KJC Korea
Journal Central

This work analyzes how the development of tourism industry in Cuba is affecting Cuban society. In particular, it is important to understand how the ethnic relationship, which has been considered homogeneous, is changing. Fieldwork was conducted in Trinidad, Cuba. Structured and unstructured intensive interviews and participant observation were used for those engaged in the tourism sector. Main informants for this research were people employed in the tourism industry officially or unofficially such as taxi drivers, jineteros, jineteras, and owners of casas particulares, travel agencies, paladares, and shops. Findings show that changes in Cuban tourism policy and the increase of foreign tourists can lead a new type of socioeconomic gap among ethnic groups. White people with relatively abundant socioeconomic resources can mainly gain economic benefits by using new tourism policies. On the other hand, poor Blacks or Mulatos mostly engage in marginal work or illegal economic activities. If this situation continues, social and ethnic inequality may ultimately increase in the future. To solve this problem, it is necessary to find ways to ease and resolve discrimination or conflict in the workplace, while at the same time drawing up institutional measures for Blacks and Mulatos to participate in tourism projects.

The purpose of this study was to identify the common and connotation structure of the autobiographical memory formed by tourism experience. Based on Colaizzi’s phenomenological method, the contents of common autobiographical memories in the retrospective of tourism experience was summarized in an intensive structure. Specifically, the autobiographical memory in the pre-trip stage was structured into three categories('Travel planning', 'Self-directed planning', and 'Expectation and anxiety'). The on-site stage was structured into a single category(‘Unusual experiences’). Lastly, the post-trip stage’s autobiographical memory was structured into three categories(‘Discovering new meanings’, ‘Positively distorted emotions’, and ‘Savoring memories’). The tourism experience shown in autobiographical memory is derived from experiences that have given subjective meanings according to cognitive and affective self-consciousness. It may include past experience or unconsciously, automatically, or reflexively by certain external conditions or stimulation. In particular, prior knowledge and external stimulation accumulated from past experience acted as crucial influence factors of tourist behavior and decision-making, and the process of such selection was also a part of the autobiographical memory. It was also identified that the autobiographical memory could be reconstructed and distorted by various factors. Our findings may help researchers and practitioners understanding the decision-making mechanism in tourist autobiographical memory, and devise various theoretical and practical strategies for evoking and promoting memory.

The purpose of this study is to identify international research trends in the social relationships of travel. Specifically, the study intends to define the scope and examine the change of trends in various characteristics of social relationships over time. A total of 83 papers published in 43 Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals were selected for analysis. Utilizing the content analysis method, these trends were examined from three perspectives in travel: 1) subject, 2) relational object, and 3) relational effects. Three dimensions of social relations theory; the personal dimension, the interpersonal dimension, and the relational effect dimension, were employed in the analysis. Based on previous research, each study was classified by year, subject, journal, research method, and analysis method. The results show that the number of studies began to increase in 2013, until reaching a peak in 2019. Moreover, in the personal dimension, the study found that the needs for relatedness both directly and indirectly affected travel motivation. In the interpersonal dimension, the results showed that behavioral exchange is preceded by emotional exchange. Lastly, in the relational effect dimension, social relationships in travel have an effect on increasing psychological benefits and on strengthening social utility. The study reveals that social relations in travel have expandability and circularity, while the objects of social relationship expand from existing relationships to new relationships such as residents and service employees. These findings suggest the importance of promoting the formation of multidimensional relationships among travel stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to investigate risk perception among tourists who visited Jeju during the spread of COVID-19. We sought to determine whether there is an optimistic bias. We also explored if individual risk perception, involvement, and self-efficacy against COVID-19. influence the optimistic bias. The global tourism market has been hit hard by the spread of the COVID-19. Even though people have avoided travel in order to escape the risk of infection, there are also tourists who have engaged in travel. This study investigated the risk perception and optimistic bias of travel behavior with 294 tourists who traveled Jeju Island during the spread of COVID-19. Empirical studies have shown that tourists have optimistic bias about the risk of COVID-19. This phenomenon was significantly higher in women than in men, and in the 20’s ages than in over 60’s. As a result of regression analysis using risk perception, involvement, and self-efficacy, it was found that risk perception and self-efficacy influence optimistic bias. This study suggests that optimistic bias is the cause of the behavioral tendency that is different from tourism avoidance behavior that appears through risk perception regarding the risk of COVID-19. The results of this study could play an important role in understanding tourists' perceptions and behavioral intentions of tourism threats such as infectious diseases and natural disasters. Practically, it may be possible to provide basic data for establishing a marketing strategy that can limit tourism activities to tourism threats or, conversely, attract tourists.

Travel agency's ticket commission have become a rising issue with COVID-19. The present study examined the relationship between consumers' perceived fairness and purchase intention following the travel agency's ticket commission policy. We explored if the consumer's ticket commission understanding has moderation effect and moderated mediation effect. The results show that perceived fairness and purchase intention are affected by the refund and notice policy. In addition, it was found that indirect effect on purchase intention through perceived fairness according to the notice policy was affected by the consumer’s ticket commission understanding. The implications derived from this study are as follows. First, travel agency can generate additional revenue by setting higher ticket commission as long as they do not affect the total ticket price. Second, travel agency can improve purchase intension by implementing a reasonable ticket commission policy that refunds the ticket commission when there are no defects attributed to the consumer, or by clearly informing the consumer of the additional services offered compared to direct ticket purchases through airline. Third, in order to ensure that consumers are not unnecessarily damaged, relevant organizations must take legal and institutional measures to clarify the notice of ticket commission from travel agency.

This study investigated the influence of interpretation service attributes on the tourists’ interpretation commitment and resource conservation intention at cultural tourism sites. This study also examined the meditating role of interpretation commitment on the relationship between interpretation service attributes and conservation intention. The interpretation service in cultural tourism consisted of four main attributes: an attribute of education, information, interesting, and ease of understanding based on the concepts and nature of the tourism interpretation. The population of the study was the tourists who experienced interpretation services provided by Gamcheon Culture Village in Busan, Korea. The analysis of 300 questionnaires indicated that while none of the four attributes directly contributed to the conservation intention, attribute of education and attribute of interesting were positively associated with tourists’ interpretation commitment which directly relates to conservation intention. Moreover, while the mediating role of interpretation commitment was significant for the relationship between the attribute of interesting and conservation intention, it was insignificant for the relationship between the attribute of education and conservation intention. These results can be explained by the fact that tourists visiting Gamcheon Culture Village are mainly in their 20s and 30s who prefer enjoyable and interesting interpretations. As all the tourists have different motivations for and interest in the use of interpretation service, the attributes of the tourism interpretation service and tools need to be diversified. This study also proposed the practical ways to facilitate the use of tourism interpretation services.

This study began with the perspective that more effective use of regional cultural heritages is expected when perceived characteristics of place and psychological behavior are understood in the cultural heritage festival event settings. The objectives of this study were two-fold: first, to identify perceived characteristics of tangible and intangible place; second, to test the structural relationships among perceived characteristics of place, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. A total of 214 valid data were collected from the survey conducted at the Cheongju Culture Night in South Korea. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships and multi-mediating effects. The findings showed that perceived intangible characteristics of place influenced cognitive and affective attitudes. Both cognitive and affective attitudes were found to have a direct effect on behavioral intentions. However, the results revealed that perceived tangible and intangible characteristics of place did not directly influence behavioral intentions. The results highlighted that affective attitude fully mediate the relationship between perceived characteristics of place and behavioral intentions when cognitive attitude was found to partially mediate. Based on these findings, both theoretical and practical implications for the effective cultural heritage utilization were provided.

This study was conducted from the perspective of expanding the discussion to an autonomous perspective that disabled people can decide their own tourism behavior, and that there is an inherent psychological mechanism that the disabled also want tourism behavior of their own, just like non-disabled people. In 2019, a survey was conducted using people with disabilities who visited welfare centers for the disabled. Using convenient sampling method, a total of 288 surveys were included in the analysis. Based on the self-determination perspectives, the results show that amotivation and intrinsic motivation of people with a disability affected attitudes and subjective norms, respectively. In particular, intrinsic motivation had a significant effect only on perceived behavioral control. In addition, it was found that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control had significant effects on tourism intention. It was found that the process of tourism activities for people with disabilities goes through a path similar to that of non-disabled people. Therefore, in order to revitalize tourism behavior of people with disabilities, various methods are needed to internalize the positive meaning of the tourism behavior by themselves. Among them, it is possible to engage in tourism by providing a foundation for easy access to people with disabilities.

Currently, the tourism cooperation between China and North Korea is mainly focused on Chinese tourists visiting North Korea. Compared with other overseas tourism, North Korean tourism has unique tourism form, tourism experience and culture. Therefore, Chinese tourists have a strong interest in traveling North Korea, and their preference is gradually increasing. However, there is a lack of research on decision-making behavior of Chinese tourists visiting North Korea. The purpose of this study is to analyze the behavioral decisions of Chinese tourists visiting North Korea, and construct a goal-directed behavior model. A survey was conducted among Chinese tourists with travel experience in North Korea, and 349 valid questionnaires were obtained. The results show that attitude, subjective norm, positive anticipated emotion, negative anticipated emotion, and the frequency of past behavior have significant influence on desire. In addition, perceived behavioral control and desire have significant influence on behavioral intention. On the contrary, perceived behavioral control did not have a significant influence on desire. The frequency of past behavior did not have a significant influence on behavioral intention. These results can contribute to understanding the decision-making behavior of Chinese tourists in North Korea. Our findings will serve as a reference for tourism policy discussions between China and North Korea.

Unlike the other SNS(Twitter, Facebook, etc), the rise in Instagram usage has been remarkable. On Instagram, food-related images are influencing a purchasing decision. The present study evaluated food photograph types on Instagram. Specifically, the following factors were explored: the presence and absence of a person, the dynamic level of a person, and the difference between the empathy that consumers feel and the effect of the empathy on attitudes. By applying the mirror neuron effect and the frozen motion theory, photographs were produced portraying both the presence and absence of a person. Additionally, active motion photographs were produced as an experimental stimulus to study the consumer's response. To increase the external validity, two types of food(healthy and non-healthy) were selected. The difference in empathy according to the presence or absence of healthy food photograph was significant. The empathy according to active motion food photographs showed significant differences between healthy and non-healthy diets. Empathy was found to have a positive effect on attitude. This study developed a new research area: empathy of photograph by combining the variable of empathy with food photos of SNS. In conclusion, by understanding that the empathy of consumer’s food photograph expressions may vary, practical suggestions are made for marketer’s approaching social media marketing.

Health-seeking tourism is on the increase worldwide. Therefore, tourism development using the rural environment is continuing. This study attempted to confirm whether the rural community is valid as a health-seeking tourism destination. It was found that wellness perception held by rural tourists ultimately improves subjective happiness through rural tourism activities. Specifically wellness perception had significant effects on perceived restorativeness environment, subjective happiness, and recovery experience. Perceived restorativeness environment had significant effects on recovery experience and subjective happiness. It was found that perceived restorativeness environment had a greater effects on the recovery experience than subjective happiness. Recovery experience had significant effects on subjective happiness. Also, it was found that the perceived restorativeness environment and recovery experience significantly mediated the relationship between wellness perception and subjective happiness. Therefore, this study confirmed that a rural community is a valid place for healing tourism.