Volume 5 (2016): Issue 2 (December 2016)

Tourism has been one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. Especially developed countries have been major markets for tourism destinations over the decades. Furthermore, the outbound tourism demand in emerging markets has increased rapidly in recent years. This study aims to investigate the determinants of Turkey’s outbound tourism demand by using the data from 1960 to 2013. For this purpose, the Markov Switching Vector Autoregressive Model is used as an empirical analysis. This model classifies the time period into different regimes in order to obtain more robust results. Finally, our findings show that Turkish citizens’ outbound visits have been influenced by income and the exchange rates.

In recent years, governments of developing countries have been much more active in destination management and development than they used to be in the past. However, the challenge many governments face is to determine an appropriate level of involvement. This study investigates the role government plays in tourism competitiveness by applying a panel data analysis to the Central American region. The results reveal that government plays an important role in tourism. The data provide evidence that a new theory may emerge as it pertains to tourism and developing countries. Furthermore, such discovery only reinforces the issue of free riders tourism faces and the role of ‘shadow’ economy in the Central American region.

This paper summarizes theoretical knowledge related to an issue of assessment of tourism impacts on a tourism destination. This paper pays special attention to stakeholders’ perception of tourism impacts as a popular approach to tourism impacts assessment in recent decades. Its aim is to map the key research focused on classification and assessment of tourism impacts in relation to regional stakeholders, using a summary and comparison of various research approaches over the past decades. The paper uses an integrative literature review of 28 papers published in top-rated journals which can be considered as a relevant sample of the research effort from the beginnings of 1990s. It compares commonly used approaches to the classification and assessment of tourism impacts through a comparative content analysis and points out their common characteristics and differences. The secondary aim is to define research implications as a theoretical and methodical basis for future research aimed at this topic.

Comprehensive understanding of the destination perception by its visitors represents one of the key prerequisites of professional destination management on its both strategic and tactical level. This study continues in previous research focused on the analysis of the perception of different landscape types of the Czech Republic, zooming this time on the perception of the landscape of the Bohemian Paradise destination. The emphasis is put on the understanding of manifestations of genius loci and the exogenous factors in the landscape perception. The participant ´s observation of visitors’ behaviour, evaluation of their spontaneous discussions and comments, structured interviews and introspection supplemented by recordings of exogenous factors represented methods used to get an insight into the perception of landscape and genius loci manifestation in the selected research localities. The qualitative research strategy in the form of pilot research led to the confirmation of suitability of applied methods and to the formulation of the preliminary hypotheses of the future quantitative research. The findings of this pilot research indicate the correctness of the assumption of the exogenous factors (weather, daytimes and seasons of the year) influence on the landscape perception as well as the manifestation of the genius loci perceived by the majority of visitors.

The concept of ecotourism evolves differently in developing and developed nations due to which the basic principles of ecotourism are in question. The existing literature on ecotourism suggests ambiguity in conceptual understanding of ecotourism. Due to this qualm, ecotourism is evolving into various forms. Different stakeholders with varying objectives related to ecotourism make it further difficult to form the consensus on what constitutes ecotourism. Without the clear understanding of ecotourism, it is difficult to evolve ethics on which the ecotourism principles are based. The focus of this research is to find out the principle components or themes of ecotourism using a content analysis for the development of ecotourism policy and applications. This study identified six key components of ecotourism which are widely accepted by researchers and could be used to shape the fundamental understanding of ecotourism. These themes are: (1) Nature oriented travel; (2) Support of conservation; (3) Learning and appreciation; (4) Socio-economic development of local area; (5) Support and respect for local culture and (6) Local people (area) participation.

Air travellers are increasingly becoming more demanding in terms of their expectations of the quality of service offered by airline carriers. Hence, operators must improve service delivery to retain their loyalty. This study investigates the relationship between airline service quality dimensions and customer loyalty among air passengers in Lagos state. Causal research design was adopted to examine the aforementioned relationship. Convenience sampling technique was used to survey 600 air travellers. Data collected from the respondents were analysed by using Pearson correlation analysis and Anova. The findings reveal that the service quality and its dimensions are positive and significantly related to each other, overall service quality and customer loyalty. The results of the study indicate no significant difference between customers’ travelling for different motives in their perception of the quality of services. It was also discovered that flight frequency was insignificantly connected to customer loyalty. In line with the above findings, the study concludes that the airline service quality improvement initiatives should begin with recognition of customers’ needs. Correspondingly, airline operators should cultivate strategies to fulfil their service promise along the service quality dimensions, most important to air travellers to enhance customer loyalty.

Academics perceive a great potential of virtual worlds in various areas, including tourism and education. Efforts adapting the virtual worlds in practice are, however, still marginal. There is no clear definition of the virtual world. Therefore the author of this article attempts to provide one. The paper also focuses on the barriers of a wider exploitation of the virtual worlds and discusses the principles that might help to increase their potential in tourism area. One of the principles – gamification – favours a wider adaptation of the virtual worlds in tourism. Applying gamification principles provides visitors with some unique experiences while serving as a powerful marketing tool for institutions. The benefits of implementing tourism education activities based on cooperative principles set in an immersive environment of the virtual worlds are depicted afterwards. Finally, this paper includes successful case studies, which show advantages and drawbacks of some approaches in exploiting the virtual worlds in tourism and tourism education.

This article focuses on the issues of organized tourism, more specifically, on children’s summer camps, in which Czech children spend free time during their holidays. T he purpose of this paper is to present results of a pilot study on children’s participation in summer camps. On the basis of the research carried out in the form of a face-to-face survey conducted with a sample of 479 pupils – grades five and seven, selected criteria, which characterize these camps, were analysed in relation to the choice of the camps and children’s participation in them. T he results show that the majority of school children participate in summer children’s camps. T he most popular camps are overnight camps and sports camps run by the organizations which children attend during the school year.