Scott McCabe

Who is a tourist?: A critical review.

This article discusses the concept of the ‘tourist’ within tourist studies. It critiques the conceptual category of tourist in recent literature on typologies of tourists and tourist experiences. Although greater understanding of the tourist has been identified as one of the principal research issues for tourism research, the focus is on types and forms of touristic experience rather than uses of the concept of ‘tourist’ as a lay category, thereby taking for granted its function within a wider cultural discourse of holidaymaking and travelling. The article raises questions concerning the construct ‘tourist’ and discusses the implications of such ambiguities for theory and empirical analysis of interview data on tourist experiences. This discussion reviews the literature on tourist experience and typologies, a discussion of the use of the concept of ‘tourist’ as a members’ category, and proposes a tentative clarification of the issues as a basis from which to direct future empirical research questions.

The role and function of narrative in tourist interaction.

Tourist experiences are often profound and help to shape the social world of actors. Memories of travels become part of lived experiences to share with others. Experiences of travels or holidays achieve iconic status in everyday lives, and are communicated through the stories of life into lived identities. Accounts of touristic experiences in naturalistic everyday interaction have a story-like quality to them which become mythologised, fabled and flamboyantly and richly narrated to friends and relatives back home. However it is often extremely difficult to collect naturally occurring data of these storied experiences. Interviews in contrast appear to have a more structured and less naturalistic quality. This paper argues that using less structured interview situations, and a very close, fine-detailed analysis of interview data that draws upon socio-linguistic approaches, it is possible to reveal the underlying narrative structure of accounts for and of touristic experience. The paper argues that the natural attitude of the tourist is a ‘narrativistic’ attitude, that an account of touristic experience requires the development of a story, to define, describe and provide reasoned accounts for touristic events. Thus stories are crucial to the development of touristic accounts, and understandings of touristic experience must take account of these narrative structures in order to fully understand what tourists do when they talk about their experiences: they talk about their identities and their worlds. This paper explores how such narratives are constructed and what ‘things’ (other than the events themselves) they communicate.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Destination Marketing Campaigns: Comparative Analysis of Conversion Studies

This article presents findings of a comparative study of destination marketing evaluation research in the United Kingdom to identify success factors, highlight best practices, and draw attention to determinants of poor performance in destination marketing campaign activities. Increasing levels of competition between tourism destinations has led to increased pressure on destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to maximize the effectiveness of their marketing spend. Therefore, the evaluation of tourism marketing campaigns reveals not only if the campaign has been successful in terms of attracting visitors but also if the expectations in terms of expenditure impact and return on investment are achieved. This study investigates the success of 18 campaigns directed to potential domestic visitors, using the conversion study technique to evaluate expenditure impact and return on investment. This article contributes to marketing practice through increased understanding of the key components that lead to a high return on investment and higher impact.

What is Told in Travel Blogs? Exploring Travel Blogs for Consumer Narrative Analysis

Blogging activity among tourists is increasing and represents an important new aspect of marketing communication in tourism. Millions of individuals have joined travel blog websites, to share their travel experiences online, and blogging has become an aspect of the tourist production and consumption process. The limited extant research on travel blogs focuses on tourists’ behaviour patterns and descriptions of destinations. In contrast, this paper examines travel blogs as textual artefacts to gain insights into how tourists construct order and make meaning from their experiences as part of the process of identity management. A narrative analysis of blogs from the three most visited travel blog websites was conducted. Tourists’ identity and sense-making were revealed by the stories that were told, the way in which they were recounted and how they were link to aspects of self-concept including values, preferences, skills, social roles and relationships.

Research Perspectives on Responsible Tourism

The vision of a more responsible form of tourism was much discussed in the 1980s and became an important element within the then emerging concept of sustainable tourism (Krippendorf, 1987: 138–139)...

Re-enactment Events and Tourism: Meaning, Authenticity and Identity

Re-enactment events have began to play a significant role in the calendars of individual attractions, regions or even nations to generate media exposure, develop inbound tourism activity and raise the cultural heritage profile of a locality for community development and/or regeneration purposes. The (re-)presentation of cultural heritage in these forms creates a unique set of interactions between landscapes, local communities, tourists and heritage organisations. In the recent past however, re-enactment events have been subjected to increased debate and criticism as to their educational value and meaning and for their contribution to understandings of cultural heritage in post-modern consumer societies. This paper presents an interdisciplinary review of these debates and draws on small scale research findings to reassess the value of re-enactment events as a means of presenting heritage to audiences. The paper argues that re-enacted historical events achieve a range of purposes and provides examples of evidence from a range of differing perspectives including: public policy and event organisers; re-enactors and academics in the field. It argues that the professional heritage industry, tourists, and re-enactors all contribute to making such events meaningful and as such they represent unique frames through which to understand issues of authenticity and identity in the production and consumption of post-modern cultural heritage attractions.

Systems of social tourism in the European Union: a critical review

Recently, the European Commission (EC) has placed a focus on social tourism issues within Europe. The underlying logic of this intervention is that social tourism aims for social equity, aiding access to tourism to provide fair tourism for all citizens and contributing towards sustainability of the European tourism industry. By linking social tourism to sustainable development, the EC sets priorities for future policies to foster mobility within the community. Yet, most European countries have different approaches, priorities and diverse ideological interpretations of the role of the state in tourism provision. Consequently, systems and practices vary strongly between nations and seem to put the ideal of a common approach a very distant prospect. This paper outlines the context of these approaches to social tourism to highlight these challenges and to propose initiatives for the future integration of the European social tourism sector. It presents a comparative analysis of social tourism systems in seven European countries with important social tourism structures. The paper assesses different interpretations of social tourism, examining development and employment issues. In addition, the paper assesses the links with the commercial tourism sector and provides recommendations for future development in the social tourism sector and consequences for European policy.

Time for a Radical Reappraisal of Tourist Decision Making? Toward a New Conceptual Model

General models of tourist decision making have been developed to theorize tourist decision processes. These models have been based on the premise that tourists are rational decision makers and utility maximizers. Further, these models have been operationalized through input–output models to measure preferences and behavioral intentions. The extent that they remain viable to explain and predict tourist behavior as tourism markets mature however is uncertain. This review article critiques these approaches and proposes a new general model based on dual system theory to account for different types of choice strategies, the constructive nature of preferences, and to recognize the individual and contextual factors that influence choice processes. The article argues that a general tourist choice model should integrate the psychological processes that determine choice strategies, or heuristics, and consider choice context. These include individual differences, task-related factors, and principles determining system engagement. Future research and practical implications are outlined.

Sustainability and marketing in tourism: its contexts, paradoxes, approaches, challenges and potential

ABSTRACT Tourism marketing has typically been seen as exploitative and fuelling hedonistic consumerism. Sustainability marketing can, however, use marketing skills and techniques to good purpose, by understanding market needs, designing more sustainable products and identifying more persuasive methods of communication to bring behavioural change. This article summarises the latest research on the theories, methods and results of marketing that seeks to make tourist destinations better places to live in, and better places to visit. It explores sustainability marketings two fundamental approaches, that of market development, using market segmentation, and that of sustainable product development. It introduces a Special Issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism on sustainable marketing, sharing evidence on the motivations, mechanisms and barriers that businesses encounter, and on successes in changing consumer behaviour and pursuing sustainability goals. Particular attention is given to the methodologies of sustainable tourism marketing, to the subjects breadth and complexity, and to its many innovations. Further research is called for to fully understand what contextual aspects influence these pro-sustainability interventions to achieve which outcomes in other settings, in order to validate some of the exploratory studies discussed, and establish the feasibility of scaling up pilot studies for more general use.

The Problem of Motivation in Understanding the Demand for Leisure Day Visits

Abstract Motivation for leisure travel has been an equivocal aspect of the study of leisure travel. Psychological theory has been useful providing conceptions of tourism motivation based on drives and needs, however, operational problems occur using attitude constructs which have varying degrees of predictive ability. This paper offers an alternative approach to the problems of motivation, taking a pheno-menological approach to the issues, using ethno-methodological techniques in a logical, sociologically grounded analysis of conversational interview data.