Browsing by Author "Williams, Daniel R."
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- Conceptual Development and Empirical Testing of an Outdoor Recreation Experience Model: The Recreation Experience Matrix (REM)Walker, Gordon James (Virginia Tech, 1997-03-31)This dissertation examines four issues, including: (a) whether outdoor recreation experiences not included in the Recreation Experience Preference (REP) scales exist; (b) whether these experiences can be categorized using a framework called the Recreation Experience Matrix (REM); (c) how well the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) variables of activity, setting, and expertise explain the types of experiences outdoor recreationists receive; and (d) how well two new variables--primary mode and mode dependence--explain the types of experiences outdoor recreationists receive. In order to address these issues, an on-site questionnaire was distributed at Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in Virginia during October and November, 1995 A total of 410 people completed this questionnaire. Of these, 336 provided useable addresses for a follow-up mail-out questionnaire, with 169 (50.3%) actually returning it. After performing a variety of statistical analyses, it was found that: (a) some outdoor recreationists did report having non-REP experiences involving identity, cognition, absorption, and self-concept; (b) indirect support does exist for classifying outdoor recreation experiences using the REM framework; and (c) the ROS variables of activity, setting, and expertise, do explain some outdoor recreation experiences, as do the new variables of primary mode and mode dependence.
- Consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction of upscale restaurant dining: a two dimensional approachSun, Lou-Hon (Virginia Tech, 1994)Dining out is one of the most popular leisure activities in developed countries. A review of the studies on consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction (CS/D) in restaurant dining indicates that the majority of restaurant management literature deals with the product/service dimension of restaurant dining and that the leisure dimension of restaurant dining has not been explored. This study was approached with a desire to combine the knowledge from leisure, tourism, marketing, and service management in order to add to the body of knowledge in restaurant management. An analysis of an empirical test of the satisfaction disconfirmation model in an upscale restaurant was conducted. The emphasis was on the impact of perceived product/service and leisure disconfirmations on CS/D with upscale restaurant dining. Initially, thirteen product/service attributes were identified through in-depth literature review and consequently nine leisure attributes were adapted from Beard and Ragheb's leisure motivation scale (1983). A self-administered questionnaire was given to 443 customers in an upscale restaurant and 217 questionnaires were returned by mail. It was found that respondents had significantly higher perceived product/service disconfirmation than perceived leisure disconfirmation. Five factors were identified by factor analysis of the 22 attributes. The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that all the 13 product/service attributes which separated into three factors--food and beverage (F&B), price/quantity, and physical/service--had significant impacts on consumer satisfaction. The nine leisure attributes were identified as two factors--factor leisure one and factor leisure two. Factor leisure one was found to have no significant impact on CS/D. Factor leisure two which includes discover new things, avoid the hustle & bustle of daily activities, and interact with others, was found to relate significantly to consumer satisfaction. Among the four significant factors, F&B had the highest effect on consumer satisfaction with upscale restaurant dining followed by price/quantity. Compared with the physical/service factor, factor leisure two had a slightly higher effect on consumer satisfaction for upscale restaurant dining.
- The effects of channel power, destination attractiveness and destination political risk events on U.S. tourism channel firms' performance: the case of tourism destinations in AfricaBrown, Desmond Omotayo (Virginia Tech, 1996-07-01)NOTE: Pages 133-134 are missing and there are 2 copies of page 31. see document This is an exploratory study that empirically examines the relationships between United States' tourism channel firms' power, African country destination's political risk events and touristic attributes and their effects on firm performance. Tourism channel firm performance is conceptualized as having five dimensions: the number of trips generated, repeat business, package tour sales, profits and new destinations. The link between these dependent variables and their relationship to channel power, destination attractiveness and political risk is the principal focus of this study. Data for the study were collected using a structured questionnaire mailed to the population of tour operator, travel agents and other destination marketing organizations, airline and hotel companies who are members of the Africa Travel Association (N=450) between December 1995 and February, 1996. One hundred and twenty nine respondents completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 28.6%. Nonrespondents were also profiled to ensure respondent representativeness. Data were analyzed using Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression. The results from factor analysis delineated tourism channel power into two main factor groupings - internalization power factors and technological power factors. The internalization power factors include the use of staffing, management, proprietary research and acquisition of supply firms as techniques used by U.S. tourism channel firms to dominate; while the technological factors used include expert systems, computerized communications and reservation systems. These factors explain 68.5% of the total variance. Three main factor groupings emerged from the factor analysis of touristic attributes in African destinations: (1) Natural resource factors, which constituted climatic, geographic, beach, floral and faunal stock, scenery, landscape, vegetation and wildlife activities; (2) Cultural/Ethnic factors, constituting tribal life, ethnic customs and historic monuments; (3) Activity factors - hunting safaris, local tribal life participation and local shopping .Overall, the total variance explained by these factors amount to 51.5%. Regarding the factor groupings for political nsk, two main factors emerged: (1) Regionalized Political Risk Events, constituting civil wars, revolution, coups d’etat, factional conflicts, border conflicts and the like; (2) Globalized Political Risk Events- high inflation rates, high external debt ratio, profit repatriation restriction, and negative world public opinion among others. These factors account for 70.8% of the total variance. Overall, five models emerged from the multiple regression procedure, constituting each of the individual dependent variables of performance: trip generation, repeat business, package tours, profits new destinations. The overall model for the dependent variable of percentage of trips generated was found to be statistically significant. Furthermore, this model explains 34.7% of the total variance for trips generated by United States’s tourism channel firms to Africa. The model of the dependent variable of repeat business reveals that only 29.5% of the variance is explained by the dependent variable. Furthermore, the model is not statistically significant. The model depicting the dependent variable of package tours and the individual independent variables explains 47.2% of the variance, and is statistically significant. The multiple regression model for the dependent variable of number of new destinations entered in Africa constitutes the fifth model. The overall model explains 45.85% of the total variance, and is highly significant. However, of all the factors included in the model regionalized political risk factors appears to affect new destinations negatively.
- The interplay of elements affecting host community resident attitudes toward tourism: a path analytic approachJurowski, Claudia Anne (Virginia Tech, 1994-04-15)Recent research in the field of tourism has demonstrated that the endorsement of the indigenous population is essential for the development, successful operation and sustainability of tourism. Achieving the goal of favorable community support for the tourism industry will require an understanding of how residents formulate their perceptions of the impact of tourism and their attitudes toward tourism. The purpose of this study was to examine the interplay of elements that affect host community resident attitudes toward tourism. The principles of social exchange theory provided the framework for a tourism exchange system model which posits that tourism is a system of exchanges of resources between the tourist, the host community, and the tourist business and service sector. The research demonstrated that a propitious attitude toward tourism is a function of a favorable exchange position which is viewed as a desire to enter into or maintain a tourism exchange relationship.
- Marketing in the Forest Service: a focus on agency imageHirsch, Gwen N. (Virginia Tech, 1990-04-15)This paper examines the issue of a popularly held negative image of the USDA Forest Service. Examples from a variety of media vehicles are included to support the claim that a negative image is prevalent. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence to suggest that many people have only the vaguest idea of what the Forest Service is all about. The adoption of a marketing perspective is proposed to increase awareness of the agency and its functions. An agency-wide customer service orientation is suggested and a public relations effort is proposed. The goal of a public relations campaign for the Forest Service is to provide an accurate depiction of the agency. Suggestions are offered for implementing a marketing perspective in order to overcome the Forest Service's negative image. These suggestions include adopting a customer service orientation, implementing an internal marketing program, providing more information to the public, and making changes in Forestry education.
- Measuring the multiple, deep, and unfolding aspects of the wilderness experience using the experience sampling methodBorrie, William T. (Virginia Tech, 1995-07-02)This study of the wilderness visitors to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia sought to better define the dimensions of the lived wilderness experience, and the modes in which it is experienced; to understand the dynamics of the wilderness experience and how the wilderness experience changes across time; and to examine the relationship between the wilderness experience and ideal leisure. Because of people's apparent difficulty in accurately reporting experiences after the visit, the Experience Sampling Method was the primary data collection procedure. Six aspects of the wilderness experience were identified, inspired by the writings of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, AIdo Leopold, Sigurd Olson, and other wilderness writers: oneness, primitiveness, humility, timelessness, solitude, and care. Five modes of experiencing the wilderness were developed based on the work of environmental psychology and leisure scholars: focus on self (introspection), focus on others (socialness), focus on task (task orientation), focus on emotions (emotional intensity), and focus on environment (environmental sensitivity). Confirmatory factor analysis, principal component analysis and reliability analyses were carried out to assess the stability and meaningfulness of the scales used to operationalize these dimensions. Sixty-two visitors were asked to carry and respond to the study questionnaire during multiple moments of their visit to the Okefenokee Wilderness. Oneness, humility, timelessness, and care appeared to be pertinent dimensions of the wilderness experience, as were the more traditionally measured values of solitude and primitiveness. Using a repeated measures analysis of variance, time was a significant factor in determining item response, thus demonstrating the dynamic nature of the wilderness experience. Ideal or peak leisure, operationalized by a combination of three measures of leisure (intrinsic motivation, perceived freedom, and connotative leisure) and high levels of intensity, was found to be correlated with raised feelings of oneness, humility, primitiveness, and solitude. The Experience Sampling Method identified important multiple dimensions of the wilderness experience, and demonstrated the dynamic nature of the experience more vividly than past post-hoc measures. However, the study also identified potential problems of ESM as a data collection instrument in wilderness : concerns of obtrusiveness on the visitor’s experience, behavioral reactance, and respondent compliance.
- Multiple destination trips and the economic valuation of outdoor recreation sitesGericke, Kevin Louis (Virginia Tech, 1993-08-05)This study examines multiple destination recreation trips and the economic valuation of recreation sites using the travel cost method. One common assumption of the travel cost method is that all travel costs incurred by a visitor are exclusively for a trip to a single site. However, this assumption is often invalid, particularly in the eastern United States where there are numerous recreation areas close to large urban populations. Few researchers have attempted to overcome the difficulty of incorporating multiple destination trips into the travel cost method. Those researchers that have proposed methods have not provided a definitive guideline for how to account for multiple destination trips in the travel cost method, and have not compared their methods. This study proposes a simple model to assist in understanding the varying suggestions by researchers who have attempted to incorporate multiple destination trips into travel cost analyses. The difficulty of defining a recreation good or service, the identification of recreation substitutes, and possible decision processes used by individuals to identify recreation trip destinations are also discussed. Data collected at Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, are used in a zonal travel cost model to estimate the consumers' surplus associated with on-site recreation use at the Park, and to compare proposed methods for handling multiple destination trips. The results of this study show that the travel cost method is sensitive to assumptions about multiple destination visitors, as well as which visitors are included in travel cost analyses. Consumers' surplus estimates ranged from $38 to $8249 per visitor, depending on the assumptions about multiple destination trips, and which visitors were included in the analyses. The results of this study suggest that the travel cost method can be used as an information system, rather than as a method to determine a single estimate of recreation value in monetary terms. The travel cost method is capable of providing a manager with information about relative magnitudes of willingness to pay for a resource by a variety of visitor groups. By varying the assumptions about visitors to the site, a manager can determine a range of consumers' surplus estimates, which may be more useful than a single estimate, to better assist in management decisions regarding the mixture of resources desired by individuals.
- The normative structure of science, hermeneutics, and leisure experiencePatterson, Michael E. (Virginia Tech, 1993)Since Thomas Kuhn's (1962) discussion of scientific revolutions, philosophers of science have defined the appropriate unit of analysis for exploring a research tradition as its macrostructure (Anderson, 1986). This macrostructure is composed of the normative philosophical commitments that are accepted in a research tradition without direct empirical support (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). While a discussion concerning the normative philosophy of scientific paradigms has been opened in leisure research, the discipline has not yet explored models for making paradigmatic commitments explicit. The primary goal of this dissertation is to illustrate how one such model can be applied to wildland recreation research. Secondary goals are to introduce the normative commitments of an interpretive paradigm (productive hermeneutics) and to outline a hermeneutic research program for exploring leisure experience and relationship to resource. The core of the model of the macrostructure of science is Laudan's (1984) Reticulated Model of Scientific Rationality. This model describes scientific paradigms in terms of three interdependent sets of normative commitments: ontology (assumptions about reality and human nature), epistemology (assumptions about the nature, methods, and limits of knowledge), and axiology (the over-riding goals of a paradi~m). This model can be used to evaluate the "internal consistency" of the various commitments adopted by research programs and to match assumptions about the phenomena being studied to appropriate paradigms. The productive hermeneutic paradigm maintains that studying human action is more similar to interpreting texts than to gaining empirical knowledge of objects in nature. It is best described as a meaning-based model which: portrays humans as actively engaged in the construction of meaning as opposed to sin1ply responding to information that exists in the environment; focuses on idiosyncratic meaning rather than generic personality variables (e.g., past experience); and views experience as an emergent narrative rather than a predictable outcome. Its philosophical commitments are suited for studying phenomena that are unstructured, highly contextual, unpredictable, and characterized by meaning that changes across time and individuals (e.g., behavior linked to expressive, spiritual, and symbolic issues).
- Participatory design for battlefield park development and process comparisonLowe, Steven Michael (Virginia Tech, 1993-07-15)The Shenandoah Valley Civil War Sites Study Act of 1990 permitted the National Park Service (NPS) to investigate which unprotected battlefields (I5) might be preserved. After collaboration with the NPS, I was allowed to research the battlefield site of Opequon Creek (Third Battle of Winchester) in Frederick County, Virginia. In return, the NPS would receive a copy of this thesis for their use. A questionnaire, submitted to local residents, determined if a park was wanted, what type of park it might be, and what programming activities would be selected. A combination park of recreation, historical, and natural definitions was developed on the residents desires. The Opequon Creek Park process was developed first to alleviate any pre-NPS planning process influences. After Opequon Creek Park was designed, a process comparative analysis was made with the existing NPS model of Antietam Battlefield Park located in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The analysis determined if the NPS's planning process needed refinement. The NPS uses the "Planning Process Guidelines, NPS-2, 1985", to create each park's General Management plan (GMP). Two participatory stages, open houses and public hearings, were found mid-way through the development of Antietam's GMP. The Opequon process allows for participatory input at the start of park development but, did not allow for post design comments. Antietam's park definition was determined before public input was solicited and used based on early project funding requirements. The Opequon process, if implemented immediately upon a new parks legal creation, would save the NPS time and money in the research and development of new parks. Future parks will be carved from urbana as America's population doubles by 2038. The NPS needs a refined participatory planning method to do business with the public of today, the shrinking budgets of tomorrow, and the preservation of needed green space in the future.