The Contribution of Special and Alternative Forms of Tourism to the Sustainable Development of Tourist Destinations:Case Studies

This paper aims to investigate the impact of special and alternative forms of tourism on the sustainable development of tourism destinations,revising the traditional position of tourism development and establishing sustainable development as the only solution to tourism progress of travel destinations.The study includes conceptual approaches to the term tourism,sustainable development and specific and alternative forms of tourism and delves into theoretical approaches that are the bridging of these three central research questions.This is followed by in-depth research through policy analysis of central institutions and regional development stakeholders,as well as further analysis of sustainable development through special and alternative forms of tourism.Key tourism models and theories offer a further understanding of the natural“enemies”and“allies”of sustainable development and how they contribute to its necessity or development.Through a survey and a case study of travel destinations,we conclude the need to couple the term tourism development with sustainable development which is rooted in the healthy coexistence of residents and visitors with respect to the environment,local culture and productive-controlled economic growth.

Comprehensive Effects of Eco-tourism Development on Tourism Destinations in South Shaanxi Province

Eco-tourism theories were taken as the instruction in this study,qualitative and quantitative research methods were also combined to investigate and conduct questionnaire processing to nearby residents of 10 eco-tourism scenic areas in south Shaanxi Province,so as to quantify and evaluate the various effects at different levels of eco-tourism development on tourism destinations in this region.Particularly,the quantitative value and weight value of economic,social and environmental effects were utilized to quantify,analyze and evaluate the comprehensive effects generated by eco-tourism development in south Shaanxi Province.It was found that the comprehensive effects were 'good',however,these 3 kinds of effects have not been coordinated well,thus the characteristics and requirements of eco-tourism have not been well demonstrated.

Distance decay of place attachment and perceived authenticity of mountain tourism destinations in China

Place attachment has been a research focus in the fields of park and recreation management.Place attachment plays an important role in promoting sustainable development of parks and mountain tourism destination,however,there are limited studies that identified the spatial patterns of place attachment,especially in the context of mountain tourism destinations in China.Also,the geospatial spectrum of visitors is usually broad,examining the multivariate relationships among spatial proximity,perceived authenticity,and place attachment are essential for mountain tourism destinations to promote destination image and strengthen emotional bonding with targeted visitor groups.In this study,we selected an iconic and highly visited park,Jiuzhai Valley National Park in China,as our study site and conducted an on-site visitor survey to collect 557 samples.Study uses factor analysis and the structure equation model to analyze the relationship among spatial proximity,perceived authenticity,and place attachment.Results validate the two-dimension structure of place attachment and perceived authenticity.Study findings suggest that spatial proximity has significant impacts on existential authenticity and place identity,but has no significant impacts on place dependence.Perceived authenticity has a positive impact on place attachment.Study results advance the theories of place attachment and provide effective strategies to enhance emotional attachment between visitors and mountain tourism destinations.

Segment-Centric Geo-Competitive Environment of a Tourism Destination (A Case of Georgia)

This work aims to introduce a conceptual approach to determining the competitive environment for a particular tourist destination by considering popular outbound destinations of its leading segments.This approach we name as a concept of a segment-centered geo-competitive environment of a tourism destination(SGE-TD).The applied methodology includes consideration of the popularity of tourist destinations for each selected segment and the indicators of leading segments of the studied destination.The practical application of the proposed concept is examined in the case of Georgia as a tourist destination by selecting its leading segments and identifying their popular travel destinations.The integrated consideration and application of the mentioned indicators define the competitive position of a destination(in this case Georgia)among the specified tourism destinations,considered as the geo-competitive environment.This research suggests an innovative version of the universal conceptual approach to identify the leading competing destinations for a specific studied one.It fills the gap in similar studies where competing destinations for the analysis are selected based on specific research objectives,missing the universal conceptual approach in this regard.

Image Perception and Emotional Evaluation of Tourists for Desert Tourism Destinations in Inner Mongolia——Content Analyses Based on Network Travel Notes

Recent years have witnessed the popularity of desert tourism as a fashion tourism product in the 21^(st) century along with the increasing demand for personalized tourism for tourists. The academic community is paying growing attention to desert tourism research, but there is little research on the perception of tourists about the image of desert tourism destinations in Inner Mongolia. With Inner Mongolia as the object of the study, this paper analyzed the image perception and evaluation of tourists for Inner Mongolia desert tourism destinations from three aspects of cognitive image perception, emotional image perception, and overall image perception according to the "cognitive-emotional" model, with the help of relevant network text analysis methods, and proposed some suggestions for the future development of desert tourism destinations in Inner Mongolia from the aspects of increasing desert humanities tourism resources and product development, improving scenic spot management ability, improving tourism service quality, improving tourism infrastructure construction and strengthening environmental protection. It is hoped that this paper can provide a reference for improving the image of Inner Mongolia desert tourism destinations and improving the tourist experience.

The role of a national park in classifying mountain tourism destinations: An exploratory study of the Italian Western Alps

Together with the main aim of preserving nature,national parks are also expected to play an important role for the local communities,driving economic activities toward the lens of sustainable development.This contribution aims to present an exploratory study on the relationship between the presence of a protected mountain area,the Gran Paradiso National Park(GPNP),in the North West of the Italian Alps,and the classification of tourism destinations,according to Weaver model of destination management.Starting from the model,the authors provide a quantitative analysis using a set of variables and indicators to comprehensively assess the differing patterns assumed by the municipalities within the borders of the GPNP and those that are not.The provisional results illustrate that the municipalities within the border of a protected area are more likely to be grouped alongside the sustainable mountain destinations.Meanwhile,research outcomes confirm that a protected area does not necessarily contrast the tourism industry but instead may boost local development by driving it within the borders of the sustainable development,switching from the area’s only preservation function to a flywheel for the local communities.

Analysis on Behavior Characteristics of Tourists under Perspective of Sustainable Development of Tourism Destinations: A Case Study of Mugecuo Scenic Area in Kangding City of Sichuan Province

Tourists are the subject of tourism activity,and it is conducive to promoting sustainable development of tourism destination by studying their behavior characteristics and tourism perception.Mugecuo Scenic Area in Kangding City,Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture,Sichuan Province is taken as research case,and visitors and managers in the scenic area are surveyed by using semi-structured interview method.Based on survey data,the research aims to put forward corresponding policy suggestions for sustainable development of Mugecuo Scenic Area by deeply analyzing tourists’ access to information of scenic area,tourists’ travel purpose,tourists’ satisfaction with services of scenic area and willingness to revisit.

The Spatial Structure of Rural Recreational Tourism Destinations

We select 149 rural recreational tourism destinations in Liaoning Province as the samples, and use geographical mathematical method to analyze the travel spatial structure of rural recreational tourism destinations from aggregation degree of spatial distribution, the balance of spatial distribution, spatial connection and spatial accessibility. The results show that the spatial distribution of tourism destinations shows the gathering distribution pattern, and the evenness of the distribution is very low, displaying strong neighboring positive effect; the accessibility of traffic network is high, and basically the dense tourist traffic network is formed; the nodes with the best accessibility are mainly concentrated in the city groups of central Liaoning and the southern regions of Liaoning, while the nodes with poor accessibility are mainly concentrated in the city groups of western Liaoning and the eastern regions of Liaoning.

The 2.0 Marketing Strategies for Wine Tourism Destinations of Excellence

The aim of this paper is to empirically research the use of Web 2.0 applications in the communication strategies of wine tourism destinations of excellence; main attention will be focused on the integration of these tools within the ＂official＂ destination websites. The main research questions are： （1） Do wine tourism destinations of excellence worldwide make use of Web 2.0 tools in their official websites？ （2） Is it possible to estimate the degree of intensity of use of such tools？ The method used for the purpose of this research is inductive： starting from the observation of some specific cases we wanted to implement a scoring model that, taking into account the presence and intensity of the use of Web 2.0 tools selected by the wine tourism destinations of excellence, could be replicated in different contexts from the one analyzed here. The study reveals the interest in the tools of Web 2.0 by the institutional bodies responsible for management of destinations; however it also shows that there is not a full awareness of the scope of strategic and organizational development in the web 2.0 applications resulting in the relationship with potential visitors and those who have already experienced a tourist territory.

Development Strategies for Z County E-sports Town in Chongqing:Integration of E-sports,Tourism,and Agriculture under New Policies

Chongqing Z County E-sports Town was once included in the“first batch of sports and leisure characteristic town pilot project list”issued by the General Administration of Sports of China.After several years of development,the e-sports industry in Z County e-sports town has struggled with issues such as a limited market,low popularity,poor business performance,and a lack of income generation capabilities.These challenges have severely hindered the town’s development,resulting in its exclusion from the recent“Chongqing characteristic town list.”Under the requirements of new policies,it can no longer promote itself,attract investment,or undertake project construction under the name of a“characteristic town”and must undergo redevelopment.This paper employs case analysis and comparative investigation methods to conduct an in-depth empirical study on the development of Z County E-sports Town.It is proposed that under the new policy environment,the town should foster the deep integration of its existing e-sports industry and culture with tourism and agriculture,transforming Z County E-sports Town into a new characteristic tourist destination.The findings of this paper offer a reference for the development of similar towns facing stagnation and provide case support for the construction of tourist destinations featuring e-sports.

The Company Clusters Power in Tourism Destinations: The Network Configuration and the Business Organisation

Better and greater coordination and integration between companies are essential for tourist destination development processes improving competitiveness.Moreover,it is difficult to imagine that all companies can cooperate.In this way,we can imagine finding a group of companies that,for several reasons,decide to cooperate,creating some clusters as small groups.Companies with stable connections with other clusters or relevant companies could be relevant and central to Tourism Destination(TD)management.In this way,the knowledge of network articulation seems to be critical for TD management business dynamics.In most cases,the relationships are hidden and not formalised,increasing the complexity in TD analysis.The presence of clusters is possibly vitrificated using the Social Network Analysis(SNA)methodology.The present work could be framed in cooperative networks since it analyses the companies’commercial networks and clusters groups.The article focuses on how groupings of small firms can govern Tourism Destinations.This paper uses network indexes and metrics to emphasise structural features regarding the density and centrality of relationships.As the main result,in the case study analysed,there is a relational framework where three clusters of companies with a high density of exchanges emerge.These groups can influence the tourism business at the destination.

A Study on Brand Personality of Coastal Tourism Destinations:Text Mining Approach

As the core element of the brand,brand personality is closely related to the personality of tourists.Unique and distinctive brand personality has become an important means for tourism destinations to enhance their core competitiveness.Through text analysis,the content of the online review content of three coastal tourist destinations in Yalong Bay,Silver Beach,and Gulangyu Islet were analyzed.The brand personality of coastal tourist destinations was identified from the perspective of tourist perception,and the selected 3 coastal tourist destinations were identified by correspondence analysis.Comparative analysis on a case-by-case basis.The research results show that the brand personality of coastal tourism destinations perceived by tourists is mainly concentrated in the two dimensions of“elegance”and“benevolence”,but different coastal tourism destinations have their own distinct and unique brand personalities.On this basis,directional suggestions for the development of brand personality in coastal tourism destinations are given.

The Study on Tourist Destination Tourism Image Perception and Evaluation in Xi'an City

[Objective] The aim was to explore the tourist destination image measurement method, and have an empirical study on Xi＇an City. [Method] With combination of non-structural and structured approach to design questionnaires, tourism image of Xi＇an was explored using the SPSS software from both the qualitative and quantitative analyses. [Result] Xi＇an tourism images serve a heritage historical monuments atmosphere with the Terracotta Warriors, City Wall, Big Wild Goose Pagoda,Huaqing Hot Springs, presenting a positive feeling among tourists in general. In the dissemination of travel, tourism infrastructure construction, tourism transportation,travel services have negative effects on the image of Xi＇an tourism. [Conclusion]The evaluation on the tourism resources is highly spoken of by tourists than the scenic spot, indicating that despite high visibility of tourism resources in Xi＇an, it has not formed strong core competitiveness and a complete tourism industrial chain. It is necessary to take the right marketing strategies to enhance tourist familiarity to Xi＇an. Tourists demands, therefore, should be well considered in developing Xi＇an scenic spots and new tourism products and projects be focused on to improve tourists＇ satisfaction.

Attractive Model and Marketing Implications of Theme Shopping Tourism Destination

This paper discusses the definition and connotation of Theme Shopping Tourism(TST) destination,and reveals the attractive distance of TST destination based on the utility function derived from the supposed demand function.An attractive model is deduced.According to this attractive model,it is can be known that the attractive distance is related to the price difference of the theme commodities between TST destination and tourist origin place,the average expenditure of transport,the demand elasticity of price,the actual price of sightseeing spot,the critical price that a tourist will afford,the number of nights that a tourist stays on the TST destination and the price level of accommodation in the TST destination.The change mechanism of attractive distance of TST destinations is revealed in this paper,and implications on TST marketing are put forward.First,theme commodities should be luxuries.Second,lower price is the primary pulling factor of theme shopping tourism.Third,the route combining with sightseeing spots is beneficial to shopping tourism.At last,TST development is one way of rejuvenating the falling destinations.

Tourism Destination Eco-Security and Its Dynamic Evaluation Method

Ecological security of tourism destination is an important factor for the sustainable development of tourism industry, and many tourism destinations are threatened by various ecological problems. A complete understanding of eco-security situation is the foundation of maintaining sustainable development for tourism destinations. However, study on tourism destination eco-security has remained in the initial stage, based on domestic and international researches, the connotations and dynamic characteristics of tourism destination eco-security were discussed. Then, evaluation method of tourism destination eco-security and standard system were proposed, also dynamic evaluation method of tourism destination eco-safety based on the situation evaluation and trend was analyzed.

Using MWD： A Business Intelligence System for Tourism Destination Web

The importance of Internet as mass media in the field of tourism is that it constitutes an important channel of marketing institutions and business network of the tourist destinations. But very few subsequent processes of management, maintenance, improvement, and exploitation of this appearance are deeply studied. The interactive nature of the website, as both transmitter of information and receiver, has attracted the attention of scholars since the interaction allows opening new approaches to the study of the network traffic （the pages user has visited, order them, the time that it has been in them, the actions carried out...） and cyber behavior. Information flows from the physical to the cyber world, and vice versa, adapting the converged world to human behavior and social dynamic. The business intelligence systems based on Internet enable organizations intelligent actions to address time-sensitive business processes and benefit from analytics. As result provides the opportunity to anticipate and estimate visitor habits in a changing environment. This paper presents the research and technological fields which have been incorporated to study of the destination web, a business intelligent tool based on Internet that it aims to increase the performance of the local manager or tour operator by providing an enhanced insight through the behavior of visitors on the website and future trends in research are expressed.

Social Media Impact on Tourism Destination Decision: Evidence from International Students in China

Technological advancement has led to the adoption and usage of social media among businesses including tourism sector to disseminate information and communicate with customers more effectively. Due to the limitless capabilities that social media provides, it is gradually transforming diverse business ecosystems. This study seeks to assess at the impact of social media on tourism destination decision-making from foreign students in China context. From the background of Uses and Gratification theory, a quantitative research approach was used to achieve the sole of the present study. This study used an online questionnaire tool to obtain response, validated using a Partial Least Square and Structural Equation Modeling and SPSS statistical software to analyze 271 samples of foreign students in China. The findings of the study show that behavioral intentions have a positive and significant effect on tourism destination decision-making, and social media significant direct influence on tourism destination decision making. Furthermore, tourists’ satisfaction can enhance tourism destination decisions when mediated by social media usage. The research findings would help tourism service providers to identify and select social media platforms as a marketing strategy for tourism competitiveness.

Destination Branding： Brand Management and Brand Engagement of Health and Wellness Tourism in Thailand and the ASEAN Region

The 10 ASEAN CAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations） countries in Southeast Asia have been united for ASEAN community in 2015. Thailand is one of the members who take health and wellness tourism responsibility about tourism and product information, and health and wellness tourism standardization. Therefore, the researcher has studied in health tourism image in Thailand and ASEAN, because the image is significant cost to promote health and wellness tourism. They are factors that influence image management and also image attributes about health and wellness tourism in Thailand and ASEAN countries. In this study, the author aimed at the examination of influenced factors and the attributes for Thailand＇s and ASEAN＇s images of health and wellness tourism management and finding out the relations among cognitive, affective, and brand engagement in Thailand and ASEAN. This research could be used as guideline information for creation of plans and governmental policies of health and wellness tourism of Thailand and ASEAN region as well. The data obtained in this study included overall image and destination brand engagement, or personal engagement through way of life and daily life of Southeast Asian people. Southeast Asia has its uniqueness according to its slogan ASEAN Southeast Asia： Feel the Warmth. This is considered as one of unique activities in health and wellness tourism. Tourists can have their direct experiences with unique tradition of each nation.

Factors Affecting Financial Performance of Tourism Destination Firms Listed on Stock Exchanges in China

Purpose:the aim of this research is to test the effect of financial ratio on the financial performance of tourism destination firms listed on stock exchange in China.The research selected ratios:current ratio(CR)as a dimension of liquidity,total asset turnover ratio(TATR)as a dimension of asset utilization,debt ratio(DE)as a dimension of leverage,natural logarithm of total asset(LNTA)as a dimension of firm size,GDP growth rate as a dimension of economic prosperity,and effective tax rate as a dimension of effective tax.This research will use return on asset(ROA),return on sales(ROS),return on equity(ROE)and sales growth(SG)to determine the financial performance.Since stock exchange founded in China,tourism destination firm developed very fast.However tourism destination listed firms have weakness financial performance.Design/methodology/approach:the research data collected from quarterly financial report,from 2012 Q1 to 2018 Q4.The secondary data has been analyzed by multiple regression.Finding:the result indicate that CR,TATR,GDP growth rate have positive impact on financial performance.While DE has negative impact on financial performance.And LNTA has a mix result with financial performance.Originality/value:This study led to the effect of financial ratios on tourism's financial performance since past researches with this aim were difficult to identify and certain references were not specifically linked to the topic.

Research on Psychological Carrying Capacity of Tourism Destination

As a part of the carrying capacity system of tourism destination, tourism psychological carrying capacity and its makeup are very important indexes which reflect the harmoni-ous development of tourism destination develops harmoniously, but the academy has not paid enough attention to them. Based on the concept and connotation of psychological carrying ca-pacity, this paper explains the influencing factors which affect the psychological capacity of the tourist and the resident after the acknowledged concept, and then designs a harmonious de-velopment model of tourism destination. Finally, it offers some countermeasures against the overloading psychological capac-ity.