Browsing by Author "Liu, Bingjie"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Empirically Testing the Influence of Travel Safety Concerns: Examining Alternative Models
    (Travel and Tourism Research Association, 2016-06-03) Liu, Bingjie; Schroeder, Ashley; Pennington-Gray, Lori
    Tourists’ risk perceptions and perceptions of safety are important topics within the tourism literature; however, the conceptual approaches to these concepts are inconsistent. Following the risk-as-feeling hypothesis, this study proposes that: perceived severity and perceived susceptibility could be considered as tourists’ cognitive risk perceptions; perceived safety could be considered as affective risk perceptions; efficacy beliefs should also be included within the theoretical framework. To clarify the underlying relationships between these variables, six conceptual models were developed and tested using data collected from 444 U.S. citizens. In the best fitting model, perceived safety mediated the relationship between one’s travel interest and travel intentions. This mediating relationship was moderated by cognitive risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs. The findings suggest that amplified cognitive risk perceptions may affect individuals’ perceived safety and subsequent travel decisions. Accordingly, destinations should promote safety measures for tourists during times of crisis and restore tourists’ confidence in the destination.
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    A Flash of Culinary Tourism: Understanding The Influences of Online Food Photography on People's Travel Planning Process on Flickr
    (Tourism Culture and Communication, 2013-01-24) Norman, William C.; Pennington-Gray, Lori; Liu, Bingjie
    This article presents the results of an exploratory study in the online image-sharing community Flickr. The purpose of this study was to profile the users who are fond of online food photography as well as to explore the role of online food photography in their traveling planning process. Grounded in “uses and gratification theory,” a mixed method was adopted for this research. Content analysis was employed to understand members' general motivation to participate in different online food photography activities. A series of chi-square and independent-sample t tests was conducted to determine if significant differences existed between active members and not-as-active members. Results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses supported each other. The findings indicated that factors of entertainment, personal identity, and social interaction were the main drivers of participation in online food photography activities. It was further revealed that participants' tourism experiences were recorded as personal photography but shared socially through the use of social media. For active members, food images influenced them in terms of novelty and providing information. Active members also appeared to be more likely to seek out new places to travel for new food experiences, and food photography had a greater influence on where they consider traveling. On the basis of the results, implications for culinary tourism promotion and destination marketing were discussed.
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    Images of safe tourism destinations in the United States held by African Americans
    (PASOS, 2013) Liu, Bingjie; Pennington-Gray, Lori; Schroeder, Ashley
    Ensuring a safe destination is an essential factor in travelers’ decision-making, as well as a destination’s success. Recent crises have threatened perceptions of safety related to tourism. Under such circumstances, negative destination images might be produced and destination choices might be altered. Thus, understanding the effect of risk perceptions on destination image is a necessary research stream. This study examined African American travelers’ perceptions of safety related to the top three state tourism destinations in the USA. Factors that influenced perceptions of a safe destination varied among the destinations. Consistently, however, past travel experience and the perception of the likelihood of health-related crisis were significant predictors of perceptions of a safe destination.
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    New York City Bed Bug Crisis as Framed by Tourists on Tripadvisor
    (Tourism Analysis, 2015-06-17) Liu, Bingjie; Pennington-Gray, Lori; Donohoe, Holly; Omodior, Oghenekaro
    In New York City (NYC), one of the world's top tourism destinations, bed bugs have reemerged as a challenge to the hospitality industry regardless of a hotel's star rating, location, ranking, or other. Given this growing tourism and hospitality management problem, the purpose of this study was to understand how the NYC bed bug crisis was framed on social media by travelers and how it impacted tourist experiences of NYC. Four general narrative frames and 14 subframes were identified in the analysis and the findings confirm that bed bugs have become a real and growing concern for tourists, and they are using social media to report their bed bug experiences. The significance and implications for hotel and destination management are discussed.
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    Shoot, taste and post: an exploratory study of food and tourism experiences in an online image-share community
    (Texas A & M University Press, 2012) Liu, Bingjie; Norman, William C.; Backman, Sheila J.; Cuneo, Karen; Condrasky, Margaret
    This paper presents the results from an exploratory study of food and tourism experiences in the online image-share community Flickr.comTM. The purpose of this research was to provide a description of Flickr food group members' behaviour of taking pictures of food, as well as to better understand the role of food pictures in their travel experiences. The study found that members' travel experiences were recorded and shared socially through food photography. While food images could be regarded as a trip motivator, it is hard to regard it as the primary trip purpose.
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    Understanding the Cruise Industry’s Responses to Health-Related Crises: A Case Study Approach
    (TTRA, 2015-06-05) Liu, Bingjie; Pennington-Gray, Lori
    The cruise industry is one of the fastest growing sectors within the tourism and hospitality industry (WTO, 2010). In spite of the increasing popularity, there has been a continued interest in traveling albeit an increased exposure to various types of health risks, such as seasickness, nausea, and foodborne disease (CDC, 2014). Oftentimes these health risks can develop into health-related crises to which both passengers and crew members are vulnerable (Henderson, 2007). The outbreak of health-related crises can exert epidemic effects on the cruise industry and therefore have catastrophic impacts (CLIA, 2014). The direct outcome normally manifests itself as damage to personal health and well-being of the traveler; while indirect outcome can take the form of customer dissatisfaction, impaired brand images of cruise lines, and distorted images of destinations (CDC, 2014; Crimson Hexagon, 2013). To cope with these challenges, scholars have highlighted the importance of crisis management practices as well as effective crisis responses (Coombs, 2014; Ritchie, 2008).