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Art hotels are increasingly providing an opportunity for creative artists to exhibit their artworks and collections within their premises. This research investigates how some hotels are transforming themselves into important cultural tourism centers. Specifically, its objectives are: (i) to better understand the extent to which travelers are aware about the existence of art hotels and to evaluate their level of interest in art-oriented initiatives; (ii) to determine which attributes and features of art hotels are appreciated by travelers; and (iii) to identify the type of travelers who are willing to stay in art hotels. The findings from a descriptive survey suggest that the incorporation of art into the hospitality industry can attract a diverse customer base and could result in a sustainable competitive advantage for hotels. This study identifies four types of travelers including: Art-Infused Travelers, Art-Seeking Travelers, Art-Indifferent Travelers, and Art-Blind Travelers. These prospective tourists were categorized according to their level of awareness and interest in art hotels and art-related experiences. In conclusion, this contribution implies that artification processes within the hospitality industry can add value to the cultural tourism market. Hence, it also advances future research avenues to academia.

Building on social media and destination brand-related literature, this study aims to explore World Heritage Sites’ (WHSs) brand diffusion and formation process from long-term and short-term perspectives, which includes brand diffusion, user-generated content (UGC), opinion leaders and brand events’ impact.

This study uses a mixed-method including text mining, keyword analysis and social network analysis to explore the brand formation process of four popular WHSs in Beijing, namely, the Palace Museum, Great Wall, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven and more than 10,000,000 users’ data on Sina Weibo has been implemented to uncover the underlying social media branding mechanism.

The results show that the number of postings keeps in a stable range in most months, but, in general, there are no common rules for changing trends among the four WHSs; long-term high-frequency keywords related to history and culture account for a higher percentage; different kinds of accounts have varying impacts on information diffusion, in which media accounts lead to a bigger influence. However, more followers do not necessarily mean more interactions and most of the interaction ratio is much lower than 0.01000; brand events facilitate brand dissemination and have an impact on the creation of UGC.

This study is valuable for destination marketers to deeper understand brand diffusion and formation and provides valuable insights for developing effective destination marketing strategies.

Unlike previous studies that only concern a few parts of destination brand formation via social media (e.g. brand diffusion, brand events or opinion leaders’ impact), this study takes a more comprehensive perspective by systematically analyzing the brand formation process of WHSs on social media. By considering both long-term diffusion and short-term representative events, this study provides a more holistic understanding of the branding mechanism.

The purpose of this study is to address the relevance of archaeological heritage in the context of supply chains for the tourism industry. It does so by providing converging ideas on the usefulness of individual sites, not in their strict scientific or latent value but as an enhancer for optimizing cultural production in a wider scenario of aggregate demand.

While examples from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) illustrate this reasoning, the underlying principles have a widespread application and point to a need for defragmenting and realigning tangible heritage as a key production factor. Methods used consist of an inductive approach, based on secondary sources and semi-structured interviews.

Results indicate that, while archaeological resources remain central to the promotion of cultural tourism in the UAE, suppliers face challenges when incorporating particular sites into consumer-friendly packages.

The study contributes to the identification of common risks and opportunities for archaeological resource management in the development of UAE tourism products.

This represents an original angle, given the focus on the specific regional, cooperative added value of archaeological resources and the need for optimizing them in a functional supply chain.

Applying the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory in a wine museum context, this paper aims to examine how and why experience design characteristics influence visitor satisfaction, particularly investigating the role of epistemic (learning) and hedonic (having fun) values as the underlying mechanisms of this relationship.

The authors collected field survey data from 652 visitors at a world-leading wine museum. The authors tested the research model on ten modules of the museum using path analysis and a bootstrap approach; the authors further conducted mediation analyses to test how the design of the museum’s modules influenced perceived value and satisfaction.

Content comprehensibility and surprise, as well as interactivity and ease of use, are core design characteristics that drive visitor satisfaction. More significantly, hedonic and epistemic values play a significant mediating role in influencing the relationship between design characteristics and visitor satisfaction.

The authors provide clear and actionable recommendations to help managers design museums that provide educational, entertaining and satisfying visitor experiences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to apply the S-O-R theory in a wine museum context. The significance of this study lies in demonstrating how and why experience design characteristics support the creation of an edutainment visitor experience that drives visitor satisfaction.

This study aims to analyze the opportunities and potential of industrial tourism for the agri-food industry in the current post-pandemic scenario. Industrial tourism can favor appropriate behaviors by companies and tourists to address emerging challenges in the post-pandemic era, such as responsible production and consumption and the containment of waste production.

The adopted research method is a case study with exploratory purposes, applied to an industrial tourism experiment called “Make it in Puglia” (Apulia Region, Italy). The case study was based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews.

This study analyzes how industrial tourism in active agri-businesses allows local areas to be enhanced while simultaneously improving and strengthening sustainable strategies and choices for organizations and customers, especially in the changing context of the post-pandemic era.

The country specificity of this project and the limited duration of the investigation in the post-pandemic period were the main limitations of this study.

Industrial tourism in the agri-food business can contribute to a sustainable strategy for destination management based on new elements of attractiveness. Moreover, industrial tourism represents an opportunity for agri-food businesses, through the promotion of “business tours,” to respond to requests for more sustainable practices, especially considering that food waste and resource use efficiency have become a topic of growing concern.

This paper is one of the first studies that considers industrial tourism as a strategy for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the agribusiness sector, as it analyzes industrial tourism as an instrument in the construction of a cohesive ecosystem where tourism, agri-food business and local communities together pursue preservation and safeguarding of the environment, heritage and territory.

This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the sustainability of sports business models by means of a specific case analysis, conducted on M-I Stadio S.r.l., the service management firm that provides all types of backstage activities related to football matches performed at San Siro Stadium in Italy.

Building on interviews on its management team's direct experience and on archival data, the authors depict the consequences of the pandemic in terms of corporate governance, accounting choices and overall strategic business development through information triangulation from a forward-looking perspective.

Complying with restrictions, M-I Stadio S.r.l. preserved its financial position by embracing digitalization, increasing information flows with partners and adopting a risk aversion behaviour. Overall, results indicate that the pandemic played a catalyst role in the transformation process of the football industry. Moreover, apart from the physical and virtual merge acceleration, well-being for athletes, society and the planet, transcending the gaming part of sports activities has also been taking place. The study also illustrates the foreseeable developments of sustainable sport management practices from a critical perspective.

Since the San Siro Stadium management company might represent one of the forefront companies, within the sports industry, this study results should be conveniently taken into consideration by sporting authorities and international bodies, emphasizing the relevance of sustainability (i.e. environmental and social practices within the sports industry) and digitalization so as to better prepare sports organizations and to provide the overall industry with the tools deemed necessary to navigate this important transition in a smoother way.

As a sociotechnical system, the metaverse has sparked heated discussion. However, concerns abound that the concept is “old wine in a new bottle” used for capital hype. The mixed definitions of the metaverse and unclear relationships between its technical features and user behaviors have greatly impeded its design and application. Therefore, the authors aim to sort out the metaverse definition and properties, analyze its technical features in various contexts and unveil the mechanisms leading to user behaviors.

The authors conduct a literature review on the definition, technical features and user behaviors of/in the metaverse.

First, the authors identify two main categories of the metaverse definition and find a mixed conceptualization. Second, the authors present technologies and technical features in the diverse contexts of the metaverse. Third, the authors summarize the effect of technical features on user behaviors from a sociotechnical perspective.

The authors analyze the definition, technical features, user behaviors of the metaverse and their theoretical foundations. Based on these findings, the authors propose a theoretical framework unveiling how social and technical elements affect user behaviors in the metaverse. In conclusion, the study offers a research agenda for future studies.

This research aims to examine the role of consumers' brand trust and attachment on advocacy intention before and after the occurrence of brand misconduct in retail banking. In addition, the influence of brand attachment on consumers' willingness to switch, advocate for and forgive brands is examined in a post-misconduct scenario.

Data were collected through a self-administered online survey questionnaire. A total of 304 valid and usable responses from Australian participants were analysed using IBM SPSS 27.0.

The findings reveal that brand attachment mediates the positive relationship between trust and advocacy intention. Furthermore, brand attachment (1) dilutes consumers' switching intention and (2) strengthens their willingness to forgive the bank after misconduct.

Results suggest that retail banks should create strong brand attachments with their consumers. In addition to brand trust, brand attachment will generate greater advocacy intention among consumers. Moreover, practitioners in retail banking can leverage brand attachment to mitigate the negative impact of brand misconduct.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine the impact of brand attachment on the consumer–bank relationship within the context of brand misconduct. The study is also unique in its analysis of the mediating role of brand attachment between brand trust and advocacy. This research further adds to the current literature by suggesting that strong and positive customer connections to the brand facilitate communication and marketing efforts after brand misconduct and that these are effective in maintaining consumer-bank relationship.

This chapter investigates the importance of fashion houses in the progressive redefinition of tourism geography within a metropolitan context. The purpose is to highlight how these brands manage both to integrate marginal urban areas into the tourist circuits and to co-construct market-oriented heritage policies. Through the case of Fendi Roma and the EUR district (Rome, Italy), this chapter explores their degrees of involvement in the processes of requalification and estheticization of peripheral urban areas. The study found that the involvement of the luxury brand in Roman urban governance is symptomatic of evolutions in the political strategies pursued by public actors in their relations with private investors.