Tourists

Need recognition for travelling or choosing a tourist destination is the first stage of the tourist destination choice process. This is the moment in which a tourist finds a significant difference between the actual and desired state. When this difference is greater than acceptable, there is a need for traveling. At this stage, tourists are influenced by internal sociodemographic factors, but also by external factors such as technology and social media. The focus of this paper are four sociodemographic features of the tourist - gender, age, degree of education and personal monthly income. We also analyse four social media platforms important for tourism and travel - Facebook, YouTube, TripAdvisor and Booking.com. The aim of this paper is to provide an insight into the attitudes of tourists regarding their socio-demographic characteristics and the importance attached to social media in the stage of need recognition for travel. Tourist attitudes have been collected through online survey on a sample of 1, 057 Croatian tourists, who are also social media users. Research findings show that behaviour of tourists related to social media differs in terms of gender, age, education and income. In the stage of need recognition women attach greater importance to social media than men. Regarding the remaining three observed sociodemographic characteristics, research shows that older people, more educated and those with higher income, take social media as less important in need recognition for travel. On the other hand, younger tourists, less educated and with lower incomes, attach greater importance to social media in need recognition stage. This paper offers the first insight into the role of social media in the need recognition stage for travel and thus significantly contributes to the existing literature on consumer behaviour in tourism.

Given the relative proliferation of social media users and the significance of information collection in a consumer's decision journey, this study tried to identify the most widely used social media platforms for India's travel information. To evaluate the general trustworthiness of inbound tourists on social media platforms, focus group interviews were conducted across 12 Indian states in which 300 foreign tourists from 85 countries took part. Tripadvisor and Face-book were the two social media platforms with the greatest number of users seeking India's travel information. The findings of the study conclude the use of multiple social media platforms for varied information and destination choice.

A study was conducted to assess the information seeking behavior of Indian and foreign tourists visiting Mysore city in Karnataka State, India, which is known for various tourists attractions round the year. Data collected through questionnaires from Indian and foreign tourists using simple random sampling. Studies revealed that majority of Indian tourists are 19-34 years of age and are either students or employed in government or private sector. In contrast, 40.2% and 40% of foreign tourists are between age group 25-34 years and 40-65 years respectively. Majority of the foreign tourists are either employed in corporate sector or business men.

Since the evolution of mankind, the need for food and drink has been a major concern for humans. It has been reported from the ancient records that human had to cultivate and the store food for consumption but as time passed humans started to travel from one place to another in search of food and drink which further in the modern era gave rise to the tourism sector where people travel for one place to another to explore new culture and experience the local cuisine which depicts about the place and its community living around the region. Due to this there was a tremendous increase in the percentage of tourists every year in different continents where the tourists only traveled for leisure and availing the local cuisine that included both food and the local beverage of the location. For example: if you go to Goa, you will get Pheni, which is the local drink made from the fruit of the cashew plant and the local cuisine which depicts the culture of the region. Likewise, if we take about Maharashtra the state is famous for its wine production in the Nashik region where the Sula wine is located and is considered to be the finest wineries in the country, whose products are being enjoyed by the world. To popularize its goodwill, Sula organizes events like DJ parties and wine connoisseur inside the vineyard to acknowledge people about the service and facilities that they offer and have for the people to avail.
Along with the consumption of wine or liquor, the essence of food is also a vital part of the lifestyle for every individual and tourists who travel to the destination and try to experience the local cuisine. If you see the world, most of the tourists are eagerly mad at traveling to India, wherein every 100 meters you will get a varied cuisine influence which fascinates the international tourists towards the country's culinary inheritance. But it has been seen that the tourists who visit the country prefer to visit Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala, Varanasi, and Goa which limits their approach for experiencing the local cuisine. In the paper “Progress and Emerging Issues in culinary tourism: A study with special reference to Punjab'', the author says that the tourists should prefer dining at the dhabas and the local street vendors instead of dining in the fine-dine restaurants whereas they will experience the real taste in the dhabas which they will not get in the restaurants which is a lacuna for the region where after exploring the region the local taste will be untouched. Whereas in the paper “Culinary choices: Developing as a Culinary Destination'', the authors narrate that the Durban cuisine is not preferred by the tourists who visit Durban and instead prefer to the Portuguese, Italian food during their stay period, whereas it has been seen that food items like Bunny chow, breyani, etc. are the popular dishes of Durban that are liked worldwide by many but either the government or the restaurant and café do not take initiative in popularizing the local cuisine which is a disaster for the Durban community. Therefore, the role of food and drink plays a significant role in the promotion and marketing of the regional cuisine of a country as it showcases the cultural identity of the nation's heritage. Henceforth, the paper explores the framework of the tasting tourism as a means to create a new phase to increase the tourism sector by introducing a new segmentation, where the cuisine showcases the opportunity for providing an extensive knowledge for the regional cuisine and beverages available, where they can experience during their travel to the region. But due to the pandemic situation, it has been seen that the Indian tourism sector had a drastic change as the inflow of foreign tourists decreased, and also the food business sector is facing downfall due to the rapid spread of the virus. Seeing this situation, people are concerned about traveling to domestic and international destinations which would reduce the gatherings in the destinations and lead them to experience their cuisine and explore it to understand its variance in the region along with the regional varieties.

As a result of the internet networks and cameras integrated into mobile phones, a phenomenon called selfie has emerged all over the world in recent years. Selfie often refers to photographs of people taken with front cameras integrated into their phones. Internet access on mobile phones allows users to access their social media sites at any time and allows them to instantly share their moments of their lives with other users on their networks. These shares may be selfies taken in the flow of daily life or selfies taken in front of urban landmarks during visits to a touristic destination. In this context, the subject of the study is to examine the self-concept of the selfies taken by tourists and sharing motivations. Since the majority of these shares on social media sites belong to female users, only female tourists were included in the research sample. Data were collected from female tourists visiting Marmaris and linear multiple regression analysis, factor analysis and reliability analysis were used for data analysis. In addition, the demographic structure of the participants was obtained by looking at the percentage and frequency distributions of the data. From the findings, it was concluded that Self-concept, along with all its sub-dimensions, was effective on selfie taking, selfie sharing motivations and planning of selfie sharing times.

RESUMO:
Após o surto de uma doença contagiosa, como é o caso da COVID-19 criado por um novo coronavírus denominado SARS-CoV-2, ocorrem mudanças estruturais a uma escala global. Neste sentido, o presente capítulo de investigação foi realizado com o objetivo de determinar e explicar os impactos da COVID-19 nos planos dos turistas em termos de seleção de alojamento nos Açores em 2020, analisando as suas intenções. A opção mais comum foi passar as férias de 2020 nas residências de férias de familiares ou amigos, seguido por cerca de 20% que escolheram hotéis de 3 a 4 estrelas. Além disso, foi possível verificar um aumento substancial nas intenções de seleção de alojamentos de turismo rural. Assim, a investigação assume grandes consequências da crise do COVID-19 ao nível das seleções no âmbito da atividade turística nesta região ultraperiférica.

Palavras chave: Arquipélago dos Açores, estudos regionais, preferências turísticas, COVID-19, turismo sustentável.

ABSTRACT:
Following a contagious disease outbreak, as is the case of COVID-19 created by a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2, those dynamics shift on an unconventional level. In this regard, the present research chapter was carried out to determine and explain the impacts of COVID-19 on Azores tourism accommodations plans in 2020 by analyzing their intentions. The most common option was to spend the 2020 holidays at the vacation residences of family or friends, followed by approximately 20% who chose 3–4-star hotels. Also, it was possible to verify a substantial increase in rural tourism accommodation selection intentions. Therefore, the investigation assumes enormous consequences of the COVID-19 crisis at the level of tourism activity selections in this ultra-peripheral region.

Keywords: Azores archipelago, regional studies, COVID-19, sustainable tourism, tourists’ preferences.