KJC Korea
Journal Central

The purpose of this study is to understand the development process and context of a coincidence experience that provides pleasure and meaning in travel. The in-depth interviews of 11 participants and data were analyzed using grounded theory. As a result, people who experienced coincidence in the trip were either on an impromptu trip without planning or with flexibly changing the schedule, or traveling alone. Participants experienced a coincidence while attempting to be tense and various trial and error at first, as they were placed in a somewhat uncertain environment through improvised travel and traveling alone. The central phenomenon – coincidence - is a form of synchronicity in which multiple events encounter at the same time, or it appears as a seriality in which the same event occurs repeatedly. After experiencing the coincidence, people were wondering if the coincidence was caused by someone's intention and an emotional reactions such as admiration and joy emerged only through the conviction that no specific cause was found, or that it was not the intention of someone, or the result of giving meaning such as memories or moments of growth. This suggests that people were experiencing coincidences in the process of creating uncertain situations through trips, overcoming tensions and anxieties, and challenging themselves. The coincidence provided existential authenticity to travelers, which allowed people to experience a series of happiness.

The purpose of this study is to derive various strategies to revitalize traditional markets experienced by the owners of traditional markets, and to derive the meaning of strategic approaches as tourism destinations for revitalization of traditional markets. Phenomenological research method was applied in the analysis. The results were grouped with the number of 197 semantic units, 24 modified semantic units, nine sub-themes, and four major themes. The major themes include ‘Differences in the perspectives of traditional market owners on the tourism destination', 'Differences in perspectives among traditional market owners on government support policies', 'The dilemma of revitalizing the traditional market and becoming a tourist destination through the establishment of the Youth Mall', 'Making the traditional market a tourist destination through linkage with various tourism resources'. Most of the owners in the traditional market agree on making the traditional market a tourist destination. However, there is no concrete action plan that has been proposed. Therefore, the government needs to look into the feasibility and provide assistance. The findings of our study contributed to the theoretical expansion in regards to tourist destinations. The practical implication includes verifying that the traditional market can be developed as a tourism resource.

This study applied a phenomenological research method to understand the experience of restaurant owners' use of mobile delivery apps. Interviewees were recruited by requesting an open survey through an external survey firm. The in-depth interview was conducted between June 10 and 25, 2019. The researchers conducted in-depth one-on-one interviews with restaurant owners using delivery apps over mobile phones. A total of 12 interviews were conducted until data saturation. After consultation with three experts, the collected data was analyzed, and continued to exchange opinions with experts during the analysis. As a result of the analysis, 124 semantic units, 38 modified semantic units transformed into implicit terms, 14 sub-themes, and four major themes were derived. The four major themes were 'satisfaction with public relations effect and customer reviews', 'pressure arising from fees and self-pays', 'psychological stability and conflict arising from delivery', and 'satisfaction and regret about policies and systems'. These results mean that restaurant owners using mobile delivery apps feel efficient and depend on the delivery apps. However, at the same time, they were experiencing many problems with the delivery apps. Therefore, the government and delivery apps need to solve financial problems such as commissions and self-payments. It is also believed that it is necessary to bridge the event gap between franchises and non-franchises because many non-franchise shop owners expressed their dissatisfaction as the event was held mainly for franchises. The results are differentiated from previous studies conducted mostly on delivery app users. Also, by understanding the nature of the restaurant owners’ experience using the mobile delivery app and clarifying the meaning, it can be used as primary data for research related to restaurant owners and delivery apps. Our findings suggest the policy direction related to the delivery apps.

This study seeks to elucidate the nature of the leisure experience, by describing that of the deaf from a phenomenological perspective. Intentionality was a key element in Husserl’s thinking, which refers to the notion that human consciousness is always directed towards someone or something and intends to connect an object to a subject. The phenomenological perspective has highlighted the role of the body with respect to subjectivity. When we experience pain or illness, bodily dys-appearance is brought to our attention and the body becomes the object of our intentionality. The leisure experience of the deaf potentially involves a high level of conscious awareness of the body as an object of intentionality. The data were gathered from focus group interviews and in-depth individual interviews with nine deaf persons and three sign language interpreters. The results of intentionality analysis revealed that the leisure experience of the deaf is essentially oriented towards a meaningful connectedness with others and the world through the body, which is directly related to three emergent themes: (a) from object to subject, (b) embodied consciousness and (c) body-subject freedom. The result of this study, suggested that freedom is not a fixed emotion or ideal experience but something lived through in the experience of leisure. The findings also reveal that the experience of leisure can make meaningful connectedness with others and the world through the embodied consciousness.

This study aims to uncover the key determinants of success for tourism start-ups, which has been gradually developing and expanding in the ecosystem of the domestic tourism industry. To this end, the four factors of the ERIS model, a proven model that has been used to derive the determinants of venture and start-up performance in various fields, were organized as a framework for research. Two rounds of Delphi analysis were conducted with academic, industrial, and policy-related experts. As a result, a total of 41 elements of success factors were derived: 13 from entrepreneur factor, seven from resource factor, nine from industry structure factor, and 12 from business strategy factor. In addition, it was confirmed that the 'understanding industrial trends' and 'business differentiation strategy' derived through the first Delphi open questionnaire appeared as the determinants for success reflecting the characteristics of the tourism industry. The AHP analysis also assessed that the entrepreneur factor among the four factors in ERIS model was the most important factor in determining the success of the tourism start-ups. It was found that the human capacity, especially entrepreneurs’ competence can be the key factor to the success in small companies such as tourism start-ups. Based on the results, theoretical and practical implications were proposed to foster and promote future tourism start-up businesses.

The MICE industry is a high value-added industry and is taking the lead in attracting activities and support at the national level to foster it as a national strategic industry around the world. Accordingly, rational demand forecasting and research on the trend of participants are essential for successful operation in relation to determining the appropriate size of MICE-related facilities and securing infrastructure. This study analyzed the diffusion effect of the MICE industry using Bass' diffusion model, and predicted the demand for new participants. The regional scope of the study was targeting six metropolitan cities including Seoul and Jeju. The analysis was conducted by subdividing the types of participants into Koreans and foreigners. As a result of the study, it was found that the meeting field has an innovation effect and an imitation effect, respectively, depending on the region. In the exhibition area, the innovation effect in all regions was low, and the imitation effect was high in some regions. In the convention field, the innovation effect in all regions was low, and most regions showed no imitation effect. The results of the diffusion effect by city and the demand forecast for new participants suggested in this study can be the basic data for establishing strategies suitable for the needs and types of participants, such as determining the size of MICE infrastructure and establishing marketing strategies. In addition, it is necessary to accurately identify the factors of diffusion of MICE participants in the future and establish customized investment and strategies accordingly. Furthermore, in the tourism field, new types of industries are continuously appearing through the organic combination of different industries to secure a competitive advantage. As such, it is of academic significance that this study suggested the possibility of applying the Bass diffusion model to the demand forecasting of industries appearing in a new form in the market such as the MICE industry.

Contemporary tourists strive to relieve the stress of travel mobility and increase travel satisfaction by acquiring mobility information using travel mobility applications(apps). This study aims to understand the effect of a travel destination’s mobility environment on travel satisfaction in various ways by focusing on the effect of stress generated when using travel mobility. Specifically, we explored how quality of travel mobility, quality of travel mobility apps, and stress affect the overall travel satisfaction. In particular, we attempted to verify the moderating effect of stress on travel satisfaction. An online survey was conducted on tourists who have used a travel mobility app in the travel destinations for the past one year, and the Partial Least Square (PLS) method was applied. As a result, it was confirmed that the quality of travel mobility and the travel mobility app's quality positively affect overall travel satisfaction. However, there is a difference in the positive influence depending on the level of stress. As the stress generated when using mobility increased, the influence of travel mobility satisfaction on overall travel satisfaction decreased. Conversely, the influence of travel mobility app satisfaction on overall travel satisfaction increased. It means that the greater the stress tourists receive when using travel mobility, the stronger the travel mobility app’s effect. These results can be valuable as an introductory study in understanding tourists’ stress and how to cope with them. Moreover, it can be used as basic research for verifying the effectiveness of smart technology that can manage the stress that can occur in various spaces of travel destinations.

Over the last decades, the Korean Wave’s popularity has spread to a number of South East Asian countries, including Vietnam. Consequently the number of Vietnamese shopping tourists visiting Korea is gradually increasing, and is expected to have an important impact on the Korean tourism market in the future. This study aims to analyze Vietnamese tourists’ selection attributes on shopping tourism in Korea. By using IPA in both traditional and revised views, the present sutdy enhances the understanding of the actual importance and satisfaction attributes considered by Vietnamese shopping tourists. To achieve this purpose, we conducted a survey from February to March, 2020 for 300 Vietnamese tourists who have visited Korea in the last two years. A total of 261 surveys were used for analyses through SPSS 22.0. The study findings indicate that there was a significantly different result between the traditional IPA and revised IPA. Specifically, while in traditional IPA many categories were placed in the first and third quadrants, this problem was improved in the other two methods of revised IPA. Vietnamese tourists put importance on shopping location accessibility, so shopping tourism managers should consider precisely of traffic congestion in the surrounding area when choosing a location for shopping destinations. Also Vietnamese tourists visit Korea to purchase Hallyu products due to Korean Wave, but the lack of products might become dissatisfaction factor. This is a task that must be solved in order for Korea to grow as a global shopping tourism destination.

Youth tourism differentiates itself from the concept of traditional tourism by the distinctive profile of its participants. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of ecological norms on youth traveler's ecological behavior intention and pro-environmental behavior while traveling to tourist destinations. An online survey was conducted for youth travelers who visited tourist destination within the last two years. The verified norm activation model (NAM) and the theory of planned behavior(TPB) were used to explain interrelationships among the variables. Structural equation modeling was utilized for data analysis. The findings show that youth traveler's perceptions of ecological problems, awareness of consequence, and subjective norms had a significant effect on the personal ecological norms; however, perceived behavioral control did not have a significant effect. The relationship between youth traveler's personal ecological norm, ecological behavior intention, and pro-environmental behaviors all formed a significant influence. Tourism managers should elicit youth traveler’s ecological behavior intentions to improve personal ecological norms and preserve the environment of local tourist attractions. This study contributes to destination researchers’ and practitioners’ understanding of youth traveler pro-environmental behavior in the youth tourism context.