Rich Harrill

Residents’ Attitudes toward Tourism Development: a Literature Review with Implications for Tourism Planning

Planners are increasingly turning to tourism as a viable economic development strategy, as many communities experience industrial restructuring. Consequently, many residents are exposed to tourism for the first time, whereas established destinations experience increasing volumes of tourists. Planners are now challenged with understanding how the public perceives tourism in order to gain local support for tourism projects and initiatives. By exploring the literature on resident attitudes toward tourism development, this article examines (1) resident attitudes toward tourism in relation to socioeconomic factors; (2) spatial factors; (3) economic dependency; (4) resident and community typologies; (5) measuring residents’ attitudes tourism development; and (6) theoretical perspectives such as community attachment, social exchange theory, and growth machine theory. This literature review provides planners with a basis for initiating citizen participation processes related to tourism issues and identifying groups of people concerned about, or opposed to, tourism planning and development in their communities.

Tourism Planning in Historic Districts: Attitudes Toward Tourism Development in Charleston

Abstract In the last 30 years, community perceptions of negative impacts from tourism have encouraged research from several different fields into community attitudes, with the goal of overcoming opposition to tourism development. Drawing on a study of Charleston, SC, this article explores the relationships between community attachment, existing through such bonds as friendship and kinship, and resident attitudes toward tourism development. We studied Charleston to understand the differences in attitude toward tourism development among its neighborhoods, based on community attachment variables, and to explore the role of community attachment in predicting these attitudes, especially regarding residents of historic residential districts. This research has implications for tourism planning in Charleston and other tourism cities with historic residential districts.

Political Ecology and Planning Theory

Political ecology is the inquiry into the politi cal causes and consequences of environmental change, with the goal of facilitating sustain able development through the reconstruction of social and political systems. In this intro ductory paper, I consider how political ecol ogy might become a productive area of in quiry for planning theorists. After surveying political ecologys topical and intellectual terrain, I link the field to theory through the consideration of several planning models and roles. I argue that Deweyan pragmatism, by method of social inquiry and communitarian politics, provides an appropriate philosophical basis for integrating political ecology into planning theory.

Chinese customers' evaluation of travel website quality: a decision-tree analysis.

Web design in tourism organizations has become one of the key factors in maintaining a successful travel business. With questions of sustainability plaguing travel agencies, questions on how they should allocate their limited resources for website development to meet changing consumer needs while producing an effective and efficient website linger. This study provides a new technique and tool, decision trees and Weka, that identifies critical attributes that influence quality levels of a customer’s experience when visiting a travel agency’s website. The exploratory study derived eight evaluation attributes based on the attention, interest, desire, and action model. The study generated decision trees via Weka, a data-mining open-source software platform, to analyze the datasets from a web-based experiment. Results indicate that information quality is the most important attribute in designing the website of a travel agency. Then, attributes that enhance the simplicity of websites, such as ease of use, personalization, and flexible reservations, are considered by the customer when evaluating the website quality. Attractiveness can only contribute to evaluations of a website’s quality after usefulness and website simplicity have been determined. Keeping the website useful, simple, and attractive—in that order—will give managers of travel agencies the guidance to design their websites and improve company performance. This study confirms prior research and indicates that decision trees and Weka are viable techniques in evaluating travel agency websites and promotional materials.

Affirmation, assimilation, and anarchy: critical undercurrents in destination branding

Purpose – This introduction seeks to provide a broad review of scholarly developments in the nascent field of destination branding spanning almost 12 years in order to locate the relevance and import of the following nine papers compiled for this special issue on destination branding and marketing.Design/methodology/approach – A general review of literature is undertaken guided by an epistemological approach to knowledge thus far generated by the destination branding field, consistent with the recommendation of Tribe, and in lieu of the common reductionist approach to identifying themes. The background generated by the review is then used to introduce and assess the significance of the articles contained in this special issue.Findings – Three undercurrents of critical issues implicated with the massive body of knowledge generated by the first decade of destination branding research are described and posited relations between them are tentatively advanced. The undercurrents pertain primarily to matters of ...

Preferences for Heritage Tourism Development Using a Choice Modeling Approach

Development and management of heritage tourism attractions pose several challenges, such as lack of financial resources and political support. heritage sites and attractions often include numerous attributes (e.g., education, guided tours, shopping for local products) that can be provided at various levels of involvement and interest. however, the financial constraints of heritage tourism sites inhibit the ability to improve programs and services. The purpose of this study is to identify and compare the preferences of consumers and ambassadors (i.e., local tourism and community leaders) for improving management programs and services of the South Carolina National heritage Corridor using a choice modeling method. Both groups were generally in favor of developing more opportunities for local shopping, education/interpretation, and enhancing the cultural experience when visiting the South Carolina National heritage Corridor. however, ambassadors were more in favor of developing education/interpretation and the cultural experience compared to consumers. As agencies develop programs and services designed to increase visitation, preference information from different constituent groups are valuable to effectively decide what programs and services to develop.

Evaluation of the Determinant Factors of Innovation in Colombia's Tourist Product

Colombia is a country that has achieved significant tourism growth in recent years, yet there is limited empirical evidence about its tourism development. Innovation in tourism products is one of the keys to Colombia maintaining positive tourism development. This empirical study analyzed innovation in tourism products in 364 Colombia companies. The findings show that “changes or improvements to existing products or services” and “research and development to create new products” have a significant relationship with tourism product innovation in Colombia.

Avoiding cultural misconceptions during globalization of tourism

Purpose – The purpose of this editorial is to introduce the current special issue of research related to cultural misconceptions during the globalization of tourism.Design/methodology/approach – The four peer reviewed articles presented in this special issue are introduced.Findings – All of the research articles examine the potential or actual result of misconceptions when different cultures interact. Culture identity is a common theme throughout the articles. Sub‐themes include how cultural identity is changed (positively or negatively) when other cultures interact. The data collection sites include: Zakopane, a small village of 30,000 residents located in the Tatra Mountains in the South of Poland; Ubud, a village in Bali, Indonesia; Great Britain and Ireland; Shandong, China; and a framework to compare data collected throughout different cultures in Asia. The first two articles presented examine the influence of tourism on a village. The third article focuses on service providers working in large citie...

Rural Tourism Research in China: 1997-2006

This article identifies five themes in Chinese rural tourism studies, including (1) definitions of rural tourism, (2) rural tourism planning and development, (3) pragmatic challenges and solutions, and (4) policies and impacts. Further, these themes are grouped by three methodological approaches, including supply-side perspectives, policy-oriented research, and descriptive methods. The article is based on the review and synthesis of 325 research articles published between 1997 and 2006 in China. The findings contribute to an understanding of Chinas rural tourism industry and current state of academic research on rural tourism issues unique to China but having global significance.

From sales tool to site development: the evolution of destination marketing on the Web.

The travel industry increasingly uses Web marketing to reach its customers, both actual and potential. This is not surprising given that more than 63 million people used the Web to make their travel plans in 2004. Although considerable attention has been paid to website rankings and effectiveness, researchers know comparatively little about the contexts of how sites were created, nor how they continue to evolve, and the successes and challenges involved in travel-related website creation and maintenance. This article reviews the literature concerning destination management organizations (DMOs) and Web marketing on the international scale. It reviews the evolution of Web development through three CVBs in the US—Greater Pittsburgh Convention and Visitors Bureau, Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau—that have demonstrated innovation in using the Web as a powerful and successful marketing tool. By using this evolutionary lens as the articles comparative framework, practitioners and researchers may better anticipate technological innovation in Web marketing for destination management organizations. These organizations serve as models for sales, revenues, and site development, respectively. The case studies offer “lessons learned,” providing possibilities for adoption and point the way to further research