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Publication A Systematic Review of Challenges in Medical Tourism Destination Management(2016) Thayarnsin, Sarinya L; Douglas, Alecia CDue to the limited literature and empirical evidence in medical tourism, this study attempts to better understand in challenges in medical tourism destination management faced by main stakeholders in medical tourism. Moreover, this study examines the economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts of medical tourism in both positive and negative perspectives. A systematic literature review will be used in this study. The findings of the study will help marketers and stakeholders in developing, maintaining and sustaining their medical tourism destinations, specifically in highly competitive environment.Publication When Plan A Falls Through: Using a Collective Story Methodology to Construct a Narrative(2016) Benjamin, StefaniPublication Lesson Learned in the Use of Mixed Methods to Gain Multiple Perspective in Tourism Leadership Research(2016) Knollenberg, Whitney; McGehee, Nancy GPublication Using the CMM Theoretical Lens to Deconstruct Problematic Discourse Regarding Quality and Rigor in Tourism Research: Can Transparency Bridge the Metatheoretical Divide?(2016) Lowry, Linda L; Cartier, Elizabeth APublication Publication Tourism’s social impact on a local community: The case of a mountain ski town(2016) Cartier, Elizabeth A; Lowry, Linda LPublication An exploratory examination of the wellness tourist experience using netnography(2016) Dillette, Alana K; Douglas, Alecia C; Andrzejewski, CareyPublication Travel Service Gaps for Wheelchair Users(2016) Cole, Shu; Hoback, Noah; Whiteneck, GaleAlthough accessibility in the travel industry has improved since the passing of ADA in 1990, individuals traveling in wheelchairs still find travel is not universally accessible. To better understand what the travel industry can do to improve the services to people with disabilities, this study conducted a total of 83 interviews to identify travel service gaps among people with spinal cord injury, their family members/caregivers, therapists, and travel agents who provide service to people with disabilities. Interviews were conducted and analyzed from May to August 2015, and results indicate that although respondents believe overall accessibility has significantly improved in the past 25 years, there is still a lack of travel services that understand the needs of wheelchair users. Travel businesses will have to be creative, not only in creating ways to eliminate the travel hassles for wheelchair users, but also to reduce the costs of servicing travelers with special needs.Publication The Process of Ethnographic Memoir Writing(2016) Delconte, JohnPublication Co-construction of knowledge through Participatory Action Research: People-First Tourism methodology and research tools(2016) Morais, Duarte B.; Ferreira, Bruno S; Hoogendoorn, Gijsbert; Wang, Yasong (Alex)People-First Tourism (P1t) research examines the role of tourism microentrepreneurship on equity and sustainability among people with vulnerable livelihoods. Studying the subaltern carries inherent challenges, which can be best addressed through PAR methodologies. Accordingly, P1t research includes tourism microentrepreneurs as partners in the research process so that they participate in a process of conscientization that helps them identify forces undermining their livelihoods. Our involvement with participants develops gradually as we coach them and collect data. This process earn us entry to more in-depth insights and stronger-inference longitudinal findings. In addition, P1t is associated with a social venture that sells experiences provided by participating microentrepreneurs. Consequently, in addition to expected project impacts on policy, P1t is generating direct benefits to the participants’ livelihoods. In this presentation we will discuss the PAR methodology guiding P1t and will train session participants on how to use some of the P1t research tools.Publication The Self as the Data: Autoethnographic Approaches(2016) Beeton, SuePublication Perceived Value in Tourism Experience(2016) Shen, Ye (Sandy)Perceived value has been found to have a direct positive impact on future behavioral intention. However, this impact may also be influenced by tourism experience because tourism experience is the result of the values perceived by tourists and it has been recognized as a powerful driver of future behavioral intention. The relationships among perceived value, tourism experience, and future behavioral intention have not been explored adequately in previous studies. To bridge this gap, this research will give insights into these constructs and relationships. Both qualitative and quantitative methods will be adopted. This study is expected to give a clear interpretation of perceived value in the tourism context and to develop a measurement scale of perceived value. Additionally, it will build a model to explain the relationships among perceived value, tourism experience, and future behavioral intention.Publication Framing China as a Tourism Destination: A Study on Media Discourse(2016) Ma, TianBased on the theory of social construction of reality, the reality is not established but social constructed. The mass media have great power in the process of social construction of reality. The same is true in the context of tourism. Tourists’ decision of where to go and what to see are affected to a large extent by professionals’ or travel writers’ opinions. In order to identify the various and recurring coverage frames of China as a tourism destination in western media discourse, this paper will conduct a framing analysis of 47 feature articles on China from the travel section of the New York Times between 2005 and 2015. At the same time, general narrative characteristics of these travel articles and the representation of China and Chinese people in western media discourse will be explored.Publication The Sense of Ritual in the Tourism Experience: Diverse Cultures and Native Concepts in a two-nation Comparison(2016) Wei, YindongThrough the process of modernization, people have become more alienated from others and their own cultural heritage. Thus they need tourism more than ever before to find spaces outside their functional domains to seek the real and deep subjective experience in the sense of being. Therefore tourist experience is becoming a core area. Studying tourist experience from the perspective of ritual has shown its unique anthropological advantage in many respects. However, the tourism ritual theory has also been questioned in its basic assumption and empirical basis. This study, via empirical study and theoretical innovation, will examine the sense of ritual in tourism: explain the sense of ritual’s operational mechanism in the tourism experience; research tourists’ cognitive differences regarding the sense of ritual in Chinese and US’s cultural contexts; take Chinese and US’s “native concepts” as a basis for the theoretical development.Publication AIRBNB: ASSESSING ITS ENGAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY IN ATHENS, GA(2016) Ayscue, Emily; Boley, B. BynumAIRBNB: ASSESSING ITS SUSTAINABILITY USING A TBL FRAMEWORK IN ATHENS, GA Introduction The growth of the sharing economy has been widely noted from Fortune magazine to President Obama (Eckhardt & Bardhi 2015). It is also touted as one of the 10 ideas that will change the world in the 21st Century (Teubner 2014). Moreover, its potential to reduce waste within economic, social, and environmental processes has been dubbed as important as the Industrial Revolution in terms of how we value ownership of goods and services (Belk 2014). The sharing economy was valued at $26 billion in 2013 (Geron 2013b; Cannon & Summers 2014). Airbnb, a major shared-lodging player in this economy, was valued at $10 billion in April 2014 (Ember 2014) with more than 11 million guests choosing between more than 600,000 private accommodations in more than 34,000 cities and 192 countries (Smolka & Hienerth 2014). With this type of growth, Airbnb has earned attention from the global hospitality and tourism industry because of its ability to secure what some might see as an unfair economic competitive advantage by circumventing sales and occupancy taxes, the two major sources of income for CVBs and DMOs, and its ability to supply inexpensive accommodations in the heart of tourist centers (Zervas, Prosperio, & Byers 2014). While the economic competitive advantage presents a challenge to traditional accommodation options, the true impacts of Airbnb have not been studied from a triple bottom line (TBL) framework assessing economic, social, and environmental impacts (Dubois 2015; Sigala 2014). This study aims to study whether Airbnb participants are creating net economic, social, and environmental value to the Athens, GA community. Literature Review While shared-economy literature has primarily addressed economic impacts, analyzing economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts underneath a triple bottom line framework helps in assessing the sharing economy’s potential to contribute to sustainable development, particularly in tourism (Elkington 1994; Dwyer 2005). Below is a brief review of the research within each of the three categories of the TBL. Economic Impacts Hosts’ and guests’ economic motivations for engaging in the sharing economy have been examined from a variety of methods such as consumer segmentation (Müller 2014), online surveys (Tussyadiah 2015), semi-structured interviews with hosts (Bardhi, Eckhardt & Arnould 2012), and web crawlers investigating price reaction within online rating platforms (Gutt & Hermann 2015). Researchers have also attempted to understand participation from the theoretical lenses of the theory of planned behavior and social exchange theory (Matzner et al. 2015; Ikkala 2015; Kim, Yoon, & Zo 2015). Research has identified economic incentives such as earning more in collaborative production than in the traditional market place, cost consciousness (Bardhi et al. 2012; Hamari et al. 2013; Dubois 2015); time, space and effort saving as reasons for participating in the sharing economy. The degree of negative economic impacts of Airbnb demand on the supply of traditional lodging options varies by lodging type (Zervas, Prosperio, & Byers 2015). For example, in a study by Zervas et al. (2014), it was found that in Houston, Texas, lower-end hotels and motels that do not cater to business travelers were the most affected with a 0.05% decrease in quarterly hotel revenues per 1% increase in Airbnb listings in the area. In contrast, businesses comprising the tourism supply of an area have in some cases, experienced positive economic externalities from the existence of nearby Airbnb’s (HR&A 2012). Some have even speculated that reducing housing supply might increase demand and subsequent housing market values (National Realtors Association 2011). While motivations for participation might seem mostly formative , there are certainly substantive reasons for participation in the sharing economy to be considered as well as the potential social impacts of this participation (McGehee, 2007). Social Impacts Trust, reputation, (Tussyadiah 2015; Botsman & Rogers 2010; Lamberton & Rose 2012; Schor & Fitzmaurice 2014) and the desire to belong to a community (Belk 2010; Giesler and Pohlmann 2003) are among some of the substantive reasons for participation in the sharing economy. However participation as a guest or host in Airbnb might be accompanied with some risks such as the ability for Airbnb listings in some places to circumvent safety regulations enforced by a third party (Chasin & Scholta 2015). Some researchers worry about challenges faced by collaborative consumptive employees such as exploitation by hiring contracted workers rather than employees (Cheng 2014). On the other hand, authenticity remains a potential benefit of Airbnb for the tourism economy. While there is potential for an unwanted intrusion into community fabric, embedding the tourist experience might create a socially sustainable and authentic experience (Guttentag 2013) desired by tourists (Mac Cannell 1973) through opportunities for education and increased appreciation for the community. The demand for authentic experiences is reinforced through Airbnb’s through promotional videos (Airbnb 2014). Understanding the socially nuanced motivations for participation might help gauge the stability of support for the sharing economy. If there are expressed concerns for feeling disconnected from the community or favorable reviews for the ability to provide tourists with authentic experiences, these are insights helpful to gauging the stability and future support for the sharing economy in tourism. Environmental Impacts Very little literature addresses environmental impacts in the sharing. Growing environmental awareness (Gansky 2010) and an increasingly critical view of over consumption (Belk 2014: Coyle 2011; Leismann, Schmitt, Rohn & Baedeker 2013) are thought as environmentally motivated reasons for participation in the sharing economy. The resource-saving benefits of collaborative consumption have been conceptualized (Liesmann et al. 2013; Sigala 2014), however, this idea has not been empirically tested leaving much room for investigation into the environmental impacts of the sharing economy. Methodology Study Area The study area will be confined to the city of Athens, GA as done by Zervas et al. (2014) who proposed that this geographic range is large enough to see accommodation substitution patterns between Airbnb listings and other lodging options. Assessing the Impacts of Airbnb through the TBL Economic Impacts Guests for this portion of the study will be sampled from economical, boutique, high-end, and Airbnb locations in town. The Athens, GA CVB STR report’s average occupancy rates and site specific average daily rates, will be used to calculate potential revenue per available room among (RevPAR) traditional lodging options. Numbers of Airbnb stays obtained from mining the Airbnb website across the same time period will be calculated to determine the RevPAR from these visitors. Surveys left in guests’ rooms or offered at the front desk (depending on the lodging facility) will be administered to obtain guests’ perceived expenditure patterns while in town. The occupancy and length of stay of all guests in the study will be plugged into an EIA program, such as IMPLAN to examine the multiplier effect of guests across different types of lodging. Social Impacts Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with hosts recruited through Airbnb’s online messaging system lasting a total of 30-90 minutes either over video chat or in person (Dubois 2015). Hosts will also be asked about their attachment to the community, to describe their sense of place of not only their accommodation but of Athens, and their perceived contribution to the community through their participation in Airbnb. Other qualitative methods such as pile-sort of economic benefits from occupancy and sales tax to understand motivations for participation in Airbnb and to understand knowledge of the local economy The second measure of social impacts will be the perceived positive and negative impacts of Airbnb on the Athens community from Airbnb non-users. Airbnb non-users will be chosen based on their proximity to interviewed Airbnb hosts. Lastly, a historical investigation will be made into a timeline for the development of different types of lodging in town and the community participation and published opinions of their development. For instance, articles within the local independent newspaper about Airbnb will be analyzed for the topic covered and the comments if any on the topic. Environmental Impacts Chosen hotels and residential properties of interviewed hosts will be assessed for their embodied energy (Haynes 2010; Rosselló-Batle., Moià, Cladera, & Martínez 2010). Understanding the life cycle of chosen lodging options creates a point to compare proposed and apparent economic benefits to for a ratio that highlights whether each location’s environmental footprint is offset by the economic benefits it provides. Alternative development plans, if any, identified through the above mentioned historical investigation will be used to assess tradeoffs associated with different development choices. Expected Outcomes The intense focus on the economic impacts of Airbnb hinders a progressive and holistic understanding of a stakeholder who is likely to revolutionize the tourism industry. The TBL framework supports the inextricability of social and environmental tradeoffs with economic ones. The findings from this study will present an opportunity for tourism industry stakeholders to transform a defensive reaction against the economic changes that the sharing economy brings to a proactive strategy that considers also the new social and environmental tradeoffs that might deserve mediation or could benefit tourism at all scales. References Arnould, Eric, and Melanie Wallendorf (1994), “Market Oriented Ethnography: Interpretation Building and Market Strategy Formulation,” Journal of Marketing Research, 31 (4), 484–504. Bardhi, Fleura, Giana M. Eckhardt, and Eric J. Arnould (2012),“Liquid Relationship to Possessions,” Journal of Consumer Research, 39 (3), electronically published January 12. Belk, R. (2010). Sharing. Journal of consumer research, 36(5), 715-734. Belk, R. (2014). You are what you can access: Sharing and collaborative consumption online. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), 1595-1600. Botsman, R. and Rogers, R. (2010). What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. Cannon, S. and Summers, L. H. (2014). How Uber and the Sharing Economy Can Win Over Regulators - HBR. Harvard business review Chasin, F., & Scholta, H. (2015). Taking Peer-to-Peer Sharing and Collaborative Consumption onto the Next Level-New Opportunities and Challenges for E-Government. Cheng, D. F. (2014). Reading between the lines: blueprints for a worker support infrastructure in the peer economy (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Coyle, Diane (2011). The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dubois, E. (2015). The Field of Consumption: Contemporary Dynamics of Status, Capital, and Exchange (Doctoral dissertation, BOSTON COLLEGE). Dwyer, L. (2005). Relevance of triple bottom line reporting to achievement of sustainable tourism: A scoping study. Tourism Review International, 9(1), 79-938. Eckhardt, G. M. and Bardhi, F. (2015). The Sharing Economy Isn’t About Sharing at All - HBR.Harvard business review. Elkington, J. (1994). Towards the sustainable corporation: Win-win-win business strategies for sustainable development. California management review, 36(2), 90. Ember, S. (2014, April 21). Airbnb’s Huge Valuation. Retrieved May 6, 2014, from http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/morning-agenda-airbnbs-10-billion-valuation/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1& Gansky, Lisa (2010). The Mesh: Why the Future of Business Is Sharing. New York City, NY: Penguin Group US. Geron, T. (2013b). Airbnb and the Unstoppable Rise of the Share Economy - Forbes. Forbes. Giesler, Markus and Mali Pohlmann (2003). “The Anthropology of File Sharing: Consuming Napster As Gutt, D., & Herrmann, P. (2015). Sharing Means Caring? Hosts' Price Reaction to Rating Visibility. Guttentag, D. 2013. Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector. CurrentIssues in Tourism, (ahead-of-print), 1-26. Hamari, Juho et al. (2013). “The Sharing Economy: Why People Participate in Collaborative Consumption.”SSRN Electronic Journal, 1–19. HR&A. 2012. Airbnb: Economic Impacts in San Francisco and Its Neighborhoods. Data analysis. San Francisco: Airbnb. Ikkala, T., & Lampinen, A. (2014, February). Defining the price of hospitality: networked hospitality exchange via Airbnb. In Proceedings of the companion publication of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing (pp. 173-176). ACM. Kim, J., Yoon, Y., & Zo, H. (2015). Why People Participate in the Sharing Economy: A Social Exchange Perspective. Lamberton, C. P. and Rose, R. L. (2012). When Is Ours Better Than Mine? A Framework for Understanding and Altering Participation in Commercial Sharing Systems. Journal of Marketing, 76(July), 109–125. Leismann, Kristen, Schmitt, M., Rohn, H., Baedeker, C. (2013). “Collaborative Consumption: Towards a Resource-Saving ConsumptionCulture.” Resources 2 (3), 184–203. Matzner, M., & Chasin, F. (2015). To share or not to share: towards understanding the antecedents of participation in it-enabled sharing series. McGehee, N. G. (2007). An agritourism systems model: A Weberian perspective. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 15(2), 111-124. Müller, M. P. (2014). An economic analysis of online sharing systems’ implications on social welfare. National Realtors Association (2011). Short-Term Rental Housing Restrictions. Retrieved January 21, 2016, from http://www.realtor.org/sites/default/files/reports/2011/short-term-rental-housing-restrictions-white-paper-2011-09.pdf Schor, J. B. and Fitzmaurice, C. J. (2014). Collaborating and Connecting: The emergence of the sharing economy. Cheltenham, Handbook on research on teaching Sigala, M. (2014). Collaborative commerce in tourism: implications for research and industry. Current Issues in Tourism, (ahead-of-print), 1-10. Smolka, C., & Hienerth, C. (2014). The best of both worlds: Conceptualizing Trade-offs between Openness and Closedness for Sharing Economy Models. Teubner, T. (2014). Thoughts on the sharing economy. In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Commerce Tussyadiah, I. P. (2015). An exploratory study on drivers and deterrents of collaborative consumption in travel. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015 (pp. 817-830). Springer International Publishing. Zervas, G., Proserpio, D., & Byers, J. (2014). The rise of the sharing economy: Estimating the impact of Airbnb on the hotel industry. Boston U. School of Management Research Paper, (2013-16). Zervas, G., Proserpio, D., & Byers, J. (2015). A First Look at Online Reputation on Airbnb, Where Every Stay is Above Average. Where Every Stay is Above Average (January 23, 2015).Publication Social Network Analysis: An Application to Agritourism Associations(2016) Li, Jing; Barbieri, Carla; Smith, JordanAgritourism has grown steadily since the 1980s. However, many farmers lack of entrepreneurial skills and business competencies to deal with the increasing demand. In response, agritourism associations have emerged to provide their members a diverse range of resources and information to increase their entrepreneurial preparedness. These associations also help build social capital and social networks, which are vital to mobilizing resources and facilitating information exchange among members. However, little empirical evidence exists detailing how effective agritourism associations are in increasing farmers’ ability to access desired resources and information. Therefore, we will collect data from members of an agritourism association to visually display the social capital and social networks within agritourism associations using social network analysis. In this presentation, we discuss the theoretical importance of social capital and how it is transmitted through social networks; we also discuss our research design and the implications for major findings for agritourism operators.Publication Motivational Changes for Students on a Travel Study Program(2016) Hoback, Noah GMotivational Changes for Students on a Travel Study Program Short Abstract The research was done on a travel study trip that takes university students from the United States to New Zealand and Australia. The purpose of the research was to see the likelihood of students in a group who may change their minds from not participating in adventure activities to participating in them. The research can help tour operators and guides understand more about motivations to participate in adventure activities. With little research on what causes people to change their minds in a group setting like the travel study program, this research hoped to shed some light on possible ways that tours operators can better market to groups and bring in more customers.Publication The value of Twitter in adventure tourism: An analysis of whitewater rafting(2016) Dudley, KatiePublication THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR IN THE CONTEXT OF WINE FESTIVAL ATTENDEES(2016) Pannilage, Sachini Udeshika; Lin, YeqiangThis study seeks to contribute to the literature on event tourism through the lens of the Theory of planned behavior. In doing so, the study seeks to address various knowledge gaps in wine festival research, namely with regard to the wine festival attendees’ behavior and motivation. Another knowledge gap identified in the present study related to the limited use of the TPB in the context of food and wine events, with Horng et al. (2013) being among the few researchers contributing to this area in recent time. The present study’s main objective is to apply an extended model of the TPB to investigate the travelers’ behavior formation process in attending a wine festival. Various positive outcomes could be achieved from this study. First, the findings related to attendee’ motivations to attend the wine festival, could provide valuable practical information to event organizers and managers. This information might subsequently help them develop strategies to address attendees’ needs & wants. In particular, the identification of specific segments with higher involvement in wine festival visitation and patronage and stronger desire to invest financially, in terms of time or travel mileage could be very valuable to organizers, and ultimately, to attendees. Second, from the theoretical perspective, the adoption of the TPB could help identify factors relevant to attendees’ wine festival experience, and thus contribute to the further development of the theory. Finally, the study will examine predictive capacity of intention on actual behavior.Publication The Investigation of Post-Experience Advertising Effect of Memory of Collegiate Sporting Event Experience(2016) Hu, Chengming; Cole, ShuWhile memory of previous travel experience significantly influences travelers’ intention to re-visit the destination (Kozak, 2001), the current study aims to investigate the memory of collegiate sport event experience, more specifically, provide answers for the question about whether post-experience advertising impact the memory of collegiate sport event experience. The theoretical framework is based on Braun’s (1999) research, which is proposing that advertising received after an actual product experience can providing a backward-framing effect and have significant influence on how that product experience was remembered and evaluated. Results of the current study are expected to help collegiate sport event marketers understanding how their marketing campaigns influence consumers’ memories and perceptions of collegiate sport event experience.