IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i15p4030-d251742.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tourist-to-Tourist Interaction at Festivals: A Grounded Theory Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Huan Sun

    (School of Economics and Commerce, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China)

  • Shaofeng Wu

    (School of Tourism, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410006, China)

  • Yanning Li

    (School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, GU2 7XH Guildford, UK)

  • Guangquan Dai

    (School of Economics and Commerce, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China)

Abstract

Although neglected in previous studies, tourist-to-tourist interaction (TTI) is a core part of festival experience. It is widely acknowledged that interactions between tourists significantly influence behavioral reactions such as desire to stay, satisfaction, and loyalty, which are important for tourism destination marketing. This study used grounded theory to obtain insights into onsite interactions between tourists and to propose a conceptual model of TTI on the Midi Music Festival in China. The model constitutes the types, drivers, and influence of TTI. Compared with mutual assistance and conflict, entertainment interaction plays an essential role in the overall evaluation of the festival experience. Individual characteristics are the internal drivers of interactions between tourists. Environmental elements including the festivalscape and social festivalscape are influential exogenous factors. Additionally, spatial locations of tourists at the venue play mediating roles between the driving elements and TTI. Since entertainment incidents construct the essential part of onsite interactions at festivals, managers can shape the atmosphere to encourage tourists to engage in interactive entertainment with others tourists. This should improve participants’ overall evaluations of the festival experience as well as the sustainable development of destinations where festivals are held.

Suggested Citation

  • Huan Sun & Shaofeng Wu & Yanning Li & Guangquan Dai, 2019. "Tourist-to-Tourist Interaction at Festivals: A Grounded Theory Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-15, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:15:p:4030-:d:251742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4030/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4030/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lin, Hongxia & Zhang, Meng & Gursoy, Dogan & Fu, Xiaorong, 2019. "Impact of tourist-to-tourist interaction on tourism experience: The mediating role of cohesion and intimacy," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 153-167.
    2. Weaver, David B. & Lawton, Laura J., 2013. "Resident perceptions of a contentious tourism event," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 165-175.
    3. Tombs, Alastair G. & McColl-Kennedy, Janet R., 2010. "Social and spatial influence of customers on other customers in the social-servicescape," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 120-131.
    4. McGrath, Mary Ann & Otnes, Cele, 1995. "Unacquainted influencers: When strangers interact in the retail setting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 261-272, March.
    5. Steve Baron & Anthony Patterson & Kim Harris & Julia Hodgson, 2007. "Strangers in the night: speeddating, CCI and service businesses," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 1(3), pages 211-232, September.
    6. Meehyang Chang & Jung-Hoon Kim & Daecheol Kim, 2018. "The Effect of Food Tourism Behavior on Food Festival Visitor’s Revisit Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Papathanassis, Alexis, 2012. "Guest-to-guest interaction on board cruise ships: Exploring social dynamics and the role of situational factors," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1148-1158.
    8. Teodoro Luque Martínez & Luis Doña Toledo & Nina Faraoni, 2019. "Auditing Marketing and the Use of Social Media at Ski Resorts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-24, May.
    9. Ewa Malchrowicz-Mośko & Karolina Chlebosz, 2019. "Sport Spectator Consumption and Sustainable Management of Sport Event Tourism; Fan Motivation in High Performance Sport and Non-Elite Sport. A Case Study of Horseback Riding and Running: A Comparative," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-18, April.
    10. Cedric Hsi-Jui Wu, 2008. "The influence of customer-to-customer interactions and role typology on customer reaction," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(10), pages 1501-1513, December.
    11. Jin Ho Jung & Jay Jaewon Yoo, 2017. "Customer-to-customer interactions on customer citizenship behavior," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 11(1), pages 117-139, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kyung-Yur Lee & Sang-Hyeon Park, 2021. "Does Face Consciousness Affect Tourist Behaviour at Festival Events? A Korean Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-16, October.
    2. Maarit Kinnunen & Harri Homi & Antti Honkanen, 2020. "Social Sustainability in Adolescents’ Music Event Attendance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-17, November.
    3. Jung-Jung Chang & Ruey-Feng Chen & Chia-Li Lin, 2022. "Exploring the Driving Factors of Urban Music Festival Tourism and Service Development Strategies Using the Modified SIA-NRM Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-27, June.
    4. Claudia Daniela Albă & Liliana Sonia Popescu, 2023. "Romanian Holiday Vouchers: A Chance to Travel for Low-Income Employees or an Instrument to Boost the Tourism Industry?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-17, January.
    5. Ye Ye & Rosmini Omar & Binyao Ning & Hiram Ting, 2020. "Exploring the Interactions of Factory Workers in China: A Model Development Using the Grounded Theory Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-21, August.
    6. Waleed Rashad & Zlatko Nedelko, 2020. "Global Sourcing Strategies: A Framework for Lean, Agile, and Leagile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-29, September.
    7. Jing Li & Guangquan Dai & Jinwen Tang & Ying Chen, 2020. "Conceptualizing Festival Attractiveness and Its Impact on Festival Hosting Destination Loyalty: A Mixed Method Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, April.
    8. Xiubai Li & Jinok Susanna Kim & Timothy J. Lee, 2021. "Contribution of Supportive Local Communities to Sustainable Event Tourism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-12, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nguyen Bac Nguyen & João Carlos Rosmaninho Menezes, 2021. "The thirty-year evolution of customer-to-customer interaction research: a systematic literature review and research implications," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 15(3), pages 391-444, September.
    2. Begum Dilara Emiroglu, 2021. "Other Tourists as Part of Tourism Product," Journal of Tourismology, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 171-194, December.
    3. Jin-Woo Park & Young Kyung Ryu, 2019. "Investigating the Effects of Airport Servicescape on Airport Users’ Behavioral Intentions: A Case Study of Incheon International Airport Terminal 2 (T2)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-17, August.
    4. Christèle Camelis & Florence Dano & Kiane Goudarzi & Viviane Hamon & Sylvie Llosa, 2013. "The roles of co-clients and their influence on overall satisfaction during the service experience," Post-Print hal-01822880, HAL.
    5. Nguyen, July & Ferraro, Carla & Sands, Sean, 2020. "Similarity over difference: How congruency in customer characteristics drives service experiences," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 592-603.
    6. Georgi, Dominik & Mink, Moritz, 2013. "eCCIq: The quality of electronic customer-to-customer interaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 11-19.
    7. Aude Ducroquet & Elodie Jouny-Rivier, 2016. "Customer-to-customer Co-creation: The Impacts of Fans' experience in the Context of Large Public Events," Post-Print hal-02534120, HAL.
    8. Hua, Lian-Lian & Prentice, Catherine & Han, Xiaoyun, 2021. "A netnographical approach to typologizing customer engagement and corporate misconduct," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    9. Luck, Michael & Benkenstein, Martin, 2015. "Consumers between supermarket shelves: The influence of inter-personal distance on consumer behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 104-114.
    10. Arne K. Albrecht & Gianfranco Walsh & Simon Brach & Dwayne D. Gremler & Erica Herpen, 2017. "The influence of service employees and other customers on customer unfriendliness: a social norms perspective," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 45(6), pages 827-847, November.
    11. Mao, Luke Lunhua & Huang, Haiyan, 2016. "Social impact of Formula One Chinese Grand Prix: A comparison of local residents’ perceptions based on the intrinsic dimension," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 306-318.
    12. Suess, Courtney & Mody, Makarand, 2016. "Gaming can be sustainable too! Using Social Representation Theory to examine the moderating effects of tourism diversification on residents' tax paying behavior," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 20-39.
    13. Mohammad Rashed Hasan Polas & Ratul Kumar Saha & Mosab I. Tabash, 2022. "How does tourist perception lead to tourist hesitation? Empirical evidence from Bangladesh," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 3659-3686, March.
    14. Abdelmoety, Ziad Hassan & Aboul-Dahab, Sameh & Agag, Gomaa, 2022. "A cross cultural investigation of retailers commitment to CSR and customer citizenship behaviour: The role of ethical standard and value relevance," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Bo Wendy Gao & Chris Zhu & Hongmei Song & Ianthe M. Belisle Dempsey, 2022. "Interpreting the perceptions of authenticity in virtual reality tourism through postmodernist approach," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 31-55, March.
    16. Xieyang Chen & Xingmin Shi, 2021. "Support or against coal mining? Host community perceptions of coal mining: a cluster analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 6819-6837, May.
    17. Komppula, Raija & Ilves, Riikka & Airey, David, 2016. "Social holidays as a tourist experience in Finland," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 521-532.
    18. Patterson, Anthony, 2012. "Social-networkers of the world, unite and take over: A meta-introspective perspective on the Facebook brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 527-534.
    19. Minjeong Kang & Taeshik Gong, 2019. "Dysfunctional customer behavior: conceptualization and empirical validation," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 13(4), pages 625-646, December.
    20. Magdalena Roszczyńska-Kurasińska & Anna Domaradzka & Bartosz Ślosarski & Agata Żbikowska, 2021. "Facebook Data as Part of Cultural Heritage Investments Toolbox: Pilot Analysis of Users Interests and Preferences Concerning Adaptive Reuse," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-15, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:15:p:4030-:d:251742. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.