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This research aims to investigate the motivations and perspectives of festival tourism in Northern Cyprus, emphasizing its economic, cultural, and social impacts in the post-pandemic era.

A qualitative approach was used to find out themes from semi-structured face-to-face interviews with twenty visitors who attended various festivals in North Cyprus.

The results of this research uncover that festivals considerably contribute to the local economy by attracting tourists, which boosts sales for local businesses and promotes traditional Cypriot cuisine. Additionally, festivals play a crucial role in preserving and promoting cultural heritage through traditional music, dance, and crafts, fostering community engagement and cultural exchange. The study also identifies key challenges and opportunities, such as the need for improved marketing strategies, enhanced infrastructure, and sustainable practices to mitigate environmental impacts.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of festival tourism in Northern Cyprus, offering novel insights into its economic, cultural, and social impacts while proposing innovative strategies to enhance its post-pandemic recovery and sustainability.

The geopolitical significance of the Mediterranean Sea transcends regional security and energy supply, profoundly impacting global security dynamics. Daily headlines underscore the plight of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa crossing the Mediterranean, exacerbating humanitarian crises and European identity challenges. Environmental concerns are further heightened by the abundance of global ports facilitating oil and goods transportation, alongside the staggering number of tourists flocking to the Mediterranean coast annually. This chapter serves as a gateway to the book, exploring the concept of “geopolitics” and delineating its characteristics. It specifically delves into the political economy of the Eastern Mediterranean and the geopolitical obstacles to energy security in the region. The chapter strategically selects four primary issues to dissect the region’s conflict complexity: the Syrian crisis, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the unresolved Cyprus dispute, and the Lebanon–Israel conflict over water border demarcation.

Since 2010, the eastern Mediterranean has witnessed a transformative narrative with the discovery of natural gas reserves off the coasts of Cyprus and Israel. This pivotal development has drawn attention to the region, where Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece share maritime borders. The emergence of natural gas has reshaped geopolitical dynamics, and Western countries assume to reduce their reliance on Russia for energy supplies. This chapter explores the magnitude of natural gas discoveries and production in Cyprus and Israel, examining the interconnection of their fields and the ambitious endeavor of laying a 1,900-km underwater pipeline to the Greek island of Crete. Additionally, it highlights the pivotal roles played by key regional actors such as Israel, Turkey, and Egypt in shaping security and energy negotiations. However, Turkey has a significant position in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, but tensions have arisen as neighboring countries seek to limit Turkey’s involvement in regional energy discussions, viewing its policies as a potential threat, thereby exacerbating Turkey’s regional interventions, particularly in Cyprus. Each of these countries in the Middle East is struggling to get more of the cake. Above all, Israel has been a gas importer throughout its history and now dreams of becoming a natural gas exporter to Europe.

The aim of this research is to investigate the association between perceived overqualification and leisure crafting in the context of immigrants. Drawing on the cross-cultural adaptation theory, the study tests the moderating role that acculturation plays in this relationship.

Data were collected from a total of 226 immigrants living in Northern Cyprus. In the initial survey, data were collected on perceived overqualification and acculturation, which was followed by the measurement of leisure crafting. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling.

Perceived overqualification asserts a significantly positive impact on leisure crafting. Assuming that acculturation plays a moderating role, the research shows that the positive effect that perceived overqualification has on leisure crafting is increased in cases where positive acculturation is elevated as opposed to reduced.

The study results were based on self-reported surveys and data were limited to overqualified immigrant groups in Northern Cyprus.

The study provides significant practical implications for management teams. They can design managerial interventions to increase the acculturation of immigrants, which may in turn reduce the perceived overqualification and increase the positive impact of leisure crafting. Also, the government needs to implement policies targeted at immigrants in order to help them rapidly adapt to the host society.

This research will be a pioneering attempt to explore the positive relationship between perceived overqualification and leisure crafting. The results suggest actions that can be taken to promote leisure crafting behaviors through the use of acculturation to enhance organizational commitment, belongingness to the host society, and well-being in overqualified immigrants.

The purpose of this study is to investigate offline retailers’ cryptocurrency adoption through the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT/2), technology acceptance model (TAM) and other related variables.

A mixed-method (QUANT-Qual) was employed. The study employed a quantitative approach (partial least squares-structural equation modeling) for Study 1 and a qualitative focus group discussion for Study 2. The qualitative segment enhances the comprehension and interpretation of outcomes derived from the quantitative analysis.

Study 1 identified six crucial factors in cryptocurrency adoption: trust, personal innovation, hedonic motivation, social influence, safety and a positive attitude. Perceived ease of use, price value and satisfaction were non-significant. Study 2 elaborates on the findings, and highlights the reasons for the insignificant factors.

This research contributes to theoretical knowledge by empirically testing established technology acceptance theories like UTAUT/2 and TAM in the context of retail cryptocurrency adoption. It introduces previously unexplored factors, such as personal innovativeness, hedonic motivation and safety/reliability, enriching the theoretical landscape.

This study provides practical insights for cryptocurrency stakeholders, including government, regulators, consumers, businesses and the financial sector, regarding retailers' intentions to adopt cryptocurrencies in North Cyprus.

This study can enhance understanding of factors facilitating cryptocurrency integration into mainstream retail, potentially reshaping traditional finance. Economically, adoption can boost financial inclusion, offering efficient transaction methods. This transition may disrupt existing economic models, drive payment technology innovation and change consumer behavior toward digital assets.

This study stands out by using a mixed-method approach to comprehensively examine cryptocurrency adoption by offline retailers, considering various factors and providing a holistic perspective, unlike previous research that often focused on specific user groups.

The paper aims to explore the relationship between customer mindsets and customer citizenship behavior. This study used the cognitive-affective-behavioral model to examine how customer mindsets relate to customer citizenship behavior. In addition, it investigated the mediating effect of customer brand engagement and moderating role of brand trust.

The study used a self-administered online survey from 412 respondents using cellular mobile operating brands. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to analyze the collected data.

The results revealed that growth-mindset customers directly and significantly influence customer citizenship behavior. The impact of a fixed mindset on customer citizenship behavior is indirect through customer brand engagement. The moderating findings revealed that the effect of brand trust on the relationship between customer brand engagement and customer citizenship behavior is higher than that between the fixed mindset and customer brand engagement.

The findings provide valuable insights for marketing and brand managers to design marketing campaigns considering different mindsets to generate customer citizenship behavior among customers.

This study provides new avenues in consumer psychology and behavior by unfolding the underlying mechanism through which mindsets lead to customer citizenship behavior, contributing to existing knowledge by extending the cognitive-affective-behavioral model.