Guiding Tourists to Their Ancestral Homes

Purpose: This paper introduces measures of the motivation of tourists who travel to their ancestral homes. A set of learning exercises is presented for students and managers to apply understanding of these motives to tourism strategies. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper provides a brief review of the literature of heritage tourism and the special segment that travel with genealogical objectives. Survey data on motives to seek out ancestors is provided with learning exercises to link motives to tourism planning. Findings: Data on the importance of multiple motives is presented with analytical measures of their overall importance levels and of differences between U.S. and U.K. samples. Research Limitations/Implications: The motivational variables and data collection are primarily exploratory, focusing on samples that are interested in genealogy and heritage tourism. Further research could certainly be expanded to cover broader populations of tourists and genealogists. Practical Implications: By combining primary research with trade association research included in this paper students and tourism managers have the opportunity to apply research findings to tourism and hospitality decision-making to attract and satisfy tourists who have genealogical goals in their travel agendas. Originality/Value: Data based on the important and growing domain of motivational research in ancestral/genealogical related tourism has not been presented for analysis and application until now. Strength of motives and differences between nationalities of tourists presents a unique analytical opportunity in learning exercises

Branding Basques, Bilbao, and Boise: Marketing as Metaphor for History

Purpose – Naturally occurring brands combine history, anthropology, sociology and marketing to explain the phenomenon of communities defined by a sense of place. Focusing on both the Basque Country and Basques in Boise, Idaho, we discuss the naturally occurring brand of the Basque people throughout history into the modern day. We explain who the Basques are and how they have branded themselves through language, place, industry, food, drink and culture with mention of similarities to other communities and the lessons that other ethnic/cultural communities can learn. The purpose of the paper is to address the “marketing and imagined communities; nations and cities as brands” suggestion in this conference’s call for papers. In particular, this paper reveals instances where Basques, consciously or not, branded themselves through products and artifacts that simultaneously serve as windows into this often overlooked culture, hence the “metaphor for history.” Approach – Both a marketer and a historian join efforts to discuss branding and a people’s history. A variety of branding issues are discussed in relationship to the Basque people via a history timeline and marketing branding literature. Photographs are included to highlight key points. Research Limitations – This paper is descriptive, not empirical. It introduces many different branding topics without, by necessity, much elaboration of each topic. Other marketers and historians, with equally good knowledge of the Basque community, might choose other branding issues to highlight and still other researchers might verify by a quantitative study of perceptions of agreement from Basque communities

Personal Identity And Nostalgia For The Distant Land Of Past: Legacy Tourism

“The past is certainly a distant land and getting there is a difficult and imperfect undertaking” (Brown, Hirschman & Maclaran (2006). This paper explores motivations behind how consumers reach that “distant land.” Over 1,000 respondents of a variety of ethnic groups show very different stories and diaspora timelines, but personal identity and connection with place are always top ranked motivations for interest in ancestors. How might groups, who may suffer from a lack of identity, fit into these findings when ‘personal identity’ is the number one reason why consumers engage in genealogy and legacy tourism? Whether a group is well defined (e.g., descended from Norwegian ancestors) or not well defined, results are remarkably similar

“It Broadens Your View of Being Basque”: Identity Through History, Branding and Cultural Policy

The purpose of the paper is to address what is the impact of the synthesis between Basque history, branding identity and Law 8/1994 on Basque identity in the homeland and Diaspora. Naturally occurring brands combine history, anthropology, sociology, and marketing to explain the phenomenon of communities defined by a sense of place. Focusing on both the Basque Country and Basques in Boise, Idaho as one case study, the authors discuss how the naturally occurring brand and cultural policy of the Basque people became formalized 20 years ago with Law 8/1994. The article addresses who the Basques are and how they have branded themselves through language, place, industry, food, drink, and culture. Similarities to other communities are explored so that other ethnic/cultural communities can learn from this Diaspora cultural policy discussion

Commemoration and Poppies: Cambridge, and Other American Battle Monuments Commission Cemeteries’ Mission on Anniversary Years

The English language does not have the words to describe something as powerful as this1 Around the beginning of August 2014, the grassy moat around the Tower of London became a field of red ceramic poppies to commemorate the centenary of World War I. As Remembrance Day (Veterans Day, in the United States) on November 11 approached, millions travelled from all over the London area, the country, and indeed the world, to view \u27Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.\u27 This display became so popular that the Mayor of London, as well as the leaders of the three major political parties and many average citizens, petitioned for the display to remain in place even after Remembrance Day. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in the nation where its native son John McCrea, the surgeon from Toronto who wrote the famous World War I poem, “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,” immediately after the October 22, 2014 terrorist attack in Ottawa on Parliament, there was a push for the Royal Canadian Legion to start selling poppies earlier than normal for November 11 Remembrance Day (Yuen, 2014). While Remembrance Day is commemorated every year, 2014 took on heightened importance as the year was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War One. Clarke and Eastgate (2011) found in their research that the “sense of anniversary” (40) added “to the cultural value” of visits to commemorative sites. The recent list of these anniversaries and commemorations is lengthy. In June 2014, the 70th anniversary of D-Day was celebrated. More recently, related Victory in Europe and “VJ” days were commemorated. Eight hundred years ago, the foundation of English law, the Magana Carta was signed. In 2015, the Queen visited the Runnymede site and major exhibits were on display around Britain. In addition, Belgium saw huge numbers of tourists for the June 2015 reenactment and associated ceremonies on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The Belgian city of Ieper (Ypres) sees an important contribution to its economy based on the daily “last post” ceremony at the Menin Gate which has seen even more attendees at the ceremony during the centenary. Visitors are often surprised at how many actually go to attend. Comments such as, “I was surprised by the number of people at the memorial. I arrived half an hour before the Last Call and there was a very large crowd already gathered at the memorial,” often appear on TripAdvisor in relationship to the Last Post ceremony

ALIENATION AND COMPUTER USER ATTITUDES

The social psychological phenomenon of alienation has been used to explain feelings of separation and estrangement with our increasingly technological society since it was first proposed by Marx. The present study represents an application of the theory of alienation to the attitudes of computer users in an attempt to explain their feelings, especially negative feelings, which have heretofore been vaguely referred tO aS frustration, dissatisfaction, etc. The result is a systematic decomposition of these attitudes into various components of alienation which are consistent with the already well-established theory of alienation. Several hypotheses are tested, including examination of the effect of education on computer alienation

Beyond Downton Abbey: Remembering the Great War’s Fallen through Education and Marketing

This paper explores the expanding marketing and education mission of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). Superintendents at overseas cemeteries and battle sites must continue their job of “keeping the headstones white and the grass green” but also must market specific events such as the 70th anniversary of D-Day at the Normandy location and an upcoming 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War in 2018. Part of the effort is passing the memory on to the next generation via materials relevant to young people today. U.S. history teachers who received ABMC grants to travel to Meuse-Argonne in France (the resting place of the most U.S. fallen of any overseas cemetery) to prepare materials to teach World War I served as one of two samples for empirical data. Another sample was drawn from battlefield tourists who visited the Normandy World War II beaches on the 70th anniversary of D-Day. Results show “maintaining the memory”, “telling others,” and “simple connection to values/heritage” are key phrases chosen by the respondents on a battlefield tourism survey. From both groups, “I feel proud to visit” was important. “Pilgrimage” is more relevant for the older D-Day group than the young teachers, but both groups indicated that direct interaction with the veterans who were there (Canadian D-Day vets, or in the case of World War I, the teachers spent time with children of WWI soldiers) were major highlights of the trip. Future research will investigate whether these themes are still important motivators once the era of anniversaries is over

Beyond Downton Abbey: Remembering the Great War\u27s Fallen Through Education and Marketing

This paper explores the expanding marketing and education mission of the American Battle Monuments Commission (AMBC). Superintendents at overseas cemeteries and battle sites must continue their job of “keeping the headstones white and the grass green” but also must market specific events such as the 70th anniversary of D-Day at the Normandy location and an upcoming 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War in 2018. Part if the effort is passing the memory on to the next generation via materials relevant to young people today. U.S. history teachers who received ABMC grants to travel to Meuse-Argonne in France (the resting place of the most U.S. fallen of any overseas cemetery) to prepare material to teach World War I served as one of two samples for empirical data. Another sample was drawn from battlefield tourists who visited the Normandy World War II beaches on the 70th Anniversary of D-Day. Results show “maintaining the memory”, “telling others,” and “simple connection to values/heritage” are key phrases chosen by the respondents on a battlefield tourism survey. From both groups, “I feel proud to visit” was important. “Pilgrimage” is more relevant for the older D-Day group than the younger teachers, but both groups indicated that direct interaction with the veterans who were there (Canadian D-Day vets, or in the case of World War I, the teachers spent time with children of WWI soldiers) were major highlights of the trip. Future research will investigate whether these themes are still important motivators once the era of anniversaries is over

The Challenge Of Creating And Maintaining Respected Country-Of-Origin Assets: The Irish Linen Story

The idea that country images and brand images can be strongly linked is well accepted in international marketing (Paswan et al, 2003; Al-Sulaiti and Baker, 1998; Li and Murray, 2000; Zhang, 1997). A country image projected to the rest of the world is very complex (O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2000; Insch and McBride, 2002) and multidimensional (Papadopoulos and Heslop, 2002). Some products and their countries are linked so strongly that the brand images include their country of origin (COO).  Certain Irish products have such a linkage.  A Chicago Tribune article observes that when tourists go to Ireland they often are unable to resist buying fine handmade products that are known worldwide for their quality, such as Aran sweaters, Irish linen and lace, tweeds, Waterford crystal, Belleek china, and Celtic motif jewelry and pewter (Merin, 1991).  Of those fine products, linen is inseparably linked with the nation as Irish linen.  Irish linen is now a brand name that yields the benefits and problems inherent with brand status and subject to the influences of country of image effects