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This paper seeks to explore whether the global market segment Generation Y shares a common perception of a specific consumption activity, namely bungy jumping, and how perceptions of cool operate around that.

A qualitative methodology is adopted, appropriate to the exploratory aims of the research, which utilises existing filmed interviews to elicit responses from other members of Generation Y. The research explores shared identification, meaning and knowledge of a specific consumption practice, namely commercial bungy jumping.

The actual form of consumption, bungy jumping was widely accepted as being “cool” but a global consensus on a “cool” consumer and their story could not be reached. The research concludes by proposing a hierarchy for the attribution of cool from one Generation Y member to another; thus extending theoretical discussion and knowledge by investigating an established concept in a specific context to illustrate the complex and uneven nature of cultural globalisation.

This research interprets global Generation Y culture from a small convenience sample from America, Ireland, Scotland and England, thus generating avenues for further research as discussed.

These findings have value for businesses that create consumption experiences for Generation Y customers and scholars seeking insight into the plural and complex function of cool.

People arguably create “storied lives”; including constructing accounts of their leisure that become part of their personal and social identities. These stories are valuable and relevant, not just to themselves, but also to others with whom they choose to share their stories. This paper and accompanying film aim to further understanding of how consumers visiting the second highest bungy jump in the world construct and convey stories of this experience.

The research approach is exploratory. The researcher observed, interviewed, and filmed informants at the primary site of investigation. The interview transcripts were transcribed in full. Emergent themes were validated through constant cross‐checking. The themes provided the foundation for the accompanying video.

Several themes regarding narratives and high‐risk leisure emerged including the construction of factual accounts and rehearsed accounts, the use of markers to symbolize and make more tangible the consumption experience, and the role of technology in the communication of the stories.

This exploratory research offers insight into the components of narratives for Generation Y tourists consuming in New Zealand. These findings do not claim to generalize to other samples or activities.

The paper extends the knowledge of how stories figure in consumers' lives; particularly in the context of the consumption of high‐risk leisure.

The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of why the phenomena of knitting is important in society and an explanation of the underlying currents for tourism.

The paper presents a futurist's observations and reflections.

Why is knitting making a comeback? Consumers are shutting the door on the world and cocooning thus returning to the world of crafts and hobbies as a way to seek enjoyment. An interest in authenticity and the past as an escape from the present. Single people looking for something to do in an urban world, thus some consumers have turned to knitting. Today, the authors are seeing niche holiday providers offering knitting cruises, knitting escapes and knitting adventures. For New Zealand the home Merrino wool knitting tourism has the potential to be bigger than bungy jumping (some would say).

The trends paper provides an insight of the key trends from a societal perspective of what knitting means and its manifestation as a tourism experience. The value to operators is understanding those trends in context of why the phenomena is occurring.

The purpose of this editorial is to introduce six audio‐visual and written pieces that communicate research findings about contemporary popular culture.

The paper provides a summary overview of the papers in the special issue, highlighting similarities across submissions as well their distinctive contributions.

The authors conclude that researchers apply audio‐visual material to communicate their research findings in at least two ways: as stand‐alones to convey key messages; and to validate and/or dramatize highlights of their written work.

The paper provides an introduction to a special issue that features the application of multi‐media to communicate research findings associated with contemporary popular culture.

This opinion piece outlines the actions taken by the New Zealand government and tourism sectors in response to Covid-19 and to explore the potential lessons for resilience building in tourism for other destinations.

The analysis integrates descriptions of the Covid-19 outbreak and tourism-related policy responses in New Zealand, taken from prominent medical, governmental and journalistic accounts.

The resilience of the economy and domestic tourism was a major New Zealand policy priority, but this was seen by the Ardern administration as best achieved by first ensuring the health and well-being of the populace, as quickly and comprehensively as possible. This, in turn, required proactive, nationally coordinated measures designed to minimize the spread of Covid-19 including: lockdowns, preventive social-distancing and mask mandates, a four-level graduated strategy for ensuring national Covid-19 recovery (which later morphed into the “traffic light” system) and closely following the medical and epidemiological advice of experts in the related academic sciences. As a result of these, the negative impact on health, the overall economy and the tourism sector was substantially minimized, when compared with many other similar nations during the 2020–2022 period.

The New Zealand experience holds important lessons for preserving and rebuilding the hospitality and tourism industry in the aftermath of Covid-19, and during future similar pandemics.

Would you like to take control of your career so that you are not at the whim of the employer or the economy? The aim of this paper is to learn how to apply successful small business strategies to your career so that you are in charge.

Learn how to apply successful small business strategies to your career so that you are in charge. This article will help you to look at your career through the lens of an entrepreneur taking a product to market – in this case the product is you! The five steps include: assessing the strengths, capabilities and skills of your product; reviewing what the market wants; analysing the gaps between your product and what the market wants; planning the further development of your product; and marketing your product.

As of July 9 the author is launching a survey to gather success stories of how people have recession proofed their careers. However at the time of this writing the findings from that survey are not available.

These practical steps are easy to apply and can give your career the boost it needs in these uncertain economic times.

While many authors have given the advice to either treat your career as a business or to be the Chief Executive Officer of your career, “Five steps to a recession proof career” provides practical advice on how to actually achieve that goal.

This paper aims to explore mixed emotions experienced by parents and children on holiday, how they are dealt with and how they influence the way “family” is “staged” and “done”.

This paper draws on 24 qualitative interviews with Danish parents and a questionnaire study reporting answers from 66 Danish children (11-15-year-old).

Problems external and internal to the family are identified and the latter are associated with more unease particularly among parents. This paper shows that parents invest significant narrative efforts in transcending gaps between ideals and practices. Also children are aware of the gaps between ideals and practices; they seem more matter-of-fact, however, regarding critical aspects of holidays.

The informants of the study solely represent two-parent hetero-sexual families of Danish origin, and so inclusion of a wider range of families would have added interesting perspectives. Furthermore, children’s perspectives on critical holiday incidents need further research.

Creators of family holiday products and marketing should present a more nuanced imagery taking a more diverse approach to what “family” on holiday looks like. They could take up the challenge of depicting a broader range of family situations, also showing less harmonious moments, using humour, and showing opportunities for some “alone time” for both parents and children should relational overload happen. Also occasional “wifi-free” moments seem to be much appreciated by all family members, and development of offline family experiences would seem to strike a chord.

The contemporary paradigm of intensive parenting along with strong ideals for family holidays make it essential for parents to narratively deal with and legitimize and transform less happy moments. To take pressure off contemporary families, it is important to bring to the fore the less glossy aspects of family holidays.

The originality of this paper is to illustrate the strong efforts applied by families to keep up a certain front to be the family that “ought to be” by nurturing and narrating positive emotions in relation to family holidays. The inclusion of children’s voices gives insights into children’s annoyance with parents’ rowing, relational overload and parents’ occasional lack of attention to children, for example through parental use of mobile phones during holiday togetherness.

Based on the key dimensions of the Metaverse environment (immersiveness, fidelity and sociability), this paper aims to develop the concept of sensory word-of-mouth (WOM) in Metaverse – the metaWOM. It attempts to upgrade the Reviewchain model and suggests the utilization of non-transferable tokens (NTTs) in curbing the explosion of fake WOM.

Following Macinnis’ (2011) approach to conceptual contributions, the authors browsed the currently available literature on WOM, Metaverse and NTT to portray the emergence of metaWOM.

By relying on Metaverse’s three building blocks, the authors map out the persuasiveness of metaWOM in the Metaverse-like environment. By incorporating NTT in the Reviewchain model, the authors upgraded it to provide a transparent, safe and trusted review ecosystem. An array of emerging research directions and research questions is presented.

This paper comprehensively analyzes the implications of a Metaverse-like environment on WOM and debates on technologies that can enhance the metaWOM persuasiveness. The proposed model in this paper can assist various stakeholders in understanding the complex nature of virtual information-seeking and giving.

This is the original attempt to delineate the sensory aspect of WOM in the Metaverse based on three crucial aspects of the Metaverse environment: immersiveness, fidelity and sociability. This paper extends the discussion on the issue of fake reviews and offers viable suggestions to curb the ever-growing number of fraudulent WOM.