This study examines how multimodal cues embedded in travel videos relate to tourist engagement in a platform-mediated environment. The analysis is based on a dataset of 1,215 YouTube travel videos published from August 2013 through February 2025, and examines how textual signals and visual emotional cues conveyed through thumbnails relate to user engagement behavior. The empirical background is a period of institutional reform, characterized by temporal changes in content production and reception responses. Given the non-negative, right-skewed nature of engagement data, a gamma regression model is employed. The findings reveal that emoticon cues in titles show a positive correlation with engagement, while negative visual emotional cues are significantly associated with lower levels of engagement. Title sentiment polarity shows no detectable effect in the regression models, indicating that interface-level visual cues merit attention in shaping user responses to destination-related content on digital platforms.
This study examines the effects of tourism diversification on income inequality in New Zealand, a developed economy highly reliant on international tourism. Rather than assuming a uniform impact of tourism on income distribution, the paper builds on theoretical insights from modernization theory and political economy perspectives to explore how diversification by source markets and travel purposes may produce varying distributional outcomes. Using a Dynamic Autoregressive Distributed Lag (DARDL) approach over the period 1979-2022, the study estimates both short-run and long-run effects of tourism diversification on the Gini coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality. The findings reveal that diversification within the Oceania and European markets is associated with increasing income inequality over time, likely due to the concentration of tourism benefits in specific regions and sectors. In contrast, diversification in the South, East, and Southeast Asian market contributes to a modest reduction in inequality, potentially reflecting broader income dispersion across regions. Purpose-based diversification, particularly in business and education travel, shows short-term equalizing effects.
This study evaluates Kyrgyzstan's health tourism potential through a holistic, stakeholder-based approach and proposes a sustainable development model for the sector. Using a qualitative design, structured interviews were conducted with 21 participants, including academics, physicians, and tourism professionals, and data were analyzed through content analysis. Findings indicate three core domains of potential: thermal and wellness resources, medical tourism services, and traditional sanatorium systems. Although natural and cultural assets offer strong advantages, institutional capacity gaps limit effective development. The study concludes with a comprehensive model emphasizing strategic planning, quality enhancement, investment, marketing, and governance mechanisms to support sustainable health tourism growth.
Recognizing the growing importance of international bleisure travel, this study examines travel activities that shape bleisure traveler satisfaction. Drawing on cross-cultural and activity-based perspectives, it uses foreign tourist survey data from the Korea Tourism Data Lab and applies SHAP analysis to compare key satisfaction contributors between bleisure and leisure travelers. The results reveal a clear gap between activity popularity and actual contribution to satisfaction. Four of the six most influential activities are cross-cultural, with visits to ancient and historical sites showing relatively low participation yet ranking as the strongest contributor. The findings also indicate that bleisure satisfaction is influenced by national hospitality customs and business practices. In South Korea, gourmet tourism, as a core expression of hospitality culture, plays a particularly important role. This study advances bleisure travel research theoretically and methodologically while offering practical implications for bleisure travelers, business organizations, tour operators, and national tourism organizations to advance bleisure travel sector.
Religious tourism destination image remains theoretically fragmented, particularly regarding faith-based psychological mechanisms. This study examines how temple commodification shapes destination image through perceived authenticity of faith and how tourists' authentic faith conditions this process. Drawing on constructivist authenticity and sacred-commercial hybridity, a moderated mediation model was tested using survey data from 470 visitors to 19 Buddhist temples in Northern Thailand. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with hierarchical component models. The results show that temple commodification positively influences cognitive, affective, and conative destination image. Perceived authenticity of faith mediates all three relationships. Authentic faith of the tourist negatively moderates the authenticity-affective relationship, indicating that internally devout visitors rely less on external authenticity cues when forming emotional evaluations. The study advances religious tourism research by integrating commodification, faith authenticity, and destination image within a unified psychological framework.
The application of XR technology is beneficial to enhancing the digital cultural heritage tourism (DCHT) experience. This study employed mixed approaches (qualitative interviews and quantitative analysis) to uncover the attributes of XR for DCHT, including simulated presence, conceptual understanding, content innovativeness, participatory entertainment, embodied sensation, immersive interactivity, and aesthetic fusion. The technology acceptance model was expanded with two new variables (perceived advantages and engagement) and a moderator of past experience. Multiple attributes of XR for DCHT significantly influenced consumers' perceived ease of use, usefulness, and advantages, thereby driving their positive engagement, attitude, and adoption intention. Past experience served as a key moderator in the framework. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) revealed the complex asymmetry in the formation of behavioral intentions by identifying causal recipes of antecedent variables. Research findings provide crucial insights into how to enhance technology innovation and operations, and tourist experience in cultural heritage destinations.
Service automation and generational shifts are transforming Hospitality and Tourism (H&T) workplaces. This mixed-method study explores how hotel managers and Generation Z H&T students in China and Australia perceive and respond to RAISA integration (Robots, Artificial Intelligence, Service Automation) in hospitality workplaces. Integrating Job Demands-Resources theory with the Cognitive-Affective-Behavioural framework, qualitative insights reveal RAISA integration's dual role as job resources and demands, and the rising importance of emotional intelligence within hospitality employment. Quantitative results from 549 students further show that RAISA-related job support and learning opportunities elicit positive emotions and stronger career intentions toward RAISA-integrated workplaces, whereas technostress and job insecurity hinder them. Emotional intelligence amplifies resource-related benefits but fails to buffer demand-related stressors. Cross-country differences in career motivations and intentions reflect divergent socioeconomic and technological landscapes. This study offers an integrated JD-R-CAB framework for understanding future workforce readiness, while guiding RAISA implementation and talent management in future H&T workplaces.
This paper explores how BTS (Korean: (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), Romanised: Bangtan Sonyeondan), as global K-Pop icons, influence South Korea's destination image and travellers' willingness to visit. Using secondary data and insights from focus groups with BTS fans (known as ARMY) and non-fans, the study establishes a link between ARMY's engagement with K-Pop and their perception of the destination. While BTS's involvement in tourism campaigns has limited direct impact on travel decisions, especially among non-fans, the research reveals deeper dynamics. BTS fans' engagement is strongly tied to parasocial relationships, which in turn shape how they perceive and emotionally connect with South Korea as a destination. The research highlights the limited impact of celebrity endorsements on destination marketing, while establishing parasocial relationship as a key element in the context of destination image for fans.
While loneliness has become a pressing health threat, whether tourism can alleviate loneliness remains unclear. By investigating the empty-nest (solo-living) youth, the study aims to explore the mechanisms underpinning tourism's potential to alleviate loneliness. Rooted in psychological richness theory, findings reveal that tourists' positive emotions, social belonging, and social support significantly enhance psychological richness, characterized by interest, diversity, and perspective-shifting, which, in turn, mitigate loneliness. Females, long-term group travelers, and frequent tourists show stronger effects, suggesting demographic and travel characteristics moderate these pathways. Practical implications include designing group-based and gender-sensitive travel programs to foster social connectedness among solo-living youth.
Women's entrepreneurship in tourism is often framed as a route to empowerment in developing country contexts because the sector is perceived as relatively accessible. Yet, empirical evidence remains geographically uneven and conceptually fragmented, particularly for Central Asia and for Muslim-majority, post-socialist settings. Addressing this gap, this study examines the enablers, success factors, and constraints shaping women's tourism entrepreneurship in Uzbekistan, and advances an integrative lens that connects psychological capabilities, socio-cultural conditions, and gendered structures. Drawing on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 20 women tourism entrepreneurs operating in urban centers across Uzbekistan, three interrelated themes emerged. This study makes theoretical contributions to our understanding of women entrepreneur's agency through capability-building, relational work, and the negotiation of gendered sociocultural structures. In doing so, this study extends the existing research beyond necessity-based and barrier-centered accounts of women's entrepreneurial journeys.
As virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) adoption grows in tourism, their use is also increasing among older adults. This study aimed to identify elderly travelers' intentions to use a VR/AR tourism product, using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The SEM results showed that presence, educational experience, entertainment experience, well-being perception, and mental health perception exert significant net effects on intentions to use VR/AR tourism products, and the fsQCA results confirmed the importance of integrating attributes, experiences, and well-being and mental health to explain usage intentions. The findings are valuable because they help to understand elderly travelers' VR/AR tourism behavior.
Although scholarly attention has increasingly focused on travel intention in senior tourism, limited research has explored pleasure uncertainty in seniors' travel decision-making, especially its differential effects on hedonic and eudaimonic pleasure. Drawing on the belief-desire-intention model, this study examines the influence of pleasure uncertainty on travel intention among senior tourists. Two experiments revealed that seniors aged 60 and above were more likely to prefer low sensory pleasure uncertainty under high spiritual pleasure uncertainty, whereas they tended to favor high sensory pleasure uncertainty under low spiritual pleasure uncertainty. These interaction effects were mediated by hedonic and eudaimonic motivations, and moderated by future time perspective. This research enriches the senior tourism literature by unpacking the joint influence of different types of pleasure uncertainty. The findings provide practical implications for tourism practitioners to design targeted strategies that enhance seniors' travel intention according to their future time perspective.
Community-Based Sustainable Tourism (CBST) promotes inclusive growth by empowering communities, preserving cultural heritage, and safeguarding the environment, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This review of 63 global studies examines the evolution of CBST from a model focused on economic and conservation aspects to a multidimensional approach that incorporates empowerment, governance, well-being, resilience, and digital innovation. Four principal constructs - awareness, empowerment, well-being, and support - underscore the significance of community participation in sustainable development. Despite advancements, challenges such as unequal distribution of benefits and limited local authority remain. This study enhances the understanding of CBST as a dynamic system and proposes strategies to strengthen governance, capacity, and SDG-oriented tourism.
This study compares the configurational effects of ritual interaction (RI) on word-of-mouth (WOM) in religious, political, cultural, and entertainment rituals. PLS-SEM results show that RI significantly enhances WOM via tourist engagement and sense of meaning. fsQCA further reveals that, across ritual types, RI elements have distinct configurations of driving engagement, sense of meaning, and WOM. Scripted processes are central to WOM for most rituals, whereas contextual elements matter most for entertainment rituals but not for political rituals. This study extends RI theory by validating the RI framework for four rituals and offers strategic insights for destination management regarding the configuration of these RI elements.
