Studies across the social sciences are making increasing use of an evolutionary perspective. Yet, despite its potential, the application of evolutionary psychology in tourism research is scant. ...Evolutionary psychology is arguably one of the most useful approaches to understanding the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the tourist’s psyche. This research highlights, explains, and empirically demonstrates the vast untapped potential of this perspective for COVID-19 tourism research. The authors develop an Evolutionary Tourism Paradigm, which is based on biological epistemology and theory to address questions in post-COVID-19 tourism research. This paradigm is brought to life through a developed ocean and islands model, and its utility for future research endeavors on the Coronavirus pandemic is empirically demonstrated in two studies.
•Development of the Evolutionary Tourism Paradigm•Development of the ocean and islands model•Investigating the COVID-19 effects on the tourists' psyche•Conceptually and empirically linking the pandemic to xenophobia and ethnocentrism
This paper investigates the process of banking integration in the EU15 countries and the Eurozone by testing for convergence in bank efficiency among commercial banks. We use a two-step approach: ...First we estimate efficiency by applying an innovative methodological approach that treats banks’ non-performing loans as an undesirable output. Second, we apply the Phillips and Sul (2007) panel convergence methodology to assess the convergence process in European banking. Our results indicate an overall decline in efficiency and no evidence of group convergence following the financial crisis. However, we find the presence of club formation with typically weak convergence. The heterogeneity displayed by the transition parameters for the individual countries and the notable decrease in competition levels post 2008 highlight the impact of the financial crisis on the integration process.
•Existing studies on destination image are integrated into a three-component model.•Conceptual and empirical validation of an affective destination construct.•The three components reliably and ...independently predict tourist behavior.
Knowledge of the mental representations that individuals hold about tourist destinations are important to understand their intentions. These mental destination representations have often been investigated by applying the concept of destination image. This study argues that the extant literature is often rather atheoretical and lacks operational rigor. These are major shortcomings which undoubtedly hinder the development of academic and managerial insights. In response, this study draws on contemporary psychology to develop the destination content model, comprising three informational components held in individuals‘ minds about destinations. The present study further outlines preferable methods and measures for each component, thus aiding researchers to investigate mental destination representations.
Frontier Analysis Assaf, A. George; Josiassen, Alexander
Journal of travel research,
05/2016, Letnik:
55, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article presents a comprehensive review of frontier studies in the tourism literature. We discuss the main advantages and disadvantages of the various frontier approaches, in particular, the ...nonparametric and parametric frontier approaches. The study further differentiates between micro and macro applications of these approaches, summarizing and critically reviewing the characteristics of the existing studies. We also conduct a meta-analysis to create an overview of the efficiency results of frontier applications. This allows for an investigation of the impact of frontier methodology on tourism research. The present review also highlights the limitations of existing studies and suggests an agenda for future research.
The xenophobic tourist Kock, Florian; Josiassen, Alexander; Assaf, A. George
Annals of tourism research,
January 2019, 2019-01-00, 20190101, Letnik:
74
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
•First investigation of xenophobia and its consequences for tourism.•Development of a reliable, valid and parsimonious tourist xenophobia scale.•Provides explanations for tourists’ vaccination intend ...or local food avoidance.•First empirical application of evolutionary psychology to advance tourism research.
Addressing the global rise of xenophobia, the authors provide the first investigation of tourist xenophobia (TXO) and its role in shaping tourist behavior. Drawing on research from evolutionary and social psychology, they define TXO as a tourist’s perceptual discomfort and anxiety associated with strangers encountered at foreign destinations. The authors develop a reliable, valid and parsimonious TXO scale, and document its importance empirically. The results show that TXO is an important driver behind many, often neglected, behavioral phenomena, such as tourists’ preference for travel-related vaccination, willingness to try local food, preference for group travel, travel insurance and agency-booked travel, willingness to travel and actual travel behavior. The authors conclude by discussing implications of the findings for research, practice and policy.
Motivations and Goals of Slow Tourism Oh, Haemoon; Assaf, A. George; Baloglu, Seyhmus
Journal of travel research,
02/2016, Letnik:
55, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The concept of slow tourism is gaining attention, and this study provides new insights into the phenomenon from the perspective of a goal-driven consumption process. The authors conduct primary ...qualitative research to define slow tourism, build a conceptual model, and develop measurement scales. Based on the data collected from four popular U.S. tourist destinations, the authors find that goal-driven consumption theory exhibits compelling explanatory power for the slow behavioral process in the tourism context. The slow tourism process also appears to coexist with fast modes of travel and they contribute differently to general tourism experience outcomes. Discussion includes approaches to understanding the slow tourism phenomenon, issues around slowness in human behavior, and future directions for research on slow tourism.
•We combine perceived service quality and airport profitability indications for the first time.•Bootstrapped two-stage output oriented DEA models provide the most robust estimates.•Excluding quality ...as an output measure can seriously distort the true efficiency ranking of international airports.•Airports in private ownership with high share of non-aeronautical in total revenues perform best.•Share of LCC airline in total airline seats and region also matter for the single efficiency measure.
With increasing competition between airports and a growing share of non-aeronautical revenues, particularly at large international hubs, perceived quality and consumer satisfaction have not only become a key focus of management but potentially the most important tool to achieve or maintain a competitive advantage. However, in the long run stakeholders aim for profit maximisation and it has been shown for other parts of the aviation supply chain that quality does significantly impact on profitability. In this paper we aim to investigate whether perceived airport quality has an impact on airport profit margins. We further apply two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models to estimate a single efficiency measure that combines the potentially conflicting indicators of perceived service quality and profitability for the airport context. We also identify determinants of the jointly estimated single quality/profitability measure.
After a prolonged period of growth, driven, in part, by an increasing number of affluent consumers, the international tourism industry is now suffering the effects of a weaker world economy. These ...tougher market conditions have, in turn, led to increasing competition. As a result, countries, their tourism industries, and tourism businesses seek to improve the performance of the tourism industry and its constituents by vigorously promoting themselves to international tourists, cutting costs, and identifying synergies in their tourism endeavors. In seeking to improve the tourism industry, the determinants that affect tourism performance are of key interest to the stakeholders. A key obstacle toward improving performance is the multitude of determinants that can affect tourism performance. The literature has yet to provide concrete insights into the determinants of tourism performance and their relative importance. The present study addresses this important gap. We identify and rank the determinants of tourism performance. We also provide performance measures of international tourism destinations. The results are derived using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and bootstrap truncated regression models. The study also discusses the implications of the findings and highlights their importance to both the academic literature and the international tourism industry.
The hospitality and tourism industry for a variety of reasons is vulnerable to crises of various origins and scope. Thereby, research regarding crises in this industry has received significant ...attention among scholars. This study presents the results of a qualitative thematic analysis (TA) of the literature concerning crisis management in hospitality and tourism. A total of 207 research publications from 1986 to 2019 were analyzed. The findings revealed eight major themes that emerged in the literature over time. We critically discuss these themes with suggestions and directions for future research in this area. The study also identifies a shortage of scholarly attempt to conceptualize crisis management and thus explores the sensemaking perspective to shed further light on explaining the themes that emerged in the analysis.
On the origin of tourist behavior Kock, Florian; Josiassen, Alexander; Assaf, A. George
Annals of tourism research,
November 2018, 2018-11-00, 20181101, Letnik:
73
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The behavior of modern-day tourists seems embedded in their contemporary lives, with little connection to their ancestral past; the hiking trip to Scandinavia or visiting romantic Paris seem to be ...fully explainable in a contemporary context. However, this research note makes the case that these decisions are actually rooted in motives that evolved because of the implications they had for our ancestors. Just as Darwin brought a wider lens to the study of species, we motivate that evolutionary psychology provides fertile ground for future tourism research, through a fusion of tourism, psychology and biology. Tourist behavior is a particularly suitable context in which these remnants of the past can be observed, albeit not always in obvious ways. In particular, an evolutionary lens supplements existing tourism research, and provides new and interesting explanations for tourist behavior with resulting implications for theory and practice.