No abstract

Objective: To gain an insight into parental perceptions of infant feeding practices in five European countries. Design: An exploratory investigation using focus group discussions. Various aspects addressed included social and cultural setting for the consumption of food, infant feeding practice and behaviour, consumer health awareness and sources of information, and attitudes towards a healthy infant diet. Setting: Focus group participants were recruited from centres in five countries, Germany, Italy, Scotland, Spain and Sweden, with three focus groups being conducted in each centre. Subjects: A total of 108 parents with infants up to the age of 12 months participated in focus group discussions across these centres. Methods: Focus groups were conducted with participants from centres in five countries. Results: The majority of parents in this study chose to initiate breastfeeding and prepare infant food at home. Parents did not strictly adhere to infant feeding guidelines when introducing complementary foods into their infant's diets. There were crosscultural differences in sources of information on infant feeding practice with the paediatrician in Germany, Italy and Spain. The health visitor in Scotland and the child welfare clinics in Sweden were the most popular sources. Conclusions: A number of cultural differences and similarities in attitudes towards infant feeding practice were revealed. This makes European wide approaches to promoting healthy infant feeding difficult as different infant feeding practices are influenced not only by parental perceptions but also by advice from health professionals and feeding guidelines. Further data need to be available on parents' attitudes and beliefs towards infant feeding practice to investigate further the rationale for differing beliefs and attitudes towards infant feeding practice.

The present study aims to outline the growing importance of culture in the field of tourism. More specifically, it highlights culture as a moderating variable in pre-visit tourist destination image formation, through the information sources utilized by the tourist in the selection of a holiday destination (that is, travel agencies alone vs. travel agencies together with the Internet). For this purpose primary research used a multicultural sample of 371 tourists from different European countries. The results show that the formation of a destination's pre-visit image amongst tourists, based on the information sources they use, is moderated by the level of uncertainty-avoidance of their national cultures.

Purpose -The aim of the present study is to provide an insight into the effect that the satisfaction with the information obtained through the Internet may have on the satisfaction with the selected destination. In particular, assuming that the Internet functions as an effective source of information for the tourist, one would expect the above relationship to be positive and significant. Design/methodology/approach -In order to test the proposed hypotheses, a structured questionnaire was administered to tourists of different nationalities. The total number of valid cases was 279. The field work was done between June 2004 and June 2005. Findings -The results seem to show that the greater the tourist's satisfaction with the Internet, the fuller is his or her enjoyment of the holiday. This relationship, however, is moderated by two variables -the tourist's previous experience of the destination and the tourist's experience of the Internet. These conclusions may well prove crucial for the future use of the Internet in the promotion of tourism destinations. Practical implications -The results of the study lend support to the importance of the Internet as an information source in the promotion of tourism destinations, which contributes in particular to attracting new visitors. However, its development will depend heavily on improvements in the ease of use of the information highway and will progress with the passage of time and the concomitant increase in the Internet experience of its users. Originality/value -The study focuses on empirically testing the advantages that, from a merely conceptual perspective, are becoming evident in the use of the Internet in the tourist sector. IntroductionThe development of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) in the 1990s as a means for the global sharing of information has opened up a whole range of new possibilities in marketing practice. The Internet serves as a new communication and distribution channel for e-travellers and suppliers of travel services and products (Law et al., 2004). The significance of the Internet as a commercial channel in the context of tourist information search and provision has been well recognized in previous studies (Bonn et al., 1999;Marcussen, 1997). These studies suggest that it is virtually impossible for tourism organizations to overlook the Internet in their marketing mixes due to its advantages, which include global accessibility, convenience in updating, real-time information service, interactive communications features and unique customization capabilities. The World Tourism Organization declared that the key to Internet success lies in the swift identification of customer needs and the

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to aim to identify the antecedents of both actual acceptance and future use of the internet as a tourism information source. In the tourism sector, the internet is a medium of growing importance. Nonetheless, very few studies have researched the antecedents of internet acceptance and use by tourists.Design/methodology/approachThis purpose was pursued by extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and applying it to a broad sample of international tourists.FindingsThe main findings concern the antecedent role of actual use with regard to future use, as well as the roles of usefulness and ease of use as drivers of the acceptance of the internet as an information source by the tourist.Research limitationsThe study analysed the acceptance of the internet as an information source but not its use as a medium for purchasing tourism products or services.Practical implicationsWhile most research results suggest that businesses and institutions should direct their attention to the usefulness rather than to the ease of use of the internet, the results of this study imply that within the tourism sector ease of use plays an equally vital role in internet acceptance. Furthermore, the results show that the creation of an internet‐use habit in the tourist builds a barrier to change of information source.Originality/valueAmidst the rather few existing studies focused on tourist internet use, there is a body of research (including the present work) that identifies significant differences between tourism and other contexts (e.g. work, e‐commerce) regarding the importance of the antecedents of internet use. Moreover, there is, to our knowledge, no research to date testing the inclusion of behavioural habit to explain technology use.

Purpose -The aim of this study is to analyze differences in the overall perceived value of a service purchased online, and the consequences for international consumer behavior, taking consumers' uncertainty avoidance as a moderating variable. Design/methodology/approach -A questionnaire was administered to 300 international consumers (150 British and 150 Spanish) who had purchased a service via the internet. SEM was chosen to analyze the effect of uncertainty avoidance on the formation of overall perceived value. Findings -The results reveal that in the formation of overall perceived value -which embraces both the online purchase and also enjoyment of the service -uncertainty avoidance has a moderating effect. Research limitations/implications -In this study just two cultures were to analyze the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance on an overall perceived value model. Practical implications -The paper helps in understanding the role played by uncertainty avoidance in interactions with web-based businesses. Originality/value -This paper represents an advance in the study of overall perceived value. It explores how overall perceived value is formed when the entire purchasing process is taken into account, and the variations that occur in this process depending on whether it relates to Spanish or British consumers.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of culture on the relationship between each of the dimensions of e‐service quality and satisfaction with a web site involving purchase of a tourism service.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire was administered to 300 international tourists (150 British and 150 Spanish) who had purchased a tourism product via the internet. The study employs a structural equation model to analyse the effect of cultural dimensions on the relationship between e‐service quality and online tourist satisfaction. The original data were standardised in order to allow comparison.FindingsThe results show that the influence of the dimensions of service quality on the tourists' satisfaction with their online purchases is moderated by cultural dimensions, namely uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism.Research limitations/implicationsIn this study only two cultures are used to analyse the moderating effect of cultural dimensions on the relationship between quality and satisfaction and only two cultural dimensions are analysed.Practical implicationsThe key practical implications of the work lie in illuminating the variations in tourist satisfaction when making an online purchase, and understanding the role played by cultural dimensions in interactions with web‐based businesses.Originality/valueThis paper makes progress in the study of the dimensions of the e‐service quality. Furthermore it is a cross‐cultural study which pays attention to the moderating effect of the cultural dimensions on the relationship of each dimension of e‐service quality with satisfaction with the web site.

Achieving destination appeal and a competitive edge is a priority aim of tourist destination managers. The objective of this study is to help explain the formation of brand equity as a competitive strategy for a tourist destination. A model is proposed, in which complementary variables—internal to the consumer—are taken as antecedents of brand equity, namely, motivation to visit a destination and self-congruity. In achieving this aim, the work responds to key gaps in the literature: the measurement of the effectiveness of destination brand equity as a competitive strategy, the need for greater knowledge regarding the antecedents of destination brand equity, the broadening of the application of the theory of self-congruity in tourism, and the importance of tourist motivation in the consumer’s evaluation of a destination’s brand. The work finds that both determinants exert an effect on brand equity, albeit in distinct ways: motivation is essential in attracting clients to the destination, while self-congruity is vital for retaining them. The study presents a number of implications of interest to the professional sector.