A Comparison of State and Local Welcome Center Visitors: Issues Regarding Sampling Frame Generalizability

Tourism is an important industry in the United States and for more regional economies, motivating research exploring characteristics of tourist consumers and their travel behavior. This paper deals with the issue of sampling frame generalizability for tourism research. Visitors to state and local welcome centers were compared in terms of their area awareness, respondent and travel party demographics, and expenditures. Significant differences were found between the groups, questioning the generalizability of data collected at state welcome centers

Social Media Influencer Perceived Source Credibility Scale Validation and Consumer Attitudes Toward the Brand: An Exploratory Study in Urban India

This study explores the relationship between social media influencers (SMIs) perceived source credibility and the formation of brand attitudes of their followers from an urban Indian sample. SMIs have become a channel in shaping consumers’ brand perceptions for products and services across multiple industries worldwide. Using survey data from India, this research delves into the dimensions of SMI perceived source credibility and attitudes towards the brand. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) validated the concept that SMI perceived source credibility is a second order construct that is comprised of SMI perceived expertise, goodwill and trustworthiness. Also, that partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) suggests that SMI perceived source credibility is positively related to followers’ brand attitudes in India. These findings complement Hofstede Insights on cultural theory and suggest that culture plays an important role in determining the mechanics of influencer marketing

Using Focus Groups and Correspondence Analysis to Explore the Relationship Between Millennials\u27 Online Behavior and Their Opinions of Online Reviews

Consumer decision-making regarding a purchase is usually influenced by feedback received from other people in addition to prior experiences/beliefs/attitudes and marketer dominated information. Such diverse sources of influence are collectively referred to as the influence mix (Simonson and Rosen 2014). Of the different sources in the influence mix, word-of-mouth (i.e., feedback received from other people) is one of the most impactful sources of information (Duan, Gu, and Whinston 2008). With the advent of e-tailers on the Internet, the influence of word-of-mouth communication has grown significantly in the form of online consumer reviews (Schindler ad Bickart 2012). Research has shown that online reviews significantly influence consumer purchase decisions (see, for example, Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Senecal and Nantel 2004). Further, according to Zhu and Zhan (2010), 24% of Internet consumers avail themselves of online reviews before buying an offering offline; additionally, the authors note that an increasing number of firms persuade consumers to spread word of their offerings online

The Impact of the Social Media Influencer Power on Consumer Attitudes toward the Brand: The Mediating/Moderating Role of Social Media Influencer Source Credibility

This paper presents a conceptual model of the impact of social media influencer power on consumer attitudes toward a brand. The research uses naïve theories of social influence, consumer socialization theory and market signaling theory to support the contention that social media influencer power will impact consumer brand attitudes. However, the impact of the social media influencer power on consumer brand attitudes is posited to be mediated and/or moderated by the social media influencer source credibility. In turn, the social media influencer source credibility is modeled as being positively related to the social media influencer’s expertise/competence with respect to the product, the social media influencer’s goodwill toward the consumer, and the social media influencer’s trustworthiness

Entrepreneurship Marketing in North Carolina’s Wine Industry

Entrepreneurial marketing seeks to create, communicate and deliver value to customers and manage customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization. This paper explores whether increased entrepreneurial marketing practices at North Carolina wineries can lead to enhanced winery performance. A web survey was delivered to N.C. wineries by email. The results suggest that winery customer intensity and innovation was positively related to winery satisfaction of winery performance. Also, innovation and value creation were found to be positively related to percentage sales change at wineries

An Empirical Taxonomy of Tourist Information Search Strategies

An empirical taxonomy of tourists’ information search strategies is developed based on a survey of a large sample of tourists. The taxonomy reveals five different information search strategies. Each search strategy consists of the combination of individual information sources used by tourists in pre-trip planning. The five information search strategies are related to select tourist demographic characteristics, trip activities, accommodation choices, and general media preferences. The results indicate a multivariate relationship between tourist demographics and information search strategies. Furthermore, information search strategies are related to tourists’ preferred trip activities and choice of accommodations. Implications of the taxonomy for tourism marketing and research are discussed

The Relationships Between Prosocial Consumer Behavior, Consumer Resilience, Consumer Risk Taking Propensity and Consumer Hoarding During COVID-19

The Relationships Between Prosocial Consumer Behavior, Consumer Resilience, Consumer Risk Taking Propensity and Consumer Hoarding During COVID-1

Trends and patterns in surface water chemistry in Europe and North America between 1990 and 2016, with particular focus on changes in land use as a confounding factor for recovery

The report presents trends in sulphate, nitrate, chloride, base cations, ANC (acid neutralising capacity), pH and DOC at circa 500 ICP Waters sites in Europe and North America for the period 1990-2016. Time series were analysed for trends in annual median values, annual extreme values and change points, that indicate years with sudden changes in trend or level. Also provided is a brief overview of possible implications of land use change for recovery of acidified surface waters