Browsing by Author "Wang, Suosheng"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 19
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    Adrenaline, Fear or Curiosity? Exploring Individuals' Motivations to Engage In Adventure Tourism
    (2022-12) Bufkin, Alexa Renee; Liu-Lastres, Becky; Wang, Suosheng; Cecil, Amanda
    Adventure tourism is a fast-growing niche sector within tourism. This study aims to identify the primary motivations and constraints for individuals participating in adventure tourism. Emphasis was put on adventure participants' travel pattern behaviors (local residents/ tourists) and the new factor of COVID-19. Only some studies have examined constraints within adventure tourism, including motivations, travel, and COVID-19. A total of 240 individual's participated in a 10-15-minute survey that focused on 37 motivations and constraints pulled from previous literature. The findings highlighted personal improvement and destination experience as the key motivators to participate in adventure tourism, while traveler anxiety was the key constraint holding participants back. It also gave insight into how adventure tourism continues to be popular despite the pandemic.
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    Analysis of Young Tourists' Life Satisfaction Domains and Determinants of Overall Life Satisfaction
    (2019) Wang, Suosheng; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Physical Education and Tourism Management
    This study explores tourists’ satisfaction outcomes and life satisfaction domains, and examines the domains’ relative importance in influencing tourists’ overall life satisfaction. Seven life satisfaction domains are identified in relation to young Chinese tourists’ leisure travel, among which five domains are found to be significant in affecting the tourists’ overall life satisfaction. These significant domains, in order of importance, are life satisfaction in work, affection/love, social status and recognition, knowledge enhancement, and leisure and relaxation. No difference is detected about the young tourists’ travel-related life satisfaction relating to their demographic variables such as gender, income and marital status. Based on the results, theoretical and managerial implications are recommended.
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    Community perceptions of tourism impacts
    (EE, 2022-05-13) Wang, Suosheng; Mirehie, Mona; Tourism, Event & Sport Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    Host communities are major players whose perceptions should be assessed by policy makers when it comes to decision-making about tourism management and the future direction of tourism. In contrast to economic effects, tourism's socio-cultural impacts on host communities are considered more intangible. In turn, these can be more difficult to assess as they require measurement of more subjective or qualitative processes. In this chapter we explore these more intangible effects of tourism by focusing on the community perceptions of the sector's socio-cultural impacts. We discuss the key conceptual frameworks such as Doxey's Irridex, Butlers' tourist area life cycle and social exchange theory for assessing community perceptions of tourism impacts. We also identify the main perceived socio-cultural impacts of tourism and the main drivers behind these perceptions and discuss assessment challenges. Specifically, we underline the importance of understanding community perceptions of tourism impacts if the sector is to be developed holistically.
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    Comparative social impacts of tourism on developing and developed countries
    (Yumpu, 2021) Wang, Suosheng; Tourism, Event & Sport Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    The synthesized major factors influencing tourism impacts on host communities include the type of tourism activities, the features of the host communities, and the nature of the interaction between tourists and host communities. The international tourism flows mainly feature tourism mobilities among the developed countries and from the developed countries to the developing countries. Given the economic and sociocultural differences between the developed and developing countries, it is deemed that the social impacts of tourism in the developing countries will be greater than in the developed countries, and more attention should be given to the host communities in the developing countries. Yet, no comparative social impacts of tourism are reported between the developed and developing countries. This study attempts to address this gap and alert people to the negative social impacts of tourism in developing countries.
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    Examination of Tourism Undergraduates’ Industry Commitment, in the Context of China
    (Taylor & Francis, 2016) Wang, Suosheng; Department of Tourism, Conventions and Event Management, School of Physical Education and Tourism Management
    Grounded in the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study developed a comprehensive research framework that encapsulated both personal and contextual factors in terms of tourism undergraduates’ commitment to career choice in the context of China’s social and vocational contexts. Applying structural equation modeling (SEM) to the data collected from 446 undergraduate students studying tourism in China, this study shows that “self-interest,” “others’ support,” “social status,” “outcome expectation” and “nature of work” exert significant effects on students’ commitment to career choice. Implications of the findings include suggested interventions in attracting tourism students to persist in their career path.
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    Exploring Sustainable Travel Behavior for Generation Y and Z
    (2023-06) Bao, Huilin; Liu-Lastres, Becky; Cecil, Amanda; Wang, Suosheng
    Since the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly hit the world, the tourism industry has been impacted in every conceivable area. Environmental issues are recognized and considered essential to solve especially in the tourism industry. It is unavoidable that tourists bring both positive and negative impacts to a destination. Meanwhile, the tourism industry is eager to return to its pre-pandemic tourist numbers and levels of spending that traveler previously engaged in. The young generations, specifically Gen Y and Z, play an important role in the tourism market, and they often embody a mindset that takes into consideration issues of sustainability. However, they are not as active as expected in practicing sustainable travel behaviors. Sustainable tourism development and "green" travel practices are becoming increasingly necessary. The main purpose of this study is to identify the gaps between Gen Y and Z's intentions and their behaviors regarding sustainable travel. This study developed and tested a conceptual framework to understand this dynamic. This study identified two gaps: (a) the behavior-intention gap, which exists between Gen Y & Z's intentions and their behaviors in sustainable travel, and (b) daily life and sustainable travel gap, which is the gap between individuals’ daily sustainable habits and sustainable travel behaviors. The results of quantitative study indicated the factors contributed to the gaps included: (1) individuals who have bachelor’s degrees are more likely to conduct sustainable travel behaviors; (2) individuals who have daily sustainable habits; (3) individuals who have higher perceived consumer effectiveness. The implications of the study provide suggestions for destinations to promote sustainable travel and ways to encourage more sustainable traveling choices by travelers.
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    Exploring visiting friends & relatives’ (VFRs) image fit between Indy and the Indy 500
    (JPES, 2021-06) Wang, Suosheng; Lee, Soonhwan; Shin, Hongbum; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    Although sport and tourism researchers have become increasingly interested in studying the relationship between sport events and tourism destinations, yet not much research has been conducted to examine the similarities and dissimilarities between destination images and sport event images as well as their interrelationship. This study empirically explored the image fit between Indianapolis (Indy) as a leisure travel destination and the Indy 500 as a well-known sport event perceived by Indy’s visiting friends and relatives (VFRs). A cross-sectional questionnaire was designed consisting of four parts: 1) the cognitive image of Indy and the intent to revisit and recommend Indy as a leisure travel destination, 2) the cognitive image of the Indy 500 and the intent to revisit and recommend the Indy 500, 3) the affective image of Indy and the Indy 500 respectively using bipolar items, 4) information about respondents’ demographic characteristics and their previous visits to Indy and the Indy 500. A self-administered survey was conducted online via Qualtrics and collected with 548 usable data. According to the results of this study, the Indy 500’s cognitive image variables are more favorably perceived than Indy by the VFRs indicating the Indy 500 is more popular than the city itself as perceived by the VFRs. Indy’s tourism organizations should take advantage of the popularity of the Indy 500 when promoting the city to VFRs. All the top rated and the important cognitive image attributes are found to be related to Indy’s sports and events, which further highlights the importance of positioning Indy as a sport and event city in tourism marketing; innovative marketing strategies are needed to create a more successful image of “sport and event city” in the VFR market segment. One marketing implication of the findings is that tourism and event organizations and marketers should allocate more marketing resources and promotional efforts to the VFRs who have already visited Indy and the Indy 500 as these are the people who tend to be more active in recommending and promoting Indy and the Indy 500 to their friends. The method of quantifying image fit may not be fully adequate between sport events and destinations in this study, but the image fit approach should be recommended and applied as a supplemental tool in assessing the synergy of the attractiveness of both the destination and the sport event.
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    How does sport-related mobile apps usage motivation affect consumer perceptions of the sport organizations?
    (2019) Lee, Soonhwan; Kim, Seungmo; Shin, Hongbum; Wang, Suosheng; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Physical Education and Tourism Management
    The current study was to examine the relationship how the usage motivation features (i.e., perceived customization, involvement, and liking) of sport related mobile applications(apps) affect users' perception on sport organizations' reputation which were modified from the previous research (Guillory & Sundar, 2014). Results indicate that all the three usage motivation factors of sport related mobile apps positively influenced perceived sport organizations' reputation. Specifically, the results revealed that the higher level of customization of the mobile apps, the more positive apps users' perception of sport organization reputation. The current study could provide the implications that understanding the usage motivation factors of sport related mobile apps is crucial to foster a positive relationship between the public and sport organizations. Thus, understanding what motivation factors drives sport consumers to use of sport related mobile apps is one of the keys to successful mobile apps marketing in sport business and need to be further studied.
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    The Influence of the Indy International Festival on Visitors' Attitudes Toward Diverse Cultures
    (2016-04) Chu, Yung-Tsen; Wang, Suosheng; Fu, Yao-Yi; King, Carina Chern Chern
    In this era of globalization, people have more opportunities to meet many ethnic groups in their daily lives whether it is in schools, in the workplace, or even in the private sector or in government. Interacting with people from other countries can enhance our knowledge of cultural diversity and provide us with an international perspective. There are many ways of enhancing cultural understanding such as attending international festivals. While research on festivals is fast growing, study on visitors’ attitudes toward diverse cultures is relatively unexplored. This paper used a visitor attitude scale, a modified M-GUDS-S, to investigate visitors’ behavioral, cognitive, and/or affective components of diversity attitudes. The research was conducted at the 2014 Indy International Festival and focused on measuring visitation frequency, stay-time at the event, similar event participation, cultural interest, and overseas travel experience contributing to any observed differences on visitors’ attitudes. Also, the visitors’ intention to travel overseas after attending this festival was investigated. A total of 195 visitors was surveyed on site with 176 providing usable data. The findings suggest that international festivals play an important role in improving visitors’ awareness, appreciation, and acceptance of diverse cultures. Specifically, visitation frequency, the time spent at the event, and personal interest in cultures have significant influence on attitudes.
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    Interactive roles of social identity and evaluative attitudes in sports events participation
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018) Wang, Suosheng; Wang, Wei; Lee, Soonhwan; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    The impacts of sense of place and place-based social identity have been widely discussed in tourism literature. Both identity theorists and planned behavior researchers suggested that identity and evaluative attitudes exert influence on consumers’ behavioral intent. Yet, few studies have ever examined how one’s social identity and evaluative attitudes interact on consumers’ behavioral intent. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the role of one’s social identity in the process of planned behavior in the context of sports events participation. Based on a survey on college students, this study verifies that social identity significantly influences one’s behavioral intention of attending sports events, directly and indirectly via the mediating effects of evaluative attitudes. Notably, the influential roles are mainly implemented by affective social identity, not cognitive social identity. This study indicates that the inclusion of one’s social identity in the conceptual framework of planned behavior helps better understand people’ involvement in sports events. Both theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.