Future of Tourism in Asia

This book offers a meticulous overview of the future of tourism in Asian countries. This book provides new dimensions to the tourism research and tourism industry as it is concerned with the future vision of tourism in Asia. The main purpose of the book is to envision the outcomes both positive and negative from the tourism industry to prepare our future generations. This book expands on the concept that tourism is not sedentary and is ever changing rapidly. A unique feature of the book is that it brings into limelight the unexplored places of Asia as well as a growth of low-cost tourism in Asia This book discusses how Asia can enjoy the competitive advantage in future. Also, whether the future outlook is bright or dark for the tourism sector in the Asia region. This book highlights the unexplored themes of tourism in Asia such as Over-tourism, Sports Tourism, Baby Boomers and Seenger Tourism, Literary Tourism, Experiential Tourism, Psychographic Segmentation of Future Tourists. The chapters have been authored by experts in their respective fields. This book allows readers to explore how different Asian countries might best serve tourism products in the future. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.

Political attitudes and Plog's travel personality model

This research, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, applied Stanley Plog's seminal tourism Model of Allocentricity and Psychocentricity and discovered surprising relationships between one's Plog classification and their political attitudes and travel behaviors during the crisis. Though expecting Plog's Allocentrics to have the more politically liberal views and Psychocentrics to be more conservative, we found the opposite to be true. Two previous datasets were revisited, each confirming the relationship. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

There is No Place Like Home for the Holidays: Who Travels in the Midst of a Deadly Pandemic?

The 2020 year-end holidays were a time of much apprehension regarding COVID-19, with U.S. health officials concerned that travel would result in a post-holiday surge of the disease. As such, much effort was expended encouraging people to forego their normal travel. Many Americans, however, ignored this advice and a strong uptick of travel within the U.S. was soon followed by an alarming increase in COVID cases. A U.S. online survey was conducted to better understand those individuals who made the risky decision to travel despite being encouraged by their government not to do so. Those who traveled for the holidays were compared with those who stayed home, based on their attitudes toward COVID, various psychographic characteristics associated with risk, political attitudes, and demographics. The between-group differences, shared herein, were startlingly clear. The findings are of theoretical value and will prove useful when setting policy and messaging during future crises.

Delineating the South African domestic tourist's behaviour amid a crisis: A psychographic segmentation approach

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic forced transformational thinking regarding resilience and sustainability strategies to ensure the future of the tourism industry. Domestic tourism is predicted to recover first, emphasising the importance of profiling crisis-induced domestic tourist behaviour through market segmentation. Purpose: The research was conducted from a developing country perspective focusing on South African domestic tourists. A multi-psychographic segmentation approach was applied. Based on South Africa's marketing and media profile, perceived risk factors induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the perceived safety of domestic travel and tourism activity, domestic tourists were profiled. Methods: An online questionnaire was employed from 2020 to 2021, and 427 responses were included in the analysis. Exploratory Factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis were performed to identify the segments based on the identified factors. Results: Four discernible domestic tourist segments emerged: Psychocentric, Traditional idealist, Apprehensive and Despondent domestic tourists. Each segment differed significantly based on their rating of the segmentation bases;thus delineating the heterogeneity of domestic tourist behaviour amid a crisis. The results show that a generic marketing approach is not feasible for domestic tourism in South Africa. Conclusion: It is vital to understand domestic tourist behaviour during a crisis to project and manage it proactively. This research addresses this urgent need. Marketing the country to South Africans requires dynamic and distinguished marketing efforts based on the perceptions of domestic tourists.

Factors Influencing Consumers' Online Grocery Shopping Under the New Normal

Adoption of online shopping for groceries has remained low compared to other retail domains but has accelerated due to the long-term impact of COVID-19. This study aims to assess the psychological factors that influence consumers' actual online grocery purchases under the new normal by combining purchase panel data and survey data. This study confirms that online grocery purchase amount is affected by traditional utilitarian channel choice factors including perceived risk, search cost, price-consciousness, and quality-consciousness. In addition, under the new normal, the results reveal that staying at home (especially during weekdays) and having more time leads consumers to purchase more online. Further, consumers with higher anxiety about COVID-19 are more likely to purchase online. The insights from this paper help retailers and marketers develop customer strategies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

You don't have to tip the human waiters anymore, but... Unveiling factors that influence consumers' willingness to pay a price premium for robotic restaurants

Purpose - This study aims to simultaneously examine the influence of demographic. psychographic and situational factors on consumers' willingness to pay a price premium (WTPp) for robotic restaurants and to profile market segments based on consumers WTPp levels (positive, neutral and negative). Design/methodology/approach - Using an online survey, the data were gathered from a sample of 897 Thai consumers who had dined at a robotic restaurant in the past 12 months. Structural equation modeling, chi-square tests and the one-way analysis of variance were used for data analysis. Findings - Demographic (gender, age, income and marital status), psychographic (perceived advantages/disadvantages, personal innovativens and personality traits) and situational factors (perceived health risk and self-protection behavior) significantly influence consumers' WTPp for robotic restaurants. The positive price premium group differs significantly from the neutral and negative price premium groups in terms of demographic, psychographic and situational profiles. Practical implications - The findings of this study help restaurateurs target the correct customers and set up appropriate price fences to safeguard profits and maximize return on investment. Originality/value - This study contributes to the literature on technology-based services and hospitality by heeding the calls made by lvanov and Webster (2021) and providing much-nwded empirical evidence of possible changes in consumers' WTPp for robot-delivered services in restaurants due to COVID-19.