• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.19-25
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• 2021

Before COVID-19, tourist destinations have experienced problems with congestion of both famous tourist attractions and public transportation. Over-tourism is not an issue at this time, but it is likely to rekindle after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. One method of mitigating over-tourism is to estimate tourist behavior using a tourist transition model and consequently adjust public transportation operations. In this study, we propose a construction method for a model of tourist transitions among tourist attractions based on tourist GPS trajectory data. We construct tourist transition models using actual trajectory data for tourists staying in the vicinity of Kyoto City. The results verify the model performance.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-30
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• 2021

Smart tourism technologies are becoming ever more pervasive and an increasing number of destinations and hospitality establishments are investing in smart tourism initiatives. However, while governments and businesses around the world are aggressively pushing the smart tourism agenda forward, smart tourism research initiatives are still in their infancy and seem to not fully cover the whole spectrum of smart tourism-related issues and questions. This paper conducts a systematic review of existing smart tourism literature to determine the status quo of smart tourism research and to identify research gaps. Considering the steep growth of smart tourism initiatives starting at the beginning of this decade, this paper reviews publications on smart tourism over the last 8 years. All publications for which the keyword "smart tourism" appears in the title, keywords or abstract were included in the sample.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.370-379
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• 2020

This study examined the growth characteristics and competitive advantages of Korea's tourism industry compared to other Northeast Asian countries using the Balassa Indices and Shift-Share method. The analysis results showed that the growth of Korea's tourism industry over the past decade was due mainly to external factors, such as the growth of the global economy and the expansion of the tourism sector, while the role of growth momentum of the tourism industry itself was insignificant. Employment in Korea's tourism industry has shown relatively higher increasing rates compared to the rates of the total amount of sales and value-adding. This appears to be caused by the decreased absorption of the labor force in the tourism industry due to the overall capacity of job creation. (Ed note: This sentence was unclear. Please check the edits.)The competitive advantage of Korea's tourism industry has been strengthened over the past decade, but it is still inferior to other countries. The travel account balance showed that the economic size of the Chinese tourism sector had grown rapidly over the past decade, but the competitive advantage of the sector has been weakened. On the other hand, the economic size of the Japanese tourism sector has shown sluggish growth, while its competitive advantage has been strengthened significantly.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 2023

Tourism and hospitality have encountered significant changes in recent years as a result of the rapid development of information technology (IT). Customers now expect more expedient services and customized travel experiences, which has intensified competition among service providers. To meet these demands, businesses have adopted sophisticated IT applications such as ChatGPT, which enables real-time interaction with consumers and provides recommendations based on their preferences. This paper focuses on the AI support-prompt middleware system, which functions as a mediator between generative AI and human users, and discusses two operational rules associated with it. The first rule is the Information Processing Rule, which requires the middleware system to determine appropriate responses based on the context of the conversation using techniques for natural language processing. The second rule is the Information Presentation Rule, which requires the middleware system to choose an appropriate language style and conversational attitude based on the gravity of the topic or the conversational context. These rules are essential for guaranteeing that the middleware system can fathom user intent and respond appropriately in various conversational contexts. This study contributes to the planning and analysis of service design by deriving design rules for middleware systems to incorporate artificial intelligence into tourism services. By comprehending the operation of AI support-prompt middleware systems, service providers can design more effective and efficient AI-driven tourism services, thereby improving the customer experience and obtaining a market advantage.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.345-362
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• 2010

It is necessary to develop new competitive products under the world economic downturn. The medical tourism industry a good example and it has grown rapidly for last couple of years. This paper aims to investigate socio-demographic proxies of inbound medical tourists in Korea. In particular, the medical tourist behaviors are modeled by considering the factors such as acquisition process of medical tourism information, service level of medical tourism industry and the choice attributes. The results of this study are summarized that: 1) Moot inbound medical tourists are over 40-years old with professional occupation accompanied with families; 2) The information resources are mainly acquired from travel agents and WOM(Word of Mouth) such as friends and relatives; 3) Current problems are lack of various promotion channels and the competitiveness of medical coots; 4) The inbound medical tourists are not homogeneous but vary in different segments. The study suggests that various marketing strategies should be implemented for target market segments to promote Korea as a medical tourism hub.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.54-61
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• 2012

Objectives : This study aimed to obtain general information for the design of a medical tourism plan toward Chinese using Korean medicine (KM). Methods : A questionnaire was asked of Chinese tourists regarding of Korea traditional medical tourism. 148 valid responses were obtained and their awareness of KM, and preferred subject and decision factors for their participation in Korea traditional medical tourism were analyzed using SPSS version 12.0. Results : 72% of respondents showed over a moderate degree of interest in medical tourism of KM. The most preferred subject was skin aesthetics, followed by medical check-ups and rehabilitation. Medical skill level, communication, and medical cost were indicated as the important factors for participants' decisions about KM-based medical tourism. Conclusions : Medical tourism could be a potential avenue for development by the KM-based Korean medical industry. Cosmetic-associated medical services are recommended, and enhanced public relations about KM-medical skill levels are strongly suggested for Chinese tourists.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.247-268
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• 2010

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world, and is a major industry in many developed and developing countries. It is an increasingly important source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. However, its rapid expansion has also had detrimental environmental and socio-cultural impacts over many regions. Like tourism, the rapid growth in cruise tourism has also put greater pressures on environmental and cultural resources in cruise-ship ports of call. Through this paper, we would like to argue that more emphasis should be given to minimize national and international environmental impacts originated from cruise tourism with preparing infrastructures for sustainable tourism.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.165-190
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• 2010

Objectives : This study was supposed to investigate factors which influence to preference of medical tourism products of Japanese tourists in Seoul, Korea. Methods : Data were collected from 228 Japanese tourists who visited' Seoul Center for Culture & Tourism' in Myeong-dong, Seoul, Korea. We measured factors which influence to preference for medical tourism. The data were analyzed by T-test, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. Results : The major findings were as follows ; Japanese tourists preferred medical products in the order of skin care, oriental medicine treatment, health screening, and scaling & teeth whitening. They considered technical level of medical staff most importantly, followed by safety of medical products, communication during diagnosis and treatment, follow-up service, modernization of medical facilities and equipment, and the reasonable medical expenses. Japanese tourists' preferred medical institutions in the order of a university hospital, a specialty clinic, a special hospital, They said they intend to pay 50,000 to 150,000 yen for medical tourism. The preference to medical tourism products are that single women group in their twenties and thirties for skin care, married people group aged over thirties preferred oriental medicine treatment, and married men aged over forties and high income earners favored health screening. Conclusions : It should be considered carefully that the preference exists on some factors especially for Japanese tourist. Further research about preference on medical tourism products for tourists from the other countries is required appropriately to fulfill the needs.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.473-488
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• 2023

Gangwon-do is one of Korea's most popular tourist destinations, with varying tourism demands and trends across its subregions. It is crucial to identify the characteristics of tourism in each area and compare the tourism patterns over time to devise policies that revitalize tourism in each local government and promote balanced development across regions. In this paper, we classify the regions in Gangwon-do based on tourism data from the last four years and analyze the tourism pattern of each region using the non-Euclidean additive model proposed by Jeon et al. (2021). The model incorporates the proportions of visitors by age groups and the proportions of navigation searches by destination types as two covariates, and the proportions of tourism expenditure types as a response variable. We estimate the model using the smooth-backfitting method and coordinate-wise bandwidth selection. The results are visualized in ternary plots, and changes in tourism patterns over time are analyzed by comparing the ratios of prediction errors to fitting errors.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1260-1272
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• 2024

This paper tackles the prevalent challenges faced by existing tourism route recommendation methods, including data sparsity, cold start, and low accuracy. To address these issues, a novel intelligent tourism route recommendation method based on collaborative filtering is introduced. The proposed method incorporates a series of key steps. Firstly, it calculates the interest level of users by analyzing the item attribute rating values. By leveraging this information, the method can effectively capture the preferences and interests of users. Additionally, a user attribute rating matrix is constructed by extracting implicit user behavior preferences, providing a comprehensive understanding of user preferences. Recognizing that user interests can evolve over time, a weight function is introduced to account for the possibility of interest shifting during product use. This weight function enhances the accuracy of recommendations by adapting to the changing preferences of users, improving the overall quality of the suggested tourism routes. The results demonstrate the significant advantages of the approach. Specifically, the proposed method successfully alleviates the problem of data sparsity, enhances neighbor selection, and generates tourism route recommendations that exhibit higher accuracy compared to existing methods.