Search Results (220)

With the rapid growth of urban motorization, personalized travel modes, including taxis and private cars, have expanded considerably. However, conventional public transportation systems, constrained by fixed routes and limited service flexibility, often struggle to satisfy residents’ increasingly diversified and high-quality commuting needs. To address this issue, this study proposes an integrated planning framework for customized bus services using taxi trajectory data. First, passenger origin–destination (OD) information is extracted by detecting changes in the taxi passenger-status field. The extracted OD records are then used to identify potential commuting demand by jointly considering peak-hour travel characteristics and regional OD stability. Second, the identified potential commuting demand is used to generate candidate boarding and alighting stops through an improved DBSCAN-based clustering method, namely IDK-SG. For route planning among the candidate stops, a bi-objective optimization model is developed to simultaneously account for passenger travel-time costs and bus operating costs, and the model is solved using a genetic algorithm. Finally, timetable optimization is formulated as a Markov decision process and solved using a Deep Q-Network (DQN) algorithm. Case studies using taxi GPS trajectory data from Chongqing demonstrate that the proposed framework can effectively identify stable commuting demand, optimize stop layouts and route schemes, and improve vehicle occupancy and service quality. These findings provide practical decision-making support for the operation and dynamic scheduling of customized bus services in urban peak-hour commuting corridors. Full article

Operational labor shortages have become a pressing challenge for hospitality organizations, especially in highly seasonal tourism destinations such as Greece, where service experiences are deeply tied to cultural identity and authentic hospitality. While much of the existing research has examined understaffing from operational or human resource management perspectives, limited attention has been paid to its impact on the organizational capacity to sustain authentic hospitality experiences. Using Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) as an interpretive framework, this study views authentic hospitality as an organizational process shaped by employee interaction, cultural transmission, and service delivery practices. Drawing on survey data from 201 hotel employees in Greece, it investigates the relationship between operational labor shortages, organizational pressures, and perceived threats to authentic hospitality within hotel operations. The findings reveal significant positive relationships between work stress and service quality decline, as well as between cultural knowledge and perceived challenges in maintaining authentic hospitality. Multiple regression analysis further shows that reactive hiring, serious understaffing, and payroll cost pressure are significantly linked to perceived challenges in sustaining authentic hospitality, while service quality decline exhibits a positive but statistically non-significant effect in the final model. The study contributes to hospitality authenticity literature by emphasizing employee perceptions of authenticity as an organizationally supported process rather than merely a guest-centered outcome. The results also highlight the importance of workforce planning, recruitment quality, and cultural onboarding in supporting authentic hospitality within Greek hotel operations. Full article

Tourism digitalization is widely viewed as a tool for sustainable local development, yet whether policy-led digital transformation generates measurable improvements in tourism-economy quality remains insufficiently tested. Treating the staggered establishment of China’s National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zones as a quasi-natural experiment, a sustainability-oriented index of high-quality tourism-economy development was constructed using 2011–2019 provincial panel data, and the policy effect was estimated with difference-in-differences and propensity-score-matched difference-in-differences models. The results show that the pilot zones significantly improve the sustainability-oriented quality of the tourism economy, a finding supported by parallel-trends tests, placebo tests, and multiple robustness checks. Heterogeneity analyses indicate positive effects across regional contexts and relatively larger estimated responses in the innovation, green, and shared development dimensions. For pilot-zone type, a more precisely estimated positive effect is shown for regional pilot zones within the current sample. Mechanism-oriented analyses show empirical patterns consistent with improvements in digital infrastructure, digital industry development, and regional innovation capacity as plausible explanatory channels. Quasi-natural experimental evidence is thus provided on how digital policy supports sustainable tourism and local development, with implications for destination governance, tourism service quality, and responsible digital transformation. Full article

Health tourism represents a dynamic sector operating at the intersection of medical services, international patient mobility, and tourism development. Despite its growing prominence, the academic literature frequently conflates health tourism with medical and wellness tourism—a conceptual ambiguity that complicates the establishment of robust, sustainable legal frameworks. Addressing this gap, the present paper conceptualizes health tourism as an overarching framework that encompasses recovery, wellness, and medical sub-sectors. Within this comprehensive paradigm, we explore the contemporary landscape of health tourism in Northern Cyprus through a stakeholder-driven qualitative lens. Utilizing a qualitative case study design, data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with 40 key respondents representing healthcare, travel, public administration, academia, and related professional domains, and subsequently subjected to thematic analysis using NVivo 15 software. The findings reveal that the sector in Northern Cyprus is heavily skewed toward medical tourism, with a concentrated focus on in vitro fertilization (IVF), cosmetic surgery, dental care, and bariatric procedures. Conversely, wellness and rehabilitation tourism remain largely untapped strategic niches. The analysis further indicates that sectoral growth is constrained by structural bottlenecks, including fragmented governance, limited international recognition, transport and accessibility barriers, inadequate accreditation systems, lack of stakeholder synergy, and ethical concerns regarding advertising and patient safety. Moving beyond standard environmental sustainability, this research underscores that long-term destination resilience requires ethical governance, clinical quality controls, patient-rights advocacy, transparent legal frameworks, and community-level economic integration. Ultimately, this study proposes an integrated, stakeholder-centric paradigm tailored to the unique socio-political and structural realities of Northern Cyprus, offering actionable policy recommendations that enrich the discourse on sustainable medical tourism from a small-island perspective. Full article

As China experiences rapid population aging, promoting high-quality tourism for older adults has become essential for enhancing elderly well-being, improving inclusive and age-friendly tourism services, supporting culture–tourism integration, and fostering sustainable destination development. Drawing on the global literature on smart tourism, digital inclusion for older adults, and service quality in aging societies, this study investigates how digital empowerment (DE) influences the high-quality development of silver tourism (HDST) in Hubei Province, China. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to survey data from 702 elderly respondents, incorporating cultural tourism integration (CTI), age-friendly service adaptation (ASA), and perception of silver tourists (PST), with family support (FS) and policy support (PS) as key moderating variables. The results indicate that DE significantly promotes HDST through ASA and PST, while FS and PS play important moderating roles. These findings provide practical guidance for tourism practitioners and policymakers seeking to enhance age-friendly digital services, improve the tourism experience for older adults, and support the sustainable development of silver tourism. Full article

As South Korea positions itself as a competitive global education hub, understanding the determinants that attract and satisfy international students is critical. This study investigates the factors influencing the selection of South Korea as a higher education destination and examines the key predictors of international students’ satisfaction with their academic and social experiences within an integrated analytical framework that links destination choice and post-enrollment satisfaction. The study addresses two research questions: (1) What factors predict international students’ selection of South Korea as a higher education destination? and (2) What factors predict international students’ satisfaction in South Korea (academic and social experience)? Drawing on a quantitative, cross-sectional design, the study surveyed 231 international students across various South Korean higher education institutions. Key destination choice factors included safety, quality of education, scholarship availability, and cultural interest. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 29, with one-way ANOVA and binary logistic regression as the primary statistical methods. The ANOVA results indicate that these factors reflect primarily structural and institutional drivers of student mobility. Satisfaction predictors were assessed through logistic regression analysis, revealing that quality of education, facilities and resources, research opportunities, support services, cultural engagement, and exploration of Korea significantly influenced overall student satisfaction. Safety and living conditions emerged as the most influential reasons for destination choice, while language barriers and geographic proximity were less critical at the aggregate level, although variability across student groups suggests differential experiences. The study underscores the importance of tailored institutional support, culturally inclusive strategies, and expanded academic opportunities to enhance student satisfaction and retention, and highlights the divergence between factors that attract students and those that sustain their satisfaction. The findings offer evidence-based recommendations for policymakers and educational leaders aiming to strengthen South Korea’s global education appeal while addressing diverse international student needs. This research contributes to the broader discourse on international student mobility by highlighting the interplay between destination appeal and student satisfaction in a non-traditional host country and by addressing a gap in the literature where these two dimensions are often examined separately. Full article

Traditional Peruvian cuisine has become a globally recognized experience, but its impact on visitors to the Caral Supe archaeological site—one of the oldest centers of civilization in South America and a UNESCO World Heritage Site—has not been studied. The main objective was to explain the constructs of the perceived authenticity of traditional food, loyalty to traditional food, service quality at traditional restaurants, and tourist satisfaction with visits to archaeological sites, based on the experience economy theory. An explanatory study was conducted using a structural equation modeling approach (PLS-SEM), applied to a sample of 381 tourists who visited the archaeological site and consumed local cuisine at restaurants in the destination of Barranca. The findings confirmed significant relationships among the model’s constructs (p < 0.01). It is suggested that the perception of authenticity of traditional food is a determining factor for loyalty (R² = 0.743) and a driver of satisfaction with the visit to the archaeological site (R² = 0.617), which constitutes the study’s contribution. However, the R² value for the construction of the tourist experience at the destination (R² = 0.301), the model does not fully capture the complexity of experiential processes at this particular heritage destination, which may depend on emotional, cultural, or contextual variables not included in this study. Satisfaction with the visit to the archaeological site is primarily related to staff attentiveness, the quality of guide explanations, and safety. It is concluded that the interplay between satisfaction with the visit to the archaeological site, the perceived authenticity of traditional food, and the quality of service in restaurants is fundamental to enhancing the experience at the heritage destination, thereby positioning traditional food and archaeotourism. It is recommended that the public and private sectors design strategies aimed at generating authentic and sustainable experiences for visitors, strengthening factors such as the destination’s reputation, the positive image of the site, satisfaction with the trip at the destination, and the positive experience. Full article

Urban destinations increasingly incorporate green–blue infrastructure, sensory-balanced public spaces, and microclimate-responsive design to mitigate visitor fatigue and support sustainable tourism experiences. To understand how insights from broader tourism environments, particularly nature-based contexts, can inform emerging urban well-being strategies, this study conducts a global bibliometric review (2005–2025) on psychological restoration, stress relief, and visitor well-being. Using Scopus and a Boolean search combining mental health constructs, tourism setting, and analytical approaches, 825 records were identified, and 149 articles were retained after applying eligibility criteria. Science mapping and performance analyses reveal accelerated post-2018 growth and three dominant knowledge clusters centered on restoration pathways, environmental determinants, and behavioral/hospitality components. Based on these patterns, this study introduces the RESTOR-URBAN model, integrating environmental moderators, psychological mechanisms, and behavioral interactions that jointly shape stress reduction and emotional well-being across urban tourism systems. The results show increasing relevance of micro-restorative experiences, thermal comfort management, and stress-aware service design, while highlighting persistent methodological heterogeneity and limited integration of environmental co-data (Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), and Discomfort Index (DI)). The findings suggest that restoration-based evidence from nature-based tourism can inform sustainable urban tourism planning, hospitality practice, and visitor experience design, and propose a research agenda emphasizing standardized well-being indicators, longitudinal and structural equation modeling (SEM)-based approaches, and environmental quality variables for resilient, health-oriented urban destinations. Full article

Never has the analysis of bus travel times been so essential to transit planning: travelers complain about a decline in service quality, urban congestion is on the rise, and public transport companies struggle with a structural driver shortage. This research paper aims to address the urgent need to explore new tools to increase commercial speed on transit lines while avoiding costly, potentially inefficient technological investments. A data-driven, cost-neutral, and replicable methodological framework is proposed to provide a first-order estimation of the potential benefits of Transit Signal Priority (TSP) at signalized intersections. The approach is based on Automatic Vehicle Monitoring (AVM) data analysis, which is underpinned by a lean network representation logic built from origin/destination pairs of stops located upstream and downstream of signalized intersections. Bus travel inter-times across network arcs are compared between peak and off-peak periods through a two-level analytical process that progressively refines the estimation of recoverable delay. The methodology is applied to the urban bus network of Pavia (Italy), operated by Autoguidovie S.p.A. (one of the most important Local Public Transport companies in Italy), with a specific focus on the high-frequency PV3 line. Results indicate a potential reduction of up to approximately 6 h and 45 min of operating time per day at the line level (−13.5% of total driving time), and up to 2 min per trip along a 2 km corridor (−6% along the single corridor selected). The procedure integrates both infrastructural and operational perspectives, supporting preliminary decision-making on TSP implementation using only data already collected by transit agencies. Full article

Health and spa tourism is a rapidly growing sector that merges traditional healing with modern innovations to meet increasingly diverse client needs. Understanding professionals’ perspectives is crucial for developing sustainable strategies that enhance service quality, organizational performance, and long-term business viability. Drawing on qualitative narrative analysis and thematic network analysis, this study explores the key factors that spa tourism professionals in Băile Felix—the largest spa resort in Romania—associate with business success, competitive differentiation, and sustainable development. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 41 entrepreneurs and managers who provided detailed narratives on their strategic goals and market positioning. Rather than measuring customer psychological constructs directly, this study captures professionals’ expert attributions regarding service quality, staff professionalism, infrastructure investment, and economic objectives, and interprets these as managerial perceptions grounded in operational experience. Five research propositions guided the interpretive analysis: (P1) professionals narratively associate service quality and treatment diversity with perceived business performance and guest retention signals; (P2) staff professionalism and attitude are attributed as the primary drivers of competitive differentiation; (P3) infrastructure investment and innovation are framed as prerequisites for sustaining market positioning; (P4) the identified themes form a structurally interconnected network with key bridging nodes; and (P5) professional narratives reveal tensions between short-term economic objectives and longer-term commitments to service quality and sustainability. Thematic network analysis identified four central constructs—service quality and treatment diversity, staff professionalism and attitude, innovation and infrastructure investment, and economic and development objectives—and mapped 16 interconnected sub-themes, with modularity analysis (Q = 0.42) confirming a moderately cohesive structure. Sustainable innovation was operationalized across environmental efficiency, social value, and economic resilience dimensions, and found to be embedded systemically across multiple thematic clusters rather than treated as an isolated practice. The originality of this study lies in integrating narrative and thematic network analysis to reveal how these constructs co-evolve within a sustainability-oriented system, offering a novel methodological lens for spa tourism research in post-transitional Central and Eastern European contexts. Findings provide actionable insights for spa managers, policymakers, and investors seeking to balance modernization with tradition in resource-constrained destinations. Full article

Digital transformation is increasingly reshaping how tourism destinations enhance service quality and strengthen competitive positioning, particularly in developing economies characterized by heterogeneous digital maturity and structural constraints. This study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model examining the relationship between destination digital transformation, tourism supply quality, and destination competitiveness, with a specific focus on the mediating role of quality-oriented tourism supply. Survey data were collected from 242 tourism stakeholders and analyzed using hierarchical regression and bootstrapped mediation analysis (PROCESS Model 4, 5000 samples). The results show that digital transformation has a significant positive total effect on destination competitiveness (β = 0.48, p < 0.001), explaining 56% of the variance in competitiveness (R² = 0.56). However, a substantial portion of this effect is transmitted indirectly through tourism supply quality. The mediation analysis confirms a statistically significant partial mediation effect, with approximately 41% of the total effect operating through quality-oriented mechanisms. The findings demonstrate that digital transformation enhances competitiveness primarily when embedded within structured quality management, online reputation management, and smart governance practices, rather than through technological adoption alone. The study contributes to the literature by integrating digital transformation and tourism supply quality into a unified competitiveness framework tailored to developing economy contexts and provides practical guidance for policymakers and destination managers seeking inclusive and sustainable growth through quality-oriented digital strategies. Full article

Online reviews are widely used to evaluate tourism performance, but it remains unclear whether platform ratings adequately reflect the underlying tourist experience. This study uses 67,744 cleaned Ctrip reviews from 112 A-level scenic spots in Liaoning Province, China, to examine what online reviews reveal beyond conventional satisfaction metrics. The final analytical sample comprises 106 threshold-qualified attractions with at least 100 reviews, supplemented by six highly reviewed sub-attractions that were listed separately on the platform but belonged to officially recognized A-level scenic systems. We combine topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and a rating–sentiment analytical framework to identify experiential dimensions, emotional patterns, and attraction-level sentiment risk. The results reveal a five-dimensional structure of tourist experience, including accessibility and ticketing, natural landscape imagery, cultural heritage interpretation, service-process quality, and overall affective appraisal. Positive sentiment is concentrated in landscape, heritage, and holistic appraisal themes, whereas negative sentiment is more prominent in accessibility and service-process dimensions. Quadrant-based analysis further shows that favourable ratings may coexist with relatively negative textual sentiment, suggesting that platform ratings and review-text sentiment do not fully converge. To extend review-level evidence to the attraction level, the study develops an attraction-level sentiment-risk indicator that captures the concentration of sentiment-negative reviews within each scenic spot. The findings suggest that online reviews function as a dual-channel evaluative system and can support sustainable destination management through more sensitive monitoring of operational friction and experiential risk. Full article

Winter tourism is increasingly influenced by changing socio-demographic dynamics, climate change, and evolving leisure preferences. While prior research has examined winter tourist motivations, sustainability strategies and climate change adoption, less attention has been paid to differences between urban and rural residents in their attitudes toward domestic winter leisure tourism. This study addresses this gap by exploring variations in participation patterns, service evaluations, and overall tourism experiences among urban and rural Bulgarian residents. Drawing on a quantitative survey of urban and rural residents (n = 1003), the research systematizes the general characteristics of domestic winter leisure tourism practices and evaluates key tourism service dimensions, including accessibility, accommodation, pricing, infrastructure, and environmental quality. Descriptive statistics and inferential analyses were applied to identify statistically significant differences between groups. The findings reveal distinct behavioural and perceptual patterns: urban residents demonstrate higher participation frequency and place greater emphasis on service quality and diversified amenities, whereas rural residents show stronger sensitivity to pricing and accessibility factors. Differences are also observed in the overall evaluation of the tourism experience, reflecting structural and socio-economic disparities. The study contributes to winter tourism literature by integrating spatial residence into the analysis of domestic tourism demand and experience assessment. The results provide practical implications for destination managers and policymakers seeking to design differentiated marketing strategies and improve service provision in line with the needs of diverse domestic segments. Full article

This study aims to examine the influence of the marketing mix and service quality on hotel selection decisions in a growing urban tourism destination in Thailand in a separate model. A mixed-methods approach was employed. Quantitative data were gathered from 385 tourists residing in four- and five-star hotels, while qualitative data were derived from comprehensive interviews with five hotel operators. The first multiple linear regression analysis model of the service marketing mix revealed that product, promotion, personnel, service process, and distribution channels had a statistically significant influence on hotel selection at the 0.05 level, explaining 50.3% of the variance. The second multiple linear regression analysis model of service quality reveals that responsiveness, empathy, and reliability significantly affect tourists’ decisions, explaining 43.9% of the variance. The integration of quantitative and qualitative findings led to the development of four strategic directions: (1) digital competitive advantage, (2) niche market development, (3) service quality enhancement, and (4) sustainability and risk management strategies. The findings contribute to hospitality management by examining how the 7Ps and SERVQUAL influence customer selection behaviors, integrating the entrepreneur’s perspective, and providing appropriate strategic directions for a secondary urban destination. Full article

What drives persistent urban–rural tourism satisfaction gaps: whether from promotional over-promising or structural service deficits? This distinction fundamentally determines whether territorial development resources should target marketing sophistication or productive capacity, yet remains empirically unresolved. Text-mining for 33,174 attractions across 349 Chinese cities reveals that both rural and urban destinations systematically under-promise, with description sentiment falling consistently below actual ratings, contradicting the “digital facade” hypothesis. Urban attractions nonetheless generate more positive surprises through superior service delivery (gap = 0.62 vs. 0.55). Sentiment measurement robustness is validated through triangulation of two independent dictionary-based methods ($r=0.58$, $p<0.001$) and cross-paradigm verification using a pre-trained BERT transformer ($\tau =1.000$ ranking stability). SHAP decomposition quantifies the policy implication: controllable service quality indicators, including description quality (23.2%), information richness (30.7%), and price positioning (16.5%), collectively explain over 70% of the variance in satisfaction, while fixed geographic factors (rural classification 14.9% and city-tier 14.7%) account for 29.6%, yielding a controllable-to-geographic ratio of 2.4:1. Propensity score matching with six covariates confirms a 0.074–0.100-point rural penalty persists after controlling for confounders, while non-linear analysis demonstrates that rural attractions face no marginal productivity disadvantage, and the challenge is baseline capacity, not investment efficiency. For policymakers pursuing Sustainable Development Goals 8, 10, and 12 through tourism-led regional strategies, these results mandate redirecting resources from demand-side expectation management toward supply-side infrastructure and workforce development, the true binding constraint on rural competitiveness. Full article