Search Results (106)

In the digital tourism marketplace, online reviews have become a decisive source of information for travelers who cannot directly assess the quality of hospitality services before purchase. However, it remains unclear how service-related and sustainability-related cues interact to shape guest perceptions in sustainable hotel contexts. This study investigates how intrinsic and extrinsic cues are reflected in online user reviews of sustainable hotels. Drawing on Cue Utilization Theory, a longitudinal content analysis was conducted on a worldwide online travel platform’s (OTP) reviews of hotels certified for their sustainability practices (2004–2024) by user selection. A coding framework was developed deductively based on prior studies on hotel service quality and sustainability practices, and data were analyzed using MAXQDA, Leximancer, and VADER sentiment analysis. Findings indicated that reviews primarily emphasize service quality attributes—particularly staff efficiency, food quality, and accommodation facilities—while sustainability themes appear less frequently, often in nature-related contexts. Sentiment analysis revealed a predominantly positive emotional tone shaped by service quality experiences. Overall, intrinsic cues play a central role in forming guest perceptions, highlighting the need for emotionally engaging sustainability communication strategies. Full article

Directed Energy Deposition (DED), as a core branch of additive manufacturing, encompasses two typical processes: laser directed energy deposition (LDED) and wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), which are widely used in manufacturing aerospace engine blades and core components of high-end equipment. In recent years, with the increasing adoption of deep learning (DL) technologies, the research focus in DED has gradually shifted from traditional “process parameter optimization” to “AI-driven process optimization” and “online real-time monitoring”. Given the complex and distinct influence mechanisms of key parameters (such as laser power/arc current, scanning/travel speed) on melt pool behavior and forming quality in the two processes, the introduction of artificial intelligence to address both common and specific issues has become particularly necessary. This review systematically summarizes the application of DL techniques in both types of DED processes. It begins by outlining DL frameworks, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and reinforcement learning (RL), and their compatibility with DED data. Subsequently, it compares the application scenarios, monitoring accuracy, and applicability of AI in DED process monitoring across multiple dimensions, including process parameters, optical, thermal fields, acoustic signals, and multi-sensor fusion. The review further explores the potential and value of DL in closed-loop parameter adjustment and reinforcement learning control. Finally, it addresses current bottlenecks such as data quality and model interpretability, and outlines future research directions, aiming to provide theoretical and engineering references for the intelligent upgrade and quality improvement of both DED processes. Full article

Rural tourism is a significant driver of socio-economic development in rural areas. However, current offerings are often characterized by monotonous experiences, homogenized products, and a lack of cultural depth, failing to meet tourists’ growing demand for immersive engagement. While some scholars have adopted a spatial perception perspective, a visitor-centered approach remains scarce, with limited focus on methods for analyzing cultural perception. This study takes Dangjia Village, a renowned cultural tourism destination in Hancheng, China, as a case study. By scraping online reviews from travel and social platforms, we employ LDA topic modeling, textual semantic analysis, and IPA to investigate the characteristics and preferences of tourists’ cultural perception. The findings reveal that: (1) Tourists’ cultural perception of Dangjia Village includes three dimensions: History and Culture, Architecture and Culture, and Local Products and Culture. (2) Positive sentiments outweigh negative ones in tourist evaluations. (3) The History and Culture dimension received the highest levels of both attention and satisfaction. Architecture and Culture attracted the least attention but relatively high satisfaction, while Local Products and Culture garnered considerable attention yet the lowest satisfaction. Originating from a visitor perception perspective, this study explores cultural perception characteristics, providing insights for the high-quality utilization and optimization of cultural tourism resources in such villages. Full article

Background/Objectives: Healthcare accounts for approximately 4.4% of global carbon emissions. Gastroenterology is a particularly heavy producer, with professional organisations outlining targets to move towards carbon neutrality. Missed hospital appointments, associated with poor medical outcomes, also represent physical and economic waste to the sector. COVID-19 expedited the shift toward virtual clinics, but tele-diagnostics have not expanded similarly. We aimed to assess the feasibility of a virtual C13 urea breath test clinic for H. pylori in Ireland. Methods: C13 urea breath test kits were provided to patients in the community, who were subsequently invited to book an online video appointment with a GI lab technician to assist them in performing the test at home. Completed tests were returned to the hospital via local GP, by post, or a specified hospital drop-off point, and analysed using our standard protocol. Results: 423 virtual appointments were reviewed. 135 (32%) were male, and the mean age was 42 years. The test positivity rate was 22%, similar to a matched in-person testing cohort (21%). In all, there were no non-attenders, and two cancellations. Virtual patients were more likely to attend their appointments (OR = 153.9, p = 0.0004) than in-person patients. Virtual UBT appointments saved 9943.5 Km of road journeys, equivalent to 254 person-hours of travel time and 1.24 metric tonnes of CO₂. Additionally, 300 (71%) patients returned a feedback questionnaire, of which 276 (92%) rated the overall home breath test experience as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. Conclusions: Home testing for H. pylori is effective, acceptable, and reduces both reliance on invasive procedures such as endoscopy and carbon emissions. Full article

The travel accommodation sector within the sharing economy relies heavily on user-generated reviews. Drawing on data from insideairbnb.com for the Porto district from 2016 to 2020, this study examines the influence of online reviews from the standpoint of the sentiment expressed on accommodation prices, alongside other determinants such as locational attributes. The primary objective is to assess a broad set of factors affecting listing prices, with a particular focus on the degree and nature of sentiment expressed in online reviews. The dataset, comprising more than 250,000 reviews, was enriched with spatial and geographical variables, including key amenities, accessibility to public services, host characteristics, and locational indicators. A hedonic spatial regression model was employed to account for spatial dependencies. The findings reveal that sentiments expressed in user reviews exert a stronger influence on pricing than purely quantitative review metrics. Furthermore, host and listing characteristics, as well as geographical factors, play a substantial role in determining prices. The main contribution and novelty of this study lies in the joint analysis of sentiment and geographical attributes as drivers of accommodation pricing. Another contribution of this paper lies in the analysis of a broad geographical area encompassing both a historic city that is popular among European destinations and predominantly rural regions. Full article

This study aims to investigate how tourists articulate their ecotourism experiences through online reviews of coastal Karnataka. As one of India’s most favored domestic destinations since the 1960s, coastal Karnataka is renowned for its scenic shoreline, unique biodiversity, and diverse ecotourism experiences along a 320 km stretch of the Arabian-Sea rim spanning across the Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada districts. Despite the growing popularity of ecotourism and sustainable travel, limited research has examined how tourists share ecotourism concepts via online reviews. Employing content analysis through the Leximancer tool, this study examines 1843 online reviews from 80 eco-resorts and homestays listed on TripAdvisor^® to identify emerging themes from interconnected concepts and assess the extent to which ecotourism values are reflected. The findings highlight several themes out of which “place”, “food”, “resort”, and “rooms” were the dominant ones. Notably, this study also revealed minimal references to coastal conservation or sustainability. The analysis offers several theoretical contributions to the ecotourism literature by demonstrating the implication of construal level theory (CLT) and the use of Leximancer in analyzing large-scale travel data. This study also provides meaningful insights for the tourism service providers to use online review data to enrich tourist experiences and outlines actionable strategies for strengthening the visibility of coastal conservation efforts and promote ecotourism advocacy. Full article

Online reviews increasingly shape experiential travel decisions. This study investigates how structural and linguistic features of user-generated content influence peer endorsement in wine tourism. While prior research has explored review valence and credibility, limited attention has been paid to how micro-level textual and identity cues affect social approval metrics such as likes. Grounded in the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the analysis draws on 7942 TripAdvisor reviews using automated web scraping, readability metrics, and multivariate regression. Results indicate that location disclosure significantly increases likes, while higher textual complexity reduces endorsement. Title length and reviewer contributions function as peripheral cues, with an interaction between complexity and title length compounding cognitive effort. Findings refine dual-process persuasion theory and offer practical insights for content optimization in post-pandemic tourism engagement. Full article

Participation in horse-related activities frequently involves relocating horses from the home stable to an activity venue, which might require local, regional, or international travel. In these circumstances, horses are exposed to unfamiliar surroundings and experience changes to their daily routines, which could have negative welfare impacts. An online survey was conducted in 2021 to ask experienced horse sector participants about the horse management practices that they perceived worked well and provided for positive horse welfare when undertaken at venues. Qualitative analysis identified four themes: ‘managing venues’, ‘monitoring fitness to participate’, ‘maintaining a healthy equine digestive system’, and ‘using horse behaviors to inform decision-making’. The findings indicate that activity-related individuals selected practices that assisted horses to adapt to venue surroundings, remain calm, and stay healthy. The co-authors propose that experienced participants recognize that practices include both provisions (inputs) and outcomes (the horse’s subjective experiences), resonating with the Five Freedoms and Five Domains models. For horse activity organizations proposing to implement the Five Domains model, the findings indicate that reviewing practices and implementing updates is timely and achievable. The authors propose that continuously updating practices will contribute to safeguarding horses and maintaining the sector’s social license to operate. Full article

Online reviews play a critical role in shaping consumer decisions and providing valuable insights to enhance the products and services for businesses. As visual content becomes increasingly prevalent in reviews, it is essential to understand how image complexity influences review helpfulness. Despite the growing importance of images, the impact of color diversity and texture homogeneity on review helpfulness remains underexplored. Grounded in Information Diagnosticity Theory and Dual Coding Theory, this study investigates the relationship between image complexity and review helpfulness, as well as the moderating role of review text readability. Using a large-scale dataset from the hotel and travel sectors, the findings reveal that color diversity has a positive effect on review helpfulness, while texture homogeneity follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with helpfulness. Furthermore, text readability strengthens the positive impact of texture homogeneity, making moderately homogeneous images more effective when paired with clear and well-structured text. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that these effects vary across product categories. The results advance the understanding of multimodal information processing in online reviews, providing actionable guidance for platforms and businesses to refine the review systems. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted higher education worldwide, imposing strict isolation measures, transitioning learning online, and exacerbating existing social and economic inequalities. This literature review examines the pandemic’s impact on the mental health of college students, with a focus on those belonging to minority groups, including racial, ethnic, migrant, gender, sexuality-based, and low-income populations. While elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness were observed across all students, findings indicate that LGBTQ+ and low-income students faced the highest levels of psychological distress, due to compounded stressors such as family rejection, unsafe home environments, and financial insecurity. Racial and ethnic minority students reported increased experiences of discrimination and reduced access to culturally competent mental healthcare. International and migrant students were disproportionately affected by travel restrictions, legal uncertainties, and social disconnection. These disparities underscore the need for higher education institutions to implement targeted, inclusive mental health policies that account for the unique needs of at-risk student populations during health crises. Full article

This study examines how social media platforms influence tourism marketing strategies, consumer perceptions, and travel behaviors, addressing their sustainability implications. It aims to evaluate the current state of research on social media in tourism marketing, identify dominant trends, assess empirical evidence of impact, and critically highlight research gaps. The analysis focuses on three core marketing outcomes: destination image, travel intention, and user engagement—and includes a section examining sustainability considerations across environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions. The study uses a systematic critical review of 147 peer-reviewed academic articles published between 2015 and 2025, combined with a meta-analysis of 38 quantitative studies that report statistical effect sizes. The meta-analysis uses a random-effects model to compare the influence of different platforms and study contexts. Moderator variables include geographic region, platform type, and methodological design. Findings show that social media marketing has a statistically significant positive effect on destination image (Cohen’s d = 0.61), travel intention (d = 0.54), and user engagement (d = 0.43). The analysis also reveals geographic bias, limited research on emerging platforms, and a lack of longitudinal and ethical inquiry. Findings suggest that tourism researchers and marketers may have to adopt more context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and ethical approaches. Critical sustainability concerns emerge, including “overtourism”, cultural commodification, digital inequities, and algorithmic biases. Further studies may focus on specific platform-related behaviors, long-term impacts, and integrated online strategies appropriate for global tourism diversity. Lastly, this paper advocates for context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and ethically grounded approaches to ensure sustainable digital tourism marketing strategies. Full article

The role of public housing in improving wellbeing for tenants and society is an important public policy issue. Public housing tenants in Aotearoa New Zealand have constrained incomes and their mode of transport has implications for their budgets, their wellbeing, and carbon emissions. Tenants’ daily life choices and wellbeing are influenced by the set of transport options available to them and the constraints and opportunities these options entail. What is important for wellbeing is also dependent on culture. Little is known, however, about the specific influences of transport on the wellbeing of public housing tenants and how that is mediated by the culture of particular groups, particularly Māori and Pacific people, who make up the majority of people in public housing in Aotearoa. In this article we review the literature on public housing, transport, and wellbeing, to establish what is known about how transport, and the access it affords, influence the wellbeing of public housing tenants. We searched Scopus and Web of Science for academic journal articles, published in English and available online, about public housing tenant wellbeing with regard to the transportation and location characteristics of public housing. We found that creating highly accessible public housing developments with options of various modes of travel is important for the wellbeing of tenants. We also found that understanding the specific needs and preferences of tenants, ensuring tenants have agency over how they travel, and engaging with tenants during transport decision-making are particularly important and often under-recognised for people in public housing. Finally, we identified substantial gaps in the literature around understanding transport needs and experiences from Māori and Pacific perspectives, emphasising the importance of including indigenous and ethnic minority views in future research. Full article

Ting, Tai, Lou, and Ge are types of ancient buildings that represent traditional Chinese architecture and culture. They are primarily constructed using mortise and tenon joints, complemented by brick and stone foundations, showcasing traditional architectural craftsmanship. However, research aimed at conserving, inheriting, and rejuvenating these buildings is limited, despite their status as Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units of China. Therefore, the aim of this study was to reveal the spatial distribution of Ting, Tai, Lou, and Ge buildings across China, as well as the factors driving differences in their spatial distribution. Tourist experiences and building popularity were also explored. The spatial analysis method (e.g., Standard deviation ellipse and Geographic detector), Word cloud generation, and sentiment analysis, which uses Natural Language Processing techniques to identify subjective emotions in text, were applied to investigated the research issues. The key findings of this study are as follows. The ratio of Ting, Tai, Lou, and Ge buildings in Southeast China to that in Northwest China divided by the “Heihe–Tengchong” Line, an important demographic boundary in China with the ratio of permanent residents in the two areas remaining stable at 94:6, was 94.6:5.4. Geographic detector analysis revealed that six of the seven natural and socioeconomic factors (topography, waterways, roads, railways, population, and carbon dioxide emissions) had a significant influence on the spatial heterogeneity of these cultural heritage buildings in China, with socioeconomic factors, particularly population, having a greater influence on building spatial distributions. All seven factors (including the normalized difference vegetation index, an indicator used to assess vegetation health and coverage) were significant in Southeast China, whereas all factors were non-significant in Northwest China, which may be explained by the small number of buildings in the latter region. The average rating scores and heat scores for Ting, Tai, Lou, and Ge buildings were 4.35 (out of 5) and 3 (out of 10), respectively, reflecting an imbalance between service quality and popularity. According to the percentages of positive and negative reviews, Lou buildings have much better tourism services than other buildings, indicating a need to improve services to attract more tourists to Ting, Tai, and Ge buildings. Four main types of words were used with high frequency in the tourism reviews collected form Ctrip, a popular online travel platform in China: (1) historical stories; (2) tourism; (3) culture; and (4) cities/provinces. Ting and Tai buildings showed similar word clouds, as did Lou and Ge buildings, with only the former including historical stories. Conversely, landmark was a high-frequency word only in the reviews of Lou and Ge buildings. Specific suggestions were proposed based on the above findings to promote tourism and revive ancient Chinese architecture. Full article

Wine tourism is a key segment of the global tourism industry, offering visitors opportunities to explore vineyards, taste wines, and experience cultural heritage. This study examines online reviews to identify positive and negative themes of wine tourism experiences and explores how perceptions vary among traveler types. Data were collected from 2850 TripAdvisor reviews of wineries in Bordeaux, Champagne, and Burgundy, France, and analyzed using Leximancer software. The findings reveal seven key themes, including Wine Quality, Tasting Experiences, Tour Guides, Vineyard Views, and Cultural Charm, alongside Dissatisfaction with Time Management and Value for Money. Variations among traveler types highlight distinct preferences, with solo travelers valuing education, couples prioritizing romance, groups focusing on culture, and families concerned with organization. This study contributes to research on experiential tourism by addressing diverse visitor expectations and enhancing service quality. Full article

In the digital era, user-generated online reviews serve as a valuable resource for understanding visitor experiences in cultural institutions. This study analyses sentiments and thematic trends in TripAdvisor reviews of mountain museums, using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modelling and sentiment analysis. A dataset of 2157 reviews from ten museums was classified into local and non-local perspectives, revealing significant differences in visitor expectations. Findings indicate that local visitors prioritize historical authenticity and educational value, whereas non-local visitors emphasize aesthetic appeal, interactivity, and cultural immersion. Sentiment analysis highlights generally positive perceptions, with business travellers and groups of friends reporting the highest satisfaction levels. Comparative analysis across visitor types reveals distinct engagement patterns, with families valuing child-friendly exhibits, couples seeking cultural enrichment, and solo travellers focusing on intellectual depth. These insights inform strategic recommendations for museum management, including multilingual content, interactive elements, and guided tours dedicated to specific visitor profiles. Despite limitations related to lack of real-time feedback, this research demonstrates the potential of sentiment analysis in enhancing museum experiences. Future studies should integrate multimodal analysis and real-time tracking to further refine visitor experience evaluation. Full article