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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.

Mauritius’s residential real estate sector has undergone an increase in foreign investment over the past decades. This study aims to establish if the increasing level of foreign real estate investments (FREI) has increased land demand and land prices. The study also aims to depict whether the relation between FREI and land prices prevails at an aggregate and/ or a regional level.

Data from 26 regions, classified as urban, rural and coastal is collected on an annual basis over the period 2000 to 2019, and a dynamic panel regression framework, namely, an autoregressive distributed lag model, is used to take into account the dynamic nature of land price modeling.

The findings show that, at the aggregate level, in the long-term, FREI does not have a significant influence on land prices, while in the short term, a positive significant relationship is noted between the two variables. A regional breakdown of the data into urban, rural and coastal was done. In the long term, only in coastal regions, a positive significant link was observed, whereas in urban and rural regions FREI did not influence land prices. In the short term, the positive link subsists in the coastal regions, and in rural regions also land prices are positively affected by FREI.

Unlike other studies which have used quite general measures of FREI, the present research has focused on FREI mainly undertaken in the residential real estate market and how these have affected residential land prices. This study also contributes to research on the determinants of land prices which is relatively scarce compared to research on housing prices.

This paper addresses the issue of the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions within the information and communication technology (ICT) and engineering fields. The study examines the complex issue of vertical segregation and gender equality by exploring the barriers that women encounter and the potential coping strategies they adopt to advance in their careers.

The study employs a qualitative approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with 17 women at middle and upper management levels in the ICT and engineering sectors. This approach aims to better understand women's workplace experiences and gain deeper insights into the nature of the barriers they face.

The study identifies four main factors hindering women's progression toward senior management positions, namely working hours, work-family conflict, social role stereotypes and second-generation bias. The results also offer useful insights into the coping strategies adopted by women to overcome these barriers.

The study highlights the persisting underrepresentation of women in senior positions, indicating a societal and organizational lag in terms of inclusion and equity. It underscores the importance of developing effective policies to address the challenges faced by employees striving to balance their work and family commitments. Training is recognized as an important tool for raising awareness about gender stereotypes among employees and reducing second-generation bias.

This study provides valuable lessons derived from its findings, including potential strategies that organizations can implement to help women navigate and overcome workplace barriers in the ICT and engineering fields.

The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the factors that influence the work performance of employees in the service sector of Mauritius during the post-COVID-19 period. Factors like emotional labour, burnout, job satisfaction and psychological health of employees have been identified as those potential factors influencing the work performance of employees.

This study adopts the survey-based approach for data collection. Employees from the service sector were targeted, that is, those who have direct contact with the customers. A response rate of 197 was recorded. The partial least square structural equation modelling has been used to run the data analysis.

Ten hypotheses were proposed, and four hypotheses were accepted. Job satisfaction appears to positively influence the work performance of employees in the service sector. Emotional labour, burnout and psychological health of employees appeared not to significantly affect the work performance of employees.

From a practical perspective, the author recommends that employers need to provide more support in terms of employee counselling, more job rotation for the employees to avoid burnout. Other support mechanisms as a supportive supervisor/manager where the employees can voice their concerns. It is also recommended that employers should have a more humane way to handle their human resources despite they are having the pressure to maximise profits. Employers need to understand that commercialisation of emotions demand a lot of emotional pressure on the employees and job re-design might be a solution to provide employees with more autonomy in the workplace. The level of flexibility also needs to be reviewed and employees should be more trusted.

This study acknowledges that a lot of research has been done in identifying and assessing factors that significantly impact employees’ work performance. Nevertheless, this study brings together two theories, namely, the social exchange theory and the psychological contract theory to better understand the relationship between the variables. This study also brings a methodological contribution with second-order factor analysis of factors like emotional labour and burnout which enabled better assessment and understanding of the factors and their effect on work performance. Some practical recommendations have also been made.

The present study aims to examine the moderating impact of governance quality on the tourism poverty nexus using a panel of six South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries during the period 2002 to 2019.

For the soundness of the results, fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) econometric models were applied to determine the long-run relationship.

The findings confirmed the positive and significant impact of tourism development (international tourism arrival) and governance quality (effectiveness of governmental services) on poverty (per capita household consumption) reduction. Interestingly results confirm that governance quality and tourism development have complementary impacts on poverty reduction.

The present study has twofold contributions; First, despite the high potential of SAARC tourism, research remains limited in studies examining the role of tourism and governance quality on poverty reduction within the SAARC region. As a result, the present paper presents critical insights into the impact of tourism inflow and governance quality on poverty reduction in South Asian countries. Second, to the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first attempt to conduct an econometric analysis to examine the role of governance quality on the relationship between tourism inflow and poverty reduction in SAARC countries.

This study aims to disclose the antecedent factors for predicting support for cruise tourism in the Bahamas. It investigated the relationship between residents’ support for cruise tourism and the four indicators that were the positive/negative impact of cruise tourism on the community, perceived conflicts in sharing information and concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using 278 surveys of local residents near major cruise ports in the Bahamas, this study identified the salient variables in tourism impact and conflict factors. The survey questionnaire was adapted and developed from relevant studies and modified to suit the context of cruise tourism.

The results revealed that residents’ perceived conflict was insignificantly associated with their support for cruise tourism. In contrast, their concerns about COVID-19 and perceptions of the positive and negative cruise tourism impacts were statistically significant in predicting the likelihood of support for tourism.

This study suggests implications for enhancing the long-term growth of the cruise industry, which is vulnerable to environmental threats such as Covid-19.

This article investigates the long-run impact of remittance inflows on agricultural productivity (AGP) in emerging Asian economies (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Nepal, Philippines, Pakistan, and Vietnam), employing a panel dataset from 2000 to 2018.

This study initially applies cross-sectional dependence (CSD), second-generation unit root, Pedroni, and Westerlund panel co-integration techniques. Next, it uses the augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated effect mean group (CCEMG) methods to investigate the long-term impact of remittance inflows on AGP while controlling for several other important determinants of agricultural growth, such as cultivated area, fertilizers, temperature change, credit, and labor force.

The empirical findings are as follows: The results first revealed the existence of CSD and long-term co-integration between AGP and its determinants. Second, remittance inflows significantly boosted AGP, indicating that remittance inflows played a crucial role in improving AGP. Third, global warming (changes in temperature) negatively impacts AGP. Finally, additional critical elements, for instance, cultivated area, fertilizers, credit, and labor force, positively affect AGP.

This study suggests that policymakers of emerging Asian economies should develop an exclusive remittance-receiving system and introduce remittance investment products to utilize foreign funds and mitigate agricultural production risks effectively.

This is the first empirical examination of the long-term impact of remittance flows on agricultural output in emerging Asian economies. This study utilized robust estimation methods for panel data sets, such as the Pedroni, Westerlund, AMG, and CCEMG tests.

This article analyzes research on digital transformation in the tourism sector, providing insights into leading work, authors, journals, trends and future research opportunities. However, limited in-depth research exists on this topic, and the existing studies lack an understanding of its development, scope and relevant areas.

The study utilized the Scopus database to identify 61 articles on digital transformation in the tourism sector. The research employed VOSviewer software to analyze publication and citation structure, incorporating bibliometric variables like co-authorship, co-citation network, keywords co-occurrence network and bibliographic coupling.

The study yielded valuable insights from top-cited articles, revealing their contributions to digital transformation in tourism research. It also highlighted publication trends and the impact of authors, journals and studies and conducted co-occurrence, co-authorship and bibliographic analyses to identify key trends and issues in the tourism sector. The study calls for further examination of the digital revolution in tourism research and outlines future opportunities for researchers in this area.

To enhance the comprehensiveness of data collection, it is recommended that researchers consider including publications from databases such as WOS (Web of Science), Dimensions and PubMed in addition to the Scopus database. This broader inclusion of sources can provide different network structures and valuable insights from the field of digital transformation in the tourism sector.

The research provides substantial value to the study of digital transformation in tourism by focusing on bibliometric data from the Scopus database for the period from 2017 to 2022. By analyzing this data, it identifies significant trends in digital transformation within tourism research. Additionally, the study uncovers new areas of digitization in the tourism sector, further enhancing its value and relevance.

This study aims to apply the appreciative inquiry approach (AI) to develop a tourism strategy for poverty alleviation in marginalised communities. The focus is to provide practical insights for leveraging tourism to drive positive socio-economic change for the impoverished, using Rosetta, a port city in Egypt with cultural and historical significance, as a case study.

This qualitative applied study uses the four-D phases of AI and thematic analysis to strategise tourism development in Rosetta. Through interviews, focus groups and field visits, the study identifies tourism potential, stakeholder aspirations and actionable strategies for sustainable development. The approach prioritises a bottom-up, community-centric and stakeholder-involved process, aiming for inclusive and equitable growth.

The study revealed Rosetta’s underutilised tourism potential, emphasising heritage tourism. Although tourism offers some economic benefits, its impact on alleviating poverty in Rosetta remains limited. A holistic strategy for tourism development in Rosetta is proposed for economic growth and poverty reduction, focusing on sustainable management, local empowerment, enhanced marketing, improved infrastructure and diversified tourism offerings.

While AI is not new in qualitative studies, the novelty of this study lies in its application to tourism planning for poverty alleviation in a marginalised community like Rosetta, introducing a comprehensive tourism strategy with an original framework applicable to comparable destinations. The study’s significance is emphasised by providing actionable strategies for policymakers, valuable insights for practitioners and enriching the discourse and methodology on pro-poor tourism for academics, representing a step towards filling the gap between theoretical concepts and practical strategies.

This paper aims to analyse the bibliometric characteristics of the ISO 50001 publication, map the state of the art of the research topic and identify future research issues.

This research is a bibliometric study. The data were collected from Scopus. Both performance and science mapping analysis were performed.

The research results showed the top author, paper and country of ISO 50001 publications. There are four author collaboration clusters and five country collaboration clusters. Eight research themes were mapped into four quadrants based on the density and centrality. The bibliometric coupling analysis showed six research clusters. Finally, the research issues were mapped. The implications were discussed.

This research gave several implications for researchers, practitioners and public policymakers. For researchers, the bibliometric analysis provides several research issues that can be followed up by future research. For practitioners, the bibliometric analysis showed that applied tools and methods that can assist the implementation of ISO 50001-based energy management have been developed. For public policymakers, the bibliometric analysis offered the knowledge structure on ISO 50001 that can be used in public policymaking development. The author collaboration cluster and the bibliometric coupling cluster can be used to trace the scientific information that is needed as the foundation of public policy.

Many ISO 50001 studies have been performed. However, based on the search in several main academic scientific paper databases, there is no bibliometric study on the research topic. This is the first bibliometric study on ISO 50001 publication. This study takes a holistic approach combining performance analysis and science mapping analysis that includes elaborated thematic mapping and evolution analysis.