2012 TTRA International Conference
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Publication A Comparative Analysis of the Travel Motivations of Ecotourists and Conventional Tourists in Wisconsin(2012) Maleski, GloriaThe growing field of ecotourism has led to several studies assessing the travel motivations of ecotourists. This study further examines ecotourists by comparing their travel motivations to those of conventional tourists. It is found that conventional tourists consider some natural aspects of travel to be important travel motivations; however, ecotourists place significantly more importance on nature as a travel motivation than conventional tourists. Furthermore, ecotourists considered experiencing and being in nature to be important considerations when making the decision to travel while conventional tourists were more concerned with the cost of the trip and the entertainment available at the site.Publication Hotelier Attitudes toward Sustainability in Virginia Beach(2012) Burrows, Rachel; Rozier Rich, Dr. SamanthaThis study examined Virginia Beach hoteliers’ knowledge surrounding sustainable tourism, awareness of sustainable programs offered both on the local and national levels, and evaluation of the current sustainable programs available in Virginia Beach. The Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau distributed a sustainability-focused survey to the General Managers of all hotels in Virginia Beach city limits. With the various programs available and limited success to this point, it is imperative to get hoteliers involved in order to continue to work toward Virginia Beach’s vision of being a sustainable destination. In order for Virginia Beach to continue to position itself as a premier sustainable destination, its leaders must educate their hoteliers of the programs available in order to increase engagement.Publication Antecedents of Effective Environmental Management in a Hotel Setting: A Test of the Value-Belief-Norm Theory(2012) Rubin, Simon D.; White, Dave D.; Lee, Woojin; Basile, GeorgeThe purpose of this quantitative study is to test the validity of a behavioral theory in the context of environmental hotel management. The lack of theoretical consideration in previous studies on environmental attitudes of hotel/resort managers warrants an investigation of a theory with the potential to better explain behaviors that support the goals of environment management systems. The goal of this research was to document the values, beliefs, personal norms, and environmental management support behaviors of managers in a hospitality setting to test the behavioral theory. Data were collected from a sample of hotel and resort managers in the Phoenix metropolitan area by using a survey of well-documented items from previous research on the theory. Results suggest the theory is successful in explaining environmental management support behaviors. Implications for practitioners as well as researchers are discussedPublication Tourist destination image: advantages and limits of transferring face to face qualitative data collection onto the Internet(2012) Frochot, Isabelle; Mosarola, JeanThe research presented investigates the advantages and limits of transferring a qualitative research approach (by interviews) onto the Internet. Internet offers the possibility to reproduce, to some extent, the interactive characteristics of face to face interviewing and these possibilities are tested in the research. A study on 200 consumers of ski resorts shows that while Internet opens up new dimensions to qualitative data collection, it cannot fully replace the presence of an interviewer. Results also indicate that image and word descriptions have different effects upon respondents’ answers and that Internet provides some interesting scope to encourage creative response from consumersPublication Accommodating Taste Variations in Tourist Satisfaction Analysis(2012) Wu, Lingling; Zhang, JunyiIt has been indicated that tourists’ satisfactions with each component of the destination have significant, positive, and direct effects on overall satisfaction. However, the existing researches have not satisfactorily represented individual heterogeneity in tourist satisfaction analysis. It is expected that the levels of importance attached to each component will vary across different tourists. To accommodate such kind of taste variations, this study employs the ordered probit model with random effect parameters to investigate the influence of component satisfaction on overall satisfaction. The model is applied to analyze tourist satisfaction in Kyusyu, Chugoku and Shikoku regions of Japan. The empirical results confirm the existence of taste variations in tourists’ valuation of three components, namely tourism resource, transportation system and supporting facilities. The finding has important practical implications for both destination management and policy making