Recently, Chen Qiuxia, a doctoral student under the supervision of Professor Huang Xiaoting from the School of Management, Shandong University, published the latest research findings titled "Exploring Senior Tourists' Technological Experiences: Based on Embodied Cognitive Theory" online in the International Journal of Tourism Research (SSCI, Q1, IF/2023: 4.1). Huang serves as the corresponding author, with Chen as the first author and master's student Ju Dongchen as the second author. Shandong University is both the first author affiliation and the sole corresponding author affiliation.
The global aging population brings a growing senior tourist market. The study applied embodied cognitive theory and grounded theory to explore how senior tourists' technological experiences are formed in three travel stages: pre-trip, during-trip, and post-trip. Besides, the study identified three primary components of these experiences: characteristics of senior tourists, tourism contexts, and technological cognition. The theoretical contribution of the research was its pioneering application of embodied cognitive theory to explore the dynamic formation process of senior tourists’ technological experiences. Moreover, the research provided new insights for the senior tourism market, encouraging tourism providers to develop innovative strategies to enhance the overall technological experience for older travelers. The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41871138).
The International Journal of Tourism Research (IJTR， SSCI1), published by John Wiley and Sons (Wiley) in Oxford since 1997, is one of the world’s leading journals in tourism studies. With a 2023 impact factor of 4.1 and a five-year impact factor of 4.7, it is listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and ranks in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Q1 category.
Huang Xiaoting serves as Associate Dean of the School of Management at Shandong University, a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Culture and Tourism. She is also selected as Taishan Young Scholar of Shandong Province, the Executive Director of the Yellow River National Cultural Park Research Center of Shandong University, President of the Technical Committee for Tourism Transport of the World Transport Convention, a professional committee member of the China Society of Natural Resources, a member of the Behavioral Geography Professional Committee of the Geographical Society of China, an expert in the Expert Database of China Tourist Attractions Association, and a co-founder of the China Tourism Behavior Research Society. In 2015, she established the first domestic research laboratory dedicated to tourism behavior in China. Her main research areas include tourist behavior, tourism planning theory and method, the health and educational value of tourism, cultural identity in national cultural parks, and pathways to modernization within the context of Chinese-style modernization. Additionally, she is in charge of the Youth Program “Research on Tourism Temporal Planning Methods Based on the Laws of Spatio-Temporal Behavior of Tourists” and the General Program “Research on the Production and Construction of Tourism Activity Spatiality Based on the Laws of Spatio-Temporal Behavior of Tourists” of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. She has published many papers in SSCI journals such as Tourism Management, Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, and Tourism Geographies, as well as CSSCI journals such as Tourism Tribune, Tourism Science, Human Geography, Resource Science, and China Population Resources and Environment.
