Search Results (400)

This study examines how Generation Z’s digital practices on TikTok and Instagram shape their music festival experiences, focusing on event perception, engagement, and the development of collective identity. The aim is to identify key factors connecting online and offline aspects of festival participation. The research adopts a quantitative approach based on an online survey of 248 respondents born between 1995 and 2010 from various regions of Serbia. Data were analyzed in SPSS 26.0 using Spearman correlation, quantile regression, and the Mann–Whitney test. Given the exploratory nature of the study, the findings should be interpreted accordingly. Findings show that frequent social media use has a positive but limited effect on how important these platforms are perceived for the festival experience. However, user-generated content created by attendees plays a more significant role in shaping engagement and attitudes than influencer content. Influencer credibility also influences how festivals are interpreted digitally. The interplay between online interaction and offline participation motivates content sharing and reinforces a sense of community. Overall, the study concludes that social media and digital narratives are central to Generation Z’s festival experience. Authentic, attendee-created content strongly contributes to collective identity, helping bridge digital and physical dimensions—insights valuable for festival organizers, influencers, and cultural tourism. Full article

In the era of digital intelligence, cultural heritage is undergoing a profound transformation. This study investigates how digital technologies facilitate the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture in China, focusing on the case of Huangyan’s Song Rhyme Culture in Zhejiang Province. Drawing on the framework of “glocalized intelligent heritage,” the research explores how global technological systems interact with local cultural practices to produce new forms of cultural continuity. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative case study approach supported by empirical data. It combines policy analysis, semi-structured interviews with twenty-six stakeholders, field observations, and quantitative indicators such as visitor statistics, online engagement, and project investment. This mixed design provides both contextual depth and measurable evidence of digital transformation. The findings show that digital intelligence has reshaped cultural representation, platform-based public engagement, and local sustainability. In Huangyan, technologies such as AI-based monitoring, 3D modeling, and VR exhibitions have transformed heritage display into an interactive and educational experience. Digital media have enhanced public engagement, with more than 1.2 million virtual visits and over 20 million online interactions recorded in 2024. At the same time, the project has stimulated cultural tourism and creative industries, contributing to a 28.6% increase in cultural revenue between 2020 and 2024. The study concludes that digital intelligence can function as a cultural bridge by strengthening heritage mediation, widening access, and enabling platform- and institution-based participation, while noting that embodied intergenerational cultural transmission lies beyond the direct measurement of this research design. Full article

Gastronomic tourism has emerged as a significant driver of destination competitiveness, cultural preservation, and sustainable development. This comprehensive review synthesizes the scientific literature published between 2010 and 2025, examining the evolution of gastronomic tourism research, global trends, sustainability dimensions, and emerging challenges. Through systematic analysis of 150 peer-reviewed articles from major academic databases, this paper identifies key themes including cultural heritage preservation, sustainability practices, digital transformation, and educational innovations. The findings reveal a growing recognition of gastronomy as intangible cultural heritage, increased focus on farm-to-fork practices, and the transformative role of social media in destination branding. Despite the rapid growth of gastronomic tourism research, important gaps remain. The literature lacks standardized sustainability indicators, limiting comparability across studies, while cross-cultural comparative research and interdisciplinary integration remain insufficiently developed. Addressing these gaps is essential for advancing theoretical coherence and supporting evidence-based practice in gastronomic tourism. Full article

In an era where environmental consciousness increasingly shapes consumer behaviour, the tourism industry faces the dual challenge of promoting destinations while ensuring ecological sustainability. This study explores how web analytics and big data can be leveraged to enhance the visibility and attractiveness of eco-friendly destinations. Building upon digital marketing and sustainability frameworks, the authors develop a data-driven methodology that integrates website performance metrics, search behaviour patterns, and social media engagement indicators. After data collection, statistical and content analyses were implemented, followed by a Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) to visualise the interrelationships between online user behaviour, environmental awareness, and destination appeal. Full article

As a representative case that embodies both the attributes of a Buddhist sacred site and those of a UNESCO World Heritage site, Mount Wutai provides a distinctive research setting for examining behavioral mechanisms in temple tourism. This study aims to construct an integrated model to systematically test the effects of enjoyment, memorability, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (PBC) on revisit intention (RI), while incorporating social media exposure as a moderating variable. Based on data collected through a two-wave on-site survey, this study analyzed 617 tourists in Mount Wutai and employed structural equation model to examine the relationships among the variables. The results indicate that all five psychological antecedents exert significant positive effects on revisit intention, among them, PBC demonstrating the most substantial impact. Further analysis reveals that social media exposure significantly moderates the relationships among enjoyment, memorability, attitude, subjective norm, and revisit intention, most notably in the “memorability–RI” relationship, whereas its moderating effect on the “PBC–RI” relationship is not significant. These findings not only enrich the theoretical framework by integrating emotional attribution, behavioral cognition, and digital media engagement but also provide practical implications for sacred tourism destinations, enabling them to enhance visitor loyalty through digital communication and experience optimization. Full article

Public spaces in peri-urban towns are becoming key focal points of urban regeneration in China due to their geographic advantages, resource endowments, and diverse populations. Substantial investments have been made to improve residents’ living environments and well-being. As over-commercialized urban centers increasingly face congestion and homogenization, the distinctive landscapes and authentic everyday life of peri-urban towns are attracting growing attention from tourists. Understanding both residents’ and visitors’ perceptions of these public spaces is therefore essential for successful regeneration. This study examines Nanquan Street, which lies ina peri-urban heritage town in Wuxi, Jiangnan region, China. Drawing on user-generated content from major Chinese social media platforms (Xiaohongshu and Dianping) and field observations guided by the AEIOU framework, a three-stage grounded theory approach was employed to identify the key factors influencing user satisfaction. The analysis identified twelve sub-dimensions grouped into three overarching categories: foundational preconditions, social developmental factors, and spatial-operational factors, which collectively shape sustained satisfaction in Peri-urban heritage towns. By translating the satisfaction model into sustainable design strategies, this study proposes a set of renewal pathways applicable not only to Nanquan Street but also to similar peri-urban towns facing comparable challenges. Emphasizing multi-user experience, low-intervention strategies, and contextual adaptability, this research contributes to theoretical understandings of sustainable renewal in peri-urban towns. It provides actionable guidance for balancing everyday life, cultural heritage, and sustainable tourism development. Full article

This paper explores racialization as a historical-sociological concept and an ongoing, contemporary material praxis, using a Global Critical Race and Racism (GCRR) framework. Racialization is an ideological and material practice of colonial conquest that requires constant reification and maintenance. This paper examines how racialization and racial practices are positioned within Egyptian state tourism campaigns, through a media content and discourse analysis, as a function of contemporary national-racial identity formation. Histories of colonial archaeology, race science, and the European colonial domination and imagination of Egypt heavily contextualize this analysis. First, the paper outlines how the identity of ancient Egyptians was a racing project fundamental to white supremacy and global race and racism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in ways that are intricately tied to contemporary nationalism, national identity formation, and nation-building in modern Egypt. The focus of this paper is Egypt’s agency in its national identity formation practices, wherein it acknowledges, negotiates, and markets aspects of its racialization that are economically and geopolitically advantageous, specifically within the tourism industry and in relation to Pharaonic Egypt. In this way, Egypt’s racialization is not simply externally imposed; the Egyptian state is engaging with global structures of race and racism by maintaining racial mythologies for Western imaginaries. Egypt’s contemporary national identity formation includes an engagement with its past that negotiates its position within a global hierarchy of nations across the racial-modern world system. This study explores notions of autonomy, acquiescence, and resistance under racialization by examining how nation-states engage with, resist, or leverage racialization. Full article

This study investigates how women at a Muslim island community-based tourism (CBT) site convert performed respectability and routine paperwork into everyday organizational authority. Drawing on four months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bang Rong, Phuket—supported by seventeen semi-structured interviews, three years of social-media observation (2023–2025), and analysis of rosters, ledgers, receipts, and LINE threads—the study examines how gendered norms and material devices structure authority in daily tourism practice. The analysis identifies an authorization stack (veil, uniform, tone) and a set of paperwork devices (ledgers, rosters, receipts, digital groups) that make women’s visibility both morally credible and institutionally legible. Using a poststructural feminist lens and Barriteau’s gender-system framework, the article develops an interpretive, case-derived Respectability-in-Action Conversion Model, showing that moral credit converts into procedural authority only when respectability cues align with control of at least one device. Conversion, however, remains partial and contingent: strategic levers stay largely male or mosque-adjacent unless women obtain rights-bearing tools, such as co-signature authority, petty-cash control, or platform access, along with institutional protection against sanction. Age, class, and endorsement shape these trajectories, enabling some women to consolidate authority while rendering others easily replaceable. The study contributes: (1) a case-specific, empirically grounded account of authority formation in island CBT; (2) an analytic lens for understanding how performance, devices, and rights interact in this setting; and (3) practice-oriented implications for small-island CBT contexts that emphasize shared device access, rotating administrative duties, co-signature and budget rights, and safeguards against organizational capture. Full article

Folk festivals and other intangible cultural heritage have received widespread attention, and their socio-cultural value can be used to promote tourism, strengthen local identity, and build city brands. However, it remains unclear how these intangible cultural heritage festivals transform their multi-dimensional and multi-configuration material characteristics into economic benefits and image enhancement. This study proposes a practical decision-making framework aimed at understanding how different festival design and governance strategies can work synergistically under different cultural conditions. Based primarily on a literature review and expert questionnaire survey, this study identified six stable materialized practice modules: productization, spatialization, experientialization, digitalization, branding/communication, and co-creation governance. At the same time, this framework also incorporates two other conditional intervention properties: classicism and novelty. The interactions between these modules shape people’s understanding of intangible cultural heritage festivals. Subsequently, this study used a multimodal national dataset that included official statistics, industry reports, e-commerce and social media data, questionnaires, and expert ratings to construct module scores and cultural attributes for 167 festival case studies. Through rough set analysis (RSA), this study simplifies the attributes and extracts clear “if-then” rules, establishing a configurational causal relationship between module configuration and classic/novel conditions to form high economic benefits and enhance local image. The findings of this study reveal a robust core built around spatialization, digitalization, and co-creative governance, with brand promotion/communication yielding benefits depending on the specific context. This further confirms that classicism reinforces the legitimacy and effectiveness of rituals/spaces and governance pathways, while novelty amplifies the impact of digitalization and immersive interaction. In summary, this study constructs an integrated and easy-to-understand process that links indicators, weights, and rules, and provides operational support for screening schemes and resource allocation in festival event combinations and venue brand governance. Full article

Microplastics (MPs) pollution assessment must not pollute. Inspired by this catch phrase, we critically evaluated the environmental impact, safety, and effectiveness of various analytical strategies currently used to assess MPs contamination on sand. Density separation enables the isolation of MPs from sand. We highlighted the major drawbacks of using the standard high-density solutions. As we recognized there is room for greenness improvement in this hot research field, we considered 21 reagents able to provide high-density media. We aimed to put forward the green MPs determination protocol to be used in subsequent expert citizen science national campaign. The analytical workflow was optimized studying MPs contamination of composite sand specimens representatively sampled from a large beach-dune complex WWF oasis exposed to the effect of tourism in Venice (Italy). MPs have been quantified and characterized. We suggest calcium nitrate as the best trade-off reagent providing both greenness/safety and efficacy. Calcium nitrate can be upcycled from industrial waste streams according to the circular economy vision. Additionally, we critically reviewed all other critical steps of the MPs isolation to put forward a preeminent green, simple, reliable, and logical approach to the analysis of MPs in sand for expert citizen science campaigns. Full article

This article examines music’s potential to contribute to the co-creative development of sustainable place branding efforts. It highlights how music can brand a place with a specific music identity and provide places with foundations of their resilient futures. The authors explore the case study of Labyrinth Musical Workshop, which gathers musicians from all parts of the world to a small village in Crete called Houdetsi. The study builds on ethnography data (fieldnotes, photos/videos), interviews with musicians, local inhabitants and hotel owners and digital ethnography tools including thematic analysis of hashtags and comments on the official social media accounts of Labyrinth Musical Workshop and the Cultural Association of Houdetsi. Findings reveal the challenges of sustainable tourism development and how music and place branding through co-creation can lead destinations towards resilience. The co-created experiences on offer highlight notions of community and co-belonging that inspire repeat visits, whereas the support of cultural and economic networks prioritize social–cultural and environmental rather than merely economic sustainability pillars. Full article

Wildlife viewing has long been a central feature of tourism. However, growing concerns over the welfare of animals involved have raised critical questions about human management and the use of wildlife. In response, scholars have developed frameworks to assess and guide the operations of animal-based attractions. This paper applies such a framework to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China, empirically examining visitor perceptions of animal welfare management practices. Drawing on survey data from over 1000 visitors, the study finds that, overall, tourists hold positive evaluations of the Base’s governance, welfare, and conservation practices. However, these perceptions are influenced by factors such as prior exposure to panda-related social media and individual knowledge of animal welfare, highlighting the role of mediated experiences in shaping visitor judgments. The findings underscore the need for further research on ethical wildlife tourism practices and suggest that engaging and empowering tourists—through education, participatory evaluation, and digital platforms—can enhance both public awareness and the effectiveness of conservation and welfare initiatives. Full article

This article applies Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) to four Italian Alpine contexts to examine how narratives and metaphors can shape territorial development. We combined long-term ethnography (approximately 128 days of participant observation) with analysis of documents and media (2010–2025) relating to the four territories and interpreted the results through the four levels of CLA: litanies, systems, worldviews, and myths/metaphors. Two dominant metaphors, “mountain-as-playground” (exogenous) and “mountain-as-heritage” (endogenous), seem to underpin the discourses about tourism and local development. We identify signals of a third metaphor, the “open-hybrid-village”, where multiple forms of belonging and contribution (resident collective ownerships, returnees, extended stay visitors) sustain the local economy and stewardship. The approach is interpretative, and the transferability of results is limited by the selection of cases and the availability of data; however, triangulation and distinct levels support the internal consistency and replicability of the method in other contexts. We conclude that making imaginaries explicit can broaden the variety of thinkable futures and the space of options before investments become dependent on the path taken. We suggest integrating CLA into participatory foresight to enrich and share forward-looking visions on which to negotiate long-term landscape planning and thresholds for tourism carrying capacity. Full article

This study examines how digital nomads act as unintentional brand ambassadors shaping destination image via lifestyle content. Although nomads influence place perceptions through blogs, vlogs, and social media, tourism institutions rarely acknowledge their role. We theorize this diffuse effect as ambient influence—the cumulative, non-promotional impact of lifestyle posts—and test whether nomads operate as unintentional brand intermediaries affecting destination image and travel intention. A multi-method design includes a survey of 487 international travelers modeling links among exposure, perceived authenticity, destination image, and travel intention; an experiment with 210 participants comparing nomad versus influencer videos; and interviews with 14 DMO professionals examining institutional responses. Results indicate that nomad content improves destination image and travel intention via perceived authenticity and relational trust. Relative to influencers, nomads are viewed as more credible and less commercially motivated. However, qualitative evidence shows that DMOs often overlook this influence due to ambiguity, control-oriented branding, and reliance on performance metrics ill-suited to informal media. The study formalizes ambient influence to capture the cumulative, non-promotional impact of nomad content and identifies a strategic blind spot in institutional engagement. It contributes by reconceptualizing influence beyond formal marketing and offers guidance for tourism management, including broader recognition frameworks and updated evaluation of user-generated content. Full article

Cultural and touristic information is increasingly available through a multitude of heterogeneous sources, including official repositories, community platforms, and open data initiatives. While prominent landmarks are typically covered across sources, less-known attractions are also documented with varying degrees of detail, resulting in fragmented, overlapping, or complementary content. To enable integrated access to this wealth of information, harvesting and consolidation mechanisms are required to collect, reconcile, and unify distributed content referring to the same entities. This paper presents a machine learning-driven framework for harvesting, homogenizing, and augmenting cultural and touristic data across multilingual sources. Our approach addresses entity resolution, duplication detection, and content harmonization, laying the foundation for enriched, unified representations of attractions and points of interest. The framework is designed to support scalable integration pipelines and can be deployed in applications aimed at tourism promotion, digital heritage, and smart travel services. Full article