Bob Mckercher
Biographic Data
| ID | 714790 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bob Mckercher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bob |
| FAMILY NAME | Mckercher |
| SIGNATURE | MCKERCHER B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7451-1266 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 134 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1098 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 134 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
Travel change with age: An age-period-cohort perspective
Destination awareness among long-haul non-visitors
This study explores destination awareness of 14 Asian destinations and ‘Asia’ as a whole among American and British long-haul non-visitors. It conceptualizes destination awareness as a pre-decisional state grounded in limited cognitive associations and weak or absent affective impressions, with conative elements largely inapplicable, providing a theoretical foundation for future research on non-visitors. The findings show that, except for Thailan…
Seniors and the cessation of travel
Do motives of tourists who visit sustainable tourism destinations differ
Ageing, transition and the end of travel
People must stop travelling at some point in their lives. Cessation may be abrupt or gradual and may be taken voluntarily or be forced due to a range of endogenous and exogenous factors. While much has been written about the benefits of travel as part of the healthy ageing process, literature on the end of travel is lacking. This paper, framed within lifespan development theory, explores the end of travel conceptually and develops a framework tha…
Beware of framework bias
Eco-certification: What does it mean to tourists
The fatal flaw in most intent to return literature
Most intent to return studies measure ‘intent’ using a single aspirational metric and not through the use of a time bound and probabilistic approach suggested in the core literature on this topic. As a result, studies tend to vastly over-exaggerate the likelihood of repeat visitation. This empirical study tests intent to return using a single metric and then a dual set of metrics and concludes that ‘intent’ may be overstated by up to 90
Attributes of distinguished tourism scholars
This study examines the attributes and characteristics of distinguished tourism scholars. A total of 34 themes emerged from the study that were categorised into nine thematic domains. The study is framed within the intelligent career framework theory that examines the three dimensions of know why, know how and know whom. Results revealed that distinguished scholars identified know why features of inquisitiveness, insightfulness, and passion as be…
The relationship between accommodation type and tourists’ in-destination behaviour
This paper examines the relationship between accommodation choice and in-destination behaviour among tourists visiting Cairns, in far north Queensland, Australia. The findings are based on an exit survey of 2715 domestic and international tourists between 2016 and 2018. Significant differences were observed in the profile, travel patterns and in-destination behaviours when segmented by accommodation types. This approach to segmentation has been l…
Politics of tourism in public land use management: A Reflexive Treatise
Understanding Tourism: Concepts and theories
Time-variant destination lifecycle model and the coactive development process
The central tenet of the tourism-area lifecycle (TALC) rests on the idea of change. This paper utilized latent-growth curve modelling (LGCM) to synthesize a time-variant lifecycle model that quantifies changes in TALC-based hotel development. We accommodated the model with cross-lagged analysis to draw causal inferences. Based on data collected from 197 economies from UNWTO, findings reveal that the onset and growth rate of hotel development are …
A dream vacation typology
A six‐fold typology of ideal trips was developed in this study by listening to the voices of residents of Southeast Queensland, Australia, who identified what they felt a dream vacation encompassed. The study represents one of the first of its kind to explore this phenomenon from the tourists' perspective. The typology encompassed 16 styles of holiday. The six types included destination‐exclusive holidays, personal growth, exploration, escape, he…
Will Electric vehicles decarbonise drive tourism
This study examines the potential impact of the transition to battery operated electric vehicles (EVs) from internal combustion powered passenger vehicles (ICEs) on domestic drive tourism. It asks two core questions: whether EVs will hasten the move to a net zero domestic tourism sector and whether and how EVs will transform domestic tourism. The study, conducted in Queensland, Australia in mid-2023, concludes EVs will have a limited impact on dr…
The reticent tourist in a Covid-adapted world
This paper examines the reasons why many people are reticent about travelling in a COVID-adapted world. It reports on a study of residents of Southeast Queensland, Australia conducted in mid-2022, up to six months after borders reopened after a prolonged COVID-19 shutdown. About one quarter of respondents were less interested in travel in a COVID-adapted world than they were before the pandemic struck. They were a diverse group whose reasons for …
Are tourists from the same source market culturally homogeneous
This study questions whether tourists are culturally homogeneous regardless of the destination visited or type of travel undertaken. This question is premised on the belief that tourists are culturally homogeneous, which underlies research that applies Hofstede’s national cultural value framework; yet, it has not been asked before in the tourism literature. To address this research gap, a survey of Hong Kong residents who had travelled outside of…
The periphery as a tourism market
Most tourism research examines peripheral areas as destinations that are often exploited by the dominant, urban core. Little, if any research has considered peripheral areas as potential source markets. Yet, in Australia, some 30% of the population live outside of major urban centres. This study determined that residents of regional centres and rural communities have as much interest in travel as their urban cousins, have similar attitudes to and…
Reflecting on tourism and Covid-19 research
Reflection is a form of deep thinking that is evident in everyday lives – private and professional – and this article offers insights for key parties about reflecting on research outcomes to ensure enhanced tourism impacts post-pandemic. Using a hermeneutic perspective on reflection, the authors reflect on research outcomes since the pandemic began. Three types of reflection are deployed: anticipatory, active and recollective. While the ultimate …
Does the destination matter in domestic tourism
Do destinations really matter in domestic tourism when markets as a whole are considered? This study applies push-pull theory to assess destination choice among domestic Australian tourists. Two types of analyses are undertaken. The first compares push factors and pull features across a range of destination classes, while the second conducts a paired-destination analysis investigating differences between like destinations. The study determined th…
Career development of tourism, hospitality and events graduates
This paper reports on career development of graduates of three of Australia's leading university level tourism, hospitality and events providers. The study examines how well their programmes equipped them for their first and current jobs, key attributes to career development and advice they would give to prospective students. Career development is highly individualistic, with no single template
Food preferences as a proxy for adventurousness
Age or generation? Understanding behaviour differences
This paper argues that Age-Period-Cohort theory offers a much more robust explanation of changes in tourist behaviour over time than the traditional Generation Cohort Theory model. The study conducted a systematic examination of contemporary literature of the travel attitudes, motives and behaviours of four generations of 20 somethings and identified far more similarities than differences, with most differences attributable to period effects
Who kept travelling and where did they go? Domestic travel by residents of SE Queensland, Australia
This paper presents a longitudinal study of domestic travel by residents of Southeast Queensland, Australia. It is framed within the distance decay concept. Two major findings emerged from the study. First, people who were most likely to forsake travel as a result of COVID-19 generally did not value it very highly, while those who continued to travel saw it as an important part of their lifestyles. Second, applying the distance decay concept reve…
Place Attachment and Travel Among Western Professional Expatriates
This paper investigates the role that different degrees of place attachment play in the pleasure travel patterns of Western professional expatriates, via a qualitative study with in‐depth interviews as the main data collection approach. Four discrete groups of migrants were identified. “Push” factors that influenced home return travel varied across the groups, influencing the frequency of such activity. Likewise, the push and pull factors for tra…
Modeling Tourist Movements
A chaos approach to tourism
Movement Patterns of Tourists within a Destination
This paper reports on a study analysing the movements of tourists within an urban destination. A total of 78 discrete movement patterns was identified, which can be categorized into 11 movement styles. Data were analysed using GIS software. The large number of movement patterns is a reflection of the interaction of six factors: territoriality, the number of journeys made per day, the number of stops made per journey, participation in a commercial…
Hotel location and tourist activity in cities
Incorporating local and international cuisines in the marketing of tourism destinations: The cases of Hong Kong and Turkey
Tourism and online photography
Traveling with a disability
Ideal image in process: Online tourist photography and impression management
Typologies of tourists' time-space consumption: A new approach using GPS data and GIS tools
Time geography presents a conceptual framework to describe and understand the tourists' spatio-temporal behavior, according to which the effective reach of an individual is defined by time-space constraints and the path taken by the individual. In recent years, a growing number of studies within this framework have begun to use geographic information systems (GIS) tools and data gathered with the help of advanced tracking methods. These tools and…
Academic myths of tourism
Rating tourism and hospitality journals
The Over-Reaction to Sars and the Collapse of Asian Tourism
Analysing intra-destination movements and activity participation of tourists through destination card consumption
This study investigates tourist behaviour in the Canton of Ticino Switzerland, a geographically dispersed destination, by analysing use patterns of a ‘destination card’ sold by the local destination management organization. Destination cards offer free or highly discounted entry into partner attractions and activities often coupled with free public transport access in the area. Within this context, the study sought to determine if evidence of con…
Relationship between tourism and cultural heritage management: Evidence from Hong Kong
The Effect of Cultural Distance on Tourism: A Study of International Visitors to Hong Kong
This study focuses on the impact of cultural distance on the behavior of international pleasure tourists who visited Hong Kong. It analyzes data drawn from the Hong Kong Tourism Board's Visitor Profile Report, and tests whether cultural distance has a similar impact on behavior as noted in previous studies examining physical distance. The study concludes that cultural distance exerts a modest impact on such attributes as demand, travel party comp…
A citation analysis of tourism scholars
Trip destinations, gateways and itineraries: The example of Hong Kong
Rethinking slavery heritage tourism
This paper argues that the investigation of slavery heritage within a ‘thana’- or ‘dark’ tourism framework invariably fails to appreciate the subtleties, power relationships and various contestations that are at play in both the presentation and consumption of former Transatlantic Slave Trade (TAST) sites. Instead, the authors argue that a combination of Halbwachs’ collective memory theory and Tunbridge and Ashworth's concept of dissonant heritag…
Politics and tourism promotion: Hong Kong’s myth making
The Effect of Distance on Tourism in Hong Kong: A Comparison of Short Haul and Long Haul Visitors
This study reports on a pilot project examining the effect of distance on the profile and trip characteristics of vacation visitors to Hong Kong. Secondary data are used. The study reveals a clear long haul/short haul dichotomy in visitor profile and resultant behaviors in Hong Kong. Long haul tourists tend to be older, more affluent and view Hong Kong as a stop-over destination, whereas short haul visitors are younger, less affluent and see it a…
Managing heritage resources as tourism products
In theory, treating cultural heritage assets as products for tourism consumption is reasonable and logical. In practice, though, it is much harder to achieve, for tourism and cultural heritage management embrace different management mandates and focuses. The fact that most of the cultural tourism attractions were not originally intended for tourism necessitates sympathetic product development and management strategies. The authors discuss some of…
The impact of distance on tourism: A Tourism Geography Law
In 1970, Waldo Tobler established the first law of geography when he wrote “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things” (Tobler, 1970, p. 236). T
Developing a typology of diaspora tourists: Return travel by Chinese immigrants in North America
Publishing in tourism and hospitality journals: Is the past a prelude to the future
Social impacts as a function of place change
Tourism as a conflicting land use
Some Fundamental Truths About Tourism: Understanding Tourism's Social and Environmental Impacts
Tourism's effects on the social, cultural and physical environments in which it operates are well documented. Yet, it appears that little research has been conducted examining the underlying reasons why such impacts appear to be inevitable. This paper argues that a number of structural realities or ‘fundamental truths’ about tourism exist that explain why adverse impacts are felt, regardless of the type of tourism activity. Eight such truths are …
Australian conservation organisations' perspectives on tourism in national parks: A critique
The unrecognized threat to tourism
Career progress of recent tourism graduates
Host Involvement in VFR Travel
Differences between Tourism and Recreation in Parks
The potential impact of the Millennium Bug on tourism
A chaos approach to tourism
Towards a classification of cultural tourists
This paper proposes a model to segment the cultural tourism market according to two dimensions: (i) the importance of cultural motives in the decision to visit a destination and (ii) depth of experience. The model is tested empirically using Hong Kong as a case study. The test identified five discrete cultural tourism market segments that exhibited substantially different behaviour. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Trip destinations, gateways and itineraries: The example of Hong Kong
The Privileges and Responsibilities of Being a Referee
Distance Decay and the Impact of Effective Tourism Exclusion Zones on International Travel Flows
This article examines the decaying effect of distance decay in outbound air travel from Hong Kong. Distance decay theory predicts that demand will peak at some distance relatively close to a source market and then decline exponentially as distance increases. The standard distance decay relationship is predicated on the assumption of a uniform distribution of tourism products over space. However, as discussed in the article, supply is not distribu…
Testing a cultural tourism typology
This paper tests further a cultural tourism typology based on the interface between centrality of cultural tourism as a trip motive and the depth of experience. Five types of cultural tourist are identified that represent five benefit‐based segments. The segments are tested against a variety of trip, demographic, motivational, preferred activity, awareness, cultural distance and activity variables. Significant differences are noted between the gr…
The impact of Sars on Hong Kong’s tourism industry
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) first appeared in February 2002 in China’s Guangdong Province before emerging in neighbouring Hong Kong in late February. The epidemic had a negatively profound impact on tourism around the world, with particularly strong impacts on countries in South‐East Asia. This paper will present a brief SARS chronology with critical events or impacts on Hong Kong’s tourism industry.
Exploration Versus Acquisition: A Comparison of First-Time and Repeat Visitors
This article reports on a study of the motives for visiting and intended activities of first-time and repeat pleasure tourists to Hong Kong. The study revealed significant differences in motivation that resulted in the intention to participate in different activities. First-time visitors were motivated to visit Hong Kong to explore, while repeat visitors came to consume. First-time visitors intended to participate in a wide range of geographicall…
Managing heritage resources as tourism products
In theory, treating cultural heritage assets as products for tourism consumption is reasonable and logical. In practice, though, it is much harder to achieve, for tourism and cultural heritage management embrace different management mandates and focuses. The fact that most of the cultural tourism attractions were not originally intended for tourism necessitates sympathetic product development and management strategies. The authors discuss some of…
The challenges of developing transit tourism
This paper examines the challenges of attracting day-trip transit passengers in Asian hub airports. The rapid expansion of Asian hub airports in the past six years should produce opportunities for destinations to benefit from short-stay visits by transit and transfer passengers, using the hub for convenient connections. However, little short-haul transit tourism seems to occur. The authors propose that two reasons may account for this lack of dem…
Traveling with a disability
The Over-Reaction to Sars and the Collapse of Asian Tourism
Attributes of Popular Cultural Attractions in Hong Kong
A case for ranking tourism journals
Relationship between tourism and cultural heritage management: Evidence from Hong Kong
Destinations as Products? A Reflection on Butler's Life cycle
This department has been specifically introduced to include findings of special significance and problem areas of subtle nuances in tourism research. Insightful contributions presenting the state-of-the-art preferably from the developing societies will be appreciated. It will also encourage scholars and authors to think against the grain, probing the consistency of theoretical notions and research trends whose heuristic value is all too often tak…
Understanding Tourist Movement Patterns in a Destination: A GIS Approach
This paper presents preliminary findings of research examining the movement patterns of tourists within a destination. The study focuses on fully independent individual travellers visiting Hong Kong. Little research has been conducted looking at movements within a destination. Macro or inter-destination movement patterns may inform intra-destination movements. Factors affecting tourists' choices of itineraries give reasons to support the shaping …
Tourism (111 works) · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research (104 works) · Business (86 works) · Geography (82 works) · Political science (60 works) · Sociology (59 works) · Marketing (56 works) · Advertising (45 works) · Computer Science (41 works) · Psychology (40 works)