Future Tourism Planning Research Articles

Residents’ Perceptions of the Benefits and Costs of Tourism Development: A Case Study of Riyadh City (Saudi Arabia)

This study examines residents’ perceptions of tourism development in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia, focusing on its benefits and costs, guided by social exchange theory. The objective is to explore how the perceived impacts of tourism development, along with external factors such as community attachment, residents’ knowledge of tourism development, and community involvement, affect locals’ satisfaction with tourism and their intention to support tourism development. A survey of 427 locals, analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), reveals a positive correlation between community attachment and the perceived benefits from tourism. Residents’ knowledge about tourism is linked to perceived benefits, but not to perceived costs, and community involvement does not significantly impact perceptions. Perceived benefits positively influence support for tourism, while perceived costs have a negative effect. Residents’ satisfaction with tourism, shaped by their perceptions of the benefits and costs, influences their future support for tourism initiatives. The theoretical implications highlight social exchange theory’s role in understanding community perceptions, while the practical implications emphasize inclusive and transparent tourism planning to gain local support. These results underscore the importance of considering locals’ perceptions and satisfaction in both current and future tourism planning and development strategies.

Sustainable Tourism Development in Border Regions: A Case Study of Kermanshah Province

This research uses a case study of Kermanshah province in Iran which has variety of historical, cultural and natural attractions. It is imperative to place emphasis on such attractions in a bid to inform the governments and investors in appropriate planning of tourism so as to achieve the set goals. It is applied research. For this article, we used an analytical and descriptive research methodology. Documental and library research techniques were used to gather data and relevant information for this research. Systematic data collection and information from library and documentary search..Kermanshah also faces several barriers and challenges, including insufficient infrastructure, weak marketing activities, inadequate tourism management, and increasing interest in foreign travel. To capitalize on its vast tourism potential, Kermanshah needs comprehensive planning, infrastructure development, effective marketing strategies, and coordinated tourism management. These efforts are essential to overcome the identified challenges and encourage sustainable tourism in the region. Kermanshah has the potential to position itself as a prominent global sustainable tourism destination, contributing to socio-economic development and cultural exchange.

Rural Tourism Development in Hoi an, Vietnam; Perceptions of the Community

Undoubtedly, tourism is growing strongly worldwide, especially in developing countries and rural areas. Tourism has both positive and negative impacts on tourist destinations that link sustainable development's economic, social, and environmental components. The local community's attitude is crucial for future tourism planning, management, and development of a tourism destination. As such, the paper analyzes the attitudes and perceptions of the residents towards tourism development in the rural areas in Hoi A city, Quang Nam province. Questionnaires related to the local demographics, people's assessment of tourism impacts, and their support for future tourism development were sent to 179 households participating in tourism sectors in four rural areas of Hoi A city. Descriptive statistics and principal component analysis were used to analyze the collected data. The results indicate that tourism brings many benefits in all aspects. Culture – society, environment, and education promote residents' support for tourism development.

The TikTok effect on destination development: Famous overnight, now what?

Contemporary tourists increasingly rely on social media platforms to inform their consumption choices. Increasingly more travellers rely on social media to make their travel choices; however, scant research explored the impacts of sudden destination popularity through social media. The current study reveals how TikTok made two off-the-beaten-track destinations in Hainan (China) famous overnight. Using participant observation and interviews, this paper explores how a destination suddenly had to cope not only with overtourism but also with all the issues it generates. The findings revealed that the local community struggles to seize the opportunities offered by tourism while forced to manage the tourist's flow. We propose a management framework for destinations in protected areas that suddenly became ‘hot’ on social media and Web 2.0. Finally, we discuss the implications for tourism policies and management and highlight the importance of links between user-generated content and the promotion as crucial for future tourism planning in protected areas. The study results highlight how (off-the-beaten track) destination was impacted by unintentional promotion through TikTok. The findings revealed management gaps related to accessibility and amenities that resulted in negative environmental impacts when suddenly tourism numbers increased in a short time. These findings provide important implications for tourism policies, management, and marketing of destinations when their popularity depends on being ‘hot’ on social media and Web 2.0. The authors propose a Rapid Response Plan framework for handling future cases of sudden destination popularity.

CORRIGENDUM: THE INFLUENCE OF TEXT INFORMATION ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF TOURISM LANDSCAPE IMAGES IN HIROSHIMA

The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of text information about the tourist spot shown by landscape on the evaluation of the tourism landscape images in Hiroshima by Chinese tourists, and to obtain the basic data for the future tourism planning of Chinese tourists to Japan. We carried out the experiments on Chinese students as the subjects. According to the psychological evaluation results of the specific content of the text information, it is clarified what is attractive text information and what information should be provided for different groups of people to attract Chinese tourists to Japan.

Virtual reality and modern tourism

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight as to how recent trends in virtual reality (VR) have changed the way tourism and hospitality industry communicates their offerings and meets the tourists’ needs. Design/methodology/approach The approach is based on systematic literature review, where the relations between focal concepts are given to analyze potential future developments concerning VR. Findings The paper identifies and analyzes how VR technology affected tourism and hospitality industry through three main touch points – future tourism planning and management, technology-based marketing of tourism destinations and VR potential in changing consumer requirements. These concepts were analyzed to identify changing forces and suggest potential paradigm shifts that tourism and hospitality suppliers and marketers need to consider. These included realistic virtual travel replacements, the importance of interactive experiences and innovation in future tourism systems. Originality/value While there has been increasingly larger number of discussions on how tourists and tourism and hospitality industry have been using information and communication technology recently, there is little evidence of scholars and practitioners applying such methods. This paper used systematic literature review to illustrate means in which VR could be ingrained into tourism and hospitality services to meet the needs of tourists. It suggests that VR can and probably will fundamentally change the way in which tourists’ experiences and requirements are managed entirely.

Impacts of rural tourism-driven land use change on ecosystems services provision in Erhai Lake Basin, China

Tourism is an expanding activity worldwide, with vital implications for local economies but also for ecosystem management. Rural tourism in particular drives land use change, which results in ecosystem services provision being altered. We performed a comprehensive temporal and spatial assessment of the impact of tourism-driven land use change on ecosystem services and sought to identify tradeoffs between tourism income and provision of multiple ecosystem services in Erhai Lake Basin (ELB), China. The results show that constructed area in ELB, especially in the lakeside zone, increased strongly from 2000 to 2015 due to a tourism boom (in which tourism revenues increased 12-fold), at the expense of farmland, grassland, and forest. With these land changes, ecosystem services also changed greatly, to the detriment of ELB as a whole and especially the lakeside zone. By 2015, soil retention had decreased and nitrogen and soil export had increased, compared with the levels in 2000, while there was only a slight fluctuation in carbon storage and water yield. The nitrogen and soil exports are impairing water quality in Erhai Lake and causing severe environmental problems. This study provides empirical evidence of the important impact of tourism-driven land use change on provision of multiple ecosystem services. For environmentally friendly tourism in ELB and beyond, a form of sustainable tourism should be established. Tourism development and ecosystem services provision should be fully weighed up and considered in future tourism planning and land use management.

Segmenting local residents by perceptions of tourism impacts in an urban World Heritage Site: the case of Dubrovnik

ABSTRACT The analysis of residents’ attitudes is an important concept in tourism development, especially in destinations that are highly dependent on tourism and where the negative socio-cultural impacts are usually ignored and neglected. The main purpose of this paper is to determine different segments of local residents permanently living inside an urban World Heritage Site (WHS), according to their attitudes towards the socio-cultural impacts of tourism. Cluster analysis and ANOVA were used for data analysis. The findings of the cluster analysis indicate the existence of three segments of local residents based on their attitudes towards tourism's positive and negative socio-cultural impacts. The ANOVA results show significant differences between segments according to their age, monthly income, the length of residence, support for current tourism development and support for cultural tourism development. The findings of this paper may contribute to the harmonization of local tourism development and local residents’ quality of life in urban WHSs, as well as to local authorities in the process of future tourism planning in urban UNESCO protected sites.

Addressing tourism in county-level planning documents: a pilot application of the community capitals framework

Using the community capitals framework (CCF) (Flora, 2004), we examined county- level comprehensive plans within a Minnesota region to identify opportunities for future tourism planning and development. We asked two research questions: Do county-level comprehensive plans elaborate on different types of community capitals relevant to tourism development? If so, how are they elaborated upon? We used directed content analysis to analyse the comprehensive plans. The frequent mentioning of natural capital indicates strong potential for nature-based tourism in the region. Tourism-related built capital is the second most frequently identified, suggesting its importance to tourism development-related efforts. Analysis also identified two approaches towards a capital: 1) preserving or developing a capital critical to tourism; 2) devoting a capital to develop tourism. Findings suggest applying the CCF to policy documents can help identify opportunities for future tourism planning and development.

Factors influencing the Middle East tourist travelling to Malaysia: The quantile estimates

This research examines the possible impacts of global oil prices, exchange rate and tourism prices on Malaysia’s demand for the Middle East tourists’ arrivals using monthly data covering the period from 1995 to 2017. We covered the 5 major sources of Middle East tourism to Malaysia in the last 2 decades, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. The estimates of the quantile regression reveal that the global oil price fluctuation has affected the Middle East tourist arrivals to Malaysia. First, we found that there is a positive quantile effect of tourism, domestic tourism prices and global oil prices with Middle East tourism demand in Malaysia throughout the estimated quantiles. Secondly, we could not find any specific influence of exchange rate and this shows that the fluctuating Malaysia’s currency is not a major issue for the Middle East tourists. Overall, this finding can be useful for policymakers while improving their future tourism planning and in attracting more tourists to visit Malaysia in the upcoming years.

Attitudes and Perceptions of the Local Community towards Sustainable Tourism Development in Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraq

Over the last years, tourism has undergone significant development worldwide, especially in developing countries. Tourism is a multi-faced activity with positive and negative impacts on the destinations, linking the economic, social, and environmental components of sustainable development. The attitude of the host community is an important factor for future tourism planning, management, and development of a tourism destination. As such, the paper analyzes the attitudes and perceptions of the local residents from the Kurdistan Regional Government, located in the northern part of the Republic of Iraq. To achieve the purpose of the research, a survey based on a questionnaire was conducted in Sulaimani and Halabja Governorates. A number of 320 questionnaires were applied in 2016. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and principal component analysis. The results indicate that tourism is seen as a development sector during the last years. Its positive impacts are better perceived than the negative ones, mainly because it offers more recreational opportunities due to the development of new recreational parks. Tourism increases pollution, this being the most negative aspect mentioned by the respondents, but regardless, they are proud of the progress overthe last years and they support future actions for tourism development.

Tourism Climate Comfort Index (TCCI) – An attempt to evaluate the climate comfort for tourism purposes: the example of Serbia

<div> <p>This paper proposes one new attempt to formulate a mathematical approach to climate parameters in the context of their complex implications for tourist activities through the tourism climate comfort index (TCCI). This paper also aims to formulate an original and optimal mathematical correlation between readily obtainable climate parameters (mean monthly air temperature, monthly amplitude of air temperatures, monthly insolation, average monthly relative air humidity and the number of rainy days), which results in values of the TCCI. Simultaneously, this index will provide the values correspondent to the values of air temperatures (°C), which represents a comparative baseline understandable equally for tourists, tourism planners and managers. The example of Serbia as a mainland country in the south-east of Europe was used to apply the proposed methodology. The spatial-temporal variability of TCCI is formulated on basis of data for the period 1961-2000 while for testing model was used selected period 2001-2010 on the sample of 26 meteorological stations distributed all around Serbia. For this purpose a standard statistical techniques were applied and ArcGIS software was used for analyze of the variability of the TCCI in relation to the altitude, which is of particular importance for the development of tourism in the mountains. Checking variability of the index was carried out in relation to statistical data about number of tourists on the three most visited tourist destinations which are of importance for the development of urban, mountain and spa tourism, the leading forms of tourism activities on the territory of Serbia. The obtained results correspond with the fact of the pronounced seasonality of tourism market and thus may represent a good basis for future tourism planning and management.</p> </div> <p> </p>

Assessing Stakeholders’ Views of Tourism Policy in Prince Edward County

Prince Edward County, located in Ontario, Canada, is both a rural destination and an island. The destination, known familiarly as PEC, is fast becoming the newest winery destination in Ontario and faces the challenge of developing a tourism industry that is financially, socially, and environmentally sustainable. Like many other islands or rural areas, Prince Edward County is isolated and vulnerable to pressures from development and other human activities and sustainable development in PEC requires strategic and careful tourism planning. To support the viable development of a tourist destination while improving the regional quality of life, tourism policies must be forward-looking and satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholders. This allows more efficient and acceptable policy implementation as the policies are inclusive and cohesive. This study assesses current stakeholder perceptions of current tourism development and future tourism planning in PEC. The findings revealed that although the majority of the stakeholders agree with the importance of tourism development, many feel there are issues not being addressed by the county and are unhappy with the current direction of tourism development.

Ethnic tourism development:: Chinese Government Perspectives

Ethnic tourism is often used by governments to facilitate development and to preserve heritage. This paper examines the relationship between government and tourism in Xishuangbanna, China. Different levels of government play key but different roles in development through regulation of production, consumption, and investment. Their policies and decisions tend to create tensions when they promote tourism as a regional development strategy as a result of contradictions in regulations, ethnic rights, and relationships with entrepreneurs. It is concluded that more nuanced government policies could mitigate many of the issues. Future tourism planning should provide greater control of tourism by local ethnic people, cultural preservation, and public participation in decision-making processes.

ENGAGING THE LOCAL COMMUNITY IN TOURISM DEVELOPMENT PLANNING: A CASE STUDY IN MAPUTALAND

ABSTRACT Maputaland, situated along the north-eastern coast of KwaZulu-Natal, is widely recognized as a prime tourist destination because of its unique natural characteristics and cultural attractions, yet tourism development has hitherto been very limited. The failure to develop tourism opportunities is deeply rooted in the area's political past, although it is argued in this paper that the principal reason is the failure of past tourism initiatives to engage the local community in tourism planning. This study aimed to involve the local community in a tourism planning exercise together with other relevant stakeholders. Despite a history of conflict and numerous points of disagreement, consensus was reached on a common vision for tourism development. Potential tourism development sites were jointly identified and consensus was reached on an institutional framework for management of the natural resources and future tourism development. A Memorandum of Agreement was drafted between the local community and the conservation authority and was significant in that it represented recognition of the need to include the local community in future tourism planning. Throughout the process of local community consultation, insights have been provided into their perspectives on sustainable tourism development and should guide future development.