Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing Cultural Tourism Development: A Case Study Of Indianapolis, Naoko Yamada, Linda R. Brothers, Suosheng Wang

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

Indianapolis undertook the Cultural Tourism Initiative in 2002 to advance the cultural and tourism environment of the city. This study assessed the resulting impact of cultural tourism development in Indianapolis from stakeholders’ viewpoints: members at key cultural institutions, tourism professions, and community. The findings revealed that the assessment varied among stakeholders. The respondents from key institutions perceived the initiative was successful with some limitations, while those from tourism professions considered its performance level relatively low, and those from the community viewed it as positive. Marketing focus may be altered to community members during an economic downturn.

Defining And Dimensionalizing Organizational Innovativeness, Patrick Lynch, Margaret M. Walsh, Denis Harrington

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

Few research agendas have successfully addressed tourism firm-level innovativeness, and the few studies that do exist typically provide only descriptive data or often remain at a conceptual level (Siguaw et al., 2006). Subsequently, an extensive knowledge gap concerning what constitutes firm-level innovativeness exists. Academics are confusing innovativeness with innovation and innovation orientation; producing many conflicting and inconsistent research results.

Drawing from prior relevant research conducted over the past 39 years in the innovation, tourism, organizational, strategy, marketing, consumer, and psychology literatures; this paper provides an operational definition and conceptualization of innovativeness that is useful to both tourism researchers and practitioners.

Nature And Ecotourism Experience Classification Schema, Claudia Jurowski

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

A Nature and Ecotourism Experience Classification Schema (NEECS) is a framework that categorizes nature and ecotourism experiences in a manner that allows empirical testing of theories related to the continua proposed by a number of researchers. The indicators in NEECS allow for the comparing and contrasting of experiences. Land and destination managers that use ROS, TOS or ECOS can use NEECS to evaluate experiences in light of community and sustainable management goals. Entrepreneurs can use the tool to identify opportunities for the development of new experiences, to contrast their offerings with those of competitors, and to create a competitive advantage.

Rethinking Tourism Cluster Development Models For Global Competitiveness, Namhyun Kim, Bruce E. Wicks

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

The purpose of this paper is to propose a tourism cluster development model for global competitiveness. By indicating the deficiency in current clusters and tourism competitiveness models, this newly proposed model takes three key issues into account: the role of transnational corporations in tourism cluster development, interconnection between cluster actors, and the separation of cluster actors. This paper expands the current tourism development model from one which has mainly focused on a home-based environment in tourism development to the global framework, which can better account for global competitiveness.

Customer Mood And Service Quality Evaluation Of Tour Operations, Fang Meng, Ercan Sirakaya-Turk

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

The purpose of this research is to examine the moderating effect of tourists’ moods on service evaluation of tour operations and overall trip satisfaction. The study used a sample of Germany tourists who traveled to the Mediterranean region of Turkey. The overall hypothesis of the paper is that tourists’ assessments of service and satisfaction may not be free of bias, but may depend on the emotional state (such as mood) during the evaluation stage. The findings of the study are consistent with extant literature in the area in that a tourist’s mood does influence his/her response to tour operations and …

Medical Tourism: Outsourcing Of Healthcare, Maryam Khan

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

Medical tourism is growing and diversifying on a global scale. A recent trend shows that people from developed countries are traveling to developing countries for affordable healthcare. The objective of this study was to examine whether the growth in medical tourism will eventually lead to the outsourcing of U.S. healthcare services. The findings show that as long as people in developed countries lack affordable healthcare, medical tourism will continue to grow. There is already an outsourcing of manufacturing, technology and service related jobs. If the U.S. healthcare maintains its status quo it is highly possible that healthcare services may also …

Tracking Destination Image Through Time: The Case Of Aruba, Svetlana Stepchenkova, Joseph A. Ismail

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

This study proposes a methodology to track changes in destination images through time. Dynamic Destination Image Index (DDII) monthly time series are obtained applying content analysis to media materials about a particular destination and reflect news volume, topics raised, and favorability of media coverage. The methodology is demonstrated using articles about Aruba published in U.S. newspapers in May 2004-April 2006, a period that encompasses disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba. The DDII index was validated by using it in a model of tourism arrivals to Aruba. The DDII concept is proposed to be of interest to the destinations’ …

Estimating The Impact Of Free-Play Coupons Value On Players' Slot Gaming Volumes, Eunju Suh

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

This study reports the results of a field experiment that assessed the relationship between free-play coupon value and a player’s slot wagering volume. Customers in the player database of a Las Vegas hotel casino were assigned to either a $50 free-play incentive (control offer) or a $100 free-play incentive (experimental offer). Results indicated little effect of free-play coupon value on slot gaming volumes. Furthermore, the estimated net cash flow per player by coupon value indicated that a $50 incentive was more profitable than a$100 offer. These findings imply that a higher incentive value is not necessarily more effective than a …

Investigating The Effects Of Consumer Experience Tourism On Brand Equity And Market Outcomes: An Application In The Wine Industry, Athina Nella, Evangelos Christou

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

This paper aims at presenting a conceptual framework about Consumer Experience Tourism in a winery setting and its effects on post-visit consumer behavior. The tourism experience of a winery visit has been noted as having multiple valuable effects for the winery and its brands, such as increased brand awareness, loyalty, emotional connection, increased involvement and brand differentiation. The proposed model offers an examination of the on-site winery experience within a wide temporal context, by incorporating pre-visit expectations, satisfaction parameters and post visit consumer behaviour. The main focus is the effect on consumer based brand equity and linked market outcomes.

The Role Of Customers In Sustainable Supply Chain Mmanagement In Tourism, Marianna Sigala

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

Previous literature has mainly focused on sustainability implementation in internal business operations and in manufacturing. Although, managing and achieving sustainability is important from the product design to the stage after product consumption, research investigating sustainability throughout the supply chain (SC) is scant. The limited research in sustainable SCM has not considered the customers’ contribution in SC operations, while most studies have solely paid attention to the behavior and role of customers at the purchase stage. In services, the customers’ impact on SC is critical, since customers actively participate in SC operations. This paper fills in this gap by extending current …

A Qualitative Analysis Of The Impact Of Popular Culture On Destination Image: A Case Study Of Korean Wave From Japanese Fans, Sojung Lee, Billy Bai

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

The purpose of the research was to investigate how a country’s popular culture impacts its destination image through a case study. For this purpose, the research indentified the characteristics of pop-star fans in this study. The study explored the phenomenon of the Korean wave through a case of a pop-star and his fans. Lastly, the study examined destination image perspectives and experiences of the pop-star fans who attended the pop-star’s summer camp. The research found that popular culture is a significant agent of Korea’s recent image. The study also revealed that the respondents’ high level of interest and empathy for …

Effects Of Narrative Vs. Non-Narrative Message On Attitudes And Memory: Comparison Of Implicit And Explicit Attitude Measures, Dae-Young Kim, Zhijian Chen

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

With the presumption that reading narratives helps to transform information search into a pleasant experience, an increasingly wide range of applications of narrative techniques has been developed in marketing and communication fields. This research explores the effects of narrative messages by employing two different types of attitude measures (i.e., explicit vs. implicit). The results of the study show that there are no statistical mean differences of between narrative and non-narrative messages in term of attitudes, but message effects are significant in short-term memory. This study is anticipated to have the potential to enhance our understanding of implicit and explicit attitudes, …

Consumer Perceptions Of Sustainability In The Lodging Industry: Examination Of Sustainable Tourism Criteria, Stuart E. Levy, Philippe Duverger

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

While the lodging industry has recognized the importance of engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR), most hotel CSR efforts focused on sustainable development are oriented towards environmentally-oriented practices. This study examines consumer perceptions of CSR from a more holistic perspective of sustainability, utilizing the recently developed Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria. Findings reveal that while hotel green efforts impact key marketing outcomes such as satisfaction, retention, positive word of mouth, and price premiums, higher level constructs including respect for heritage and community are suggested to mediate the relationship between these green efforts and the marketing outcomes, implying a hierarchy of effects. …

Hotel Service Quality And Business Performance In Five Hotels Belonging To A Uk Hotel Chain, Emmanuel T. Murasiranwa, Kevin Nield, Stephen Ball

International CHRIE Conference-Refereed Track

Title Hotel Service Quality and Business Performance in five hotels belonging to a UK Hotel Chain Abstract The study focuses on the nature of hotel service quality and performance in a UK Hotel chain. It examines managerial conceptualisations, implementation and measurement and contextual issues that affect decision-making. Although managers acknowledge the importance of service quality and performance monitoring, their efforts are impeded by flaws in implementation and contextual constraints. The results reveal the flaws as lack of policy on quality, non-implementation of action plans and biased reward schemes. The contextual constraints are identified as competition, budgetary, staff turnover and biased …

Are Luxury Hotels Satisfied With The Quality Of Banking Services In Northern Cyprus?, Okan Veli Şafakli, Hüseyin Özdeşer

Journal of Hospitality Financial Management

Tourism sector is one of the locomotive sectors in economy of the TRNC (Turkish Republic of North Cyprus). Even though, education sector plays a major role in the economy still it did not take the locomotive position of the Tourism sector. Due to this reality, the tourism institutions in TRNC are the main consumers of the banking sector. But, for the time being, the banking sector is not serving at the required level of quality for the tourism institutions. The study searched, how the luxury hotels as the dominant section of the tourism sector, identify the bank service quality. As …

Seeking Shakers: Two Centuries Of Visitors To Shaker Villages, Brian L. Bixby

Open Access Dissertations

The dissertation analyzes the history of tourism at Shaker communities from their foundation to the present. Tourism is presented as an interaction between the host Shakers and the visitors. The culture, expectations, and activities of both parties affect their relationship to each other. Historically, tourists and other visitors have gradually dominated the relationship, shifting from hostility based on religion to acceptance based on a romantic view of the Shakers. This relationship has spilled over into related cultural phenomena, notably fiction and antique collecting. Overall, the analysis extends contemporary tourism theory and integrates Shaker history with the broader course of American …