ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic enhanced social media communications at a time individuals were unable to leave their homes due to the lockdown measures. A lack of research has been identified on how destination marketing organizations use social media during global health crises. Addressing this gap, the present research uses a mixed-method approach to examine the use of Instagram by Milan and Paris' Destination Marketing Organizations before and during COVID-19 and user engagement with it. Via a quantitative content analysis, Study 1 reveals communication differences between destinations and a change in promotion focus during the pandemic. Both DMOs focus on posts portraying "Culture, History and Art", which signifies stability and eternity as opposed to uncertain times. Using a thematic analysis, Study 2 reveals that both organizations promoted pro-social behavior also by employing influencers. Overall, research results document tourism organizations' pro-social use of social media during a global health crisis.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has posed a massive challenge for destination marketers to restore safety perceptions among tourists after the onslaught of the pandemic. The objective of the current study is to develop an integrated model linking social and technical elements via socio-technical theory helping in theory development and tourism recovery. Destination marketing researchers agree on the importance of STTs to restore faith among tourists However, there is a lack of theory in the studies related to tourism recovery. Socio-technical theory, which attributes the interdependence of technical systems and social systems for maximizing organizational productivity is used by the current study to help understand the tourism recovery process. This study uses the elements of socio-technical theory in a structural equation model (SEM) to help destination marketers better understand the effect of technology in attaining tourism recovery. Based on self-selection sampling, we collected the data via a web survey from makemytrip.com, the modeling in this study was done via variance-based structural equation modeling. The study results demonstrate a strong effect of Smart Tourism Technologies (STTs) in reducing the impact of pandemics on tourists' perceptions. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
ABSTRACT
The impacts of short-form travel videos (STVs) on destination marketing have been widely acknowledged in recent years. Although there have been many prior studies on short video platforms, the mechanism and research system of the impacts of travel contents in short-form videos on users are not clear. This study aims to reveal the possibilities of STVs in cross-border tourism promotion and to develop research models and survey methods applicable to research related to the contents of STVs. Therefore, a scenario-based experiment was designed using STVs related to Ganzi (甘孜) destination. The findings (N = 456) highlighted that users' attitudes towards STVs have a direct impact on destination image and travel intention, while users' emotional resonance (self-reference, sense of presence) and cognitive resonance (perceived esthetics, credibility, and entertainment) jointly determine users' attitudes towards STVs. With the application of stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory as a basic framework, this study explains the influence mechanism of STVs. The possibility of cross-border promotion and destination image building in impoverished areas was explored using a scenario-based experiment. © 2023, The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
The tourism industry is a sector that continues to be developed by the Indonesian government. Especially during the current Covid 19 pandemic, tourism must be given a touch of differentiation to adapt to government regulations regarding the safety of tourism objects. The development of social media is essential in the world of tourism, where it can change the behaviour of tourists to enjoy tourism services. This study aims to understand the social media preference in tourist destinations so that tourism destinations can analyze social media marketing competitive strategy according to the target market. This study uses the MDS method and cluster analysis. This study collects data from 240 respondents. Respondents were asked to rate ten social media pairs where the social media observed were Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok. This research found that a perceptual map is essential to define consumer perceptions and preferences on social media.
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Tourism research has recognized nostalgia as an intrinsic motive, an emotion that tourists may experience at or after visiting a destination, and an effective appeal to market destinations. This article reviews the multifaceted roles of nostalgia in four domains: heritage tourism, sport tourism, film tourism, and contemporary tourism. The former three tourism domains have distinctive attractions that inspire nostalgia, suiting for corresponding scales for nostalgia as a motive. Moreover, nostalgia contributes to sustainable tourism and can be applied in virtual reality. Furthermore, research has uncovered nostalgia's restorative function and provided evidence of its mediating effects on the linkage between COVID-19 reactions (perceived severity, travel constraints, and the need to belong) on behavioral outcomes.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Tourism , Humans , Travel , Emotions , MotivationABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the tourism and hospitality industries worldwide. Tourism destination marketing has been an heated focus in tourism and hospitality academia, it is widely believed that it can promote the revival of industries in the post-pandemic era. But there is a lack of research on different graphic presentation forms in tourism advertisements. To bridge the gap in the related literature, this study aims at studying the impact of the image and text presentation forms of the scenic spot's name in tourism advertisements on tourists' visit intention to the tourist destination city by combining the theory of constructivism in cognitive psychology, SOR model, and affective-cognitive model to conduct a 2 × 2 between-group experiment. The study found that when the text part contains the scenic spot's name, the tourism advertisement has a significant impact on tourists' perceived advertising effectiveness, destination affective image, and visit intention. The results of eye tracking analysis also showed that fixation points are primarily distributed in the text part. Furthermore, this study explored the chain mediating mechanism of perceived advertising effectiveness and destination affective image and discovered that the impact of the text presentation form on the visit intention can be realized through the mediating effect of perceived advertising effectiveness and destination affective image. This study puts forward some suggestions for the tourism advertising and destination marketing of scenic spots with high-familiarity of destination cities with low-familiarity and improving the image of tourist destination cities.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThe ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of destination marketing and media profiling to re-engage international tourists. However, potential crisis-induced nation brand (NB) deficits must be addressed to re-ignite tourism demand. The study examines the possible intervening effect of the contemporary NB in the international destination marketing and media-travel motives nexus.Design/methodology/approachA deductive quantitative study was undertaken with an online Amazon Mechanical Turk sample of n = 454 respondents. Hypotheses were tested using PROCESS Macro, Model 4.FindingsThe results show that the NB [people and negative events] had a practically significant partial mediating effect in the destination marketing - nature-cultural oriented travel motivation nexus.Practical implicationsNew insights are provided via a practical model which facilitates the measurement of potential nuances in the influence of destination marketing and media profiling on leisure tourists' travel motives amid crises. The intervening effect implies that a better understanding of the NB as an indirect antecedent to travel motivation may result in more effective crisis communications and tourism recovery-oriented marketing.Originality/valueThe study is amongst the first to extend marketing and behavioural theory to explore the interplay between the marketing and media profile, a nation's brand and tourists' travel behaviour amid a crisis. The study addresses a discernible dearth of knowledge related to the influence of the NB on tourist behaviour from an emerging market perspective.
ABSTRACT
Tourism is one of the businesses most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, having ramifications on the economics, lives, public services, and opportunities of all continents. Every step of its enormous value chain has been touched. This study examines the marketing actions rural tourism locations must engage in to sustain their businesses in the post-COVID-19 era. Achieving economic, social, and environmental sustainability is a primary priority. Rural tourism contributes to the development and economic prosperity of the targeted regions. As a way of boosting comprehension of this research, supporting ideas based on Stakeholder Theory are applied. 143 participants freely participated in this study by completing a questionnaire. Theoretically, a framework is required to demonstrate the connection between tangible and intangible indicators. The data is then thoroughly reviewed with SPSS and SmartPLS. The data suggest that the image of the location is the most important factor in rural tourism marketing tactics in Indonesia. Rural tourist promotion relies heavily on destination marketing. All of the traits were considered to be beneficial for marketing rural tourism destinations, with destination image having the most important role in rural tourism development. The remaining components are also related to marketing techniques for rural tourist destinations. Therefore, this research will benefit tourism industry players and stakeholders in boosting previous rural tourism destination marketing efforts. © 2022, Association Res Militaris. All rights reserved.
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This research aims to examine the tourist recognition of the different attractions of the four most populous Spanish-speaking cities in Latin America: Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and Lima, and determine the factors that group these attractions and evaluate their degree of importance. Factor analysis technique was used to reduce the perceptions into relevant factors. The methodology used is quantitative, transversal, and non-experimental. The results indicate that the tourist attraction of a city has four main factors: the nucleus, the tourism ecosystem, Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions/Events (MICE) and shows, and the related services. The research has theoretical implications because it determines that tourists perceive attractions at four levels in these Latin American cities, each of which is made up of tourist attractions different from those mentioned in the literature. The research has practical implications, since officials and those responsible for tourism in Latin American cities can improve their plans by considering the factors of tourist attraction that generate a greater influx of tourists in the cities examined.
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Research into the topic of destination image has been popular in the tourism literature since the 1970s. However, only a minority of destination image studies have focused on the context of short break drive holidays. Domestic holidays have taken on increased importance for the tourism industry in many parts of the world during travel restrictions caused by COVID-19. Building on theorizing from evolutionary psychology, this paper reports a study with the data collected from two samples in New Zealand and Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conjoint analysis revealed the two most important destination attributes in terms of crowdedness and accommodation type, and latent class analysis revealed four segments. These insights have practical implications for marketers of smaller, less crowded destinations interested in the short break drive market, particularly given uncertainties about international leisure travel during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the possibility of future coronavirus outbreaks.