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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the metaverse platform in a social context to better understand the future of this tool in tourism cities and how this can help to improve the well-being of residents in both digital and physical scenarios.

In this paper, the current and probable developments in the metaverse, and its use in tourism cities and companies have been investigated. Moreover, this study develops, collects and examines the main metaverse definitions by expert authors and organizations as a methodology to ensure the transparency and credibility of the metaverse analysis.

Findings suggest that the fusion of the metaverse and tourism cities must create residents’ services and experiences in the new MetaTourPolis to help interact and connect citizens with the city’s institutions and companies, as well as make tourism cities more attractive, innovative, environmentally friendly and healthier places to live. Metaverse will bring new changes for residents and tourists, in fact, this virtual platform is already changing and improving the residents’ quality of life and people with disabilities in tourism cities. For instance, the metaverse platform has been implemented in Seoul, Santa Monica and Dubai MetaTourPolis to interact with their residents, including people with disabilities, to resolve bureaucratic and administrative problems, avoiding this group and the rest of the residents travelling by bus or car to the city’s institutions. In addition, several metaverse applications based on softbot tutors or metaverse virtual social centres have been developed to improve blind and impaired people, and elderly people’ quality of life, respectively.

A new concept called “MetaTourPolis” has been included to stage the relationship between tourism cities and the metaverse platform, where the fusion of metaverse and the new tourism polis of the 21st century will be at the service of citizens, tourists and companies, to create more sustainable, efficient, quantitative and environmental tourism cities.

This paper aims to check if destinations with powerful similarities also show similar tourism/overtourism effects that differentiate them from other destinations. This paper gathers and compares data on overtourism in European historic cities already presented in the existing literature and points out features and problems typical for these destinations.

This paper was based on the systematic literature review method, which allowed the author to indicate the most commonly studied European historic cities and the characteristics of overtourism problems.

The results of this study reveal that several European historic cities share similar tourism development patterns and the overtourism problems manifest numerous similarities. Significantly, these problems are characteristic of historic cities only and partially different from those observed in European urban destinations such as metropolises.

This study enhances a proper understanding of overtourism and the contradictory results published in the existing literature. This study is the first step in building a more situational approach to overtourism and adjusting the theory to particular destinations' features.

The outcome of this study offers local policymakers several hints regarding effectively facing the overtourism problems. Historic cities require special attention when actions toward lowering extreme tourism pressure in monumental zones are implemented and residents' concerns about the spread of tourism, including short-term listings, to residential quarters need to be addressed.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study based on a comparison of similar destinations aimed to develop theory and practical implications devoted purely to a limited number of destinations sharing numerous similarities. The set of coherent theoretical and practical implications designed for a narrow group of cities is to be an essential contribution to the development of research and practice in urban tourism.

Globalization, along with its technological developments, has brought important changes and developments in all sectors and led to innovation and modernization. In the tourism industry, the concept of smart destination, derived from the concept of smart city, has become widespread to meet the changing needs of tourists. In this context, smart technologies have started to be used in destinations, but more than technology in destinations is needed in terms of sustainability. To ensure sustainability in tourism, these smart technologies must also be eco-friendly. Smart destinations and eco-friendly practices are important for the sustainable development of the tourism industry. The use of technology in destinations can increase sustainability and efficiency, while using eco-friendly practices can protect and preserve the natural environment. In this study, first of all, smart destinations and the characteristics of smart destinations are discussed. Then, smart tourism and related eco-friendly practices are argued. Following this, information about the future of smart destinations is given, and assumptions are mentioned. Afterward, problems and solutions are discussed. Finally, the study has been completed with the conclusion part. The findings of the study revealed that the concept of green especially comes to the fore in smart destinations, that there are studies to prevent all kinds of pollution (air, noise, etc.), and applications such as smart parking systems, smart lighting systems, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) are given importance.

Cities and the tourism industry are closely related. Cities are destinations that serve for the welfare of the people and the tourists visiting the city. The tourism sector, on the other hand, uses the environmental and sociocultural resources of the cities, ensures that these resources are transferred to the future by protecting them, and contributes to the economic development of the cities by creating employment. Several urban models have been created within this framework to make urban tourism viable. Eco-city tourism is one of these urban design concepts. Eco-city tourism aims to protect cities from sociocultural, economic, and environmental factors while promoting their growth. Eco-city tourism, which includes a number of practices such as prevention of pollution, protection of biological diversity, consumption of renewable energy, production of local products, employment, and protection of cultural values, is easily implement in cities in an integrated manner with smart technological systems. Smart building and smart energy systems for energy saving, mobile applications, Wi-Fi, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing are among the smart technological systems used in the tourism sector.

This research addresses the pressing need for comprehensive studies in the rapidly evolving field of city tourism. This study aims to understand the overall performance of the International Journal of Tourism Cities (IJTC), the structure of knowledge in city tourism research and the prevalent themes and trends arising from IJTC.

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to scrutinize the publication patterns in IJTC. This involved examining parameters such as the annual count of published articles, the keywords used in them and their respective authors.

The findings reveal that IJTC has a growing and diverse publication output, establishing itself as a reputable and influential publication within urban tourism research. The results reflect various aspects and themes in city tourism research.

The study has certain limitations. The data used for analysis was obtained exclusively from the Scopus database. The analysis was conducted using only one software package, Bibliometrix. Other software packages may offer different features for bibliometric analysis. The study relied exclusively on quantitative methods for data analysis. Qualitative methods could have provided more nuanced interpretations of the data.

Comparative analyses could be conducted between IJTC and other journals within urban tourism or related disciplines. Such research would yield valuable insights into the current state of the field and aid in identifying areas warranting further investigation.

The findings from this study can inform the decisions and actions of various stakeholders involved in urban tourism. Practitioners and policymakers can draw from this research to make informed decisions. Existing and emerging authors can identify relevant topics for their research. Readers can access pertinent information for their needs.

This study offers a unique contribution by thoroughly comprehending the performance of IJTC between 2015 and 2023. It progresses the existing body of knowledge on city tourism research by examining its current status and future trends.

The significance of smart mobility practices in shaping cities from a smart perspective has grown in recent years, influencing policies and the choices made by inhabitants. This transformation has led to the emergence of novel services and strategies, creating a new, vibrant and highly personalised urban environment that caters to the needs and preferences of both local residents and visitors. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of smart mobility practices on tourism flows in cities, considering the moderating effect of airport activities on this relationship.

Using a generalised method of moments estimation and focusing on 20 Italian cities over an eight-year period, the authors highlight the current relationship between smart mobility practices and tourism flows. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that the yearly advancement of airports positively moderates this relationship.

The findings indicate a significant relationship between smart mobility practices in modern cities and tourism inflows because they influence the development of tourism services and emerging trends such as smart tourism and smart destinations. Furthermore, airport activities as a proxy for city openness play a crucial role in this link. The study shows that airports have an incremental impact on tourism and on the relationship between tourism and sustainable practices.

The limitations of this quantitative approach include the focus on a single country, the challenge of measuring the development of smart mobility practices due to a lack of standardised variables and the need for future research to expand the sample to different countries in relation to tourism inflows.

This study has practical implications for policymakers and governance in their task of effectively coordinating internal smart mobility practices and managing incoming tourism flows.

This study has social implications, highlighting the need for policymakers and governance to address the societal impacts of smart mobility practices and tourism inflows, ensuring inclusive and sustainable outcomes for local communities.

This study contributes to the existing literature as one of the first attempts to examine the interplay between smart mobility practices in smart cities and tourism flows. Furthermore, it emphasises the role of airports in this relationship, highlighting how the interaction between these variables benefits both stakeholders.

This paper aims to analyse Barcelona City Council's tourism policy documents to detect how, through the influence of research, different pathways are produced to achieve social impact.

Using the case study approach, a qualitative content analysis is applied to review 31 tourism policy documents of Barcelona City Council.

The results show that the influence of tourism research on Barcelona City Council's policy documents occurs through the following pathways that drive potential social impact: the development of shared research programmes, joint projects, the creation of information exchange platforms, support for academia, the creation of debates, the founding of institutes, the referencing of scientific articles and studies commissioned directly by the City Council from higher education bodies for implementation in the city.

The originality of this paper is to highlight the social relevance of research and to contribute to raising awareness among researchers. The social impact of research is an under-explored topic in the field of tourism. Moreover, there is little research that conducts this analysis through policy documents.

The concept of a smart city is becoming more closely linked to tourism destinations. The relationship between the environment, sustainability and tourism has become more interrelated. An eco-friendly city environment can influence tourists’ decisions, but tourist flows can also negatively impact the local ecosystem by increasing energy consumption, air pollution and environmental sustainability. In this research letter, the authors reverse this perspective, moving into smart city trajectories, highlighting that increasing tourism in cities drives the city to advance a green transition to respond to the imbalance generated by large flows of tourists that increase the users-density of the city. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the symbiotic relationship between increasing tourism in cities and the imperative for a green transition.

This study builds on the generalized method of moment approach and an 11-year panel data set covering 30 Italian cities to investigate the relationship between tourism flow and the cities’ green practices embedded in the smart environment dimension.

This study provides empirical evidence that a large flow of tourists in cities positively affects the cities’ green transition, contributing to the advancement of smart tourism and smart city debate.

The study focuses only on one country, and although its results may be generalizable to the European Union, it is not representative at a global level and requires further research.

This study offers practical implications underscoring the benefits of large tourism inflow in managing and implementing smart city projects.

Tourism and overtourism may lead to a city reaction regarding green practices, which can have a multiplier benefit on the urban environment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first study attempt to investigate the tourism flow as a driver of smart city implementation, considering the city’s reaction to tourism and overtourism conditions in the city that would lead to the ecological and sustainable collapse of a city.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between tourism development and urban housing prices in Chinese cities. Specifically, the study aimed to explore whether there is a relationship between the two variables in tourist and non-tourist cities and whether there is a non-linear relationship between them.

In this study, the entropy method was used to construct the China City Tourism Development Index, which provides a more comprehensive measure of the level of tourism development in different cities. In total, 45 major cities in China were studied using the panel data approach for the period of 2011 to 2019.

The empirical analysis conducted for this study found that tourism development affects urban house prices, and that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship. However, this varies across cities, with house prices in tourist cities tending to be more influenced by tourism development than non-tourist cities. Also, foreign direct investment, population size, fixed asset investment and disposable income per capita were found to have an impact on house prices in both tourism and non-tourism cities.

There are significant differences in tourism development and urban house prices in different cities in China. This study considers these differences when examining the impact of tourism on house prices in 45 major cities in China by dividing the sample cities into tourist and non-tourist cities.

Building on new trends in tourism and smart city governance, this study aims to examine the degree of interrelation between stakeholder networks involved in tourism governance and smart city development. A model describing the transition towards smart tourism city governance is proposed.

The proposed model is tested through a multiple case study of seven European cities. This choice of sample makes the study highly representative. Data collection is based on an exhaustive search and analysis of available data on smart city initiatives, destination management organisations and tourism plans. Social network analysis using Gephi software is used to build stakeholder networks.

Analysis of the stakeholder networks that shape tourism governance and smart initiatives in several cities reveals a disconnection between the two types of networks. The results show limited progress towards the expected synergies of true smart tourism city governance.

Theoretically, the study contributes to the debate on new forms of governance for the complex evolution of urban tourism. In practice, the relationship between tourism governance and smart city initiatives needs to be redefined to achieve synergies that increase the inclusiveness and efficiency of urban tourism policies.

This study examines the under-researched topic of the interrelation between tourism governance and smart city initiatives. By comparing the networks of actors resulting from these two processes, it assesses the extent to which this interrelation helps the emergence of new governance models (smart tourism city governance).