively influenced satisfaction, which in turn, together with attitudes, positively influenced behavioral intentions for repeat visits and recommendations. However, the destination characteristics dimension of sport event image had no impact on attitudes and satisfaction. Finally, satisfaction had a mediating effect on the relationships between event characteristics and behavioral intentions, and attitudes and behavioral intentions. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Stakeholders’ Opinion on Geotourism Characteristics of Hummanaya Destination, Sri Lanka

Geotourism is a niche market that contributes to sustaining and even enhancing the geographical characteristics of a territory, including the abiotic, biotic, and cultural (ABC) attributes of destinations. It uplifts the living standards of local communities and provides opportunities for visitors to understand and appreciate the natural environment and the existing culture of the geosites. The aim of this research was to evaluate the geotourism characteristics of the Hummanaya tourism destination based on stakeholders’ opinions and to investigate the extent to which stakeholders are committed to adhering to geotourism principles. Primary and secondary data sources were utilized to collect the necessary data for this study. For gathering primary data, key informant interviews and participatory observations were conducted in the field using a semi-structured questionnaire, with purposive sampling employed. Unpublished documents served as secondary data. Descriptive statistical analysis and narrative interpretation methods were used to analyze the collected data. The study was able to identify the extent to which geotourism stakeholders adhere to geotourism principles. Specifically, regarding the principles of integrity, community involvement, community benefits, and tourist satisfaction, the informants provided positive responses. The findings reveal that the destination is perceived by tourists as a fascinating and unique tourist attraction in Sri Lanka. Most tourists reported being very satisfied or satisfied with the tourist attractions, facilities, and services provided by local facilitators, indicating that the destination meets tourists’ expectations. However, a significant issue is whether other stakeholders are satisfied with geotourism's contributions to protecting the destination's ABC attributes and improving the socio-economic status of local communities. Negative responses were noted concerning principles such as evolution, market selectivity, interactive interpretation, and market diversity. Therefore, necessary measures must be taken to conserve and develop the destination as a geosite and geotourism site.

Research on Leisure Tourism Destination Image Innovation Driven by Artificial Intelligence

As the public’s demand for tourism experience continues to improve, the demand for tourism products gradually develops in the direction of personalization, customization and differentiation. In order to mine the image of leisure tourism destinations, this paper conducts theme mining on the review texts of leisure tourism destinations by means of LDA model. An improved neural network language model CBOW and a Glove model are used to train the review word vectors of leisure tourism destination texts. Based on the deep fully connected neural network model, the perceptual features of tourist destinations are studied and analyzed. Taking Sanya tourist attractions as a research case, by analyzing the perception of tourist attractions, the cognitive image vocabulary of Sanya tourist attractions includes three major categories. Among them, tourism attractions, tourism infrastructure and services, tourism service atmosphere, and tourists’ travel behavior accounted for 53.1%, 22.3%, 5.1%, and 19.5% respectively. Then the emotional vocabulary in the perception of tourism destination image in Sanya City was categorized in terms of positive, neutral and negative, and from the neutral vocabulary, the word frequency number of words such as waiting (101), understanding (185), fun (61), and relaxation (56) was high. Regression analysis was used to explore the factors influencing the effect of tourists’ perception of destination image. Among them, tangibility (0.43), reliability (0.463), and responsiveness (0.434) were positively and significantly related to tourist satisfaction. Improving the image of leisure tourism destination can focus on these three aspects.

New Challenges to Managing Cultural Routes: The Visitor Perspective

In recent decades, cultural routes have become increasingly important in the tourism offerings of rural destinations. It is vital to identify the factors that visitors consider important to their satisfaction with a cultural route and its overall impact on a tourist destination. This paper employs Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to investigate the dimensions of visitor satisfaction on cultural routes. A survey assessed satisfaction with 37 specific aspects of a cultural route in a tourist destination, revealing three key dimensions: satisfaction with destination characteristics, tourism infrastructure, and the cultural roots offerings. The findings highlight the need to move beyond traditional models of tourist satisfaction that focus on specific experiences and instead explore overall factors contributing to tourist satisfaction with a destination. The study examines cultural routes in rural regions of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in Croatia and neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina. The scientific findings have significant implications for cultural route managers, aiding in the innovation and creation of offerings that will enhance tourist and visitor satisfaction.

Leveraging emojis as visual semiotics for enhanced engagement in destination marketing

While emojis serve as a proxy of emotion in digital environments and pave the way for new epistemological viewpoints in destination marketing, certain symbols fail to receive equal attention. This study explores the sentiment of emojis across social media posts featuring different destination characteristics and their impact on engagement. By employing topic modelling and permutation feature importance, the findings revealed 21 topics based on diverse tourism contexts and the relative importance of different emoji types in predicting engagement. Moreover, in addition to bridging semiotics, data science, and tourism, this research also provides a deeper understanding of leveraging visual semiotics through their embedded sentiment.

The ideal MICE destination characteristics: A perspective from Istanbul

Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions (MICE) is a lucrative tourism segment, offering higher per capita spending and larger returns on investment than other tourism types. However, what makes a successful MICE destination from a multi-stakeholder perspective is overlooked in the literature. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to explore the features of ideal MICE destinations based on the perspectives of different stakeholders in the MICE market, including supply (e.g., C.V.B.s, lodging) and demand (e.g., Travel agencies, incentive houses). In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 experts. The results of the thematic analysis revealed seven overarching themes, which are classified under the characteristics of a MICE destination were grouped under internal (infrastructure, superstructure, service quality) and external (cultural, natural, economic, and political) factors. To confirm the validity and reliability of the findings, the results of semi-structured interviews were further evaluated by conducting focus groups with seven MICE experts. This study extends current literature by identifying destination selection factors with a more holistic approach, which reflects the perspectives of different stakeholders. The findings also provide a foundation for developing marketing strategies and allocating resources to better position the destination.

The relationship between online word-of-mouth characteristics of night tourist destinations, information trust, and travel satisfaction

The relationship between online word-of-mouth characteristics of night tourist destinations, information trust, and travel satisfaction

Destination characteristics influence domestic tourists' decision to choose a destination: Empirical study in Phu Yen-Vietnam

Destination characteristics influence domestic tourists' decision to choose a destination: Empirical study in Phu Yen-Vietnam

From conservation to prosperity: a quantitative study on the positive correlation between sustainable tourism practices and economic growth

ABSTRACT Tourism significantly influences world economies, necessitating sustainable business practices for long-term success. This study investigates the impact of sustainable tourism (ST) practices on economic growth (EG) using a questionnaire survey of 370 participants, analyzed with SPSS. Findings show that ST positively correlates with higher EG, especially when destinations emphasize responsible tourist development (TD), community involvement, and environmental conservation. Notably, environmental conservation measures have a significant positive impact on EG, underscoring the importance of effective implementation in sustainable practices. The study also highlights the nuanced influence of destination characteristics on the EG-sustainability relationship, with regional and contextual factors contributing to varied outcomes. This research provides novel insights into the complex connection between ST and EG, identifying strategic interventions to maximize positive impacts on both environmental conservation and economic development. Responsible TD strategies are shown to be crucial, demonstrating a sustained positive correlation with EG over time.

Travel Animosity and Affinity: A Chaordic Perspective

The aim of this study is to investigate the complex effects of animosity and affinity on travel intentions. In so doing, we draw from a sample of 400 Greek holidaymakers and use complexity theory to examine the chaordic influence of animosity and affinity on their intentions to potentially travel to Russia in the near future. Contrary to previous studies on animosity and affinity which adopted a linear analytic approach, we use fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) for the examination of the derived complex configurations. The results reveal three pathways that can influence travel intentions: (i) affinity and animosity, (ii) destination characteristics, and (iii) risk perceived animosity. Overall, the study adds to extant literature on travel decision-making at times of crisis as it examines animosity and affinity concurrently, revealing the complexity underpinning travel decisions. The study also enables destination planners to improve their crisis management and resilience plans.

Urban Tourism Appeal: The Effectiveness of Communication Channels and Multimedia Formats in Creating Tourists’ Expectations

Tourists’ expectations related to urban tourist destinations, which often derive from wider concept of destinations’ images, encompass a wide range of needs, desires and anticipations that tourists develop prior to visiting a particular destination. They are formed under the influence of different factors, one of which is traditional and digital communication channels. The objective of this research is to determine whether different communication channels and multimedia formats, used by tourists in the pre-travelling phase, could shape their expectations related to tangible and intangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. The data gathering was conducted by applying Computer-Aided Web Interviewing (CAWI) on a representative sample of 312 adult citizens residing in Belgrade, the capital of the Republic of Serbia. The findings indicate that both traditional and digital communication channels, alongside personal recommendations used prior to the trip, significantly contribute to shaping respondents’ expectations concerning tangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. Digital communication channels and personal recommendations appeared to be more important in shaping expectations related to the intangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. Also, different formats of online media content exhibited positive associations with expectations concerning the tangible and intangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. The obtained results provide recommendations for tourist organizations and local government entities, valuable for developing effective communication strategies for targeting potential tourists.

What drives the tourist Daka? An empirical study based on the perspective of dual motivation

ABSTRACT Tourist Daka, a recording behaviour displaying individuals’ tourism in virtual spaces, has become a major manifestation of travel experiences in modern social media. Through a dual motivation lens, this study investigated the relationship between Daka destination features, dual Daka motivations (i.e. intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation), and Daka intention to develop a model that outlines the influencing mechanism driving the occurrence of tourist Daka. The results demonstrated that: (1) Daka destination features evoke different Daka motivations; (2) intrinsic motivation triggers an individual’s emotions on Daka destination and affects their Daka intention, while extrinsic motivation only evokes their emotions on Daka destination; and further (3) individual’s tourism involvement plays a moderating role in the influencing path. This study provides theoretical data regarding studies of tourist behaviour and practical guidance for the development of novel tourism models.

Research on the Influencing Factors of Online Tourism Product Purchase Intention in Ethnic Minority Areas—Taking Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture as an Example

[Purpose] Fully explore the humanistic value of tourism resources in ethnic minority areas, explore the current situation and improvement direction of their tourism products, and promote the high-quality improvement of their tourism products. [Method] Taking online tourism products in Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province as the research object, a covariance based structural equation model was used to study the impact of destination characteristics, tourists' perceived usefulness, perceived risk, and tourists' trust on the overall purchase intention of tourism products in Ganzi Prefecture from the perspective of consumers. [Results] Research shows that consumers' perceived usefulness, trust level, and tourism destination characteristics have a significant positive correlation with the overall purchase intention of tourism products in Ganzi Prefecture. Perceived usefulness is the core influencing factor that affects the overall purchase intention of tourism products in Ganzi Prefecture, and there is a negative correlation between perceived risk and the overall purchase intention of tourism products in Ganzi Prefecture. [Conclusion] In the design and creation of online tourism products in Ganzi Prefecture, it is necessary to fully respect and consider consumers' psychological preferences for tourism destination characteristics, perceived usefulness, perceived risk, and level of trust. The research results will provide management decision-making and reference for tourism product planning companies in ethnic minority areas.

An assessment of the role of safety in digital nomads' destination selections

PurposeThe safety-related features of destinations affect tourist experiences and consequently influence destination choices. This research investigates the role of spatial profile and safety in the destination choices of digital nomads.Design/methodology/approachThe study was designed using the multi-research method. To determine the spatial patterns of digital nomads' destination choices, Getis-Ord’s Gi is utilized, and spatial regression techniques are employed to ascertain the role of safety in these choices.FindingsThe main result of the research is that the most visited cities are spatially clustered in Asia, Europe and America. In this regard, digital nomads' destination choices exhibit similarities to those of traditional tourists. However, safety plays a significant role in destination preferences.Originality/valueThe research findings provide valuable insight into the relationship between digital nomads' travel preferences and safety, thereby serving as a significant source of information for destination marketing and management.

Exploring onshore excursion preferences among cruisers: application of the travel career pattern in the Hong Kong cruise tourism context

ABSTRACT Employing the travel career pattern (TCP) by Pearce (2019, Dreaming and longing. Tourist Behaviour, 20–40) as its guiding conceptual framework, the study explores cruise tourism and examines the factors and destination characteristics that influence the onshore excursion preferences of cruisers. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, the study combines qualitative content analysis and quantitative on-site questionnaire. The latter was administered to 602 participants at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong. Our findings provide insights into cruise passengers’ preferences for onshore excursions, particularly focusing on the attributes they value most in nearby destinations that are accessible from the cruise ship's ports of call. The study also identifies two distinct subgroups of cruisers (authenticity seekers and generic sightseers) who have different preferences when selecting places to visit at/nearby ports of call. The study contributes to the cruise tourism literature by exploring passengers’ onshore excursion preferences, a key component of their onboard experience. Moreover, it offers practical insights for destination management organisers keen on promoting their destinations to cruisers by capitalising on the proximity to a cruise port.

The destiny of an underdeveloped rural destination: an ethnographic research approach

ABSTRACT This study explores the tourism behavior of an underdeveloped destination-Yozgat located in Turkey using different techniques of ethnographic research approach. We use longitudinal data, gathered sequentially from the same place over time for the data analysis. Three main factors (18 themes including 58 indicators) that identify characteristics of an underdeveloped destination are determined and illustrated. The research outputs will aid scholars and destination practitioners in understanding such a destination characteristic.

User Interface Design Prototype Application Special Onthel Bicycle Tourism in Towilfiets Yogyakarta

Foreign tourist visits to Yogyakarta, Indonesia have increased in 2022 and 2023 after Covid-19. Many tourists are seeking unique experiences, such as riding on bicycles to enjoy the beautiful scenery and interact with local residents. Towilfiets, a pioneer in onthel bicycle tourism, has been operating in Bantar Hamlet, Kulon Progo for around 10 years. With the growing demand for this activity, Towilfiets needed to innovate their promotion methods, specifically in the digital industry. The development of a user-interface design-based application became crucial to enhance and facilitate the onthel bicycle tourism experience at Towilfiets. The research conducted used a mixed method approach with a phenomenological qualitative method to gather interview data. The prototype method was chosen to allow for intensive and better communication between developers and users. The validation of the questionnaire data was calculated using the Scalable Usage System and received a good score 75 up to score 100 point, indicating acceptable usability. By focusing on user needs and the unique characteristics of tourist destinations, this application aims to increase user engagement and provide relevant and useful information about bicycle tourist attractions in the area. Ultimately, the research aims to develop an innovative and contextualized user interface design application that supports the growth of onthel bike tourism in Towilfiets, located in Dusun Bantar, Kulon Progo, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Research of Ukraine’s Tourism Image – Based on Data Analysis of The Travel Notes of the Chinese TourismResearch of Ukraine’s Tourism Image – Based on Data Analysis of The Travel Notes of the Chinese Tourism Website Mafengwo

Since the implementation of the visa-on-arrival policy for Chinese citizens in 2016, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Ukraine has significantly increased. The main purpose of the article is to determine the main characteristics of Ukrainian tourist destinations based on the analysis of travel notes of tourists to Mafengwo from the period 1992 to 2023, as well as to find out the general views of Chinese tourists on food, accommodation, tourism and shopping in Ukraine, using the method of frequency analysis of words to summarize the specific ideas of Chinese tourists about Ukraine. The article employs a combination of literature review, text analysis, and word frequency analysis. The Word frequency analysis complements content analysis by quantifying the prevalence of specific terms in the travel notes of Chinese tourists visiting Ukraine, focusing on the tokenized analysis of these notes. The findings succinctly capture Chinese tourists' perceptions of Ukraine, revealing concerns for safety issues, as evidenced by the frequent mention of "war". The analysis shows a preference for traveling in groups, with an average expenditure of approximately $1,600 per person and a typical visit duration not exceeding 10 days. The overall sentiment towards travel experiences in Ukraine is positive, with words like "cheap" "delicious" and "like" frequently used, indicating an appreciation for the affordability and quality of food. Chinese tourists favor a mix of historical, cultural, and seaside destinations, reflecting diverse interests. However, communication barriers emerge as a complaint among these travelers.