Journal of Travel Research

Informed by recent developments in the field of evolutionary psychology, we elicit novel insights about the causal relationship between the activation of mating motives and gender-specific preferences for risk taking in tourism. In this endeavor, across four experimental studies, we illustrate that the effect of activating mating motives on the propensity for risk-taking tourism will be greater for men than it is for women. That is, when mating motives were salient, men consistently displayed a greater preference for the choice of high-risk travel activities (studies 1A and 1B), adventurous destination choices (study 2), and adventurous appeals in travel advertising (study 3). Our findings offer important theoretical contributions to research into the role of gender in risk-taking tourism behaviors from the perspectives both of evolution-based theorizing and managerial implications for tourism practice.

This study proposes that the structure of visitor flows within a destination significantly influences the overall economic value generated by visitors. In particular, destination network metrics (i.e., density, in-degree centralization, out-degree centralization, betweenness centralization, and global clustering coefficient) for 29 Florida counties were derived from 4.3 million geotagged photos found on the photo sharing service Flickr and then correlated with visitor-related spending reported by the Florida Department of Revenue. The results of regression analyses indicate that density, out-degree centralization, and in-degree centralization are negatively correlated with total visitor-related spending within a destination, while betweenness centralization is found to have a positive relationship. Based on these findings, it is concluded that the economic value generated by tourism is constrained by the destination network structure of supply-side and demand-side interactions. Further, it is argued that a “network orchestrator” approach to management can be used to better manage economic impacts within a destination.

The aim of this article is to propose a novel method for measuring the effect of cultural preference on bilateral tourism receipts. The method applied is inspired from Disdier et al. (2010). Using the UNESCO classification and data on bilateral trade in cultural product, a proxy for cultural preferences is constructed. The variable is used in a gravity model for tourism export, which is estimated using a two-step procedure to avoid issues related to endogeneity. The data set used is a panel of 12 OECD countries for a period of 11 years. The variable for cultural preferences eliminates the problems with traditional methods, which by using dummy variables to account for cultural preferences, assume that the latter are time-invariant and symmetrical. The cultural variable constructed is found to be significant in explaining bilateral tourism exports with an elasticity of 0.39.

We propose a conceptual framework to investigate factors influencing the supply of Airbnb units in US urban communities. Based on a sample of Airbnb supply data from 1068 zip codes in 28 major US cities, we apply a mixed-effects negative binomial model to uncover supply determinants. The results confirm the significance of five supply determinant categories, namely, hotel market demand and supply, housing market demand and supply, and short-term rental regulation. We also highlight the respective impacts of supply determinants on three different Airbnb units: entire houses, private rooms, and shared rooms. Moreover, we examine the unique effects of different types of regulation policies. In general, regulations related to tailored legal framework and hostile enforcement significantly decrease Airbnb unit supply.

While travel for physical well-being has long been a practice, medical tourism is an emerging phenomenon characterized by medical care combined with holiday-making activities. The medical tourism industry has rapidly grown due to exponential growth in the number of medical tourists worldwide. Despite this upsurge in practice, less research attention has been devoted to exploring the experience and perceptions of medical tourists toward the wide range of services available to them at medical destinations. This article conceptualizes a construct called “medical tourism experience” and develops a scale that measures it. A rigorous scale development procedure is employed, and four studies are conducted. Seven dimensions of this construct are explored, namely, treatment quality, medical service quality, medical tourism expense, medical tourism infrastructure, destination appeal, destination culture, and ease of access. The results reveal considerable opportunity for marketers and policy makers to increase the attractiveness of medical destinations and gain sustainable competitive advantages.

Prior research demonstrates that status demotion in the loyalty reward program heightens negative emotions, particularly when demotion is due to changes in company policies. In this research, we argue that such negative emotions are likely to spillover to evaluations of post-demotion promotions. We further argue that such spillover effects should be attenuated among individuals high in need for status. Study 1 examines the joint effect of the cause of demotion and customers’ need for status on loyalty. In study 2, we investigate the impact of exclusivity cues in post-demotion promotions and show that exclusive promotions diminish the negative impact of policy-based demotions on post-promotion loyalty among individuals high (vs. low) in need for status. Travel and tourism companies might want to consider using geographical location as a proxy for need for status or priming status-seeking via exclusive promotions (“elevate your travel experience”) to alleviate demoted customers’ negative emotions.

Deviant tourist behavior is destructive to both the tourist experience and tourism development. Punishment and reward are two regulation approaches that are widely used to reduce deviant tourist behavior. However, few scholars have considered why punishment and reward are occasionally ineffective. Based on reinforcement sensitivity theory, this article explored the effects of punishment and reward on reducing deviant tourist behavior intention. Following the rules of a quasi-experiment design, a scenario-based survey was conducted to test hypotheses. The results showed that both punishment and reward have negative effects on deviant tourist behavior intention. However, groups with high sensitivity and groups with low sensitivity to punishment or reward exhibited significant disparities. In addition, the awareness of the impact of tourism was found to mediate the effects of punishment and reward on reducing deviant tourist behavior intention. This study contributes to a better understanding of this phenomenon for scholars and practitioners.

Tour guides are very important for elderly tourists, but very few studies have focused on their roles in the senior tourism market. Thus, this study proposed that senior tourists’ perceptions of tour guides’ professional competencies play an important role in the formation of rapport with the tour guide. Rapport is a concept to show a close relationship between the customer and the employee. Additionally, it was hypothesized that this rapport enhances satisfaction with the guide service, tour satisfaction, and word of mouth. Lastly, the moderating role of product knowledge was proposed during the theory-building process. The data were collected from 325 elderly tourists in Korea. The results indicated that professional skills and professional attitude have a positive influence on rapport with the tour guide, which in turn positively affects satisfaction with the guide service, tour satisfaction, and word of mouth. Furthermore, this study found the important role of product knowledge as a moderator.

This article aims to examine the link between European economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and tourism activities in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain using wavelet transform context structures. This innovative technique allows the decomposition of time-series at different time frequencies. In this work, we used continuous wavelets, wavelet coherency, and wavelet phase difference based on Granger causality analysis to investigate the relationship between European EPU and tourism using the annual data from 1995 to 2015. The results indicate that there is a unidirectional causal influence of European EPU on international tourism receipts (ITR) in the short run and a bidirectional causal influence of European EPU on ITR in European countries in the long run. Accordingly, it can be recommended that the government needs to increase and promote tourism demand and to further provide and nurture the expansion of tourism supply.

African-Americans in the United States have long since been confronted with harassment and discrimination while traveling because of segregated lodging, restaurants, and other leisure activities. However, African-Americans/Blacks are one of the fastest-growing tourist groups. This work builds on previous research on the Black travel experience analyzing over 300 tweets using the trending hashtag #TravelingWhileBlack through a critical race theory lens. By analyzing how Black tourists are traveling, this study reveals how experiential knowledge of Black travelers can contribute to the learning environment of the tourism industry. Three emergent themes were identified: (1) occurrences of racism, (2) awareness of being Black while traveling, and (3) meaningful experiences traveling while Black, suggesting that experiential knowledge of travelers of color brings different perspectives, which will, it is hoped, move toward eliminating all forms of subordination and create a more just society.

Beside the physical impacts of climate change, society’s perceptions of climate change and its reactions at different stages of decision-making levels have become critical issues. This study presents the perspective of tourists who have previously visited Florida, in a hypothetical scenario of changed climatic conditions. It is proposed that existing social representations about climate change, and therefore individuals’ attitudes, views, and beliefs about this phenomenon, need to be taken into account when examining tourists’ stated responses to climate change and subsequent potential shifts in tourism demand. The existence of a relationship between tourists’ visitation intentions toward a destination impacted by climate change and the social representations they hold with respect to climate change itself offers an alternative way to look at tourists’ stated responses. This study concludes that predicting shifts in tourism demand based on tourist visitation intentions requires caution when dealing with climate change.

This article analyzes cruise tourism seasonality in Southern Europe, assessing the seasonal concentration levels by means of the Gini index. The additive decomposition of this index is used to evaluate the contribution of each port to the global seasonal concentration in the regions where they are located. It also allows the estimation of marginal relative effects to identify the most propitious ports for reducing seasonality within the Mediterranean regions. The analysis is complemented by estimating the seasonal patterns of each port. Given the significant heterogeneity revealed in the regions analyzed, a bootstrapped bagged clustering is applied to classify the ports into homogeneous groups according to their seasonal patterns. The techniques used form a methodological framework that serves as a control and monitoring tool for measuring seasonal concentration levels in cruise tourism, allowing for policies against seasonality to be tailored for this segment.

Air pollution is one of the biggest challenges for human health, and this is especially true for PM_2.5 pollution in developing countries like China. Much of the PM_2.5 research has been conducted in urban areas, but most tourist attractions are outdoors and outside cities and have been left out of related studies, leaving tourists unaware of the deadly air. To fill this gap, we investigated monthly PM_2.5 concentrations in all of China’s outdoor tourist attractions. Our results indicated that summer is the healthiest time to travel in the Northeast, South, Southwest, and Northwest of China. Without air pollution management, our results also indicated that more than one third of the outdoor attractions would become unhealthy throughout the year. Thus, our work provides medical information to suggest that all tourists schedule China travel during periods of healthy air quality and also calls for instant air pollution management in China and beyond.