Ian Baxter

Heriot-Watt University · School of Social Sciences

Sites imbued with an intense sense of history and cultural heritage enable tourists to engage in transformative activities. A temporary mode of being occurs when tourists are immersed in their surroundings; sites become spaces enabling and facilitating transformative engagement. In theorising this impact, this theory testing case study is founded o...

Using data collected from 538 Iranian tourists undertaking the religious pilgrimage of Umrah (i.e. voluntary travel to the holy city of Mecca at any time throughout the year), this study investigates the concept of play and its relationship with self-expression and hedonism in an Islamic tourism context. By testing a theoretically derived structura...

This paper examines the influence of negotiation intention, recreational shopper identity, and social shopping orientation on both servicescape and visitors’ overall shopping value in the Istanbul Grand Bazaar, Turkey. We developed and tested a conceptual model using a sample of 300 international visitors to the Bazaar. The results demonstrate that...

Services reliant on revenue generated from tourism are often beholden to how authentic visitors perceive their offering to be. From a managerial perspective, this is exacerbated when they serve a dual-purpose, as both actively ingrained in local culture and showcased international tourist attractions. As such, this study contributes to Kolar and Ža...

This paper examines the effects of negotiation intention, bargaining propensity, and discount satisfaction on word-of-mouth (WoM) behaviours for tourists visiting Tabriz bazaar, Iran. Data from 615-survey respondents highlight that tourists are motivated to conduct WoM behaviour when they are experientially satisfied with the opportunity to negotia...

This paper examines the links between cosmopolitanism, self-identity, and a desire for social interaction perceived destination image and behavioural intentions. A model tested using a sample of 538 Iranian visitors to Mecca for the purpose of Umrah. The result from the structural model suggests that destination attributes influence perceived desti...

Keynote lecture - “Heritage Futures – scenarios, strategies and showstoppers”. Future of Heritage Conference 2016, Cultural Informatics Research Group. University of Brighton. (Oct 2016)

The internet represents a dynamic communication channel for museums, as it may strengthen their management and promotion globally with a variety of services to offer to online visitors. The focus of this paper is to investigate the online services performed by top Italian museums. The objective is to determine whether these museums have developed t...

In considering some of the major themes arising from research in business and the management sciences and correlating these with issues "on the ground" in our discipline, it is suggested that we are missing a trick to enable greater reflexivity in the archaeological profession. Why in the archaeological process is the historic environment context m...

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Rhind Lectures 2015

Authenticity as a pristine, unmediated concept, or a state of being enjoying some status of ontological stability, is a chimera. Previous studies have highlighted, that while sites, objects or experiences may be reproduced or ‘staged’, they may still foster an authentic existential experience for some tourists, when they enter into it knowingly. He...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore how commercial hospitality has contributed to the development of urban areas in relation to commerce, hospitality, religious and imperial patronage in early modern, Safavid Iran (c. seventeenth century). Second, to combine material culture research methods in an analytical framework for fut...

Support for practical heritage conservation and development of statutory heritage policy relies on evidence the sector can marshal to articulate its value. The values debate in recent years in the UK has developed both rigor and depth, as the political contexts for the ways in which we manage heritage have come under scrutiny. It is assumed, howeve...

Hospitality research continues to broaden through an ever-increasing dialogue and alignment with a greater number of academic disciplines. This paper demonstrates how an enhanced understanding of hospitality can be achieved through synergy between archaeology, the classics and sociology. It focuses on classical Roman life, in particular Pompeii, to...

The public presentation of Stonehenge is acknowledged to be poor. Many years of planned improvements have come to naught. Why is this? Seven enduring essentials of the Stonehenge problem are identified, and three obstacles to progress. The present provision, dating to 1968–70, is described, with its merits and defects. Four schemes for transformati...

This chapter sets out the current context for historic environment management, and the associated information requirements to manage organisations successfully within the sector for the benefit of the country's heritage. The initiative undertaken by English Heritage (the English government's conservation advisors) in developing a pilot State of the...

In June this year, we published Geoffrey Wainwright's paper on ‘The Stonehenge we deserve'. This paper aimed to provide a review of progress towards sorting out the many problems of management, presentation and conservation of this World Heritage site and its landscape. As readers of ANTIQUITY are well aware, the fortunes of Stonehenge are intimate...

On the Path to Enlightenment: Power and Knowledge at Stonehenge - Volume 9 Issue 1 - Ian W.F. Baxter