Protected areas increasingly depend on tourism to support biodiversity conservation and local development; however, conflicts over governance, resource access, and benefit-sharing continue to challenge sustainability outcomes. The Makuleke Contractual National Park (MCNP) in South Africa, established through a landmark land restitution agreement, provides a valuable context for examining the relationship between co-management and tourism-resource conflict. This study aimed to investigate how co-management arrangements shape governance processes, access to tourism benefits, and sustainability outcomes within MCNP. A qualitative case study approach was employed, drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews conducted between January and March 2025 with community members, traditional leaders, South African National Parks officials, Communal Property Association representatives, and tourism stakeholders. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's sixphase thematic analysis framework. Three key themes emerged: governance and participation, unequal benefit-sharing, and sustainability implications. Findings indicate that although the Makuleke community regained ownership of the land through restitution, meaningful decision-making authority remains limited, while concerns over unequal benefit distribution and inadequate transparency persist. Participants perceived these challenges as undermining trust, community support for conservation, and long-term tourism sustainability. The findings suggest that legal ownership alone does not guarantee empowerment or equitable access to tourism benefits. The study concludes that strengthening co-management requires transparent governance, inclusive participation, equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms, and sustained capacity-building initiatives to enhance conservation outcomes and support the long-term sustainability of community-based tourism in protected areas.
Relief and hydrography have constituted, since the earliest times, the main axes delimiting civilization. The two natural factors, through their specific characteristics, can represent either favorable or restrictive factors in the development of human settlements. Consequently, the configuration of the relief and the presence of watercourses have influenced the choice of locations for settlements, the development and type of economic activities, while also serving as reference points for the creation and development of routes of access and communication. Moreover, these factors influenced the development of Roman roads, often built along valleys and natural corridors that facilitated the movement of flows. The Roman roads of Antiquity represent one of the models applied by the Romans, demonstrating that hydrography played a very important role in their creation. Thus, in the territory of Transylvania we have two major axes: the Someș and the Mureș. Based on the course of these waters and on all the factors involved in hydrography, the Roman roads and their settlements were concentrated around these two major axes and their tributaries. The result of this research was the delineation of the axes of the Roman roads, which are closely linked to the natural relief and the hydrographic network. The axes received a measurable and quantifiable identity: The Defensive Axis of Dacia Porolissensis based on the natural course of Someș tributaries, The Someș Limes Axis – a defensive axis on the northern frontier of Dacia Porolissensis, The Someș Limes Axis – a Defensive Axis on the Northern Frontier of Dacia Porolissensis, The Mureș Limes Axis – a southern Carpathian barrier. All four limes axes presented in this article have territorial connectivity and form a road system which, although initially built for military and administration, today represents an important point of economic development, preserving its connectivity function up to the present day.
This article examines the relationships between the implementation complexity of integrated management systems, environmental responsibility, and operational efficiency in hotels within the V4 countries. The aim was to analyse the impact of procedural complexity on the willingness to adopt environmental standards and to evaluate whether integrated quality management systems contribute to reducing customer complaints. The research was conducted in 2025 on a sample of 312 hotels in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) method, achieving a response rate of 65.27%. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and the Independent Samples t-test were applied to verify the proposed hypotheses. The statistical analysis confirmed a strong negative correlation (ρ = −0.742; p < 0.001) between implementation complexity and the level of environmental activity, indicating that administrative burden represents a major barrier to the adoption of sustainable management practices. At the same time, hotels with an established quality management system recorded significantly fewer customer complaints (1.82 per 100 guests) than non-certified hotels (4.18 per 100 guests). The findings demonstrate that integrating quality and environmental management systems generates measurable operational and reputational benefits while highlighting the importance of simplifying implementation procedures. The study contributes to the literature on Green Quality Management in the Central European hospitality sector and provides practical recommendations for hotel managers seeking to improve service quality, strengthen environmental responsibility, and enhance long-term competitiveness through integrated management approaches. The findings also provide empirical evidence supporting the wider adoption of integrated management systems as a strategic tool for sustainable hotel development in the V4 region.
Independent travel is one of the fastest-growing segments of international tourism, yet its institutional determinants remain under-researched in emerging destinations. This study empirically assesses, using the case of Uzbekistan, how visa policy openness and the tourism service ecosystem influence the flows of independent travellers and the dynamics of international arrivals. For the period 2015-2024, a Visa Openness Index (VOI) was developed for 12 countries: visa-free length-of-stay provisions were coded into ordinal indicators and normalized to a 0-1 scale using cosine similarity against an ideal benchmark vector. Subsequently, a random-effects panel regression model was estimated for 11 countries to evaluate the relationship between the dynamics of the visa-free regime, VOI and arrivals, while controlling for time effects and external shocks. The results reveal substantial cross-country variation in openness levels and confirm that Uzbekistan’s VOI is approximately 0.84, among the five most open in the sample despite its low passport power. The regression estimates indicate that an expansion in visa-free regime coverage exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on arrivals (β ≈ 0.0097; p < 0.05), whereas pandemic and crisis factors reduce flows. At the micro level, a Delphi process involving 15 experts assessed the importance of 31 service elements for independent tourists and identified digital information services (GIS applications, Wi-Fi, infokiosks), online booking, affordable accommodation, local mobility and parking and charging infrastructure as priority gaps. By integrating macrolevel visa policy and micro-level service priorities, the study shows that visa liberalization raises arrivals only where the service ecosystem can absorb the additional demand, offering practical guidance for destination managers in emerging tourism economies.
The main aim of this study to conduct a bibliometric analysis and to identify the publication trends, major contributions, thematic structures and future directions in field of social media and ecotourism. Between 2011 and 2025, 301 publications were gathered from Scopus database on social media and ecotourism have been identified.The VOSviewer and the R softwares were utilised for all the analyses. According to the results, the number of studies in this domain has grown over the previous few years. Also, the results co-occurrences analysis revealed that social media and its impact on ecotourism have continued to be the primary areas of study. This study may create a base for the emerging topic of social media and ecotourism by evaluating pertinent articles, allowing future scholars to analyse the usage and advantages of social media in ecotourism. This study will help the academicians and researchers to understand the gaps in the existing literature and prospective study paths, which would help them perform future investigations. The analysis results add to a comprehensive knowledge of social media and ecotourism research development. The findings further indicate that Sustainability (Switzerland), the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism are the leading outlets in this domain, while China, Australia and the United States emerge as the most productive contributing countries. Bibliographic coupling, citation and co-citation analyses further map the intellectual foundations of the field and identify the authors, countries and sources that anchor its scholarly conversation. The thematic map distinguishes motor, basic, niche and emerging themes, with tourist behaviour, sustainable tourism development and the tourism industry emerging as the most promising directions for future enquiry.
