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This paper aims to present the Azores tourism strategy and outline how local communities are centered at the heart of tourism development.

This paper analyzes the development of tourism in the Azores Archipelago and how it contributes to value creation and retention, as well as job creation. It explores the role of local communities in the tourism experience, and the strategic options on the 2030 horizon.

Tourism has become a main driver for economic growth and social prosperity in the Azores, with sustainability acting as a definitive driver of tourism development. However, to fully leverage the potential of tourism to impact local communities and the regional economy, it is of the utmost importance to stimulate the dispersal of inbound tourism across the nine islands. This will help to spread out value and job creation, help in reducing pressure on fragile resources and at the same time, mitigate seasonality and provide more stable income throughout the year.

A new approach to tourism development is proposed, where the success of tourism is to be measured by the quality of the tourist experience and the benefits that tourism adds to the Azores, assigning the local community with a central role in decision-making processes related to tourism. To reinforce the focus on the sustainable development of the territory, anchored on its certification as a sustainable tourist destination, the first archipelago in the world with this distinction, a strong focus on Nature (Land and Sea), is adopted as the main priority. Communication with the end consumer is strongly proposed as a way of stimulating the desire to travel, supported by the positioning proposed in the new tourism strategy (PEMTA, 2030) – Azores: Nine islands, the experience of a lifetime.

According to the theory of push and pull factors, the current work aims to present two objectives: (1) to detect what attributes drive senior tourists to travel to the Azores islands, the role played by lecturing activities (LA) as push factors and their influence on the island's offer (pull factors) are analysed; and (2) to understand the personal and contextual barriers of tourists to provide information to the agents who form part of the tourism supply process on the island.

The data has been processed using the statistical package SmartPLS version 26. Using an exploratory methodology based on structural equation modeling (SEM) structural equations applied to small sample sizes, a tentative model has been generated to define the drivers of tourism for elderly people who visit the islands.

The research study reveals that LA are the key factor in completing the offering of tourist destinations in the Azores. Educational packages should be made available to senior tourists. Likewise, several tourism barriers, such as flight times, cost of the trip, concern about the safety of destinations, type of accommodation, language difficulties and medical and health care should also be revised by tourism authorities and flight stakeholders with regard to the Azores Islands.

The reduced sample has made the results impossible to show greater predictive power.

The role played by push factors, such as lecturing or educational activities, and pull factors, such as the tourism offering by the island, allows us to envisage educational packages based on the preferences of senior tourists, such as attending lectures on the history of the Azores, gastronomy (traditional food), active ageing flora, and interesting facts and legends of the islands.

As a push factor, social interaction has become the main motivation among senior tourists. Such tourists have conveyed not only their desire to meet other tourists but also their interest in socialising in tourist activities, relaxing and visiting other new places.

Even though LA are relatively common among university students and those with bachelor's degrees, educational packages for senior tourism are now gaining in popularity. Better socio-economic conditions worldwide and easier access to education for mature people have allowed them to expand their knowledge by travelling to exotic destinations such as the Azores. This paper links that interest with barriers to travel as well as to the Azores' rich touristic offering.

This paper aims to share the Azorean Government perspective and strategy for managing the current and estimated future tourism growth, assuring a sustainable destination approach, based on political commitment to integrate energy, environment and tourism in the same department. This paper also provides guidance and some key points for action pertinent to other destinations.

Content analysis of the development of Azores as a tourist destination and the strategies of the Azorean Regional Government relating to tourism development.

From an analysis of the Azores tourism statistics of the past three years, it is possible to predict that the levels of growth from supply and demand will continue to improve in a balanced way. The policies to be implemented in accordance with the Azorean government’s program for the next four years make clear that the Azores are perfectly positioned in relation to one of the fastest growing tourism segments in the world: adventure tourism and active nature.

This paper promotes the attractions of the Azores as an example in terms of sustainable practice policies.

Given current developments in world tourism, this paper considers the growth of tourism in the Azores. It also presents statistical data that confirms the sustained growth of the destination and the policies that are being developed to maintain the sustainability of the nine islands of the Azores.

This paper aims to highlight the importance of implementing practices that enable sustainable economic, social, cultural and environmental development to tourism worldwide. In particular, reference is made to the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, highlighting its certification process as an ongoing sustainable destination.

It contains an analysis of supply and demand statistics in the Azores and a characterization of policies and strategic positioning plans as an active destination and an explanation of the various steps of the certification process.

Through statistical analysis of the various planning instruments in the Azores, it is possible to understand the strategies of regional government in streamlining the economy without neglecting concerns about safeguarding the environmental heritage and the quality of life of inhabitants.

Through a local approach to a global issue, this paper presents the Azores as a destination and its path toward becoming one of the most sustainable regions in the world.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the Azores are overcoming the challenges and less favourable conditions arising from the economic crisis.

The article is based on information drawn from official national and regional sources.

The positive evolution that was taking place in the Azorean tourism was naturally affected by the financial and economic crisis. In recent years, the Archipelago has been enjoying visibility as a tourist destination and is increasingly standing out as a unique destination due to its natural and landscape heritage, capable of captivating the most demanding tourists in terms of environmental quality.

This article presents the perspective of the Azorean government and the responses given to the challenges caused by the economic crisis and the strategies outlined for the coming years.

This paper aims to discuss the impacts of sports events, considering these: from the perspectives of residents (in terms of self-esteem, increase of social problems, car traffic, cultural self-development and entertainment); and for the host territory (in terms of economic development, price level, destination image and environment). The paper analyzes the case study of a hallmark event of the European Rally Championship – the Azores Rally.

During the Azores Rally of 2014, 669 inhabitants on São Miguel Island answered a survey. The questionnaire assessed 12 items that are ex ante quality of life (QOL) indicators, ten items of event attributes and overall satisfaction with the event and nine items of event impact perceptions.

The satisfaction with the event is positively influenced by the host destination’s overall QOL, particularly by the entertainment and local gastronomy and is reinforced by the event-management mix. On other hand, the QOL attributes rather than the event performance indicators determine the perceptions of the promotion of image destination and economic development. The event spectacle level has a particular influence on the residents’ self-esteem.

The paper discusses the implications for public decision-makers, tour operators and event managers, focusing on the community as an important driver for placemaking.

This type of event has an impact on residents’ self-esteem, thus enhancing their QOL and hospitality.

This study supports the role of a peripheral island’s community as an active stakeholder, which interacts with the event organization’s key success factors.

The purpose of this paper is to present and analyse the recently launched strategic and marketing tourism plan for the Azores and how this is being used to foster tourism development in the region.

The article is based on information drawn from official national and regional sources.

In recent years, the Azores Archipelago has been enjoying a wave of popularity that witnessed a boost with the change in the new air accessibilities policy, culminating with the arrival of the low-cost airlines to the region. The positive isolation that the Azores faced for many years, because of few and expensive air connections, presently allows the offering of an unspoiled region of nine islands to the world tourism markets. To maintain and further expand the benefits of tourism, a tourism strategy, deeply rooted in sustainable principles, was developed and is being implemented.

This paper presents the perspective of the Azorean government and the responses given to the challenges and opportunities derived from a new wave of tourists to the region as a result of changes in the new air accessibilities policy, culminating with the arrival of the low-cost airlines to the Archipelago.

Senior travelers are an attractive market segment and increasingly participate in an internet-mediated society. This chapter examines the profile of senior tourists who booked their trip to the Azores using online travel agencies. The purpose is to analyze their motivation factors based on the travel motivation scale for senior tourists, using 17 items related to the motivations for visiting the destination, and to ascertain whether there are different groups of senior tourists based on sociodemographic characteristics, travel motivations, and experiences performed. Using a structured questionnaire and a sample of senior tourists, three distinct clusters are obtained.

The purpose of this paper is to present knowledge acquired through examining three cruise lines’ social media strategies over a three-year period, analyzing the network structures involved and demonstrating the value of the STAR (storytelling, triggers, amusement and reaction) model for enhancing social media activity.

This study gathered data from three cruise lines’ official websites and Facebook and Twitter accounts, examining variables such as internet presence, engagement and fans/followers. Furthermore, the work also addresses several issues that researchers encounter when using the STAR model.

Digital activity was found to vary significantly between the three cruise lines’ websites and Facebook and Twitter accounts, with the companies adopting different approaches and obtaining different results. Each company tended to have its own base of fans and followers, who shared a common language, reflected in the hashtags they used. The results show that cruise lines wishing to develop a content-oriented strategy that maximizes engagement in social media should share rich multimedia content that supports storytelling values and can be used on multiple platforms.

This work can be of interest to practitioners aiming to use a comparison and assessment tool for their digital activity. It could also assist future researchers focusing on cruise line activity, as few researchers have analyzed the online content strategies of cruise lines, particularly on Facebook and Twitter.

This paper aims to determine whether the implementation of knowledge management (KM) is linked to e‐business performance and to identify the nature of the relationship existing in the different components of knowledge‐sharing and application and internet‐based KM.

This paper establishes a new model of the practices and results of the KM which has been tested in European companies. For that purpose, a structural equation modelling analysis was used.

The results show that product innovation and external employees’ access to databases have a strong positive effect on the maximization of internet‐based KM and that internet‐based KM has also a positive impact on e‐business performance.

Limitations of this study include the need for more research into the KM cycle. This paper contributes to the research on this topic with new evidence in a broad sample.

These results point to KM's usefulness in improving every day e‐business processes. Therefore managers should be aware of these benefits.

The present study advances knowledge on the nature of the relative importance of different components of internet‐based KM as drivers of e‐business performance.