Noel Scott, Brent Moyle, Ana Cláudia Campos, Liubov Skavronskaya and Biqiang Liu
Sergio Moreno-Gil and J.R. Brent Ritchie
This paper aims to better understand museums’ image. The study examined the influence of visitors’ socio-demographic (gender, social class), tripographic (party group, previous…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to better understand museums’ image. The study examined the influence of visitors’ socio-demographic (gender, social class), tripographic (party group, previous experience with the museum and timing of the decision to visit the museum) and geographic characteristics (national – international visitors), on the different components and dimensions of perceived museums’ image (cognitive and affective) in a major tourism destination.
Design/methodology/approach
This research focussed on museums located on Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). The population of the study included museum attendees who visited the main museums of the island (13 museums). The selection of respondents (252) was made following a systematic random sampling at the exit gate of the museums.
Findings
The repeat visitors and those who plan the visit in advance were found to have a more positive museums’ image for both the cognitive and the affective components of museum image. There was also a positive influence of party group on the cognitive and affective dimensions of image, whereas families showed a less positive image. In addition, there were significant relationships between the visitors’ socio-demographic characteristics of gender, and social class, and the affective and cognitive components of image – women and higher classes achieving a better image. National visitors also showed a more positive image on both the cognitive and affective components of museum image. Six image dimensions were found and specific effects on each are discussed.
Originality/value
This study adds to the growing literature on museums for a better understanding of the perceived image of this cultural product (museums) at the destination, and how it can be managed according to the profile of their publics. Additionally, it considers the different dimensions of museums’ image: quality of visitation experience, convenience and functionality, price, general appearance, museum shop and affective image.
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M. Paul‐A. Fortin and M.J.R. Brent Ritchie
En mars 1974, le Conseil de planification et de développement du Québec soumettait un avis intitulé: «Vers une industrie touristique au Québec : éléments d'une stratégie de…
Abstract
En mars 1974, le Conseil de planification et de développement du Québec soumettait un avis intitulé: «Vers une industrie touristique au Québec : éléments d'une stratégie de développement». Le rapport soumettait un certain nombre de recommandations au sujet des orientations que devrait prendre le développement futur du tourisme au Québec, s'il voulait promouvoir et favoriser également les intérêts sociaux et les intérêts économiques des résidents de la province. Ces recommandations contenaient aussi un certain nombre de propositions précises sur le plan d'action souhaitable, en vue d'augmenter l'efficacité des secteurs public et privé dans le développement du tourisme. Finalement, le rapport énumérait un certain nombre de secteurs stratégiques qui, de l'avis des experts, comportaient de grands avantages dans le développement du tourisme, mais au sujet desquels très peu d'information était disponible pour seconder les planificateurs et les administrateurs intéressés par le sujet.
Liubov Skavronskaya, Noel Scott, Brent Moyle, Dung Le, Arghavan Hadinejad, Rui Zhang, Sarah Gardiner, Alexandra Coghlan and Aishath Shakeela
This review aims to discuss concepts and theories from cognitive psychology, identifies tourism studies applying them and discusses key areas for future research. The paper aims…
Abstract
Purpose
This review aims to discuss concepts and theories from cognitive psychology, identifies tourism studies applying them and discusses key areas for future research. The paper aims to demonstrate the usefulness of cognitive psychology for understanding why tourists and particularly pleasure travellers demonstrate the behaviour they exhibit.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews 165 papers from the cognitive psychology and literature regarding pleasure travel related to consciousness, mindfulness, flow, retrospection, prospection, attention, schema and memory, feelings and emotions. The papers are chosen to demonstrate the state of the art of the literature and provide guidance on how these concepts are vital for further research.
Findings
The paper demonstrates that research has favoured a behaviourist rather than cognitive approach to the study of hedonic travel. Cognitive psychology can help to understand the mental processes connecting perception of stimuli with behaviour. Numerous examples are provided: top-down and bottom-up attention processes help to understand advertising effectiveness, theories of consciousness and memory processes help to distinguish between lived and recalled experience, cognitive appraisal theory predicts the emotion elicited based on a small number of appraisal dimensions such as surprise and goals, knowledge of the mental organisation of autobiographical memory and schema support understanding of destination image formation and change and the effect of storytelling on decision-making, reconstructive bias in prospection or retrospection about a holiday inform the study of pleasurable experience. These findings indicate need for further cognitive psychology research in tourism generally and studies of holiday travel experiences.
Research limitations/implications
This review is limited to cognitive psychology and excludes psychoanalytic studies.
Practical implications
Cognitive psychology provides insight into key areas of practical importance. In general, the use of a cognitive approach allows further understanding of leisure tourists’ behaviour. The concept of attention is vital to understand destination advertising effectiveness, biases in memory process help to understand visitor satisfaction and experience design and so on. Use of cognitive psychology theory will lead to better practical outcomes for tourists seeking pleasurable experiences and destination managers.
Originality value
This is the first review that examines the application of concepts from cognitive psychology to the study of leisure tourism in particular. The concepts studied are also applicable to study of travellers generally.
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Haydeé Calderón García, Irene Gil Saura, Roberto Carmelo Pons García and Martina G. Gallarza
The research steam on tourism destination image, begun in the late 1960s, has been essentially operational in its approach, and only occasionally strategic. Aspects relating to…
Abstract
The research steam on tourism destination image, begun in the late 1960s, has been essentially operational in its approach, and only occasionally strategic. Aspects relating to the image of tourism destinations still constitute a relatively unexplored line of research. This paper, first establishes specific conceptual and methodological approaches, to enable us to rigorously study and evaluate the image of what we understand as a tourism destination characterized by “sun and beach”. It then applies this methodological proposition to a number of destinations in the Caribbean, focusing on the case of Cuba from an important tourist‐origin market for this destination, Spain.
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J.R. Brent Ritchie, Vincent Wing Sun Tung and Robin J.B. Ritchie
The essence of tourism is the development and delivery of travel and visitation experiences. This paper aims to provide a quantitative and qualitative assessment of articles in…
Abstract
Purpose
The essence of tourism is the development and delivery of travel and visitation experiences. This paper aims to provide a quantitative and qualitative assessment of articles in major tourism journals in order to enhance our understanding of the tourism experience, with a special emphasis on the management issues associated with delivering these experiences to destination visitors.
Design/methodology/approach
Several leading tourism journals were evaluated to identify the articles that focused on tourism experiences. Content analysis was used to determine the quantitative extent of the contributions and the qualitative nature of the articles published in each journal.
Findings
Despite growth in the total number of articles published by each major journal, there was no substantial increase in experience-related papers. The findings suggest that, despite its fundamental importance, experience-related research remains under-represented in the tourism literature.
Research limitations/implications
While this paper focused on the “leading” tourism journals as defined by various studies in the past, other journals and other publications that target a specific niche readership may also have worthwhile contributions to the understanding of tourism experiences and related management issues. Future research should seek to accommodate this in an effort to acknowledge a more comprehensive list of journals and books.
Originality/value
This is the first formal study to date that comprehensively addresses the contributions of leading tourism journals to the literature on tourism experiences. Understanding the nature of tourism experiences is of significant value to scholars and practitioners, since providing tourists with high-quality, memorable experiences constitutes the essence of tourism and tourism management.
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Michel Zins and J.R. Brent Ritchie
Le tourisme peut être considéré comme un domaine relevant traditionnellement de l'économie, tandis que le domaine de la culture prend une orientation plus sociale. Cependant, même…
Abstract
Le tourisme peut être considéré comme un domaine relevant traditionnellement de l'économie, tandis que le domaine de la culture prend une orientation plus sociale. Cependant, même si cette différence entre les deux domaines est réelle, l'importance des liens fondamentaux qui existent entre le tourisme et la culture n'est pas négligeable, et les caractéristiques socio‐culturelles d'une région peuvent être un des aspects les plus importants de l'attrait de cette région. A l'inverse, le succès enregistré par une région au point de vue touristique peut aussi avoir des effets profonds, négatifs ou positifs, sur la vie culturelle de cette région. La présente étude a donc pour objectif d'explorer la nature et la force de principaux liens qui peuvent exister entre les phénomènes du tourisme et de la culture.
Rolf A. Erfurt and Julia Johnsen
Events, conventions and other meetings are one of the fastest growing sectors within the tourism industry. For many destinations events provide a large number of tourists and a…
Abstract
Events, conventions and other meetings are one of the fastest growing sectors within the tourism industry. For many destinations events provide a large number of tourists and a high public exposure through an extensive media coverage. This paper draws its focus on the image of an event and its influence on the image of a destination. The results show that an event has an influence on a traveller's image of the destination, most notably for travellers living close to the destination. It is also shown that the image of those travellers who have a prior experience with the destination are less affected by the event. The results can be used by destination managers to improve the image benefit of events through a better selection of events and to improve the competitive position of the destination by a selective communication of the positive aspects of the event to particular target groups.