Building on Pine and Gilmore’s experience economy concepts and recent related travel research, this study newly investigated the relationships among the experience of film festival visitors, their satisfaction, and their behavioral intention. In particular, the study focused on how an escapist experience and traveler satisfaction mediated the effects of the other experiential dimensions on behavioral intention. The data supported the proposed theoretical relationships among the constructs and the applicability of the experience economy scales to festival management. The results also validate a mediating role of the escapist experience between the tourist’s perceptions of festival performance and behavioral intention toward future film festival participation.

This study explored virtual internship practices and the adaptation to changes brought by the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis by interviewing a small group of interns and site supervisors to understand how virtual internships were practiced in the wake of COVID-19. The findings of the study provided several insights into virtual internships. Overall, just like the conventional fieldwork, well-planned and designed virtual internships could be an empowering learning experience that allows students to capitalize on the practical strengths while applying classroom learning experiences to actual management situations. The study also discussed the advantages and challenges of virtual internships perceived by the student interns. The implications of the study and suggestions for future research were addressed.

This study explores the underlying personal meanings of gambling behavior from the perspective of enduring involvement and considers the relationships among gambling and gender, level of participation, and illusion of control. Based on a self-administered survey of gambling visitors to Black Hawk, Colora, the study found three underlying factors of gambling involvement: (1) self-identity, (2) pleasure/importance, and (3) centrality. The study also found gender differences in gambling involvement, suggesting that male participants tended to view gambling as a form of self-enhancement or self-expression more strongly than did female participants. Management and research implications drawn from these findings are discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to document how a traditional residential neighborhood, Ihwa village in Seoul, South Korea, is transformed into a tourist attraction and demonstrate the complexity of the overtourism phenomenon and the multifaceted conflicts among stakeholders that emerged in the course of urban transformation. Particularly, the study explores how tourism growth, urban transformation and overtourism are intertwined with each other and how the role of social media and media contributed to tourism growth and the transformation of an urban neighborhood. Design/methodology/approach: The study conducted text analytics (a big data analysis) using personal blogs and news articles. Our data for text analytics was defined to retrieve all news articles and blogs existent in the NAVER portal, the largest Korean portal and search engine, for the period between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2018. The data was collected using a web crawling program, TEXTOM version 3.0. Findings: Text analysis of blog entries and news articles suggests that each medium has its unique role and domain to play. While the news media contributed to the initial surge of interest in Ihwa village, genuine growth of tourism in Ihwa village seems to be attributed to social media. Texts that appeared in blogs strongly indicated that people used their blogs to share their trip experiences, which can be subsequently assumed that blogs had an influential role in promoting a small place like Ihwa mural village, while news articles tended to highlight negative or unusual events occurred in Ihwa village. The study also addressed the multifaceted nature of the conflicts that were inherent in the issue of urban regeneration and how those conflicts were developed and manifested in the process of touristification and overtourism in Ihwa village. As touristification can manifest in various forms in different places, the case of Ihwa village demonstrates a unique development of touristification; private tourism companies or tourism agencies did not initiate or intend to cause tourism gentrification. Rather, touristification is a byproduct of urban revitalization through public art and is a result of interplay between the local government’s interest, social media and new tourist demand. Originality/value: Text analytics using big data have rarely been attempted to understand the role of social media in relation to tourism growth and touristification of an urban tourism place. This study advances the literature by applying big data analysis to user-generated content in blogs. The study also contributes to the deeper understanding of a different developmental pattern of touristification in an urban tourism place as well as the complexity of the overtourism phenomenon and the multifaceted conflicts among stakeholders.