DRA Model and Visual Online Learning
Material in Tourism
Hugues Séraphin*, Michele Ambaye**, Alexandru Capatina***, Frédéric Dosquet****
Abstract Destination competitiveness is a growing interest area in tourism and plays a role in a destination’s image and therefore
its performance. Visual Online Learning Materials (VOLM) can contribute to the competitiveness of emerging tourist destinations as long
as they can convey emotion, feelings and information. VOLM can also contribute to skills development and display evidence of credibility/
trustworthiness. This paper outlines how marketers tasks to include the most pertinent and attractive information in their VOLM are facilitated
by Dale Robinson Anderson (DRA) model, by stimulating potential tourists to feel concerned about their things-to-do in Post-Colonial, Post-
Confict and Post-Disaster destinations (PCCD destinations).
To this end, this paper therefore presents the results of applying the DRA model to an online platform with the objective of educating consumers
at a pre-visit stage, and potentially increasing visitors to emerging market destinations. The highly interactive experiences related to learning
about a PCCD destination in a pre-visit stage can be easily shared within an edu-game community to meet the needs of tourists to set realistic
expectations about the places they intend to visit.
Keywords: Tourism, Emerging Markets, PCCD Destination, DRA Model, Haiti, Visual Online Learning Materials
IntroductIon
Emerging markets are those lower-income, but rapid-growth,
countries which use economic liberalisation as their primary
engine of growth (Hoskinsson, Eden, Lau & Wright, 2000).
The low socio-economic development of these countries
is often due to political instability, intense confict over a
short period, lack of national identity amongst its people,
economic crises, natural disasters and the outbreak of
diseases (Gould, 2011; Ritchie, Dorrell, Miller & Miller,
2004). Emerging countries are mostly post-colonial, post-
confict, or post-disaster (PCCD) destinations (Bayeh,
2015; Gould, 2011). These mainly fall into two groups:
frstly, developing countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa,
the Middle East; and secondly, transition economies in the
former Soviet Union and China (Hoskinsson et al, 2000).
Séraphin, Ambaye, Gowreesunkar & Bonnardel (2016b)
explain that tourism is quite often central to the strategy for
the economic development of these countries.
Indeed, one of the fastest growing trends of international
travel is travel to lesser developed countries and emerging
destinations (Holden, 2013). However, these destinations
struggle to establish themselves as tourist destinations as
the tourism sector is especially vulnerable to exogenous
factors such as political instability, economic crises, natural
disasters and the outbreak of diseases (Ritchie et al., 2004).
Factors such as these can cause destinations to decline and
sometimes even totally disappear from the tourism map
(Seddighi, Nuttall & Theocharus, 2001). In this respect
tourism can be considered to be a diffcult industry (Korstanje
& Tarlow, 2012).
*
Department of Applied Management, The University of Winchester, West Downs campus, Romsey Road, Winchester,
England. Email: hugues.seraphin@winchester.ac.uk
**
ESC Pau Department of Marketing, 3 Rue Saint-John Perse, France. Email: michele.ambaye@esc-pau.fr
***
Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Galați, Romania. Email: alexandru.capatana@uqual.ro
****
ESC Pau Department of Marketing, 3 Rue Saint-John Perse, France. Email: Frederic.dosquet@esc-pau.fr
International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Systems
Volume 11 Issue 1 June 2018
ISSN: 0947-6250 (Print)
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