Lgbtiq + Identities In Tourism And Leisure Research: A Systematic Qualitative Literature Review, Faith Ong, Oscar Vorobjovas-Pinta, Clifford Lewis

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Tourism research on the LGBTIQ + communities has grown over the years, entering mainstream discussions as a segment of interest. This growing focus reflects greater societal acceptance and acknowledgement of the systemic inequalities that challenge their rights. The landscape of current scholarship, though important to academic literature, policy and practice, has not been explored. On this premise, and under the umbrella of social sustainability, a systematic qualitative review of scholarship on the LGBTIQ + community and tourism was conducted with Q1- and Q2-ranked travel and tourism journals (Scimago Journal & Country Rank) as a basis. Articles were analysed to identify …

All-Inclusive Coral Reef Restoration: How The Tourism Sector Can Boost Restoration Efforts In The Caribbean, Macarena Blanco-Pimentel, Nicolas R. Evensen, Camilo Cortés-Useche, Johanna Calle-Triviño, Daniel J. Barshis, Victor Galván, Erika Harms, Megan K. Morikawa

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Following a strong decline in the health of Caribbean coral reefs in the 1970s, disease outbreaks, overfishing, and warming events have continued to push these reefs towards a point of no return. As such, researchers and stakeholders have turned their attention to restoration practices to overcome coral recovery bottlenecks on Caribbean reefs. However, successful restoration faces many challenges, including economical and logistical feasibility, long-term stability, and biological and ecological factors yet to fully understand. The tourism sector has the potential to enhance and scale restoration efforts in the Caribbean, beyond simple financial contributions. Its strengths include long-term presence in several …

The Global Impact Of Covid-19 And Tourism On Conservation Rangers' Guardianship Capabilities, Zachary Bockler

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted wildlife rangers with an emphasis on the influences of tourism rates. Two sets of data are used: one is a survey of rangers around the world and the other looks at global governmental tourism data. While coming from a routine activities perspective, the problem of decreased capable guardianship becomes apparent in the form of massively decreased tourism arrivals and troubling ranger perceptions. This data allows for the establishment of tourism trends and changes during COVID. The findings of this thesis link the downturn in tourism with impacts on formal and informal …

Understanding And Treating Suboptimal Health Status Through Tourism Engagement: An Exploratory Study Of Chinese Domestic Tourists, Jun Wen, Danni Zheng, Ian Phau

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Objectives: Suboptimal health status (SHS) is a global public health concern of worldwide academic interest. The topic is popular in the medical sciences, including public health; however, other disciplines have paid little attention to this condition despite aging societies. This study introduced SHS into the tourism literature, a logical connection given the established positive correlation between well-being and tourism engagement. Lifestyle factors are crucial to SHS. Accordingly, this study examines tourists’ sociodemographic characteristics, tourism-related attributes, and lifestyle behaviors to compare individuals with SHS to those with optimal health status. Methods: Chinese tourists in Shandong Province, China who had visited Mount …

The Slow Movements: Informetric Mapping Of The Scholarship And Implications For Tourism And Hospitality, Anton Klarin, Eerang Park, Sangkyun Kim

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Slow food and the consequent slow movements are becoming more evident in research and media with the recognition of its implications for sustainability in many spheres of society. This study—the first systematic literature review of this topic—offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary investigation into slow movements which allows us to gain a systems view of the scholarship; stakeholder-oriented insights; and a holistic understanding of slowness while recognizing the various movements within and providing future research directions for tourism and hospitality researchers. This study identifies that slowness has extended to most aspects of our everyday life, such as the slow city, slow management, …

Sensory Overload: Creating Autism-Friendly Areas In Theme Parks Through Universal Design Principles, Lindsey Leffel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis project explores the application of Universal Design principles to the development of purpose-built rest and play spaces within United States theme parks that provide places of refuge for children with autism and their families. The goal is to offer ideas on how to create spaces where families and individuals can take a break from the over-stimulation of the traditional theme park environment in an area that has been specifically designed with their sensory needs in mind. Though the target demographic for these spaces is children with autism and their families, the ideas offered to create space will not …

Journey To The Dragon's Gate: A Study Of Hybrid Ride Systems And How They Enhance Attraction Storytelling, Matthew Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this thesis is to explore a new type of ride design which integrates one or more transitions between formats. Theme Park visitors have come to expect a certain type of immersive experience from attractions. Most rides in the parks are very predictable such as roller coasters which offer loops, drops, speed and quick turns, while dark rides offer a slower pace with the attention on storytelling. The solution to this situation is to combine two ride systems or more into a single ride. The ride system for my attraction begins with a free-floating boat ride navigating its …

Theme Park Queues As Diegetic Worlds: Using Star Wars: Rise Of The Resistance As A Case Study For Core Design Elements, Jordan Zauha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis seeks to establish core design elements for use by theme park designers to complement the guidelines established by Ledbetter and his colleagues for theme parks. Building upon Rose Biggin's "strands of enquiry" for examining immersive theatre, the suggested core design elements for immersive theme park queues serve as guidance to craft queues where audiences can actively engage with the queue's storyworld and narrative. Implementation of the core design elements alongside the already established queue design guidelines should assist designers in crafting queues that minimize discomfort and maximize narrative immersion. Theme parks offer location-based narrative landscapes, often contributing to …

Impact Of Covid-19 On Aviation-Wildlife Strikes Across Europe, Isabel C. Metz, Marta Giordano, Dionysios Ntampakis, Marianna Moira, Anneke Hamann, Rosanne Blijleven, Jürgen J. Ebert, Alessandro Montemaggiori

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Collisions between aircraft and wildlife (i.e., wildlife strikes) pose a serious threat toward the safety of aircraft, its crew, and passengers. The effects of COVID-19 related travel restrictions on wildlife strikes are unknown. With this study, we aim to address this information gap by assessing the changes of wildlife hazard management performance across European airports during the lockdown period (e.g., period of reduced operations and borders closure in spring 2020). We also sought to raise awareness of the importance of wildlife strike prevention in times of reduced operations. The objective of our study was to compare wildlife strike data before …

Organizational Networks, And Management Of Disruptions In The Airline Ground Operation Process During Seasonal Crises, Gökhan Tanrıverdi, Senem Besler

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This study focuses on informal relationships between airlines and suppliers in managing disruptions in the airline ground operation process during peak times in the summer seasons. In this context, the study investigates the change between actors’ formal and informal networks after they face disruptions in the airline ground operation process and their informal exchanges in this process. Antalya Airport was chosen as the research area since it is a leader airport for especially non-scheduled flights during the summer seasons in Turkey. The study was carried out as network research and the network data were collected through face-to-face meetings with actors …

Sports Franchises As Catalysts For Tourism In An Urban Setting, David Proctor

Doctoral

This research investigates the leverage of sports franchises by destination marketing organisations for their tourism potential. It adds to the literature in covering a hitherto under scrutinised field of tourism enquiry focusing on the role of globally renowned professional football teams as agents of tourism in the cities that host them. In doing so the study links theory to practice and provides policy makers with options for implementing initiatives in collaboration with sports franchises, resulting in benefits across the wider stakeholder environment.

Underpinned by a pragmatic philosophy, the research employs a mixed methods approach within a multiple case study design …

Marketing Of Luxurious Gastronomic Experiences On Social Media: The Visual Storytelling Of Luxury Hotels, Noela Michael, Francesc Fusté-Forné

All Works

The role of luxury as a source of tourism experiences is gathering growing attention, with special attention to the foundations of the relationships between gastronomy and social media marketing. Drawing from a visual methodology, this study analyses how luxury hotels (Burj Al Arab, Emirates Palace, St. Regis Saadiyat Island, and Atlantis) in the UAE promote gastronomy by identifying visual features of social media posts (N = 1866) to manage their image of luxury. Results show that the most relevant drivers of luxury gastronomy are the discovery of cultures, experiences in the hotel environment, novelty and hedonism, and promotion of a …

The Impact Of Social Capital On U.S. Based Destination Marketing Organizations And Interorganizational Relationships, Jeremy Fairley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Previous literature echoes the notion that destination marketing organizations (DMOs) play a critical role in ensuring a desired tourism development scenario. To date, the performance measurement of destination marketing organizations is paralleled to financial indicators or operations, ignoring the presence and quality of relationships among DMOs and tourism stakeholders. Based on the premise of social capital theory, it is argued that social capital and the inter-organizational relationships between DMOs and tourism stakeholders can influence the success of tourism efforts in a destination, which in return is a contributing factor to the DMOs success as an organization. Furthermore, broader literature indicates …

The Antecedents Of Program Satisfaction And Program Loyalty For Hotel Reward Programs, Jill Plumer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Hotel reward programs have been in existence for three decades. These programs were originally established as a customer relationship management tool to reward loyal guests for their patronage. Over time, there have been indications that the programs that are intended to inspire loyalty to the company have actually inspired loyalty to the program itself. The aim of this study was to analyze the antecedents of program satisfaction and program loyalty in hotels to determine the relationship between the program attributes and the impact on program loyalty. Switching costs were also analyzed to determine if they played a moderating role in …

Employing A Network Perspective To Study Hazardous Events In Tourism: Tourism Connections, Island Preferences, And Tourism Market Concentrations In The Hawaiian Islands (2015-2021), Frida Bahja

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this study was to employ a network perspective to detect fluctuations in tourism (at the level of tourism areas and by inbound tourism markets) that co-occur with hazardous events. Specifically, the study focuses on the Air Travel Tourism (ATT) network of the Hawaiian Islands and its changes with the incidence of nine hazardous events from 2015 to 2021. The three main aspects of the ATT network, which include tourism connections, island preferences, and concentrations of inbound tourism markets were analyzed for a total of eighty-four monthly and seven annual network models. The results suggest that the network …

The Influence Of Social Interactions On Tourist Experience And Tourist Satisfaction: A Study Of Group Package Tours In Vietnam, Tran Truc Vien Pham

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Owing to the nature of tourism services, in most cases tourists experience a tourism service in the presence of service personnel and fellow tourists. Scholars and practitioners have been interrogating the role of co-creation in providing tourists with a superior experience and increased tourist satisfaction. Within a group package tour (GPT), tourists appear to be active co-creators of their experience through tourist-to-tour guide interactions (TGIs) and tourist-to-tourist interactions (TTIs). TGIs and TTIs also seemingly play an important role in determining tourist satisfaction through tourist experience. However, very little research has examined the influence of TGIs and TTIs on tourist experience …

Realising The Goals Of Event Leveraging: The Tourism And Hospitality Sme Perspective, Insun S. Son, Songshan (Sam) Huang, Daniel Padovan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Event leveraging, particularly by local businesses, is important not only to local businesses themselves for their benefits but also to event tourists and host community. However, the understanding of businesses' broad strategic planning of event leveraging is still limited. This study aims to address this gap by exploring the goals and practices of tourism and hospitality small and medium enterprises' (THSMEs) event leveraging to understand event leveraging as part of a wider business strategy, particularly focusing on small scale events and festivals held in small cities or regional areas. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with owners and managers of THSMEs based …

Examining Tourist Gaze In A Highly Controlled Destination: A Study Of Chinese Tourists To North Korea, Ganghua Chen, Huimin Shi, Zhenghuan Li, Songshan (Sam) Huang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Extant literature has rarely examined the temporal characteristics of tourist gaze in the context of a highly controlled destination. Guided by the gaze theory and studying Chinese tourists' gaze upon North Korea, this study aims to reveal the process of how tourists' gaze upon a highly controlled destination is organized and developed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and interview data was coded and analyzed. It is found that Chinese tourists' gaze represents a temporal process composed of three stages, each of which has the same structure of ‘gaze object-gaze strategy-gaze consequence.’ In a highly controlled destination, tourists respond with ‘obedience’ or …

What Factors Predict A Consumer's Willingness To Purchase A Subscription-Based Airline Program?, Sean R. Crouse

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Introduction: Many services offer subscription-based sales models. The aviation industry has not widely attempted to market a subscription-based service through their airline for ticketing purposes. This study developed a regression equation to determine predictive factors for the type of individual who would purchase a subscription-based airline ticket.

Method: A two-stage approach was used where the participants (N = 521) answered demographic information, flight habits, and the same scenario with a perceived value scale and willingness to purchase scale.

Results: Stage 1 found perceived value, employment status, and early boarding preference all to be significant factors, accounting for …

Tourism Products And Sentiment Analysis, Ibrahim A. Ozen

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

OVERVIEW

Reviews about tourism products in online environments are an important data source for tourism businesses, destination managements and tourists. Tourist reviews online are completely unbiased reviews created voluntarily by tourists. Therefore, important feedback is provided for tourism businesses and destinations in the evaluation of tourism products. Collecting and analyzing tourist comments and transforming them into strategic information will create an important competitive power. Sentiment analysis, which is a sub-field of text mining, is a field of study that analyzes people’s ideas and thoughts about tourism products and services from text-based comments. Sentiment analysis can be applied at the document …