Transformative tourism is often presented as a pathway to personal growth and sustainable behaviour, yet the psychological factors explaining why some travellers experience transformation while others do not remain underexamined. This study investigates how growth mindset, reflection, and age interact to shape perceived transformative outcomes. Drawing on a mixed-methods design, the findings demonstrate that a growth-oriented mindset predicts greater engagement in reflective practice, which is associated with greater perceived transformation. Age further suggests the relationship between mindset and reflection, indicating the association may be stronger among older travellers. By integrating mindset theory, socioemotional selectivity theory, and transformative learning theory, this research reconceptualises transformation not as a product of isolated triggers but as a recursive psychological process shaped by cognitive predispositions and reflective depth. The study offers a psychologically grounded model of transformative tourism that offers both theoretical clarity and actionable insights for designing meaningful experiences that foster lasting change.
This study develops interventions that could facilitate responsible tourist behaviours around wildlife. Guided by the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behaviour (COM-B) Model and Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), qualitative research using interviews (n = 36) was conducted amongst tourists who encountered kea (Nestor notabilis), a native and endangered bird species in Aotearoa New Zealand. Findings revealed that responsible behaviours (non-feeding and watching) are shaped by tourists' psychological capability, pro-wildlife social norms, self-efficacy, attitudes towards irresponsible wildlife practices (e.g., feeding), and conservation goals. However, the absence of social influences, curiosity, opportunistic goals, and problematic beliefs about wildlife feeding, amongst others, could serve as barriers to more responsible behaviours. These insights were used to develop interventions in conjunction with the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). Implications for theory-use in social marketing research for wildlife tourism, as well as responsible tourist behaviours, are offered.
Strategic decisions made by tourism operators are often compromised by an exacerbation of negative feelings due to extenuating circumstances. One illustrative case is Donald Trump’s tariff policy, which has generated trade tensions and global uncertainty. Against this backdrop, this research explores how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) helps tourism operators in times of uncertainty by providing them with real-time assistance, while regulating their negative emotions during the decision-making process. Drawing on the appraisal tendency framework, we examine how negative emotions influence decision-makers’ temporal deferral decisions (i.e., the deferral of short-, medium-, and long-term commitments) via the threat appraisal tendency pathway. We also propose a GenAI-modulated appraisal tendency framework, integrating GenAI-driven cognitive–emotional regulation into organisational decision-making. Using three experiments, we test a triadic buffering mechanism, where GenAI-powered information filtering and cross-checking moderate the appraisal intention pathway. This research is among the first to position GenAI as an active regulator of cognition–emotion processes, offering insights into collaborative human–AI decision-making systems.
This study conceptualizes therapeutic experience in tea tourism as relationally assembled through material, social, and affective enabling resources. Drawing on a constructivist grounded theory study conducted in Wuyishan, China, we identify nine enabling resources and three enabling mechanisms: heterogeneous resource assemblage and placeness emergence, cultural storytelling and symbolic meaning-making, and embodied engagement and interbeing. These mechanisms progressively develop relational agency by connecting tourists with tea plants, local actors, cultural practices, and ecological environments. In particular, plant–human relational agency emerges through reciprocal processes of affecting and being affected by tea plants, moving beyond detached observation toward sensing, responding to, and being-with tea. This relational agency underpins therapeutic capacities, which give rise to therapeutic effects manifested as emotional restoration, reflective transformation, and self-transcendence. By adopting an enabling place perspective, this study advances understanding of how therapeutic experiences are relationally assembled in tourism and offers practical implications for designing healing-oriented tea tourism experiences.
Wine tourism has evolved in recent years from being a supplementary revenue stream to a strategic differentiation activity for wineries, fostering immersive consumer experiences and reinforcing sustainability commitments in response to growing consumer awareness of environmental responsibility. This study aims to analyze the influence of wine tourism on the green brand image of wineries, considering the mediating effects of green production practices and corporate social legitimacy. A structured survey was conducted among Spanish wineries, yielding 203 valid responses, and data were analyzed using the PLS-SEM technique. Findings reveal that wine tourism has a positive and significant influence on wineries’ green brand image, while green production practices and corporate social legitimacy exert significant mediating effects, thus emphasizing the importance of integrating sustainability into tourism experiences to reinforce authenticity, credibility, consumer trust, and brand loyalty, and the relevance of wine tourism for building a strong green reputation in the wine industry.
