Mass tourists and destination interaction avoidance
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Journal of Vacation Marketing
Publisher
Sage Publications
School
School of Business and Law
RAS ID
22914
Abstract
The concept of the environmental bubble was introduced by Cohen to describe the ‘psychological comfort’ sought by mass tourists. However, there has been little empirical research to investigate the underlying structure of this construct. This study provides insight into the psychological motivations of those who choose mass tourism and provides a scale, named Tourist Interaction Avoidance, which measures the extent to which tourists seek to avoid uncertainty during their trips and can be used as a predictor of travel style. A sequential mixed methods research design was adopted with qualitative data collected through focus group interviews followed by a self-completion survey to collect the quantitative data. The findings identify three underlying components: ‘protection’, ‘food’ and ‘avoidance’. These provide deeper understanding of the needs of tourists from South Korea by identifying the three components that underpin the dimension and provide a means to measure individual tourist preferences.
DOI
10.1177/1356766715617218
Access Rights
subscription content
Comments
Lee, H., & Wilkins, H. (2017). Mass tourists and destination interaction avoidance. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 23(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356766715617218