PurposeExamining the influence of ethnic food tourists' perception of hygiene on their attitudinal loyalty formation is the purpose of this study. Specifically, How to demonstrate touristsʼ perception of ethnic food hygiene is the key question, and moreover, the study also investigates whether and how the stages of attitudinal loyalty in this study, which are perceived authenticity, positive emotion, and perceived value, are illustrated in this mechanism and are affected by tourist perceptions of hygiene?Design/methodology/approachBy engaging in the critical debate around the topic of hygiene perception, this study explores the influence of this factor on tourist's attitudinal loyalty, including the cognitive, affective and conative aspects, to ethnic food through the adoption of perceived authenticity, positive emotion and perceived value. A survey was conducted at the Xijiang Miao Village, a very popular ethnic tourism destination in China.FindingsThis study reveals that ethnic food tourists' perceptions of hygiene have five dimensions. One of these plays a direct predictor role in developing effective conative loyalty (perceived value). Tourists' perceptions of authenticity and positive emotion representing cognitive and affective loyalty are confirmed in their direct effect on conative loyalty as well. The five dimensions of perceptions of hygiene identified have varying degrees of influence on the three stages of attitudinal loyalty.Originality/valueThe unique contribution of this study lies in two points: (1) it has discovered the way that tourists' perceptions of the hygienic preparation of ethnic food in the ethnic destination is constructed, and (2) it investigated the relationship between tourists' perceptions of hygiene and the three stages of attitudinal loyalty.

It is well known that Zipf’s rank-size law is powerful to investigate the rank-size distribution of tourist flow. Recently, widespread attention has been drawn to investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism for its sustainability. However, little is known about the impacts of COVID-19 on the rank-size distribution of regional tourism central places. Taking Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as a research case, this article aims to examine the fractal characteristics of the rank-size distribution of regional tourism central places, revealing the impacts which COVID-19 has on the rank-size distribution of regional tourism central places. Based on the census data over the years from 2008 to 2021, this paper reveals that before COVID-19, the rank-size distribution of the tourism central places in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area appears monofractal, and the difference in the size of the tourism central places has a tendency to gradually decrease; in 2020, with the outbreak of COVID-19, the characteristic of the rank-size distribution shows that the original monofractal is broken into multifractal; in 2021, with COVID-19 becoming under control, the structure of tourism size distribution, changes into bifractal based on the original multifractal, showing that the rank-size distribution of tourism central places in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area becomes more ideal and the tourism order becomes better than the last year. The results obtained not only fill in the gap about the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism size distribution, but also contribute to the application of fractal theory to tourism size distribution. In addition, we propose some suggestions to the local governments and tourism authorities which have practical significance to tourism planning.

This paper aims to discuss the relationships among Macau gambling tourists' novelty, hedonics, perceived value and revisit willingness. It will present the scales of novelty, hedonics, perceived value and revisit willingness, based on the existing relevant literature. In this paper the author utilizes SPSS 20.0 to analyze the collected data and verifies the proposed hypotheses. The expected conclusions are as follows: on the one hand, Macau gambling tourists' novelty positively and significantly affects their hedonics and perceived value; on the other hand, Macau gambling tourists' hedonics positively and significantly affects their perceived value, and Macau gambling tourists' perceived value also positively and significantly affects their revisit willingness.