Tourism Scholars Research Articles

Culture, heritage looting, and tourism: A text mining review approach.

Tourism scholars have been devoted to exploring the significance of cultural heritage in generating economic, environmental, and social values. However, limited efforts were found to verify potential threats that demolish these values such as looting issue in the global heritage tourism industry. Therefore, this study has reviewed extant publications to demonstrate the potential emerged textual clusters discussed by previous studies. It also summarized the network distribution of articles journals and authors’ affiliations to capture the mobility and diversity with a focus on the business and tourism management field. Hence, the core clusters discovered were related to heritage destruction, public access, world heritage, human rights, cultural heritage preservation, and protection of cultural heritage in the event. The results have established theoretical insights and research agendas for future tourism studies, while it determined critical drawbacks in employing technology tools including virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence for cultural heritage preservation/protection.

Tourism, compounding crises, and struggles for sovereignty

Applying justice theory in tourism studies has yielded a vibrant flourishing of scholarship in recent decades. Yet, it is still argued that a clear conceptualization of justice tourism is still lacking. Sovereignty theory has seen broad application across many social sciences in recent decades, yet despite a clear connection, the tourism scholarship has engaged minimally with the sovereignty literature. This article aims to assimilate sovereignty theory into the justice tourism scholarship by carrying out a deep historical analysis to demonstrate how destination residents negotiate chronic and acute crises in the Galápagos Islands, a place with no original human population. With global immigration projected to grow and exacerbate environmental conflicts in the coming years, the current research is well-poised to provide urgent and generalizable insights into the sociocultural underpinnings of increasing human mobility, the environmental conflicts that exist between different value systems and worldviews, and the opportunities that exist to promote improved destination management on behalf of human wellbeing in places experiencing intense in-migration. Historical analyses are thus critical to understanding the subjective and temporal nature of struggles associated with justice-centric concepts, including but not limited to sovereignty.

Toward critical race tourism: valuing counter-narratives and endarkened storywork

In this article, we argue for tourism scholars to amplify the stories and lived experiences of traditionally silenced groups through the adaption of critical race theory (CRT) toward a framework of Critical Race Tourism. Critical Race Tourism includes a specific focus on counter-storytelling, endarkened storywork, and regular engagement of interest convergence. We believe Critical Race Tourism can contribute to racial reconciliation and healing, particularly during a time of a global pandemic, that exacerbates systems of marginalization and oppression. Using a Critical Race Tourism framework is about realizing the potential of thick, rich data of everyday lived experiences from marginalized communities in order to enrich the theoretical, empiricism, and scholarly insights offered by academic writing. We begin by defining CRT and describe the employment of and application within tourism studies. We introduce the framework of endarkened storywork, which responds to the sustainability and justice challenges resulting from past, current, and future inequities for BIPOC communities. We close with implications for tourism contexts and research.

Digital Winescape and Online Wine Tourism: Comparative Insights from Crete and Santorini

In the pursuit of sustainability and competitiveness, digital aspects of the tourism experience become increasingly more significant and wine tourism is no exception to this. Still, studies building on established concepts and sustainable practices in the corporate environment often prioritize physical attributes. One such example refers to winescape frameworks, which are yet to explicitly incorporate the digital experience, despite the growing importance of the digital servicescape. This study contributes to this area by commenting on available data on winery websites and adopting the winescape concept to analyze social media activity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The population of the study includes 53 wineries, located in two well-known Greek wine tourism destinations, namely Crete and Santorini. The results identify the most common winescape components that wineries emphasize, revealing similarities and differences across the two destinations. Implications highlight the winescape dimensions that (should) matter the most when considering digital experiences, and provide insights for wine tourism scholars and businesses alike towards a more sustainable wine supply chain.

COVID-19 the intruder: A philosophical journey with Jean-Luc Nancy into pandemic strangeness and tourism

Since the arrival of COVID-19, tourism scholarship has focused its attention on rethinking and restarting the tourism sector. In this urgent search for a ‘new normal’, the embodied experience of hosting such an unwelcomed virus, the philosophical questions this raises, and the tourism futures already in the making, have not been fully explored. The article introduces Nancy's (2000/2002) philosophy, L'intrus [The Intruder], where he reflects on having a heart transplant operation to give body to the experiences of the self as exteriority and of otherness always already within. We take inspiration from Nancy to think and sense the experience of the COVID-19 virus intrusion in tourism. To do this, we weave personal philosophical reflections with ethnographic material to reflect on three themes of intrusion for tourism scholarship to consider: the experience of a body/self as exposed, the experience of a shattered self, and the experience of uncertain futures.

COVID-19 AND COASTAL DESTINATION IMPACTS: THE CASE OF SOUTH AFRICA

The COVID-19 pandemic underlines the importance of geography and geographical analysis to tourism scholarship. This paper utilises a spatial approach to examine the impacts of the pandemic on tourism flows and examine the comparative performance of coastal tourism destinations in COVID-times. The case research is on South Africa one of the worst-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the pandemic. Existing international literature points to a geographical change in consumer preferences for coastal destinations with reduced flows to traditional mass coastal destinations. The South African findings demonstrate the highly negative effects of the pandemic upon coastal tourism as a whole with the largest coastal cities experiencing the worst impacts. COVID-19 has caused a reversal of trends recorded for the past two decades for the benefits of coastal tourism to be concentrated in South Africa’s large coastal cities. Instead, it has resulted in the relative improvement of smaller coastal centres and in particular of centres which are relatively well-located for access to the domestic markets offered by large cities. These South African findings signal potential shifts in consumer psyche and travel behaviour as an outcome of COVID-19.

Transformational tourism – a systematic literature review and research agenda

PurposeThis paper aims to examine critically the literature on transformational tourism and explore a research agenda for a post-COVID future.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review of the transformational tourism literature is performed over a 42-year period from 1978 to 2020.FindingsFurther research is required in terms of how transformative experiences should be calibrated and measured both in qualitative and quantitative terms, particularly from the perspective of how tourists are transformed by their experiences. Similarly, the nature and depth of these transformative processes remain poorly understood, particularly given the many different types of tourism associated with transformative experiences, which range from religious pilgrimages to backpacking and include several forms of ecotourism.Practical implicationsFuture research directions for transformational tourism are discussed with regard to how COVID-19 will transform the dynamics of tourism and travel, including the role of new smart technologies in the creation of enhanced transformational experiences, and the changing expectations and perceptions of transformative travel in the post-COVID era. In addition, the researchers call for future studies on transformational tourism to explore the role of host communities in the delivery of meaningful visitor experiences.Originality/valueTransformational tourism is an emerging body of research, which has attracted a growing level of interest among tourism scholars in recent years. However, to this date, a systematic review of published literature in this field has not been conducted yet in a holistic sense. This paper offers a framework for future research in this field.

Mapping the Foundation and Trends in Tourism Research

Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal is the second oldest journal in tourism, which has grown as one of the most reliable sources of tourism scholarship over the years. This study has adopted a bibliometric literature review approach based on the published articles to emphasize its contribution to tourism scholarship. The study has reviewed 529 publications published between 2002 and 2020 (indexed in Scopus). The study has employed the statistical tool - 'bibliometrix' to conduct evaluative and relational analysis utilizing numerous indices highlighting the journal's growth and its conceptual and collaboration structure. The findings offered are beneficial for both the editors and the scholars in the tourism discipline. Additionally, the implications of the findings, future research gaps, and limitations are discussed.

Influences of Distributive Injustice and Job Insecurity Amid COVID-19 on Unethical Pro-Organisational Behaviour: Mediating Role of Employee Turnover Intention.

Drawn on Social Exchange Theory and Conservation of Resources Theory, this study developed a research model to examine the direct influence of job insecurity and distributive injustice, which were common in many hotels amid COVID-19, on unethical pro-organisation behaviour (UPoB) among hotel employees. The study also examines the mediating role of turnover intention in the relationship between job insecurity, and distributive injustice, which was result of the COVID-19 pandemic on UPoB. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was self-dropped and collected through personal network to hotel employees in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The results of structural equation modelling using AMOS (version 23) supported all the study hypotheses. The results showed a significant positive influence of distributive injustice and job insecurity on UPoB among hotel employees. Moreover, turnover intention was found to have a partial mediation role in the relationship between job insecurity, distributive injustice and UPoB. The results extend our understanding of Social Exchange Theory and Conservation of Resources Theory that employees in hotels are more likely to protect themselves and their job by engaging in UPoB if they perceived their job at threat due to a crisis, i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic. The major conclusion of current research is that when hotels employees perceived job insecurity and distributive injustice because of the pandemic, they responded with high turnover intention and as a last choice engaging in UPoB to save their resources, in this case their jobs, since they have no other alternatives outside the organisations. However, this inappropriate antisocial behaviour could have a negative influence on both employees and organisation at the long term. The results of current research have several theoretical implications for tourism scholars and managerial implication for hoteliers.

Tourism scholarship with LGBTQ+ people in criminalised contexts: A research agenda

Despite numerous calls for tourism research on the LGBTQ + community beyond western developed nations, this gap remains unaddressed in a way that empowers LGBTQ + people – particularly those in places where such identities are still criminalised. Travel can play an essential role in the lives of LGBTQ + people by providing a space for identity exploration, affirmation and reinvention. Yet, the risks inherent to participants and researchers alike have impeded such research from being conducted. This paper identifies these risks and discusses theoretical and methodological approaches to elucidate and provide solutions. Finally, a research agenda is provided to guide exploration.

Consuming colonial nostalgia in Kolkata, India

Imperialist nostalgia has been well documented by tourism scholars; however colonial nostalgia has been ignored as this is, arguably, considered embarrassing. This ethnography, utilizing Homi Bhabha's (1994) concepts of hybridity and mimicry, was conducted with young Indian domestic tourists visiting postcolonial Kolkata, India. Findings revealed that despite the current Indian government's efforts to wipe away the colonial legacy, many young Indians have no qualms about carrying on the legacy of the British Raj. Nostalgia for these young Indian tourists is rooted in an imagined sense of the past and born out of frustration with the present and the uncertainty of the future. The private sector in the tourism industry in India, capitalizing on this trend, increasingly lures domestic tourists.

Geodiversity and Tourism Sustainability in the Anthropocene

Geodiversity has recently emerged as a key idea for recognizing the value of abiotic nature. The concept has vital implications for informing tourism sustainability research; however, to date, tourism scholarship has not shown adequate engagement with this concept. The issue also assumes further significance in the Anthropocene, where our species has become a geological force. Here, through a review of key works related to geodiversity and Anthropocene, their interface is analyzed, and implications for tourism sustainability are presented. It is argued that, in the Anthropocene, it is no longer enough for tourism sustainability research to remain preoccupied with the human predicament in the Anthropocene or the decline of biotic nature at some prominent tourism destinations, and it is imperative that tourism scholars embrace the concern for abiotic diversity and dynamic earth processes that provide vital resources and services for tourism planetwide.

Package cycle tourists′ relationship to time and pace

For its slow mobility, cycle tourism has been linked to slow travel. Yet, few tourism scholars have studied the meaning of the pace at which cycle tourists move. This study seeks to shed some light on cycle tourists' relationship to time and pace. For that purpose, mobile ethnography through participant observation and interviews was employed to explore how western tourists experience a package cycling holiday in Vietnam. The cyclists' notion of subjective pace was found to be unconnected from actual velocity or form of travel. Some of the tourists sought speed and closely monitored time as ways to achieve their cycling performance goals. None of the cyclists expressed concerns with the high carbon footprint of their air travel to Vietnam. Furthermore, contrary to the slow travel literature, the cycle tourists did not prioritise social encounters. The findings of this study, therefore, question whether package cycle tourists can be considered to be slow travellers. We thus suggest that the experience of pace as controlled by the traveller her or himself is central to being a slow traveller.

Bibliometric analysis on wellness tourism – citation and co-citation analysis

PurposeTourism on wellness is a rapidly expanding segment of the travel industry; nevertheless, it is still in its infancy, and more study research is needed to develop a scientific foundation for health and wellness tourism. The study uses bibliometric indicators like as citations to determine the field structure on wellness tourism from 1998 to 2021, and the VOSviewer software to map the significant trends in wellness tourism (WT) area, to examine the present situation.Design/methodology/approachTo reach this objective, the theme of “wellness tourism” was searched in the “Scopus” database, and bibliometrics data on the publications were obtained. In total, 414 papers were found during the initial search, which was then narrowed according to the criteria. Using this strategy, the author discovered 386 records, and after removing 4 duplicates and 1 irrelevant document, the refining produced 381 related documents. The most-cited papers, significant authors, co-citation of references, sources and authors were all investigated for the publications related to WT.FindingsAccording to this report, research into wellness tourism has increased in recent years. The authors discovered two papers with over 238 “Scopus” citations and a total of 10 studies with 1414 citations. According to Scopus, the document Napier et al. receives 36.5% of citations each year. There were a total of 804 authors who published about WT between 1998 and 2021, with Smith, M, Voigt, c, and Puczkó, L being the most-cited reference authors in the subject. Han h. has the highest index of 56 of all the authors.Research limitations/implicationsThe “Scopus” database was used for bibliometric analysis, although the VOSviewer was used exclusively. This considered as a first study to utilize a bibliometric method to address this research gap, identifying the tools, journals, and, most crucially, conceptual subdomains like spa, yoga, therapy, spirituality and trekking that will be significant in future research.Originality/valueUsing a bibliometric analytic approach, this article looked at papers on wellness tourism published between 1998 and 2021. Thus, its goal is to learn more about wellness tourism and to enlighten wellness tourism scholars on the field's structure.

A review of research into tourism and climate change - Launching the annals of tourism research curated collection on tourism and climate change

The tourism sector declared a climate emergency in 2020. It is against this background that this Curated Collection on Climate Change and Tourism is launched. A bibliometric analysis of 1290 articles reviews the 35-year development of climate change and tourism scholarship, including major research themes, key knowledge gaps, and our capacity to deliver the enormous knowledge requirements for an effective sectoral climate response. A central finding is that the last three decades of research have failed to prepare the sector for the net-zero transition and climate disruption that will transform tourism over the next three decades. The climate change imperative demands more of the tourism academy and this collection will stimulate research and capacity for climate resilient tourism development.

Contingent and affective disruptions: Towards relational tourism geographies of what makes things food

Human intentionality forms just one aspect in understanding the tourist’s engagement with food, and yet tends to dominate food tourism research; whilst food itself tends to remain somewhat ‘passive stuff’. A focus on the active presence of food we argue is rare in food tourism scholarship. This paper thus explores how tourist scholars offering insights into the practices and experiences of eating in tourism contexts have taken to spatial and relational approaches to explore what it means to eat during travel. We argue that tourist studies literature on food holds the potential to unlock the complexity of what tourists eat, and why. We do this by discussing two broad ‘spatial turns’ relating to tourism geographies of eating as relational. In doing this we attend to questions of how things become food through attunement to sociospatial-material relationships, experiences and situated practices. We show how these two relational approaches offer exciting research agendas that rethink food tourism not as a predetermined, structured human experience or touristic agenda – but as something that is ongoing, and made through individuals’ sensorial engagement with the social and material world.

The disposal of cremation ashes in tourism settings: practices, impacts and management

ABSTRACT Although research into the relationship between tourism and death has predominantly focused on dark tourism, tourism scholars are exploring other forms of association between the two. In this context, this paper focuses on a little-researched practice in tourism studies: the scattering of cremation ashes in spaces used for tourism and leisure. This is not a universal practice, and it may only be commonplace in countries with permissive legislation regarding the ‘disposal’ of cremation ashes. After considering the disposal of ashes in historical context, we examine practices of ashes scattering in three types of tourism setting: visitor attractions, areas of managed countryside, and sports grounds/stadia. We explore the range of management responses to scattering, ranging from outright prohibition, to treating the practice as a form of revenue generation. We also consider the dissonance that can arise from ashes scattering, particularly the emotional impact on other leisure users of an encounter with human remains, but also the emotional labour demanded of employees who are required to manage this practice. The paper identifies a number of future research directions intended to throw more light on the practices and implications of scattering cremation ashes in tourism and leisure settings.

Missing tales of motorcycle backpackers

ABSTRACT Motorcycle backpackers is an emerging niche market segment that can be placed in the overlap of drive tourism and backpacking. Within this context, Research note identifies motorcycle backpackers as an important subculture situated within contemporary backpackers. A quick Internet search will show numerous tourism providers are marketing their products and services to motorcycle backpackers in various destinations (e.g. https://www.mein-tourenhotel.de/, https://www.tigitmotorbikes.com/, and https://www.rideadv.com/rentals/south-america/). However, there is a dearth of research undertaken about motorcycle backpackers, possibly due to the blurry line separating them from backpackers and/or motorcycle tourists. Consequently, statistics about this group of tourists are also rarely presented in research, making it difficult to estimate the full potential of the market size accurately. There is a need for research on motorcycle backpackers as they represent a unique subculture situated within contemporary backpackers. This paper calls for research to develop a nuanced understanding of this niche tourist segment, which has implications for tourism and leisure scholarship, and tourism businesses.

Entrepreneurial motives, entrepreneurial success and life satisfaction of refugees venturing in tourism and hospitality

PurposeA burgeoning stream of tourism and hospitality research highlights the role of entrepreneurship in bringing about positive social and economic outcomes for both refugees themselves and their host countries. Yet little has been done so far both in mainstream entrepreneurship research and tourism scholarship to explore how motivations influence perceived entrepreneurial success of refugees and how this eventually affects their subjective well-being. To address this gap, the present study aims to propose and empirically test a conceptual model postulating relationships between contextual and individual entrepreneurial motives, perceptions of entrepreneurial success and life satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on quantitative data collected through 172 surveys of refugee entrepreneurs venturing in different subsectors within tourism and hospitality in Turkey and the UK. A structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed theoretical model.FindingsThe results reveal that contextual and individual entrepreneurial motives have a significant positive impact on perceived entrepreneurial success. As predicted, perceived entrepreneurial success is found to have a significant positive impact on life satisfaction. A multigroup analysis involving host country (Turkey vs the UK) and mode of entry (founder vs takeover) indicates no significant difference based on host country, whereas the strength of relationships for takeovers is relatively greater as compared to founders.Practical implicationsThis study advocates that the reductionist approach viewing refugees as temporary “outsiders” who are in consistent need of public provision, and welfare services should not prevail against their ability to achieve self-efficiency through entrepreneurship. Hence, policies need to be oriented toward supporting refugee entrepreneurial activities over various business stages and modes of entry. More importantly, ensuring high success rates among refugee entrepreneurs should be viewed as a pivotal tool to address the well-being of refugees, their families and their fellows.Originality/valueWhile previous research identifies drivers of entrepreneurship success and the potential favorable outcomes, none of these studies empirically models refugee entrepreneurship motives, self-reported entrepreneurial success and life satisfaction as a distinct and growing cohort of entrepreneurs. This study makes significant theoretical contributions to the corpus of literature on the social outcomes of entrepreneurship and provides timely implications for policymakers to use entrepreneurship as a market-based solution to address refugees’ subjective well-being.

THE GROWTH OF MEDICAL TOURISM AND THE IMPACTS ON LOCAL WELLBEING EQUALITY: A CASE OF THAILAND

Within the Asia-Pacific region, the growth of medical tourism (MT) in Thailand has been gearing toward a monumental progress. Consequentially, the various research of its policy, strategy and service management have been explored and furthered. Contradictory, the study of local wellbeing equality over the MT has, unfortunately, been in hiatus. The objective of the study is to further the current premise of the literature, test, and prove; arguing that from Thai society's perspectives, the promising MT growth in the kingdom does not necessarily mean an equal establishment of the community’s wellbeing. A quantitative methodology employed and linear regression by SPSS run. 0f 600 online and paper questionnaires distributed to Thai’s medical doctors, resident doctors, medical students (senior year), and tourism scholars, 528 responses were attained. All four tested hypotheses on the perceived growth of Thailand’s MT toward local community’s unequal economic, social, healthcare, and environmental aspects, approved. That interprets the issue of policy isolation between MT’s investment versus community’s benefits.