Seaside Destinations Research Articles

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.

A multi-method study of the emotional mechanism linking seaside destination attributes and tourists’ revisit intention

ABSTRACT The advent of the post-pandemic era has increased the emotional rewards destinations need to provide. However, the psychological process of generating tourists’ revisit intention remains unclear in research on destination attributes and revisit intention. Existing research has many drawbacks, suggesting important research gaps, including using generalized mediating variables, focusing on conventional tourism scenarios, and overreliance on regression-based techniques. This study fills the gaps using multiple methods (qualitative and quantitative methods and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis) to examine the linkage between seaside destination attributes and tourists’ revisit intentions using Sanya, China, as a case study. The innovations of this study include the detailed emotional path of tourists’ revisit intention, the use of multiple methods, and the identification of the critical emotional variable. Managerial implications about marketing and service entry point are also provided.

Italian seaside destinations in comparison. The brand image assessment for destination branding co-creation

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology for the assessment of a destination's image on the web. The study builds up a picture of 26 Italian coastal destinations through indexes and highlighting the reputation of the tourism services (attractions, restaurants, and accommodation). This can be a useful tool for destination managers to help monitor their destination's online reputation and support the brand-building and management through a co-creation.

Gastronomy Motivations as Predictors of Satisfaction at Coastal Destinations

Local gastronomy is a strategic vector for the sustainability of coastal destinations. The present study had the following objectives: first, to establish the motivational dimensions based on the gastronomic demand in a coastal destination; and second, to identify the motivational dimensions that predicted satisfaction with gastronomy. The study was carried out in the city of General Villamil Playas, a sustainable seaside destination characterized by its gastronomy based on fish and shellfish. It is part of Ecuador’s National System of Protected Areas. The results showed three motivational dimensions: cultural, physical, and social. Physical motivation was the main factor that predicted satisfaction with the gastronomic experience, followed by social motivation. The findings will contribute to the academic literature on coastal gastronomy. They will be helpful for food and beverage service providers to improve tourist satisfaction and stays.

The Linguistic Landscape and Prospects of a Seaside Destination in the East of Thailand

This study maps the linguistic landscape of the main 3-kilometer road to the Bang Saen Beach in East Thailand using images of roadside signs from Google Street View. In total, 7710 images of textual signs were taken over 7 years: 2012, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Most of the signs were monolingual (5119=66.39%), and Thai was dominant in the monolingual signs (3982=77.79%). The Thai-English combination was mostly found in bilingual signs (2476=97.74%). 2941 examples of Thai transliteration from foreign languages were found, and Thai transliteration from English was the highest (2857=97.15%). Findings on the use of different foreign languages indicated the increasing diversity and prospects of the research site. Notably, English was the most used foreign language.

The convergence or divergence of design characteristics in determining the recall and persuasiveness of seaside destination slogans

Current slogan design guidelines mainly focus on the unilateral effectiveness of the design characteristics (i.e., recall or persuasiveness). The underlying academic conjecture is that the recall and persuasiveness of slogans are driven by the same design characteristics. This study empirically tests the validity of this conjecture. We use slogans of China's seaside destinations and investigate the influences of eight design characteristics on the combined effects of recall and persuasiveness. The moderation of destination familiarity reveals that the driving characteristics of recall and persuasiveness converge to a certain extent in familiar destinations' slogans; but diverge substantially in unfamiliar destinations' slogans. The contributions of this study are twofold. From a theoretical perspective, verifying the conditional effects of important design characteristics prevents the separation of recall and persuasiveness in destination slogan research. From a managerial perspective, different methods of slogan design can be developed for familiar and unfamiliar destinations.

Assessing the role of venturesomeness in a destination consumer-based brand equity model

PurposeGiven the lack of research on the nomological validity of tourism destination consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) constructs incorporating core, well-established constructs from the travel and tourism discipline, this research investigates the influence of venturesomeness as a moderator in a model with destination image, satisfaction, and overall CBBE as antecedents of return intentions.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses online panel data of past visitor to the sea-side destination of Corpus Christi, Texas. A sample of 210 residents in Texas and surrounding states was employed to estimate the hypothesized effects through partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsResults demonstrate the predictive effects of destination CBBE dimensions on tourists' revisit intention, with the significant moderation effects of venturesomeness through its influence on tourist satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsFindings provide general support to the nomological validity of the proposed model, highlighting the role of satisfaction as a central dimension to explain destination loyalty, the limitations of generic scales to investigate tourism destination contexts, and the incorporation of consumers' psychographics and lifestyle variables on destination CBBE.Practical implicationsDestination marketers should develop segmentation strategies to target travelers with psychographic profiles that are more responsive to the factors that foster CBBE.Originality/valueThis research provides insights on the nomological validity of a CBBE model by evaluating its integration with a context-specific theoretical domain, which is a condition to increase the explanatory scope of theoretical relations and claims in intermediate theory, and to move the research field forward.

Benefit Segmentation in Seaside Destination: A Domestic Tourism Perspective

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the benefits sought by domestic tourists and activities they’re involved in while in Kuala Terengganu. A self-administered survey was obtained from a sample of 382 domestic tourists that visited the state. Cluster analysis, the Kruskal-Wallis Test, and Mann-Whitney Test were employed to examine the benefit segment variables. Results from the cluster analysis show that there are significant differences among the clusters based on visitors’ demographics in the activities that they join in Kuala Terengganu. In the meantime, Kruskal-Wallis Test and Mann-Whitney Test also show significant differences between six pairs of clusters regarding activities in the visitors’ demographics. The results can be used to assist state planners and tourism entrepreneurs determine suitable marketing mix strategies that enhance the Kuala Terengganu attractions and ensure their sustainability for receiving new and repeat tourists. The understanding of benefit segmentation will be able to help the state or marketers in identifying the character of an undecided group of domestic tourists who are not into the main tourism products.

Returning to a scamming destination: insights from Vung Tau, Vietnam

PurposeIn Vietnam, there is a phenomenon that domestic tourists return to some tourist destinations despite their reputation of tourists being scammed. This study aims to focusses on Vung Tau City in Vietnam as a popular seaside destination to explain this interesting phenomenon.Design/methodology/approachThereby, 22 domestic tourists who are repeated visitors and had experienced scams directly and/or indirectly in Vung Tau were interviewed and later took part in a self-evaluation.FindingsThe data shows that unreasonable charges, switching products, false reporting and dishonest middle-persons are the major dominant scams in the city. Furthermore, all visitors could be scammed regardless of gender, educational background or age. Even though scams may occur, the city remains to be a popular getaway destination for the Southern part of Vietnam due to its irreplaceable natural resources and visit intention of domestic tourists. The local authority has tried different ways to suppress issues related to tourist scams, however, due to their sociocultural and economic conditions, scams find ways to exist. Under this circumstance, domestic tourists tend to figure out how to handle scams by themselves whilst very few of them rely on the public sector to deal with them.Practical implicationsFinally, some practical strategies and recommendations are given as a reference for the local authority and businesses for long-term tourist business development.Originality/valueThis paper, respectively, investigates the common scams against domestic tourists in Vung Tau, reasons they still return to this destination, and finally, how these visitors attempt to avoid scams.

Tourism Dependency and Perceived Local Tourism Governance: Perspective of Residents of Highly-Visited and Less-Visited Tourist Destinations

In light of the challenges of the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, the topic of overtourism has been temporarily pushed into the background, but unsustainable tourism practices, which often include ignoring residents, one of the key stakeholders in tourist destinations, remain an important issue for sustainable tourism development in the future. This is a particularly important task for local tourism governances in terms of developing mechanisms for involving residents in planning and decision making. This research focuses on gaining insights into the relationship between the tourism dependency of residents and their perception of local tourism governance in terms of satisfaction with the organization of local public and private tourism stakeholders, as well as with the involvement of residents in tourism planning and decision making. The added value of the research lies in comparing the attitudes of residents in a highly-visited destination and a destination in the early stage of development. Both selected destinations are seaside destinations. with prevailing private accommodation and residential type of tourism. Responses were analyzed using ANOVA and the t-test, and the obtained results indicate that residents with no connection to tourism are the most dissatisfied with the local tourism governance dimensions. Also, residents who live in highly-visited destination had lower mean values of perceived local tourism governance than those living in less-visited destination.

All Beaches Should Have One. Online Reputation Analysis on G20S Network of Italian Seaside Destinations

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological framework for the evaluation/assessment of the web image and reputation of a destination as a self-analysis process leading towards the building of a competitive destination brand. This process is even more important for tourism destinations/products, such as the Italian coastal destinations labelled G20S, whose purpose is to improve their competitiveness in the tourist market through a renovated image. The study presents an image of the Italian coastal destinations through destinations ranking indexes and highlighting their attributes; this can be a useful instrument for all destination managers and decision makers to monitor their destination’s online reputation and support the brand-building/brand management process. Moreover, the web reputation and the web image analysis of a destination allows to develop an effective co-creation process and adopt marketing actions in line with new trends from the demand side.

LOYAL: TO WHAT EXTENT? A shift in destination preference due to the COVID-19 pandemic

The choice of a holiday destination is affected both by the destination's image and the tourists' loyalty. Previous epidemic and pandemic outbreaks have consistently affected the way people holiday, since their perception of risk is associated to the destination's image and influenced by media coverage and graphic imagery.We studied tourists’ perceptions and behaviours during the first period of COVID-19 with the objective of investigating how preferences and loyalty for different types of destinations (seaside, mountain, art cities) change during health emergencies.We segmented tourists according to their perceived risk, over months and towards different types of destinations. We found that mountain locations are perceived as safer than seaside destinations and art cities. Despite their expression of loyalty to the same destination, in times of respiratory disease-related risk perception, tourists have shifted destination categories, thus changing their preferences from seaside to mountain destinations.

Transgenerational place attachment in a New Zealand seaside destination

Abstract Drawing on interviews with 84 residents in Raglan, New Zealand, the study examines the impact of tourism on the lives of those residents. It uses a cross-generational analysis of attachment of place across three classifications of residents – those born in the town, those who left and returned, and those with no prior connection before taking up residency. Findings indicate that despite the change and uncertainty exacerbated by tourism development experienced in daily life, different generations of residents share a sense of “emotional home” towards the place and its community. The study is based on thematic analysis aided by the use of narrative interpretation and co-occurrence measures to describe differences and similarities between the generations.

Analysis and comparison of tourism competitiveness in Spanish coastal areas

Spain is one of the four world leaders in coastal tourism. To keep the top position in such a highly competitive market, coastal managers in Spain need to constantly monitor the social, ecological, and economic components of ‘sun and sea’ tourism. Thus, the main goals of the present study are to analyse the most visited Spanish coastal destinations and to evaluate their competitiveness relative to each other. Geomarketing Methods were applied to evaluate seaside destinations pursuant to socio-economic and physico-geographical parameters. Results show that the most competitive destination is the Canary Islands, followed by Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Andalusia and Murcia regions.

Sun, Sand, and… Sustainability in Developing Countries from a Tourists’ Perspective. The Case of Punta Cana

Large-scale tourism represents one of the main causes of environmental problems faced by many seaside destinations in developing countries. A survey was carried out among tourists in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic, one of the most visited coastal destinations worldwide. This study explores whether the destination is meeting tourists’ demand for sustainable practices and whether the sustainable initiatives implemented, as perceived by tourists, have a role in explaining tourists’ satisfaction. An importance-performance analysis and a principal component analysis, followed by an ordered logit model, were performed. Findings show that tourists’ expectations in terms of sustainability are not adequately met and that environmental and socioeconomic sustainability are positively associated with tourists’ satisfaction.

New Perspectives of Residents’ Perceptions in a Mature Seaside Destination

This research examines the relationship between residents of a mature tourist destination and tourism. To do this, the place attachment and rootedness shown by the residents towards the place where they live are assessed, as are their attitudes and level of satisfaction towards tourism. To carry out the research, 770 surveys were completed in the city of Benalmádena (Costa del Sol, Spain). Unlike other previous studies on place attachment, the level of place attachment and rootedness are assessed separately, using a specific indicator for rootedness. The results show that place attachment and rootedness behave differently in relation to the attitude towards tourism. Another significant result is that residents’ attitudes towards tourism in this destination are positive, being more favourable among native residents. Finally, residents show a clear level of place attachment and satisfaction with tourism development, which seems to be related to remarkable social resilience. Despite the strong vulnerability of the mass tourism model, Benalmádena displays significant resilience due to its social structure.

Presenting the donkey at the seaside: a move towards tackling speciesism in the tourism industry

ABSTRACT This paper explores the way donkeys are presented in the tourism industry and, thus, introduces the donkey into the tourism research agenda. Donkeys make a global contribution to tourism and, in particular, have a historical connection with seaside destinations. This article draws on a study of donkeys at the UK seaside in Blackpool. It shows that the donkeys’ physical and symbolic presentation is crucial for maintaining tourism traditions. However, the analysis also makes visible the ingrained speciest attitudes of human dominance over animals operating in the tourism industry. The article outlines the need to tackle speciesism in the industry and concludes with key research recommendations for tourism policy advancements.

Tourism development and residents’ well-being: Comparing two seaside destinations in Italy

There is now growing empirical evidence that tourism development affects residents’ attitudes to tourism and individuals’ perceived well-being. Building on previous studies, this article wishes to ascertain whether this phenomenon is common to different destinations or is site-specific. To this aim, a propensity score method is implemented. The empirical analysis is based on a two-step survey (pre-, and peak-tourism season) carried out in two seaside destinations in Italy where tourism is a major economic sector. While results demonstrate that residents’ happiness is endangered by tourism development, this article evidences that this stylized fact shows some peculiarities that are site-specific. It follows that socioeconomic and cultural characteristics, history and type of tourist development matter and have to be considered in developing any tourism policy.

Can a destination really change its image? The roles of information sources, motivations, and visits

This study researches both the perception of a destination and the importance of the previous visit in shaping that perception. First, the factors that influence the image (information sources and motivations) are analysed, moderated by the effect of the previous visit. Next, the gap between the projected image and the perceived image of Malaga, which is located in a tourist area specializing in “sun and beach” and trying to become a cultural destination, is studied. Data are obtained from 301 surveys administered through proportional and stratified sampling. A descriptive, inferential analysis and a structural equation model are proposed to analyse the causal relationships. The results confirm the influence of information sources and motivations on the image, as well as the importance of the previous visit. The conclusions suggest that there are significant difficulties in changing the Malaga image as a seaside destination for visitors, but not for the local community.

Organizational change in the hospitality industry: The change drivers in a longitudinal analysis

The aim of this contribution is to develop an understanding of the trajectories and drivers of organizational change in small and medium hospitality enterprises from the 1920s to the 2010s, focusing on an Italian seaside destination that experienced an enduring success: Rimini. By conducting oral history fieldwork and integrating this with documentary evidence, we reconstructed the organizational models adopted by 42 entrepreneurs, which can be captured by 4 prevailing organizational ideal types: Managerial, Informal, Customized, and Bureaucratic. The findings explain the historical evolution of organizational models in SMEs by focusing on the different role played in each period by specific change drivers, such as generational shift, customer behaviour and competition, between tourist destinations. In addition, they allow an understanding of the process through which the resilience of old organizational models creates a context of functional redundancy, which strengthens the competitiveness of the tourist destination.