Tourism Network Research Articles

Scientific production in tourism: an analysis of the methodological approaches

ABSTRACT Scientific rigor requires the deepening of methodological matter, especially in crisis scenarios questioning the validity of scientific procedures and raising criticisms about the theorization and dissemination of tourism knowledge. In this sense, the purpose of this article is to discuss the scientific production in tourism through the perspective of methodological approaches. The analysis focuses on the subfield of ‘tourism network’. The research is based on the complexity method. It adapted the ProKnow-C methodological process for collecting data, which was analysed through the triangulation of content analysis, multiple correspondence, and correlation techniques. The main results revealed that many researchers do not make explicit the scientific method used in their research. Besides, it showed that there is no correlation between the scientific method and the research procedures. In this sense, there is a need for an epistemological deepening in research on the tourism field to overcome scientific methods’ knowledge limitations.

Diverse networks in regional tourism: ties that foster and hinder the development of rural-urban tourism collaboration in Estonia

This study investigates the collaborative ties between rural and urban tourism enterprises and their networks in the post-communist Pärnu region of Estonia. For that, two research questions were answered: what is the nature of collaborative ties between entrepreneurs and sub-networks in a tourist region and how different ties between regional tourism networks foster and hinder the development process of rural-urban tourism network? This study bases on stakeholder theory, actor-network theory, social network analysis, and social network theory, uses multi- grounded theory as a methodology, and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with the regional tourism actors. Results indicate mutually beneficial relationships between prominent and small urban enterprises. Prominent urban enterprises gain by services offered by small enterprises, the latter benefit by the visitors brought in the town by the big ones. Regular collaboration is a common practice among rural enterprises. However, a collaboration between rural and urban entrepreneurs and networks at the regional level is minimal. However, some collaborative ties between tourism enterprises in a regional network exist between urban and rural entrepreneurs in different collaboration levels. The urban tourism network influences regional tourism much more than rural networks does.

광한루원 관리방향 설정을 위한 관광행태 종단연구

This study was conducted to obtain basic data for setting the management direction of Gwanghallu Garden through a longitudinal study of tourism behavior, and the contents of the survey conducted by Gwanghallu Garden in 2005 and 2018 were compared and analyzed. The demographic characteristics of visitors, there were relatively many age groups over 40, women, and housewives, and regionally, visitors from Chungcheong and Jeonbuk increased. Since Gwanghallu Garden as a sure tourist destination is high, it is necessary to establish a management strategy to improve the quality of various tourism factors. In addition, it is necessary to develop tourism resources around Gwanghallu Garden and promote accessibility by operating transportation linking tourist attractions. In order to improve the accommodation rate, a positioning strategy as a night tourist destination should be established, and accommodation facilities and programs to attract overnight tourists should be prepared. In order to meet the new tourism trend, local governments must actively develop and promote local food along with diversification of food products. In response to changes in the overall and Namwon tour itineraries and the increase in the non-staying rate, a solution such as fine tuning of behavioral setting for Gwanghallu Garden and operation of a linkage program in terms of ecological psychology is needed. In particular, the low linkage between tourist attractions in Namwon is because Gwanghallu Garden has a relatively high tourism centrality and lacks new attractive tourist destinations. To overcome this, an active linkage strategy with Namwon Tourism Complex centered on Chunhyang Theme Park should be established based on the homogeneity of themes and easy accessibility. As a result of the analysis of the entire tourism route, Namwon's status as a single-purpose tourist destination was weakened and its role as a linked tourist destination increased. Therefore, it is judged that there is a need for a tourist destination management policy to enhance regional tourism attractiveness by establishing a wide-area tourism network strategy with neighboring local governments.

PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATIONAL WISDOM IN THE HEALTH TOURISM INDUSTRY

Health tourism is when patients travel to another state (or within a country) to improve or restore health (Hudson and Li, 2012). Recent studies show that health care spending is on the rise, averaging around 9 percent of GDP in OECD countries, and that the right balance needs to be struck between spending on disease prevention and treatment. Assessing the problem field of the health tourism industry and the current situation, the following key problems are identified: lack of communication and support between health tourism policy makers and health tourism organizations; lack of a culture of cooperation and organizational partnership between the public and private sectors; lack of strategic planning; gaps in the targeted distribution of responsibilities between actors in the health tourism network; resistance of the public and private sector to change. Thus, the article solves the problem – how to ensure the effective application of the principles of organizational wisdom in the health tourism industry? According to the authors, it is expedient for the organizations involved in this complex field of tourism to base their activities on the principles of organizational wisdom. The aim of the article is to propose the application of the principles of organizational wisdom in the health tourism industry. For the systematic review, scientific articles were searched in databases: Cambridge Journals Online; EBSCO; Emerald Publishing; SAGE Journals Online; Science direct; Taylor & Francis. The scientific articles included in the systematic review cover the period 1999-2020. The following methods are used to present the results of the research: comparative analysis, synthesis, graphical representation and generalization. The study identified the following essential principles of organizational wisdom that are appropriate to adapt in the health tourism industry: transformational leadership; organizational culture, management structure and teamwork; recognition of environmental change and rapid and effective response to it; systemic thinking; interaction between different organizations that can lead to high-quality solutions (innovation); the ability to accumulate organizational memory to compare past and present situations and decisions made. The authors in the article substantiate the opinion that the sustainability of the application of these principles depends on the mechanism of organizational partnership in organizing / creating health tourism cooperative. Such an organization has: a balanced structure and clearly defined roles and responsibilities of participants; long-term commitments are matched by specific short-term objectives that can be measured; periodic evaluation of the effectiveness of the role played by each partner; accurate and effective communication between partners and all stakeholders.

He evolution of networks in rural tourism. The case of Gelence

In 2019, the relationship of Romanians and Hungarians living in Romania was overshadowed by the conflict that happened in the Úz Valley military cemetery. The conflict was triggered when Dormánfalva from Bákó County built a memorial in the cemetery – belonging to Csíkszentmárton, a Hungarian village in Hargita County – to honour the Romanian soldiers supposedly buried there. The cemetery has been a subject of county border disputes for decades: both Bákó and Hargita counties consider the area as their own. This administrative debate culminated three years ago in cemetery closures, cemetery occupations, protests, nationalist manifestations, involving politics, civil society, various Romanian authorities and the media. In this study, I compare how the Hungarian and Romanian language print media from Szeklerland presented the events that led to the Romanian - Hungarian physical conflict in the Úzvölgy military cemetery, reflecting on what kind of interpretations of the reality was offered, represented in the local media of the two nations. Using Van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis, I compare the media discourse of the local Hungarian and Romanian newspapers, and the local and national political discourse presented in the media, and analyze the different definitions of reality represented in the media.

Effects of emotional solidarity and tourism-related stress on residents' quality of life

This study explores how residents' lives are influenced by their emotional and psychological responses to tourism development. In particular, we propose that residents' emotional solidarity with tourists and perceived tourism-related stress significantly affect individuals' quality of life (QoL) within their community. Findings reveal that the relationship between residents' emotional solidarity with tourists and perceptions of QoL are mediated by perceived tourism-related stress. Though the research connecting residents' emotional and psychological responses to tourism and their QoL continues to grow within the tourism literature, this work marks a new research direction that establishes connections among residents' emotional solidarity, stress, and QoL, using an integrated model. By focusing on the emotional and psychological aspects of tourism impacts rather than tangible ones, this study provides alternative perspectives to the existing QoL literature. Findings further expand the nomological network of tourism and the QoL research paradigm and inform tourism development policy.

Using cellular data to analyze the tourists' trajectories for tourism destination attributes: A case study in Hualien, Taiwan

This study adopts social network analysis (SNA) to identity the spatial role of nodes in a tourism region. The trajectory of multi-destination tourists will provide great information for tourism management, but tracking tourists' movements is a big challenge. Thanks to the popularity of mobile communication devices (mobile phones) nowadays, these can passively or actively provide information on owners' movement. This study uses call detail records (CDR), which are mobile phone positioning data, to construct a trajectory network of tourists in Hualien, Taiwan. Three types of centralities, as well as brokerage analysis and role analysis, are used to measure the relations in a complicated network. Degree centrality (DC) reveals popular nodes that have good relationships with others directly. Reach closeness centrality (RCC) shows indirect relationships with others. Betweenness centrality (BC) indicates the most important mediator nodes that help others to connect. BC and brokerage analysis are used to classify destinations into five brokers: the coordinator, consultant, gatekeeper, representative, and liaison. We also identify social positions of each destination by role analysis. This study identifies a total of 78 nodes (origins and destinations) and their functions in the tourism network. We find some nodes have more than one mission, while some only have one. The functions of nodes can be different on weekdays and weekends. We distinguish the tourism region into different size of districts. The results of this study can help managers consolidate strategies for tourism marketing.

Conceptualising trust as a mediator of pro-environmental tacit knowledge transfer in small and medium sized tourism enterprises

This conceptual paper adds to the theoretical exploration of inter-organisational pro-environmental knowledge transfer in small and medium sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs). It does so by focusing on the role of trust, a concept which has received only scant attention in this context. Drawing on theoretical and empirical research, we argue that the willingness of SMTE managers to engage in the transference of pro-environmental tacit knowledge is based on their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, coupled with the perceived trustworthiness of both the message and social actors involved. It remains a challenge for SMTE managers to receive, absorb and respond to appropriate pro-environmental knowledge, based on organisational needs. The paper makes an important contribution to the work on pro-environmental knowledge transfer in tourism by proposing a model of four key antecedents of trust in the knowledge transfer process – self- efficacy, social norms, credibility of knowledge source and social capital between actors. We identify a future research agenda including the need to assess the weighted impact of each antecedent of trust; establish the influence of tourism networks on trust formation and development; and explore if peer perception intervenes in tacit knowledge transfer between pro-active and reactive SMTE managers.

Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Urban Tourism Travel by Taxi—A Case Study of Shenzhen

Tourism networks are an important research part of tourism geography. Despite the significance of transportation in shaping tourism networks, current studies have mainly focused on the “daily behavior” of urban travel at the expense of tourism travel, which has been regarded as an “exceptional behavior”. To fill this gap, this study proposes a framework for exploring the spatial and temporal characteristics of urban tourism travel by taxi. We chose Shenzhen, a densely populated mega-city in China with abundant tourism resources, as a case study. First, we extracted tourist trips from taxi trajectories and used kernel density estimation to analyze the spatial aggregation characteristics of tourist trip origins. Second, we investigated the spatial dependence of tourist trips using local spatial autocorrelation analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*). Third, we explored the correlations between the tourist trip origins and urban geographic contextual factors (e.g., catering services and transportation facilities) using a geographically weighted regression model. The results show the following: (1) the trends between the coverage of tourist travel networks and the volume of tourist trips are similar; (2) the spatial interaction intensity of urban tourism has grouping and hierarchical characteristics; and (3) the spatial distribution of tourist trips by taxi is uneven and influenced by the distribution of urban morphology, tourism resources, and the preferences of taxi pick-up passengers. Our proposed framework and revealed spatial and temporal patterns have implications for urban tourism traffic planning, tourism product development, and tourist flow control in tourist attractions.

Framework for Establishing a Sustainable Medical Facility: A Case Study of Medical Tourism in Jordan

A significant number of studies have assessed the impact of medical tourism from economic, technological and social perspectives. Few studies, however, have explored the development of the medical tourism sector from a sustainability perspective. This research brings a sustainability lens to medical tourism by extending Hart and Milstein’s framework (2003) for creating sustainable business value to advance the development of sustainable medical tourism facilities. To inform the analysis, the study conducted nine semi-structured interviews with members of the Jordan Medical Tourism Network (JMTN). Interview results confirmed the primary factors that motivate medical tourists, and characteristics of a sustainable medical tourism facility. The research provides insights on how sustainability is a driver of medical tourists’ decisions and a core aspect to be managed. The study also provides direction to advance sustainable medical tourism facilities in Jordan with replicability in other jurisdictions. The research proposes a path for medical tourism facilities to play further roles in their contribution to sustainable development by introducing a framework that aims to integrate four business strategies for establishing sustainable value through the integration of stakeholders’ interests and environmental practices.

Internet Tourism Resource Retrieval Using PageRank Search Ranking Algorithm

At present, there is a wide variety of tourism resources on the Internet. Tourism management departments must monitor these resources. At the same time, tourists must also retrieve personalized information that they are interested in. This requires a lot of time and energy. This essay studies and implements the tourism network resource monitoring system. The main work completed in the thesis proposes and constructs a topic collection algorithm and establishes a starting point, topic keywords, and a prediction mechanism. The algorithm includes three stages: the first climbing stage, the learning stage, and the continuous climbing stage. Open category directory search is used for similarity judgment and result evaluation. The experimental results show that with the continuous execution of the crawling process, the collection speed of related pages is getting faster and faster. We propose an algorithm for the extraction of wood based on the density of Internet tourism resources. The algorithm calculates the ratio of Internet tourism resource labels by row and uses a threshold extraction algorithm to distinguish area from private non-Internet tourism resource area. Experimental results show that the algorithm can successfully extract the main content of the article from a wide variety of web pages. This thesis takes the monitoring of tourism network resources as the research object and establishes a tourism network resource monitoring system, which can provide users with customizable, all-round, and real-time tourism network resource collection, extraction, and retrieval services so as to monitor tourism resources. The research results of this article can promote the construction of tourism informatization and can help users grasp the latest tourism information, thereby bringing great convenience to tourism. The system only downloads travel-related information through the use of topic collection technology, reducing the interference of irrelevant redundant web pages.

Variance of destination region image according to multi-dimensional proximity: A case of the Greater Bay Area

Due to increasing accessibility and mobility, tourism destinations are broadening their spatial boundaries and cultural contexts. This study took as an example the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, which consists of 11 cities, and explored how the new path creation of a regional tourism destination reshapes people's cognitive and affective images of the destination on a megalopolitan scale. Destination region image is neither a simple aggregation of the images of member cities nor dictated by the image of a single well-known destination. Both the physical and conceptual connections among multiple cities within the destination region are key nodes of the inclusive image of the region. Connectivity is not only embedded within institutional relations and discourses, but also represented through multi-functional tourism networks and regional culture. The study further explored the image heterogeneity of three proximity-based tourist clusters, divided in terms of cultural and geographical distance and previous travel experience. The research findings of this study can inform planning and marketing strategies for the path creation and development of metropolitan destination regions. • Three phases of path development in the Greater Bay Area are traced. • People's new cognitive system in response to regional path creation is identified. • The key node is connectivity in institutions, networks, and regional culture. • Image heterogeneity among proximity-based tourist clusters is identified. • Variances of destination region image have implications for destination innovation.

Waiting for AIDS in Kuwait

Abstract The HIV/AIDS pandemic evoked anxieties that were tied to Kuwait’s particular histories of gendered citizenship and dislocations of globalized labor. In Kuwait, to the best of our knowledge, HIV/AIDS has not reached epidemic levels. But in the midst of global discussions of HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s, anxiety surrounding Kuwait’s integration into transnational networks of travel and tourism brought tensions over gender roles, citizenship, sexuality, and infidelity to the forefront of public discourse. Drawing on local Arabic-language newspapers, public health campaign material, and state-sponsored publications on Islamic interpretations of HIV/AIDS, this article examines the significance of AIDS in a region where reactions to the pandemic centered on the process of constructing a potential medical event. Citizens and noncitizen residents of Kuwait articulated these anxieties in the context of waiting—waiting to be infected, waiting for a national outbreak, waiting in quarantine, and, for noncitizens who tested positive for HIV, waiting to be deported. By the mid-1990s, this process of anticipating and taking concrete legal measures to prevent a future epidemic resulted in the medicalization of social and political patterns of gender inequality, nativism, and differential citizenship.

Research on the Construction of Tourism Culture Based on Modern Computer Network Technology

In recent years, with the continuous development of tourism, people have paid more and more attention to the development of tourism culture. The tourism culture has also been rapidly innovated and improved, and the pace of construction has been accelerated [1]. Today, network technology has become an indispensable part of people’s lives. As a brand new, efficient, challenging and convenient Internet, it is called the “Fifth Media”. It is an organic whole composed of information communication technology and computer information technology, and it plays an important role in it. As an emerging industry, the tourism industry is gradually moving towards informatization. In the information age, tourism culture promotes and progresses together as a tourism activity and tourism industry. Applying modern scientific network technology to the tourism industry can make the tourism industry more intelligent and modern [2]. With new development trends and new ideas, network technology also provides more possibilities for the construction of tourism culture. The development of tourism is a very important part of the cultural tourism industry, and tourism network technology can provide tourists with more convenient, more efficient and more humane services. After an in-depth analysis of tourism resources, this article finds that there are many problems [3]. In order to better promote the development of the tourism industry in a good direction and achieve good results, we need to solve these problems from many aspects to obtain greater benefits.

Networks, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer in Tourism Industry: An Empirical Study of SMEs in Portugal

The present study aims to investigate how commercialisation and knowledge transfer between the SMEs of the tourism sector and the higher education institutions (HEIs) are made, as well as to find out whether the SMEs of the tourism sector are part of tourism networks, and what their motivations are. We used a qualitative methodology, applying the triangulation method to eight SMEs and one HEI. The results indicate that the commercialisation and knowledge transfer between the SMEs and the HEIs are not effective. SMEs are part of regional networks of business innovation; however, they do not participate in R&D activities with HEIs. Some suggestions were made to SMEs, HEIs, and regional governments to speed up commercialisation and knowledge transfer in the tourism sector. We adapted the Triple Helix Model to the tourism sector, thus creating the “Triple Helix in the Tourism Context”. Only a few studies have researched knowledge commercialisation in the tourism sector, a gap that this article aims to compensate.

Driving Mechanisms for the Agricultural Tourism Network Sector in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province

This research aims to study the driving mechanism for the agricultural tourism network sector in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province with the use of combined approaches. The 2 research processes comprised 1) to study of documents and related research with associate agricultural tourism network in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province and 2) to study of mechanisms to drive agricultural tourism with Delphi techniques from relevant sector, both public, private, public and academic. Results indicated that the driving mechanism for the agricultural tourism network sector in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province comprises the following elements 1. Man refers to a group of people or organization who join the network including 1) Government sector; 2) Private sector; 3) Public sector and 4) Academic sectors including educational institutes and related organization; .2. Resources refers to the tool used to promote the development of an area or a government network to support the development of the area, infrastructure to allocate budget to develop tourist attractions, private sector network to promote / support activities in the tourist area, public sector network to perform tourism resource management planning and academic sector network to support knowledge in development coordinating with relevant sector in the area for development and 3. Management System (System) refers to the establishment of a common agricultural tourism management model of network partners with the processes as follows: 1) Defining the needs to be a network; 2) Seeking partners to share information; 3) Forming a network to work 4) Setting goals, objectives, strategies that are common opinions; 5)Establishing working structure and share-decision making process; 6) Designing work plans and activities; 7) Developing network capacity; 8) Creating communication system; 9) Exchanging of knowledge and lesson summary development and 10) Monitoring and evaluation..

Structural Model of Adaptive Capabilities, Network Capabilities and Community Based Tourism Innovation in the Central Region of Thailand

This research aimed to study 1) the influence of community adaptive ability on innovation of community tourism inthe central region of Thailand 2) the influence of community adaptability on the capacity of managing the community-basedtourism network in the central region 3) the influence of network management ability on community tourism innovation in thecentral region and 4) to propose a structural model of community adaptability and network management capabilities withcommunity-based tourism innovation in the central region. The mixed methodology research between the quantitative researchusing the survey data from the questionnaire with 213 communities of community tourism network in the central region and thequalitative research using the in-depth interview method and focus group interview conducted with 5 informants wasimplemented. Structure Equation Model (SEM) was used for the data analysis. The results demonstrated that (1) the communityadaptability in the central region directly influenced community tourism innovation with an influence of 0.56 and indirectlyinfluenced through the management of the community-based tourism network with an influence of 0.66. The total influence was1.22. (2) Community adaptability directly influenced on the ability of the tourism network management in the central regionwith an influence of 0.62. (3) the ability to manage a network of communities direct influenced on community-based tourisminnovation in the central region with an influence of 0.68. Last but not least, (4) the structural model of adaptive capabilities andthe network management capability with community-based tourism innovation in the central region were consistent withempirical data based on the six harmonization indices with χ2 = 59.85 p-value = 0.08, χ2 / df = 0.55, GFI = 1.00, AGFI = 0.98,and RMSEA = 0.01 that met the acceptance criteria.

Rural Tourism Network Evaluation Based on Resource Control Ability Analysis: A Case Study of Ning’an, China

Organization of rural tourism resources is important for optimizing rural land use based on rational resource classification. Quantitative analysis was performed to evaluate the resource control ability of rural tourism networks. This was achieved by determining the resource control relationship and assessing the structure of the rural tourism network. The ability of resource control was analyzed via resource abstraction, which included the extraction of resource nodes and corridors, control scope analysis, and network structure level evaluation. The proposed approach was applied to the Ning’an in Heilongjiang Province, China, and proved to be effective for exploring the network degree and development trends in rural tourism resources. By examining the resource control ability, the spatial characteristics and development trend in rural tourism networks were quantitatively analyzed, especially the connection mode of key tourism resources, network structure analysis, and resource linking ability. The core resources showed a lack of outward ability in the network, and the secondary resource expansion ability was limited. Via resource control ability analysis, this study focused on areas with rich tourism but an unbalanced spatial structure, combining the directional characteristics of the network to provide suggestions for the optimization rural tourism resources network in other regions of the world.

Collaborative Governance dalam Tata Kelola Pariwisata-Desa (Studi Pariwisata-Desa “Bumiaji Agrotourism” di Kota Wisata Batu)

The objective of this research is examines the role of collaborative governance in rural tourism development, especially in the tourist area of "Bumiaji Agrotourism" in Tourist City of Batu. The rapid development of tourism in Batu is still dominated by the artificial tourism destinations, often the highlight in relation to the equitable distribution of welfare and sustainability of tourist development. Until today, the efforts of local governments and communities by presenting a variety of new icon types of community-based tourism destinations in Batu City do not provide assurance that tourism will remain exsist and suistain due to resource limitations in each actor. In accordance with Good Tourism Governance (GTG), tourism management efforts can no longer be charged only to one of the actors. Collaborative governance approach can be used as an alternative solution, especially in rural tourism development in Tourist City of Batu to strengthen the character of tourist destinations as well as tourism network buildings.

Topology of the World Tourism Web

The applications of social network analysis to the world tourism network are scarce, and a research update is long overdue. The goal of this research is to examine the topology of the world tourism network and to discuss the meaning of its characteristics in light of the current situation. The data used for the analysis comprise 193 target countries, 242 source countries, and 17,022 links, which is an overall 1,448,285,894 travels in 2018. Social network analysis is applied to the data to determine network topological and diffusion properties, as well as the network structure and its regularities (does it behave more as a social or a technological/biological network?). While results presented in this paper give a thorough insight into the world tourism network in the year 2018, they are only a glimpse in comparison to the possibilities for further research.