KJC Korea
Journal Central

Augmented reality (AR) acceptance depends on the characteristic and background of a traveler and experiential characteristics of an AR application. This study aims to understand the configurations of the two types of travel motivations and four factors of the experience suggested by Pine and Gilmore on tourist’s AR satisfaction and willingness to pay on AR. The data are collected through an experiment using an AR of Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Spain, which is one of the most successful case as an exemplary. A total of 56 data analyzed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, four patterns show high AR satisfaction, and two patterns show high willingness to pay for AR. In particular, education was found to be the most important experience economy factor for high AR satisfaction and willingness to pay. Passive participation (entertainment + aesthetics) was also found to be an predictor of AR satisfaction and willingness to pay. Results of this study suggest that, when designing AR content with high satisfaction and willingness to pay, creating educational content is the most important, but user participation should be induced while considering entertainment and aesthetics. In addition, it was found that the core experience economy factors influencing the willingness to pay for AR differ in accordance with the motivation of a tourist. This finding suggests a need for a personalized AR service strategy that fits the travel motivation of a tourist.

With the global spread of COVID-19, there have been constraints on tourism behavior, which are increasing the negative emotion of tourists. To recover from this negativity, tourists are pursuing domestic nature-based travel as much as possible in the current situation. This study aims to empirically confirm whether natural tourist destinations have the effect on helping tourist recover from COVID-inspired negativity and if perceived happiness is enhanced for those who traveled to natural tourists destination during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. In order to test the hypothesized model, data were collected from an online survey from September 5th to September 19th. A total of 742 of 845 responses were used for empirical analysis. The results of the study are as follows. First, it was found that physical risk perception did not affect perceived restorative environment, while psychological risk perception and socio-environmental risk perception had an impact on perceived restorative environment. Second, it was found that the perceived restorative environment had an impact on perceived attention restoration. Third, it was found that the perceived attention restoration had an impact on travel happiness (subjective well-being). This study is meaningful in that it theoretically verified the importance and positive role of domestic nature-based tourist destinations in a psychologically negative state. Based on the results of the study, natural tourism destination development directions were proposed for tourism business corporales and public institutions.

The tourism industry faced a turning point due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined potential tourists' behavior change during the pandemic. In-depth interviews with 14 potential tourists who planned to travel abroad in 2020 but delayed their plans were conducted. The collected data was analyzed using NVivo 12. Coding of the interview data resulted in 143 concepts and 31 sub-categories divided into nine categories. To be specific, the causal condition was the “outbreak of the pandemic.” The contextual conditions included “social distancing” and “travel alert.” The phenomenon was “limited tourist activity.” The intervening conditions were “tourism nostalgia”, “need for tourism”, and “perceived risk.” The actions/interactions included “tourism response behavior in the pandemic.” The consequence was “changes in tourism behavior.” In the selective coding stage, the core category was found to be “change in tourism behavior according to tourist responses in the pandemic.” The results provide a theoretical framework for understanding the psychological mechanisms and behaviors of potential tourists in the pandemic. Moreover, new factors related to changes in the tourism behavior of potential tourists. The study confirms recent research findings that the psychological mechanisms of tourists are an even greater influence than the pandemic itself. This study contributes in-depth understanding of the perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and reactions of potential tourists in the pandemic situation, which was previously insufficiently explored.

Using the method of exploratory data analysis and text mining analysis, this study analyzed the regional tourism plan research project structure of South Korea from 2014 to 2018 in terms of research grant amount, research types and funding institutions. It also explored the relationships among regional tourism research topics through a semantic approach. In order to achieve the goals of the study, ‘Actual State of Tourism Development Plans’, which were established by ‘Central and Local Governments and Policy Task’, were used for the data analyses. Results showed that the budget of each regional tourism planning projects was not proportional to the annual growth rate of the number of local tourism planning projects. It was also found that local governments were the major funding agencies for the regional tourism development plan projects. Only a few of the research projects were funded by business sectors or local communities. Results also showed that Gangwon province conducted the most number of regional tourism planning projects, while Jeollanam province used the most amount of research money for the regional tourism planning. In terms of the research topic numbers, basic regional tourism master planning were the most and it was followed by the master plan changes. Results of this study could be used for an appropriate decision making for the regional tourism planning research directions and the amount of research grant in the future.

The purpose of this study was to provide useful implications for various level of local governments in Korea which are their destinations as attractive brands. In particular, in order to emphasize the local resident participation in local branding, the interrelationships among the place brand complexity, place satisfaction, place identity and intentional for spreading the word of mouth were examined. This study approached the place branding from a social function perspective, and it is also based on the theoretical background that considers place branding as a complex phenomena when considering local residents. A total of 310 samples, collected during the month of August 2019, was used for empirical data analysis. The analysis of the data was conducted to analyze frequency, reliability, correlation, confirmatory factors, and SEM (structural equation modeling). The SEM analysis results are as follows: First, it was found that place brand complexity had a significant influence on place satisfaction, place identity, and place commitment. Second, it was found that place satisfaction, place identity, and place commitment had a significant influence on word of mouth. These results solidify the theoretical foundation that the level of place brand complexity should be managed through the active participation of local residents. In addition, it provides useful directions in practice to actively engage residents when local governments establish a place brand policy as part of tourism marketing.

Media-induced tourism, which involves visits to place associate with films, television programs, and literature, has become a growing phenomenon, and theses research has proliferated in recent decades. Nevertheless, there is a lack of cross-disciplinary academic investigation into audiences' psychological processing on offline tourism. This study attempted to investigate the extent to which audience involvement with K-drama affects self-congruity and destination satisfaction. Specifically, The relationships and intervening mechanisms between audience involvement, self-congruity on K-drama, and tourist attitudes on destination(self-congruity on destination and destination satisfaction) were examined based on parasocial interaction theory and balance theory. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using partial least squares (PLS) via SmartPLS 3.0 was employed for analysis of the survey data(a sample of 447 respondents), using the 5000 bootstrap-samples procedure. The study identified 'self-congruity on K-drama' as significant mediators in predicting 'self-congruity on destination' and 'destination satisfaction'. The findings contribute to an improved understanding of how audience involvement affects tourist attitude on destination and the extent to which self-congruity on K-drama mediates the relationship. Practical implications of using film or culture contents for marketing are drawn from the findings of our study.

Using the extended theory of planned behavior, this study was to analyze the effects of ethical and social perceptions, human rights perceptions, and health perceptions related to prostitution, as prerequisite variables on the attitudes and behavioral intentions of sex tourism. Structural equation model analysis and ANCOVA were performed to test hypotheses using a total of 304 valid questionnaire responses. Results showed that ethical and social perceptions and health perceptions had a significant negative effect on attitudes toward sex tourism, whereas human rights perceptions did not. It was also found that attitude and subjective norm had a significant positive effect on behavioral intentions, but perceived behavioral control did not significantly affect sex tourism intentions. In particular, it appeared that the ethical and social perception had a significant total negative effect on the intention of sex tourism. In the moderating effect analysis, using prior knowledge of prostitution-related laws, the group with high prior knowledge level had a relatively lower influence on behavior of sex tourism attitudes than the group with low level of prior knowledge. However, ANCOVA found no significant differences between the two groups, indicating that moderating effects differ by gender. This study has academic value in that it conducts an empirical study on sex tourism, a topic that is somewhat difficult to bring out in Korea. Results of this study could contribute to establishing effective policies to reduce illegal sex tourism.

This paper reports on the findings of a study that analyze the effect of creating shared value(CSV) activities conducted by integrated resort companies on brand trust in the company and the relationship continuity with consumers to learn the importance and direction of CSV activities. A survey was conducted on visitors who were visiting or have visited an integrated resort where locals can enter. and was analyzed based on 258 valid survey responses. The findings showed that three factors of CSV, social value and cultural value excluding economic value positively effect brand trust in companies, and among the factors, cultural values had the most positive effect. The CSV was shown to have a positive effect on relationship continuity, showed higher confidence in the brands of integrated resort companies, and consumers were more positive in their relationships with integrated resorts. Although the mediating effect of brand trust in the CSV and relationship continuity did not appear in economic value and social value, cultural value had an effect on relationship continuity with brand trust as a partial mediating effect. This study brought meaningful implications in that it has expanded the CSV research in the tourism field. Also, centered on the cultural value, the results of the study offers a guidance of direction for establishing strategies and expressing the importance of the CSV of integrated resorts.