Gianna Moscardo

Mindful visitors: Heritage and tourism

Abstract This paper begins with the premise that interpretation is the key to ensuring the quality of the tourism experience and argues that successful interpretation is critical both for the effective management and conservation of built heritage sites and for sustainable tourism. The paper introduces the concept of mindfulness and outlines its use in developing a model for designing effective interpretation at built heritage sites. A supporting set of principles for this design is provided. It is argued that mindfulness is an integrating concept that can be used to enhance the quality of visitor experiences and create a sustainable link between tourism and built heritage.

Using Brand Personality to Differentiate Regional Tourism Destinations

Destination branding is growing rapidly as an approach to tourism destination promotion. While this concept has been borrowed from the world of general consumer goods and applied in a number of national tourism destinations, academic analysis of the value and effectiveness of destination branding has emerged more slowly. The present article addresses this paucity of academic scrutiny by examining the value of the destination brand personality construct in distinguishing between two regional tourism destinations. A survey of 480 tourists was conducted adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Australia to gather data about the destination image attributes of two regional destinations that were branded by a state destination marketing organization. The results indicated that tourists were able to articulate different destination brand personalities for each region. The results also indicated that more work might need to be done to adapt existing frameworks of brand personality to the tourism context.

Understanding the Impact of Ecotourism Resort Experiences on Tourists’ Environmental Attitudes and Behavioural Intentions

This study explored the conservation benefits of environmental management practices and nature experiences provided at a major Australian ecotourism resort. To achieve this purpose the study investigated changes in tourists’ environmental knowledge, awareness, attitudes and behavioural intentions between pre-visit and post-visit stages. Overall, there were few statistically significant differences between the pre-visit and post-visit samples. This study found, however, significant effects of (1) visitor awareness of, and (2) involvement in, the environmental management practices, and (3) participation in nature tour activities on environmental attitudes and behaviours. It is suggested that awareness of in-resort environmental practices and satisfying experiences in ecotourism accommodation may lead to reinforcing visitors’ favourable environmental attitudes, thus increasing their interest in further ecotourism experiences. Through these cumulative effects, ecotourism accommodation could achieve its educative goal.

Developing a Typology for Understanding Visiting Friends and Relatives Markets

This study seeks to classify visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel and to explore the linkage between VFR travel types and commercial tourism in an empirical study. The VFR phenomenon is multifaceted, making it hard to integrate research findings. This article proposes an initial typology of VFR travel and positions the major existing studies within this typology. Using data from Queensland, Australia, an examination is made of the relationships between the proposed variables and VFR travel and behavior patterns. The data set gave the researchers the ability to identify VFR as either a prime trip motive or one of a set of activities or regional attractions. The study provides an activities-based segmentation of this type of VFR traveler and attempts to connect different segments to both travel patterns and the variables in the proposed typology.

Understanding ethnic tourists.

Abstract Much of the discussion of ethnic tourism has concentrated on the impact of guests onhosts. This paper examines ethnic tourism from the perspective of the guests and is particularlyconcerned with understanding the nature of this market. The results of a study of more than 1,500visitors to an Aboriginal cultural park in Australia are reported. Four distinct groups of visitorswere identified based on their levels of interest in various aspects or features of ethnic tourismexperiences. The study found evidence that ethnic tourists may be balancing a desire for contactwith such hosts against a concern over feeling uncomfortable when making choices of theirethnic tourism products.

Analyzing the Role of Festivals and Events in Regional Development

While tourism has a long history of use as a tool for regional development, events and festivals are a more recent policy option. In both cases the emphasis is often placed on the potential positive economic impacts. In both cases there has also been little research conducted into a wider range of outcomes or into the factors and processes that contribute to these outcomes. This article examines the potential role of festivals and events in regional development with a particular focus on effects other than economic. The study reported here used a conceptual framework developed to describe regional tourism development to explore 36 case studies describing festivals and events in a regional development context. The content analysis identified 13 themes as associated with the effectiveness of festivals and events in supporting regional development. These themes were further organized according to their connections to the three key constructs of building social capital, enhancing community capacity, and support for non-tourism-related products and services. These constructs are then used to build a preliminary conceptual framework to understand the role of festivals and events in regional development.

Historic theme parks. An Australian experience in authenticity

Abstract The potential role of historic theme parks in providing domestic tourists with an “authentic” insight into their history and culture is examined in this paper. Previous analyses of “authenticity” and its role in travel are discussed and it is argued that these analyses have not allowed for the possibility of seeking authentic insight into the past. An analysis of the advertising material of six major historic theme parks indicates that “authenticity” is actively promoted as part of the experience offered at theme parks. Evidence from studies of visitors to two Australian historic theme parks is presented illustrating that the visitors believe that authenticity is an important element of their experiences. Authenticity is also an important factor in satisfaction with their visits. This evidence, however, conflicts with the views of social scientists writing about authenticity and travel. A number of questions are raised about conceptual thinking on the topic of authenticity.

Exploring social representations of tourism planning: issues for governance

A major challenge for tourism as a social and economic activity and as an academic study is the integration of multiple perspectives into coherent frameworks. This paper explores this challenge and argues that a social representations approach allows for the critical analysis of formal approaches to tourism planning. Special attention is given to tourism development and governance in Africa and other emerging destinations. A content/semiotic analysis was conducted to examine figures summarising tourism planning models presented in the academic and government planning literature. This revealed a dominant social representation of tourism planning in which destination residents play only a minor role and are typically excluded from tourism governance and external agents, from both the private and public sectors, and their views of tourist needs are dominant. Most planning models were narrowly focused, had limited evaluation of all tourism benefits and costs, paid little attention to non-economic factors and did not integrate into wider development processes. The paper argues that this social representation assumes the core objective of tourism planning is to enhance outcomes for tourists and tourism businesses rather than for destination residents. Measures to enhance local governance capacity are suggested, with examples from the health, education and tourism sectors.

Shopping as a destination attraction: an empirical examination of the role of shopping in tourists' destination choice and experience.

Shopping as a tourist activity has only recently been subjected to academic analysis and discussion. To date much of the published literature is focused on shopping as an activity. The present paper reports on a survey of 1,630 tourists to a popular Australian tourist destination. The present study extended previous research by studying shopping as a factor in destination choice with a sample of both shoppers and non-shoppers, and with the aim of understanding the role of shopping in the total destination experience. Four types of shopper were identified based on a combination of the importance of shopping in destination choice and actual participation in shopping activities. These four groups were then compared and profiled on a series of socio-demographic, travel behaviour, destination choice, activity participation and attraction visitation variables. The paper then examines the links between these findings and previous research results before discussing the implications of the results for both management and marketing of the destination and for developing a model to explain tourists’ shopping behaviour.

Evaluating different bases for market segmentation: a comparison of geographic origin versus activity participation for generating tourist market segments.

Abstract While market segmentation has become a major approach to understanding the nature of tourists and their travel behaviour, there exists considerable debate over which bases and statistical approaches provide the best segmentation solutions. Morrison (1996) has offered eight criteria for evaluating the success or value of a segmentation result. This paper used these eight criteria to evaluate two different segmentation approaches used with the same survey sample. An a priori geographic segmentation of visitors to the Wet Tropics region of Australia was compared to an activity based a posteriori segmentation approach. There was evidence that the activity segmentation approach fulfilled the eight criteria more adequately than the geographic approach. It was further suggested that for large samples a multi-stage methodology might be a desirable approach for meeting all eight marketing segmentation effectiveness criteria.