Journal of Destination Marketing & Management最新文献

Health tourism involves the promotion of healthy and sustainable lifestyles, and is becoming an increasingly popular segment with high potential for further growth. This study focuses on the relationship between health destinations and tourists' perceived quality of life and examines the motivations and behaviors of health tourists in China. The research is built on therapeutic landscape and attention restoration theories. The study analyzed 506 valid questionnaires collected in Sanya, China, and found: 1) the social aspects of therapeutic landscapes had a direct positive effect on tourists' perceived quality of life; 2) the perceived restorative qualities of destinations mediated the positive effect of the identified dimensions of therapeutic landscapes on tourists' perceived quality of life; and 3) psychological recovery mediated the positive effects of the physical and symbolic aspects of therapeutic landscapes on tourists' perceived quality of life. The study enriches the therapeutic landscape theory, encourages its application in tourism research, and provides actionable insights for health destinations to improve tourists’ well-being.

This article employs the multi-period difference-in-differences model to investigate the causal impact of innovative city construction on tourist destination competitiveness and its various dimensions based on panel data for 272 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2019. The findings indicate that innovative city construction significantly and positively impacts tourist destination competitiveness, with this effect growing over time. In particular, the impact on tourism industrial competitiveness is negative, whereas the effects on the competitiveness of tourism resources, ecological environment, and socio-economic support are positive and significant. The impact of innovative city construction on tourist destination competitiveness varies significantly across regions and administrative levels, with no variation found between the central and western regions. The possible mediating mechanisms include industrial structure, science and technology innovation, and environmental regulation. This article significantly contributes to the theoretical expansion of tourist destination competitiveness and its change mechanisms under innovative city construction.

Self-administered surveys are a widespread data collection method in tourism research. However, survey-based data are prone to what is widely referred to as common method variance (CMV). Common method variance represents systematic error variance which can potentially have a substantial confounding influence on empirical findings, since it can lead to incorrect assessments of construct validity and reliability as well as biased parameter estimates. Surprisingly, addressing common method variance issues is still an exception in tourism research.

This study advocates the use of two approaches and it demonstrates the practical implementation of these approaches by drawing on a seven-country online survey of tourists’ perceptions of and intentions to visit Italy conducted on a sample of 4550 respondents intercepted in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey.

Findings clearly reveal that common method variance is not a trivial issue that can be safely ignored when estimating models aimed at assessing country and destination images and at explaining tourists’ intentions to visit and/or positive word of mouth. Therefore, the study provides concrete insights and directions to tourism researchers seeking to address this issue in their empirical endeavors.

As urbanization rapidly progresses, rural areas are being increasingly recognized as havens for individuals seeking a slower pace of life. Despite the growing interest in slow tourism as a travel modality, there is a lack of rural destinations that have successfully established slow tourism as their primary image. This research focuses on Gaochun International Cittàslow in China, including a mixed-method approach to investigate how rural areas can cultivate a slow tourism image to attract visitors. This paper introduces a new conceptual framework for rural China's slow tourism image, termed the bullseye framework. This framework divides the image of slow tourism into three concentric layers: experiential foundation, interactive framework, and value resonance. Compositional analysis reveals a certain mismatch between the promotion of the image of slow tourism by the government and tourism companies and the perception of tourists. This mismatch is particularly evident in promoting an eco-original lifestyle, preserving folk culture, and creating a slow-paced living atmosphere. Therefore, the government and tourism companies must more accurately understand the needs of tourists to formulate more effective promotion strategies.

Strategic planning of sport events should promote the maximisation of local communities' benefits. Among other dimensions of interest to the host destination's stakeholders, given the aim of sustainable development, sport events leveraging must integrate economic, social and environmental perspectives, justifying its multidimensional extensiveness. The general objective of this study was to stimulate and understand the process of planning and implementing strategic multi-leverage of international open water swimming events hosted in Portugal, in 2022, addressing the economic, social, environmental, partners and sport dimensions.

This study employed a case study approach within an action-research methodology. The research design covered three action-research stages: planning, implementation and analysis. The data collection combined nominal group sessions, field observation, document analysis and interviews. The qualitative analysis used the triangulation of the data collected, and the content analysis was performed using the NVivo software.

Actions were strategically planned targeting economic, social, environmental, partners, and sport dimensions, albeit with a prominent focus on economic and sport leverage. Excluding sport, the implementation of strategic actions ensured all dimensions' operationalisation. Six constraints (e.g. little adherence from local partners) and three drivers (e.g. commitment and authority of the leverage coordinating team) conditioned the strategic leverage implementation. The strategic planning of future sport events should outline actions that intensify the destination’s image, focusing the attention of stakeholders on valuing the natural attributes. This study strengthened knowledge about the multi-leverage approach applied to two sport events, reinforcing the need to implement cross-leveraging among the aforementioned dimensions to enhance the success of strategic leverage.

Family traveling, especially to rural areas, may lead to appealing fun experiences for children and make them memorable. Memorable experiences of children from various aspects can be useful for policy makers and planners of destinations, parents and children. The effectiveness of travels and children's learning from traveling are among the most significant concerns of parents and tourism activists. So, identifying and understanding children's memorable experiences of traveling to rural areas of Iran that has various local cultures can influence filling such gaps as future destination planning, developing child-friendly rural destinations, family traveling, designing child-oriented tourism programs, and future generation's being loyal to local destinations. This study aimed to identify Iranian children’ memorable rural tourism experiences. The sample includes 37 children from ages 6 to 12. Interpretive phenomenology was used to conduct the study with the help of interviews and the analysis of the content of children's paintings. This study shows that children pay attention like adults to such elements as people, space, activities, objects, and social relations during their travel. Moreover, the conducted interviews resulted in 45 key notions categorized into 6 basic axes of memorable experiences: being exciting, being informative, being novel and unique, being gratifying, being socially involved, and negative experiences. This study provides insights on identifying and understanding the issues affecting the creation of memorable tourism experiences for children that travel to rural areas. The issues would help parents in taking child-oriented tourism travels, planners in designing child-friendly tourism destinations, and tourism service providers in delivering child friendly offerings.

In an atmosphere of pathogen danger and mistrust during a pandemic, misinformation can induce the urge to penalize the pathogen's origin-destination. This study exams the effect of COVID-19 origin belief (that is, the belief that the virus is human-engineered) on hospitality and tourism outcomes using multi-wave data (U.S. sample: N = 351). The findings suggest that the diverse impact of COVID-19 origin belief (COVID-19 misinformation) on tourists and residents' approach-avoid behaviors can best be modeled in dual explanatory mechanisms. Specifically, COVID-19 origin belief relates to tourism animosity positively but has a negative association with destination image and resident hospitality. The positive indirect effect of COVID-19 origin belief on tourists' willingness to visit is transmitted by tourism animosity. In contrast, the negative indirect effect of COVID-19 origin belief on tourists' willingness to visit and resident hospitality is transmitted by destination image. Tourists and residents' level of education moderates the positive and negative direct and indirect effects.

Although outdoor recreation and tourism drive the economies of many gateway and natural amenity regions (GNARs), community leaders in these areas often lack a clear understanding of how to strategically invest in resources in ways that lead to a balanced portfolio of assets that meets market demands. This research investigates the relationship between the supply of and demand for outdoor recreation and tourism in GNARs across southeastern Utah. We characterize supply assets using four asset classes: economic, environmental, infrastructural, and sociocultural. We quantify the demand for outdoor recreation and tourism using geotagged social media in gateway communities adjacent to national parks and other public lands. Our analysis revealed environmental assets (historic trails, viewpoints, proximity to national parks, and campsites specifically) are highly and significantly correlated with outdoor recreation and tourism demand. The findings can guide local, state, regional, and federal officials in strategically investing in tourism assets that align with market demands. For example, strategic investments across the study area in the development of viewpoints that showcase the region's spectacular red rock and desert landscapes, as well as campsites where visitors can base their explorations, are likely to see significant and positive returns in terms of visitation.

Small island destinations possess fragile ecosystems that are susceptible to the effects of tourism. Ensuring sustainability in these destinations is undoubtedly of utmost importance. This research delved into the fundamental cognitive, affective, and normative processes underlying tourists' intentions toward ecological protection, water conservation, and waste reduction during their visits to small island destinations. Additionally, the study examined the moderating role of environmental protection activities in everyday life. Cutting-edge statistical methods, specifically generalized structured component analysis with measurement errors incorporated and necessary condition analysis, were applied to validate a theoretical model and uncover the crucial factors influencing tourists' intentions concerning environmental protection. The findings categorised the predictive constructs into four groups: necessary and sufficient, necessary but insufficient, unnecessary but sufficient, and unnecessary and insufficient. Our findings shed light on the essential and/or nonessential factors that shape tourists’ ecological intentions in small island destinations.

The aim of this study is to determine whether a “slow tourism” image, coupled with value co-creation, can help develop sustainable tourist destinations. The study adapts a “slow destination image” scale and proposes that online value co-creation can be a valid strategy in the quest to encourage pro-environmental behaviors among visitors. A quantitative empirical study is conducted on a sample of Spanish domestic tourists (n = 681) and a covariance-based structural equation modeling analysis is performed. The findings of the study add value to the literature, providing empirical evidence that a “slow destination” image has a positive effect on tourist pro-environmental behavior and that online value co-creation has a positive and significant effect on “slow destination” image and tourist pro-environmental behavior. The study will also be of practical use to destination/tourism agents, both public and private, by indicating how to develop a type of tourism—slow tourism—and a marketing strategy—online value co-creation—that are useful for building sustainability and applicable to any tourist destination.