The international journal of tourism research tập 13, số 03, 2011 05 + 06

This study examines the role of motivations, prior travel experience, social ties and destination choice in pre-trip attitude formation.. Received 28 February 2010; Revised 24 August

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This study examines the role of motivations,

prior travel experience, social ties and

destination choice in pre-trip attitude

formation The sample for this study is

composed of a group of university students

who recently participated in study abroad

programs to the South Pacifi c or Europe

The results revealed that academic

motivations and social ties infl uence

students’ destination selection for the study

aboard program Social motivation emerged

as the most important factor that infl uences

attitude toward the destinations prior to the

trip Further analysis found that the

destination intended to visit mediates the

effect of social motivation on pre-trip

Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 28 February 2010; Revised 24 August 2010; Accepted

31 August 2010

selection; students travel; study abroad

INTRODUCTION

Study abroad programs constitute a major

international tourism activity with

sig-nifi cant economic and social impact due

to participants’ length of stay, which normally extends much beyond the duration of the typical holiday tourist These programs are also truly multidirectional since student mobil-ity involves arrivals from and departures to several countries The Institute of International Education (2006) indicates that there are over

560 000 international students studying within the USA Even though the number of interna-tional students studying in the USA has decreased because of the September 2001 tragedy, resulting in tighter visa regulations, the number of new international student enrollment in US universities increased by 8.3% during 2005 Within tourism education, study abroad programs can play an important role by offering students international experi-ence and an increased global awareness, com-plement the classroom learning experience, and also provide fi rsthand insights into future careers

While most students face constraints

(Sanchez et al., 2006) that prevent them from

participating in the traditional ‘junior year abroad’, universities, particularly in developed regions, are now starting to offer study abroad programs that range from a few weeks to full year programs The traditional junior year abroad can be traced back to the early 1900s when American university students were encouraged to spend their junior year in Europe (Hullihen, 1929) and later in various other regions in the world The junior year, or third of four years at university, became the period during which students would tradition-ally study abroad Modern constraints includ-ing academic programs with little freedom in class selection, fi nancial constraints and soci-etal pressure to complete a four-year degree

Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011)

Published online 7 October 2010 in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.811

Study Abroad Motivations,

Destination Selection and Pre-Trip

Attitude Formation

Gyan P Nyaupane1,*, Cody Morris Paris2 and Victor Teye1

1 School of Community Resources & Development, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

2 School of Health and Social Science, Middlesex University, Dubai, UAE

*Correspondence to: Dr Gyan P Nyaupane, Assistant

Professor and Graduate Program Director, School of

Com-munity Resources & Development, Arizona State

Univer-sity, 411 N Central Avenue 85004, Ste 550, Phoenix, AZ,

USA.

E-mail: gyan@asu.edu

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and get a good job have led to an increased

demand for short-term study abroad programs

in colleges and universities in the USA, in

particular

A national survey conducted by the

Associa-tion of InternaAssocia-tional Educators (NAFSA, 2006),

formerly known as the National Association of

Foreign Student Advisers, showed that 77% to

over 90% of Americans believe that it is

impor-tant for their children to learn other languages,

study abroad, attend a college where they can

interact with international students and learn

about other countries and cultures Over the

last century, the number of study abroad

pro-grams and participants has continually grown

In the 2006–2007 academic year alone, over

241 000 American students studied abroad for

academic credit, an 8.5% increase from the

pre-vious year (NAFSA, 2008)

In order to raise awareness of study abroad

programs, the US congress declared 2006 as the

year of study abroad The US Senator Paul

Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act (2007)

has been instrumental to the increased number

of study abroad programs in the USA, by

creat-ing a national program that will establish study

abroad as the norm, not the exception, for

undergraduate students

The NAFSA further highlighted the

impor-tance of American students studying abroad to

meet the challenges of the 21st century Study

abroad programs have both economic and

socio-cultural signifi cance From an economic

point of view, one in six US jobs is tied to

inter-national trade; however, US companies lose an

estimated $2 billion per year because of

insuf-fi cient cross-cultural guidance for their

employ-ees in multicultural positions From national

security and foreign policy perspectives,

almost a third of all State Department offi cers

in language-designated positions overseas do

not meet the requirement of foreign language

skills The former chair of the 9/11

Commis-sion indicated that, ‘the U.S cannot do

effectively in a competitive international

envi-ronment when the workforce lack exposure

and understanding of the world’ (Kean and

Hamilton, 2008, p 1) Despite the need of the

internationally exposed workforce, less than

1% of students enrolled in all US higher

educa-tion institueduca-tions study abroad for credit (Kean

and Hamilton, 2008) This underscores the

need for the government and universities to expand study abroad programs, including making them more accessible and affordable to students The Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship (2005) has therefore proposed to send one million Ameri-can students to study abroad annually by the 2016–2017 academic year

While the benefi ts of study abroad programs highlighted by educational institutions are related to education and career, many young American students are motivated by non-academic desires for international travel Study abroad programs enable students to fulfi lll their desires for travel through a socially legiti-mate travel motivation (Jarvis and Peel, 2008), and many study abroad participants tend to combine the structure of the study abroad pro-grams with short periods of independent travel An Australian study found that this group of tourists, sometimes referred to as

‘study backpackers’, account for about 29%

of the total nights spent in the destination, and contributed an estimated $3 billion per year to the Australian economy (Jarvis and Peel, 2008)

Most universities offer a range of study abroad programs to a multitude of countries that provide students with the opportunity to travel and explore the world, gain experience and earn credits toward completing their degrees In addition to cost and timing consid-erations, various other factors may infl uence students’ decisions regarding program choice, including their motivations and their attitude toward the destination However, there is a dearth of research on how attitudes are formed and what factors play important roles in forming attitude toward the destinations

(Nyaupane et al., 2008) Attitudes and

destina-tion image play an important role in the nation choice of individuals Understanding the process of attitude formation toward com-peting destinations for this specifi c tourist segment will contribute to a greater compre-hension of an important part of the decision

desti-making process (Sirakaya et al., 2001).

As a growing and unique tourist segment, university students, and specifi cally students participating in a study abroad, need to be examined more deeply This study does so by examining the distinctive travel motivations

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that university students and study abroad

tourists have Further, this study contributes to

the destination choice and pre-trip attitude

for-mation literature by presenting and testing a

conceptual model This study therefore aims to

examine the role of motivations, prior travel

experience and social ties in forming pre-trip

attitude toward the study abroad destinations

More specifi cally, the conceptual model is

tested to examine whether or not destination

intended to visit mediates the effect of

previ-ous travel experience, social ties and

motiva-tion on pre-trip attitude formamotiva-tion

STUDY ABROAD MOTIVATIONS

There have been several traditional key goals

to attract students to participate in study

abroad programs including promoting

world-mindedness and international understanding

(Coelho, 1962; Gullahorn and Gullahorn, 1958;

Leaonard, 1964; Meras, 1932), educational

goals of foreign language profi ciency,

increas-ing competitiveness and career opportunities,

and exploring a topic not offered at a home

institution (Teichler and Steube, 1991) The

lit-erature examining the motivations of study

abroad participants is relatively limited The

results of two studies on study abroad student

motivations by Kitsantas (2004) and

Weirs-Jenseen (2003) can generally be grouped into

four motivational categories including

cross-cultural experience, academics, future careers

and family heritage While examining the

study backpackers in Australia, Jarvis and Peel

(2008) found that most individuals participate

in a short-term study abroad in order to gain a

broadened global awareness, to experience

new and exciting cultures, to have social

inter-actions and meet new people and to get away

from normal life

Some geographical areas are historically

pre-ferred by students in the United States For the

2006–2007 academic year, the majority of US

students chose to go to Europe (57%), while

other regions received fewer students: Latin

America (15%), Asia (10 %), Oceania (6%) and

Africa (4%) (NAFSA, 2008) In addition to

factors such as cost, historical ties, institutional

arrangements, level of socio-economic

devel-opment, the destination or geographical

pref-erence can also be explained by students’

motivation, experience and social ties, which has been conceptualized within the framework

of tourist decision-making (Sirakaya et al.,

2001; Um and Crompton, 1992) Tourist vation and attitude have been found to be infl uential factors in the destination selection process (Phillips and Jang, 2008) Several studies have attempted to examine changes in attitudes as a result of the interaction between tourists and hosts However, how attitudes are formed and what factors play important roles

moti-in formmoti-ing attitude toward the destmoti-inations have not been explored much in the tourism

literature (Nyaupane et al., 2008) This

under-standing is even more lacking with respect to the large number of students who annually participate in various forms of study abroad programs

ATTITUDE FORMATION TOWARD

A DESTINATION

In order to understand how attitudes are formed, a brief discussion of a working defi ni-tion of attitudes is appropriate While there is

no universal defi nition, attitudes have been defi ned by scholars in terms of evaluation (Eagly and Chaiken, 1992), affect (Greenwald, 1989), cognition (Kruglanski, 1989), behavioral predispositions (Triandis 1971) and state of mind and process for response (Allport, 1954) According to Olson and Zanna (1993), there are three generally agreed upon components of attitudes: evaluation, storage in memory and the affective, cognitive and behavioral precur-sors and consequences of attitudes Attitudes are stored in memory and persist over time until automatically activated The most com-plete defi nition of attitude was provided by Katz (1960) as, ‘predisposition of the individ-ual to evaluate some symbol or object or aspect — in a favorable or unfavorable manner Attitudes include the affective or feeling core

of liking or disliking, and the cognitive, or belief elements which describe the effect of the attitude, its characteristics and its relations to other objects’ (p 168)

Attitude change toward a destination or group of people as a result of tourism experi-ence has been examined by several previous

studies (Gomez-Jacinto et al., 1999; Milman

et al., 1990; Nyaupane et al., 2008; Pizam

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et al., 1991) However, there has been limited

literature addressing how attitudes toward a

destination are formed Broadly speaking,

atti-tudes and the formation of attiatti-tudes have been

considered functions of experience in the

social-psychology literature (Olson and Zanna,

1993); however, it has been scarcely explored

in the tourism context with a few exceptions

Phillips and Jang (2008) examined how

atti-tude is infl uenced by two components

(cogni-tive and affec(cogni-tive) of destination image Their

study revealed that only affective image had a

direct impact on tourist attitude Daruwalla

and Darcy (2005) also addressed several

theoretical and conceptual frameworks of

atti-tude formation and change, although their

study particularly focused on attitude toward

disabilities

The functionalist approach (Daruwalla and

Darcy, 2005; Katz, 1960; Smith et al., 1956) can

be helpful in understanding attitude formation

toward a destination Function theory

exam-ines attitudes from a motivation perspective

The theory addresses why attitudes are held

by people, and what specifi c situations help to

manifest or maintain those attitudes (Snyder

and DeBono, 1989) Generally, the functions of

attitudes have been divided into four

catego-ries: ego-defensive, value expressive,

knowl-edge and social adjustive (Katz, 1960; Smith et

al., 1956; Snyder and DeBono, 1989) The

ego-defensive function results from internal

con-fl icts For example, open hostility toward an

activity like snorkeling could be an

ego-defen-sive function of an internal fear of water Value

expressive attitudes function is a manifestation

of personal values and self-expression or self

perception In the context of attitude formation

of study abroad students toward destinations,

the knowledge function and the social

adjust-ment function, however, are more relevant

than the other two categories

The knowledge function theory provides a

basis in which a chaotic universe can be given

structure People need knowledge to provide

meaning for the otherwise unorganized

envi-ronments in which they live Attitudes allow

people to process acquired knowledge into

expectations, beliefs and eventually behaviors

Attitudes that address the knowledge function

provide a frame of reference for evaluation of

the world and events (Katz, 1960) The

devel-opment of attitudes occurs over time through

a learning process (Assael, 1984), and as new knowledge is acquired, the frame of reference from which attitudes are formed also change The knowledge function of attitudes can be heightened through the need to make deci-sions in specifi c situations (Assael, 1984) Atti-tudes provide guides from which judgements and/or decisions can be made In specifi c situ-ations, especially those in which a person has

no direct experience, the knowledge function

of attitude become stronger The media play a signifi cant role in attitude formation by por-traying selective news about the destination (Daruwalla and Darcy, 2005) One particular example is how New Zealand is portrayed as

a rich cultural and adventure destination by

the Lord of the Rings movie The movie has

played a signifi cant role in forming attitude toward New Zealand (Hudson and Ritchie, 2006) Previous travel experience to interna-tional destinations is an important source of knowledge and subsequently attitude forma-tion (Lewin 1942) For example, Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) argue that the more positive past experiences lead to a more positive belief that,

in turn, will create a more positive attitude about a particular destination Previous experi-ence also aids in acquiring knowledge and the changing of a frame of reference from which attitudes are formed Allport (1954) has also indicated that longer contact or acquaintance infl uences attitude

It has also been noted that decisions that result in the maximization and/or minimiza-tion of benefi ts or rewards tend to heighten more utilitarian functions, such as the social adjustment function (Shavitt, 1989) in addition

to the knowledge function The social ment function is based on the need for people

adjust-to have a feeling of belonging and/or adjust-to gain the approval of a certain group, such as friends

or family (Katz, 1960; Smith et al., 1956; Snyder

and DeBano, 1989) The social adjustment function of attitudes, in a travel and tourism sense, is related to the maximization of social benefi ts and minimization of social conse-quences of travel by conforming to certain acceptable tasks or behaviors, such as traveling

to socially benefi cial destinations, buying venirs for friends and family, and sharing travel experiences

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sou-Gnoth (1997) introduced a theoretical model

of tourism motivation that helps in analyzing

attitudes toward destinations Within this

model, tourists’ attitudes are determined by

their felt needs and value systems through

either inner-directed or outer-directed motives

Satisfying inner-directed values and

motiva-tions are more general and dependent upon

classes of objects, whereas outer-directed

values are situation specifi c Inner-directed

values refl ect emotion-dominant attitudes

toward an object, and are driver-based These

inner-directed needs or values are based more

on an overall process, such as a ‘need to travel’,

which can be substituted by another object

Outer-directed values, however, target specifi c

objects, and thus can be diffi cult to replace

Examples of outer-directed values include

status, self-esteem needs, social acceptance,

and a sense of belonging Destination choice

often refl ects the norms and values of the

indi-viduals reference group (Mansfeld, 1992)

Often tourists from the same social group are

attracted to the same kind of destination

because of the social image attached to that

destination (Pearce, 1982) If a specifi c object,

or in a tourism case, a specifi c destination

sym-bolizes social status, then it is much more

dif-fi cult to substitute another destination than

one that fulfi lls a general need to travel

Drive theory (Hull, 1943) can be useful in

understanding the infl uence of past travel

experience on attitude formation As a person

fulfi lls a need, behavior occurs, and if that

behavior can successfully fulfi ll the need or

reduce drive, then the behavior will be repeated

in the future; thus drive theory is refl ective in

nature In a tourism setting, past travel

experi-ence can fulfi ll certain needs or reduce drives

Past experience is considered by behaviorists

as a strong stimulus of behavior and is often

included in destination choice models

symbol-ized by a feedback loop (Chon, 1990; Mansfeld,

1992; Woodside and Lysonski, 1989)

The relationship between motivation and

attitude formation can be explained by a

two-step process (Gnoth, 1997) First, attitude

for-mation is infl uenced by motivations mediated

by subjective situations Motivations for an

object or situation that fulfi lls needs or drives

that are outer-directed, cognitively based, and

cannot be easily substituted could contribute

to the formation of attitudes Second, there is a cyclical relationship between attitudes, expec-tations, and events (Chon, 1990) Attitudes can

be formed and/or reconfi rmed as a result of an event Bosque and Martin (2008) presented a cognitive–affective model of tourist satisfac-tion that indirectly supports this relationship

In their model, destination image directly infl uences expectations that are either con-

fi rmed or disconfi rmed to affect satisfaction and in the end destination loyalty In a tourism context, attitude formation can be infl uenced

by past travel experience and tourism tions that are mediated through specifi c situations

motiva-Despite the theoretical relationship between motivations and attitude formation, there is a lack of empirical research to examine what aspects of study abroad motivations infl uence attitude In addition to motivations, as previ-ously indicated, attitude formation is a func-tion of many factors; however, to our knowledge, this remains unexplored in a tourism context According to the theories dis-cussed above, the choice of trip is infl uenced

by motivation, past experience and social ties Attitudes toward a destination are infl uenced

by motivations (Gnoth, 1997), past travel rience as suggested by drive theory (Hull, 1943), and social ties (Katz, 1960) Further, according to Gnoth (1997), the relationship is mediated by subjective situations In this context, the regions students intend to visit are subjective situations

expe-Building on these theories, this study aims

to examine these relationships empirically More especially, it will examine the role of motivations, past travel experience, and social ties in selecting destinations for study abroad programs It will also examine the role of these factors in attitude formation Further, destina-tion choice (regional students intend to visit) will be tested as a mediator variable (Figure 1).METHODS

A group of 136 study abroad participants from

an American university were surveyed These students were all undergraduates and partici-pated in a summer study abroad program lasting fi ve weeks Two summer programs were selected for this study, a Pacifi c program

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(Australia, Fiji and New Zealand) and a

Euro-pean program (Austria and the Netherlands)

Participation in either program was elective

and had no bearing on the graduation and

degree requirements Students were surveyed

prior to departure from the USA for the

program The surveys included questions

con-cerning social ties, previous travel experience,

motivations and attitudes toward destinations

The program participants were surveyed

before the start of the orientation meeting held

several days prior to the programs departure

Every student who attended the orientation

was given a questionnaire to complete, and 12

(8.7%) students were late or missed the

orien-tation and did not complete the survey The

group instructors and students had met on two

occasions prior to being surveyed to discuss

program itinerary and logistical issues

includ-ing lodginclud-ing, courses, transportation, costs,

application procedures, document

require-ments, etc These meetings, as they were related

to logistics, would not necessarily infl uence

the participants’ destination attitudes The

sample included more female students (73%)

than male (27%), because overall at the

univer-sity there are generally more female students

in each study abroad program offered by the

university The vast majority (90%) of the

sample were either juniors (45%) or seniors

(44%)

Thirty-fi ve motivation questions were

devel-oped and modifi ed from the previous studies

in order to apply them to a study abroad

context (Carlson et al., 1990; Ryan and Glendon,

1998; Sanchez et al., 2006) A group of experts

were selected to fi nalize the instrument

Experts were selected from three key areas

who have knowledge about study abroad

pro-grams: (i) professors who run study abroad

programs; (ii) university administrators responsible for managing study abroad pro-grams; and (iii) students who have previously participated in study abroad programs multi-ple times Two individuals were selected from each group to discuss the instrument Discus-sion with experts resulted in discarding 12 items from the list A pretest with a group of

fi ve former study abroad participants was ducted with the remaining 23 items Each motivation item was rated on a fi ve-point scale (1 = not important at all to 5 = extremely impor-tant) by respondents The instrument also included a set of 23 attitude questions (see Table 3), which were originally developed by Allport (1954) used in the tourism context by

con-Litvin (2003), Milman et al (1990) and Pizam

et al (1991) A seven-point semantic differential scale developed by Osgood et al (1957) was

used for measurement These items and scales were further tested with the group of fi ve stu-dents mentioned above After the pilot test, based on their comments, the seven-point scale was numbered as −3, −2, −1, 0, 1, 2 and 3 Respondents were asked to place a check mark

at the point on a seven-point semantic ential scale (Dawes, 1972)

differ-Past experience was measured by number of previous trips outside the USA and number of countries visited These two measures have been previously used to measure past travel experience (Sonmez and Graefe, 1998) Both the number of trips and number of countries visited were open-ended questions Social ties were measured by the relationships with people from foreign countries including whether or not they had a good friend and boy/girl friend from a foreign country, and if they had any relatives and close friends who live in a foreign country The items related to

Figure 1 Conceptual model of mediating role of destination choice on pre-trip attitude formation

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social ties were modifi ed and adapted to this

study from Lin and Dumin (1986)

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

The descriptive statistics indicate that 93% of

the respondents had previously travelled at

least once outside the USA, with the majority

(60%) visiting up to fi ve countries, mostly

Canada, Mexico and those in the Caribbean

The mean number of times travelled outside of

the USA was 7.1 and the number of countries

visited was 5.2 (Table 1) In terms of their

rela-tionships with pe ople from foreign countries,

45.7% had a good friend, 13.3% had a boy/girl

friend, and 34.3% had close friends from

foreign countries Additionally, 38.6% of the

study participants had relatives who live in a

foreign country

Principal component factor analysis with

varimax rotation of 23 motivation items

resulted in four motivation factors These four

factors include international travel, escape,

academic and social (Table 2) Items with a

factor loading of 0.4 or above were included in

the factor (Thurstone, 1947) Although the

study has a sample size of 136, it is large

enough to conduct a 23-item factor analysis

based on a 5:1 subject-to-variable ratio, which

means that the sample should be fi ve times of

the number of variables (Hatcher, 1994), and it

has to be more than 100 subjects (Kline, 1979)

All of these motivation dimensions had

accept-able reliability alpha scores The mean score of

the 23 items used to measure attitudes toward

a destination students intend to visit are

pro-vided in Table 3 Further, a composite mean

scale was computed using these variables to

measure overall attitudes (Litvin, 2003; Pizam

et al., 1991).

In order to test whether or not ‘destination intended to visit’ mediates the effect of previ-ous travel experience, social ties and motiva-tion on pre-trip attitude formation, Barron and Kenny’s (1986) three steps mediator analysis was used First, a logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the role of predictor variables (previous travel experience, social ties and motivation) in selecting a destination (Table 4) Second, a regression analysis was conducted to examine the effect of mediator variable (destination region) on the criterion variable (pre-trip attitude formation) Third, two regression analyses were performed: (i) regress the criterion variables on the predictors (Table 5), and (ii) regress the criterion variable

on both predictors and mediator variables (Table 6) The following results were revealed when the above steps were followed First, destination intended to visit was signifi cantly related to ‘academic motivation’ and ‘close friend who live in a foreign country’ (Table 4) Second, the mediator variable (destination intend to visit) signifi cantly affected the crite-rion variable (pre-trip attitude formation) Third, when all the predictor variables includ-ing previous travel experience (number of times travelled outside the USA, number of countries visited outside the USA), motivation dimensions (international travel, escape, aca-demic, social), social ties with people in foreign countries (whether or not they had friends, boy/girl friend, relative and close friends from overseas) were regressed against attitude, only social motivation emerged as the most impor-tant predictor of pre-trip attitude toward a des-

tination (Table 5) The adjusted R² value

suggests that the model explains 27.1 % of ance in pre-trip attitude The standardized beta values (β) show that social motivation plays a

vari-Table 1 Descriptive table of the variables included in the analysis

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Table 2 Exploratory factor analysis of study abroad students’ motivations

Socially/culturally learn more

about host country

0.786Interact with people in host

country

0.771

Meet people from different

countries

0.703

Have an authentic experience

with past cultures

0.637Get broader understanding of the

world

0.610

Travel independently without

family

0.664

Have convenience of prearranged

travel

0.586

Develop close relationships with

locals

Earn academic credit while

traveling

0.764

Show friends/family that have

been to host country

0.773

Buy goods and gifts from host

positive role in forming attitude When the

mediator variable was included in the above

model, the effect of destination intended to

visit was signifi cant, but effect of social

moti-vation was reduced (Table 6) Furthermore, the

model improved when the destination intended

to visit was added in the model Both of these

variables accounted for 36% of variance in trip attitude formation The results therefore revealed that pre-trip attitude toward a desti-nation is infl uenced by social motivation As assumed, the destination intended to visit mediates the effect of social motivation on pre-trip attitude formation

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pre-DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONSThis study contributes to better understanding

of the tourist motivations and attitude tion literature The results show that academic motivation and social ties, particularly ‘close friends who live in a foreign country’, play an important role in choosing a destination for study abroad programs This supports the con-tention that destination choice is often a refl ec-tion of the norms and values of an individual’s reference group (Mansfeld, 1992) An individ-ual’s social ties, in this case ‘close friends who live in a foreign country’, can infl uence the value placed upon certain destinations Further, the importance of academic motivations for the population under examination, university study abroad students, in choosing a destina-tion region to travel can be a refl ection of the norms and values of the reference group for these students

forma-This study also showed that pre-trip attitude formation is infl uenced by social motivation Further, this relationship is mediated by the destination intended to visit This supports Gnoth’s (1997) model that attitude formation

is infl uenced by motivations and mediated by subjective situations The subjective situations can be specifi c destination or program Only one of the motivational domains (social) was found to contribute to the formation of atti-tudes toward the destinations of the study

Table 3 Items used to measure attitudes toward a

Table 4 Logistic regression analysis of predicting the role of motivations, travel experience and social ties

in selecting a trip (region)

Model chi-square (df = 10) = 19.13*

-2LL = 52.038

Nagelkerke R2 = 0.41; e b is odds ratio

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abroad programs International travel, escape

and academic motivations are considered

inner-directed or emotion-based needs,

whereas social motivation domain satisfi es

needs and values that are outer-directed and

cognition-based, which are best satisfi ed by

specifi c destinations (Gnoth, 1997) This

sup-ports some of the theoretical assumptions

about attitude formation based on function

theory Within the functionalist approach to

attitude formation, the social adjustment

func-tion is supported by the study The

motiva-tional items that make up the social motivation

domain address needs and values that are based on knowledge about the expected out-comes of traveling to those countries The knowledge function of attitude formation is often heightened during making decisions in specifi c situations in which individuals have

no prior experience (Shavitt, 1989), and was supported through the mediated relationship between destination choice and attitude for-mation As the students participating had no prior experience traveling with the particular study abroad program, their destination choice and pre-trip attitude formation was based on

Table 5 Regression analysis for motivation, experience and social ties to predict attitude toward a

R 2 = 0.271.

a Independent variable: attitude toward a destination.

Table 6 Regression analysis for motivation, experience, social ties and region to predict attitude toward a destination

R 2 = 0.36.

a Independent variable: attitude toward a destination.

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a frame of reference developed from other

sources of knowledge The inner directed

moti-vations (international travel, escape and

academic motivations) did not signifi cantly

contribute to the attitude formation toward

destinations The reason for this could be that

these motivations are fulfi lled by studying

abroad in general rather than by a specifi c

des-tination Studying abroad, no matter what the

destination, provides students with the

oppor-tunity to satisfy motivations for international

travel, academic and escape

The fi ndings of the study suggest that

program designers should take into account

the previous travel experience of students as

well as the perceived fulfi llment of

outer-directed needs that the specifi c trip can fulfi ll

This study also provides important insight for

university administrators and the tourism

industry catering to study abroad students

Study abroad programs can be very expensive,

and many students could satisfy their

motiva-tion for internamotiva-tional travel independently or

on an organized tour for a much lower cost In

order for universities to provide the greatest

return on investment for the students, they

must integrate the program within their

cur-ricula and provide courses that are

academi-cally enriching, geographiacademi-cally relevant in

order to take advantage of the destination(s) of

the program, with easy application toward

stu-dents’ own university degree programs

CONCLUSION

This study contributes to the academic

litera-ture on tourists’ motivation and attitude

for-mation, as well as study abroad programs as

tourism phenomenon Four dimensions of

study abroad students’ motivation were

extracted: international travel, escape, social

and academic Among the four dimensions,

social motivation contributes the most to the

formation of attitudes toward the destination

of the program A conceptual model of the

mediating role of destination choice on pre-trip

attitude formation was presented and tested

This study found that the effect of social

moti-vation on pre-trip attitude is mediated by the

destination intended to visit Based on this

study, the academic motivation domain and

close friends who live in a foreign country are

very important in a student’s decision to choose a program to a particular destination This study contributes to the literature on des-tination choice, as it examines some of the con-cepts presented in previous destination-choice models for a very specifi c population, univer-sity study abroad students The fi ndings suggest that this specifi c segment of the popu-lation has unique factors infl uencing their des-tination choices, in this case academic motivation and social ties The paper used the drive theory and function theory of attitudes

to conceptualize how pre-trip attitude are infl uenced This study provides empirical support for some of the structural relation-ships in Gnoth’s (1997) model of tourism moti-vation and attitude formation The study suggests that social motivations, which fulfi ll needs or drives that are outer-directed, cogni-tively based, and cannot be easily substituted, contribute to the formation of attitudes

The empirical fi ndings of this study should

be built upon by future research Future studies are recommended to include students from non-US source countries, programs traveling to different regions, and programs of varied time lengths Future studies should also extend to examine attitude formation in different tourist settings and of different tourist segments

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Trang 15

Much of the literature on community

attitudes to tourism development relates to

rural areas in developing countries while

urban environments in developed countries

and pre-development scenarios have been

neglected The paper is concerned with

resident attitudes to tourism development

proposals and their perceived impacts in the

Worsley area of the city of Salford, England

The results show that the community is

divided on the issue of support for tourism

development based on the perceived

benefi ts and costs of tourism and that the

anticipated negative environmental

consequences are signifi cantly more

infl uential than positive economic or social

impacts The theoretical contribution and

practical implications of the fi ndings are

Urban tourism destinations, like other

place products, attempt to satisfy the

needs of their stakeholders, yet in many

cases they fall short of their aims particularly from the perspective of host communities which are being transformed as attractions develop Consequently, a strategy for involv-ing residents in the design and subsequent management of a community is an essential prerequisite for a successful tourism develop-ment formula (Cavus and Tanrisevdi, 2003) Many tourism plans now emphasize ‘develop-

ment in the community rather than ment of the community’ in recognition of its

develop-pivotal role in the tourism development ning process (Hall, 2000, p 31) However, tourism impacts are manifold; costs and ben-efi ts may be evaluated by residents from both personal and community-wide perspectives and there are often confl icts of interest (King

plan-et al., 1993) Aramberri (2001) therefore argues

that the only reasonable solution lies in lating the views of residents in order to iden-

articu-tify relevant issues in an attempt to plan with rather than for the community.

Most research on resident attitudes to tourism development has focussed on estab-lished tourist destinations with few studies examining destinations prior to their develop-

ment (Keogh, 1990; Hernandez et al., 1996;

Mason and Cheyne, 2000), yet this is an tant area of research because of the need to identify concerns and issues prior to the for-mulation and implementation of policies Fur-thermore, few studies have focussed on urban

impor-communities (Ross, 1992; King et al., 1993; Soutar and Mcleod, 1993; Lea et al., 1994; Chen,

2000; Iroegbu and Chen, 2002; Andriotis and Vaughan, 2003) This study addresses these gaps in the literature by focussing on city resi-dent attitudes to tourism development propos-als and their perceived impacts It therefore

Int J Tourism Res 13, 218–233 (2011)

Published online 13 October 2010 in Wiley Online Library

City Resident Attitudes to Proposed

Tourism Development and its Impacts

on the Community

Peter Schofi eld*

School of Business, University of Salford, Salford, UK

*Correspondence to: Dr Peter Schofi eld, Management

and Management Sciences Research Institute, University

of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, UK.

E-mail: p.schofi eld@salford.ac.uk

Trang 16

makes a signifi cant contribution to knowledge

because it follows Aramberri’s (2001)

argu-ment for providing communities with a voice

in the planning process by examining the

pre-development stage of the destination life cycle

The urban context is also signifi cant because

the majority of previous studies have

exam-ined rural communities; furthermore, these

studies have focussed on the

post-develop-ment stage of rural tourism developpost-develop-ment and

community reactions to tourism impacts The

paper is also concerned with a relatively affl

u-ent urban community in comparison with the

majority of previous studies Moreover, in

addition to extending our limited knowledge

of city resident attitudes to tourism

develop-ment proposals and providing important

insights into urban community concerns and

priorities, it also discusses the practical

impli-cations of the results As such, it makes a

con-tribution to theory and practice

The study focuses on the Worsley area of the

city of Salford in the north-west of England

and examines the results from a community

survey to determine resident attitudes to the

City Council’s tourism development proposals

based on the area’s unique industrial heritage

resources The latter include the Bridgewater

Canal, Britain’s fi rst ‘true cut’ canal,

con-structed between 1759 and 1761 and Worsley

Delph, a Scheduled Ancient Monument and

the entrance to over 46 miles of underground

canals that serviced the local coal mines, which

fuelled the industrial hearths of Manchester

The aim of the survey was to facilitate the

preparation of a tourism strategy that

incorpo-rates a community perspective by addressing

resident views and concerns about potential

impacts in this relatively affl uent area of the

city Within this framework, there were three

specifi c objectives:

(1) determine the level of resident support for

the tourism development proposals;

(2) identify their perceived impacts from the

residents’ perspective; and

(3) examine the key factors affecting resident

attitudes

In the context of the study, attitude is defi ned

as ‘a psychological tendency that is expressed

by evaluating a particular entity with some

degree of favour or disfavour’ (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993, p 1)

LITERATURE REVIEWThere is a substantial body of literature on the economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts of tourism development on resident communities and on resident attitudes to tourism development Since the late 1970s, increasing attention has been paid to both the infl uence of tourism’s negative impacts on resi-dent attitudes and to the development of theo-retical models including Doxey’s (1975) Irridex model and Butler’s (1980) tourism area life cycle (TALC) model While there is some empir-

ical support for the Irridex model (Allen et al.,

1988, Getz, 1992; Johnson et al., 1994) and for the

TALC model (Martin and Uysal, 1990; Ap and Crompton, 1998; Upchurch and Teivane, 2000), the assumption of community homogeneity is unfounded There is widespread evidence for resident heterogeneity not least on the basis of economic dependency, in which case more pos-itive attitudes have been found (Lankford and Howard, 1994; Lindberg and Johnson, 1997; Andriotis and Vaughan, 2003) Resident loca-tion has also been found to infl uence attitudes; residents who live in close proximity to attrac-tions tend to be less tolerant of tourists and more concerned about negative impacts (Sheldon and Var, 1984; Madrigal, 1995; Akis

et al., 1996), even where overall attitudes to

tourism are positive (Keogh, 1990; Wall, 1996)

Ap (1992) used social exchange theory to model resident attitudes towards tourism Within this context, social exchange theory asserts that residents evaluate the expected costs and benefi ts of tourism and if the per-ceived positive outcomes outweigh the nega-tive impacts, they will enter into an exchange i.e support tourism Again, there is empirical support for the model (Sheldon and Abenoja, 2001; Williams and Lawson, 2001; Cavus and Tanrisevdi, 2003), but its limitations have been highlighted by Tomljenovic and Faulkner (2000) who argue that while it describes the underlying rationale for the perceived eco-nomic benefi ts of tourism outweighing the negative social consequences, it fails to explain why economic considerations prevail Instead, they argue that Maslow’s (1970) theory of

Trang 17

human needs offers a more viable explanation

in that the social impacts of tourism are

‘higher-order’ needs, which are dispensable compared

with ‘lower-order’ economic benefi ts

Nega-tive social consequences are therefore tolerated

because they are less fundamental in

determin-ing quality of life; residents are therefore

moti-vated to support tourism Prentice (1993) noted

a confl ict between residents regarding their

assessment of the economic benefi ts and

envi-ronmental impacts of tourism, but a clear

pref-erence for job creation Lindberg and Johnson

(1997) also found that the strength of resident

values regarding economic gain better

pre-dicted attitudes to tourism than values

regard-ing disruption within the community Similarly,

Gursoy et al (2002) found that the effect of

perceived benefi ts on support for tourism

development was signifi cant whereas the

hypothesized inverse relationship between

perceived costs of tourism and support for it

was not supported

A range of other factors has also been found

to infl uence resident attitudes to tourism

development Pizam and Milman (1986), Davis

et al (1988) and Lankford (1994) found that

knowledge about tourism’s effects on the local

community infl uences resident attitudes;

resi-dents’ opportunity to infl uence

decision-mak-ing in their community has also been found to

affect attitudes towards tourism development

(Madrigal, 1993; Lankford and Howard, 1994;

Lindberg and Johnson, 1997) Differences of

opinion within communities have been linked

to personal variables such as length of

resi-dency; the longer residents stay the more

nega-tive their attitudes become (Liu and Var, 1986;

Allen et al., 1988; Lankford, 1994; Madrigal,

1995) Whether or not residents were born in

the community is also signifi cant (Brougham

and Butler, 1981; Um and Crompton, 1987;

Davis et al., 1988) However, research by Allen

et al (1993) and McCool and Martin (1994)

found no correlation between these variables

and resident attitudes to tourism, although

associations were found between differences

of opinion about tourism development and

attachment to the community

Age has been found to be a signifi cant

vari-able (Brougham and Butler, 1981; Bastias-Perez

and Var, 1996; Chen, 2000); by comparison,

Tomljenovic and Faulkner (2000) found that

older residents were generally as favourably disposed to tourism as the younger inhabit-ants Gender (Pizam and Milman, 1986; Mason

and Cheyne, 2000), ethnicity (Var et al., 1985),

level of educational attainment (Lindberg and Johnson, 1997) and the presence of children in resident families (Ryan and Montgomery, 1994) have also been found to be signifi cant,

although studies by Perdue et al (1990), Johnson

et al (1994) and Williams and Lawson (2001)

found that demographic variables were not determining factors that infl uenced residents’ reactions to tourism albeit in a rural context.Clearly, much of the previous research in this area has found that resident communities are heterogeneous with respect to their atti-tudes to tourism development and a number

of studies have identifi ed distinct groups or clusters in a range of locations For example,

Davis et al (1988) identifi ed fi ve groups of

Florida residents based on a cluster analysis of their responses to attitudinal questions about tourism development Evans (1993) found four groups of residents in community groups in New Zealand while Ryan and Montgomery (1994) and Madrigal (1995) identifi ed three groups in their studies of Bakewell and York respectively Andriotis and Vaughan (2003) argue that the identifi cation of such groups within resident communities is an important step in both understanding the signifi cant vari-ation in attitudes to tourism and developing a viable strategy for community involvement in the planning process

METHODOLOGY

A mixed-method approach was adopted This consisted of preliminary semi-structured inter-views with Salford City Council’s tourism offi -cers, community representatives and residents together with an analysis of secondary data relating to the study area followed by a ques-tionnaire survey of community residents The self-completion questionnaire required resi-dents to rate their level of agreement with 22 statements relating to tourism impacts These statements were based on variables which were validated in previous research and sub-sequently screened by the stakeholders used in the front-end qualitative research to ensure their relevance in this context Residents were

Trang 18

also asked to respond to an overall measure of

their support for tourism development in the

area All attitude statements were presented to

subjects on 7-point Likert-type scales labelled

as ‘Very Strongly Disagree’ (1), ‘Strongly

Dis-agree’ (2), ‘DisDis-agree’ (3), ‘Neither Disagree Nor

Agree’ (4), ‘Agree’ (5), ‘Strongly Agree’ (6) and

‘Very Strongly Agree’ (7) together with a ‘Don’t

Know’ option The fi nal section of the

ques-tionnaire elicited subjects’ socio-demographic

and behavioural data Protocol analysis with

three subjects and initial pilot testing on a

rep-resentative sample of 20 resulted in minor

changes to the wording of two response sets in

the questionnaire This was followed by a fi nal

pilot survey with 20 subjects with no further

amendments to the instrument The alpha

value for the tourism impact scale was 0.93

indicating a high degree of reliability for the

sample Additionally, the scale’s convergent

validity was established by a strong

correla-tion (0.81; p < 0.001) between a composite

impact index, representing a summary of

respondents’ mean ratings on the scale items

and the statement ‘I fully support the

develop-ment of tourism in this area’

The study sample was taken from the

resi-dent population of suburban Worsley in west

Salford The questionnaire was dispatched to

7500 households and a total of 332 completed

questionnaires were returned — a response

rate of only 4.4% The geographic distribution

of the sample was examined by plotting

sub-jects’ addresses on a map of the ward; this

showed a relatively even dispersal A

compari-son of the sample profi le with the demographic

characteristics of Salford’s population from the

2001 Census revealed that the subjects were

well represented socio-demographically with a

slight skew in terms of gender (54.6% of the

sample were male compared with 49.1% of the

area’s population) The sample also showed an

even distribution with respect to subjects’ length of residency in the area Just under one third of subjects (30.4%) had lived in the area less than 10 years, with 39.2% being in residence between 10 and 30 years and just under another third (29.2%) had lived in the area for over 30 years Therefore, despite the low response rate, the sample is likely to be representative of the local population on these key demographics notwithstanding the risk of it being unrepre-sentative with respect to other variables The absence of other community surveys or rele-vant secondary data precludes a more accurate evaluation of the non-response bias

The data were analysed using SPSS Version

16.0 Independent samples t-tests and one-way

analyses of variance were employed to examine variations in levels of support for the tourism development proposals and their perceived impacts and on the basis of residents’ socio-demographic variables An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the tourism impact ratings to identify relevant dimensions and a forward stepwise multiple regression model was then used to examine their infl uence on resident support for tourism development Hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster anal-yses were also employed to identify commu-nity segments and profi les on the basis of the dimensions

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Resident support for the tourism development proposals and perceived impacts

Overall, just under half (47.5%) of subjects agree to some degree with the development of tourism in the area with one third (33.5%) indi-cating either ‘strong’ or ‘very strong’ agree-ment (Table 1) This compares with just under

Table 1 Resident support for tourism development

Trang 19

one third (30.1%) who disagree (with 22.5% of

subjects in either strong or very strong

dis-agreement) and another fi fth (22.3%) who are

uncertain Clearly, resident attitudes to tourism

are mixed Moreover, there are no statistically

signifi cant differences in levels of support for

tourism on the basis of socio-demographic

variables such as gender, length of residence

in the community or presence of children in

households This outcome supports the fi

nd-ings of studies by Perdue et al (1990) and

Johnson et al (1994).

The ratings on the tourism impact variables

(Table 2) show that residents recognize the

potential for a wide range of positive and

neg-ative outcomes; this supports the results of

earlier studies by Eadington and Redman

(1991) and Gartner (1996) and explains, to an

extent, the heterogeneity in resident attitudes

to the proposals The high levels of agreement

about tourism’s potential to bring ‘more traffi c’

and ‘better conservation of heritage’ are not

surprising; traffi c congestion and inadequate

car parking facilities are already common

resi-dent complaints, however, the community is justifi ably proud of the area’s unique indus-trial archaeology There is also wide agreement about both general impacts such as ‘greater investment’ and specifi c impacts such as

‘improved visitor information’ There are no signifi cant differences in agreement on the basis of length of residency in the community;

this supports Allen et al.’s (1993) and McCool

and Martin’s (1994) fi ndings There are signifi cantly higher levels of agreement for females that ‘tourism will bring an enhanced image of

-Salford’ (t(196.83) = 4.42, p = 0.04), but no other gender differences; this supports Perdue et al.’s (1990) and Johnson et al.’s (1994) results The

number of children aged under 11 in holds is not signifi cant except for, not surpris-ingly, the variable, ‘tourism will bring more

house-play areas’ (F(3, 227) = 2.66, p = 0.05) and there

are no differences on the basis of children aged over 11 in households; therefore, Ryan and Montgomery’s (1994) fi ndings that the presence of children in resident families was signifi cant has not been supported It is

Table 2 Resident ratings on tourism’s potential impacts

VSD, very strongly disagree; SD, strongly disagree; D, disagree; N, neither disagree nor agree; A, agree; SA, strongly agree; VSA, very strongly agree.

Trang 20

interesting to note that the number of adults in

households is signifi cant with respect to

‘tourism will bring better job opportunities’

(F(4, 227) = 4.27, p = 0.002) and ‘tourism will

bring more traffi c’ (F(4, 227) = 3.02, p = 0.02)

The eta2 statistics showed medium size effects

in all cases except for the gender difference,

which is small

Residents’ agreement/disagreement ratings

in response to the statement: ‘I fully support

the development of tourism in this area’ were

divided into ‘anti-tourism’ (n = 99; 30.2%),

‘pro-tourism’ (n = 156; 47.5%) and ‘uncertain’

(n = 73; 22.3%) groups based on ‘disagree’

scores (between 1 and 3), ‘agree’ scores

(between 5 and 7) and ‘uncertain’ scores (rated

as 4) respectively Given the division in the

community with regard to support for the

pro-posed developments and in particular, the

implications of a change in attitude on the part

of ‘uncertain’ group members who represent just over one fi fth of residents in the sample, the differences between ‘pro-tourism’, ‘anti-tourism’ and ‘uncertain’ group ratings on the perceived impact variables was examined using a one-way between groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) Not surprisingly, there are

signifi cant differences (p < 0.001) between the three groups on all 22 impact variables (Table 3) Residents who support tourism develop-ment are less negative about its perceived costs than either the ‘anti-tourism’ or ‘uncertain’ groups Conversely, ‘anti-tourism’ residents are less positive about the benefi ts of tourism development than either the ‘pro-tourism’ or

‘uncertain’ groups By comparison, the tain group recognizes both the potential ben-efi ts and costs in more equal measures Post-hoc

uncer-Table 3 ANOVA Results for ‘pro-tourism’, ‘anti-tourism’ and ‘uncertain’ group ratings on perceived

impacts

* Signifi cant differences (p < 0.001) between ‘anti-tourism’, ‘pro-tourism’ and ‘uncertain’ groups

** Multiple comparison tests using the Sheffe procedure showed signifi cant differences at the p = 0.05 level between the groups in relation to the impact variable.

(-) Multiple comparison tests using the Sheffe procedure showed no signifi cant differences at the p = 0.05 level between the groups in relation to the impact variable.

Trang 21

comparison tests shows that there are signifi

-cant within group differences (p = 0.05) between

‘pro-tourism’, ‘anti-tourism’ and ‘uncertain’

group ratings on 12 (54.5%) of the 22 impact

variables For the remaining 10 impact

vari-ables, there are signifi cant differences between

‘pro-tourism’ and ‘anti-tourism’ ratings as

would be expected, but no signifi cant

differ-ences between the ‘pro-tourism’ and

‘uncer-tain’ group ratings on eight positive impact

variables and no signifi cant differences

between the ‘anti-tourism’ and ‘uncertain’

group ratings on two negative impact

vari-ables This indicates that in relation to the

majority of impact variables, the ‘uncertain’

residents have a relatively balanced view about

the possible impacts (both positive and

nega-tive) of tourism development in the

commu-nity compared with the ‘pro-tourism’ and

‘anti-tourism’ groups The ‘uncertain’ group

agreement with ‘pro-tourism’ group

percep-tions regarding positive impacts and with

‘anti-tourism’ perceptions regarding negative

impacts explains, to an extent, the dilemma

facing residents who are uncertain about the

future of the community From the local

authority perspective, the ‘uncertain’ group’s

high level of agreement with the positive

impacts of tourism is encouraging

Further-more, the root of their concerns about the

pro-posed tourism development has been identifi ed

and can be addressed

The dimensions of perceived

tourism impact

Resident ratings on the impact variables were

subjected to exploratory factor analysis using

principal components analysis as the method

of extraction with varimax orthogonal

rota-tion; the latter was used because the factors

were not considered to be related in theoretical

terms (Field, 2009) The minimum coeffi cient

for factor items to be included in the fi nal scale

was 0.40, as recommended by Stevens (1992)

for this sample size The data did not entirely

satisfy the assumptions of normality, with 5

out of the 22 variables being either positively

or negatively skewed This was an expected

outcome of the 7-point Likert response scale,

and as a consequence, the solution may be

weakened by the lowered correlation and

mul-tivariate non-linearity However, the Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (0.94) was ‘meritorious’ (Kaiser, 1974) and the Bartlett’s test of sphericity reached statistical

Kaiser-signifi cance (p < 0.01), supporting the ability of the correlation matrix

factor-The analysis produced three dimensions (with eigenvalues > 1.0) that accounted for 63.5% of the overall variance before rotation (Table 4) Kaiser’s criterion is accurate when the sample size is over 250 and the average communality is greater than or equal to 0.6 (Field, 2009) Factor 1 (α = 0.94) is a ‘general factor’ that accounts for 48.1% of the variance

in the data The benefi t variables have loaded

on this factor suggesting that it represents the

‘positive impacts’ domain By contrast, the cost variables have loaded on Factor 2 (α = 0.84); this has been labelled ‘negative impacts’ and accounts for 10.1% of the variance Factor 3 (α

= 0.76), which accounts for 5.4% of the variance was labelled ‘mixed impacts’ because the vari-ables which load on it can be both positive and negative depending on your point of view For example, increased house prices may seem benefi cial to homeowners in Worsley, particu-larly with respect to buying property outside the tourism development area, but some resi-dents are concerned that fi rst, it may be diffi -cult for their children to buy houses in the area and second, that house prices refl ect local infl a-tion generally Residents are similarly equivo-cal about ‘more places to eat and drink’ and

‘put Worsley on the map’

Resident community clusters and profi les

To further examine resident attitudes to the perceived impacts of tourism and the disagree-ment and uncertainty about the development proposals, a cluster analysis was performed on the three dimensions (factors) Initially, a hier-archical cluster analysis was used to identify the number of clusters required for a K-means

non-hierarchical algorithm (Hair et al., 2006)

Three distinct clusters emerged from this ysis Initial cluster centres were selected by SPSS Version 16.0 and iterated until the Euclid-ean distance between centroids changed less than 2% to reduce the bias of designating initial cluster seeds and produce stable clusters when the criterion had been met The ‘average

Trang 22

anal-linkage between groups’ (unweighted

pair-group using arithmetic means) method of

clus-tering was used All three factors contribute to

differentiating the three resident attitude

clus-ters (Table 5) Additionally, the results from

the multiple range tests show that, with the

exception of clusters II and III in relation to

Factor 2, there are signifi cant differences

between clusters with respect to each

dimen-sion The clusters are also signifi cantly

differ-entiated (p < 0.001) with respect to their support

for tourism development in the community

Overall, the signifi cant differentiation

sup-ports the K-means cluster analysis outcome

(Table 6) Cluster I has the highest mean scores

for the positive impacts dimension, mixed

impacts and overall support for tourism

devel-opment and the lowest mean score for the

Table 4 Factor analysis of residents’ ratings on the tourism impact variables

Dimension 1: Positive impacts

Dimension 2: Negative impacts

Dimension 3: Mixed impacts

Note: Loadings above 0.4 are displayed.

Table 5 ANOVA and multiple range tests on the three resident clusters

Clusters/

Differences between the three clusters

Positive impacts(Factor 1)

Negative impacts(Factor 2)

Mixed impacts(Factor 3)

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negative impacts dimension This

demon-strates the cluster’s positive attitude to both

tourism development and its outcomes; it was

labelled ‘pro-tourism’ By contrast, Cluster II

has the lowest mean scores for the positive and

mixed impacts dimensions and overall support

for tourism, but the highest score for the

nega-tive dimension; it was therefore labelled

‘anti-tourism’ Cluster III has intermediate ratings

on all three impact dimensions and on support

for tourism refl ecting their awareness of the

potential for both negative and positive

out-comes; this cluster was labelled ‘uncertain’

The evidence for a heterogeneous nested

community divided by resident attitudes to

tourism development and its perceived impacts

indicated by the three cluster solution

sup-ports the fi ndings from previous research A

number of studies identifi ed three sub-groups

(Ryan and Montgomery, 1994; Madrigal, 1995;

Ryan et al., 1998; Weaver and Lawton, 2001;

Andriotis and Vaughan, 2003) For example,

Ryan and Montgomery (1994) found

‘enthusi-asts’ (22%), ‘middle of the road’ (54%) and

‘somewhat irritated’ (24%) groups Similarly,

Madrigal (1995) identifi ed ‘lovers’ (13%),

‘real-ists’ (56%) and ‘haters’ (31%) and Weaver and

Lawton (2001) found ‘supporters’ (27%),

‘neutral’ (51%) and ‘opponents’ (22%) By parison, although three groups were identifi ed

com-by Ryan et al (1998), they found comparatively

more support for tourism in their ‘extreme enthusiasts’ (17.5%), ‘moderate enthusiasts’ (42.5%) and ‘cautious supporters’ (40%) groups Andriotis and Vaughan (2003) identi-

fi ed ‘advocates’ (42%) with a high appreciation

of tourism benefi ts, ‘socially and tally concerned’ (40%) characterized by a con-sensus towards the environmental and social costs from tourism expansion, and ‘economic sceptics’ (18%) with a lower appreciation of tourism’s economic benefi ts

environmen-The ‘support for tourism development’ ysis and the K-means cluster analysis based on the three tourism impact dimensions identifi ed the same groups within the community in terms of their members’ attitudes to tourism development However, there are signifi cant differences in the size of the groups (Table 7) The difference in the samples used for the two analyses (K-means cluster analysis criteria reduced the sample size to 239) may have infl uenced the size discrepancy between the resultant groups, but a non-random effect on

anal-Table 6 Results of K-means cluster analysis for resident attitude clusters

Clusters/dimensions

Cluster I

Mean values were computed on the basis of aggregated scores for each dimension from attribute ratings on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = very strongly disagree; 2 = strongly agree; 3 = disagree; 4 = neither disagree nor agree; 5 = agree; 6 = strongly agree; 7 = very strongly agree).

Table 7 Comparison of support for tourism and K-means cluster resident attitude group sizes

Mean values were computed on the basis of aggregated scores for each dimension from attribute ratings on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = very strongly disagree; 2 = strongly agree; 3 = disagree; 4 = neither disagree nor agree; 5 = agree; 6 = strongly agree; 7 = very strongly agree).

Trang 24

the group size is unlikely First, the size of the

K-means cluster pro-tourism group compared

with the original group indicates that, on the

basis of perceived impacts, particularly the

negative impacts, community support for

tourism development is less robust than the

initial fi ndings suggest Second, the signifi cant

changes in the sizes of the anti-tourism and

uncertain groups is a further indication that

residents are fi nding it diffi cult to assess the

likely positive and negative impacts of tourism

development in their community and/or to

evaluate their net effect As a result, they are

uncertain how they feel about the proposals

The Worsley K-means cluster groups and their

proportions are similar to those found in

previ-ous research The relatively large ‘uncertain’

group (49%; in comparison with the

‘pro-tour-ism [36%] and ‘anti-tour‘pro-tour-ism’ [16%] groups) is

comparable with Weaver and Lawton’s (2001)

‘neutral’ group (50%), Madrigal’s (1995)

‘real-istic’ group (56%) and Ryan and

Montgom-ery’s (1994) ‘middle of the road’ group (54.3%)

in proportion to the sizes of their ‘lover’ and

‘hater’ or ‘somewhat irritated’ groups Ryan

and Montgomery (1994) and Weaver and

Lawton (2001) found that the size of the

posi-tive and negaposi-tive groups were evenly balanced

whereas Madrigal (1995) found that the ‘haters’

outnumbered the ‘lovers’ in a ratio of 2.4 :1

What is surprising is the relatively large size of

the ‘pro-tourism’ group in Worsley (36%)

com-pared with similar groups in the earlier studies

given the relative affl uence of the community

This may refl ect Worsley’s pre-development

stage in the tourism development life cycle

and/or the perceived opportunities for

heri-tage conservation among the community’s

proud residents

There are signifi cant within group

differ-ences (p = 0.05) between the K-means Cluster I

(pro-tourism), Cluster II (anti-tourism) and

Cluster III (uncertain) group ratings on 18

(81.8%) of the 22 impact variables (Table 8) as

would be expected However, on four of the

negative impact variables (tourism will bring

more traffi c, tourism will bring environmental

damage, tourism will bring nuisance visitors

and tourism will bring increased crime), there

are no signifi cant differences between Cluster

II (anti-tourism) and Cluster III (uncertain)

ratings This also highlights the concerns of

residents who are ‘uncertain’ about the comes of the proposed development This, in turn, suggests that the Council should use a public relations campaign which, based on inoculation theory (see Sadava and McCreary, 1997), acknowledges the potential for negative impacts and outlines a strategy to effectively manage them while clearly showing the net benefi ts to the community of the proposed tourism development

out-The resident cluster profi les (Table 9) show that only gender was signifi cantly associated with attitudes to tourism development although the association is weak (Cramer’s V

= 0.02) A two-way ANOVA test was used to examine the infl uence of the three resident attitude clusters and gender on community support for tourism As expected, there is a signifi cant main effect for the resident clusters

(F(2, 120) = 56.5, p < 0.001) with a medium size

effect (eta2 = 0.34), but not for gender (F(2, 3.3)

= 1.6, p = 0.20) and there is no signifi cant

inter-action effect between the clusters and gender

(p = 0.56) i.e there is no signifi cant difference

in the effect of gender on support for tourism for the different clusters Overall, the results show that resident perceptions of tourism impacts have a signifi cantly stronger infl uence

on their attitude to the tourism development proposals than socio-demographic variables This outcome lends some support to the fi nd-ings of Williams and Lawson’s (2001) research; they found personal values and community-related issues of greater importance than demographic variables in defi ning opinion groups

Impact factor infl uence on resident support for tourism development

The results of the regression of residents’ level

of support for tourism development against the impact factors are given in Table 10 The largest VIF (variance infl ation factor) value (1.29), the average VIF (1.20) and the tolerance statistics (all above 0.60) indicate the absence

of multicollinearity in the data; in addition, the variance proportions for each of the predic-tions are distributed across the different dimen-

sions (eigenvalues) The R value (0.79) shows

that resident support is strongly infl uenced by the impact factors, which account for just over

Trang 25

60% of the variability in residents’ support for

tourism in Worsley All three factors make

sig-nifi cant contributions (p > 0.001) to the

predic-tion of the dependent variable and all predictors

have very tight confi dence intervals (0.37, 0.42,

0.41) indicating that the estimates for the

current model are likely to be representative of

95% of other samples It is interesting that

Factor 2 (negative impacts) has most infl uence

on resident support for tourism development

(beta = 0.462) Factor 3 (mixed impacts) makes

the second most infl uential contribution (beta

= 0.262), although Factor 1 (positive impacts)

makes a similar contribution with a

standard-ized beta value of 0.259 Overall, this confi rms

the community’s real concerns about the

nega-tive impacts of the proposed developments

Worsley residents’ apparent prioritization of environmental issues over economic concerns

is particularly marked considering the development stage in the planning process compared with other examples in the literature (Prentice, 1993; Lankford and Howard, 1994; Haralambopolous and Pizam, 1996; Lindberg

pre-and Johnson, 1997; Gursoy et al., 2002)

However, it is understandable given the tive affl uence of the community and their lack

rela-of dependence on the potential economic benefi ts of the development Ryan and Mont-gomery (1994) have noted that in cases where residents perceive that negative impacts of tourism development will outweigh the bene-

fi ts, community-responsive tourism initiatives can sometimes result in residents actively

Table 8 ANOVA results for cluster 1, 2 and 3 ratings on perceived impacts

Cluster I(Pro-tourism)

Cluster II(Anti-tourism)

Cluster III(Uncertain)

* Signifi cant differences (p < 0.001) between clusters I, II and III.

(-) Multiple comparison tests using the Sheffe procedure showed no signifi cant differences (p = 0.05) between the groups

in relation to the impact variable

Trang 26

Table 9 Cluster variable profi le for resident segments

trying to check further tourism development

Therefore, the level of support for tourism

development in Worsley, in comparison with

previous studies, is perhaps surprising, but

may be explained by the community’s stage in

the tourism product life cycle and/or

resi-dents’ pride in their unique industrial heritage

The latter is more likely given the level of

het-erogeneity in the community with respect to

resident attitudes to tourism development

Perhaps Maslow’s theory offers an explanation

of the unusual situation in Worsley in that it

refl ects the community’s ‘higher order’ needs

resulting from its relative sophistication and

affl uence Social exchange theory may also

explain the apparent contradiction between

the relatively high levels of support for tourism development and concerns about negative environmental impacts in that the importance

of gaining recognition for Worsley as a place

of historic signifi cance is outweighing the potential for environmental damage resulting from the increased numbers of visitors It would also explain the attitude of the ‘uncer-tain’ residents who recognize the desirability

of the former but the destructive power of the latter

CONCLUSIONThe research makes an important contribution

to the literature because of its focus on two

Trang 27

Table 10 OLS regression of residents’ level of support for tourism development on the impact factorsDependent variable: Residents’ level of support for tourism development

Independent variables: Three orthogonal factors representing the tourism impacts

Signifi cant F = 0.000

signifi cance level of 0.01

Linearity — Confi rmed by the analyses of partial regression plots

Homoscedasticity — Confi rmed by the analyses of partial regression plots

Stein’s formula was used to obtain a measure of R2 (0.60) in different samples (Field, 2009) A value of 0.59 was obtained

indicating that the cross validity of the model is good The signifi cant F ratio value (116.11) indicates that the beta

coef-fi cients can be used to explain each of the factors’ relative contribution to the variance in residents’ support for tourism development.

hitherto under researched aspects of this

subject area: resident attitudes to tourism

development in an urban context and the

pre-development stage of the planning process

The research is also important because it

exam-ines a relatively affl uent community, the

Worsley area of the city of Salford in the

north-west of England, where the majority of

resi-dents are unlikely to be economically dependent

on tourism The fi ndings show that resident support for the proposed tourism develop-ment is mixed Initial fi ndings indicated that just under half of the sample supports the plans, just under one third disagrees with the proposals and one fi fth is ambivalent about them A more in-depth analysis has shown

Trang 28

that community support for tourism

develop-ment is signifi cantly infl uenced by the

per-ceived impacts Many residents are anticipating

negative consequences including increased

traffi c congestion, which is already a

conten-tious issue Indeed, a key fi nding of the research

is that the most signifi cant factor affecting

resi-dent support for tourism development is its

perceived negative impact; this has the

stron-gest infl uence on resident attitudes to the

pro-posals even among the group that supports

tourism development Within the context of

social exchange theory, the community’s

‘higher order’ needs would therefore seem to

offer a viable explanation of resident attitudes

While a relatively small proportion of

resi-dents actually oppose the tourism proposals,

the majority is uncertain about the outcomes

of the development because of the diffi culty of

predicting its net effects Nevertheless, there is

a signifi cant ‘pro-tourism’ segment consisting

of just over one third of residents Perhaps this

is surprising under the circumstances but

understandable given the early stage in the

development process when the survey was

undertaken and the community’s level of pride

in the area’s unique industrial heritage together

with the opportunities for conservation that

the proposals will bring

A further but signifi cant dimension of the

research identifi ed community factor clusters

based on resident perceptions of tourism

development impacts These groups are similar

in character and proportion to many of those

found in previous research, which also

estab-lished that residents’ ability to infl uence

tourism planning decisions is a signifi cant

factor in the development of attitudes towards

tourism The results of this research therefore

suggest that, while community responsive

tourism should never be reduced to tourism

promotion (Wheeller, 1993), Salford City

Council should target ‘anti-tourism’ and

‘uncertain’ residents and place particular

emphasis on tourism’s potential to both

facili-tate the conservation of Worsley’s heritage and

improve local facilities and services

Impor-tantly, community concerns over tourism’s

negative impacts should be acknowledged and

residents should be informed, via credible

sources, how this issue will be assessed,

planned for and effectively managed However,

attitudes may be diffi cult to change because of the traffi c congestion and car parking prob-lems already being experienced by members of the community

The limitations of the research should also

be noted The relatively high amount of ance in community support for tourism devel-opment explained by the impact factors notwithstanding, bias may have resulted from the absence of variables such as ‘knowledge of

vari-the effects of tourism’ (Davis et al.,1988) or

‘attachment to the community’ (McCool and Martin, 1994) Additionally, although the sample consisted of a relatively even distribu-tion of subjects throughout the study area and offered a favourable demographic comparison with the 2001 Census data, the size of the sample, low response rate and the lack of com-parative data relating to community resident profi les and/or opinions expressed in previ-ous research suggests that caution should be observed; results can only be interpreted as indicative of resident attitudes to the proposed developments rather than conclusive evidence Further research should address these limitations

Community approaches to tourism ning and development have rarely been suc-cessful in practice because of substantial practical problems including resident confu-sion over complex planning issues and the decision making process resulting in costly delays (Hall, 2000) In Worsley, the evidence for a heterogeneous community divided by resident attitudes to tourism, the high level of uncertainty about the implications of the development and concerns over the possibil-ity of negative impacts, particularly the issue

plan-of traffi c congestion, are likely to exacerbate the problem For the moment, the future of tourism in Worsley is uncertain What is certain is that resident support is critical for the effective implementation of the City Council’s proposals and the maintenance of the destination’s long-term viability and appeal

Trang 29

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This paper reviews website evaluation

studies in the tourism and hospitality fi elds

published between January 1996 and

September 2009 A website evaluation

framework that includes evaluation by

phases, evaluation by features, and

evaluation by features and effectiveness is

developed The strengths and weaknesses of

each method of evaluation are analyzed,

and research gaps and future research

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

hospitality; review

Received 6 April 2010; Revised 27 September 2010; Accepted

5 October 2010

INTRODUCTION

Information Communication Technologies

(ICTs) have dramatically revolutionized the

tourism and hospitality industries since the

1980s (Buhalis and Law, 2008) Business

prac-tices, strategies and industry structures have

been transformed by the development of such

technologies (Porter, 2001) The establishment

of the Internet in the 1990s has provided

researchers with the opportunity to examine the use of Internet applications in the tourism

and hospitality industries (Law et al., 2010)

The Internet, the most infl uential ICT, serves as

an effective marketing and communication strategy for both suppliers and consumers, and facilitates information sharing, communica-tion and online shopping (O’Connor, 2004) The continuous increase in the number of Internet users is evidence of the popularity of this technology, and hospitality and tourism practitioners are increasingly devoting time and effort to their websites to develop and maintain customer relationships and enlarge

their market share (Law et al., 2010).

The development of ICTs has not only had

an impact on the tourism and hospitality industries, but also on academe Researchers recognized the importance of websites to these industries early on, and the literature thus con-tains numerous studies exploring related issues Lu and Yeung (1998) were pioneers in this arena, proposing a framework for evaluat-ing website performance based on functional-ity and usability A well-defi ned model of website evaluation, however, remains lacking The website evaluations in previous studies can generally be classifi ed into two main streams: quantitative and qualitative Quanti-tative research usually employs performance indices or scores to represent overall website quality; whereas qualitative research evaluates website quality without the use of numerical scores or indices

The importance of research in the tourism and hospitality industries has long been recog-nized (Law and Chon, 2007) Academics have

Int J Tourism Res 13, 234–265 (2011)

Published online 17 November 2010 in Wiley Online Library

A Review of Website Evaluation Studies

in the Tourism and Hospitality Fields

from 1996 to 2009

Crystal Ip*, Rob Law and Hee ‘Andy’ Lee

School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

*Correspondence to: C Ip, Research Student, School

of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong

Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.

E-mail: hmcrystal.ip@polyu.edu.hk

Trang 32

devoted substantial research efforts to

discov-ering innovations and helping industry

practi-tioners apply their fi ndings As such, there is a

strong relationship between academic fi ndings

and industry practice in these fi elds, with

tourism and hospitality practitioners applying

such fi ndings to improve operational practices

More recently, both academic and industry

attentions have turned to tourism/hospitality

website evaluation (Law et al., 2010), and a

number of reviews of the use of ICT in these

fi elds have been published Frew (2000) carried

out a review of 665 refereed articles published

between 1980 and 1999 to identify current ICT

uses in the tourism industry Morrison et al

(2004) adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

method to evaluate tourism websites and

pro-posed a modifi ed BSC method for future

research Hashim et al (2007) examined articles

published from 1990 to 2006, and identifi ed

fi ve dimensions of website quality, including

information and process, value-added,

rela-tionships, trust, and design and usability Law

et al (2009) offered a comprehensive review of

related articles appearing between 2005 and

2007 They analyzed a total of 57 tourism and

hospitality research journal articles to

deter-mine the importance of ICT applications in

terms of operation, distribution and

market-ing Similarly, Buhalis and Law (2008)

evalu-ated journal articles on eTourism published in

the past 20 years and projected future

develop-ments for the next 10 years These kinds of

studies provide an overview of the historic

evolution of website evaluation in the

litera-ture In terms of the time periods covered,

Frew (2000) examined articles published up to

1999, and Law et al (2009) analyzed only those

published from 2005 to 2007 Neither study

therefore provides a comprehensive overview

of this type of research Further, the study

carried out by Buhalis and Law (2008) was

intended only to provide a general review of

ICT use in tourism

The study reported herein was designed to

provide an up to date and comprehensive

review of website evaluation in previous

tourism and hospitality research, and to explore

existing research gaps and directions for future

research As Han and Mills (2006) stated that

the use of the Web in hospitality and tourism

began only in 1995, this study thus reviewed

articles published from January 1996 to tember 2009

Sep-METHODOLOGYThis study reviewed 68 website evaluation studies related to travel/tourism and hospi-tality that were published between January

1996 and September 2009 with an aim of classifying them into categories Suitable articles were identifi ed by searching four

of the largest and most popular online databases and search engines: EBSCOhost (http://search.ebscohost.com/), Science Direct (http://www.sciencedirect.com/), Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com.hk/) and Scopus (http://www.scopus.com/home.url)

The keywords searched included website/web site evaluation, website/web site quality, website/ web site assessment, website/web site measurement, website/web site features and website/web site effectiveness After careful screening, articles

were selected on the basis of their relevance

to website evaluation in the tourism and pitality fi elds The articles reviewed come not only from hospitality and tourism journals, but also from journals in other academic fi elds, which renders this review more comprehen-sive and gives its fi ndings wider applicability

hos-As previously stated, website evaluations can be classifi ed into either qualitative or quantitative research categories Such evalua-tions were further categorized by this study into three classifi cations: (i) evaluation by phases; (ii) evaluation by features; and (iii) evaluation by features and effectiveness Figure 1 illustrates the evaluation classifi ca-tion adopted, which was modifi ed from

Schmidt et al (2008), and provides a detailed

summary of website evaluation in tourism and hospitality Evaluation by phases means that a framework with specifi c features/char-acteristics is provided for evaluation Evalua-tion by features, in contrast, means no structure is provided This method is based on the presence of website features As previous studies have incorporated different interpreta-tions of website effectiveness, the present study classifi es website effectiveness into four dimensions of: expert evaluation, consumer intentions to purchase, use or revisit, user sat-isfaction and others

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FINDINGS

This section analyzes prior studies of tourism

and hospitality website evaluation The

cate-gorization depicted in Figure 1 is used for the

order of analysis

Evaluation by phases

Schmidt et al (2008) point out that the richer a

website’s characteristics are, the more

experi-ence a company has with electronic media

This experience is referred to here as website

phases, also called steps or layers, each of

which includes certain features Evaluation

based on such phases provides a framework

with certain features/characteristics for

evalu-ation, and is therefore likely to reduce the

dif-fi culties inherent in website evaluation

(Schmidt et al., 2008).

Table 1 lists fi ve studies that have evaluated

website performance on the basis of the phases

Some of these studies implemented the Model

of Internet Commerce Adoption (MICA) or the

extended MICA (eMICA) for website

evalua-tion For instance, Doolin et al (2002) adopted

the eMICA to evaluate the level of website

development in New Zealand’s Regional Tourism Organizations, and found that most of these websites were at Stage 2 (the provision stage) Larson and Ankomah (2004) later employed the eMICA to evaluate the websites

of 20 US tourism organizations and found all

to be at Stage 2 (promotion and provision)

Similarly, Gan et al (2006) developed a

concep-tual framework based on the MICA to measure the effectiveness of hotel websites in Singa-pore, and they determined the majority to be

at Level 2, i.e the data collection level

Other studies have developed different approaches and different layers for website

evaluation Gupta et al (2004), for example,

modifi ed Nassar’s model (2003) to analyze Welsh tourism-SME websites They found that few of these small to medium enterprise (SME) websites exploited their full potential to achieve Level 3, i.e customer relationship

management Bai et al (2006) developed an

operation framework to evaluate the tionship marketing features on hotel websites They too found that few hotel companies were extensively utilizing the higher-level (account-able, proactive and partnership) e-Relationship marketing features on their websites

e-Rela-Figure 1 Summary of website evaluation

Website Evaluation

Evaluation by Phases

Evaluation by Features

Evaluation by Features and Effectiveness

Other

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Level of website development

Use of eMICA to measur

the level of website development

Potential bias comes fr

subjectivity in the data collection process.

Gupta, Jones and Coleman (2004)

immediacy Level 3: customer relationship management

The extent of Welsh tourism SME websites

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As previously noted, website evaluation via

phases can reduce the complexity of the entire

evaluation process The results of the

afore-mentioned studies make it easy for industry

practitioners (and researchers) to determine

which layer their companies have reached, and

then try to achieve a higher level in the future

As this approach provides a framework with

certain features/characteristics, it is well suited

to practical applications and makes

web-site evaluation relatively straightforward

However, it has several limitations that should

be taken into account Website development is

ongoing, and thus additional features may be

added to improve websites at any time The

model used in phase evaluation may thus fail

to keep up with website evolution In addition,

the Internet offers a way for companies to

diversify their business strategies Schmidt

et al (2008) pointed out that many companies

desire to incorporate their business with that

of their suppliers to achieve business

integra-tion This type of evaluation fails to capture

either diversifi cation or integration

Evaluation by features

Evaluation by features is based on the presence

of website features and provides no evaluation

framework It therefore offers practitioners

and researchers greater fl exibility in evaluating

websites This method encompasses

evalua-tion of (i) website content, (ii) website design

and (iii) website content and design

Website content The content of a website is

criti-cal, as it directly affects visitor perceptions of

the product or service on offer (Zafi ropoulos

et al., 2005) It also acts as a platform between

tourism-related fi rms and their customers

(Kuo et al., 2004) Table 2 lists 29 tourism and

hospitality-related website evaluation studies

that employed website content as their basis

for evaluation Although there are a wide range

of approaches for analyzing website content in

the tourism and hospitality industries, two

instruments have proved particularly popular

with academics

The fi rst is Chung and Law’s (2003)

concep-tual framework for measuring the performance

of hotel websites in fi ve major dimensions,

including facilities information, customer

contact information, reservation information, surrounding area information and website management, with 40 different attributes Their results indicated signifi cant differences in the performance scores for all dimensions among luxury, mid-price and budget hotel websites

Law et al (2004), Law and Cheung (2005, 2008),

Law and Hsu (2005, 2006), Zafi ropoulos and

Vrana (2006), Ma et al (2008), as well as Rong et

al (2009) later adopted or modifi ed Chung and

Law’s (2003) model in different tourism and hospitality settings and further confi rmed the applicability of its dimensions and attributes.The second is the BSC evaluation approach, which was originally proposed by Kaplan and Norton (1996) as a business performance instrument designed to tackle the dominant use of one-dimensional performance indica-tors Table 3 lists studies that have adopted the BSC in tourism and hospitality For example,

Morrison et al (1999) applied the approach to

analysis of the website design and nance of small hotels in Scotland They mea-sured four evaluation perspectives, including the technical, marketing, internal and customer

mainte-perspectives Kline et al (2004) used the BSC to

evaluate the user friendliness, site ness, marketing effectiveness and technical aspects of Bed & Breakfast (B&B) websites They found that the major strength of these websites was their attractiveness, but that improvements were required in all four cate-

attractive-gories In the tourism context, Feng et al (2003)

adopted the modifi ed BSC to evaluate and compare destination marketing organization (DMO) websites in the USA and China Their results indicate that the performance of the DMO websites in the USA was better than that

of their Chinese counterparts in terms of keting strategies and information Similarly, So and Morrison (2004) implemented the BSC approach in an evaluation of the websites of national tourism organizations (NTO) in East Asia, fi nding that many of these NTOs failed

mar-to utilize their websites mar-to their full potential, particularly in terms of marketing Finally, Douglas and Mills (2005) used the modifi ed BSC for an evaluation of the development of Caribbean NTO websites

Website design Website design is another

important factor in website evaluation (Nielsen,

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baseline data and methods to make use of hotel websites

It would be better to study the fi nancial aspects of www sites as well

was limited to seven dimensions

Cano and Prentice (1998)

performance and the adoption of information processing by tourism businesses

Evaluation of the concept of endearment from actual to electr

after asking for information, what have been learned about the state website, trip duration and expenditur

visit intentions to the state

of the state tourism website

Establishment of the conversion rate of W

Data analysis was limited to less advanced statistical technique

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The analysis may connect the readers to the problematic history of this constr

agents in conjunction with personal observations

It would be preferable to explor

User interface, variety of information, online reservations

Rating of the websitesAdoption of content analysis to evaluate the websites

It would be better to investigate the website in other countries in or

Use of gap analysis method to examine the effectiveness of hotel websites

Other cities would be used to analyze the application of the pr

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information, management of website

Hotel website performance

Use of information quality evaluation model

could be done by incorporating the opinions of customers into the model for website analysis

Huang and Law (2003)

website marketing model based on marketing mix is suggested for use in website evaluation

Limayem, Hillier and V

Evaluation of the sophistication of the online tourism operators

Carried out an analysis to compar

winery websites to review their development

In addition to small winery websites, it is recommended that other winery websites be evaluated

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information, management of website

Functionality of hotel websites

Applied importance rating and average weighted scor

website evaluation

It would be better to analyze other factors that af

the online shopping behavior of hotel customers

Law and Cheung (2005)

Five hotel website dimensions

Hotel website performanceEvaluation of content using weighting and rating scales

assumed to have equal variance; unable to quantify the actual variance between attributes

Law and Hsu (2005)

Five hotel website dimensions

Overall performance/ quality of hotel websiteEvaluation of content using weighting of hotel website dimensions and attributes

Analysis by parameters within each stickiness driver

It is suggested that other fi

examined so as to confi

application of the model

Law and Hsu (2006)

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Hotel managers, customers

Facilities information, guest contact information, reservation/ price information, surr

cluster to analyze hotel websites

Limited brand hotel websites wer

Evaluation of tourism websitesEmployed of tourism websites intelligent evaluation index system and fuzzy clustering method

Evaluations of other tourism websites in other China cities to validate the application of the model ar

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