First-time versus repeat visitors at the Kruger National Park

While many events individually claim varied successes, it is worth acknowledging the growing competition between events and festivals in attracting and retaining repeat visitors. In particular, it is of interest to investigate festivals which have established a 'following' of visitors, and to establish what could sustain their attendees' interest for staging of future festivals. Event managers should be aware of the festival attributes that differentiate between two distinct visitor groups – the first-time visitor group versus the repeat visitors attending an annual festival on a regular basis. This paper investigates the attributes associated with the successful staging of a wine festival staged over a five-weekend period during the autumn of 2002 to determine which of the attributes significantly discriminate between first-time and repeat visitor groups. Results identified two attributes and four visitor characteristics that showed discriminating ability. The two festival attributes with discriminating abilities between the first-time visitors and repeat visitors were parking and services, while the four visitor characteristics that showed discriminating effects were age, place of residence, group composition, and information sources utilised. Results are discussed and implications for the festival organisers are proposed.

This article contributes to the growing literature on repeatvisitation by investigating the ­relationship between tourismbehaviour and repeat visitation. The data concern a sample of vacationvisitors from Mainland China to Hong Kong in 1999. The study revealsthat repeat visitors stay longer, take fewer activities and areinvolved more in local life-related activities. Furthermore, suchrepeat visitors spend larger sums on shopping, meals, hotel bills,local transport, etc. Results of the multivariate analysis show that,while the socio-economic ­characteristics of visitors aremostly insignificant, the number of visits is a significant variablepositively contributing to the total spending and the spending onshopping, local transportation, meals outside of the hotel and hotel.In other words, repeat visitors are more beneficial economicallyto a destination than first-time visitors. The findings of thispaper enrich the ­current literature about repeat visitationby demonstrating that repeat visitors and first-time visitors havesignificantly different tourist behaviour in terms of spending andlength of stay, etc. The implication is that these two groups ofvisitors should be treated as two distinct ­market segmentsfor developing marketing strategies and tourism programmes.

An exploratory inquiry into destination risk perceptions and risk reduction strategies of first time vs. repeat visitors to a highly volatile destination

This study examines the similarities and differences of the impact past experience has on perceived value, overall satisfaction, and destination loyalty between two groups: visitors and residents who attended the 2008 National Cherry Blossom Festival (NCBF). Data were collected using the convenience sampling method and analyzed using factor analysis, t-tests, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicate that there were major distinctions between first-time and repeat visitors with the latter being more positive than the former in their perception of social and emotional values of the festival, more satisfied with and more loyal to the festival than the former. However, first-time and repeat residents did not differ significantly from each other. In addition, first-time visitors were found to be consistently different from repeat visitors, first-time and repeat residents in perceived value, satisfaction, and destination loyalty while repeat visitors did not differ significantly from first-time and repeat residents. This study also found that overall satisfaction mediates the effect of the perceived value on destination loyalty for the visitor group, regardless of past experience. However, for the resident group, the mediation effect is present for repeat residents, but not for first-time residents. Research implications and future research needs are also discussed.

Most studies of tourists' destination choices have either focused on how to attract more tourists or on developing stable relationships with existing ones. Therefore, the fit of a conceptual model incorporating relational (destination attachment) and transactional (destination image) antecedents to patronizing intentions (revisit, recommend, and resist change) was tested on a sample of first-time visitors and on a sample of repeat visitors to a hot spring destination in Taiwan. The findings indicated that first-time visitors' intentions to patronize the destination were mainly affected by destination image and that repeat visitors' intentions to patronize the destination were primarily affected by destination attachment. These findings highlight the importance of destination attachment and destination image in predicting tourists' patronizing intentions and future behavior, and reveal that researchers have overlooked that the antecedents of tourists' patronizing intentions differ depending on the type of relationship they have with the destination. As a result, this study provides compelling evidence for the need to clearly situate studies of destination choice in the transactional-relational continuum and questions the generalizability of previously published work that neglects to do so.

Preface to the special issue of the International Congress on Parasites of Wildlife, 15–18 September 2014, Kruger National Park, South Africa

This study identified three festivalscape dimensions, namely generic festival features, specific events and comfort amenities, and entertainment features, as indicators of quality perception. A strong relationship between the quality perception and satisfaction constructs could not be found, similar to other studies. The study was conducted on 389 attendees at a major wine festival in the Hawke's Bay Region of New Zealand. The research provides new insight to festivalscape knowledge in that it identifies the first-time and repeat visitor dynamic as a predictor of actual buying behavior at a festival. The higher the percentage of repeat visitors, the higher the likelihood of (wine) buying. The festival's entertainment features are a stronger predictor of buying behavior than generic festival features or specific events and comfort amenities. Repeat visitors, 35 years and older in age, are the highest yielding visitor group from a financial viewpoint. First-time visitors are far more short-term oriented than repeat visitors in their planning when making the final decision to attend the festival event.

[Extract] South Africa is a flourishing tourist destination and the South African Tourism Board (SATOUR) recorded a steady growth in international visitors of about 11% per annum for the period from 1994–1999.1 The four most popular sites visited by tourists are Cape Town and environs, the Garden Route, Oudtshoorn ostrich farms, and the Kruger National Park. The Kruger National Park(KNP), which at over 1.949 million hectares, is the largest wildlife or nature reserve in a single African country, affords the visitor the opportunity to appreciate a magnificent variety of flora and fauna, in their natural environment (Fig. 1). In 1998 almost one million tourists visited the KNP.

In 1954, the experimental burning programme into fire research was initiated in the Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa. It is viewed as one of the last remaining long- term landscape fire experiments in Africa. Throughout the more than five decades of fire treatments in the experiment, numerous surveys (expanding various spatial and temporal scales), research projects (covering biotic and abiotic components) and analyses have been conducted with the aim to assess the impacts of different fire regimes on the savannah biome. The design of the experiment intended to test the effect of season and frequency of burning on vegetation within four major landscapes in the KNP. However, these effects have been partly obscured by factors not fully taken into account by the experimental design, namely, herbivory, artificial water provision and soil variation. Soil variation between replicates in the same landscape, as well as within individual replicates, has raised the issue of the representivity of the trial. This paper provided a description and ranking of the experimental burning trial according to the geomorphic and soil characteristics of each plot in comparison to the surrounding landscape.Conservation implications: The KNP burn plots are one of the largest and longest-running fire experiments on fire ecology in African savannahs. However, studies need to consider the underlying geomorphic and soil template when designing experiments and interpreting results. This work describes the representivity of the plots across, and within, treatments.

Global COVID-19 responses by governments restricted international travel, imposed national lockdowns, reduced economies, and influenced people's livelihoods. Travel restrictions and national lockdowns may constrain international illegal supply chains of high value wildlife products such as rhinoceros (rhino) horn. We evaluated whether the COVID-19 lockdown responses by South Africa induced a poaching pause on rhinos in Kruger National Park. We collated information on poaching incidences from 2017 and made predictions for expected incidences during 2020 using trends noted between 2017 and 2019. Rangers observed substantially fewer incidences of poaching during South Africa's hard lockdown. As restrictions eased, poaching incidences increased. Despite the COVID-19 poaching pause, both black and white rhinos continued to decline in Kruger National Park as recruitment could not offset poaching and natural deaths.

This study investigates the role of prior experience on the impact of actual self and ideal self-congruity on tourists’ intention to visit Turkey for leisure purposes. The study draws from an empirical study with 648 subjects conducted in cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Results suggest that the effect of actual selfcongruity on intention to visit differs according to different levels of tourist experience. While self-congruity has a positive effect on intention to visit for the non-visitors and first-time visitors -- implying that the relationship between self-congruity and intention does not vary between non-visitors and first-time visitors -- this effect loses its significance for repeat visitors. These findings partially support the previous proposed moderating role of prior experience on the impact of self congruity on intention to visit a destination and expand the discussion on this topic raising new questions.

As part of the Southern Africa Fire‐Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI‐92), size‐fractionated aerosol samples were collected during September–October 1992 at three fixed ground‐based sites in the eastern Transvaal, i.e., at two sites within the Kruger National Park (KNP) and at a third site on the Transvaal highveld (about 150 km WSW of the KNP sites), and near a number of prescribed fires in the KNP. The collection devices consisted of stacked filter units, which separate the aerosol into a coarse (2–10 μm equivalent aerodynamic diameter (EAD)) and a fine (<2 μm EAD) size fraction, and of eight‐stage cascade impactors, which provide more detailed size fractionation. The samples were analyzed for particulate mass (PM), black carbon (BC), and up to 47 elements. The prescribed fires gave rise to high levels of airborne soil dust, but several species (elements) were particularly enriched in the pyrogenic emissions. This was the case for BC, P, K, Ca, Mn, Zn, Sr, and I in the coarse fraction, and for BC, the halogens (Cl, Br, I), K, Cu, Zn, Rb, Sb, Cs, and Pb (and in the flaming phase also Na and S) in the fine fraction. The aerosol concentrations, compositions, and time trends at the two KNP sites were quite similar, suggesting that regionally representative samples were collected. Receptor modeling calculations, using both absolute principal component analysis and chemical mass balance, indicated that the KNP coarse PM was essentially attributable to mineral dust and sea salt, with average relative apportionments of 75% and 25%, respectively. At the highveld site, mineral dust and sea salt contributed in a 99‐to‐1 ratio to the coarse PM. In the fine size fraction at all three fixed sites, four components were identified, i.e., mineral dust, sea salt, biomass burning products, and sulfate. The pyrogenic component was the dominant contributor to the atmospheric concentrations of BC, K, Zn, and I, a major source for PM, Cl, Cu, Br, and Cs, but only a minor source for S. About 40% of the fine PM was, on the average, attributed to the pyrogenic particles, and about one third of it to the sulfate component. Relation of the time trends of the various components with three‐dimensional air mass back trajectories indicated that elevated levels of pyrogenic products were mostly found in air masses arriving from the north. The levels of the sulfate component tended to be higher at the highveld site than at the two KNP sites, and this component was generally associated with continental air. It was concluded that the major contribution to this fine sulfate came from fossil fuel burning and various industrial activities on the Transvaal highveld.

Globally, protected-area managers confront increasingly complex and competing interests and demands, expressed by a variety of parties. When an action concerning the governance and management of a protected area is infused with such complexity, decision making requires an evaluation of that action's legitimacy. Most often, this evaluation is implicit rather than expressly articulated. The purpose of this study was both to illustrate the importance and utility of explicitly evaluating legitimacy and to provide a conceptual framework for understanding how the legitimacy of protected-area governance and management might be understood. To better understand the concept of legitimacy, we conducted a case study of subsistence-based resource use in Kruger National Park, South Africa. The collection of firewood, medicinal plants, thatching grass, and meat by local residents living outside Kruger has long been a contentious issue. Since the park's establishment in 1926, resource use among local residents has been almost entirely prohibited. With South Africa's democratization in 1994, however, Kruger became a park in transition. In the interest of equity and benefit provision, the current management regime is exploring the possibility of providing local residents with some level of access to resources in the park. Despite these interests, providing such access to resources is by no means considered a universally legitimate action. In-depth qualitative interviews with local residents and Kruger staff revealed both common and varying conceptualizations of the legitimacy of resource use in Kruger among local residents. This study demonstrated that legitimacy is a multidimensional concept that, if explicitly evaluated, provides considerable insight into the governance and management of protected areas and may reveal previously unforeseen resolutions to complex issues.

ObjectiveTo identify and assess the characteristics of individuals with repeated emergency department (ED) visits for unintentional opioid overdose, including heroin, and how they differ from individuals with a single overdose ED visit.IntroductionThe Virginia Department of Health (VDH) utilizes syndromic surveillance ED data to measure morbidity associated with opioid and heroin overdoses among Virginia residents. Understanding which individuals within a population use ED services for repeated drug overdose events may help guide the use of limited resources towards the most effective treatment and prevention efforts.MethodsVDH classified syndromic surveillance visits received from 98 EDs (82 hospitals and 16 emergency care centers) between January 2015 and July 2018. An unintentional opioid overdose, which included heroin, was classified based on the chief complaint and/or discharge diagnosis (ICD-9 and ICD-10) using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. ED visits were categorized as either a single or a repeat visit, where a repeat visit was defined as two or more separate ED visit records from the same individual. ED visit records were matched to individuals using medical record number. Each match represented a repeat visit for one person. RStudio was used to conduct Pearson’s chi-square tests for sex, race, and 10-year age groups among both visit groups and to assess visit frequency among the repeat visit group.ResultsBetween January 2015 and July 2018, 9,869 ED visits for opioid overdose were identified, of which 734 (7.4%) were repeat visits among 597 individuals occurring among 57 EDs. The proportion of individuals with repeated opioid overdose visits was significantly different compared to the proportion of individuals with a single opioid overdose visit by sex (male 66% vs. 61%) and age group (20-29 years 34% vs 30%) (p < 0.05). No significant difference was found by race. EDs had an average of 10 individuals who had repeated opioid overdose visits, with a range from 1 to 62 individuals. Individuals with repeated opioid overdose visits made on average 2.2 visits to EDs, with a range of 2 to 6 visits. The overdose visit rate among EDs ranged from 0.6 to 51.3 opioid overdoses per 100,000 ED visits, with four EDs having a rate greater than 40 opioid overdose visits per 100,000 ED visits.ConclusionsApproximately 7% of ED visits during the study period for opioid overdose were identified as repeat visits using the medical record number. Individuals with repeated opioid overdose visits differed from those with a single opioid overdose visit with respect to sex and age. Repeated opioid overdose visits were disproportionately higher for males and individuals aged 20-29. Hospital utilization by individuals with repeated opioid overdose visits can provide information on which EDs or communities that may require further attention. Some limitations of this study are that the method utilized to identify individuals may result in an underestimation of repeat visits because limited personally identifying information was used to match visit records, and repeat visits that occurred before and after the study period would not be captured.

Summary Kemp, A. C. & Begg, K. S. 1996. Nest sites of the Southern Ground Hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, and conservation implications. Ostrich 67: 9–14. Details of 56 active and 18 potential nest sites of the Southern Ground Hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri were recorded in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, over 298 nest-seasons during 1967–95. Nests were natural cavities with a median diameter of about 40 cm, 96% situated in 12 species of trees and 4% in rock faces. Only four species of tree provided 72% of nest sites and 85% of active nest sites were formed by rotting of a damaged branch or trunk. No habitat preference associated with nest sites was detected, but 61% of nests were within 400 m of a tourist road, possibly due to lower predation pressure. Nest attractiveness was correlated positively with nest height, cavity shallowness and proximity to tourist roads, but nest success was not correlated with any measured features of the sites. Average cavity durability was 14 years, but differed between tree species from 5–26 years. Nest site availability appeared to be the principal factor limiting the Southern Ground Hornbill population of the Kruger National Park. The limited choice of sites, and the potential for site modification and substitution, have important implications for wild and captive management and conservation.