Brent W. Ritchie

Resident perceptions of mega-sporting events: A non-host city perspective of the 2012 London Olympic Games

Despite the growing importance of a ‘triple bottom line’ approach to mega sport event research, limited longitudinal research has been carried out to understand and explain resident perceptions of the impact of such events. The aim of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the social dimension of Olympic tourism development, by exploring resident perceptions of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games within the two respective communities of Weymouth and Portland in England. This paper reports the first stage of a repeated cross-sectional longitudinal study conducted in 2007. It highlights that generally residents were supportive of hosting the event in the local area but were concerned over perceived traffic congestion, parking issues and potential increases in the cost of living. A factor analysis identified five factors that explained 60.5% of the variance in resident perceptions, with the largest factor comprising ‘positive social impacts’, followed by ‘negative impacts’, ‘transport issues’, ‘positive economic impacts’ and ‘price rises.’ Differences were found between these factors and socio-demographic characteristics. Implications for mega event managers and future research are outlined.

Managing educational tourism

Increasingly tourists are seeking learning and educational holidays. This interest has led to the provision of tourism product with some form of learning or education as an integral component, including cultural heritage tourism and ecotourism. The growth of offshore education and lifelong learning has stimulated cross-border movement for language learning, school excursions and university student travel. Reflecting this growth in educational tourism types, the author outlines the main forms of educational tourism, their demand and supply characteristics, their impacts and the management issues associated with them, taking a holistic systems-based perspective. The book argues that without adequate research and appropriate management of educational forms of tourism, the potential regional development impacts and personal learning benefits will not be maximised. The book highlights the need for collaboration and networking between both the tourism and education industries to adequately manage the issues surrounding the growth in educational tourism.

Governance: a review and synthesis of the literature

Purpose – Despite the proliferation of the governance concept in the broader academic literature, there is little agreement on definitions, scope and what actually constitutes governance. This is arguably due to the fact that empirical research on the topic, with some exceptions, is generally limited to case studies without use of any common conceptual framework. This is certainly the case in other fields of study and is becoming increasingly obvious in tourism research also. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to explore and synthesize the governance literature with the objective of identifying the key elements and dimensions of governance.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the two “parent” bodies of literature originating in the political sciences and corporate management fields of study, the paper provides a review and synthesis of the governance concept with the objective of identifying the primary elements and factors that have been employed in studies of governance to date.Findings – A revi...

Tourism Disaster Planning and Management: From Response and Recovery to Reduction and Readiness

Despite the growing number of natural hazards and disasters little research has been conducted on tourism disaster management and planning. Although there have been a growing number of studies in the tourism field on tourism disaster management, most have highlighted, and indeed researched, reactive response and recovery efforts of the tourism industry at the expense of reduction and readiness strategies and initiatives. This paper integrates hazards and emergency planning literature with tourism disaster planning research to examine possible deficiencies and future directions for research in this field. The paper argues that an understanding of tourism disaster planning is only possible through an understanding of literature from the hazards, natural disaster and emergency planning field alongside an analysis of previous tourism disaster planning research. This synthesis suggests a ‘post-disciplinary’ approach to researching and better understanding the problem of tourism disaster planning involving researchers from disciplines such as education, communication, sociology, emergency planning, hazards and tourism. It is hoped that such an approach would lead to a better understanding of tourism disaster planning, reduction and readiness and the development of suitable policies and initiatives from tourism agencies and industry associations to facilitate more effective planning.

Crisis Communication and Recovery for the Tourism Industry: Lessons from the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreak in the United Kingdom

Abstract As the number of disasters and crises affecting the tourism industry increases, it is becoming necessary to understand the nature of these disasters and how to manage and limit the impacts of such incidents. This paper defines crises and disasters before discussing the area of crisis communication management and crisis communication in the tourism industry. The paper then applies the foot and mouth disease (FMD) which occurred in the United Kingdom to crisis communication theory at a national level (by examining the response of the British Tourist Authority) and at a local level (by examining the response of a District Council). The response was limited in part because of a lack of preparedness, but also due to the nature of the foot and mouth outbreak, and the speed and severity of international media coverage. Action was taken in the emergency phase of the crisis and was reactive involving inconsistency in developing key messages to stakeholders, partly due to confusion and a lack of information at the national level. Recovery marketing was also limited due to the length of time of the disease outbreak. This paper provides lessons for destinations and organisations are discussed which may help develop crisis communication strategies for tourism organisations.

Understanding the Motivation and Travel Behavior of Cycle Tourists Using Involvement Profiles

ABSTRACT Bicycle tourism is a growing niche tourism market which has potential economic, social, and environmental outcomes for individual participants and host communities. However, there has been a lack of research into heterogeneity of this market and their respective motivations and behavior. This article applies the concept of enduring involvement, in conjunction with tourist motivational theory, to segment and better understand cycle tourist behavior and intentions. A total of 564 completed questionnaires was collected from an online survey of bicycle club members in Australia. Respondents were segmented into five initial clusters by their level of enduring involvement. A number of significant differences were found on their travel motivations, travel behavior, and behavioral intentions, as well as their sociodemographics and cycling behavior. The results lend support to the application of enduring involvement in a tourism context to better understand the behavior of niche markets which include popular leisure pursuits. Recommendations as a result of the findings are made for product development and marketing communication, while future research opportunities are also outlined.

Towards a research agenda for post-disaster and post-crisis recovery strategies for tourist destinations: a narrative review

This paper presents the results of a review of the literature concerning post-disaster and post-crisis recovery for tourist destinations. A total of 64 articles on this topic published in peer-reviewed tourism journals between January 2000 and June 2012 were included in the review. These articles were written on a number of different disaster contexts, including weather-related events (floods and hurricanes), natural disasters (earthquakes and tsunami) and other events (such as pandemics and terrorist attacks). The key themes that emerged included a lack of communication between stakeholders, media sensationalism, the importance of selecting the most effective marketing messages, lack of disaster-management plans, damage to destination image and reputation, and the changes in tourist behaviour following crises and disasters. The review identifies ways to improve the speed and effectiveness of response to disaster, the importance of relationship marketing with loyal customers and the need to quickly repair destination image. Suggestions for future research arising from this review include the urgent need to encourage tourism operators to engage with crisis preparedness and disaster-management strategies and the importance of gaining a better understanding of the consumer response to disastrous events.

Investigating the Role of Prior Knowledge in Tourist Decision Making A Structural Equation Model of Risk Perceptions and Information Search

To date, limited research has investigated the effects of tourist prior knowledge as a multidimensional construct on their perceived risk. This research is one of the first studies to investigate the relationships among tourists’ risk perceptions and various types of their prior knowledge, namely subjective knowledge, objective knowledge, prior visitation, and past international travel experience. The research also investigates the nature of the relationship between tourist prior knowledge, risk perceptions, and their subsequent information search behavior. Using structural equation modeling, the results reveal that while objective knowledge did not significantly reduce or increase the risk associated with traveling to the Middle East, subjective knowledge appeared to have the strongest influence on tourist risk perceptions. The results of this study further suggest that while various dimensions of perceived risk may elicit the use of different information sources, prior knowledge also plays a role alongside risk perceptions in determining the information sources used. Implications at both theoretical and practical levels are also discussed.

A farming crisis or a tourism disaster? An analysis of the foot and mouth disease in the UK

As the number of disasters and crises affecting the tourism industry increases, it is becoming necessary to understand the nature of these disasters and how to manage and limit the impacts of such incidents. This paper defines crises and disasters before discussing the area of crisis and disaster management. The paper then applies the foot and mouth outbreak which occurred in the United Kingdom to the tourism disaster framework proposed by Faulkner (2001). The paper notes that although the outbreak fits the basic principles of Faulkners (2001) model, the size, scope and subsequent management of the outbreak over an extended period suggests that although the model is useful, it has limited usefulness because not all disasters and crises are the same. Nevertheless, by examining how crises and disasters are managed, lessons for destinations and organisations may help turn such incidents into positive forces for change and help to reduce the severity of future disasters.

Motivation-Based Typology: An Empirical Study of Golf Tourists

This article contributes to knowledge of tourist motivation and typologies in the context of golf tourism. A research framework is presented to aid the classification of golf tourists into distinct typologies based on their travel motivation. The methodology comprised both qualitative research based on semistructured interviews and quantitative research based on 392 self-completed questionnaires. A principal component factor analysis was used to identify five golf travel motivations. A cluster analysis was then conducted to classify golfers into three different clusters, namely, Golf-intensive Golfers, Multimotivated Golfers, and Companion Golfers. The golf clusters were then profiled, and the results revealed that golf tourists were not homogeneous in their travel motivations. Their profiles are theoretically and statistically feasible, and the hypotheses tested indicated that each cluster had both similarities and differences. The practical implications for golf tourism marketers are suggested, and future research recommendations related to the application of tourist typologies for segmentation are provided.