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The predominant neoliberal structure of capitalism and tourism as the fuel of capitalism exposes growing problems of injustice, unfairness and inequality. Places and communities around the world are currently expressing the need for radical changes in placemaking to be able to think, plan and act differently. This theoretical contribution adopts a humanistic management (HM) perspective of placemaking to promote places where people enjoy living, working, interacting and having meaningful experiences. Tourist destinations are relevant places to discuss the application of HM principles in practice and promote humanistic destinations and the humanisation of placemaking. This chapter concludes by arguing for an interface with eco-centric and posthumanist transformative approaches to promote holistic value-based placemaking and regeneration of places.

The investigation of the relationship between the future of humanity and the future of ecology is a pertinent issue. In this context, the study aimed to explore people's travel experience in the Himalayan region of India for transformation and well-being and how transformation induces their involvement in regenerative practices. The authors investigated if transformations contribute to the well-being of all living beings and the environment and induce involvement in regenerative practices?

The authors preferred qualitative research design and selected narrative inquiry as a research approach to bring individuals' life stories to the centre stage for examination. Accordingly, diachronic data was collected, and a paradigmatic type of narrative inquiry was applied that uses paradigmatic analytical procedures to produce thematic categories and taxonomies from the database.

Nine themes were identified and discussed in the light of existing literature. Transformational tourism promotes well-being and reduces mental health anomalies. The study participants used words like calm, compose, stress-free, and compassion, indicating enhanced consciousness. They also reported satisfaction and induced environmentally friendly behaviour after serving the community and environment at tourist destinations situated in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and the Union territory of Ladakh of the Himalayan region of India.

The paper collates evidence to establish a correlation between transformation and regeneration. There is a suggestion that transformative travel leads to participation in regenerative activities. The paper is based on people's experiences described as green workers of the Indian Himalayas and provides empirical conclusions that support the argument of transformational induced regenerative tourism.

This paper aims to examine a two-way interaction between social influencers’ number of followers (micro vs meso) and argument quality (weak vs strong) on consumers’ self-reported and brain responses to advertising posts on Instagram. Further, drawing upon source credibility theory and contemporary theories of persuasion, the Instagram users’ perceptions of the influencer’s credibility are predicted to mediate the hypothesized effects.

Through an online (N = 192) and a lab study (N = 112), the authors examined Instagram users’ responses to an advertising post from Instagram influencers in terms of perceived source credibility and electronic word-of-mouth intention, using validated multi-item scales from existing literatures and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures. The hypotheses were tested with a 2 (type of influencer: micro vs meso) × 2 (argument quality: weak vs strong) between-subject design using mediated moderated linear regression analysis.

The results highlight that meso-influencers are perceived as a credible source of information only when their product-related post provides strong argument quality. Moreover, this process involves an increase in users’ cognitive work (measured with EEG), with possible implications on marketing communication strategies and online message design.

The limitations of the work can serve as ideas for future research. First, this study did not account for the influencer’s relevance and resonance. Second, the authors studied consumer responses to online communication produced by Instagram influencers within a single product category. Another important product type distinction that requires further attention is between hedonic and utilitarian products. Finally, the two studies only used positive review content. Further research should study how consumers evaluate the source credibility of a micro- vs meso-influencer when they are exposed to negative reviews containing weak vs strong arguments.

The results suggest that marketers should carefully consider Instagram influencers based on the trade-offs between credibility and reach. Specifically, micro-influencers are perceived as more credible sources of information than meso-influencers, which means that they have greater potential to affect Instagram users’ behavior. Moreover, the results suggest that meso-influencers should leverage argument quality to enhance their credibility and draw greater positive outcomes for the products and brands they endorse.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate how the interaction between the type of social media influencer and the argument quality affects consumers’ self-reported and brain responses to advertising posts on Instagram. Moreover, using neuroscience, this study aims to shed light on the neurophysiological processes that drive consumer responses to product-related communication posted by different influencer types.