Muhammet Kesgin

This study examines the roles of learning, experience co‐creation, and experiential satisfaction as antecedents of a memorable whale‐watching tourism experience, as well as the relationships between experiential satisfaction, memorable whale‐watching tourism experience, hedonic well‐being, place attachment, and pro‐environmental behavior. Using data collected from 247 tourists who had taken a whale‐watching trip in the Azores, partial least squares structural equation modeling was then applied to the dataset. The results indicate that the higher the levels of learning, experience co‐creation, and experiential satisfaction, the more memorable is the whale‐watching tourism experience. Experiential satisfaction and memorable whale‐watching tourism experience are, in turn, significant determinants of hedonic well‐being, place attachment, and pro‐environmental behavior. The paper therefore calls for greater efforts by whale‐watching trip providers to enhance their learning and interpretation programs and to ensure that the overall trip experience is as interactive as possible.

Despite the deadly consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitation remains a threat to public health and international travel. This study tests the effect of Muslim religiosity on belief-based attitudes (i.e. subjective norms, perceived behavioural control) and travel desire as a proxy for COVID-19 vaccination intentions. The structural model was tested using PLS-SEM with the data collected via a self-administrated survey between April and June 2021 in Saudi Arabia (N = 759). Results reveal that travel desire along with belief-based attitudes influences COVID-19 vaccination intentions. Intrinsic religiosity influences individuals’ subjective norms, directly and perceived behavioural control and COVID-19 vaccination intentions indirectly through attitudes and subjective norms. Extrinsic religiosity influences individuals’ subjective norms and travel desire directly, as well as COVID-19 vaccination intentions indirectly through subjective norms and travel desire. The research provides insightful implications for government officials, one such implication could be engaging in discussion with religious leaders to formulate and disseminate COVID-19 related health messages.

Purpose: This research aims to classify and describe food festivals and examine the patterns in food festival naming and festival descriptions in online media.Design/methodology/approach: This research represents the first population-level empirical examination of food festivals in the United States using a purpose-built dataset (N = 2,626). Methodology includes text mining to examine food festival communications.Findings: Food festival size varies across local and regional spheres within the country. Food festivals employ geographical (place-, destination-based) associations in their names. Food festivals' descriptions and online communications showcase a welcoming environment predominantly emphasizing family-oriented and live entertainment experiences. Food festivals across the country show common naming patterns based on the elements of longevity, recurrence, location name, brand name, geographic scope, theme, and occasion.Originality/value: The study makes an original contribution to the theory and practice by identifying festival forms, styles, functions, and their diversity. A population level examination of food festivals does not currently exist. Therefore, this research will serve as a foundation for scholarly work in the future and as a benchmark for evaluating current and future research.

The hotel industry relies on motivated employees to deliver quality service. The diversity of the labor force employed at hotels in Saudi Arabia makes it difficult to motivate and satisfy employees. This study extends previous studies by investigating the factors that motivate and satisfy hotel employees in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Good wages, job security, and opportunities for advancement and development are the three most important motivators. Hotel employees in Riyadh are satisfied with their work accomplishment, location of the hotel, and work shifts but are dissatisfied with the workload and the pay they receive. Implications of the study are discussed.

The success of cultural destinations often centres on whether consumers trust the provenance and integrity of the heritage assets, activities, and services therein. However, few studies examine whether this ‘perceived trust’ influences the authenticity, sincerity, and memorability of cultural heritage consumption. To investigate the relationships between these constructs, we surveyed 320 visitors to Iranian cultural heritage sites. The findings suggest that perceived trust positively influences visitors’ perceptions of sincerity, existential authenticity, and object-based authenticity, stimulating memorable experiences in the process. This, in turn, emphasises the antecedent importance of perceived trust in shaping consumption. In the face of increasing commercialisation within the cultural heritage sector more generally, we therefore encourage practitioners to prioritise safeguarding the integrity of their offerings, promoting heritage assets in a manner that stimulates perceived trust.

Purpose: Emphasizing the role of residents as destination advocates, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of residents’ familiarity with, and, favorability of attractions on destination image.Design/methodology/approach: A mixed methods research strategy was employed using 15 individual in-depth interviews and a survey questionnaire with a sample ofn=364. The study utilizes an attraction familiarity index to classify respondents into four groups based on high, average, and low familiarity and examines the characteristics of each in the relationship between informational familiarity, experiential familiarity, and favorability and destination image.Findings: The study reveals resident perceptions of attractions within the tourism product assembly framework and illustrates the positive relationship between the residents’ level of familiarity with, and favorability of visitor attractions and destination image. Further, the findings also demonstrate the significant role of demographic characteristics such as gender and length of residency in the area. The study findings suggest that temporary residents can function as destination advocates.Research limitations/implications: Employees and students from a prominent northeastern university were sampled, representing local residents and temporary residents respectively. While appropriate and fairly representative of the target market for the research questions in this investigation, more work is required to replicate this study utilizing representative samples across different locations.Practical implications: Evidence from the study indicates the importance of marketing to residents as they serve as destination advocates. In particular, the residents’ familiarity with and favorability of attractions is critical to positive destination image. The research offers insights into the identification of potential segments of residents that require special attention.Originality/value: Limited existing research investigates the role of residents as destination advocates, especially in the context of destinations that lack a primary tourism attraction but have a well-balanced mix of attractions.

We explore the interplay between social currency (SC) and consumer engagement on social networks. We use text analyses based on both human coding and machine learning asisted sentiment analysis on reviews collected from Facebook pages, and we show that SC has a positive effect on ratings and visitor loyalty. First, we find that attractions have varying makeup of SC as represented in the six dimensions of SC. Second, repeat visits increase SC. Third, SC positively impacts revisit intentions even in the absence of prior experience. We also find that prior experience does not appear to yield better ratings, however, it predicts revisit intentions. This study represents the first use of SC in the tourism domain. Theoretical and practical implications alongside limitations and future research are discussed.

Disaster management has begun to examine the unique role of the private sector in disaster relief. The hotel and lodging industry is an especially critical infrastructure for community disaster relief and resilience, providing many lifeline services in addition to core skills and competencies contributing to the community’s social and human capital. Social and human capital empower the community to better cope with disturbance, and companies’ efforts to build social and human capital are often tied to their corporate social responsibility (CSR) management systems. A framework was developed to evaluate the management system maturity of the hotel and lodging industry’s CSR management for disaster relief and resilience. An analysis of three hotel and lodging corporations was performed to understand the current state of the industry. While many hotel properties are engaging in CSR activities during disaster relief, the analysis revealed that corporate management systems have room for maturation and growth to support the resilience of their community.