2021 TTRA International Conference
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Publication Participatory Low-impact Tourism Strategy as a way of achieving Sustainability. Samalayuca Dunes (Mexico)(2021) González Herrera, Manuel Ramon; Suarez, Rosa Herminia; Casimiro, Karina HThe objective of this study is to potentiate a low-impact tourism model with the participation of the local community in the Samalayuca Dunes, Mexico, as a way of achieving sustainability for a New Tourism Era. For this purpose, a participatory tourism strategy was built with community stakeholders, specifically neighboring communities, based on three pillars: conservation of natural and cultural heritage; socioeconomic community development; and reduction of environmental impacts. For this purpose, a participatory tourism strategy was built with community stakeholders, specifically neighboring communities, based on three pillars.Publication A Tale of Two Villages: Debordering and Rebordering in the Bordered Community Scenic Area(2021) Huang, Xingyu; Xu, Honggang; Li, Xiang (Robert)Border is part of the entrenched history and reality of tourist mobility. This study takes the concept of border as the theoretical basis to analyze how local borders are produced, developed and transformed in tourism communities. Taking China’s Hongcun Village, a bordered UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site, and its neighboring village - Jicun, as the study cases, the authors conducted interviews and observation to explore how local borders are developed. The results show that local borders can be understood from at least five perspectives: administrative, physical, social-economic, functional and psychological. Different aspects of local borders interact with each other and constantly change. This paper contributes to the literature as it reveals that local borders are always driven by external forces and actors, strongly supported by the market economy. And it conceptualizes borders as processes including bordering, debordering and rebordering, which provides a dynamic perspective to understand tourism impacts.Publication Profiling Tourists’ Fear, Resilience, and Protective Behaviors toward Post-Pandemic Travel(2021) Zheng, DanniTo overcome the long shadow of COVID-19 on tourism, it is particularly important to understand tourist psyche and behaviors toward post-pandemic travel. By integrating protection motivation theory and resilience theory, this paper aims contribute to literature by identifying distinct post-pandemic tourist segments based on their psychological, behavioral, and sociodemographic attributes. Via an online survey, the study collected 1208 questionnaires across most provinces in mainland China. Results reveal four segments toward post-pandemic travelling, including fearful, high resilient, inactive coping, and threat careless tourists, providing valuable information to understand different tourists’ psychology toward post-COVID-19 travel. Tailor-in strategies are identified to eliminate negative consequences generated during the COVID-19 outbreak.Publication Reversed polarity items in tourism scales(2021) Boley, Bynum; Jordan, Evan J; Woosnam, Kyle MDisciplines such as marketing and education have begun to question the benefits of incorporating reverse polarity items (e.g., a mixture of negatively and positively worded items) into multi-item scales due to such items’ degradation of scale dimensionality. The tourism literature however, has yet to critique this practice due to the commonly held belief that reverse polarity items reduce acquiescence bias. With limited critique of its practice within the tourism literature, the purpose of this “Methods and Practice’ paper is to provide a literature review of the topic and to conduct psychometric analyses on four tourism scales including reversed polarity items. EFA and CFA results from 703 responses to the Psychological, Social, and Political Empowerment Scales of the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale and 300 responses to the Perceived Stress Scale reveal that the inclusion of reversed polarity items had significant negative impacts on unidimensionality, model fit, factor loadings, and AVE in each instance. Differences were also found in the strength of regression coefficients and variance explained between reverse and non-reverse polarity scales when regressed on theoretically relevant dependent variables. Implications for future scale development are discussed highlighting the need to simultaneously reduce acquiescence bias and ensure scales demonstrate construct validity.Publication Agritourism: Challenges and opportunities for the rural future(2021) Hollas, Chadley; Chase, LisaIn the ever-changing economies of tourism, individual-led efforts such as agritourism have the potential to bring social and economic benefit to rural destinations, building more resilient communities. In post-COVID tourism, this is especially true as travelers find comfort in outdoor, physically-distanced activities. However, few large-scale studies have explored the qualities of successful agritourism operations and their perceived barriers, challenges, and successes. In this presentation, we share the results of a 2019 national survey of agritourism operators throughout the US. The survey questions built on results from qualitative research on agritourism and were focused on products and activities offered, operator motivations, challenges and successes, and perceived economic performance. The survey responses gave insight into the positive outlook for agritourism in the United States. In our proposed 15-minute presentation, we will report on on these findings and conclude with implications for future research, policy and outreach favoring rural tourism operators.