Motivations & Experiences of Travellers at Hasankeyf: Last Chance Tourism - Prof. Ibrahim, Assignments of Social Sciences

Download Motivations & Experiences of Travellers at Hasankeyf: Last Chance Tourism - Prof. Ibrahim and more Assignments Social Sciences in PDF only on Docsity! Venhar Cidik Competitive Strategy for Tourism Discuss the Four Types of Competitive Strategy and bring examples from hospitality industry? American academic and economist Michael Porter divided competitive strategies into four types. Check them out below. 1. Cost leadership strategy. It suits large businesses that can produce a big volume of products at a low cost, and that is why Walmart implemented this strategy. It means that companies using a cost leadership strategy are the lowest price sellers on the market. Hence, the cost price of a product should be low to make a profit. This is possible with the help of large-scale production and high capacity utilization along with a variety of distribution channels. The competitive advantage within this strategy is the lowest price. 2. Differentiation leadership strategy. This is a killer strategy that allows brands to stand out among competitors. It requires identifying a unique quality that makes a company different. With this strategy, businesses become superior to their rivals on the market, which allows them to charge more for their products. Starbucks and Apple belong to brands using this strategy. 3. Cost focus strategy. This strategy is similar to the cost leadership strategy in terms of providing customers with the lowest price. The only difference is that a cost focus strategy implies targeting a specific market segment with its unique needs and wants. This way, it’s easier for companies to establish brand awareness. Companies using this strategy often concentrate their efforts on geographic markets with special needs. 4. Differentiation focus strategy. Companies using this strategy also focus on specific market segments, but their driving force is the unique value. While cost focus strategy means providing the lowest price in a small niche, differentiation focus strategy means improving the product with the help of unique features that will make your company stand out on the market. For example, there are a few hotels in Egypt or Turkey for adults only. This way, people can relax and be sure that no child will bother them. Discussion and examples from tourism industry: -Next class we will discuss about the HW Authenticity Perception: *The initial exploration of the authenticity of tourism was carried out by MacCannell (1973), who suggested that tourists are motivated by their search for authenticity. There are many classifications and forms of the concept of authenticity (Belhassen et al., 2008). Overall, Wang (1999) explained the objectivist, constructivist and post-modernist approaches of authenticity, suggesting that objective authenticity is concerned with cognitive experiences; constructive authenticity refers to the symbolic authenticity that is designed constructively to be JOURNAL OF ECOTOURISM 5 consumed by tourists; and finally, post-modern authenticity, which mirrors the existential authenticity that is attained through tourism activity. Memorable Tourism Experience: *A memorable (tourism) experience – one of the categorized factors in the four main classifications offered by Packer and Ballantyne (2016) – refers to the unforgettable impressions by which memorable experiences are generated by visitors. Travellers expect unique, satisfactory, and distinct experiences from their holidays. Destinations that offer a mixture of tourism products that combine to meet customer expectations allow better opportunities to deliver unique, extraordinary, and memorable tourism experiences to such potential visitor (Chandralal & Valenzuela, 2015). Methodology: *The present study employs a mixed-method approach, based on a survey and the online reviews of travellers, with the aim being to investigate last-chance tourism motivations and the experiences of visitors (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Despite the many advantages of mixed-method approaches, the number of researches to date employing them is still quite limited in the field of hospitality and tourism (Khoo-Lattimore et al., 2019). The mixed-method approach can be considered appropriate for the study of the complicated issues related to sustainable tourism (Singh et al., 2012), ensuring deeper insights into the research problems (Truong et al., 2020). Study Area : *The ancient city of Hasankeyf is located alongside the River Tigris in the province of Batman, southeast Turkey. The province is well recognized as a significant historical location, having hosted many civilizations (Eroğlu, 2017). The district was declared a protected area in 1981 due to its rich historical structures and was thus taken under protection (Batman Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, 2019) (Figure 1). Hasankeyf features numerous significant archaeological monuments, such as the Old Tigris Bridge, The Citadel, the Small Palace, and the Ulu and Süleymaniye Mosques (Kocabas, 2013) (Figure 2). Negative impact of Dam: The flooding of the region’s many archaeological and historical ruins on the site began on 8 October 2019, when the Ilısu Dam entered into operation, and the site is now inaccessible to visitors. Quantitative Research: *The questionnaire applied within the present study was established based on a review of literature, and applied to tourists visiting the Hasankeyf Archaeological Site. The questions garnered data on heritage motivations (4, adapted from Nguyen & Cheung, 2016), last-chance motivations (2, adapted from Piggott-McKellar & McNamara, 2017), escape/relaxation motivations (4, adapted from Piggott-McKellar & McNamara, 2017), and perceived authenticity (12, on objective and constructive authenticity, adapted from Nguyen & Cheung, 2016). In addition, a memorable tourism experience scale was applied, comprising five items adapted from Kim (2018), which were responded to on a 7- point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). The questionnaire applied in the study comprises five sections. The first section garners demographic data (gender, age, marital status, visit number and educational status) on the respondents, the second section addresses perceived authenticity, and the final three sections deal with motivations, memorable tourism experiences and perceived authenticity. In the quantitative part of the study, the relationships between the tourist motivation, authenticity perception and memorable tourism experience variables were investigated separately through benefiting two different regression models. Our regression models based on the responses to two of the research questions (How do the dimensions of perceived authenticity influence memorable tourism experiences? and How do the motivations of tourists visiting Hasankeyf influence their memorable tourism experience. Research Sample: of the tourists who visited the Hasankeyf Archaeological Site between June and September, 2019, those who agreed to participate in the research constituted the study sample. The surveys were gathered up until the end of September 2019, as the Hasankeyf Archaeological Site was closed to visitors in early October 2019, when the remaining inhabitants were evacuated due to the imminent submergence of the site. A total of 449 questionnaires were collected from the respondents, and the missing surveys were eliminated. In the end, 426 filled surveys were subjected to data analysis. 4.5. The impact of last chance, heritage and escape/relaxation motivations on memorable tourism : *experiences 4.5.1. Problem To what degree do the last chance, heritage and escape/relaxation motivations of tourists visiting the Hasankeyf Archaeological Site predict their memorable tourism experience? The motivation dimensions (last chance, heritage, and escape/relaxation motivations) and the average memorable tourism experience scale values were used to conduct a multiple regression analysis, with the aim being to determine the degree of influence of last chance, heritage, and the escape/relaxation motivations of tourists visiting Hasankeyf Archaeological Site on their memorable tourism experience. To this end, a linear regression approach within a multiple regression analysis was adopted (see Table 5) 4.6. Impact of objective and constructive authenticity perception on memorable tourism experience: 4.6.1. Problem To what degree does the objective and constructive authenticity perception of tourists visiting the Hasankeyf Archaeological Site predict a memorable tourism experience? In order to determine the influence of the objective and constructive authenticity perception of tourists visiting the Hasankeyf Archaeological Site on memorable tourism experience, the dimensions of perceived authenticity (objective and constructive authenticity perception) and the average of the memorable tourism experience scale were used in the multiple regression analysis. A linear regression approach within a multiple regression analysis was thus benefited 5. Qualitative findings : As explained earlier, the mixed-method approach can be considered the most appropriate research technique for the investigation of complicated issues related to sustainable tourism and can provide a deeper understanding of existing research problems. Moreover, qualitative findings can provide the readers with a better understanding of the last chance experiences of travellers. An analysis of the qualitative data identified last chance experience and historical heritage to be the two main themes, while the subthemes falling under these main themes were: sadness, disappointment and memorable experience under the last-chance experience theme; and destruction, revisit intention and recommendations to others to visit as a must-see last chance site under the historical heritage theme. 5.1. Last-chance experience: Overall sadness, disappointment and memorable experience were identified as sub-themes under the main theme referring to travellers’ last chance experiences.  While the qualitative results presented in this section reflect the motivations and experiences identified from the quantitative findings to, a large extent, different perspectives have been deployed for the travellers’ online reviews. Above all, the travellers mostly conveyed negative emotional feelings about their visit to the site, before the area was flooded with the entry into operation of Ilısu Dam, including feelings of sadness and disappointment. Related to this sub-theme, one traveller stated: I had visited Hasankeyf 8 years ago, and it was fantastic. Now, as the dam creates a reservoir, Hasankeyf will fall below the water level, and it is will no longer be possible to get close to or visit the castle or the old town. You can only take a distant look of what is left, and it is not much. There is ongoing construction, and the place is a mess. We were both disappointed and sorry to see the loss of this fantastic ancient town. Such feelings, referring to memorable experiences, were reported in the online narratives of other travellers as having been derived from the cultural and historical heritage features behind the presence of authenticity of Hasankeyf.