Causal relationship between eWOM topics and profit of rural tourism at Japanese Roadside Stations "MICHINOEKI"

Affected by urbanization, centralization and the decrease of overall population, Japan has been making efforts to revitalize the rural areas across the country. One particular effort is to increase tourism to these rural areas via regional branding, using local farm products as tourist attractions across Japan. Particularly, a program subsidized by the government called Michinoeki, which stands for 'roadside station', was created 20 years ago and it strives to provide a safe and comfortable space for cultural interaction between road travelers and the local community, as well as offering refreshment, and relevant information to travelers. However, despite its importance in the revitalization of the Japanese economy, studies with newer technologies and methodologies are lacking. Using sales data from establishments in the Kyushu area of Japan, we used Support Vector to classify content from Twitter into relevant topics and studied their causal relationship to the sales for each establishment using LiNGAM, a linear non-gaussian acyclic model built for causal structure analysis, to perform an improved market analysis considering more than just correlation. Under the hypotheses stated by the LiNGAM model, we discovered a positive causal relationship between the number of tweets mentioning those establishments, specially mentioning deserts, a need for better access and traf^ic options, and a potentially untapped customer base in motorcycle biker groups

A Sentiment Analysis of Star-rating: a Cross-Cultural Perspective

Consumer-generated reviews and ratings are critical for the tourism industry. The star rating distribution of services can significantly influence a consumer’s decision-making and choice of services. We analyze the star rating distribution of restaurant reviews from three nations (Japan, China, and the U.S.) and find two distribution patterns: bimodal and unimodal. Then, we analyze the sentiment correlation with each star rating across the three cultures. We find the inconsistency of positive sentiment correlation with 5- and 4-star ratings generated by Japanese consumers. Possible contributing factors, including biases, national culture, and socioeconomic conditions, are discusse

History at Hand: An Analysis of Self-Guided Historic Walking Tours in Whatcom County, Washington

This study explores and analyzes self-guided historic walking tours in Whatcom County, Washington, as part of Whatcom County’s heritage tourism offerings. Heritage Tourism a specialized field of tourism that has seen growth over the last several decades and has become the most successful specialized tourism market. Twelve self-guided historic walking tours were analyzed from an anthropological framework, exploring themes in multi-vocality, authenticity, sense of place, and audience engagement in interpretation. The narrative text from each tour booklet or pamphlet was analyzed using criteria developed by the author to examine the presence or absence of diversity, authenticity, audience engagement in the interpretation, and how the piece contributed to developing a sense of place for the location selected. Suggestions were made for the self-guided historic walking tours that did not meet the criteria for multi-vocality, authenticity, sense of place and audience engagement to improve the tours to include these themes in future presentations. Improvement to the presentations were informed using historic background information researched for this study using public history and ethnohistory approaches. The criteria developed by this study can be used by future historians to develop more inclusive and engaging presentations to attract a larger audience to popular tourist districts, helping to increase revenue and support local businesses

A scoping review: exploring the world of medical and wellness tourism

Purpose: Medical and wellness tourism is a growing phenomenon, and tourists all over the world are traveling with the express purpose of accessing medical treatment or promoting health through physically and psychologically beneficial activities. This industry has continued to expand with the Internet’s help, as customers can now make choices that are more appropriate and informed decisions. Design: This research employed mixed content analysis methods. The qualitative approach reproduced tourists’ appraisals and assessed the spatial relationships between terms and concepts in medical and wellness tourism, with generalizable and reproducible results. Theoretical Contribution: This study specifically adds to the literature on post-experiences of medical and wellness tourism and the impact of Web-based information through reviewers’ satisfaction and willingness to recommend facilities to others. Practical Contributions: Medical tourists’ reviews indicate shared commonalities when identifying significant factors in medical services received. These individuals also focus on cost, treatment effectiveness; time spent collecting healthcare information, and recommendations they plan to offer to friends and family. Wellness tourists perceive resort facilities—including room conditions—and thalassotherapy treatments as the primary drivers of good service. Critical attributes of room condition are overall cleanliness and room comfort, especially bed, bathroom, and shower facilities. Tourists’ reviews of their experiences of thermal spa facilities provide a strategic order in which to implement service attributes by degree of influence: thermal facilities and services, hotel reception and room, food quality and price, pool and bath access, location views and accessibility, and staff’s professionalism and friendliness. Originality: The results add to the slowly growing body of literature on medical and wellness tourism and provide significant information to prospective medical tourists, healthcare service professionals, hoteliers, and other operators who become part of tourists’ total experience. This thesis identifies new themes based on semantic analyses that explored tourists’ behavior, intentions, and overall experiences shared online.Objetivo: O Turismo Médico e de Bem-Estar é um fenómeno crescente. Turistas de todo o mundo viajam com o intuito de ter acesso a tratamento médico ou de melhorar o seu estado de saúde através de atividades físicas e psicológicas que lhes sejam benéficas. Esta indústria tem vindo a crescer com ajuda da Internet, permitindo aos turistas fazer melhores escolhas e tomar decisões informadas. Desenho da tese: Este estudo tem como base a análise de conteúdos mistos. A abordagem qualitativa reproduz as avaliações dos turistas e avalia as relações entre as narrativas e os conceitos no Turismo Médico e de Bem-Estar, obtendo resultados replicáveis e generalizáveis. Contribuição teórica: Este estudo contribui com o conhecimento teórico no setor do turismo de Saúde e Bem-estar e o impacto das opiniões dos turistas nas plataformas online como veículo para expressar satisfação e recomendar serviços a outros turistas. Contribuição prática: No Turismo Médico os comentários online indicam características comuns inerentes ao tratamento médico. Como fatores determinantes no processo de decisão os turistas realçam o preço, a eficácia do tratamento, o tempo despendido na recolha de informações medicas, e partilham recomendações com amigos e familiares. No turismo de Bem-Estar os turistas percecionam as infraestruturas do resort-incluindo as condições do quarto e os tratamentos de talassoterapia como fatores determinantes de um bom serviço. Indicam como fatores críticos -o quarto- a limpeza e o conforto em particular uma cama confortável, a casa de banho e o chuveiro. Os turistas que utilizam as Termas e Spa indicam por ordem decrescente a implementação dos seguintes serviços: acesso as termas e serviços, a receção do hotel e sala, qualidade da comida e preço, piscina e banho térmico, localização, vista e acessos bem como o profissionalismo e simpatia dos colaboradores. Originalidade: Os resultados contribuem para o desenvolvimento da literatura sobre o Turismo Medico e de Bem-Estar e sugere diretrizes para potenciais turistas médicos, profissionais de saúde, setor hoteleiro e outros operadores que integram a experiência destes turistas. Com base na análise semântica esta tese identifica novas temáticas que exploram comportamentos, intenções e experiências que os turistas compartilham online

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2021

This open access book is the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 28th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER21@yourplace virtual conference January 19–22, 2021. This book advances the current knowledge base of information and communication technologies and tourism in the areas of social media and sharing economy, technology including AI-driven technologies, research related to destination management and innovations, COVID-19 repercussions, and others. Readers will find a wealth of state-of-the-art insights, ideas, and case studies on how information and communication technologies can be applied in travel and tourism as we encounter new opportunities and challenges in an unpredictable world

Tourism in contemporary cities. Proceedings of the International Tourism Studies Association Conference: University of Greenwich, London, UK 17–19 August 2016 Conference Proceedings

The 6th International Tourism Studies Association (ITSA) Biennial conference was held at the University of Greenwich, London, England from 17‐19 August 2016. This was the first time that the conference had been held in Europe and it provided a unique opportunity to meet, hear from and network with tourism scholars and professionals from across Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. ITSA has a mission to encourage interaction and cooperation between developing and developed countries and the conference was successful in attracting 130 delegates from 29 countries. The main theme of the conference was 'Tourism in Contemporary Cities' with four conference sub‐themes of ‘Tourism Cities and Urban Tourism’, ‘The Chinese Market for European Tourism’, ‘River, Cruise and Maritime Tourism’, and ‘Heritage Tourism in Cities’, The subthemes were chosen to reflect the unique location of the conference on the UNESCO Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, and London which is Europe’s most visited tourist destination. The conference also presented ‘Dark Tourism and Cities’ and ‘Tourism and Communist Heritage’ as special sessions