Antti Honkanen

Barriers Affecting Social Media Adoption in Finnish Tourism Businesses

Social media has affected the ways tourism companies do business and companies have been eager to adopt it as part of their marketing strategy. However, there still exists a large number of tourism companies that completely neglect the use of social media. This study explores the reasons why some tourism companies do not adopt social media. First, tourism companies are interviewed about the reasons why they are not using social media. Second, the results from the interviews are transformed into quantitative survey on barriers to adopt social media. The results show that there are three main barriers for not using social media: no resources, concerns about social media and no need to use social media. The results also show some explanations for the differences between companies.

Making It Right the Third Time? Pursuing Satisfaction and Loyalty in a Double Service Recovery

Abstract The study focuses on the complex double service recovery in the context of package tourism. The purpose is to analyze how the first and the second service recoveries affect recovery satisfaction and how satisfaction, in turn, influences customer loyalty. The data consist of an online survey (n = 220) and path analysis is used to test the hypotheses. According to the results, all justice dimensions (distributive, interactional, and procedural) of the second service recovery had a positive effect on recovery satisfaction. Also, the first recovery had a positive, yet weak, effect on recovery satisfaction. As hypothesized, recovery satisfaction positively affected customer loyalty, that is, positive word-of-mouth behavior and repurchase intention. Even though the distributive justice had a strongest effect on satisfaction, the tour operators should focus especially on interactional justice, which besides satisfaction, had a direct effect also on word-of-mouth behavior and repurchase intention. The study contributes to the academic literature by providing a holistic view on the double service recovery and offers valuable information to tour operators striving for efficient recovery processes.

Segmentation of music festival attendees

ABSTRACT Festivals have seen a surge in both size and numbers leading to a more business-oriented festival management. Thus, knowledge regarding the audiences and consumption of festivals deserve more attention, and monetary properties such as ticket sales and partnerships have become focal points in festival management. All these aims can be achieved by market segmentation. Festival Barometer is a longitudinal survey focused on the audiences of the largest Finnish rhythm music festivals. Using 7797 answers from the years 2014 and 2016, the audience was segmented using personal music preferences into groups named: hedonistic dance crowd, loyal heavy tribe and highly-educated omnivores. The members of the loyal heavy tribe are the most confident about their future participation in festivals. The hedonistic dance crowd love to have fun, and highly-educated omnivores see festivals’ values important for them. However, music preferences might not necessarily indicate the respondent’s actual taste but rather the referential group that best reflects the festivalgoer’s own identity. Additionally, the meaning of the music is highest in the youngest age group and it will be replaced with other priorities as the person gets older. This indicates that the music festival organisers are forced to attract constantly a new younger audience.

On the way to sustainable (well-being) tourism destination?: the case of Savonlinna town in Finland

The purpose of the study is to test if the model of a sustainable wellness destination developed by Sheldon and Park, adapted from Ritchie and Crouch, could be used while defining the Savonlinna town in Eastern Finland in the context of well-being/wellness tourism. The data for this article are based on interviews conducted in the region during 2009 and 2010. There was much discussion on Savonlinnas assets for well-being tourism. The overall finding is that the status of Savonlinna as a sustainable well-being tourism destination was more in the minds of the interviewees than on a tangible, practical level. The well-being segment was still seen to be limited and fragmentary.

Maximizing university students' motor fitness by implementing a physical education program incorporating martial arts - implicational study

Martial arts are ancient forms of combat, modified for modern sport and exercise. Participation in martial arts classes is growing in popularity, particularly among young people of both sexes, which was confirmed by the research conducted over the last two decades [1,2,3]. Martial arts provide health-promoting and meaningful exercise for millions of practitioners. Training martial arts can increase self-reliance and lead to better overall health and balance as well as an improved sense of mental well-being and numerous benefits to the autonomic nervous and immune systems [4]. Martial arts do not promote aggression and may be used as a treatment modality for young people who are prone to violent behavior [3]. Skills gained when practicing martial arts are very useful in everyday life and should not be associated only with self-defense. Many aspects of combat sports are used in other forms of health training or as an indicator of an individual’s ability to survive in a given environment (such as the ability to fall when losing balance) [5,6]. There are only few studies that have been conducted to gain an understanding of why people participate in martial arts [7,8]. Findings indicate that practitioners of martial arts are motivated differently across the types of martial arts disciplines, competition orientation and past experiences [9]. Self-defense courses, which have been organized for students at the University of Warmia & Mazury in Olsztyn (UWM) since 2005 as a substitute of P.E. lessons, reflect the popularity of such a form of physical activity among young adults. The fact that these classes are of a recreational and voluntary kind attracts a large group of university students who, apart from fulfilling the physical education requirements, are given an opportunity to gain self-defense and combat skills. Although women have been known to train martial arts longer than commonly believed, in the case of the classes held at UWM men constituted an overwhelming majority, which