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Tourism activity is a global industry and, as such, it is subject to global risks. International travel has developed exponentially over the last few decades. At the same time, diseases have increased their geographical spread influenced by ecologic, genetic and human factors. Currently, the increasing virus, epidemic and pandemic outbreaks represent some of the most negative consequences of globalization, causing deaths and significant economic losses due to the negative impacts they have on the tourism industry, one of the sectors that have been the most affected by health crises.

This work presents insights on the epidemics, pandemics and virus outbreaks that have occurred throughout the twenty-first century and how those occurrences have affected the tourism industry and the global economy. A brief literature review on health risks in tourism is presented, followed by a clinical perspective to help people understand the differences between endemics, outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. Then, the study offers a presentation of the most significant pandemics in recent human history and a deep analysis of the COVID-19 disease. Finally, the effects that the different pandemics, epidemics and outbreaks that occurred in the present century had on tourism are explained, and the challenges tourism has to face are presented and discussed.

In his autobiography, Chen Shui-bian (1999, p. 40) condemned the Koumintang's (KMT's) corruption and praised the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for being free from money politics and corruption. The DPP fought the 1992 Legislative Yuan election campaign effectively on an anticorruption platform and used the same strategy in subsequent elections. If Chen Shui-bian had criticized the KMT for its involvement with “black gold” politics and had won the 2000 presidential election on his anticorruption platform, why was he and his family found guilty of corruption after his second term of office? The short answer is that even though he had promised to curb corruption, President Chen himself had succumbed to corruption after assuming office. In June 2002, Keesing's Contemporary Archives cited a poll in Taiwan that indicated that more respondents had perceived the DPP to be more corrupt than the KMT (Copper, 2006, p. 14).

Building upon the framework of the tradeoff model of capital structure and motivated by the equity market timing theory, we examine whether equity misvaluation is a source of adjustment “costs” that will affect a firm’s leverage adjustment speed toward target. We also investigate whether the quality of a firm’s long-term growth options will influence the decisions of managers to exploit the mispriced equity to converge to the optimum. Using a sample of listed Taiwanese firms during 1992–2014 and employing the market-to-book decomposition as developed by Rhodes-Kropf, Robinson, and Viswanathan (2005), we find that overleveraged and overvalued firms demonstrate faster adjustment speed than overleveraged but undervalued firms. Furthermore, controlling for the misvaluation status, high-growth firms converge to target faster than their low-growth counterparts. The effect of growth options on the relation between equity mispricing and adjustment speed does not mirror the effect of financing deficits. With the detailed financial information of the local companies across a rather long time series, this study provides incremental inputs to the literature of capital structure from the determinants of target leverage, the estimation of leverage adjustment speeds, to the identification of the sources of adjustment costs in an emerging market where institutional environment is strikingly different from the US.

This study investigates the motivation among customers to be more loyal to online food delivery applications (OFDA) services even after the COVID-19 epidemic by using perceived service quality aspects in Sri Lanka. The data were gathered by physically distributing a self-administrated questionnaire to clients in Sri Lanka who continue to use OFDA services on platform to customer (P2C) service delivery platforms to buy food despite the COVID-19 outbreak. Multiple regression is employed to analyse 287 effective observations, and the data revealed the significant positive effect of interaction, environment, outcome, and food qualities on customer loyalty to OFDA services. In fact, there is no impact from the delivery quality on customer loyalty to OFDA services due to outsourced food delivery. The findings suggest regular improvements in attributes such as interaction, environment, outcome, and food qualities in this hyper-competitive business environment. Further, this study sets substantial facts for the interested parties to establish an exemplary delivery system and other technological advancements to have a sustainable competitive advantage and solid customer base in the long run.

Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process, this study aims to identify organizational and market factors that prevent hoteliers from adopting greener management systems. This study first constructs a list of critical factors based on expert judgments reported in the literature and the responses from a select group of experienced managers. Then, the list is further refined by six hotel managers who consolidate the factors, which results in four categories explained by 20 items. Subsequently, this study draws from surveys on an expert panel consisting of 20 study subjects who are familiar with hotel operations. The survey results show that hoteliers’ abilities to create a greener image are the most important factor influencing the managers’ decisions to adopt environmentally friendly management schemes. Nevertheless, their motivation of adopting a green strategy seems to be associated with a marketing strategy, instead of generic environmental stewardship.

This study aims to examine the relationship between Achievement Motivation (AM), Smart Work (SW), and human resources (HR) performance. It questions how moral global leadership (MGL) could moderate the relationship between AM, SW, and HR performance. A theoretical model was developed and tested on sample data representing 219 employees, educators, and educational staff of Islamic Higher education (IHE). The data were collected through surveys and applied to structural equation modeling using SEM-PLS. This study found that AM and SW significantly affect HR performance. While MGL substantially moderates the relationship between AM, SW, and HR performance. This study contributes to the literature on MGL, AM, and SW in creating HR performance that has yet to be studied so far. This study offers the concept of MGL, which plays a central role in moderating the relationship between AM, SW, and HR performance.

Brand love is a notion where feelings are developed towards a specific brand. This notion is more than just a preference, it is an emotional attachment with the consumed product and the brand that represents it. In tourism, destination marketing will increase the relationship between tourists and places using certain kind of messages and images whose goal is to stimulate their senses and feelings. In crisis management situations, it acts as a mediator, by assessing tourists' risk and safety perceptions, and helps mitigate lasting negative effects.

However, can destination brand love be promoted during these pandemic times? To get an in-deep understanding of the connections that exist between love and safety in tourism, this study explores two concepts through an extended literature review and a qualitative methodological approach using content analysis procedures that will focus on international marketing strategies during the ongoing pandemic crisis.

The qualitative approach was conducted through a survey composed of a set of open-ended questions (N = 31) where respondents were asked to identify their feelings after viewing the promotional tourism campaigns released after the significant increase in cases of COVID-19 worldwide.

The main results demonstrate the existence of brand love antecedents – brand trust and a sense of community, and an overall positive reaction to the images and messages promoted. Also, the existence of brand love antecedents demonstrates the brands' capacity to adapt to crisis events and its ability to outline the kind of paths that have to be defined for tourists to remain passionate about destinations.

This chapter is concerned with exploring the various ways in which Pokémon Go complements or challenges family life. The chapter begins by explicating the multisided concept of play and the myriad definitions that surround this term. Having established the various way in which this phenomenon can improve the lives of those who engage in it – physically, emotionally and cognitively – we go on to consider how play has gradually shifted from public spaces and into designated playgrounds, and how this trend corresponds with children concurrently moving away from the streets and into their bedrooms. Following this, we explore the impact digital technologies are having on the practice of parenting, paying particular attention to video games as a significant facet of youth culture that is often associated with a range of negative connotations. Yet, video games are not intrinsically bad. As we outline, research on intergenerational play and joint-media engagement (JME) readily demonstrate the many benefits families can experience when these games are played together. What is missing from this developing body of work is the familial playing of locative games and the extent to which this practice adds contours to our understanding of this field. The chapter is, therefore, driven by the following research questions. First, why and how do families play Pokémon Go? This includes the different roles that family members adopt, alongside motivations for families playing this game, how the playing of this game complements the rhythms of family life and the extent to which this hybrid reality game (HRG) is suited to intergenerational play. Second, what impact does locative familial play have on families, collectively speaking, and regarding individual family members? Here, we are not just interested in whether this game allows families to bond and how this bonding process is experienced, but also whether the familial play of Pokémon Go provides families with any learning opportunities that might facilitate personal growth beyond the game. Third, what worries might parents have about the familial playing of Pokémon Go and to what extent does the locative aspect of this game reshape their apprehensions?