INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) Published online 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 School of Community Resources & Development, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA School of Health and Social Science, Middlesex University, Dubai, UAE ABSTRACT 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 Pacific or Europe The results revealed that academic motivations and social ties influence students’ destination selection for the study aboard program Social motivation emerged as the most important factor that influences 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 attitude formation Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Received 28 February 2010; Revised 24 August 2010; Accepted 31 August 2010 Keywords: attitude formation; destination selection; students travel; study abroad INTRODUCTION S tudy abroad programs constitute a major international tourism activity with significant economic and social impact due *Correspondence to: Dr Gyan P Nyaupane, Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director, School of Community Resources & Development, Arizona State University, 411 N Central Avenue 85004, Ste 550, Phoenix, AZ, USA E-mail: gyan@asu.edu 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 mobility 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 international 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 experience and an increased global awareness, complement the classroom learning experience, and also provide firsthand 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 traditionally study abroad Modern constraints including academic programs with little freedom in class selection, financial constraints and societal pressure to complete a four-year degree Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 206 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 Association of International 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 important 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 programs 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 previous 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 creating a national program that will establish study abroad as the norm, not the exception, for undergraduate students The NAFSA further highlighted the importance of American students studying abroad to meet the challenges of the 21st century Study abroad programs have both economic and socio-cultural significance From an economic point of view, one in six US jobs is tied to international trade; however, US companies lose an estimated $2 billion per year because of insufficient cross-cultural guidance for their employees in multicultural positions From national security and foreign policy perspectives, almost a third of all State Department officers in language-designated positions overseas not meet the requirement of foreign language skills The former chair of the 9/11 Commission indicated that, ‘the U.S cannot effectively in a competitive international environment 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 education institutions study abroad for credit (Kean and Hamilton, 2008) This underscores the Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd G P Nyaupane, C M Paris and V Teye 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 American students to study abroad annually by the 2016–2017 academic year While the benefits of study abroad programs highlighted by educational institutions are related to education and career, many young American students are motivated by nonacademic desires for international travel Study abroad programs enable students to fulfilll their desires for travel through a socially legitimate travel motivation (Jarvis and Peel, 2008), and many study abroad participants tend to combine the structure of the study abroad programs 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 considerations, various other factors may influence 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 destination image play an important role in the destination choice of individuals Understanding the process of attitude formation toward competing destinations for this specific tourist segment will contribute to a greater comprehension of an important part of the decision making process (Sirakaya et al., 2001) As a growing and unique tourist segment, university students, and specifically students participating in a study abroad, need to be examined more deeply This study does so by examining the distinctive travel motivations Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Study Abroad Attitude that university students and study abroad tourists have Further, this study contributes to the destination choice and pre-trip attitude formation 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 specifically, the conceptual model is tested to examine whether or not destination intended to visit mediates the effect of previous travel experience, social ties and motivation on pre-trip attitude formation STUDY ABROAD MOTIVATIONS There have been several traditional key goals to attract students to participate in study abroad programs including promoting worldmindedness and international understanding (Coelho, 1962; Gullahorn and Gullahorn, 1958; Leaonard, 1964; Meras, 1932), educational goals of foreign language proficiency, increasing competitiveness and career opportunities, and exploring a topic not offered at a home institution (Teichler and Steube, 1991) The literature examining the motivations of study abroad participants is relatively limited The results of two studies on study abroad student motivations by Kitsantas (2004) and WeirsJenseen (2003) can generally be grouped into four motivational categories including crosscultural 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 interactions and meet new people and to get away from normal life Some geographical areas are historically preferred 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 development, the destination or geographical preference can also be explained by students’ Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 207 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 motivation and attitude have been found to be influential 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 in forming attitude toward the destinations have not been explored much in the tourism literature (Nyaupane et al., 2008) This understanding 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 definition of attitudes is appropriate While there is no universal definition, attitudes have been defined 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 precursors and consequences of attitudes Attitudes are stored in memory and persist over time until automatically activated The most complete definition of attitude was provided by Katz (1960) as, ‘predisposition of the individual 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 experience has been examined by several previous studies (Gomez-Jacinto et al., 1999; Milman et al., 1990; Nyaupane et al., 2008; Pizam Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 208 et al., 1991) However, there has been limited literature addressing how attitudes toward a destination are formed Broadly speaking, attitudes and the formation of attitudes 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 attitude is influenced by two components (cognitive and affective) 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 attitude 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 examines attitudes from a motivation perspective The theory addresses why attitudes are held by people, and what specific situations help to manifest or maintain those attitudes (Snyder and DeBono, 1989) Generally, the functions of attitudes have been divided into four categories: ego-defensive, value expressive, knowledge and social adjustive (Katz, 1960; Smith et al., 1956; Snyder and DeBono, 1989) The egodefensive function results from internal conflicts For example, open hostility toward an activity like snorkeling could be an ego-defensive 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 adjustment 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 environments 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 develCopyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd G P Nyaupane, C M Paris and V Teye 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 decisions in specific situations (Assael, 1984) Attitudes provide guides from which judgements and/or decisions can be made In specific situations, especially those in which a person has no direct experience, the knowledge function of attitude become stronger The media play a significant role in attitude formation by portraying 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 significant role in forming attitude toward New Zealand (Hudson and Ritchie, 2006) Previous travel experience to international destinations is an important source of knowledge and subsequently attitude formation (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 experience 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 influences attitude It has also been noted that decisions that result in the maximization and/or minimization of benefits or rewards tend to heighten more utilitarian functions, such as the social adjustment function (Shavitt, 1989) in addition to the knowledge function The social adjustment function is based on the need for people to have a feeling of belonging and/or 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 benefits and minimization of social consequences of travel by conforming to certain acceptable tasks or behaviors, such as traveling to socially beneficial destinations, buying souvenirs for friends and family, and sharing travel experiences Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Study Abroad Attitude 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 motivations are more general and dependent upon classes of objects, whereas outer-directed values are situation specific Inner-directed values reflect 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 specific objects, and thus can be difficult to replace Examples of outer-directed values include status, self-esteem needs, social acceptance, and a sense of belonging Destination choice often reflects the norms and values of the individuals 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 specific object, or in a tourism case, a specific destination symbolizes social status, then it is much more difficult to substitute another destination than one that fulfills a general need to travel Drive theory (Hull, 1943) can be useful in understanding the influence of past travel experience on attitude formation As a person fulfills a need, behavior occurs, and if that behavior can successfully fulfill the need or reduce drive, then the behavior will be repeated in the future; thus drive theory is reflective in nature In a tourism setting, past travel experience can fulfill 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 symbolized by a feedback loop (Chon, 1990; Mansfeld, 1992; Woodside and Lysonski, 1989) The relationship between motivation and attitude formation can be explained by a twostep process (Gnoth, 1997) First, attitude formation is influenced by motivations mediated by subjective situations Motivations for an object or situation that fulfills needs or drives that are outer-directed, cognitively based, and cannot be easily substituted could contribute Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 209 to the formation of attitudes Second, there is a cyclical relationship between attitudes, expectations, and events (Chon, 1990) Attitudes can be formed and/or reconfirmed as a result of an event Bosque and Martin (2008) presented a cognitive–affective model of tourist satisfaction that indirectly supports this relationship In their model, destination image directly influences expectations that are either confirmed or disconfirmed to affect satisfaction and in the end destination loyalty In a tourism context, attitude formation can be influenced by past travel experience and tourism motivations that are mediated through specific situations Despite the theoretical relationship between motivations and attitude formation, there is a lack of empirical research to examine what aspects of study abroad motivations influence attitude In addition to motivations, as previously indicated, attitude formation is a function of many factors; however, to our knowledge, this remains unexplored in a tourism context According to the theories discussed above, the choice of trip is influenced by motivation, past experience and social ties Attitudes toward a destination are influenced by motivations (Gnoth, 1997), past travel experience 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 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, destination 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 participated in a summer study abroad program lasting five weeks Two summer programs were selected for this study, a Pacific program Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 210 G P Nyaupane, C M Paris and V Teye Figure Conceptual model of mediating role of destination choice on pre-trip attitude formation (Australia, Fiji and New Zealand) and a European 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 concerning 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 orientation 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 including lodging, courses, transportation, costs, application procedures, document requirements, etc These meetings, as they were related to logistics, would not necessarily influence the participants’ destination attitudes The sample included more female students (73%) than male (27%), because overall at the university 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-five motivation questions were developed and modified 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 finalize the instrument Experts were selected from three key areas who have knowledge about study abroad programs: (i) professors who run study abroad Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd programs; (ii) university administrators responsible for managing study abroad programs; and (iii) students who have previously participated in study abroad programs multiple times Two individuals were selected from each group to discuss the instrument Discussion with experts resulted in discarding 12 items from the list A pretest with a group of five former study abroad participants was conducted with the remaining 23 items Each motivation item was rated on a five-point scale (1 = not important at all to = extremely important) 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 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 five students mentioned above After the pilot test, based on their comments, the seven-point scale was numbered as −3, −2, −1, 0, 1, and Respondents were asked to place a check mark at the point on a seven-point semantic differential scale (Dawes, 1972) 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 Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Study Abroad Attitude social ties were modified 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 five 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 relationships with people 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 five 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 acceptable reliability alpha scores The mean score of the 23 items used to measure attitudes toward a destination students intend to visit are provided in Table Further, a composite mean scale was computed using these variables to measure overall attitudes (Litvin, 2003; Pizam et al., 1991) 211 In order to test whether or not ‘destination intended to visit’ mediates the effect of previous travel experience, social ties and motivation 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 significantly related to ‘academic motivation’ and ‘close friend who live in a foreign country’ (Table 4) Second, the mediator variable (destination intend to visit) significantly affected the criterion variable (pre-trip attitude formation) Third, when all the predictor variables including previous travel experience (number of times travelled outside the USA, number of countries visited outside the USA), motivation dimensions (international travel, escape, academic, 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 important predictor of pre-trip attitude toward a destination (Table 5) The adjusted R² value suggests that the model explains 27.1 % of variance in pre-trip attitude The standardized beta values (β) show that social motivation plays a Table Descriptive table of the variables included in the analysis Variables Number of times travel outside of the USA Number of countries visited Good friend from a foreign country Boy/girl friend from a foreign country Relatives who live in a foreign country Close friends who live in a foreign country Destination Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Response Mean/Per cent Yes Yes Yes Yes Pacific 7.1 5.2 45.7% 13.3% 34.3% 38.6% 75% Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 212 G P Nyaupane, C M Paris and V Teye Table Exploratory factor analysis of study abroad students’ motivations Motivation items Socially/culturally learn more about host country Interact with people in host country Experience culture of host country Meet people from different countries Learn about host country Have an authentic experience with past cultures Get broader understanding of the world Visit several countries Travel outside of USA Get away from stressful situation Escape social boundaries Travel independently without family Escape day-to-day life Have convenience of prearranged travel Escape legal boundaries Develop close relationships with locals Earn six academic credits Earn academic credit while traveling Learn more about travel industry Explore career opportunities Show friends/family that have been to host country Travel with friends Buy goods and gifts from host country Eigen value Variance explained Reliability (alpha) Number of items Mean KMO Barlett’s Test of Sphericity International Academic Social 0.786 0.771 0.733 0.703 0.692 0.637 0.610 0.580 0.451 0.797 0.669 0.664 0.664 0.586 0.545 0.457 0.433 0.818 0.764 0.641 0.627 0.773 0.743 0.743 7.35 31.96 0.874 4.25 0.762 885.03, df = 253, p < 0.001 positive role in forming attitude When the mediator variable was included in the above model, the effect of destination intended to visit was significant, but effect of social motivation was reduced (Table 6) Furthermore, the model improved when the destination intended to visit was added in the model Both of these Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Escape 2.21 9.61 0.814 3.29 1.95 8.51 0.803 3.67 1.42 6.20 0.746 3.45 variables accounted for 36% of variance in pretrip attitude formation The results therefore revealed that pre-trip attitude toward a destination is influenced by social motivation As assumed, the destination intended to visit mediates the effect of social motivation on pretrip attitude formation Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Study Abroad Attitude 213 Table Items used to measure attitudes toward a destination Attitude items Mean SD 5.65 5.68 5.51 5.32 5.77 4.89 4.99 5.09 5.19 5.39 4.57 5.40 5.24 4.48 5.08 1.16 1.22 1.23 1.12 1.20 3.70 1.12 1.14 1.24 1.26 1.35 1.28 1.30 1.24 1.39 5.05 1.43 4.61 5.51 5.65 4.71 4.75 5.22 5.16 1.19 1.17 1.20 1.54 1.42 1.31 0.91 Warm/cold hearted Nice/awful Good/bad Honest/dishonest Friendly/unfriendly Submissive/aggressive Reliable/unreliable Flexible/rigid Intelligent/stupid Hardworking/lazy Like myself/not at all like me Educated/illiterate Clean/dirty Fast/slow Not at all/discriminate against women Not at all/discriminate against minorities Love Americans/hate Americans Kind/cruel Relaxed/tense Modern/old fashioned Active/passive Modest/boastful Composite mean attitude DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS This study contributes to better understanding of the tourist motivations and attitude formation 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 contention that destination choice is often a reflection of the norms and values of an individual’s reference group (Mansfeld, 1992) An individual’s social ties, in this case ‘close friends who live in a foreign country’, can influence the value placed upon certain destinations Further, the importance of academic motivations for the population under examination, university study abroad students, in choosing a destination region to travel can be a reflection of the norms and values of the reference group for these students This study also showed that pre-trip attitude formation is influenced by social motivation Further, this relationship is mediated by the destination intended to visit This supports Gnoth’s (1997) model that attitude formation is influenced by motivations and mediated by subjective situations The subjective situations can be specific destination or program Only one of the motivational domains (social) was found to contribute to the formation of attitudes toward the destinations of the study Table Logistic regression analysis of predicting the role of motivations, travel experience and social ties in selecting a trip (region) Variable International motivation Escape motivation Academic motivation Social motivation Number of times travel outside USA Number of countries visited Good friend from a foreign country Boy/girl friend from a foreign country Relatives who live in foreign country Close friend who live in a foreign country Estimate (b) Standard error (SE) eb p-value 1.535 −0.409 −1.393 −0.390 −0.215 0.052 −1.248 −0.266 −0.744 2.174 0.914 0.515 0.614 0.382 0.156 0.218 0.971 1.119 0.827 1.052 4.641 0.664 0.248 0.677 0.807 1.053 0.287 0.766 0.475 8.797 0.093 0.427 0.023 0.307 0.167 0.811 0.199 0.812 0.368 0.039 Model chi-square (df = 10) = 19.13* -2LL = 52.038 Nagelkerke R2 = 0.41; eb is odds ratio Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Int J Tourism Res 13, 205–217 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Canada China Hong Kong Macau Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd * p ≤ 0.001 60.9 70.6 44.4 48.5 17.2 Are there some places where tourists should not be allowed to visit because of their ecological fragility? (% yes) Do you think 46.1 48.8 64.1 51.2 44.9 carbon offset programmes will help alleviate the problem [of airline emissions] (% saying will make some to a real difference) Pro-environmental tourism behaviour Have you changed 9.4 11.8 20.0 10.2 10.1 your vacation habits because of your concerns about the environment (% yes) Factors that would influence tourism behaviour change (intentions) Please tell me how you might react to climate change in the future (% yes) I will travel less 23.5 11.9 33.3 9.0 17.3 by plane 81.8 76.3 51.8 63.4 41.1 I expect to have to pay some form of carbon tax 55.4 53.7 73.8 41.0 51.5 I will look for holiday destinations that have low carbon footprints I will travel locally 52.5 47.3 35.7 22.8 26.7 Australia/ New Zealand 45.7 32.9 9.9 13.7 75.3 38.6 27.4 60.1 11.2 36.0 43.3 66.7 67.3 UK 42.8 The Philippines 611.0 48.6 49.0 22.7 12.8 43.7 50.7 USA 99.221 49.067 96.922 51.765 7.940 54.888 75.835 Chi-square 0.000* 0.000* 0.000* 0.000* 0.338 0.000* 0.000* Significance Attitudes towards Tourism and the Environment 291 Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr General environmental issues Pro-environmental attitudes Thinking about 48.7 the environment, are you concerned that changes to it will affect you (% concerned a lot or greatly concerned) How serious a 56.4 problem are the related issues of global warming and climate change — % saying they are the biggest environmental issue or the single biggest issue of any type facing humanity 81.6 Do you consider the impacts of global warming and climate change to be a key concern for you over the next five years (% yes) Australia/ New Zealand Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 57.1 35.0 44.6 83.3 53.6 China 48.9 Canada Table Comparison of men by nationality 95.0 52.5 70.2 Hong Kong 89.3 48.2 68.9 Macau 81.8 36.3 58.9 The Philippines 73.5 32.3 35.3 UK 72.0 29.0 48.2 USA 21.484 45.378 38.440 Chi-square 0.003* 0.020 0.011 Significance 292 B McKercher, S F H Pang and B Prideaux Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Do you believe 35.9/33.3 your own actions can make a meaningful contribution to reducing the likely impact of global warming and climate change (% yes trying to change now/% no too big an issue for one person to fix) Presumed knowledge How would you 71.6 rate your level of knowledge of global warming and climate change (% with some to high knowledge) Pro-environmental behaviour 60.5 Have you changed your behaviour in the last three years to reduce your own environmental impacts? (% yes) Australia/ New Zealand Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 64.3 71.5 66.0 66.7 28.6/25.0 China 38.3/19.1 Canada 60.0 75.0 27.5/20.0 Hong Kong 75.0 82.7 34.5/13.8 Macau 58.1 60.6 29.4/8.8 The Philippines 42.1 64.7 32.4/26.5 UK 61.3 72.5 34.6/22.8 USA 8.020 24.864 70.235 Chi-square 0.331 0.253 0.000* Significance Attitudes towards Tourism and the Environment 293 Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Australia/ New Zealand Canada China Hong Kong Macau Factors that would influence behaviour change (intentions) What actions would make you change your behaviour permanently? (% yes) Continued rises in 75.0 52.2 39.3 35.9 37.9 oil and other energy prices Government 81.6 89.6 85.7 87.5 65.6 legislation forcing change Peer group 60.5 45.7 53.6 67.5 60.7 pressure Definitive 71.1 59.6 71.4 70.0 69.0 evidence that global warming and climate change were real Direct impacts of 89.5 71.7 82.1 85.0 86.2 global warming and climate change on me or my family Technological 81.6 82.6 57.1 71.8 65.5 innovations that enabled me to reduce my impacts with no real change in lifestyle 57.9 56.5 75.0 72.5 69.0 More knowledge and information, motivating me to change Nothing, it is too 15.4 8.9 25.0 27.5 20.7 big an issue for one person to fix Nothing, I not 5.4 8.9 17.9 10.0 3.4 think it is a critical issue Table Continued Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 15.2 87.5 58.8 24.2 75.8 69.7 15.2 57.6 67.6 33.3 42.4 47.1 41.9 76.5 66.7 64.7 66.7 UK 50.0 The Philippines 14.4 13.8 57.4 87.4 81.5 70.7 41.9 74.9 66.7 USA 9.957 15.265 11.766 35.272 8.533 4.476 15.233 13.364 31.686 Chi-square 0.191 0.033 0.109 0.000* 0.288 0.724 0.033 0.064 0.000* Significance 294 B McKercher, S F H Pang and B Prideaux Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Tourism Pro-environmental tourism attitudes Do you think that 36.9 tourism is a major contributor to global warming and climate change (% definitely yes) Are there some 76.9 places where tourists should not be allowed to visit because of their ecological fragility? (% yes) Do you think 36.8 carbon offset programmes will help alleviate the problem [of airline emissions] (% saying will make some to a real difference) Australia/ New Zealand 14.3 42.9 46.4 67.5 37.5 China 40.4 Canada Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 42.5 35.0 35.0 Hong Kong 48.2 24.1 31.0 Macau 59.4 19.4 35.3 The Philippines 32.3 63.6 41.2 UK 33.3 47.1 32.5 USA 27.114 38.702 24.110 Chi-square 0.167 0.000* 0.288 Significance Attitudes towards Tourism and the Environment 295 Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Australia/ New Zealand Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd * p ≤ 0.001 38.5 32.0 30.4 30.4 20.5 36.8 27.6 50.0 62.5 46.7 38.7 44.8 25.0 63.8 60.0 47.6 24.2 The Philippines climate change in the future (% yes) 8.9 36.0 12.8 27.5 2.5 10.3 Macau 2.7 2.4 2.3 10.0 Hong Kong 2.4 17.9 China 6.3 Canada Pro-environmental tourism behaviour 7.7 Have you changed your vacation habits because of your concerns about the environment (% yes) Factors that 2.3 would influence tourism behaviour change (intentions) Please tell me how you might react to I will travel less 21.6 by plane I expect to have to 77.8 pay some form of carbon tax I will look for 50.0 holiday destinations that have low carbon footprints I will travel 38.9 locally Table Continued 41.4 24.1 70.0 17.2 2.4 5.9 UK 39.9 33.3 48.9 24.3 2.3 10.4 USA 16.627 10.177 27.952 0.020 0.179 0.000* 0.006* 0.117 F = 1.658 20.001 0.186 Significance 10.039 Chi-square 296 B McKercher, S F H Pang and B Prideaux Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Attitudes towards Tourism and the Environment and often contradictory For example, opinions about carbon offset programmes elicited different responses, depending on the context in which the question was asked On the one hand, a large minority of students expect to pay carbon taxes in the future and recommend carbon taxes as a way of resolving the economy versus environment conundrum faced by many small island economies Yet, more than half of those students who expect to pay carbon taxes feel that they will make little difference in resolving the tourism carbon footprint problem Elsewhere, students expressed rather naive views about the causes and resultant effects that travel has on climate change and carbon emissions In particular, the call for destinations to act to reduce the net impact of carbon emissions ignores the realities that air transport represents the single greatest contributor of long-haul tourism-related emissions and that many long-haul small island destinations, in particular, are reliant on air access from source market economies As such, their ability to minimize total emissions is limited The view expressed by a majority of women that they will look for destinations that have low carbon footprints reveals a high degree of naivety, for the total carbon footprint involved in travelling to many so-called ‘green destinations’ is often higher than travel elsewhere when transport and other factors are considered (Becken, 2004) Therefore, while students appear to be exposed to sufficiently accurate and detailed information to form generic environmental attitudes, one must question how well we, as educators, are informing them of tourism’s complicity in climate change and of the full impacts of travel on the environment The study suggests that the two dimensions of gender and nationality interact unequally, with men and women holding different views, but with nationality playing a greater moderating role among women than men Greater diversity in general environmental issues than in issues relating to tourism and the environment suggests further that either students have thought less about this issue, and therefore have not formed clear opinions, or that the socialization and acculturation processes observed in other environmental matters play a lesser role in tourism Socialization theory Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 297 suggests that women and men are socialized to behave differently To some extent, this finding was supported, as differences did emerge between genders But socialization also appears to be much more contextualized and influenced by nationality among women than among men Men’s opinions were largely consistent across nationalities, whereas women’s views varied dramatically As a result, the simple Western-based assumption about the impact on environmental attitudes of socialization of women may need to be reconsidered Studies mentioned in the opening section of this paper infer that the socialization process is universal: Women have a strong ethic of care; men have a stronger sense of being independent and assertive This study, however, challenges that universality pretext, especially among women The study may suggest that gender roles for men are largely consistent across economies, which may explain their anthropocentric views towards the environment But gender roles for women are much more nuanced, with women in some economies surveyed adopting a stronger ethic of care than in other economies This study extended the research on environmental attitudes to include perspectives from Asian economies and Oceania Though purposefully narrow in scope, by focusing exclusively on tourism and hospitality students, it nonetheless extends the body of literature on cross-cultural studies of environmental attitudes and further challenges from Euro/ North American-centric beliefs The findings, therefore, illustrate the importance of broadening the scope of environmental attitudinal research to include more individuals from emerging economies ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank the following individuals for their assistance in disseminating the surveys to their students: Dr Jane James, Flinders University; Professor David Weaver and Dr Laura Lawton, Griffith University; Dr Sue Beeton, Latrobe University; Professor Betty Weiler, Monash University; Professor Larry Dwyer, UNSW; Professor Roy Ballantine and Dr Brent Ritchie, University of Queensland; Professor Leo Jago, Victoria University, Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 298 Melbourne; Dr Mike Peters and Mr Andreas Strobl, University of Innsbruck; Dr Wanda George, Mt St Vincent University; Dr Rachel Dodds, Ryerson University; Dr Elizabeth Halpenny, University of Alberta; Professor Brent Ritchie, University of Calgary; Dr Christine M Van Winkle, University of Manitoba; Dr Lee Jolliffe, University of New Brunswick; Professor Marion Joppe, University of Guelph; Dr Tom Delamere and Dr David Robinson, Vancouver Island University; Professor Stephen Smith, Waterloo University; Professor David Harrison, University of the South Pacific; Ms Mario Passos Ascencao, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences; Professor Frederic Dimanche, Ceram Business School; Dr Tom Iverson, University of Guam; Mr Finian O’Driscoll, Shannon College; Ms Anne Marie Lally, Waterford Institute of Technology; Mr Kevin Burns, Dundalk Institute of Technology; Professor Shaul Krakover, Ben Gurion University; Dr Noam Shoval, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Noriel Jacobs-Gray, Northern Caribbean University; Professor Malcolm Cooper, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University; Professor Don Dioko, Macau Institute for Tourism Studies; Professor Vic Nair, Taylors College; Dr Ramesh Durbarry, University of Technology Mauritius; Professor Simon Milne and Dr Jill Poulson, Auckland University of Technology; Dr David Duval, University of Otago; Professor Douglas Pearce, Victoria University Wellington; Dr Arvid Flagestad, Norwegian School of Management; Ms Janelle Villamor-Qua, Centro Escolar University; Ms Evangeline Eugenio-Timberg, University of Santo Tomas; Professor Ernie Heath, University of Pretoria; Dr Maria D Alvarez, Bogazici University; Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Bournemouth University; Professor Tim Knowles and Dr Chris Stone, Manchester Metropolitan University; Professor Bill Bramwell, Sheffield Hallam University; Professor Steve Page, Stirling University; Professor David Airey, University of Surrey; Professor Rob Davidson, University of Westminster; Professor Peter Burns, University of Brighton; Dr Adrian Bull, University of Lincoln (UK), Professor Chris Cooper and Dr Peter Lyth, University of Nottingham; Professor Tom Baum, Strathclyde University; Dr Kathleen Andereck, Arizona State University; Professor Ben Dewald, Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd B McKercher, S F H Pang and B Prideaux CalPoly University, Pomona; Professor John Crotts, College of Charleston; Professor Giri Jogaratnam, Eastern Michigan University; Professor Jerome Agrusa, Hawaii Pacific University; Professor Hailin Qu, Oklahoma State University; Professor Anna Mattila, Penn State University; Professor Dan Fesenmaier, Temple University; Dr Ulrike Gretzel, Texas A&M University; Dr Norma Nickerson, University of Montana; Professor Fevzi Okumus, Central Florida University; Dr Joanne Yoo, University of Houston; Dr Harold Ritchins, University of Hawaii; Dr Billy Bai, University of Nevada at Las Vegas; Dr Nancy Gard McGehee, Virginia Tech; Professor Nancy Swanger and Dr Dogan Gursoy, Washington State University; and Dr Mike Mena, Maejo University Funding for this project was provided by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University APPENDIX A Variables tested General environmental issues Pro-environmental attitudes • Thinking about the environment, are you concerned that changes to it will affect you (four-point scale from 1: not concerned at all to 4: greatly concerned) • How serious a problem are the related issues of climate change (six-point scale from 1: not serious at all to 6: the single biggest issue facing humanity) • Do you consider the impacts of climate change to be a key concern for you over the next five years (yes/no) • Do you believe your own actions can make a meaningful contribution to reducing the likely impact of climate change (five-point scale from 1: no, it is too big an issue for one person to fix to 5: yes, I’m trying to reduce my impacts now in a meaningful way) Presumed knowledge • How would you rate your level of knowledge of climate change (four-point scale from 1: high level of knowledge to 4: no knowledge) Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Attitudes towards Tourism and the Environment Pro-environmental behaviour • Have you changed your behaviour in the last three years to reduce your own environmental impacts? (yes/no) Factors that would influence behaviour change (intentions) • What actions would make you change your behaviour permanently? (yes/no) • Continued rises in oil and other energy prices • Government legislation forcing change • Peer group pressure • Definitive evidence that climate change was real • Direct impacts of climate change on me or my family • Technological innovations • More knowledge and information, motivating me to change • Nothing, it is too big an issue for one person to fix • Nothing, I not think it is a critical issue Tourism-related issues Pro-environmental tourism attitudes • Do you think that tourism is a major contributor to climate change (four-point scale from 1: definitely not to 3: definitely yes and 4: I not know) • Are there some places where tourists should not be allowed to visit because of their ecological fragility? (yes/no) • Do you think carbon offset programmes will help alleviate the problem [of airline emissions] (four-point scale from 1: will make no difference to 4: will make a real difference) Pro-environmental tourism behaviour • Have you changed your vacation habits because of your concerns about the environment (yes/no) Factors that would influence tourism behaviour change (intentions) • Please tell me how you might react to climate change in the future ᭺ I will travel less by plane ᭺ I expect to have to pay some form of carbon tax ᭺ I will look for holiday destinations that have low carbon footprints ᭺ I will travel locally Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 299 REFERENCES Agarwal B 2000 Conceptualising environmental collective action: why gender matters Cambridge Journal of Economics 24(3): 283–310 BBC 2007 All countries need to take major steps on climate change suggests poll Available at http:// www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/ stories/2007/09_september/25/climate.shtml 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322–348 Sundblad E, Biel A, Garling T 2009 Knowledge and confidence in knowledge about climate change among experts, journalists, politicians, and laypersons Environment and Behaviour 41(2): 281–302 Taylor I 2009 Younger travellers show least concern about climate change Available at http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2009/ 10/20/32210/younger-travellers-show-leastconcern-about-climate.html (accessed 25 November 2009) Zelezny LC, Chua P, Aldrich C 2000 Elaborating gender differences in environmentalism Journal of Social Issues 56(3): 443–457 Int J Tourism Res 13, 266–300 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int J Tourism Res 13, 301–304 (2011) Published online 30 September 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.812 Research Note A Note on the Use of Markov Chains to Analyze the Off-Peak Season Provision of Guided Tours to Tourists Amitrajeet A Batabyal* Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, USA ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION In this note, we provide answers to two hitherto unstudied questions in the tourism literature Specifically, we first show how the theory of discrete-time Markov Chains (DTMCs) can be used to effectively model and analyze the problem of providing guided tours to tourists during the off-peak season Next, we model the existence of a capacity constraint and then show how DTMC theory can be used to derive a metric of interest to an optimizing tour providing firm, namely, the long run fraction of tourists to whom the firm under study is unable to provide tours Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd A key function of many private firms in the tourism industry is to provide tourists with guided tours These guided tours can be straightforward such as the walking tours of the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, or the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, or they can be more elaborate such as the canal tours in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the bus and boat tours of the fiord Milford Sound in New Zealand The demand for these guided tours, although always stochastic, varies considerably depending on whether the touristic season under consideration is the peak or the off-peak season The empirical dimensions of seasonal tourism have been studied by many researchers Bar-On (1999) focused on the negative effects of seasonality on tourism in Israel Lim and McAleer (2000) studied deterministic and probabilistic seasonality for Australia Koenig and Bischoff (2005) compared seasonality in Wales and in Scotland Andriotis (2005) studied seasonality-related pricing issues in Crete Cunado et al (2005) pointed out trends in Spanish tourism time series data Sung (2008) addressed the ways in which the ‘producer Received 31 August 2010; Revised September 2010; Accepted September 2010 Keywords: capacity constraint; guided tour; Markov chain; off-peak season *Correspondence to: A A Batabyal, Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology, 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, USA E-mail: aabgsh@rit.edu Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 302 surplus’ of providers of guided tours to Yellowstone National Park can be increased Finally, Baez Montenegro et al (2009) used a hypothetical guided walking tour construct to estimate the value of historical sites in a region of Chile Relative to the sizeable empirical literature on seasonality, a lot less progress has been made in theoretically modeling off-peak season issues in general and the provision of guided tours during the off-peak season in particular Recently, Batabyal and Yoo (2010) conducted a probabilistic analysis of the provision of guided tours to a single class of tourists Similarly, Batabyal (2010) examined the guided tour provision question when the firm providing the guided tours is faced with two distinct classes of tourists However, neither of these two studies — nor any other study to the best of our knowledge — used the vast literature on discrete-time Markov chains (DTMCs) to study the problem of providing guided tours to tourists during the off-peak season in a theoretically coherent manner Given this state of affairs, our primary objective in this note is to show how useful the theory of DTMCs (see Ross, 1996, pp 163–230, or Tijms 2003, pp 81–139) is in helping us model and understand the little studied but salient problem of the provision of off-peak season guided tours to tourists During the course of this discussion, we shall also shed light on two pertinent issues for an optimizing (profit maximizing or cost minimizing) tour guide providing firm: (i) the existence of a capacity constraint and (ii) the long-run fraction of tourists to whom the firm under study is unable to provide tours The section titled ‘Preliminaries’ delineates a DTMC model that captures, from the perspective of an optimizing private firm, the general features of the off-peak season provision of guided tours to city attractions and to locations such as fiords and lakes The section titled ‘The transition probabilities’ derives the one-step transition probabilities for the DTMC model of the previous section The section titled ‘Long-run fraction of unserved tourists’ incorporates a capacity constraint and then computes the long-run fraction of tourists to whom our firm is unable to provide guided tours The section titled ‘Conclusions’ Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd A A Batabyal concludes and discusses extensions of this note’s research THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Preliminaries Consider an optimizing private firm that provides guided tours to tourists interested in visiting a particular location during the off-peak season Tourists arrive at this firm’s facility in accordance with a stationary Poisson process with rate λ > (see Ross, 1996, pp 59–97 or Tijms, 2003, pp 1–32 for more on the Poisson process) Consistent with Batabyal and Yoo (2010) and Batabyal (2010), we model the fact that we are dealing with the off-peak season by supposing that our firm has a single guide available to offer arriving tourists a tour of the location in question This firm seeks to provide its customers (the tourists) with a personalized and high-quality guided tour experience Therefore, the firm under study ensures that its guide is matched with a single tourist The above two features tell us that our firm can offer a guided tour to only one tourist at a time Without loss of generality, we suppose that the guided tours last one time period t (e.g hour) and that a new guided tour begins at the beginning of this time period t = 0, 1, 2, Even though we are studying the off-peak season, because the environment in which our firm operates is characterized by the presence of stochastic demand, this firm must contend with a capacity constraint This means that the gate to our firm’s facility is closed to newly arriving tourists whenever the number of tourists waiting in the firm’s facility reaches R This gate is opened when the number of waiting tourists in the facility drops to r R and r are positive integers with ≤ r < R To formalize the description of our firm given in the preceding two paragraphs, we shall use the theory of DTMCs Let Xn denote the number of tourists present in our tour guide providing firm’s facility at the beginning of the nth time period Also, let δn = if the gate to our firm’s facility is closed at the beginning of the nth time period and let δn = otherwise Then, the two dimensional stochastic process {(Xn, δn)} is a DTMC with state space Int J Tourism Res 13, 301–304 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Off-peak Season Provision of Guided Tours I = {( i , ) i = r + 1, , R} ∪ {(i , 1) i = 0, 1, R − 1} 303 Long-run fraction of unserved tourists (1) We now specify the one-step transition probabilities for the above DTMC The transition probabilities Let ak = e−λλk/k! denote the probability of k tourist arrivals in our firm’s facility in any given time period Then, some thought tells us that the relevant one-step transition probabilities are e − λ λ i−r for r ≤ i ≤ R − 1, p(r +1,0)(R ,0) (i − r )! ∞ e−λλ k , = ∑ k! k = R−r P(r +1,0)(i ,1) = P(i ,0)(i −1,0) = for r + < i ≤ R , P(0 ,1)( j ,1) e−λλ j = for ≤ j ≤ R − 1, p(0 ,1)(R ,0) j! ∞ e−λλ k , =∑ k! k=R (2) (4) P(i ,1)( j ,1) = ∞ e−λ λ k 1⎡ π + ( r + 1, ) ∑ ( k − R + r ) λ ⎢⎣ k! k = R− r R ∞ e−λ λ k λ ∑ π (i , 0) + π (0 ,1) ∑ ( k − R) + k! i=r + k =R ∞ R −1 e−λ λ k ⎤ ( ) k − R + i − π ∑ (i , R) ∑ k ! ⎥⎦ (6) k = R−i +1 i =1 Our guided tour providing firm’s profits will depend, inter alia, on how many tours it provides to tourists Therefore, an optimizing firm will want to pay careful attention to the above long-run fraction or P{no tour} metric In this regard, one possible way to go about the task of profit (cost) maximization (minimization) would be to optimize an apposite objective function in which P{no tour} is an argument CONCLUSIONS (5) All other one-step transition probabilities not described by Equations (2) to (5) are zero Inspecting the above transition probabilities, we see that they depend fundamentally on the parameter λ of the tourist arrival process The exponential e also appears in these probabilities because for Poisson tourist arrivals, the time between the arrival of any two tourists is exponentially distributed Finally, using these probabilities and additional analysis, our firm can shed light on business matters such as whether it ought to alter the values of the lower and the upper bounds r and R for the arriving tourists in its facility Armed with the above transition probabilities, we can now ascertain the long-run fraction of tourists to whom our firm is unable to provide guided tours Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd P{no tour} = (3) and e − λ λ j − i +1 for ≤ j ≤ R − 1, p(0 ,1)(R ,0) j! ∞ e−λλ k =∑ k! k=R We begin by noting that the so called equilibrium probabilities πs, s ʦ I (see Ross, 1996, pp 173–185 or Tijms, 2003, pp 96–118 for more on these probabilities) for our DTMC model are obtained by solving a finite system of linear equations in the standard way Using the notion of an equilibrium probability and the transition probabilities given in Equations (2) to (5), we infer that the long-run fraction of tourists to whom our firm is unable to provide guided tours or P{no tour} is Our analysis in this note provided answers to two hitherto unstudied questions in the tourism literature Specifically, we first showed how the theory of DTMCs can be used to effectively model and analyze the problem of providing guided tours to tourists during the off-peak season Next, we modeled the existence of a capacity constraint and then showed how DTMC theory can be used to derive a metric of interest to an optimizing tour providing firm, namely the long-run fraction of tourists to whom the firm under study is unable to provide tours Here are two suggestions for extending the research described here First, it would be useful to determine whether one can obtain analytical results for a DTMC model of the provision of guided tours to tourists who Int J Tourism Res 13, 301–304 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 304 arrive at the relevant firm’s facility in accordance with a non-stationary Poisson process Second, it would be informative to use Equation (6) to formulate and then optimize an objective function for an optimizing guided tour providing firm Studies of the provision of guided tours to tourists during the off-peak season that incorporate these aspects of the problem into the analysis will provide further insights into research questions that have both abstract and concrete implications ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Batabyal acknowledges financial support from the Gosnell endowment at Rochester Institute of Technology The usual disclaimer applies REFERENCES Andriotis K 2005 Seasonality in Crete: problem or a way of life? Tourism Economics 11: 207–224 Baez Montenegro A, Niklitschek Huaquin M, Herrero Prieto LC 2009 The valuation of historical sites: a case study of Valdivia, Chile Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 52: 97–109 Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd A A Batabyal Bar-On RR 1999 The measurement of seasonality and its economic impacts Tourism Economics 5: 437–458 Batabyal AA (forthcoming) A note on guided tours for two classes of tourists during the slack season Studies in Regional Science Available at http:// ssrn.com/abstract=1529061 Batabyal AA, Yoo SJ 2010 A probabilistic analysis of guided tours for tourists during the slack season Tourism Management 31: 482–485 Cunado J, Gil-Alana LA, Perez de Garcia F 2005 The nature of seasonality in Spanish tourism time series Tourism Economics 11: 483–499 Koenig N, Bischoff EE 2003 Seasonality of tourism in Wales: a comparative analysis, Tourism Economics 9: 229–254 Lim C, McAleer M 2000 A seasonal analysis of Asian tourist arrivals to Australia Applied Economics 32: 499–509 Ross SM 1996 Stochastic Processes 2nd edn Wiley: New York Sung JK 2008 Understanding winter visitation to Yellowstone National Park using revealed and stated preference modeling PhD Dissertation, North Carolina State University: Raleigh Tijms HC 2003 A First Course in Stochastic Models Wiley: Chichester, UK Int J Tourism Res 13, 301–304 (2011) DOI: 10.1002/jtr INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int J Tourism Res 13, 305 (2011) Book Review TOURISM, POWER AND CULTURE: ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSIGHTS by Donald V L Macleod and James G Carrier (eds) Channel View Publications, Bristol, UK, 2010 No of pages: 219 including index Price: £24.95 (paperback) ISBN 1-84541-124-2 Building on Church and Coles’ (2007) Tourism, Power and Space, this edited book uses anthropological case studies to examine how power and culture are inextricably linked with tourism The collection of selected panel papers from the 2007 meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth is the first time power as a central organizing theme has been applied to tourism by anthropologists in a single collection The diverse case studies, from Australia, Mali, The Canary Islands, The Dominican Republic, Scotland, Bali, Panama, Brazil, Belize and Jamaica, illustrate that understanding power in its cultural context is crucial to gaining insights into the complexity of perceptions held by differing groups The book begins with a prologue by the editors that, besides summarizing the structure of the chapters that follow, introduces anthropological approaches to understanding power and culture, reviews research on power in tourism studies and outlines the pertinence of culture for those concerned with tourism The body of the text is structured into two main parts — (i) Tourism and the Power Struggle for Resources and (ii) Tourism and Culture: Presentation, Promotion and the Manipulation of Image — each consisting of four chapters and an editorial introduction The chapters in Part One examine the struggle for control over resources of water, architecture, cultural heritage and security, respectively Part Two addresses the different ways in which tourism is associated with meaning and image and how culture can be used by different groups for their own specific goals The subject matter of the chapters in Part Two includes cultural tourism as a resource for an indigenous group, tourism’s promotion of ‘blackness’ in fuelling the social construction of race, tourism development’s role in nationally sanctioning ethnic identity and how the tourism sector can portray others in order to defend its own self-interests The collection is concluded with an epilogue by C Michael Hall that, while theoretically engaged and intentionally provocative through its brief reflection on power in the academy, does not bring a sense of closure to the book Hall’s contribution revisits Lukes (1974) in connecting tourism to the multilayered faces of power, including its overt and less obvious forms This rich volume of case studies will be of use to those interested in the study of tourism as well as social and cultural anthropology It will likely be of most benefit as a reference text to specialist researchers and in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate teaching Although its broad reaching array of content does deliver context-driven, theoretically rigorous works, most of the chapters omit methodological discussion, with the result being that the authors often remain authorities hidden behind the text Nonetheless, Tourism, Power and Culture: Anthropological Insights is still a valuable contribution to the expanding knowledge base concerning issues of power as they intertwine with tourism, and with its addition of culture as a level of analysis, it should be well received REFERENCES Church A, Coles T (eds) 2007 Tourism, Power and Space Routledge: London Lukes S 1974 Power: A Radical View MacMillan: London Scott Cohen Bournemouth University, UK Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd