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This paper aims to analyse the effects of events image from host communities’ perspective on the city’s overall image and the intention to recommend the events and the city as a tourism destination.

The research used a bivariate data analysis based on Spearman’s correlation and regression analysis to determine useful variables to predict the intention to recommend the city as a tourism destination. Data collection was face-to-face and online with a non-probabilistic sample of Viseu city residents, the second largest city in the central region of Portugal.

The findings had implications for researchers, governments and stakeholders. From the resident’s point of view, there is a high correlation between the overall city image and the intention to recommend it as a tourism destination. Event image and the intention to recommend the event participation affect the overall city image. Results point out the resident as natural promoters of events and their city if the local events have an appeal that generates their participation. Conclusions indicated that cities need to re-thinking tourism from the citizen’s perspective as staycation is a grown option.

Event image by host-city residents’ perceptions is an underdevelopment theme in the literature, although residents’ participation is essential to the success of most events. Local events can promote tourist citizenship and reinforce the positioning of tourism destinations, associating them with an image of desirable places to visit and live.

This study aims to uncover marketing strategies to restore a positive image in times of pandemic crisis to bring tourists back to a popularly affected tourism city in China, Wuhan in Hubei Province. The paper argues that the process of restoring city image requires understanding the perceptions of Generation Z, a segment of the population who have a high propensity to travel after COVID-19.

This study employed a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore the perspectives of China’s Generation Z consumers of Wuhan’s future image to restart tourism. The data is collected through semi-structured interview of 29 respondents and analyzed with the initial, focused and theoretical coding process.

Start by narrowing the gap between projected and perceived image, the findings suggest that Generation Z could be pulled to visit Wuhan city through four core products such as dark tourism activities, special-interest leisure, heroism and storytelling.

The destination image restoration framework after health-related crisis is creatively proposed. It combines the analysis of crisis and urban characteristics from the perspective of the target audience (Generation Z) and provides specific strategies to restore the tourism city image from cognitive, affective and conative dimensions. Significantly, two novel characteristics of Generation Z (i.e. lighthearted and patriotic) emerge in addition to the typical features of this generational cohort. This study also found a high preference for a technologically oriented type of attraction that reverses the morbid COVID-19 memories into an entertainment tool.

Web Summit is an annual technological event which takes place annually in November and has great worldwide impact. The event fits into the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) typology and has mega-event proportions, not only due to the number of participants but also in relation to its media coverage. The aim of this study is to analyse the participation of Web Summit participants in leisure activities outside the event, namely regarding entertainment and culture and heritage. It was also intended to know their perception of the city's brand image, according to the participants' age and the number of days they stay in the city.

This investigation is anchored in a quantitative methodology. Data were collected during the four days of the event from a convenience sample of 410 participants. For this purpose, a 15-item questionnaire was used, specifically designed to meet the study's objectives, assessing three dimensions: entertainment, culture and heritage and brand image.

Entertainment and culture and heritage positively influence tourists' perception of brand image. It was also possible to ascertain that the age of the tourists and their interest in culture and heritage are correlated. Finally, it was found that tourists' perception of entertainment varies depending on the number of days they stay in Lisbon.

The main limitation of the study is related to the fact that a convenience sample was used in a single destination, which does not allow generalization to other contexts. Therefore, it would be interesting to apply the study in other geographical and cultural contexts, particularly in Rio de Janeiro, where the event will also take place next year (2023).This research contributes to extending the reflection on the role that events play in the brand image of a tourist destination. This study also highlights the importance of understanding consumer behaviour in MICE typology events.

The MICE sector plays an important role in the tourism industry as it constitutes a driving force of the global economy. Thus, it is considered that this research draws attention to the importance of the regions invested in this sector (e.g. expansion of facilities, ease of access to the site). Thus, in practical terms, the findings allow the authorities and the different stakeholders to better understand the impact of the event on the city's image and, at the same time, adapt the services according to the attendees' preferences.

Considering the results, the study may have an impact on the organization of tours and events related to local culture and heritage, particularly in old quarters, where there is a greater lack of resources and the standard of living of the inhabitants is more precarious.

This research contributes to extending the reflection on the role that mega-events play in the brand image of a tourist destination. This study also highlights the importance of understanding the behaviour of consumers of different ages in events of the MICE typology, in leisure activities outside the event.

Although tourism destination image is a widely studied subject, the perspective of local players is generally neglected, albeit its relevance for informing the positioning and brand management strategies of the places is recognized. This chapter aims to determine the perceptions of key local public organizations from the historical-cultural and heritage sectors and companies linked to commerce and tourism (private sector) about the historic center of a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site in Brazil. The results of this investigation contribute to the development of marketing and tourism development strategies in historic towns, especially those classified as World Heritage by UNESCO.

This paper aims to systematically visualize the structure and trends from 2005 to 2021, which will help scholars gain a deeper appreciation for existing studies and grasp future research possibilities and directions.

The approach is bibliometric, using VOSviewer and CiteSpace to analyze 765 journal articles and reviews from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases over the past 16 years.

There is considerable interest in urban tourism destination image (U-TDI), partly because of the role of image in promoting the economic development of urban tourism and the associated benefits to stakeholders. Most research output concerns China, the USA, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK); research in the USA context has had a particularly wide range of influence. Highly cited journals play a crucial role, while subject structure, key articles and high-frequency keywords indicate popular topics, sub-themes and development trends. Drawing on these findings, the authors identify four topics that deserve further study.

This systematic review will enhance understanding of U-TDI research and inform future research directions as well as highlighting the need to explore destination image in greater depth, it guides policymakers in the tourism industry seeking to develop city image.

This study aims to investigate tourists’ impressions of the smart destinations model from the socio-technical systems and the technology–organization–environment (TOE) perspectives. Specifically, it aims to explore how information source credibility and cloud infrastructure influence tourists’ use of intelligent technology.

This measurement development is based on prior literature; after being evaluated for face and content validity, the authors used random sampling to collect data and conducted a field survey of tourists through Taoyuan Airport and using the airport MRT between December 2022 and March 2023. After confirming that tourists knew the destination information and had experience using travel-related mobile applications to plan their itinerary, the authors further invited tourists to participate in the survey, and 512 valid questionnaires were analyzed by the structural equation modeling approach.

The finding pointed out that source credibility and intelligent technology were innovative technologies that benefitted tourists, as were mobile travel planning apps, which created a relational context based on interests and activities from the socio-technical and TOE perspectives.

Technological innovation is closely related to the development of smart cities; tourists who used travel itineraries successfully understood travel-related actions and significantly had more positive affective images of the city.

The nuclear purpose of this research paper is to analyse representative bridges around the world as a tourist attraction and iconic element through destination marketing organisations’ (DMOs’) tourism official websites where these are localised and three online travel agencies’ (OTAs’) websites.

This research used a mixed method. The author carried out Google research (13 March 2023) that included the following search word string “iconic bridges around the world” and “the most famous bridges worldwide” to select the most relevant bridges around the globe. Moreover, this research used a content analysis to examine how Expedia, Booking and Orbitz OTAs promote the bridges through their websites in terms of a tourist attraction, iconic element, tourist package, images and information.

Findings suggest that the most representative bridges analysed in this study are promoted as iconic element and tourist attraction through DMOs’ websites. Nevertheless, Booking, Expedia and Orbitz OTAs promote and sell products and services related to bridges selected, except in the case of the Millau Viaduct in France, the Si-O-Se-Pol bridge in Iran, the Danyang Kunshan Grand bridge in China and the Royal Gorge in the USA. Furthermore, results support that OTAs need to enhance the quality and variety of products and services that are linked to iconic bridges sightseeing tours because at the moment, there is a great uniformity in the promotion of products and services provided.

This paper contributes to broader debates in the importance of bridges as a tourist attraction and iconic element to attract tourists through tourism promotion websites.

This study aims to propose resident-based brand equity models on green, creative and smart development themes through a multi-sample telephone survey on Hong Kong residents (n = 751).

This research adopted a quantitative approach with a round of questionnaire-based survey carried out anonymously on adult citizens who have stayed in Hong Kong for more than one year. Telephone survey was performed by a professional survey research centre with trained interviewers between May and July 2022.

The study identifies the magnitude of these city brand equity attributes and reconfigured their composition under separate samples of Hong Kong residents. The results reveal the relatively stronger brand equity for developing Hong Kong as a smart city brand compared with green and creative branding.

The research findings might carry a major limitation of varied interpretations and stereotypes of each city theme (green, creative and smart) by local residents. To minimize the expected bias, two core questions were added to provide respondents with information on each theme before the main survey questions. The questions’ wording was also simplified to ensure the constraint and inconsistency of layman effect.

The common attributes across the themes, including distinctiveness, uniqueness, confidence, positive image, liveability, long-term residence, feature familiarity and top-of-mind, indicate the most prominent aspects of brand equity formation and enhancement. Since urban sustainability does not follow a single path of strategies and infrastructure development, city brand process should also follow a selective approach, which clearly identifies a multiplicity of local interests that could create the best outcomes and the strongest brand equity for the city.

The factor allocation and regression analysis elucidate different configurations of the determining factors with a three-factor model for green city brand equity and two-factor models for the other ones. The findings encore some previous studies supporting the differentiation between common attributes and distinctive attributes, and the overlapping approach to unleash the strongest integration of attributes of brand equity.

Building on Kavaratzis and Hatch’s (2013) identity-based place branding model, this paper aims to explore the spatial and social dimensions of the place brand identity formation process and how residents used social media to participate in the process of shaping a city brand during a crisis.

Adopting an interpretive and social constructionist approach, this study analyses a sample of 187 short videos created and posted by Wuhan residents on the social media app Douyin during a COVID-19 lockdown. The authors read the videos as cultural texts and analysed underlying social processes in the construction of place brand identity by residents.

This study develops an adapted conceptual model of place identity formation unfolding in four sub-processes: expressing, impressing, mirroring and reflecting, and each sub-process subsumes two dimensions: the social and the spatial. In addition, this study empirically describes how residents participated in place branding processes in two ways, namely, their construction of city brand identity via communicative practice and their exertion of changes to a city brand during a crisis. The model reveals how place brands emerge and can be transformed.

This paper amplifies Kavaratzis and Hatch's (2013) identity-based place branding model by testing it in an empirical study and highlighting the social and spatial dimensions. This paper contributes to research about participatory place branding by exploring how residents participated in the place branding process. This study analysed short videos on social media, a new communication format, rather than textual narratives dominating past studies.