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This study explored tourists' attitude towards the environmental practices of hotels and tourist organizations in South Korea. Specifically this study investigated their knowledge of green hotels' environmental programs and how this knowledge influences their decision to purchase green accommodations. This study also investigated the impact of nationality on the attitude of international tourists towards environmentally friendly practices of the hotel and tourism industry in South Korea. In order to capture public perceptions, this study used focus group interviews that can provide deeper meaning in an interactive manner. The interview session for this study included six interviews of small groups of five people in each. Three major groups of international visitors to Korea from CIS countries (such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan), the United States of America and China were included in this study. Results show that environmental awareness of the tourists is a predictor for changing their attitude and consequently their purchasing behavior. Respondents who showed a high level of awareness expressed their willingness and readiness to participate in the green practices of the hotel and tourism industries. With regard to the impact of nationality on tourists' attitude, the results from this study do not support the findings from earlier studies. No differences were discovered in the environmental attitude of international tourists to South Korea. These findings say that it is important for hotels and tourism organizations to provide information about their environmental policies and practices in order to raise tourists' awareness of environmental issues.

This is a timely study that simultaneously considers the issues of source credibility of social media contents and generational differences. The study aims to explore the influence of ‘generation’ on perceived source credibility, and its effect on the relation between source credibility, hotel brand image, and purchase intention in cases where the content providers are general users (UGCs) and hotel marketers (MGCs), respectively. Using an independent samples t-test (278 people sampled), the differences in source credibility between generations were tested and multi-group analysis was conducted to verify the moderating effect of generation. Significant differences appeared in trustworthiness between the generations. Millennials are sharper in observation than the generations born earlier in recognizing the source credibility of social media contents. The moderating effect of generation is noticeable only in the impact of the UGCs’ expertise on hotel brand image, indicating Millennials are affected by the expertise of UGCs more strongly than the earlier generations are. The findings offer insight into better strategizing of social media communication for hotel marketers, utilizing social media and targeting Millennials. A further contribution of the study is that it reveals the relations between variables and effects according to different content providers (UGCs and MGCs).

The Markov chain model provides researchers and policy makers with a means to predict travellers' choices of destination. This study predicts international tourist flows among three Asian countries and the USA, and provides a path for gauging the switching patterns of tourists from one country to another. Destination loyalty (hard core component) and the future market share for 2009 and 2010 were estimated. The findings provide necessary information to many interest groups, including government policy makers, travel companies, airline companies and researchers.