ALBERT

Description: Although a positive relationship between tourism and quality of life is the premise of using tourism to support biodiversity conservation, tourism scholars rarely assess the relationship between tourism and community livelihoods with rigorous empirical methods, even less so in African contexts. Focusing on communities in the Greater Virunga Landscape in Rwanda and Uganda, we conducted a household survey to acquire empirical data to test novel hypotheses about tourism’s influence on capital assets, household resiliency, and subjective wellbeing. Using inferential statistical analyses (e.g., analysis of variance, chi-square difference test, and independent sample t-tests), we compared the responses from 346 residents who have direct access to tourism livelihoods with responses collected from 224 residents not engaged in tourism. Contrary to expectations, our findings suggest that tourism may not lead to dramatic differences in access to capital assets. However, we did discover moderate influences on household resiliency and subjective wellbeing. These intangible and subjective wellbeing outcomes of tourism-based livelihood programs are challenging to assess empirically. Yet, they may be among some of the most important from a human development standpoint. As a first effort to integrate three theoretical frameworks that have, to date, seen limited application in tourism research, this study has opened the door to further work at the intersections of capital assets, family resilience, and wellbeing theories. In conclusion, we argue that incentivizing the protection of local environments through tourism must be extended to other forms of capital, while also considering more nuanced manifestations of intangible wellbeing outcomes. As such, this paper makes a significant empirical contribution to the ongoing theoretical and practical debates about the tourism-conservation relationship.

Description: Social media has had a strong presence in many people’s lives over the last decade. In addition, social media platforms have allowed people to share opinions, provide advice on numerous factors, including where to visit, as well as to stay connected and maintain friendships. The hospitality and tourism industry, however, can make effective use of these powerful tools for marketing purposes, collaboration and information sharing, and service offerings. Reviewing social media followers’ behaviors and interests offers a wealth of information and valuable data for a variety of tourism organizations. This case study focuses on an analysis of the social networks applied to the fortified town of Fredrikstad in Norway. The data used in this research study were collected from the Facebook site of the tourist authority. The results of this research project demonstrate the strengths of applying a social network analysis to a dataset, which can aid in the strategic direction of a tourism destination. The conversations of the greatest interest can successfully be identified as well as the growth of the online network. This paper adds knowledge to the literature through the application of a social network analysis regarding the success of a tourism destination and its future potential.

Description: Fast technological developments have transformed the tourism and hospitality services and the labor market. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of the tourism and hospitality workforce. There is insufficient prior work about creating better work conditions and greater career opportunities for hospitality and tourism professionals in the swiftly changing labor market. To this end, this article analyzes the historical employee–employer relationships in the tourism and hospitality industry. It presents a new employee-sharing model framework for enhancing resilience and flexibility for hospitality and tourism enterprises and workers.

Description: A focus on continued year-on-year economic growth was beginning to be seen as unsustainable even before the COVID-19 crisis forced many tourism destinations to rethink their marketing and branding. This paper adopts a critical marketing stance to explore the relationship between place branding and two recent extreme conditions affecting the tourism industry: overtourism, as exemplified when the issue became headline news in popular media from the summer of 2017, as many examples were offered of places struggling to cope with their success; and the COVID-19 crisis that effectively brought global tourism to a standstill in 2020, as the industry attempts to rebuild from this current unprecedented crisis. This article is not designed to suggest normative place-branding strategies. Rather, through the presentation of an original model that conceptualizes the cyclical process of rebuilding from crises and coping with success, it aims to provide a warning that whatever place-branding strategies are implemented in a post-pandemic world, for whatever type of tourism, in whatever type of destination, a rein must be employed in order that the drive for recovery from undertourism through successful place branding does not lead to the return of overtourism.

Description: This paper argues that that much published tourism and hospitality research has had little influence on tourism or hospitality practice especially with regard to the problems of sustainability because of a failure to use systems thinking to guide research questions and approaches. This critical review and conceptual paper demonstrates how a systems thinking approach could be used to improve both the relevance of, and theoretical development in, tourism and hospitality research in the area of sustainability. This paper reviewed recent published research into tourism’s social impacts to demonstrate the power of taking a systems approach to map out the research problem area. It then critically reviewed the use of concepts from psychology in published research into guest engagement in sustainability programs in hospitality businesses to demonstrate the value of systems thinking for organising theoretical concepts. In both of the reviewed areas the overwhelming conclusion was that the majority of the research lacked both practical relevance and was based on inappropriate or deficient theoretical understanding.

Description: Tourism destinations located within rich and complex cultural contexts tend to offer a wide range of different experiences to visitors, spanning from standardized to more alternative ones. The quest for authenticity is central in the construction of tourism image and business, but easily raises questions related to appropriation, commercialization and trivialization. This study focuses on Jewish heritage tourism, a niche segment gradually turning into a mass tourism experience, through a qualitative research made in Krakow, Poland. Jewish-themed tourism in the area has gone through intense growth in spite of its dwindling Jewish population. As a consequence, the representation and consumption of the related heritage mostly occurs independently from the Jewish community itself and shows clear signs of commercial exploitation. The study results show that, in spite of the issues related to simplified narratives and staged practices, commodification, with its partial and functional reconstruction of the past, does not interfere with the religious or secular activities of the Jewish community, which is more pragmatically focused on present-day life.

Description: Within the context that tourism-seasonality is a composite phenomenon described by temporal, geographical, and socio-economic aspects, this article develops a multilevel method for studying time patterns of tourism-seasonality in conjunction with its spatial dimension and socio-economic dimension. The study aims to classify the temporal patterns of seasonality into regional groups and to configure distinguishable seasonal profiles facilitating tourism policy and development. The study applies a multilevel pattern recognition approach incorporating time-series assessment, correlation, and complex network analysis based on community detection with the use of the modularity optimization algorithm, on data of overnight-stays recorded for the time-period 1998–2018. The analysis reveals four groups of seasonality, which are described by distinct seasonal, geographical, and socio-economic profiles. Overall, the analysis supports multidisciplinary and synthetic research in the modeling of tourism research and promotes complex network analysis in the study of socio-economic systems, by providing insights into the physical conceptualization that the community detection based on the modularity optimization algorithm can enjoy to the real-world applications.

Description: The Western 24 h society poses great psychological and physical demands on people, which may result in complaints such as stress or being overworked, and reduced immune fitness. Having a holiday may be a good way to reduce work-related stress and reduced mood and improve perceived immune fitness. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to assess the impact of having a holiday or work on perceived immune fitness and mood. A survey was held among N = 246 young adults who were on holiday in Fiji, and N = 87 subjects who were in Fiji for work. The sample comprised both students and individuals with a job at home. Past year immune status was assessed with the Immune Status Questionnaire (ISQ). Current perceived immune functioning and mood were rated from 0 (very poor) to 10 (excellent). Assessments were made for two occasions: (1) the current situation (in Fiji), and (2) at home (before traveling). Compared to being at home, both students and working individuals on holiday in Fiji reported significantly improved immune fitness and significantly improved mood. For example, both groups reported reduction of stress of about 60% while in Fiji. In students who came to Fiji for work or spending a holiday, improvements in perceived immune fitness were more pronounced than in working people coming on holiday in Fiji. In contrast, working people on holiday reported greater improvements in mood compared to students. The magnitude of improvements were significantly greater among women than men. In conclusion, the data suggest that both having a holiday or working in Fiji is associated with significant improvements of mood, which were themselves associated with improved immune fitness. The findings are of importance for the tourism industry as they demonstrate that, in addition to leisure (or being active) as a purpose for having a holiday, the observed mental health benefits and improved perceived immune fitness provide an additional motive to have a holiday.

Description: Visiting sacred spaces is becoming a growing trend in tourism in the Central Asian region. Sacred sites are said to have the power to heal the body, enlighten the mind, and inspire the heart. This study explored the motivations for visiting sacred spaces among tourists from three Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The study used a sequential mixed methods research design. In the first stage, a general list of motivations was produced, based on the analysis of 14 semi-structured interviews. The second stage quantitative survey was conducted with a sample of 211 tourists from Central Asia. Data collection took place during tours to sacred sites in the city of Turkestan in South Kazakhstan. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and regression analysis. The relationships between motivation factors and destination loyalty were tested. The results show that among the five motivational factors identified in this study, only three (Spiritual and Religious Motives, Cultural and Historical Motives, and Wellness and Healing) have a significant relationship with sacred site destination loyalty. The remaining two factors (Nature, Fun, and Social Contact) have not been proven to have a significant relationship with destination loyalty. The study adds value to the literature on traveling to religious sites, especially those in formerly atheist countries, and provides recommendations to practitioners and policymakers to enable them to develop a niche tourism area by segmenting tourists’ motivations and destination loyalty in their sacred places. It also contributes to the diversification of tourism products in those destinations that have historical religious heritage resources.

Description: Membership associations are vital to build social capital and networks among their members through the exchange of information and resources, roles especially valuable for emerging entrepreneurs. That is the case of associations catering to professionals in agritourism, an enterprise bringing farming and tourism together. However, whether the exchange of information and resources among members holds true within agritourism associations is yet to be known. Filling this knowledge gap is critical given the stated benefits agritourism delivers to society and farmers’ necessity to expand their business networks to increase entrepreneurial success. Therefore, this study evaluated the extent of social capital and networks within a prominent agritourism-focused association in North America. Data were collected from members using a web-based survey in 2016. Analyses included descriptive statistical tests and Social Network Analysis (SNA). Results showed high levels of social capital among members, especially related to its relational dimension (e.g., share professional advice), as well as strong bi-directional (to/from) trust, cooperation, and reciprocity among members. SNA indicated members were well connected and had a healthy information exchange, without the organization intervention. Study results are discussed to provide managerial intelligence towards strengthening social capital and networks within associations catering to agritourism and other niche-tourism professionals.