Beer Tourists: Who Are They?

Craft beer as an industry has been growing rapidly across the United States over the past decade. This growth and interest has created an emerging niche market in tourism, beer tourism. The purpose of this study is to expand on the knowledge of who a beer tourist is based on demographics, psychographics, and motivational factors. Also, this paper explored if this miconiche could be further divided into more specific segments. Results from the study show that the main motivation for beer tourists to visit a brewery is related to experiencing/ tasting new beers and learning more about the beer, brewery, or industry. It was also found that visitor’s whose main travel purpose was to visit the brewery were statistically significantly different on 5 motivational items than those visitors who had an alternative main purpose to their visit

Differences Between Tourism Professionals’ Value of Sustainable Tourism

This paper is an exploratory investigation to access the value a stakeholder group places on the different dimensions of sustainable tourism. Most definitions of sustainable tourism include three dimensions: economic, social and environmental. This study used on an online survey to determine if members of the Southeast Tourism Society understood that sustainable tourism included all three dimensions, and if they valued those three dimensions differently. Results and conclusions will be presented at the conference

USING DECISION TREES TO IDENTIFY TOURISM STAKEHOLDERS BASED ON LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION IN TOURISM AND COMMUNITY POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of decision tree analysis in the identification of stakeholders who participate in and who do not participate in tourism and political activities in a community. Decision tree analysis is a tool for partitioning a data set based on the relationships between a set of independent variables and a dependent variable. The research reported here tests the application of, decision tree analysis, an analytical technique that is not traditionally used to segment stakeholders in tourism. Based on the results of the decision tree analysis four groups were identified: high participants, high-moderate participants, lowmoderate participants, and low participants

Examining farm-to-table during the COVID-19 pandemic: Sustainability and the chef-farmer relationship in times of stress

Food is foundational to culture. While farm-to-table culinary tourism has expanded greatly over the past several decades, the abrupt onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly reversed course overnight. In the U.S., many restaurants were shuttered for several months and subsequently had to alter their business model to reopen. Meanwhile, farmers that worked closely with chefs were vulnerable to dramatic changes in purchasing habits. Therefore, this study sought to explore the relationship between chefs and farmers and how the stress of the pandemic impacted these relationships. It also looked at the role of shared sustainability values on the farmer-chef relationship during times of stress. The study took place between October 2020 and March 2021 and involved in-depth virtual interviews with farmers and chefs. Preliminary results suggest that while working relationships are not always contingent on shared values, shared sustainability values can be critical in maintaining these connections during difficult times

Predictors of Repeat Winery Visitation in North Carolina

Wine tourism is a relatively fledging industry with a range of important economic development issues. One issue is the identification of key drivers of repeat business, in this case, intention to pay a return visit to a winery or wine region. The purpose of this study is to identify specific factors that may influence wine tourists’ intentions to revisit a winery or wine region in North Carolina. Exhaustive CHAID decision tree analysis was used to identify statistically significant visitor characteristics influencing respondents’ intentions to revisit a winery or wine region in North Carolina. Customer service and the importance it has to the visitors was found to be the best predictor of their intention to revisit

Examining barriers, motivations, and perceptions of women working in the tourism industry: Case study of Ayampe, Ecuador

The notion of examining gender is gaining momentum across disciplines as an important phenomenon to understand (Kincheloe & Mclaren, 2008). The tourism field is one such area that has made sizeable contributions to the literature; however there is a lack of research focusing on women and tourism in developing countries. This is an exploratory case study of a rural community in Ecuador. Using community-based research methodology and a gender and development framework, this study explores the motivations, barriers and perceptions towards women seeking employment in the tourism industry and identified disparities between the perceptions of men and women in regard to the potential for women securing employment in the industry. The themes that emerged from the data may be grouped as those indicating barriers: gender role expectations, machismo, and poor education; and as motivators: economic benefits, opportunity to learn new things, purpose in life, and education for their children

NC Agricultural Tourism Directional Signage Program (NCATDSP) Study

This research project focused on studying the NCATDSP (North Carolina Agricultural Tourism Directional Signage Program) from a regulatory standpoint and benchmarking it against other similar highway signage programs in select states across the country. NCATDSP is currently co-administered by NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDA&CS) and NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT). A total of 21 different highway signage programs across 10 different states were studied, including NCATDSP, NC Logos and NC TODS. Additionally, many interviews were held with key stakeholders in North Carolina and the selected peer states to collect data and information needed for the analysis

A Learning Theory Framework for Sustainability Education in Tourism.

As efforts abound across tourism educator networks to craft plans for guiding educational responses to the threats of tourism to people and the planet, it is worth exploring areas in which such labors might be made more efficient, and thus more timely and productive. In this article, we examine how the concept of learning systems can serve as a useful tool for identifying opportunities to improve sustainability education planning in tourism. We provide a conceptual framework for sustainability education that moves beyond current models by incorporating additional concepts from learning theory and from a 2-year curricular revision process

Study of Visitors to North Carolina Wineries

The wine and grape industry generates a significant economic impact in North Carolina’s rural communities. In 2009 the wine and grape industry generated 7,600 jobs and $1.2 billion in total annual economic impact in the state. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that NC’s wine tourism revenue grew 27$156 million in wine tourism revenue

Wine tourist valuation of information sources: the role of prior travel

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine winery visitors’ use of information sources in making decisions regarding the choice of wineries to visit. Enrichment theory is used as a framework for determining how previous experience influences the decision on how much and what type of information individuals will use when planning a trip using wine tourism as the context for the research. Design/methodology/approach: A visitor study was conducted at 23 wineries in the US Southeast. Data were collected from winery visitors using a structured self-administered questionnaire. Findings: Results from 832 consumers indicate that an individual’s previous travel systematically influences the number and type of information sources that they will seek out when making future consumer decisions. Findings confirmed the hypothesized expectations about wine tourist information search behavior and help to partially explain the nature of bounded rationality in the case of tourists’ winery visit decisions. Research limitations/implications: Because the study focused only on winery visitors in the US Southeast, the research results may lack generalizability. Practical implications: These findings can assist winery owners and destinations with wineries in their promotional efforts. Of major importance is the finding that increases in experiential knowledge from prior travel are monotonically associated with increases in the number of information sources marked to be valuable in selecting a winery. The influence of experience is particularly dramatic in that the mean number of information sources marked to be valuable moves from a low of 2.5 to a high of 10.0 out of 16 as travel experience increases. Originality/value: The study contributed significant and useful findings that advance the application of enrichment theory to wine tourism. Enrichment theory does not currently differentiate between types of knowledge that enrich a consumer’s ability to more easily encode and use new information. The current study confirms that experiential knowledge is an important knowledge construct in models of bounded rationality