Journal of Tourism Quarterly

Literary Tourism: A critical literature review

ShuJuan Wan — 2024-12-16

After years of development, literary tourism has garnered significant attention from academia. This study adopts an interdisciplinary approach and a mixed review method, selecting 116 journal articles as the sample for review. By utilizing the bibliometric tool VOSviewer 1.6.20 software to conduct data and visual analysis on 112 articles, this study finds that: (1) Most papers employ qualitative research methods, with mixed and quantitative research methods being less frequently used. (2) Consistency theory is the most commonly used theory in the papers, followed by quasi-interaction theory. (3) The topics mainly fall into seven categories, with the hot topics being digital media, artificial intelligence, human geography, and literary trajectories.

Study of Brand Positioning to Promote Tourism Destinations: Implications for Kidepo Valley National Park

Shifa Wahab — 2025-03-23

It's surprising to learn that Kidepo Valley National Park, which is widely regarded as Africa's best park with stunning scenery, receives the lowest number of visitors. Despite its potential as a major tourist attraction, it seems the park is still relatively unknown to many people. Hence there is a need to explain the use of branding as a marketing strategy for promoting tourism destinations. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to describe how brand positioning can be applied to promote tourism destinations. Using a descriptive approach, the paper explains how the AIDAR model can be applied to create global awareness, establish a brand identity, and promote the brand image of KVNP, which has the potential to become a major tourist destination. However, further practical research is needed to fully realize the benefits of effective brand positioning in the tourism industry. Consumers find it helpful when brands create associations between their value proposition and the destination. This is why effective branding and brand positioning are crucial marketing tools for tourism destinations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Keywords: Brand positioning, AIDAR model, marketing promotion, destination, descriptive

Convergence of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Contemporary Approaches in Cultural Heritage Management

Odmell Chipungu — 2025-03-23

Amidst the unprecedented growth of the global experiential economy in the tourism industry, the conservation of cultural heritage has become an issue of wide interest and concern. The exploitation of cultural heritage in its various forms for tourism development has been seen as offering a niche market with unlimited potential and often an inexpensive approach to appeal to a different tourism market segment. Such a phenomenal growth in demand has led to a paradigm shift in focus from mere consumption of cultural heritage tourism products towards a higher inclination for sustainable cultural heritage tourism. Years ago, intergenerational custodians of cultural heritage proposed and utilized various approaches to safeguard their cultural heritage. However, evidence from extant literature reveals that most of these approaches seemed fragmented and with no consideration for the needs and values of previous custodians of these heritage resources. To that effect, there have existed unresolved conflicts between traditional and contemporary cultural heritage management practices. Sustainable cultural heritage, however, calls for the active engagement of multiple stakeholders across cultural heritage tourism attractions. The marginalization of both traditional and or indigenous perspectives in cultural heritage management has rendered efforts in conserving these resources piecemeal and inadequate. Therefore the focus of this chapter is to interrogate the convergence of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and contemporary approaches in Sustainable cultural heritage management. This would allow policymakers and all interested parties to design ways in which the two methods of cultural heritage management that have long existed, but at two different ends of the continuum can leverage each other. Content analysis was used to draw insights from various scholars and cases in the developed world. The case in point is Zimbabwe. The study findings revealed that the adoption of modern approaches to cultural heritage management resulted in either total or semi-total marginalization of traditional institutions of resource management fomenting conflict, confusion, and semi-anarchy. Many empirically-based models have been developed for conserving cultural heritage, but as evidence of sustainability challenges in heritage tourism indicates, whatever models have been developed did not achieve much. Seemingly there are more myths than realities informing the models adopted to deal with heritage conservation in Zimbabwe. This study problematizes the utility value of myths and models uncritically `borrowed’ from past experiences as well as ‘copied and pasted’ from the West for managing heritage conservation. Results of the study demonstrated that both IKS heritage conservation systems and contemporary approaches to cultural heritage management focus on creating sustainable ecosystems, preservation, and conservation of cultural approaches and have both employed hegemonic approaches to conservation and preservation. The study, therefore proposed an integrative framework to forge a partnership between traditional institutions and modern institutions of governance.

The Future Perspective of Tourism Statistics

Vitalis Basera — 2025-03-23

This article discusses, in brief, the future of tourism statistics for users and producers of tourism statistics founded on literature. Tourism industry changes, novel technologies and methodological changes have affected tourism statistics in presentation and use. Henceforth careful consideration to novel data gathering approaches and analytics is essential in the future of tourism statistics. An integrated and attentive classification of tourism data (big data, indicators and statistics) will remain the main concern for tourism practitioners and scholars. The considerate integration and assimilation of industry data with tourists’ digital traces, the proficiencies of data experts and the theoretic fortes of tourism academics will effect a remodel of tourism statistics setting. Big data is becoming integral to the tourism statistics. This article affords a transitory synopsis of the challenges and developments linked to usage of big data, tourism indicators and statistics in the future. The article proposes a new idea of tourism statistics by merging three diverse but corresponding facets of tourism data.