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Wellness tourism is complex due to the varied expectations and perceptions of tourists. This study attempts to explore components that shape tourist expectations of health treatments and tourist attractions, which have not been deeply explored in the extant literature.

A scoping review of the literature published between 2000 and 2021 was conducted to reach the conclusions of this study. Out of 303 literature sources, a total of 105 literature sources were retained for the final analysis.

Findings show that tourists expect a mix of health treatments, such as conventional medical treatments and alternative health treatments and tourist attractions, as part of wellness tourism to improve their health and well-being (HWB). A favorable trade-off between tourist expectations and their perception of wellness tourism impacts tourist HWB and behavioral intention.

The proposed wellness tourism conceptual model and wellness tourism matrix may help wellness tourism service providers to understand tourist expectations for health treatments and tourist attractions in a recent context. Wellness tourism service providers may follow the guidelines outlined in this study to offer health treatments and tourist attractions according to tourist expectations, which may result in the favorable behavioral intentions of wellness tourists.

This study unravels the previously under-explored role of conventional medical treatments, which arguably fall under the category of allopathic medical treatment, in wellness tourism. Destination marketing organizations may focus on the wellness philosophies of health treatments and tourist attractions to meet the growing expectations of wellness tourists for HWB, as outlined in the literature review. This study provides insights into the different components of contemporary wellness tourism those impact wellness tourists' cognitive responses, HWB and behavioral intention.

To influence consumer pre-purchase decision-making processes, such as brand selection and perceived brand experience, brands are interested in adopting hyperconnected technological stimuli, such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality, social media and tech devices. However, the understanding of different hyperconnected touchpoints remained shallow and results mixed in previous literature, despite the fact that these touchpoints span different technological interfaces/devices and may influence consumer brand selection. This paper aims to solidify the conceptual underpinnings of the role of online hyperconnected stimuli, which may influence consumer psychological reactions in terms of brand selection and experience.

This paper is conceptual and presents a discussion based on extant literature from various international publishers.

The authors revealed different technological stimuli in the online hyperconnected environment that may influence consumer online hyperconnected brand selection (OHBS), perceived online hyperconnected brand experience (OHBE), perceived well-being and behavioral intention.

The conceptual understanding of OHBS and perceived OHBE was mixed and inconsistent in previous studies. This paper brings together extant literature to establish the conceptual understanding of antecedents and outcomes of OHBS, i.e. perceived OHBE, perceived well-being and behavioral intention, and presents a cohesive conceptual framework.

This review aims to put forth a conceptual understanding of greenwashing. It also identifies the antecedents and consequences of customer perceptions of greenwashing in the hospitality industry in the recent context, which has remained superficial and fragmented in previous studies.

Published literature between the years 2000 and 2022 was examined, following the scoping review approach. After screening out irrelevant and duplicate literature, a total of 54 published literature items were considered.

Despite a profound understanding of customer perceptions of greenwashing, the findings show that the majority of customer perceptions of greenwashing are determined by the green efforts of hotel operators, through means such as green knowledge sharing, green marketing, the disclosure of green information, resource conservation claims and environmental certification. Additionally, customer perceptions of greenwashing determine a variety of customer green behaviors where customer green attitude plays an intervening role.

A benefit of the proposed conceptual model for hospitality stakeholders is that it aids in understanding customer suspicion regarding the legitimacy of hotel green practices. The conceptual model of this review, and a 2 × 3 matrix on hotel environmental performance and communication, provides a theoretical lens for scholars and practitioners in the hospitality industry to develop effective green strategies and practices, reducing customer perceptions of greenwashing while positively influencing customer green behavior. This review presents a launching platform from which research on greenwashing in the hospitality industry can skyrocket.

In previous studies, the conceptual understanding of greenwashing in hospitality has remained inconsistent, shallow and mixed. This review identifies the different and previously deeply underexplored antecedents and consequences of customer perceptions of greenwashing and presents them in a conceptual model.

This study aims to determine the current state of implementation and effectiveness of education for sustainable development (ESD) in Pakistani higher education institutions (HEIs) using students’ and teachers’ perceptions of sustainability.

A survey on teachers and students was conducted in public and private universities in Punjab, Pakistan. Data from 1,915 students and 120 teachers were collected through semi-structured questionnaires implemented during face-to-face interviews. Students were asked to rank social, environmental and economic indicators of sustainability consciousness (SC) on a five-point Likert scale. Structural equation model and regression model are used to analyze the data. The perceptions of students and teachers were assessed from their knowledge of sustainability.

The occurrence of ESD in Pakistani HEIs is low and teachers have inadequate knowledge of sustainability. The holistic approach to ESD has a more pronounced effect on students’ SC as compared to the pluralistic approach to ESD. Also, there is a correlation between the students’ grades/class and the effectiveness of ESD. There is a need to pay more attention to implement ESD for undergraduate students in Pakistani HEIs.

The study stands out for using cross-sectional data from public and private universities of Pakistan. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Pakistan which attempts to investigate the effectiveness of ESD in terms of students’ SC.

Traditional central courtyards have been advocated for being thermally efficient for hot-climate regions. However, exploring previous literature shows that it is not clear to what extent courtyards are truly thermally comfortable. This study determines the level of thermal comfort in residential courtyards in hot-climate regions, taking Baghdad as a case study.

This study develops a novel Courtyard Thermal Usability Index (CTUI) to quantify the ability of courtyards to provide thermal comfort to occupants. CTUI is the fraction of useable thermally comfortable hours in courtyards of the total occupation hours during a specific period. To operationalise CTUI, the research employs the Envi-met 4.2 simulation tool to determine the annual thermal conditions of 360 courtyards. An adaptive thermal comfort model developed by Al-Hafith in 2020 for Iraq is used to judge simulated thermal conditions and determine CTUI.

CTUI enables determining the level of thermal comfort courtyards offer to occupants by showing the ratio of the thermally comfortable period versus the occupation period. Results show that, in Iraq, annually, courtyards offer up to 38% comfortable hours out of the total potential occupation hours. The rest of the time the courtyard will not be comfortable, mostly due to overheating. When designing courtyards, the most effective geometric property impacting courtyards' thermal conditions is width/height. The most important microclimatic factor impacting occupants' thermal sensation is mean radiant temperature (MRT). This study can be used to inform designing thermally efficient courtyards for hot-climate regions.

This study presents the first assessment of the thermal efficiency of courtyards in hot-climate regions depending on an assessment of their ability to provide thermal comfort to occupants. The study presents a novel index that can be used to quantify the ability of courtyards to provide a thermally comfortable environment to occupants.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of financial advice on investor trading behavior by analyzing the influence of advisor personality.

The study utilized the Big Five personality framework from Costa and McCrae (1992) to measure personality traits of advisors and examined the data collected from 314 stock investor–advisor dyads. Personality traits of advisors were measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1989). Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the fitness of the Big Five model. We followed two-stage least square method for estimating endogenous covariate by employing instrumental variable analysis. Probit model was used to evaluate the moderating influence of advisor personality traits on the association between the usage of financial advice and trading behavior.

The authors found that financial advice positively impacts investors’ stock trading frequency. The authors also provide empirical evidence that financial advice is more likely to increase trading frequency when advisor personality tends to be openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness. On the other hand, information acquired from financial advisors causes fewer adjustments in investors’ portfolios when the personality of advisors is likely to be extraverted and neurotic.

The theoretical model in our study seeks to explain that a psychological factor, namely, advisor personality, influences the way an investor interprets information signals from financial advice, which, in turn, influences the investor’s decision to trade in securities.

This research suggests that characteristics of advisors other than those of investors can be of relevance for policy makers in their attempts to improve their business in the financial services industry.

Survey-based studies in finance are lacking. This study adds to the existing literature of behavioral finance that accounts for the observed variations in investors’ financial decision making explained by psychological factors. No previous study has been conducted so far exploring variations in the impact of financial advice on investors’ stock trading behavior by the Big Five advisor personality, and this paper strives to fill this research gap in Chinese stock market.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns were implemented to achieve two goals: (1) to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases and (2) to reduce the number of COVID-19 deaths. In this paper, the authors aim to look at empirical evidence on how effectively lockdowns achieved these goals among small island developing states (SIDS) and for one specific SIDS economy, Guam.

The authors reviewed existing studies to form two hypotheses: that lockdowns reduced cases, and that lockdowns reduced deaths. Defining a lockdown as a positive value for Oxford COVID-19 government response tracker, OxCGRT's stringency index, the authors tested the above hypotheses on 185 countries, 27 SIDS economies and Guam using correlation and regression analyses, and using different measures of the strictness, duration and timing of the lockdown.

The authors found no evidence to support the hypothesis that lockdowns reduced the number of cases based on data for all 185 countries and 27 SIDS economies. While the authors found evidence to support the hypothesis in the case of Guam, the result required an unrealistically and implausibly long time lag of 365 days. As to the second hypothesis that lockdowns reduced the number of deaths, the authors found no evidence to support it for 185 countries, 27 SIDS economies as well as Guam.

From the review of the existing literature, the authors are the first to conduct this type of study among SIDS economies as a group and on Guam.

This study aims to examine a conceptual integrated framework for small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) export performance that comprises all potential export determinants and inhibitors. This study also incorporates and examines the potential mediators of proactiveness (business strategy), innovativeness (innovation strategy) and export marketing strategy.

His research is based on the contingency theory, resource-based and market-based view, and it provides an integrated model about the research problem. The primary data are collected through direct survey amongst active SME exporters, and three main approaches of descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling are applied for data analysis.

The results show significant effects of various internal and external firms’ determinants on their export performance in Qatar. Two mediators, proactiveness (business strategy) and innovativeness (innovation strategy), have key roles in enhancing SMEs’ export as well. The final research findings have significant implications for understanding all key drivers of SME export in Qatar, and it helps policymakers, regulators and service providers to improve the current SME ecosystem and their services to SMEs. Finally, the results of this study can be extended to other emerging markets with similar economic and legal structures.

Many obstacles discourage SMEs to move internationally, especially in emerging markets. This study focuses on the capacity building to enhance SME export activities in an emerging market. Even though the latest literature in the area of export performance has focused on firms from emerging economies, studies in this area are still limited. Earlier research in this area has mostly focused solely on the determinants of export performance from either internal factors, external factors or both without using adequately potential mediating factors, which could affect export performance.

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel model on the unsteady MHD flow of heat transfer in carbon nanotubes with variable viscosity over a shrinking surface.

The temperature-dependent viscosity makes the proposed model non-linear and coupled. Consequently, the resulting non-linear partial differential equations are first reformed into set of ordinary differential equations through appropriate transformations and boundary layer approximation and are then solved numerically by the Keller box method.

Graphical and numerical results are executed keeping temperature-dependent viscosity of nanofluid. It is noted that, for diverse critical points, it is found that at one side of these critical values, multiple solutions exist; on the other side, no solution exists. A comparison is also computed for the special case of existing study. The temperature and pressure profiles are also plotted for various effective parameters.

The work is original.

This paper aims to examine the impact of financial technology (FinTech) startups on Islamic and conventional banking performance in Indonesia.

Data were collected from a sample of 124 conventional and Islamic banks in Indonesia from 2004 to 2018. The two-step generalized methods of moments was used to estimate the system model.

This study finds that FinTech startups have a detrimental effect on bank performance. This study also finds that Islamic banks have low performance compared to conventional banks. However, when FinTech startups interact with Islamic banks, this paper discovers that a greater number of FinTech startups have a positive effect on the performance of Islamic banks, particularly the peer-to-peer lending category. Additionally, this paper finds that FinTech startups improve Islamic banks' performance in both normal and crisis periods.

This paper provides recommendations for Islamic bank management and supervisors to deal with FinTech startups during normal and crisis periods by collaborating with FinTech startups and being willing to adopt cutting-edge financial technology applications.

This paper provides evidence of the impact of FinTech on the performance of Islamic banks, specifically on peer-to-peer lending and payment startup during the crisis and normal periods.