As sports become more professionalised and international in scope athletes increasingly migrate from one country to another. These individuals are required to adjust and adapt quickly when moving internationally. Literature on sports migration, however, tends to focus on routes and pathways rather than the effects of movement on the athletes themselves. The aim of this study, therefore, was to explore how the frequent workplace circulation inherent in the lives of highly skilled migrants affects their social selves. Using professional golf as a case study, this project includes an analysis of family issues, relationships between players, pay and conditions, and technical approaches to playing golf. Interviews were conducted with 20 male professional golfers and analysed from a figurational standpoint. As golf tournaments are increasingly staged in a myriad of different countries players are required to spend longer periods of time away from home and experience intense feelings of loneliness and isolation. It is argued that golfers are not isolated in terms of people who they have around them while on tour, but rather in terms of lack of contact with people who they have positive meaningful feelings towards, such as their family and friends. To help reduce this loneliness, golfers develop behaviours that foster temporary we-group alliances with other players they perceive to be similar to themselves. People in such groups are friends, characterised by bonds of togetherness, while also enemies showing evidence of conflicts as they are in direct competition for a share of the overall prize money. Indeed the monetary rewards available for top golfers continues to increase, however, such recompense is only available to small numbers and the majority fare poorly. It is argued that the prize money breakdown fosters internalised behaviour constraints whereby many players 'gamble' on pursuing golf as their main source of income despite the odds against them. This habitus is strengthened given the significant financial investments many players have made to fulfil their childhood dreams, which further blurs their ability to see the reality of their lives. The result is many golfers are constrained to develop networks with sponsors for financial reasons which leaves some with conflicting choices between regular income, and adhering to restrictive contractual agreements, or the freedom to choose between different brands. As such, overall the results of this study highlight the importance of considering the cultural and social adaptations required in the life of a transient migrant.

Tourists are now visiting some of the most remote and amazing places on Earth, travelling to �frontiers� on journeys that are psychological and emotional as well as geographical or physical. These extraordinary journeys to the Poles, the peaks of the highest mountains in the world, harsh deserts and even outer space test both physical and mental endurance and can be characterised as �unique� even in the current era. Travelling largely without the aid of a commercial tour operator or guide, the frontier traveller usually invests a great deal of time and resources in their travel experience, often with the assistance of sponsorship, and generally takes part in an extensive and arduous preparation period in their quest for the extraordinary. While the search for new and unique tourism destinations and experiences appears to be relentless in this post-modern era, the frontier traveller appears to be searching for the �authentic� beyond the �tourist bubble,� both in relation to self and setting. These frontier �trailblazers� are already being followed by guided adventure tourists and some of the former are supplementing their incomes and funding their own travel by leading tours or guiding others to the frontier. Studying the extraordinary experiences of the frontier traveller could therefore provide us with a glimpse of the future of travel, although likely to occur in a more structured and less risky guise. Uncovering the motivations for this form of travel will also assist with future marketing of these experiences, including elements of the marketing mix such as product development and promotion. This thesis examines the motivations behind frontier travel and considers the implications of the findings for tourism marketing. Unstructured, long interviews with 37 individuals were used to uncover the motivations behind these experiences, supplemented by content analysis of narratives produced by frontier travellers, encompassing 50 autobiographies, two online diaries and online interviews with two individuals. The interview participants were largely selected through purposive sampling, in that they were screened as fitting the criteria of a past or potential frontier traveller before being interviewed. They were predominantly born and living in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and 29 of the 37 individuals were male. Ages of participants ranged from 24 to 60 years of age. Interviews continued until saturation of categories of motivation had been reached. Texts were mainly located through searches of bookshops and libraries, including the author�s personal library. A qualitative methodological approach was chosen in order to provide rich data and allow the researcher to enter the world of the frontier traveller. An interpretive paradigm based on a constructivist paradigm underpinned this study, with an ontological stance based on multiple realities and an epistemological position where participants and myself as the researcher created understandings. The methodology outlined above was consistent with this position and was designed to identify different constructions of the data and seek consensus, where possible. The literature on motivations provides a complex plethora of theories and models, many of which contradict each other, so a principal objective of this study was to work from first principles, grounding a theory of motivations pertaining to frontier travel experiences in the data, rather than seeking to test out a pre-existing model or theory. Overall, the research findings show that motivations for frontier travel can be analysed under the broad heading of �adventure,� which is composed of a variety of sub-motives such as achievement and competence, challenge, thrill-seeking and sensation, ego, dreams or fantasies, self-actualisation, cognizance (exploration/discovery), freedom/escape motives (autonomy), isolation and solitude, spirituality, camaraderie and communitas, authenticity, prestige (external rewards), pro-social motives and a love of nature and wilderness. Risk or danger is an element of these experiences and feeds into many of the motivations identified in this study. A theory of motivations behind frontier travel experiences has been developed, covering intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, as well as achievement-motivated behaviour. Pre-travel influences and inspirations such as literature, cinema, visual stimuli, childhood games, heroes and mentors, family influences and educative influences are also considered with respect to their effect on motivational behaviour. An exploratory typology was then developed for frontier travellers, based on common motivations, which might be used to segment the market. Four basic types have been identified and labelled or categorised as �Seekers of Truth,� �Enlightened Explorers,� �Concerned Elitists,� and �Freedom Seekers.� Key motivations behind specific frontier travel experiences have also been identified. Each frontier traveller will exhibit some, but not all, of the motivations highlighted in this study. Segmenting the market on the basis of motivations may therefore be a difficult, if not impossible task. However, marketers could use the information unearthed during this study in the marketing mix to develop new products aimed at satisfying some of the key motivations and use the findings as themes to be highlighted in promotional literature such as brochures and websites. This thesis also argues that the study of travel motivations in the future would be better served by considering motivations behind market niches such as frontier travel, rather than attempting to develop a comprehensive theory of motivations covering the whole travel industry.

How to Promote Youth Travel Taiwan in Europe ? Youth are the future. The brand which focused on the high spending consumers of today is going to run out in the future. After some investigation I discovered that the Taiwanese government actively promotes Youth travel in Taiwan via the Taiwan Tourism Bureau and the Taiwan Youth Commission. These organizations focus primarily on promoting Taiwan to geographically close, and culturally similar nations such as Singapore and Japan. I believe that Taiwan represents one of Asia's best kept secrets for European youth travelers. The European Union has been experiencing consistent economic growth, and represents the largest proportion of travel dollars spent relative to other countries for overseas travel. The European youth travel market is estimated to be 25% of the total travel market. Thus Taiwan remains largely unexplored for European youth travelers and awaits the appropriate marketing approach and message. Young Adults are the most responsive to mobile marketing and use more email over SMS but email use is still very much a need‐to‐have as opposed to a wantto‐ have. Young Adults are a key Iphone owning demographic although not the largest. Their social need for significance being higher than younger consumers drives them to purchase and use technologies that offer display benefits e.g. Latest handsets or camera phone and mobile games to show off handset. At this level mobile is competing with auto brands, credit cards and designer brands.

This thesis is a collection of essays about Paxton, a small town in western Nebraska, and an exploration of the contradictions and complexities found there. It is also a reflection on the layers of history and connections that exist not only among families that have lived in these towns for generations, but in the whole town and the surrounding landscape. These layers become intricately intertwined, blurring the distinctions among landscape, people, and their experiences. In making these explorations, I also compare my experience in western Nebraska to that of other authors who have written on the Great Plains, such as Kathleen Norris and Gretel Ehrlich. Chapter I introduces the town and the historical significance it has to my family. Chapter II delves into the complications and connections I eventually discovered while living in Paxton, and Chapter III explores the difficulties of living in a small town. The collection focuses on accepting, even celebrating, the contraries that make up life in Paxton, Nebraska. / Graduation date: 1996

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Purdue University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 186-196). Also available online.

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Numerous scholars pointed out that destination images are an important and successful factor for destination marketing. Travel destination with strong and positive images are a key factor that was usually chosen by tourists. Personal subject consciousness and customer¡¦ s behaviors will be influenced by destination images. Therefore, destination images are the most important role in the process of tourism decisions. This study is attempted to investigate what factors are influenced by the formation of destination images. And to know what Kaohsiung City¡¦s destination images are from the perspectives of foreign tourists. This research provided structure questionnaire to foreign tourists whose native languages are Chinese, Japanese, English and taking the Kaohsiung International Airport as an investigating place. According to SPSS analysis, the findings are as follows: (1) Kaohsiung City¡¦s destination overall images were considered as good in the perspective of foreign tourists. The hospitality and friendliness the local residents are truly agreed by foreign tourists. On the contrary, the traffic and amusement at night in Kaohsiung City are highly disagreed by foreign tourists. (2) Images would be influenced by cultural resources, quality of services and natural environment which were considered by foreign tourists. (3) The formation of destination image would be influenced by travel motivations. (4) The formation of destination images would be influenced by the number of times of the sightseeing, companion¡¦s relation, age and nationality. (5) The formation of destination images would be influenced by information sources, which included previous visiting experiences by oneself, introductions of relatives and friends, the TV programs, travel guides and films. According to these findings, this study suggests that native government should reinforce communications development. And to promote Kaohsiung City¡¦s uniqueness and advantage by using TV, travel guides and films, such as cultural resources, amusements at night etc. In the aspect of tourism market, they should strengthen marketing in Hong Kong.

The role of land-use and related policies in reducing automobile dependence has been the subject of heated policy debate for over two decades. Previous research has shed light on the correlations between land-use and travel. Yet a crucial knowledge gap still exists in establishing causality between the two. Do changes in land-use characteristics cause behavioral changes in individuals’ decisions on what transportation means to use for travel? How does land-use as a contextual factor shape the decision process and outcome of trip frequency and travel mode choice? These questions remain largely unanswered. Attempting to fill the gap, this study applied the directed acyclic graphs method to identify the causal relationship between land-use and travel in the 9-county Dallas- Fort Worth (D-FW) metropolitan area. The logit captivity (LC) model, an extension to the conventional multinomial logit, was utilized to capture the contribution of land-use in affecting individuals’ decisions on travel mode choice. All the data for this study were obtained from the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG). Evidence from the D-FW region confirms to a certain extent the causal effects of land-use on travel. For work trips, increases in regional accessibility, job density and share of commercial land-use reduce the use of automobiles. Higher regional accessibility, however, causes households to generate automobile trips and thus leads to the increase in vehicle miles of travel (VMT). For non-work trips, population density, job density and regional accessibility are direct causes of the choice of automobile, while only regional accessibility is causally connected to reducing automobile trips and VMT. The logit captivity model results indicate that land-use contributes to captive-driving choices for home-based work trips. Lack of land-use mix at trip origins increases the probabilities of trip-makers being captive to the automobile from 0.06% to 5.62% for driving-alone and from 0.38% to 3.55% for shared-ride.

Tour operators and travel agents are threatened with disintermediation in the travel and tourism industry, especially as a consequence of altered customer demand and new information and communication technologies which foster direct bookings. In this thesis, however, it is argued that major European tour operators are reinventing their business activities to adapt to these changes and to secure their strategic position in the package holiday business. These tour operators are in particular developing and implementing new information and communication technology strategies to support both their production and distribution of holiday packages and, moreover, to enable them to automatically assemble and market individually tailored holidays. Data to support this argument was gained from an extensive empirical survey in Britain and Germany. A total of 44 tour operators were interviewed in Britain and Germany, which controlled over 65% of their respective national market shares. The interviewed tour operators also included ten of the top twelve European tour operator groups. Leading tour operator associations and charter airlines were interviewed in addition. This research provides a detailed insight into the tour operator sector, particularly in Britain and Germany, thus contributing to research in the travel and tourism industry. Moreover, a theoretical framework is developed and proposed, largely based on industrial organisation and new institutional economics literature. The application of this framework in this thesis for the study of the package holiday business contributes to travel and tourism research, and provides a useful methodology for the study of a sector or industry.

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