Aaron Tham
Biographic Data
| ID | 3100173 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aaron Tham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aaron |
| FAMILY NAME | Tham |
| SIGNATURE | THAM A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Sunshine Coast |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1408-392X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Best Practices in Sustainable Tourism Education? A Critical Collaborative Ethnography Reflection
Much has been written about the nomenclature of sustainable tourism education as a vehicle to prepare students for sustainability-centric careers and futures. Yet, despite the wide body of work surrounding the broad conceptualisations of sustainable tourism, the evaluation of sustainable tourism education has largely been nested in the perspectives of student feedback and outcomes. Through a critical collaborative ethnography reflection, we seek …
Animal influencers for ecotourism? The case of Moo Deng
Animals have always fascinated humans and are often a form of tourism attraction. This research note focuses on a pygmy hippo – Moo Deng, who has become an accidental animal ‘influencer’ for a zoo in Thailand. The research note critically evaluates the use of Moo Deng as the ambassador for the zoo, and whether her popularity can generate long-term ecotourism outcomes for zoos and other forms of human-animal tourism attractions
Mobile Gamification's Impact on Tourism Visit Intention
The present study aims to determine how tourism‐related mobile games generate tourism visit intention. Drawing upon the technology acceptance model (TAM), the study seeks to find out the context‐specific considerations that exert a greater influence on the intention to visit destinations associated with the mobile game. Using a quantitative approach, data from 263 respondents were collected in Malaysia via an online survey. Partial least‐squares …
A Scale to Measure Destination Social Responsibility Perceived by Residents and Government
With a growing emphasis on responsible destination management and sustainable tourism, the tourism sector recognizes the need to measure destination social responsibility (DSR), which reflects the collective efforts of multiple stakeholders to fulfill social responsibilities at the entire destination level. Although academic interest in DSR studies has steadily increased, the multidimensional nature of DSR is often simplified into a single dimens…
Hopefully this will be a wake-up call on how we treat migrant workers: National wokeness in press reports during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study examines how Singapore’s flagship newspaper, The Straits Times (ST), framed relationships between migrant workers (MWs) and non-state actors (NGOs, companies and individuals) during the Covid-19 pandemic. We propose the conceptual lens of national wokeness as a mediatisation strategy of positive self-presentation to overcome international criticisms concerning the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus amidst neglected MW dormitories, and to r…
Restoration of positive self-image: Ideological circles in the mediatization of government-migrant worker relations during Covid 19
This article focuses on migrant workers (MWs) during Covid-19 in Singapore. A second wave of Covid-19 transmissions in MW dormitories in 2020 had cast a spotlight on this vulnerable population, amidst inter/national criticisms of the national government for oversight. From a critical discourse studies perspective, we examine how the national newspaper attempted to restore a positive self-image of the Singapore government, through the discursive m…
Reviving coral reef ecotourism through green insurance investments
Coral reefs are a vital landscape for ecotourism though they remain precarious due to climate change and natural disasters. This research seeks to elucidate insights as to how green investments in the form of coral reef insurance are conceptualized and operationalized in some parts of the world, where early innovators have been witnessed. Drawing from sentiment analysis of 116 journal articles and other gray literature (book chapters, industry re…
Research Note: Medical Cannabis Tourism
Medical cannabis is an emerging topic of interest as stakeholders come to terms with how the demand and supply of such controlled substances are regulated across nations. Then, by extension, the provision of medical cannabis has given rise to tourism encounters where people, places, and spaces intersect. However, medical cannabis tourism has received very little attention in scholarly literature. This research note seeks to provide an overview of…
Exploring Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) Host Decision-Making in Hospitality Provision
Due to the kinship ties existing between hosts and guests, any visiting friends and relatives (VFR) host is likely to experience elevated levels of stress in preparing for such encounters because of the desire to deliver a good experience to their guests. As such, existing literature has sought to unpack VFR hosting behavior and practices, albeit mostly from an Anglo-Saxon perspective. However, little is known about the influence of East Asian cu…
Food, glorious food! The intersection of food cultures and creative tourism in Brunei
Purpose The purpose of this research is to apply the theoretical frameworks of resource-based view (RBV) and Social Creativity to elucidate insights related to food cultures and creative tourism in the context of Brunei. This addresses an important gap in the literature to unpack how food cultures and creative tourism can become a vehicle for the diversification of a country’s reliance on oil and gas as primary industries. Design/methodology/appr…
The Buzz of Brisbane 2032: Themes of Online and Social Media Olympic Sentiment
Brisbane will stage a more regionally focused Olympics and Paralympics in 2032 when it follows in the footsteps of a series of mega-city hosts. In this new environment, in which there are challenges finding nations willing even to bid for the event, it is important to understand how sentiment is expressed towards this Games edition, which is being promoted as delivering a sustainable legacy while experiencing different demands, levels of buzz, an…
Heritage and new media spaces
The advent of new media technologies has radically altered how heritage tourism is produced and consumed. Through emerging tools and digital advances, the mediascape for heritage tourism is increasingly competitive thereby requiring careful selection of methods and understanding of markets. This special issue is a timely consolidation of the emerging body of work surrounding heritage tourism and new media spaces, providing global and methodical i…
Horse racing and the growth of hashtag activism
The Melbourne Cup is Australia's pinnacle horse racing event, attracting more than 80,000 physical attendees each year (pre-COVID-19), as well as numerous others watching via live broadcasts around the country and overseas.In recent times, however, there have been growing calls to boycott the event, following concerns over the treatment of horses.New hashtag movements lobbying against horse racing have also emerged, aided by the affordances of so…
(Re)evaluating sister-cities for economic development? Pracademic viewpoints
An exploratory study of the experiencescape dimensions and customer revisit intentions for specialty urban coffee shops
Purpose The main aim of this research was to explore specialty coffee experience dimensions and what drives revisit intentions through experiencescapes. The theoretical framework on experience co-creation in food and wine consumption by Carvalho et al. (2021) was employed to explore the dimensions of specialty coffee shop experiences and specialty coffee consumer revisit intentions. Design/methodology/approach Using the interpretivist epistemolog…
Drivers of Domestic Travel During a Global Crisis: A Multi-Country Perspective
This research compares four travel motivations—socialisation, responsibility, attractions, and food—across four countries, namely India, Japan, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates. The investigation ascertains the factors that account for domestic traveller confidence during a pandemic. Through an online survey of 2,076 domestic tourists, it was found that responsibility was a key antecedent of domestic travel confidence, while food was a stro…
A pentadic analysis of TikTok marketing in tourism: The case of Penang, Malaysia
Several destinations have jumped on the TikTok bandwagon to explore consumer reactions and motivations towards visit intentions, though these are largely limited to point-in-time surveys. Using the example of Penang, Malaysia, this research contributes to the paucity of knowledge surrounding TikTok in tourism by analysing contents generated from the destination management organisation, travel influencers, and other tourists participating in a Tik…
How mass public transportation influences the retention intentions of Australian regional and remote university students
Getting to and from campus matters, especially for students who have relocated from regional and remote (RR) areas who must wrangle, often for the first time, rigid mass public transportation (MPT). Little is known about MPTs’ influence on RR students’ retention intentions or how MPT interacts with other known geographic proximity barriers. Interviews with ten equity practitioners from three Australian universities revealed four interconnected th…
Hotel quarantine guest blogs: Unpacking Scheiner's spaces of immobility and implications on urban tourism politics
Cryptocurrency adoption in travel and tourism – an exploratory study of Asia Pacific travellers
Blockchain technologies are predicted to substantially transform the tourism industry. At present, cryptocurrencies are the most advanced application of public blockchains that promise benefits such as a universal means of payment and minimal fees through the removal of intermediaries. In the tourism industry, though many tourism vendors have been accepting cryptocurrencies and the potential of using cryptocurrencies in travel-related consumption…
To market, to market’: Uncovering Daigou touristscapes within Chinese outbound tourism
Daigou may be simply understood as purchasing on behalf of others. However, as an informal economy, Daigou trade between buyers and sellers is now a lucrative market and has emerged as a distinctive tourism segment. While Daigou occurs on the back of technological platforms that facilitate electronic commerce between customer to customer, academic literature on Daigou from a Chinese outbound tourism perspective remains scarce. Prompted by this de…
Chinese Outbound Tourists and Daigou as Soft Power
Daigou is worth billions globally and is fueled by mobile connectivity and advances in e-commerce, and therefore, it is important to understand the impact of the Daigou phenomenon. While shopping is very much at the heart of Chinese outbound tourism, very little is known of the role that Daigou plays in terms of manifesting the soft power agenda. Soft power has long been a crucial element in China’s rise as a major international power. This resea…
Negotiating leisure etiquette in the context of drones
The purpose of this paper is to explore leisure etiquette as negotiated through the lens of recreational drones. While drones have experienced spectacular growth in terms of sales and revenue, there remains very little known about how the nuances of recreational drone users negotiate codes of conduct to guide their leisure activities and behavior. Drawing from the overarching notion of leisure etiquette, this research explores the context of two …
Tourism with and by Indigenous and ethnic communities in the Asia Pacific region: A bricolage of people, places and partnerships
Extant literature has emerged to shed light on Indigenous tourism peoples, places and partnerships. These studies to date have uncovered a rich diversity of contexts and collaborations, but likewise raise the challenges and complexities of working with stakeholder groups that feature diverse, and sometimes divergent interests. However, it has been acknowledged that studies in and about Indigenous tourism have been conducted from an ‘etic’ perspec…
Social media influence on tourists’ destination choice: Importance of context
While social media receive considerable scholarly attention, studies reveal mixed outcomes in relation to its influence on tourists’ destination choices. There is nonetheless a persistent perception that social media has a fundamental influence on destination choice. However, those studies that do find a social media influence are in contexts where tourists are predisposed to be influenced (the contexts were selected due to social media presence …
Social media influence on tourists’ destination choice: Importance of context
While social media receive considerable scholarly attention, studies reveal mixed outcomes in relation to its influence on tourists’ destination choices. There is nonetheless a persistent perception that social media has a fundamental influence on destination choice. However, those studies that do find a social media influence are in contexts where tourists are predisposed to be influenced (the contexts were selected due to social media presence …
Heritage tourism in southeast Asia
Heritage tourism in southeast Asia, edited by Michael Hitchcock, Victor T. King and Michael Parnwell, Copenhagen, NIAS Press, 2010, 322 pp., £18.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-8-776-94060-7/£50.00 (hbk), ISBN
A pentadic analysis of TikTok marketing in tourism: The case of Penang, Malaysia
Several destinations have jumped on the TikTok bandwagon to explore consumer reactions and motivations towards visit intentions, though these are largely limited to point-in-time surveys. Using the example of Penang, Malaysia, this research contributes to the paucity of knowledge surrounding TikTok in tourism by analysing contents generated from the destination management organisation, travel influencers, and other tourists participating in a Tik…
Hotel quarantine guest blogs: Unpacking Scheiner's spaces of immobility and implications on urban tourism politics
Hopefully this will be a wake-up call on how we treat migrant workers: National wokeness in press reports during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study examines how Singapore’s flagship newspaper, The Straits Times (ST), framed relationships between migrant workers (MWs) and non-state actors (NGOs, companies and individuals) during the Covid-19 pandemic. We propose the conceptual lens of national wokeness as a mediatisation strategy of positive self-presentation to overcome international criticisms concerning the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus amidst neglected MW dormitories, and to r…
Horse racing and the growth of hashtag activism
The Melbourne Cup is Australia's pinnacle horse racing event, attracting more than 80,000 physical attendees each year (pre-COVID-19), as well as numerous others watching via live broadcasts around the country and overseas.In recent times, however, there have been growing calls to boycott the event, following concerns over the treatment of horses.New hashtag movements lobbying against horse racing have also emerged, aided by the affordances of so…
Tourism with and by Indigenous and ethnic communities in the Asia Pacific region: A bricolage of people, places and partnerships
Extant literature has emerged to shed light on Indigenous tourism peoples, places and partnerships. These studies to date have uncovered a rich diversity of contexts and collaborations, but likewise raise the challenges and complexities of working with stakeholder groups that feature diverse, and sometimes divergent interests. However, it has been acknowledged that studies in and about Indigenous tourism have been conducted from an ‘etic’ perspec…
Rainbows looming large: Digital leisure and youth innovation
Rainbow looms, America’s 2014 Toy of the Year, are associated with colourful rubber bands that can be weaved into intricate objects using a plastic loom. These sets are sold without any accompanying instructions, requiring users to develop personal skills through family, friends and online. This paper explores the participatory practices of rainbow looms within digital leisure, and how it facilitates spaces for innovative thinking and practice. T…
There’s a troll on the information bridge! An exploratory study of deviant online behaviour impacts on tourism cosmopolitanism
Existing literature has portrayed tourism as a conduit for learning and transformation, with a view that such mobilities elucidate tourism cosmopolitanism. While such propositions are insofar useful in characterising global dispositions, very little has been done to investigate how the virtual space has helped to develop or curtail effects of tourism cosmopolitanism. The virtual space has transformed tourism engagement and consumption patterns, t…
Heritage tourism in southeast Asia
Heritage tourism in southeast Asia, edited by Michael Hitchcock, Victor T. King and Michael Parnwell, Copenhagen, NIAS Press, 2010, 322 pp., £18.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-8-776-94060-7/£50.00 (hbk), ISBN
Film Tourism: The Original 3D Movies
Stijn Reijnders revisits the role of the media in his latest book to showcase how tourism and the media are intertwined in the construction of imagined spaces. Consisting of eight chapters broken u
There’s a troll on the information bridge! An exploratory study of deviant online behaviour impacts on tourism cosmopolitanism
Existing literature has portrayed tourism as a conduit for learning and transformation, with a view that such mobilities elucidate tourism cosmopolitanism. While such propositions are insofar useful in characterising global dispositions, very little has been done to investigate how the virtual space has helped to develop or curtail effects of tourism cosmopolitanism. The virtual space has transformed tourism engagement and consumption patterns, t…
Rainbows looming large: Digital leisure and youth innovation
Rainbow looms, America’s 2014 Toy of the Year, are associated with colourful rubber bands that can be weaved into intricate objects using a plastic loom. These sets are sold without any accompanying instructions, requiring users to develop personal skills through family, friends and online. This paper explores the participatory practices of rainbow looms within digital leisure, and how it facilitates spaces for innovative thinking and practice. T…
Contemporary Christian travel: Pilgrimage, Practice and Place
Ron and Timothy (2019) have probably integrated the first book ever published to illuminate the under-researched field of pilgrimages and religious travels related to contemporary Christian practic
Negotiating leisure etiquette in the context of drones
The purpose of this paper is to explore leisure etiquette as negotiated through the lens of recreational drones. While drones have experienced spectacular growth in terms of sales and revenue, there remains very little known about how the nuances of recreational drone users negotiate codes of conduct to guide their leisure activities and behavior. Drawing from the overarching notion of leisure etiquette, this research explores the context of two …
Tourism with and by Indigenous and ethnic communities in the Asia Pacific region: A bricolage of people, places and partnerships
Extant literature has emerged to shed light on Indigenous tourism peoples, places and partnerships. These studies to date have uncovered a rich diversity of contexts and collaborations, but likewise raise the challenges and complexities of working with stakeholder groups that feature diverse, and sometimes divergent interests. However, it has been acknowledged that studies in and about Indigenous tourism have been conducted from an ‘etic’ perspec…
Social media influence on tourists’ destination choice: Importance of context
While social media receive considerable scholarly attention, studies reveal mixed outcomes in relation to its influence on tourists’ destination choices. There is nonetheless a persistent perception that social media has a fundamental influence on destination choice. However, those studies that do find a social media influence are in contexts where tourists are predisposed to be influenced (the contexts were selected due to social media presence …
Cryptocurrency adoption in travel and tourism – an exploratory study of Asia Pacific travellers
Blockchain technologies are predicted to substantially transform the tourism industry. At present, cryptocurrencies are the most advanced application of public blockchains that promise benefits such as a universal means of payment and minimal fees through the removal of intermediaries. In the tourism industry, though many tourism vendors have been accepting cryptocurrencies and the potential of using cryptocurrencies in travel-related consumption…
To market, to market’: Uncovering Daigou touristscapes within Chinese outbound tourism
Daigou may be simply understood as purchasing on behalf of others. However, as an informal economy, Daigou trade between buyers and sellers is now a lucrative market and has emerged as a distinctive tourism segment. While Daigou occurs on the back of technological platforms that facilitate electronic commerce between customer to customer, academic literature on Daigou from a Chinese outbound tourism perspective remains scarce. Prompted by this de…
Chinese Outbound Tourists and Daigou as Soft Power
Daigou is worth billions globally and is fueled by mobile connectivity and advances in e-commerce, and therefore, it is important to understand the impact of the Daigou phenomenon. While shopping is very much at the heart of Chinese outbound tourism, very little is known of the role that Daigou plays in terms of manifesting the soft power agenda. Soft power has long been a crucial element in China’s rise as a major international power. This resea…
An exploratory study of the experiencescape dimensions and customer revisit intentions for specialty urban coffee shops
Purpose The main aim of this research was to explore specialty coffee experience dimensions and what drives revisit intentions through experiencescapes. The theoretical framework on experience co-creation in food and wine consumption by Carvalho et al. (2021) was employed to explore the dimensions of specialty coffee shop experiences and specialty coffee consumer revisit intentions. Design/methodology/approach Using the interpretivist epistemolog…
Drivers of Domestic Travel During a Global Crisis: A Multi-Country Perspective
This research compares four travel motivations—socialisation, responsibility, attractions, and food—across four countries, namely India, Japan, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates. The investigation ascertains the factors that account for domestic traveller confidence during a pandemic. Through an online survey of 2,076 domestic tourists, it was found that responsibility was a key antecedent of domestic travel confidence, while food was a stro…
A pentadic analysis of TikTok marketing in tourism: The case of Penang, Malaysia
Several destinations have jumped on the TikTok bandwagon to explore consumer reactions and motivations towards visit intentions, though these are largely limited to point-in-time surveys. Using the example of Penang, Malaysia, this research contributes to the paucity of knowledge surrounding TikTok in tourism by analysing contents generated from the destination management organisation, travel influencers, and other tourists participating in a Tik…
How mass public transportation influences the retention intentions of Australian regional and remote university students
Getting to and from campus matters, especially for students who have relocated from regional and remote (RR) areas who must wrangle, often for the first time, rigid mass public transportation (MPT). Little is known about MPTs’ influence on RR students’ retention intentions or how MPT interacts with other known geographic proximity barriers. Interviews with ten equity practitioners from three Australian universities revealed four interconnected th…
Hotel quarantine guest blogs: Unpacking Scheiner's spaces of immobility and implications on urban tourism politics
Restoration of positive self-image: Ideological circles in the mediatization of government-migrant worker relations during Covid 19
This article focuses on migrant workers (MWs) during Covid-19 in Singapore. A second wave of Covid-19 transmissions in MW dormitories in 2020 had cast a spotlight on this vulnerable population, amidst inter/national criticisms of the national government for oversight. From a critical discourse studies perspective, we examine how the national newspaper attempted to restore a positive self-image of the Singapore government, through the discursive m…
Reviving coral reef ecotourism through green insurance investments
Coral reefs are a vital landscape for ecotourism though they remain precarious due to climate change and natural disasters. This research seeks to elucidate insights as to how green investments in the form of coral reef insurance are conceptualized and operationalized in some parts of the world, where early innovators have been witnessed. Drawing from sentiment analysis of 116 journal articles and other gray literature (book chapters, industry re…
Research Note: Medical Cannabis Tourism
Medical cannabis is an emerging topic of interest as stakeholders come to terms with how the demand and supply of such controlled substances are regulated across nations. Then, by extension, the provision of medical cannabis has given rise to tourism encounters where people, places, and spaces intersect. However, medical cannabis tourism has received very little attention in scholarly literature. This research note seeks to provide an overview of…
Exploring Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) Host Decision-Making in Hospitality Provision
Due to the kinship ties existing between hosts and guests, any visiting friends and relatives (VFR) host is likely to experience elevated levels of stress in preparing for such encounters because of the desire to deliver a good experience to their guests. As such, existing literature has sought to unpack VFR hosting behavior and practices, albeit mostly from an Anglo-Saxon perspective. However, little is known about the influence of East Asian cu…
Food, glorious food! The intersection of food cultures and creative tourism in Brunei
Purpose The purpose of this research is to apply the theoretical frameworks of resource-based view (RBV) and Social Creativity to elucidate insights related to food cultures and creative tourism in the context of Brunei. This addresses an important gap in the literature to unpack how food cultures and creative tourism can become a vehicle for the diversification of a country’s reliance on oil and gas as primary industries. Design/methodology/appr…
The Buzz of Brisbane 2032: Themes of Online and Social Media Olympic Sentiment
Brisbane will stage a more regionally focused Olympics and Paralympics in 2032 when it follows in the footsteps of a series of mega-city hosts. In this new environment, in which there are challenges finding nations willing even to bid for the event, it is important to understand how sentiment is expressed towards this Games edition, which is being promoted as delivering a sustainable legacy while experiencing different demands, levels of buzz, an…
Heritage and new media spaces
The advent of new media technologies has radically altered how heritage tourism is produced and consumed. Through emerging tools and digital advances, the mediascape for heritage tourism is increasingly competitive thereby requiring careful selection of methods and understanding of markets. This special issue is a timely consolidation of the emerging body of work surrounding heritage tourism and new media spaces, providing global and methodical i…
Horse racing and the growth of hashtag activism
The Melbourne Cup is Australia's pinnacle horse racing event, attracting more than 80,000 physical attendees each year (pre-COVID-19), as well as numerous others watching via live broadcasts around the country and overseas.In recent times, however, there have been growing calls to boycott the event, following concerns over the treatment of horses.New hashtag movements lobbying against horse racing have also emerged, aided by the affordances of so…
(Re)evaluating sister-cities for economic development? Pracademic viewpoints
Business (20 works) · Tourism (20 works) · Political science (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Advertising (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Geography (13 works) · Marketing (13 works) · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research (12 works) · Digital Marketing and Social Media (8 works)