Multiple criteria sorting of tourist sites for perceived COVID-19 exposure: the use of VIKORSORT

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lanndon Ocampo ◽  
Kafferine Yamagishi

PurposeTravel interests of tourists during pandemics and outbreaks are reduced due to the prevalence of fear. It induces lifestyle changes, which may hinder efforts to recover the tourism value chain during post-COVID-19 lockdowns. Subscribing to domestic travel and domestic tourism is deemed to mitigate fear and gradually reopen the tourism industry. Although a crucial initiative, evaluating the perceived degree of exposure of tourists to COVID-19 in tourist sites operating under domestic tourism has not been fully explored in the emerging literature, which forms the main departure of this work.Design/methodology/approachThe problem domain is addressed by adopting multiple criteria sorting method – the VIKORSORT. To demonstrate such application, with 221 survey participants, 35 tourist sites in a province in the central Philippines struggling to revive the tourism industry are evaluated under six attributes that characterize tourists' exposure to COVID-19. To assess its efficacy, the performance of the VIKORSORT is compared to other distance-based multiple criteria sorting methods (i.e. TOPSIS-Sort and CODAS-SORT).FindingsResults show that proximity and volume of tourist arrivals are considered on top of the priority list of attributes. The use of VIKORSORT yields the assignment of 27 sites to the “moderate exposure” class, and eight under the “high exposure” class, with no tourist site assigned to the “low exposure” class. Sorting the tourist sites reveals some observations that tourists prefer sites (1) with open spaces, (2) with activities having limited group dynamics, (3) that are nature-based, and (4) with tourist arrivals that are not relatively high, with enough land area to practice social distancing. In addition, the assignments of the VIKORSORT with TOPSIS-Sort and CODAS-SORT are consistent at least 90% of the time, demonstrating its efficacy in addressing multiple criteria sorting problems.Originality/valueThis work provides an integrative approach in evaluating tourist sites in view of tourism recovery during pandemics. The findings offer crucial insights for the primary stakeholders (i.e. government, tourist operators, and tourists) in planning, resource allocation decisions, and policy formulation. Policy insights are offered, as well as avenues for future works.

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Rey ◽  
Loic Le De ◽  
Frederic Leone ◽  
David Gilbert

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a multidimensional approach for effectively managing natural disasters; this paper has three research objectives. First, it provides an analysis on the hydro-geomorphological effects of the cyclone in the urban context. Second, it proposes an analysis for the vulnerability and resilience recovery of the populations living in urban areas. Third, it specifies the implications for sustainable recovery and longer-term disaster risk reduction. Design/methodology/approach A detailed case study of the tropical cyclone Pam was carried out to identify hydro-geomorphologic effects and damages in an urban area and specific problems associated with managing natural disaster in Vanuatu. Findings The investigations reveal that living in an urban area increases a population’s exposure to hydrological, weather and sea-related risks. Whereas advice on cyclones seems to work very well, the coastal risks and floods seem to be underestimated with a very high exposure and vulnerability to risk. Pre-existing vulnerabilities were exacerbated after cyclone Pam. However, other communities have been able to reinforce their resilience through local initiatives. The government and outside aid were very quick to react, despite problems of coordination, exchange of information, communication and long-term strategy. Practical implications The bottom-up, top-down, local and global approaches, applied on the time scales, should lead to actions that will reinforce the ability of the people of Vanuatu to adapt to high-energy events and to the effects of climate change. Originality/value This paper highlights the importance of understanding how the urban communities are vulnerable to natural hazards and of strategies for increasing their resilience.


Significance The main impacts of Brexit will be new tariff and non-tariff barriers, a new immigration regime that will favour medium- and high-skilled people from outside the EU, the ability to strike new trade deals, and greater regulatory flexibility. Impacts The United Kingdom’s domestic tourism industry could benefit as travelling to the EU will become more expensive. By “taking back control” of state aid, the UK government will come under greater and more sustained pressure to subsidise companies. Sectors adversely affected by the new immigration plans will have to invest strongly in new recruitment methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Sandeep Basnyat ◽  
Suryakiran Shrestha ◽  
Bijita Shakya ◽  
Reeja Byanjankar ◽  
Shubhashree Basnyat

Compared to international tourism, domestic tourism is less susceptible to external changes and provides a more stable business environment for industry stakeholders. Traditionally, the focus of a majority of tourism research has been international tourism. Existing domestic tourism literature predominantly focuses on the potential of domestic tourism and the measurement of its demands, but greatly ignores the issues and challenges in the domestic tourism industry. This article fills this gap and examines the issues and challenges the domestic tourism industry is facing with a focus on Nepal, a South Asian developing country. The data for this study were collected through semistructured interviews with 20 tourism industry practitioners. The findings of this study demonstrate how uncertainties created by the lack of institutional arrangements and prioritization, and confusion around the appropriate ways and means of managing domestic tourism have contributed to the chaos in the private sector tourism industry in Nepal. Implications for the government and other stakeholders in Nepal and other developing countries have been discussed.


Author(s):  
Pranjal Kumar ◽  
Ashutosh Mishra

Jharkhand is popular for tribal culture and uniqueness of its inherent natural beauty attributing significantly on Tourism Industry of Jharkhand. There has been visible change and impact on socio-economic factor because of tourist influx in the Jharkhand state. The inherent beauty and nature has made the state popular for tourism. The attraction towards various important tourist spots revolves mostly within the domestic tourism. The paper attempts to ascertain the impact of tourism traits, like economic Development, Cost of living, Infrastructure Development, Socio-Cultural and the Environment affect through primary data collected from the responses of residents of six dominant tourist circuits of Jharkhand. The respondent’s views were ascertained on five point Likert Scale. The data so collected was subjected to analysis for identifying the impact of various tourism traits on the prospects of Jharkhand Tourism.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Michopoulou ◽  
Simon Darcy ◽  
Ivor Ambrose ◽  
Dimitros Buhalis

Purpose Accessible tourism is evolving as a field of academic research and industry practice, set within a dynamic social context. The field is interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary. The purpose of this paper is to examine key concepts and global initiatives that will shape accessible tourism futures. Design/methodology/approach Three of the authors have extensive academic experience in the area and the fourth author is the Managing Director of the pre-eminent European Network for Accessible Tourism. In taking a limited Delphi approach to canvassing key areas likely to shape accessible tourism futures, the following concepts and policy initiatives were examined: motivations, dreams and aspirations of people with disability; demography; UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; destination competitiveness; universal design (UD); and the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Findings A discussion of each of the above areas was placed in context to accessible tourism futures and to contextualise the papers that were selected for the special issue. The latter part of the paper outlines the contribution of each empirical paper to the issue discussing the approach, findings and implications. Stakeholder collaboration was identified as the key common theme of the papers and the factor for developing accessible tourism solutions, recognising the value of the market and capitalising on it. A collaborative approach is required to recognise the complementary nature of the different paradigms; to re-shape and transform the future of the accessible tourism industry. To assist in the development of accessible tourism futures, UD principles should provide a foundation to enhance the future competitiveness of tourism destinations and organisations. Originality/value The paper’s examination of the concepts and global policy considerations provides a strong academic and practitioner foundation for considering accessible tourism futures. In doing so, accessible tourism futures are shown to be affected by key concepts related to core tourism considerations and major policy initiatives on accessibility and sustainability. Yet, accessible tourism futures also have the potential to create their own momentum and contribute unique learnings on the diversity of tourism markets that will shape tourism concepts and global policy initiatives in their own right.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueyan Yang ◽  
Xiaoni Zhang ◽  
Samuel Goh ◽  
Chad Anderson

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand e-loyalty in the travel industry. Specifically, this paper aims to examine the curvilinear relationship between predictors and e-loyalty. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study was conducted using an online survey with one of the largest travel companies in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the models, and pair-wise nested F-tests were used to compare the models. Findings Results show that the curvilinear model has greater explanatory power of loyalty than traditional linear models. The results of pair-wise nested F-tests show that the loyalty model exhibits statistically significant R2 improvement compared to the linear model. However, the R2 improvement in the integrated model is not statistically different from that in the linear model. Confirmation and satisfaction are found to be salient factors influencing loyalty. Research limitations/implications This study makes important contributions to the online community literature by understanding the drivers of loyalty in the travel industry. However, there are limitations. First, this study addressed member loyalty of an online travel community with data collected from one company. Thus, generalizability is limited. Online communities and firms may have different characteristics, resulting in different factors influencing consumer loyalty. The authors plan in the future to collect data from other online travel companies and examine their model with different samples so as to check the generalizability of the current findings. Second, the authors collected a snapshot view on loyalty. Both researchers and managers note that small changes in loyalty and retention can yield disproportionately large changes in profitability (Reichheld et al., 2000). Consumer loyalty may change over time, so to maintain and increase profits, it is important to monitor such change. In the future, the authors plan to conduct a longitudinal study of community members to evaluate their loyalty over time. Practical implications As China seeks to gain additional market share in the global tourism market, travel companies should make use of websites as a marketing tool to attract and retain customers. These actions enable a travel company to enhance its competitiveness. More and more people use the internet for tour deals, bookings and finding tour-related information. Effective use of websites can affect the competitiveness of ecommerce companies. E-vendors could assess and adopt the dimensions recommended in this paper to help better understand areas for improvement. It is common today for consumers to buy travel products online instead of going through a travel agent. Considering the importance of reciprocity in formulating consumer satisfaction and loyalty in the virtual environment, companies should monitor reciprocal behavior on the virtual community. With advancement in technologies, consumer behaviors have changed and more consumers prefer social interactions in the virtual world. Companies can analyze posts in the virtual environment to assess reciprocity and may design a mechanism to foster reciprocal behaviors. By leveraging reciprocity, firms can better connect satisfaction with loyalty. More than 70 per cent of executives surveyed by McKinsey (2012) said that they regularly generate value through their Web communities. In addition, to pay attention to consumer to consumer reciprocity in the virtual world, companies should listen to what customers say in their online community, as this attention is an indication of reciprocity between consumers and companies. The ideas and opinions expressed in the online community tell the company customers’ perception of the value of its products and customers’ needs. Such attention to the voices in the online community will help companies to better tailor products/services to meet customers’ needs. Furthermore, the voices expressed in the virtual community are also effective in developing and maintaining new internet marketing opportunities such as email marketing, giveaways, search engine optimization, pay per click and shopping comparison marketing. Companies interested in retaining and attracting customers should leverage their established virtual communities and pay close attention to online posts and evaluate members’ satisfaction. Such effort will provide tangible benefits. As shown in Ye et al.’s study, traveler reviews produce a significant impact on online sales (Ye et al., 2011), with a 10 per cent increase in traveler review ratings, boosting online bookings by more than 5 per cent. This finding suggests that businesses should link online user-generated reviews to business performance in tourism. Finding incentives for users to share might be one way to improve interactivity and further create stickiness on the part of the website. Originality/value This paper is one of the first studies to address the need to move beyond linear models of e-loyalty and to additionally examine potential curvilinear and interactive effects. This study also identifies key variables such as reciprocity and satisfaction as determinants of e-loyalty in the Chinese online travel and tourism industry.


2013 ◽  
Vol 448-453 ◽  
pp. 4445-4448
Author(s):  
Ming Chong Gu ◽  
Hong Liu

Along with the development of society and economy, domestic tourism activities is rapidly increased, accompanied by increasing environmental problems brought by the tourism activities is becoming more and more brought to the attention of the people, if our country want to realize the sustainable development of tourism industry, we must replace the old development model to Eco-tourism to meet the needs of tourism and environment. Through qualitative analysis, this paper analyzed the characteristics of the Eco-tourism, and the classification of domestic ecological tourist resources to comb, and put forward some suggestions on developing Eco-tourism, hoping to provide a reference for the development of the domestic Eco-tourism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matvey S. Oborin ◽  
Irina Kozhushkina ◽  
Tatyana Gvarliani ◽  
Nikolay Ivanov

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the modern problems and the main trends of development of the health-improving tourism sector in the southern part of Russia and to identify significant factors in overcoming the complex challenges related to specific socio-economic conditions in the study area. Design/methodology/approach The material that served as the basis of the study comprises statistical data from the Southern Federal District and its subjects, as well as data about the development of tourism infrastructure on the official websites of governments, Ministry of Tourism and the population of the Southern Federal District. This information was systematized from a number of perspectives, including identification of the chronology of health-improving tourism infrastructure development in the chosen territory, as well as the advantages and disadvantages in this area. Based on the results of the study, the authors also developed some recommendations to overcome existing inactive trends in the field of health tourism. Findings This paper sheds light on the understanding of the challenges and changes that took place in the resort agglomerations of the south of Russia in terms of current issues and those that must be addressed in the coming years. It was concluded that health tourism in the south of Russia has old traditions based on the natural resource potential of territories that are included in the composition of the Southern Federal District. At the same time, the authors came to the conclusion that, unfortunately, not resort agglomerations are fully utilized. Furthermore, some historic resorts were not well maintained by local authorities and have suffered more recently because of lack of investment. At present, the financial results of health resorts and others related to health-improving tourism are precarious as most operations are unprofitable, and so complex decisions are needed to address the underlying problem of resource optimization because of the important social and economic role of the cities in this region. They have special natural and resource potential and preserve traditions related to health-improving tourism. Research limitations/implications The paper provides a conceptual analysis based on limited empirical data combined with some directions for further research. Originality/value The paper attempts to reveal the impact of social, economic and geopolitical factors, both negative and positive, on the development of the health-improving tourism segment, restructuring of the Russian tourism market and the emergence of promising opportunities and new directions for development. The findings also provide insights for practitioners and researchers, and the tourism industry can draw on this analysis to guide the development of strategy, increase investment attractiveness, make more effective use of the natural resource potential and maintain pressure on government partners to provide support to tourism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Janusz ◽  
Sofie Six ◽  
Dominique Vanneste

Purpose In a current trend of a growing amount of short city trips, it becomes crucial to understand how local residents perceive the presence of tourists and tourism in their cities and how their socio-cultural context influences those perceptions. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this understanding which will enable the city planners to take actions to create the well-balanced and resilient communities in which the needs of residents and tourists are equally met. Design/methodology/approach To understand residents’ perceptions’ about tourism in Bruges, this research applied photo-elicitation interviews with 28 residents who lived in various locations in the historical center to understand socio-cultural background of residents, their tourism-related concerns and whether they are in line with what is commonly perceived as problematic in Bruges. Findings Results show that as long as residents can benefit from tourism and tourism-related infrastructure, they support tourism. On the other hand, tourism decreases the liveability of the historical center due to supersession of infrastructure serving the residents by tourist-oriented amenities. Practical implications To build a sustainable and resilient city in the future, the authorities of Bruges should cease further “museumification” of the historical city by breaking the hegemony of tourism industry, providing affordable housing and rethinking the concentration model of tourism. Originality/value The photo-elicitation method proved to produce rich content and good-quality data by stimulating respondents’ memories and evoking experiences and emotions. Thus, this paper recommends that future research about residents’ attitudes is developed around visual methods as they give voice to the residents and are able to uncover issues which are difficult to capture with other methods.


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