News from the motherland: a content analysis of existential tourism magazines in Southern China

Ethnic Chinese who reside outside of mainland China proper constitute an enormous opportunity for tourism and economic development in China (Lew & Wong, 2003). Overseas Chinese have a strong sense of common origin, based on both racial and cultural grounds, which are further enhanced by business, social, and familial ties. These ties often take the form of existential tourism, which Cohen (1979) defined as travel back to a personal or spiritual “center” located away from one's home. This article presents the results of a content analysis of publications from Guangdong Province in China for ethnic Chinese residing outside of China. The content analysis results indicated that very strong existential tourism ties exist between Guangdong Province and the US and Canada in North America, and to adjacent Hong Kong and Macau. Examples of efforts to strengthen common origins included 56 articles on biographies of overseas Chinese individuals and 24 articles on overseas Chinese society and culture (out of 176 articles examined). Other major topics included efforts to build networks and investments, domestic news articles, donation story articles, education-related articles, investment-related articles, and articles on activities of local overseas Chinese Affairs Offices. Stories of rootfinding visits and the theme of “Love of -Country” were also prominent. These magazines indicated how local overseas Chinese Affairs Offices are proactive in strengthening ties with overseas Chinese through travel and tourism, upon which social and then business networks can be established

Perceptions of tourists and tour guides in Singapore

Significant differences exist between tourists and professional tour guides in their perceptions of place. A survey conducted in Singapore of English-speaking foreign tourists and their local tour guides found this to be the case. Tour guides highlighted the major hotels and attractions, while downplaying less prominent sites and events. Tourists also seek the major attractions, but at the same time want a broader and more complex experience. These differences can be attributed to the roles of tourists as guests and tour guides as culture brokers, and in the behavioral space associated with these roles. Survey results demonstrate the importance of understanding these roles in international and cross-cultural tourism

Long Tail tourism: New geographies for marketing niche tourism products

The Long Tail concept refers to the Internet-based economy that has enabled company success through a focus on highly specialized services and products that are not in high volume demand, but maybe in high-value demand. The concept of the post-tourist, for example, is a Long Tail phenomenon. Long Tail marketing approaches are proving success due to advances in technology and social networking that have given more people access to a broader range of goods and services and information. The Long Tail is not without its challenges, including increased global competition, and has not abandoned geographic considerations. Geography, in fact, can help to differentiate niche products and must still be overcome to consummate the tourist experience

Social media for academic programs & departments

Social media for organizations, such as an academic department or a degree program, consist of a range of web-based applications that allow anyone to disseminate information to online communities. The principle reasons for creating a social media presence for an academic department or program include: (1) Create an online social community for current students; (2) Create an extended community of alumni and friends; and (3) Create an awareness of the department or program among potential students

Trip destinations, gateways and itineraries: the example of Hong Kong

Trip itinerary data present analytical problems because of the great diversity of routes that travelers follow and the varying significance of destinations along those routes. Most of the models that have been proposed to deal with this complexity have focused either on the total number of travelers from one country to another, or on the overall pattern of entire trips. An alternative and complementary approach is to examine the relative location of a destination within the larger itinerary pattern. Depending on their location within the overall trip itinerary, places can exhibit characteristics of one or more destination types: Single Destination, Gateway Destination, Egress Destination, Touring Destination, or Hub Destination. Data collected on international air travelers to Hong Kong exhibited the first four of these five patterns. Taiwan and Singapore residents primarily used Hong Kong as a Single Destination for short break shopping holidays and for business. US and Australian residents were the most likely to use Hong Kong as a trip Gateway and as a Touring Destination, especially as the Gateway for a trip to China, but Hong Kong also served as a Gateway for trips to destinations in East and Southeast Asia and, for US residents, to Australia. Residents of China were more likely to use Hong Kong as a trip Egress Destination than were others. Hong Kong has traditionally considered itself primarily as a ‘gateway to China’ and an ‘Asian travel hub’. Hong Kong, and other destinations, could benefit from being more aware of their role as an Egress Destination and of their relationships with destinations that travelers visit before and after their arrival

Quantile regression analysis of visitor spending: An example of mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong: Working paper series--09-06

A common approach to market segmentation based on visitor expenditures is to use the least-squares regression analysis to determine statistically significant variables upon which key market segments are identified for marketing purposes. This was done by Wang (2004) for survey data based on expenditures by Mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong. We use this same dataset to demonstrate the benefits of using the quantile regression analysis approach to better identify tourist spending patterns and market segments. The quantile regression measures tourist spending in different categories against a fixed range of dependent variable, which distinguished between lower, medium, and higher spenders. The results show that quantile regression is less susceptible to influence by outlier values and is better able to target finer tourist spending market segments

Book review of "Tourism and leisure landscapes: Social and cultural geographies."

Book review

Understanding Environmental and Social Change using Photo Sorting Methods

This study aims to examine how residents and visitors perceive social and environmental changes using photo sorting methods. The data for this study was collected using historic photographs representing various human and environmental change in the Khumbu (Mt Everest) region of epal as stimuli in two photo sorting tasks (multiple sort and Q sort). The multidimensional scaling models of multiple sort data revealed the three major dimensions of changes including tourism, cultural and landscape. The Q sort data shows that there are differences between local residents and outsiders, and younger and older groups of respondents in terms of how these changes were perceived. Local residents’ and outsiders’ perspectives differ on modernization, such as TV, the internet, and other technology, which supports the despondency theory

Consumption-led mobilized urbanism: socio-spatial separation in the second-home city of Sanya

Tourism and recreational second home development has increased rapidly in peripheral and lower-tier cities of China in recent years. While tourism-led real estate development has been widely accepted as an effective investment opportunity, it can increase urban segregation and stratification. This pattern is seen in the resort city of Sanya on Hainan Island, China. Sanya’s recreational second homes vary in form and can be categorized into (1) elite-vacation second homes (short stay, private homes), (2) lifestyle-migration second homes (short stay, commercial homes), and (3) retirement-migration second homes (longer term, seasonal homes). Unlike the segregated cities formed by displaced labor migrants in many of China’s cities, seasonal recreational migrants are both economically better-off and are emerging as a dominant political force. The segregated residential spaces created by Sanya’s second home development landscape further limits interaction and social network building between indigenous local residents and part-time recreational migrants. The perceived home space and feelings of place attachment towards Sanya is under drastic change, with locals feeling increasingly displaced. The new mosaic of consumption-led amenity cities in developing economies is one where traditional models of migration-based segregation are reversed.Wealthier second home migrants have the capacity for more political power than local residents, as well as relying more on non-localized social networks and multi-nodal home spaces. Consumption-led mobility is an important determinant in building explanations of socio-spatial segregation and stratification in global cities that are undergoing dramatic development change

Using quantile regression to understand visitor spending

A common approach to assessing visitor expenditures is to use least-squares regression analysis to determine statistically significant variables upon which key market segments are identified for marketing purposes. This was done by Wang (2004) for survey data based on expenditures by Mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong. In this research note we use this same dataset to demonstrate the benefits of using quantile regression analysis to better identify tourist spending patterns and market segments. The quantile regression method measures tourist spending in different categories against a fixed range of dependent variables, which distinguishes between lower, medium, and higher spenders. The results show that quantile regression is less susceptible to influence by outlier values and is better able to target finer tourist spending market segments