Urban Tourism Destinations Research Articles

Community Resilience in Urban Tourist Destinations

Zusammenfassung In Anbetracht des kontinuierlich steigenden Besucherdrucks auf urbane Destinationen und der damit einhergehenden Medienberichterstattung über Overtourism, werden Analysen über die Toleranz und Resilienz der belasteten Gemeinden essentiell für die Tourismusforschung. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag werden zunächst basierend auf einer Literaturanalyse diverse Modelle zur Community Resilience und zum Social Capital in urbanen Destinationen zusammengetragen. Anschließend werden zwei Fallbeispiele – Kopenhagen und München – mittels der qualitativen Analyse diverser Expertengespräche präsentiert und auf deren Kohärenz mit dem zuvor entwickelten Modell getestet. Als Resultat werden diverse Faktoren hervorgehoben, die das Social Capital der Gemeinden urbaner Destinationen beeinflussen und die Resilienz gegenüber wachsenden Touristenzahlen damit einhergehend stärken.

도시재생관광지의 공공디자인 특성이 지각된 가치와 재방문의도에 미치는 영향

This study aimed at analyzing the influential relations of public design attributes, perceived value, prior knowledge, and intention to revisit focusing a case of an urban regeneration tourism destination. In the literature review, the related concepts were covered and the precedent studies were examined. For the research design, a structural model was constructed and hypotheses were established. Using the purposive sampling method, survey data were collected from tourists who had visited Gyeongui Railroad Book Street, Mapo-gu, Seoul. A total of 434 effective questionnaires were utilized for the analysis. The results of this study showed that the structural relations among public design attributes, perceived value, and intention to revisit were significant overall, and that prior knowledge had a partially significant moderating effect. In conclusion, this study confirmed that the public design attributes of an urban regeneration tourism destination had significant influence on the related tourist behavior. Based on these findings, practical implications for developing urban regeneration tourism destinations are suggested.

Culture and Tourism in Porto City Centre: Conflicts and (Im)Possible Solutions

City centres are spaces where different economic and cultural values converge as a consequence of their current uses and functions. In the case of Porto (Portugal), more than 20 years after being declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO (in 1996), tourism has had remarkable effects on its physical, social and economic features. Therefore, Porto—and in particular its city centre—is taken in this article as the object of study. The interest of this space lies in the fact that it has been rapidly transformed from a devalued old area into the centre of an important urban tourism destination on a European level. Based on the spatial and temporal analysis of a set of indicators related to tourism, housing and economic activity, we identify the main threats that this “culture-led regeneration”—much supported by tourism—could have on the cultural values of Porto. Our results show that this process is promoting an excessive use of space by tourism and an overexploitation of cultural values. We conclude with some policy recommendations to support strategies capable of keeping cultural values alive, which we consider sustainable compromises between heritage and modernization.

Domestic Visitors Safety and Security in Urban Environments: Some Major Issues in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre

This article aims to discuss the level of safety and security of domestic visitors in eight urban tourism destinations in Kuala Lumpur city centre. Discussing safety and security importance for urban tourism destinations because it can influence of frequency and severity among tourist. Primary data were gathered from questionnaire surveys of 192 randomly sampled domestic visitors who are willing to be the respondents of the study. The findings indicated the reality of some security and safety issues faced by the Kuala Lumpur domestic visitors. The results show that concerns and anxieties have arisen among domestic visitors to their safety in the urban tourist location in the heart of Kuala Lumpur during their visit to the site. This harms the location of city tourism in downtown Kuala Lumpur in the future if it is not resolved. Safe city programs should be empowered and implemented more widely including in the urban tourism sector to address safety and security issues in the rapidly expanding urban environment.

도시관광지 지역주민과 관광객 간 갈등과 투어리즘 포비아에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to analyze a phenomenon of tourism phobia focusing on a conflict between residents and tourists in urban tourism destinations. This research was conducted through the in-depth interview with local residents in Seochon village applying the photovoice and analyzed within a grounded theory framework. The results of open coding were grouped with the number of 86 conceptual labels, 26 subcategories, and 10 categories. The results of axial coding indicated that the causal conditions were a tourists' antisocial behavior, realistic threats, and symbolic threats. While a central phenomenon was the disruption of human settlements, contextual conditions were tourists-directed places, overlooked local characteristics, the gap between expectations and actualities. Intervening conditions were insufficient management of local governments. Actions/interactions were the reinforced ownership mindset and the consequence was the formation of tourism phobia. Furthermore, according to the results of selective coding, the core category was 'showing hostility toward threat through the reinforced ownership mindset'. The study provides theoretical and managerial implications for the development of sustainable urban tourism through providing a coping strategy on tourism phobia.

WISATA KAWASAN PECINAN KOTATUA JAKARTA: SUATU TINJAUAN POTENSI PENGEMBANGAN PARIWISATA PERKOTAAN DI INDONESIA

<p><em>The function of a city is not only for economic development, but also the city tells the story of the collective memory of its citizens who still exist in their past culture. These culture are the city's cultural resources for tourism. One of them is the Kotatua area of Jakarta, there is a Chinatown area, known as Glodok. This study aims to describe how the Glodok Chinatown cultural area was transformed into an urban tourist destination from the 18th century to the present. This area has many historical attractions or historical tourist destinations such as centers of sacred activity (temples / temples, and churches), as well as profane activity centers (markets, roads / alleys, etc.). Therefore the future development must refer to Law No. 11 of 2010 concerning Cultural Heritage that the use of cultural heritage must be based on protection and development not the other way around. So that it is expected that conservation-based tourism in the Glodok Chinatown area can sustain well without any changes which certainly damage the element of authenticity as Chinatown areas in Jakarta and Indonesia in general.</em><em></em></p><p> </p><p>Keyword: <em>Kotatua, Glodok, City, Cultural Heritage, Tourism</em></p>

A Hierarchical Measurement Model of Perceived Resilience of Urban Tourism Destination

Uncertainty and disturbance from the external world challenge the sustainable development of cities. With the rise of tourism and global economic change, tourism and urban development have become intertwined. This study develops a macro–micro hierarchical resilience measurement model for tourism city from a resident perception-based perspective. Using Sanya, on China’s Hainan province, as a case, rigorous procedures were followed for measurement development. First, a measurement scale was designed. Thereafter, exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) was conducted to explore the multidimensionality of each domain, and bifactor-exploratory structural equation modelling (bifactor-ESEM) was carried out to identify the overarching construct of city tourism resilience. From both a macro level and a micro level, with five domains (social, economy, environment, institution and knowledge), ten overarching factors addressing the resilience structure of urban tourism destination were identified.

Vacation rentals in San Francisco, USA: a positive or negative disruption?

PurposeVacation rentals (VRs) are growing in popularity and have disrupted the lodging industry. But they are also controversial because they can literally disrupt quiet residential neighborhoods. There is little research on users of VRs.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey of 10,000 festival attendees in San Francisco determined if they stayed in VR or commercial lodging and their spending. A second survey of 402 respondents who stayed in a VR asked about their motivations for renting a VR and their evaluation of the experience.FindingsResults showed users of VRs were motivated by low cost, a convenient location and the nature of the neighborhood. VR user groups were more likely to rent high-end properties, than commercial users. But on a per-person per-day basis, VR users spent $183 on lodging, compared with $264 spent by those opting for a CL. Over half of the respondents stated that the availability of VRs increased the likelihood of them attending the event.Practical implicationsResults suggest that VRs help cover housing costs of VR owners and provide a desired, unique and low-priced lodging opportunity, which can encourage attendance at events. But VRs have both positive and negative disruptive impacts, and more regulation is coming in high-profile urban tourist destinations to mitigate negative effects.Originality/valueThis study consists of original research into VRs, which is a rapidly evolving component of hospitality industry.

Visitor Mobility and Spatial Structure in a Local Urban Tourism Destination: GPS Tracking and Network analysis

Visitor mobility is an important element for facilitating sustainable local economics and management in urban tourism destinations. Research on visitor mobility often focuses on the patterns and structures of spatial visitor behavior and the factors that influence them. This study examines the relationship between visitor mobility and urban spatial structures through an exploratory analysis of visitors’ movements and characteristics, which were collected from surveys with global positional system (GPS) tracking technologies and questionnaires. The Ueno district, one of the most popular tourism destinations in Tokyo, Japan, was selected as the study area. For local stakeholders, the low accessibility levels between this district’s park zone and downtown zone have become a major destination management issue. We compared visitor movements and flow networks in various places from different major trip origins (railway stations) by using several analysis techniques (GPS log distribution, spatial movement sequences, and network analysis), and examined physical and human factors that caused the different mobility patterns. The results demonstrated that physical factors, including major transport hubs (railway stations), topography, commercial accumulation, and POI distribution, affected intra-destination visitor behavior, and segmented visitor markets into different main zones. Such findings could inform future destination management policies and planning in local urban tourism destinations.

Location-Based Social Network Data for Exploring Spatial and Functional Urban Tourists and Residents Consumption Patterns

Urban tourist destinations’ increasing popularity has been a catalyst for discussion about the tourist activity geographical circumscription. In this context, Big Data and more specifically location-based social networks (LBSN), appear as a valuable source of information to approach tourist and residents spatial interactions from a renewed perspective. This paper focuses on approaching similarities and differences between tourists and residents’ geographical and functional use of urban economic units. A user classificatory algorithm has been developed and applied on YELP’s Dataset for that purpose. A residents and tourists integration ratio has then been calculated and applied by types of businesses categories and their associated spatial distribution of the of 11 metropolitan areas provided in the sample: Champaign (Illinois, US), Charlotte (North Carolina, US), Cleveland (Ohio, US), Edinburgh (Scotland, UK), Las Vegas (Nevada, US), Madison (Wisconsin, US), Montreal (Quebec, CA), Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, US), Phoenix (Arizona, US), Stuttgart (DE) and Toronto (Ontario, CA). Business category results show strong similarities in tourists and residents functional coincidence in the use of urban spaces and leisure offer, while there is a clear geographical concentration of activity for both user types in all analysed case studies.

Virtual reality as an urban tourism destination marketing tool

Although there is a breadth of research demonstrating the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) as a destination marketing tool, there are limited exploratory studies providing empirical evidence from the perspective of tourism marketers in this specific context. The technological, organisational, environmental (TOE) framework has confirmed explanatory power for studies exploring organisational adoption of various technologies; however, the framework's association with VR research is limited. Responding to this dual gap, this exploratory study explores both internal and external factors associated with VR adoption from tourism marketers' perspectives by employing TOE framework as a theoretical base. Interviews were conducted with seven tourism marketers from three urban tourism destinations in the UK. The preliminary study findings indicate that environmental (perceived competitive pressures and global market appeal) factors are positively associated with tourism marketers' VR adoption, while other TOE factors are not. Finally, theoretical contribution, practical implications and avenues for further research are provided.

Virtual Reality as an Urban Tourism Destination Marketing Tool

Although there is a breadth of research demonstrating the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) as a destination marketing tool, there are limited exploratory studies providing empirical evidence from the perspective of tourism marketers in this specific context. The technological, organisational, environmental (TOE) framework has confirmed explanatory power for studies exploring organisational adoption of various technologies; however, the framework's association with VR research is limited. Responding to this dual gap, this exploratory study explores both internal and external factors associated with VR adoption from tourism marketers' perspectives by employing TOE framework as a theoretical base. Interviews were conducted with seven tourism marketers from three urban tourism destinations in the UK. The preliminary study findings indicate that environmental (perceived competitive pressures and global market appeal) factors are positively associated with tourism marketers' VR adoption, while other TOE factors are not. Finally, theoretical contribution, practical implications and avenues for further research are provided.

Turistički resursi grad Niša u funkciji njegovog razvoja kao gradske turističke destinacije

In this paper, the tourist resources of the city of Nis were analyzed. The primary objective of the analysis is to examine the possibilities of developing Nis as a urban tourist destination. On the tourist map of the Republic of Serbia, the main admiNistrative centers Belgrade and Novi Sad represent built urban destinations, visited by a large number of foreign tourists. On the other hand, Nis as a city with rich culture and history as well as high quality tourist resources, is still not sufficiently recognized as a urban destination. Accordingly, the analysis of the tourist resources of the city of Nis represents the basis for implementing guidelines for its future development as a urban destination.

Travel motivations of the residents of Guimarães

Guimaraes has made a major effort in promoting tourism, positioning itself as an urban and cultural tourism destination. This strategy is based on the historical heritage of the city, which is a UNESCO world heritage site since 2001, and the promotion of events, such as the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) in 2012. The new image created for Guimaraes has defined a new lifestyle for its residents by placing tourism and culture at the forefront of a new development strategy. This study examines the underlying reasons for the travel decisions of the population of the municipality of Guimaraes, investigating their push and pull tourist motivations. The study also analyses the role that important socio-demographic variables play in determining travel motivations of residents from this municipality. The empirical analysis was undertaken based on questionnaires administered in 2012 to residents of Guimaraes. Results show that gender, age, and education make a difference with regard to travel motivations.

Does hotel location tell a true story? Evidence from geographically weighted regression analysis of hotels in Hong Kong

This study is among the first attempts to understand hotel location choice by developing a local spatial model to investigate spatial determinants of hotel locations in an urban tourism destination, taking Hong Kong as the study context. The spatially diverse relationships between nine factors (i.e., land area, green land, traffic land, residential land, commercial land, institutional land, metro station density, attraction density, population density, and average income) and the number of hotels in Hong Kong are quantified by geographically weighted Poisson regression. Results indicate that (1) factors influencing hotel location choice vary across regions; (2) traffic factors do not always affect hotel location choice in urban destinations; and (3) the effects of independent variables in peripheral regions are strong and decrease gradually in the urban center, revealing a ‘poached egg’ pattern, where hotel clustering is associated with agglomeration effects.

Характеристика на туристическата привлекателност на съвременните градове

The study of large urban centers as tourist destinations is done from different perspectives. Their analysis is important since they are carriers of important features for selecting the destination and its attractiveness. These arguments form the basis for defining the concept of "urban tourist destination" and define approaches that are relevant to the formation of conceptual and practical models to measure its attractiveness. The paper examines the different methods of measuring the attractiveness of the urban tourist destination. An emphasis is placed on research methodology based on the Global Power Index. An overview of the results of the application of this method is made and the ranking of the ten most attractive urban tourist destinations in the world for the period 2014-2016 is analyzed.

Unraveling the impact of destination reputation on place attachment and behavior outcomes among Chinese urban tourists

PurposeThe impact of destination reputation on tourists’ behavior has not received sufficient attention in the tourism literature. Built upon the signaling theory and the well-documented stimulus-organism-response framework, the purpose of this paper is to propose and assess a theoretical model that captures relationships among destination reputation, place attachment, tourist satisfaction, and the search for alternative destinations.Design/methodology/approachUsing the covariance-based structural equation modeling technique, this study empirically tested the conceptual model with a convenience sample of Chinese tourists who visited a popular coastal urban tourism destination in China.FindingsFindings reveal that destination reputation positively impacts perceived place dependence, place identity, and tourist satisfaction. In addition, place dependence positively affects tourist satisfaction, but place identity has no significant impact on tourist satisfaction. As expected, tourist satisfaction negatively influences tourists’ search for alternative destinations; however, place identity positively influences tourists’ search for alternative destinations.Originality/valueFew studies in the tourism literature explore the role of destination reputation in the tourist decision-making process. The present study’s unique contribution lies in its examination of destination reputation on tourists’ behavior. In addition, this study includes the search for alternative destinations as an important behavioral outcome into the proposed model. Some tourists explore alternative destinations even though they are willing to revisit and spread positive messages about the destination they already visited. Therefore, the continuous searching behavior is worthy of investigation in tourism studies.

A Comparison of Rural and Urban Tourism Experiences: A South African Example

Tourism is a rewarding sector for several countries as it presents opportunities for growth and development. While tourism attractions are predominantly located in either a rural or an urban destination, literature lacks comparative research about experiences in these two contexts. The purpose of this study was to compare tourists’ experiences of visiting a rural or an urban destination in South Africa. Data were conveniently obtained from 401 tourists who visited either one of two rural, or one of two selected urban tourist destinations. This study found significant differences in tourist perceptions for escape and peace of mind. Tourists felt more strongly/positive that they were escaping when visiting a rural tourism destination than when visiting an urban tourism destination. However, the study also revealed that tourists felt more secure and safe and that their privacy was prioritised (peace of mind) at an urban tourism destination than at a rural tourism destination. Tourism destination managers and governments may use the findings of the study to improve the tourist experience and promote a competitive platform for the tourism destination to attract more tourists.

A Comparison of Rural and Urban Tourism Experiences: A South African Example

Tourism is a rewarding sector for several countries as it presents opportunities for growth and development. While tourism attractions are predominantly located in either a rural or an urban destination, literature lacks comparative research about experiences in these two contexts. The purpose of this study was to compare tourists’ experiences of visiting a rural or an urban destination in South Africa. Data were conveniently obtained from 401 tourists who visited either one of two rural, or one of two selected urban tourist destinations. This study found significant differences in tourist perceptions for escape and peace of mind. Tourists felt more strongly/positive that they were escaping when visiting a rural tourism destination than when visiting an urban tourism destination. However, the study also revealed that tourists felt more secure and safe and that their privacy was prioritised (peace of mind) at an urban tourism destination than at a rural tourism destination. Tourism destination managers and governments may use the findings of the study to improve the tourist experience and promote a competitive platform for the tourism destination to attract more tourists.

Difficulties for enjoyment of public spaces by residents: Maldonado-Punta del Este conurbation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine whether the various types of negative impacts have an effect on the general attitude toward tourism and the difficulty for the enjoyment of public spaces.Design/methodology/approachIt is a quantitative study that analyzes the causal relationships between variables through structural equation models. This study uses data from a sample of 420 residents from Maldonado and Punta del Este.FindingsThe result obtained shows that only the cultural loss is significant to explain the residents’ attitudes. On the other hand, the cultural loss, the environmental deterioration and the saturation are significant to explain the difficulties for the enjoyment of public spaces.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitations are the fact of performing the analysis in a specific destination with peculiarities that may affect the results and the representativeness of the sample used.Practical implicationsThe enjoyment of public spaces is a good indicator of the perception of negative impacts, so managers of urban tourist destinations can use this element as an indicator of quick consultation on residents’ attitudes.Originality/valueIt is a study that focuses on the negative impacts of tourism and its effect on the public spaces. The importance of public spaces in tourist destinations is under studied.