RBI Assistant 2022 · Question 26 of 118

How do tourist destinations make tourists emotionally attached to the places they visit? Read the given passage carefully and answer the following questions. Certain parts have been highlighted to help answer the questions. The tourism industry has long been hailed as the ‘fun’ industry. Tourism is practiced for its hedonic benefits. Tourists choose to spend discretionary disposable income on holidays and travel essentially for the anticipated pleasure they will obtain. In that sense, the value proposition for tourism is significantly based on the emotions. The theorization of emotion has received much attention in the contemporary tourism literature and among destination marketers. Emotions, episodes of intense feelings associated with a specific situation or event, play a key role in understanding tourist behaviour. Studies have focused for example on positive emotional experiences associated with festivals, holidays, heritage sites and adventure tourism, among others, and the links between emotional responses and behavioural outcomes, such as satisfaction and customer loyalty. At a practical level, tourist destinations around the world emphasize the positive emotional connections they seek to make between visitors and places. For example, Slovenia uses the slogan “I feel slovenia” to convey a sense of warmth, and a deep connection among potential tourists to the country. Other countries highlight the ‘surprising’ component of the tourist experience in their branding strategies. Notable successful country campaigns include “Amazing Thailand” and “Incredible !ndia”, which have been built on associating a sense of positive surprise and delight with tourism visits. Other slogans highlighting positive emotional experiences include “It's more fun in Philippines", "Beautiful Bangladesh" and "Brunei: Abode of peace". These examples further emphasize the importance attached to positive emotional responses associated with tourist experiences. However, whilst much of what drives tourist behaviour is a search for pleasure, it is a much more complex picture requiring the need for more detailed and theoretically driven research. In this respect, the literature on tourist's emotion has been significantly enriched in recent years. Tourist emotion research has drawn heavily on and applied concepts and measures from the psychology literature. For example, a growing body of studies apply cognitive appraisal theories to understand the antecedents and consequences of emotions to tourist decisions. In terms of measurement, and despite criticisms, many studies have adapted self-report measures of emotions from psychology and these remain popular in tourism. Emotions influence various stages of the tourist experience. At the pre-travel stage, emotions play a fundamental role in activating tourist motivations and inputs in destination choice processes. During the trip, emotions can vary in intensity on a day-to- day basis. In addition, tourists' emotional reactions are fundamental in shaping post-travel evaluations such as satisfaction, destination attachment, perceived overall image and behavioural intentions.

Reading Comprehension

1. AThey use taglines to emanate the feeling of amiability and attachment among the tourists
2. BMany countries accentuate using astounding elements of the tourist experience in their marketing
3. CMany countries focus on hiring international influencers as their ambassador to promote tourism
4. DAll of these
5. EOnly (a) and (b)Correct