Special Issue – Volume 14, Issue 3.4 Research and Development in Tourism Mobilities beyond Place

Abstract

This special issue of e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR) Journal is the most recent one in the series of publications of the annual Consumer Behaviour Symposium (CBTS). It contains a collection of papers presented at the 7^th edition of the CBTS in 2014, which was hosted by Serena Volo and Oswin Maurer at the Competence Centre in Tourism Management and Tourism Economics (TOMTE) from December 3^rd to December 7^th, 2014, at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.

Founded in 2008, TOMTE comprises a network of tourism scholars around the world and it initiates, organises, promotes and conducts research in the areas of tourism management and marketing, tourism economics, and related areas relevant for the tourism sector, including evaluation of the impact of economic, societal and technological developments on the tourism industries and of tourism on regional economies and societies.

The 7^th Consumer Behavior in Tourism Symposium (CBTS 2014) was attended by more than 90 tourism management and tourism economics scholars from 24 different countries from all over the world, fostering scientific exchange among researchers and practitioners working in the field of tourism marketing, tourism management and tourism economics.

Within the CBTS 2014 general theme “Tourism Mobilities beyond Place: Time, Resources and Perspectives”, the following areas of mobility have been discussed along a total of 71 presentations: macro and micro tourism dimensions of place and time mobility; lifestyle mobilities between place, sports and events; advances in mobilities - mobile and mobility perspectives; second homes mobilities -  between affluent con­sump­tion and family legacies; mobilities´ dimensions: identity, mind, space and time; resources, sustainability and mobilities, complemented with insights into new approaches towards measuring tourism demand, competitiveness, governance, and innovation.

Of the 71 papers presented at CBTS 2014, eight were considered for inclusion in this special issue of eRTR, investigating topics of high importance for economists, tourism managers and policy makers, presenting innovative methods and theories, providing empirical evidence and also support for regional, national and international decision making in the sector of tourism and beyond. Based on scientific quality, relevance and rigor, enforced by a double-blind peer review process and revisions, six papers were selected for this special issue of eRTR.

CBTS 2014 had a special focus on motilities in tourism. The commentary by Chris Cooper, entitled “The End of Tourism as We Know it?” introduces the new mobility paradigm stemming from a combination of social and spatial approaches to tourism. It reflects on opportunities and challenges that this approach rises for tourism researchers.

The commentary by Serena Volo, entitled “Are we breaking free from tradition?”, introduces the collection of three papers that focused on the special theme of the conference addressing second homes tourism and mobility.

The first paper in this collection is by Chris Paris, entitled “The changing ecology of Australian second homes”, undertakes historical analysis of the evolution of second homes in Australia and the emergence of the holiday rental industry. The paper stresses the need to reconceptualise the nature of second homes in Australia and elsewhere as items of private consumption and tourism and commercial investment.

The second paper by Imren Waller , entitled “A case study of the perceptions, experiences and relations of British permanent tourists with the host community in Didim, Turkey”, presents a qualitative study that examines the perception of British permanent tourists on their experience in Didim, Turkey. The findings show that most interviewees are retirees who chose Turkey in order to improve their quality of life in terms of weather and finance. Although there are cultural and religious differences, these usually do not cause problems. Most of the interviewed permanent tourists are not integrated in the community, mainly due to language problems.

The third paper by Czesław Adamiak, entitled “Segmenting second home tourists in Finland to better explain their mobility and behavior”, undertakes a quantitative approach to analyze second home owners in Finland, based on the values they attach to their second home use. Four segments of second home owners are identified and compared in terms of their socio-economic characteristics, their use of the second home and their plans for the future use.

The remaining three papers address different topics regarding consumer behavior in tourism research. The fourth paper by Giovanna Bertella and Alessio Cavicchi, entitled “From sharecroppers to “flying farmers”: new forms of tourism entrepreneurship in rural areas”, presents an explorative study of mobile innovative practices by an association of rural entrepreneurs in the Italian region of Marche that are developed and executed in line with the experience economy trend.

The fifth paper by Malin Zillinger and Ingrid Zakrisson, entitled “Does method matter? Understanding experience data collected through different mobile techniques”, investigates the influence of data collection modalities on the empirical findings that are derived based on this data related to tourism experiences. They demonstrate that method chosen for data collection does have an effect on empirical results in terms of the number of reported experiences and their level.

The final paper by Roberto Gabriele, Enrico Tundis and Enrico Zaninotto, entitled “Are Subsidies to Hotel Investment an Effective Tool to Enhance Regional Tourism? A Firm Level Analysis”, investigates the influence of public subsidies on the performance of micro and small hotel businesses in the Province of Trento, Italy. They find that public subsidies have positive effect on revenues and occupation rates of hotels.

This special issue has been made possible by dedicated and competent work of the contributing authors and the reviewers. For this, we express our sincere appreciation to the distinguished group of reviewers who provided valuable judgments and recommendations to authors. Finally, we would like to thank Editor-in-Chief Ulrike Gretzel for giving us the opportunity to edit and publish this special issue.

The 10^th “anniversary” Consumer Behaviour in Tourism Symposium (CBTS 2017), will be held from December 13^th – 16^th, 2017. It will be organised and hosted by TOMTE at the Bruneck-Brunico campus of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. We kindly invite all researchers in consumer behaviour, tourism, management, economics, regional development and beyond to take part in this symposium of people sharing knowledge and expertise.