Papers by WONDIRAD Amare Nega (Ph.D.)
Gastronomy emerges as one of the key components of visitors’ holiday experiences and increasingly... more Gastronomy emerges as one of the key components of visitors’ holiday experiences and increasingly shapes vacationers’ holiday destination choices. As an integral component of the tourist experience and destinations’ cultural heritage, gastronomy enhances visitors’ local and cultural understanding. Despite the increase in academic studies on gastronomy, there is still a scarcity of research that investigates whether gastronomy determines visitors’ holiday destination choices and the extent to which it does . To bridge this research gap, the current study examines whether gastronomy determines visitors’ holiday destination choice and explores the nexus between gastronomy and holiday destination image by adopting a mixed-methods research approach. We have collected data from 205 respondents, who represent45 countries from all corners of the globe, using an online survey. Research findings show that for 87% of the respondents, gastronomy is one of the key factors that determine their holiday destination choice. Especially for Asian and African tourists, gastronomy plays a crucial role in determining their holiday destination choice compared to Europeans, Americans, and other tourists. Findings further demonstrate that gastronomy is intertwined with tourist destinations by creating a lasting destination image, complementing visitors’ holidays, and being one of the core destination products. Research findings offer substantial theoretical and practical implications for Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) and catering establishments by highlighting the vitality of gastronomy as a core tourist destinations’ product. The study calls for pertinent tourism stakeholders to work together to develop, market, and manage resilient, competitive, and sustainable gastronomy niche tourism.
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Research article, 2019
Community participation has been on the spotlight in tourism academia as a tool to induce sustain... more Community participation has been on the spotlight in tourism academia as a tool to induce sustainable tourism development. However, despite profound commendations of literature, destinations often fail to adequately operationalize effective community participation. Under the lenses of stakeholder theory and Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation, the current study examines community participation in Dinsho area of Bale Mountains National Park, Southeastern Ethiopia. Arnstein’s citizen participation model is employed to better understand the extent of community participation in the tourism development process, while stakeholder theory is adopted to gain a deeper insight regarding the interests of stakeholders along with the corresponding management strategies. Research findings unfold that in Dinsho, the extant community participation corresponds to non-participation continuum where citizens are simply deceived by pseudo and tokenistic participation which led to inequitable benefit-sharing. Based on study findings, the researchers challenge that communities’ engagement in tourism development highly relies on gatekeepers’ nature and communities’ economic background and argue that in a venue where economically weak community and manipulative gatekeepers exist, ensuring community participation is more challenging. That, in turn, negatively affects the sustainable land and resource use practices leading to irreversible devastation on ecologically sensitive habitats such as the Bale Mountains National Park.
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Visitor management becomes a core element of sustainable destination management in the wake of a ... more Visitor management becomes a core element of sustainable destination management in the wake of a continuously growing tourism sector. The current study examines how effective visitor management contributes to sustainable tourism destination development employing the triple-bottom-line concept. The study adopts a qualitative research approach with an exploratory design and collects qualitative data from purposively selected participants. Data collection took place between December 2017 and April 2018. Research findings inform that proper visitor management practices further strengthen sustainable tourism destination development. Even though, inadequate, visitor management is currently practiced in Zegie Peninsula. However, ensuring broad-based tourism stakeholder engagement to sustain the proper development of tourism remains a challenge. This study advances our understanding of the inextricable links among visitor management practices, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable destination development. Visitor management concepts compatible with sustainable tourism development are suggested along with study limitations and opportunities for future research.
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Currently, tourism has become one of the largest and most significant economic sectors in the wor... more Currently, tourism has become one of the largest and most significant economic sectors in the world. Particularly for developing countries, which are weaker in other international trading items and transactions, but endowed with unique and diverse cultural and natural tourism resources, tourism has been a fundamental source of foreign exchange. Since the 1980s, the detrimental impacts of mainstream tourism, led to the emergence of several concepts of alternative tourism among which, ecotourism gains international appeal due to its unique features and principles. The designation of 2002 as the international year of ecotourism is an evidence in this regard. The international year of ecotourism was contemplated to encourage the collaborative efforts of different stakeholders to promote the sustainable development and protection of environmental resources, particularly in developing countries. However, several developing countries including Ethiopia have not yet wisely exploit their abundant ecotourism resources due to various shortcomings. Towards this end, this book unfolds some of the persistent challenges that hinder the development of ecotourism and the available opportunities that can be capitalized in developing countries scenario.
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Ecotourism has emerged within the umbrella of alternative tourism development in the 1980s. Since... more Ecotourism has emerged within the umbrella of alternative tourism development in the 1980s. Since its emergence ecotourism has been championed as a tool to achieve the dual aims of conservation and development. However, ecotourism is criticized for not attaining the objectives it purports. In contrast to a self-fulfilling prophesy research approach whose intent is to prove something with preconceived assumptions, this study seeks to explore and better understand the reality on the ground under the lenses of stakeholder and collaboration theories and the principles of triple bottom-line predominantly from participants point of view. The study argues that in destinations of developing countries where there are limited livelihood opportunities, failure to meaningfully participate ecotourism stakeholders, especially host communities accelerates not only the demise of ecotourism but also jeopardizes the entire ecosystem. Based on the findings, recommendations are made for the various stakeholders to redress the current situation and develop the ecotourism sector in a more participative and sustainable manner.
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The factors that determine demand of a particular tourism destination is of significance to desti... more The factors that determine demand of a particular tourism destination is of significance to destination management organizations and businessmen as part of increasing revenues and staying competitive. The purpose of this study is to generate tourism demand models of four outbound tourism market of Hong Kong using general-to-specific modeling procedure. The data are time series covering the period of 1995-2013 meant to give an up-to-date consumer responsiveness to income and price changes at the destination. The study found income, price, word of mouth and external factors as key determinants of Hong Kong tourism. The outcome is useful for private businesses and public organizations in terms of synchronizing themselves in accordance with global and regional changes.
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h i g h l i g h t s Place identity as a co-construction between individual and official narrative... more h i g h l i g h t s Place identity as a co-construction between individual and official narratives. Official narrative based remembering positive aspects and forgetting negative ones. History museums used by authorities for identitarian indoctrination. Subtle changes identified in identitarian perceptions pre-and post-visitation. New model for understanding the visiting experience-narratives-place identity nexus. a b s t r a c t Tourism academia has attempted to individually explore the concepts of visiting experience, place identity, narratives, and history museums, but it has rarely delved into the deep and sometimes murky waters of the intimate connection among these notions. Focusing on the Museum of History in present-day identity torn Hong Kong, the current study sheds light on the identitarian and ideological implications visiting this museum has for Hong Kong born-and-raised Millennials. The findings challenge the current understanding of place identity at heritage sites of contested identity by revealing the subtle, sensitive, and fluid connections between individual and official narratives, and also among the investigated concepts. They also raise important critical assumptions about the politics of museography.
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h i g h l i g h t s We examine differences in tourist satisfaction between two sectors-attraction... more h i g h l i g h t s We examine differences in tourist satisfaction between two sectors-attractions and hotels over the period 2011e2013. We identify factors that determine satisfaction of the sectors guided by the service quality/satisfaction literature. We further test the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. a b s t r a c t Although tourism literature is replete with visitor satisfaction studies, little attention has been paid to comparing satisfaction between tourism sectors. Tourism is a complex system and the tourist satisfaction and performance of one sector have significant implications on another. This situation makes a comparative study indispensable for holistic tourism planning. Moreover, a destination is an amalgam of tourism products. It would therefore be parochial to examine one tourism product without comparing it to other products in the tourism system. Knowledge and understanding of such comparisons ensure comprehensive planning by tourism decision makers and marketers. In meeting the objectives declared in the introductory section, the study builds on previous research to adopt the Tourism Satisfaction Index Model and the Expectancy-Disconfirmation framework. Questionnaires are the main data collection instrument and data are analyzed through a series of statistical procedures. The findings reveal considerable differences in satisfaction between attractions and hotels. A strong correlation is identified between satisfaction and loyalty, and four antecedents of satisfaction are confirmed. The implications of the study are subsequently discussed.
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Teaching Documents by WONDIRAD Amare Nega (Ph.D.)
Academic-Industry Linkage Lecture, 2019
As literature demonstrates, successful companies understand the significance of recognizing the e... more As literature demonstrates, successful companies understand the significance of recognizing the expectations of their customers and derive value-adding solutions from them. As strongly highlighted by Hernandez (2019), in today’s hypercompetitive and customer-centric world, who adequately understand the most about their consumers’ motivation, desires, expectation, and experience and thereby harness this knowledge achieve the greatest success. In light of that, designing a functional framework that boosts excellence, improves customer engagement and enhances employees’ execution capability with respect to customer experience becomes profoundly important ever before.
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Papers by WONDIRAD Amare Nega (Ph.D.)
Teaching Documents by WONDIRAD Amare Nega (Ph.D.)