This study investigates how sustainable tourism marketing practices and environmental concern influence divers' marine environmental consciousness and, subsequently, their attitudes toward sustainable diving tourism development. Drawing on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), the study distinguishes between central-route cues (eco-labels, green purchase behavior, and environmental concern) and peripheral-route cues (user-generated content and influencers) in shaping divers' pro-environmental cognition and attitudes. A quantitative research design was employed, with data collected from 185 certified divers using a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to test direct, mediating, and moderating relationships among the study constructs. The results indicate that green purchasing behavior, influencer engagement, and environmental concern significantly enhance marine environmental consciousness, which, in turn, strongly predicts attitudes toward sustainable diving tourism development. Marine environmental consciousness also mediates the relationships among green purchase, user-generated content, environmental concern, and sustainable attitudes, highlighting its role as a cognitive bridge between marketing stimuli and attitudinal outcomes. In contrast, eco-labels and dive master dedication do not show significant effects, suggesting that sustainable attitude formation depends more on personal cognitive elaboration and credible persuasive cues than on formal certification or operational roles. The findings have practical implications for policymakers, marketers, and dive operators, emphasizing the importance of authentic communication strategies that encourage divers to internalize environmental values. This study contributes to the literature by extending the application of the Elaboration Likelihood Model to marine tourism and by providing empirical evidence from an emerging diving-destination context.
This study investigates a central question: How does employee job satisfaction (EJS) shape the relationships between perceived leader integrity (PCLI), employee performance (EMPF), and employees’ intention to stay (ITST) within five-star hotels in Saudi Arabia? Although prior research acknowledges the importance of leadership integrity and workforce attitudes in hospitality settings, empirical evidence remains limited in luxury hotel environments in the Saudi context. Grounded in hotel management and human resources theories that emphasize leadership ethics and employee behavioral outcomes, this study aims to address this knowledge gap. A structured questionnaire measuring four core constructs (PCLI, EJS, EMPF, and ITST) was administered to 411 frontline hotel employees. Data were analyzed using PLS-SEM. Findings reveal that PCLI significantly enhances employee satisfaction, performance, and retention intentions. Additionally, EJS positively influences both EMPF and ITST and partially mediates the links between PCLI and each of these employee outcomes. This research advances understanding of how leader integrity and employee satisfaction interact to strengthen performance and reduce turnover intentions in luxury hotels, offering both theoretical contributions and practical insights for hospitality managers. Recommendations for future inquiry are also discussed.
In saturated service markets, brands use emotionally resonant strategies, such as nostalgic advertising, to strengthen consumer relationships and encourage advocacy. This study builds on the Brand Admiration Model (BAM). It examines how nostalgic advertising affects brand admiration and advocacy. The study also considers emotional customer engagement as a mediator and brand prominence as a moderator. The research uses a quantitative design and collects data from a convenience sample of 374 fast-food restaurant customers in Egypt. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed relations. The findings show that nostalgic advertising predicts brand admiration, emotional engagement, and advocacy. Emotional engagement partly mediates the effects of nostalgic advertising on brand admiration and advocacy, showing nostalgia-driven emotions are key to favorable brand outcomes. Brand admiration strongly drives advocacy, underscoring its role in motivating consumers to promote brands. The analysis finds that brand prominence only strengthens the link between brand admiration and advocacy, so admired brands gain more from advocacy if they are top of mind with consumers. This study advances the BAM by introducing nostalgia as a strategic cue in hospitality and foodservice. Findings show that nostalgic campaigns foster engagement and admiration, particularly for prominent brands seeking greater word of mouth and advocacy. By empirically testing nostalgic advertising in the Brand Admiration Model in an emerging hospitality market, the study reveals how emotion-based strategies enhance brand admiration in quick-service restaurants. These findings guide hospitality and fast-food managers to apply nostalgic marketing to build brand advantages.
This study examines how customers' technology readiness influences brand evangelism in five-star hotels in Egypt using the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Theory. The objective is to develop and test a moderated-mediation model in which perceived empathy and brand admiration function as mediators, while perceived technological empowerment moderates the relationship between brand admiration and brand evangelism. Data were collected from 442 hotel customers and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with WarpPLS to test the hypothesized relationships, mediation effects, and moderation effects. The results show that customer technology readiness significantly enhances perceived empathy and brand admiration, which in turn positively affect brand evangelism. Mediation analysis confirms that technology readiness influences brand evangelism indirectly through empathy and admiration. Furthermore, perceived technological empowerment strengthens the positive relationship between brand admiration and brand evangelism. The findings suggest that hotels seeking to foster brand advocacy should integrate technology initiatives with emotional engagement strategies and empower customers through user-friendly digital systems. Managers are encouraged to design technology-enabled services that enhance feelings of empathy, control, and admiration to stimulate voluntary brand promotion. This study contributes to SOR-based research by extending technology readiness literature into brand evangelism outcomes and by demonstrating the joint role of emotional mechanisms and technological empowerment in shaping customer advocacy in hospitality contexts.
The legacy we leave to future generations is shaped by the way we consume, move and inhabit our environment. Despite increasing climate commitments, household carbon emissions remain a major blind spot in Spain’s sustainability transition. This study addresses the problem of identifying the main drivers of individual emissions and their linkage with tourism-related behavior. Using a dataset of 1,017 individuals with detailed sociodemographic, professional and behavioral variables, total household emissions are disaggregated into mobility, restaurants, housing and shopping categories and cross-referenced by age, gender, region, employment status, income, telework days, nationality and household composition. Statistical analyses, including ANOVA and t-tests, are employed to highlight significant differences and patterns across demographic groups, taking into account indicators of sustainability-related attitudes and behaviors. The research aims to understand the underlying factors and inequalities of household carbon footprints, with a focus on implications for the tourism sector, which contributes significantly to national emissions, particularly through transport. Results show that variables such as age, income and household size shape carbon footprints and tourism demand patterns. Its originality lies in combining automatic carbon assessment tools with digital banking data to track consumption-based emissions at the individual level. Practically, the study offers data-driven recommendations for policymakers and businesses to design tailored sustainability interventions and theoretically, it advances the discussion on behavioral and technological pathways to low-carbon tourism. The findings underscore the need for targeted, data-driven sustainability policies that integrate technological innovation and behavioral insights. By empowering citizens through digital monitoring and awareness, the sector can foster environmental stewardship and strengthen Spain’s transition toward a competitive, net-zero future.
This study aims to explore and analyze the factors that influence tourists' electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intentions in the context of night tourism - an increasingly emerging tourism activity in Can Tho City, Vietnam. Drawing on an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework, the research incorporates not only the three core constructs of TPB (attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) but also three additional variables: destination image, memorable tourism experience, and tourist satisfaction. Data were obtained from 246 domestic and international tourists through a structured questionnaire, using a combination of convenience and snowball sampling techniques to ensure diversity in demographic and travel characteristics. The study employs Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and analyzes the data using SmartPLS 4.0. The findings reveal that all six examined factors have significant positive effects on tourists' intentions to share eWOM about night tourism. Among the examined constructs, Subjective norms emerged as the strongest predictor of eWOM (8 = 0.243), followed by perceived behavioural control (8 = 0.242). Additionally, memorable tourism experience and tourist satisfaction play an important mediating role in these relationships, suggesting that enhancing the overall quality of the tourism experience can amplify positive digital wordof-mouth behaviors. These results provide both theoretical and practical contributions. They extend the application of TPB to the underexplored context of night tourism and offer actionable insights for destination managers and insist on designing marketing strategies, improving service quality, and leveraging digital platforms to promote sustainable growth of night tourism in Can Tho City.
This study examines how tourists' attitudes towards 5-Dimensional Virtual Reality (5DVR) influence their behaviour in cultural tourism contexts, focusing on Islamic heritage destinations. 5DVR extends conventional VR by integrating multisensory stimuli, such as motion, haptics, and olfactory effects, thereby offering a deeper immersive experience. Guided by the attitude-behaviour framework, we examined tourists' attitudes towards 5DVR as the independent variable, satisfaction with 5DVR as a mediator, and intention to visit real destinations as the dependent variable, while testing inherent innovativeness as a moderator. An online survey with a quasi-experimental design was administered to 175 Indonesian tourists using a 5DVR platform. Satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between attitudes towards 5DVR and visit intentions, while inherent innovativeness moderated the satisfaction-intention pathway but did not influence the attitude-satisfaction relationship. These results highlight the role of multisensory immersive technologies in shaping tourists' psychological responses and travel intentions. We suggest that managers can strengthen cultural tourism engagement by designing 5DVR experiences that emphasise sensory immersion, authenticity, and emotional appeal, while tailoring promotional strategies to innovative and tech-savvy market segments.
Spa tourism has significantly contributed to the economic, socio-cultural, and all-around development of regions. There is no holistic, applicable concept for assessing the sector's potential, posing a significant methodological problem for science and research. The methodology of the study is based on the systematization of existing procedures and indicators for measuring the sector's potential, which identified 80 relevant indicators. In the specific environment of the spa tourism sector, the situation is complex, and the authors focus only on partial components of the potential or its assessment, which does not provide an objective view of this sector. The main objective of the study is to present an original methodological approach for assessing the potential of spa tourism. Several methods were used in the study: the four-phase Delphi method, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the Spa Tourism Development Index (TDI), and the Spa Tourism Development Potential Index (TDP). The originality of the study lies in the new methodological approach based on a set of indicators that enable the assessment of the development potential of spa tourism in a destination, and in the subsequent implementation to derive index values. The author's team intends to fill the methodological gap. The average TDP value of 0.3189 over the six-year period indicates a moderate but positive growth potential. The results indicate the need for state and regional interventions in an interdisciplinary context to ensure the sustainable growth of this key form of tourism. The findings can be used in the preparation of spa tourism strategies as an argumentative basis for proposed policies and instruments.
The aim of this study is to investigate how social capital shapes tourist satisfaction in community-based tourism (CBT), focusing on service quality as a key mechanism. Although prior research recognizes that social relationships matter for tourism development, less is known about how specific forms of social capital translate into visitor-level outcomes. To address this gap, we conceptualize social capital as a formative, higher-order construct comprising bonding, bridging, and linking dimensions, and integrate this structure with established frameworks for service quality and satisfaction. Data were collected from 375 domestic tourists across six CBT destinations in Vietnam. A sequential mixed-methods design was used to refine the research model and adapt measurement items to the local context. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), including the assessment of mediation effects. The findings show that social capital has a strong positive effect on service quality, and service quality, in turn, significantly increases tourist satisfaction. Service quality partially mediates the relationship between social capital and satisfaction, with the indirect pathway accounting for a substantial share of the total effect. Social capital also has a direct but weaker influence on satisfaction, suggesting that community relationships may additionally enhance visitors’ experiences through more intangible channels. Overall, the model shows strong explanatory power and moderate predictive performance. The study contributes by advancing a higher-order view of social capital and clarifying service quality as the main link between community dynamics and tourist outcomes. The findings also suggest that CBT communities and policymakers should strengthen bonding, bridging, and linking social capital as relational infrastructure to improve service quality and tourist satisfaction.
Tourists are central to the vitality of any destination, as their behavior shapes its image and growth. Understanding the factors that drive repeat visits and recommendations informs strategic planning for sustainable destination development, strengthening the competitiveness of emerging destinations. This study examines the determinants of tourists' behavioral intentions in Timisoara, Romania, designated as the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2023. Using the cognitive-affective-conative framework, the research investigates the impact of travel motivations, perceived quality of destination attributes, and satisfaction on tourists' intentions to revisit and recommend the destination. Data were collected within one year of Timisoara's EcoC designation from 682 foreign tourists and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to assess the relationships among the key constructs. Findings indicate that perceived quality of destination attributes-particularly food and drink, the urban environment, and accommodation strongly drive tourists' behavioral intentions, while travel motivations related to the city's cultural heritage exert an indirect effect. These insights offer actionable recommendations for city planners and destination managers, highlighting the importance of strategic investments in tourism infrastructure and enhancing visitor experiences. This study contributes to event tourism research by providing a model for baseline assessment of emerging cultural destinations and by demonstrating how the cognitive-affective-conative lens can be applied to a city undergoing significant tourism transformation, offering an unexplored perspective for future research on event tourism and destination
Recently, climate anxiety, climate change consciousness, and the adoption of sustainable travel practices have been considered key elements of the tourism industry. In this context, the relationships between these variables have been analyzed from a holistic perspective. The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of climate awareness on the adoption of sustainable travel intentions. Moreover, the mediating role of climate anxiety in the aforementioned relationship has also been investigated in the research. 470 guests who visited T & uuml;rkiye throughout 2025 were surveyed as part of the study. The data collected have been analyzed using the New Ecological Paradigm, Climate Anxiety, and Environmentally Responsible Behavior Scales. The analysis has indicated a significant positive relationship between climate awareness and sustainable travel intention. It has also been found that climate anxiety strengthens this connection. Additionally, the partial mediating role of climate anxiety in the relationship between climate awareness and behavioral intention has been determined using structural equation modeling. In addition to these, demographic analysis has revealed that female and younger participants have higher levels of climate anxiety and greater participation in sustainable travel practices. Therefore, the research highlights the crucial role of climate anxiety in the formation of sustainable behavioral intentions. In conclusion, several suggestions have been made for the stakeholders and policymakers of the tourism industry. It's of utmost importance for them to develop strategies and organize campaigns to raise awareness because, with proper guidance, climate anxiety is thought to act as a strong motivator for encouraging people to adopt sustainable practices. The study contributes theoretically to the literature on climate psychology and sustainable tourism by clarifying the awareness-emotion-behavior relationship in the tourism context; it also provides practical recommendations for destination managers and policymakers to develop communication strategies and campaigns that channel climate anxiety into encouraging low-carbon travel choices.
This study examines whether environmental and governance (E&G) practices enhance or constrain performance in small European restaurants, a sector that is increasingly exposed to sustainability demands yet remains underrepresented in recent ESG research. While prior studies on large and listed firms typically report positive sustainability performance links, evidence for micro and family-owned restaurants remains scarce. This research gap is particularly critical because these small businesses are most likely to be significantly affected by emerging regulatory frameworks, such as the EU's CSRD, given their limited resources and narrow margins. Addressing this gap, we assess whether E&G practices operate as strategic resources or instead generate short-term financial trade-offs in resource-constrained settings. Using data from 1,390 small restaurants and applying partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), we evaluate the effects of E&G practices on operational efficiency, profitability, and productivity. Results reveal significant negative associations across all outcomes, indicating that E&G adoption may increase operational and financial pressures without producing immediate improvements. The study contributes to the hospitality and SME sustainability literature in three ways. First, it provides sector-specific evidence on how E&G practices shape firm outcomes in small restaurants. Second, it clarifies the short-run tensions SMEs face when implementing sustainability initiatives amid emerging regulatory expectations. Third, it advances an approach for measuring observable E&G practices in micro-enterprises, addressing persistent challenges in sustainability-SME assessment. Overall, the findings question assumptions of uniformly positive sustainability effects and underscore the need for context-sensitive sustainability policies and managerial strategies in the hospitality sector.
In today's digital environment, tourism risk is increasingly shaped not by actual events but by how those events are communicated. This study explores how media narratives, political instability, and emotional amplification contribute to perceived insecurity in tourism. Through a bibliometric analysis of articles in English-language published from 1986 to 2024, the research traces thematic shifts from traditional event-driven perspectives toward communicative framings of risk. The findings highlight the growing prominence of themes such as "perceived risk," "crisis management," and "destination image," suggesting a deeper academic recognition of tourism's psychological and symbolic vulnerabilities. The analysis reveals how media ecosystems, through repetition, framing, and virality, sustain fear and distrust long after a crisis has passed. This study addresses a critical gap in the literature by foregrounding the role of narrative and media discourse in shaping travel behaviour. It calls for greater attention to narrative management and digital communication strategies as essential tools to rebuild trust and ensure destination resilience. A long-term, reliable, and effective strategy to cope with the adverse effects of narrative disruption on tourism can be implemented only if we can develop a comprehensive understanding of the sociopsychological effects.
The spatial structure of tourism forms the foundation for strategic planning and regional coordination. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Chinese tourists have increasingly adopted personalized and niche travel patterns, challenging traditional resource-oriented spatial models and generating new demands for adaptive destination planning. This study aims to mine tourist movement behaviour to reshape the spatial structure of tourism destinations and to integrate relevant theories, thereby providing theoretical insights and practical implications for spatial optimization and sustainable tourism development. Using travelogues from Ctrip, China's largest online travel platform, the study applies big data mining and social network analysis within the framework of pole-axis theory to examine Shanxi Province. This study is among the few that integrate social network analysis with pole-axis theory to analyse tourism spatial restructuring, thereby extending the application of pole-axis theory from a resource-oriented to a demand-oriented perspective and enhancing the practical utility of social network analysis findings for tourism planning. The results show that tourist behaviour reshapes spatial structures into a "dual-core, four zones, and eight clusters" pattern, which contrasts sharply with the government's planned "one pole, three zones, and eleven clusters" framework. The findings demonstrate a significant spatial mismatch, underscoring the need to shift from resource-oriented to demand-responsive strategies, and offering important implications for policymakers, destination managers, and scholars concerned with sustainable tourism and spatial planning.
Sustainable tourism has emerged as a key issue in contemporary development agendas due to increasingly urgent global sustainability challenges. Concurrently, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has intensified the focus on tourism as a means to achieve sustainable development. This research aims to assess the potential of tourism as a systemiser of sustainability to realise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in a tourist region. It undertook an in-depth correlational analysis of tourism development and sustainable development, based on 232 indicators that monitor the 17 SDGs at the national level. Ultimately, the study highlights necessary directions for tourism policy, which must be oriented towards fostering resilience by 2030 while recovering businesses and society through three dimensions: 1) tourism and people; 2) tourism and the planet; and 3) tourism, prosperity, and global partnerships.
This study analyses the determinants of international tourism demand in Spain. To this end, it examines the 17 Spanish regions (at the NUTS-2 level) over the period 2001-2022. Unlike much of the existing literature, which approaches tourism from a national perspective, this work adopts a regional focus. Using dynamic panel data models (System-GMM), the analysis employs three alternative measures of tourism demand: one related to tourism activity (absolute international tourist arrivals), another to tourism intensity (number of tourists per capita), and a third to tourism density (number of tourists per square kilometre). The results indicate that tourism demand exhibits a persistent but moderate dynamic, and that factors such as regional GDP, relative prices, hotel infrastructure, and certain destination characteristics (beaches, cultural assets) significantly influence international tourist attraction. Moreover, the study finds that uncertainty negatively affects tourism demand. The robustness analysis reveals notable differences between tourist and non-tourist regions, underscoring the need for differentiated regional policies to promote more balanced tourism development.
Amid escalating environmental challenges and shifting consumer values, understanding the psychological and cultural drivers of sustainable consumption has become imperative. This study examines the impact of minimalism on sustainable consumption behaviors among Generation Z consumers in China, utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs: attitude towards behavior, perceived behavioral control, and perceived social expectations as driving mechanisms. However, a clear research gap exists in understanding how minimalism, as a lifestyle orientation, interacts with cultural values such as collectivism to shape sustainable consumption behaviors among Generation Z consumers. Motivated by the underexplored role of minimalism in shaping pro-environmental choices, the study further examines the moderating effect of collectivist culture on these relationships. A cross-sectional survey design was employed, and data were collected from 455 respondents using systematic random sampling in the Province, China. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed to test the hypothesized relationships. The findings reveal that minimalism has a significant and positive influence on sustainable consumption behaviors. In addition, the TPB construct, comprising attitude towards behaviour, perceived behavioural control, and perceived social expectations, significantly influences sustainable consumption behaviours. Additionally, collectivist cultural orientation was found to strengthen the impact of minimalism on sustainable consumption behaviours. The study is unique in integrating minimalism and collectivist culture within the TPB framework, offering novel insights applicable to the tourism and services sectors, where sustainable consumption choices are increasingly vital. Policy implications underscore the need for culturally grounded sustainability campaigns, minimalist education in youth-targeted programs, and supportive infrastructure to encourage low-consumption lifestyles. The study offers a novel and empirically grounded contribution to sustainable consumer behaviour literature and serves as a benchmark for future cross-cultural and longitudinal research.
This study investigates tourism preferences across gender identities and sexual orientations within Spain's LGBTQ+ community (n = 546). Guided by an intersectional theoretical framework, the research challenges traditional segmentation models in LGBTQ+ tourism that prioritise sexual orientation while neglecting the influence of gender identity. Drawing from debates in queer theory and gendered leisure studies, it positions tourism as a space where identity is expressed, negotiated, and often constrained by social norms. Data were collected through an online survey and analysed using the Rao-Scott corrected chi-square test and Cram & eacute;r's V to examine associations between gender/sexual identity and ten tourism types. Findings reveal that cisgender men and trans women are overrepresented in nightlife tourism, while trans individuals show lower participation in traditional tourism, suggesting potential barriers to inclusion. Lesbian women display a preference for culturally conventional tourism, and gay men are overrepresented in LGBTQ+ tourism. Non-binary participants exhibit diverse patterns, engaging more frequently in nature-based and art-related tourism. These results offer empirical support for a more nuanced, identity-aware understanding of LGBTQ+ tourism behaviour. They further highlight the imperative to incorporate gender-diverse perspectives into destination marketing, product development, and service design. By foregrounding the complexity of LGBTQ+ identities, the study contributes to advancing inclusive tourism scholarship and practice and sets a precedent for future research that engages more deeply with underrepresented identities in the tourism sector.
Amid Taiwan's growing domestic tourism market, understanding college students' travel behavior toward tourism factories has become crucial for operators. Previous studies have primarily focused on experiences and satisfaction associated with tourism factories, yet have generally neglected a systematic investigation into how word of mouth influences the transformation process from behavioral intention to actual visit behavior among younger populations. Using the theory of planned behavior, this study investigates how word of mouth influences attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, further affecting behavioral intention and actual visit behavior. To explore the research objectives, data were collected from 161 college students who had previously visited tourism factories, and analyzed using the structural equation modeling method via Smart-PLS software. The results of the PLS-SEM analysis indicate that word of mouth exerts a significantly positive influence on college students' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. In turn, these three variables significantly impact behavioral intention, demonstrating a strong positive effect on actual visit behavior. For college students' choices about where to travel, the importance of external social influences and practical considerations is greater than that of individual attitudes, which played a role in influencing behaviour, highlighting the important influence of word-of-mouth on decision-making again. Findings address the research gap in tourism factory studies targeting young consumers and provide managerial insights for developing marketing strategies. The results offer practical guidance for tourism factory operators to attract college students, contributing to strategic development in Taiwan's post-pandemic tourism industry.
The present study aims to examine the role of social capital dimensions (i.e., social relationships, information possession, supplementary capitals, and social obligations) in entrepreneurial activity success. The study used a questionnaire form and the snowball sampling technique to collect data from youth entrepreneurs from three Arab countries. In total, 186 youth entrepreneurs of the UAE, 120 from Egypt, agricultural, and other sectors. Structural equation modelling was used for data analysis. Findings revealed that social capital dimensions positively and significantly contribute to youth entrepreneurial activities capital theory to quantify measures of social capital and examine its contribution to successful entrepreneurship. Few studies have examined entrepreneurial youth activities and their relationship with social capital dimensions. There is a lack of empirical research on entrepreneurship from a social capital perspective. In practice, it provides guidelines for the entrepreneurship responsible authorities in with relevant training to equip them to build and leverage social capital to support their businesses.
