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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of Andalusia’s tourism promotion budgets and the efficiency of its campaigns from 2010 to 2022.

A mixed-methods approach is used. Tourism promotion budgets from 2010 to 2022 were measured as a supply indicator. Demand indicators (e.g. airport’s passenger arrivals, number of tourists and hotel occupancy rate) are analysed to measure tourism promotion budget impacts on them.

Tourism promotion budgets are a priority to stimulate tourism demand for Andalusia in times of uncertainly, and promotion campaigns are pivotal to attract and convert potential customers into actual tourists. Moreover, findings reveal that tourism promotion budgets had positive impacts on tourism demand. Whereas tourism promotion campaigns such as “Andalucía wants you back”, “Intensely”, Fitur, World Travel Market, ITB Berlin events and tourism advertising through digital channels have helped to improve tourism demand in Andalusia, ignoring the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2020.

This study emphasizes how tourism promotion budgets and promotion campaigns must be constantly monitored by destination marketing organizations to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of assigned economic budgets and its return on investment.

This research aims to investigate how emerging destinations cope with digitalization of information, where they are in the process and how digitalization of information takes place in destination marketing organizations (DMOs). As a case for emerging destinations that must deal with the negative consequences of the digital divide, the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) will be examined. A new framework, solutions in general, and potential innovative approaches will be presented.

A mixed methods approach was used. Firstly, a content analysis comprising 68 criteria to examine 10 destination websites was conducted to evaluate the performance of provincial destination websites of VMD. Secondly, the authors interviewed five managers from VMD DMOs to reveal the strategy, status quo and their challenges with digitalization.

Some digitalization is evident in VMD DMOs, with the digitization of tourist information provision developing from analog formats to digital modes. The content analysis of the websites shows that provincial destination websites of VMD perform well with regard to communication but need improvements for transaction, and especially relationship aspects. Emerging destinations like VMD DMOs are reaching the second or third level in the digitalization process. Yet they face challenges with human and financial resources.

This research provides recommendations concerning destination website performance, the process of digitalization and how to promote digitalization and apply more digital instruments to move to the next stages of destination digitalization. Also, suggestions on how to overcome existing challenges/barriers in similar areas of the world are provided.

A new, extended more granulated version of the digitalization framework by Karpova et al. (2019) has been developed. The new model acknowledges the continued importance of printed information, provides information about the sequence of steps how to implement website dimensions, and which instruments are realistic to implement in different levels of digitalization considering the challenges and barriers developing destinations face.

This conceptual paper aims to explore government regulatory responses of social networking platforms (SNP) and tourism destination evangelism. This research draws on a two-phase data source review of government legislations that guarantee social media users and empirical papers related to social media platforms. The results revealed that Ghana has adopted specific legislations that manage and control SNP. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that synthesized government legislation and empirical papers on social networking platforms in evangelising destinations which have been missing in extant literature.

Understanding the multifaceted images of tourism destinations is critical for effective destination marketing and management strategies. Traditional approaches, including conceptualization of destination images or analysis of their antecedents and consequences, are commonly used. This study aims to advocate the inclusion of visitors’ latent profiles based on cognitive images to enrich the evaluation and formulation of destination marketing and management strategies.

The analysis focuses on Serbia, an emerging destination, that attracts an increasing number of first-time, repeat and prospective visitors. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to test the potential dimensions (tangible and intangible cultural destination; infrastructural and accessible destination; active, nature and family destination; sensory and hospitable destination; and welcoming, value for money (VFM) and safe destination) of the cognitive destination image factors scale while subtypes (profiles) were obtained using latent profile analysis (LPA).

The cognitive image component encompasses the perceived attributes of a destination, whether derived from direct experience or acquired through other means. The study identified the following profiles: conventional destination; sensory and hospitable destination; welcoming, VFM and safe destination; secure and active family destination and accessible cultural destination, which are presented individually with their sociodemographic assets.

The main contribution of the paper is the application of a novel method (LPA) for profiling visitor segments based on cognitive destination image. From a theoretical perspective, this research contributes to the extant body of literature pertaining to the destination image, thereby facilitating the identification of discrete latent visitor segments and elucidating noteworthy differences among them concerning a cognitive image.

This study aims to examine the tourists' visit intention by watching deepfake destination videos, using Information Manipulation and Media Richness Theory.

This study conducted a primary survey utilizing a structured questionnaire. In total, 1,360 tourists were surveyed, and quantitative data analysis was done using PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that the factors that affect the tourists' visit intention after watching deepfake videos include information manipulation tactics, trust and media richness. This study also found that perceived deception and cognitive load do not influence the tourists' visit intention.

The originality/salience of this study lies in the fact that this is possibly among the first to combine the Media Richness Theory and Information Manipulation for understanding tourists' visit intention and post-viewing deepfake destination videos.

Although there is a growing body of literature on how celebrity involvement impacts the effectiveness of destination marketing, the underlying mechanisms of that relationship are still underexplored. Based on the affect transfer and meaning transfer theories, this study aims to examine the impact of celebrity attachment on customer delight toward K-culture and K-culture attachment, affective and cognitive images of Korea, and the intention to visit Korea.

Online survey data were collected from 2,614 US residents, representing various demographic characteristics. For the data analysis, the partial least squares-structural equation modeling was conducted to evaluate the structural model and test the hypotheses.

The results showed that celebrity attachment is positively related to customer delight toward K-culture and K-culture attachment, which, in turn, positively influences affective and cognitive images of Korea. Additionally, K-culture attachment positively influences cognitive and affective images of Korea, which are positively related to the intention to visit Korea.

By using the affect transfer theory and meaning transfer theory, this study provides valuable insights into how consumer’s attachment to celebrities has spillover effects on the decision-making process. This study also adds a new concept, customer delight connected to cultural experience, in the context of destination marketing.

By understanding the importance and influence of people’s intimacy with media characters, practitioners can apply parasocial relationship theory, affect transfer theory and meaning transfer theory to their marketing strategies.

As one of the few empirical studies that examines the impact of celebrity attachment on consumers’ perceptions and behaviors, this study can make significant contributions to the destination marketing literature.

This study aims to explore the challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry following the COVID-19 pandemic and to propose effective strategies for recovery and resilience of this sector.

The study analysed the challenges encountered by the tourism and hospitality industry post-pandemic and identified key strategies for overcoming these challenges. The study utilised the modified Delphi method to finalise the challenges and employed the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to rank these challenges. Additionally, solution strategies are ranked using the Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method.

The study identified significant challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry, highlighting the lack of health and hygiene facilities as the foremost concern, followed by increased operational costs. Moreover, it revealed that attracting millennial travellers emerged as the top priority strategy to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on this industry.

This research contributes to understanding the challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It offers valuable insights into practical strategies for recovery. The findings provide beneficial recommendations for policymakers aiming to revive and support these industries.

This research finds out to what extent companies’ names are influenced by the place’s attributes versus the official branding policies of a place and, consequently, whether and how local companies “buy into” the place’s strategies put forth by official bodies.

This paper is both conceptual and empirical, as a mixed quantitative and interpretive approach is used. The companies’ names of a tourist industry (the tour and guiding companies) in three destinations are compared and pitched against the branding of these cities. The companies' names are classified into categories to ascertain whether they reflect (or diverge from) the official strategies. Finally, a conceptual model is developed to explain the findings: the strategic naming model (SNM).

Our main finding is that the overall business features of a place being stronger determinants to the naming strategies than tourist destination branding initiatives. The intrinsic features of a place seem thus to be “above” destination branding policies. The researched features account for different naming strategies, such as highly original names, flat names or non-strategic names.

As the work is based on a convenience sample, it cannot claim strong representativity. The fact that each of the three data sets was processed by a different researcher might bring up personal biases.

This work is a call for a more intensive use of naming strategies to the companies’ advantages, as naming is found out to be strategy used to a very low degree. Thanks to this research, companies will understand the different naming possibilities and be able to apply them to their strategies by choosing names which express “uniqueness” or “belonging”. Practitioners will also be aware of whether they are communicating towards the industry or towards the market.

No works were found that empirically pursue our research goals. Therefore, this research might be considered as a novelty. The proposed SNM model explains and relates the most usual company naming techniques, which were unrelated up to date.

Digital communication and social media have an increasing importance in society and in tourism boosting. This study aims to analyse the role of digital marketing in the destination image and visitor loyalty of historic sites.

Using a mixed-method approach combining survey data from 318 respondents and three in-depth interviews. Using structural equations modelling results reveals experience, satisfaction, image and loyalty are concepts to be considered by the destinations' digital marketing promotion, as well as the increasing use of digital marketing by tourists, in the sense that tourists are increasing the habit of checking the opinion of others before scheduling their trip and gives them more importance, and a growing importance is given by tourists to the web/social networks of places they intend to visit.

This study contributes to the theory on tourism digital marketing which can be transposed to organizations management in order to encourage discussion on the processes of capture, retention and loyalty of target audiences.

To enhance the importance of digital marketing in the process of the tourist development of the city, it is fundamental to define a clear strategy for attracting and responding to the greatest demand from cultural tourists who are increasingly interested in actively participating in learning experiences.

The results show that digital communication and social media have an increasing importance in society and in tourism boosting and economy recovery.

The paper presents digital marketing as a possible factor in tourism development and social inclusion, advancing practical measures aimed at social justice through a fairer distribution of tourism revenues and the defence of historic centre residents' way (i.e. Barcelos’), and quality of life.

The authors suggest the development of a strategic digital marketing plan applied to the development and promotion of tourism in the city of Barcelos (Portugal), to complement the research presented here, thus contributing with a more practical perspective of the subject under study.

This study aims to assess the online presence of three Portuguese low-density territories and analyze the communication strategies employed by public and private entities within each municipality. The alignment between public and private entities within each municipality is also examined as a potential factor that could impact the effectiveness of digital communication strategies.

A qualitative methodology that employed content analysis and interviews to gather data from selected public and private entities in each of the municipalities under study was used.

Despite the widespread availability of digital communication tools, the municipalities under study are yet to fully exploit their potential to promote and publicize their offerings. This could be attributed to several factors such as a lack of knowledge and/or resources and a defective strategic approach to digital communication.

The major obstacle in maximizing the potential of digital communication tools in low-density destinations was not solely a result of restricted access. Rather, it was largely due to insufficient knowledge and resources required for their effective utilization, coupled with a lack of aligned vision among various stakeholders.

The competitive landscape in which tourist actors operate has transformed significantly because of the widespread adoption of digital communication led by social networks. However, studies exploring digital communication in low-density territories are still scarce. This study adds new insights into the main factors that hinder the efficient use of digital communication in these regions.