Journal of Vacation Marketing

Since the 1990s, the Asia-Pacific region’s world market share of international travelers has increased, as America’s and Europe’s shares have fallen. China (People’s Republic of China) has become the world’s biggest tourism source market with an overseas spend of US$292 billion in 2015, fueling opportunities for the region and beyond. Now, Asia Pacific outbound travel is extending past short-haul interregional travel to long-haul destinations, specifically Europe. To realize this potential, European destinations need a better understanding of the Chinese traveler; their perceptions of destinations, awareness, and loyalty. This study measures the brand equity of Switzerland and Austria as perceived by Hong Kong Chinese tourists. Structural equation modeling results indicate that destination brand image and associations significantly impact brand loyalty, whereas destination awareness does not, contrary to past interregional research findings. Understanding the influence of brand components on overall brand equity supports the efficacy of the brand equity model for interregional destinations.

A global demographic shift is leading to an increasing number of older citizens, particularly in the most developed regions, and social tourism is becoming growingly relevant throughout Europe, especially in Spain, where it has been successfully developed by the Institute for Elderly and Social Services (IMSERSO) programs. The aim of this study is to create a profile of older tourists according to the types of trips they make. It uses a multinomial logistic regression to rate older citizens according to their motivation, travel, and sociodemographic characteristics. Results show that older tourists prefer organized trips regardless of whether they travel on IMSERSO trips or any other type of package tour.

Understanding how satisfaction can be guaranteed when participants arrive from different and diverse national cultures is of crucial importance. The objective of our study is to identify key factors that influence the participants involved in intercultural service encounters in their efforts to solve problems arising during encounters within a hotel context. As part of our study, we carried out in-depth interviews with representatives from both the service provider and the customer. A comprehensive framework was constructed based on the analyses of the interviews with the help of constructivist grounded theory, in order to identify the factors that may prove to be significant in intercultural service encounters. Findings of the study highlight the potential communication and cultural barriers faced by participants of the interaction when their efforts to solve problems, as they transpire, ultimately depends on their personal characteristics and experience as well as their knowledge of and openness to other cultures. Managerial implications of this study suggest that flexibility of the service employees’ behaviour and their adaptation to customer needs are an important part of training programs, but also need to include elements of intercultural sensitivity. An important implication for marketers is that they should reflect on the basic expectations of customers relating to the need for adaptation or the need for exploring the differences. While it is important to know and react properly to customers’ expectations, it is just as important to manage them through communication tools.

Price, service-quality expectations and emotions have all been found to play a key role in customers’ assessments of offers, but little attention has been given to how these variables interrelate. This article presents an original model to study these interrelations. The model was tested on a sample of 841 hotel customers using structural equation modelling. The results show that the stronger the customers’ emotions, the more likely they were to perceive the product as cheap and the higher their predictive expectations of service quality. Additionally, although the observed price level influenced customers’ predictive expectations, the perception of a product as expensive or cheap did not. These findings have important business implications.

This article aims to expand our understanding of the main drivers of traveler’s intention to visit a long-haul holiday destination drawing on a model of consumer-based brand equity. The authors propose and test a conceptual model using data from a sample of 152 Chilean travelers who have not visited Australia previously. The findings show that the image and value of Australia are positively and significantly related to Chilean traveler’s intention to visit this destination for holidays. Awareness of Australia has only an indirect effect on intentions to visit this destination through its effect on brand image. Finally, perceptions of brand quality were not significantly related to Chilean traveler’s intention to visit Australia for holidays. This study contributes to the tourism and leisure literature by identifying the main drivers for attracting long-haul potential travelers who have not visited the destination previously.

This study investigates the effects of shopping attributes on shopping satisfaction by considering asymmetric relationships between these constructs. In addition, the study examines how the effects of various attributes differ according to nationality by using data collected from German, Dutch and British tourists in the historic town of Side. First, factor analysis results reflected ‘tangibles’, ‘staff’ and ‘products’ as the underlying shopping attributes. Next, an asymmetric impact performance analysis was used to categorize shopping attributes according to both their performances and their asymmetric effects on shopping satisfaction. Analyses of the results revealed that attributes’ categorization varied according to country of residence. While the products attribute was identified as an excitement factor with high performance for German tourists, it was a basic factor with high performance for the British tourists. These findings confirmed the asymmetric effects of the attributes on satisfaction. The study concluded with theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and future research recommendations.

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, the need for towns and cities to create a unique identity, to differentiate themselves from competitors, has become critical. Many places promote spectacular scenery, good quality of life, friendly people, and a sound business infrastructure. However, these factors are no longer differentiators, so places need a strong brand identity to stand out in order to attract people to live, work, and play. But brand development is often driven by short-term top-down approaches with limited community participation, where the primary tool of brand expression becomes the final marketing campaign. This article reports on a qualitative approach to build a place brand from the bottom up, with wide participation from all members of the community. With a methodology based on place brand-building theory, charettes and in-depth interviews were conducted with local stakeholders, resulting in a positioning statement that was used to develop brand communications materials. Based on the research process and results of the case study, the authors present a community-based place brand development model.