An assessment of value dimensions in hiking tourism: Pathways toward quality of life

Abstract

Enhancing quality of life is one of the primary motives for people to participate in tourism activities. Particularly, hiking tourism has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its benefits on tourists' physical and mental health. Focusing on the context of hiking tourism, this study examined the role of tourists' perceived value on their quality of life through the engagement and connections with nature. Data were collected from hikers in the Astraka Refuge between two mountains, Astraka and Lapatos, in Greece. The results indicated that tourists' perceived value influences their engagement in hiking tourism and connections with nature, which further lead to their quality of life. This study enriches the literature of quality of life by the investigation of the term in the hiking tourism context. The results also provide suggestions for destination marketers to promote hiking tourism.

Testing the need for novelty as a candidate need in basic psychological needs theory

“…Novelty has been identified as a primary element in hiking, adventure and nature-based tourism (Lee, Manthiou, Chiang, & Tang, 2018), and, therefore, it could mediate the effect of nature on vitality.…”

Hiking Tourism in Malaysia: Origins, Benefits and Post Covid-19 Transformations

“…In the literatures, significant of studies were taken from the perspective of western on the trend of hiking activities (Holt, Lombard, Best, Smiley & Quinn, 2019;Lee et al, 2017;Mackenzie & Hodge, 2019;Pomfret & Bramwell, 2014;UNWTO, 2014) and very few from eastern (Saha, Babai & Saha, 2018;Yuniawati, Ridwanudin & Pancawati, 2019). Nevertheless, from the perspective in Asia country, China has investigated several studies on the trend of their citizens practicing such activities (Cheng, 2018;Zong, Sun, Dai, & Rao, 2020).…”

“…In the past decade, customer engagement is gaining attention in the vast marketing literatures (Abraham, Sommerhalder & Abel, 2010;Brodie, Hollebeek, Jurić & Ilić, 2011;Hanna, Wijesinghe, Paliatsos, Walker, Adams & Kimbu, 2019;Lee et al, 2017;Lei, Ye, Wang & Law, 2020). The popularity gains through the positive association on organizational performance like increasing sales and profits and superior competitive advantage, as well as customer retention, loyalty, and purchase decisions.…”

“…Focusing on the wellness features and efforts, ecotourism embraces a range of concepts such as tourism in nature, adventure tourism, sustainable tourism, green tourism, rural tourism, wilderness tourism, responsible tourism (Ionel, 2019) and wellness (Brymer & Lacaze, 2013;Shanahan, Astell, Barber, Brymer, Cox, Dean & Jones, 2019). Among those diverse dimensions, hiking is one tourist activity that is advocated as a connection concept, combining nature-based tourism, ecotourism and adventure tourism with the primary outcome of health and wellness (Abdurahman et al, 2016;Hassan, Hanim & Azmi, 2019;Hunt & Harbor, 2019;Lee, Manthiou, Chiang & Tang, 2017;Rhama, 2020). Notably, increasing deliberation on using natural environments for physical activity and recreation in promoting health and well-being has increased the interest of the tourists.…”

“…Notably, increasing deliberation on using natural environments for physical activity and recreation in promoting health and well-being has increased the interest of the tourists. Therefore, hiking, as physical activity in natural landscapes that give benefit to human health and wellness, has sparked the attention of industry practitioners and researchers (Lee et al, 2017).…”