Chapter 1- Nature and scope of tourist destinations in emerging economies
Emerging economies which are also known as emerging markets are low or middle-income economies with high economic growth potential. However, they are usually less stable and imperfect with regards to the efficiency and impartiality of their markets due to lapses in their institutional frameworks which are commonly known as institutional voids (Meyer & Peng, 2016). They are countries that are transitioning from the developing phase to the developed phase. There are a number of countries that fall into this category. However, in the context of this book they include the newly industrialized economies in East Asia such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore (Asian NIEs), Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICS), Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey (MINT), Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa (CIVETS), Countries of Central and Eastern Europe including the former Soviet Union, China and Mongolia (Transition economies), and the new emerging economies of Africa namely, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Emerging economies differ significantly from developed countries in terms of their cost and factor conditions, their stages of economic, social and political development, as well as in their business systems (Enderwick, 2007). In spite of this, these economies have lots of potentials and have become increasingly important in the global economy in recent years. Emerging market economies accounted for close to 70 percent of global output growth and just over 70 percent of global consumption growth during 2010-15 (IMF, 2014). These prospects also translate to the marketing of tourist destinations in emerging markets. Tourism growth over recent years has largely been driven by emerging economies (Kester & Croce, 2011). Emerging tourist destinations are becoming particularly attractive to tourists from the key generating markets in North America and Europe because they are offering cultural, ecological and other alternative tourism products to break the monotony of traditional SSS tourism in developed countries. In spite of this, emerging economies are far from achieving their full potentials as they are confronted with a number of challenges which hinder effective destination marketing. These include informality and less developed government and regulatory infrastructure (Marquis & Qian, 2014; Marquis, Zhang, & Zhou, 2011), susceptibility to external conflicts, coups, and internal tensions (Hiatt & Sine, 2014), less transparency, state intervention and high volatility of key economic, political and institutional variables (Xu and Meyer, 2013) as well as a youthful population, expanding workforce and rapid urbanization (Marquis & Raynard, 2015). This is against the backdrop that tourist destinations are becoming increasingly competitive, especially for emerging destinations which have to compete with the well-established tourist destinations. This requires DMOs in emerging economies to develop and execute a well-thought-out marketing strategies.
This introductory chapter will tackle the foundational issues of emerging economies, emerging tourist destinations and destination marketing. Issues such as definition of concepts of destination marketing, tourist destination, and emerging economies, geographical scope of emerging economies, as well as features of emerging tourist destinations, destination marketing challenges of emerging tourist destinations, destination mix and destination marketing organizations in emerging economies. The chapter will set the tone for the rest of the chapters examining the implications of the issues discussed for destination marketing in emerging economies.
Chapter 2- The travel decision-making process and motivations for travel to e
About the Author:
Ishmael Mensah is a Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Management and Ghana Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Cape Coast. He is also an external expert at Hunan City University.
Kandappan Balasubramanian is an Associate Professor with the School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events, Taylor's University, Malaysia and an Apple Distinguished Educator.
Mohd Raziff Jamaluddin, is a senior member of the Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management in the biggest university in Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi MARA.
Gina Alcoriza is an Assistant Professor and currently the program chairperson for the Tourism Management programme at the University of Santo Tomas-Legazpi, Legazpi City, Philippines.
Vanessa Gaffar is an Associate Professor of marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Business Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. She is currently a Vice Dean for Academic Affairs.
S. Mostafa Rasoolimanesh is an Associate Professor at the School of Hospitality, Tourism & Events, at Taylor's University. Mostafa is an editorial board member of more than 10 reputed tourism and hospitality journals.
