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Tourism and transport represent two sides of the same management process, especially in tourism destinations characterised by a consistent or a rising volume of visitor flows.

This paper aims to discuss visitor behaviour and net present value (NPV) of the only theme park in Turkmenistan – Turkmenbashi World of Fairytales.

Visitor behaviour, in terms of allocating time and expenditure to different parts of the theme park, is analysed using time and cost blocks. The data from a questionnaire answered by 317 visitors are employed in the descriptive analysis of visitor behaviour. The data on visitor behaviour are also incorporated into an estimation of the theme park’s net present value, as well as its sensitivity and scenario analyses.

The results show that the park is mostly visited by young people, at the time before noon or after 4 p.m. A majority of the visitors do not spend a significant amount in the theme park. Hence, achieving positive NPV may require improved revenue growth.

Turkmenbashi World of Fairytales is one of few publicly owned theme parks in the world. This provides a unique opportunity to test if positive NPV plays any role in construction of a public theme park.

This paper presents the UE‐Eurostat methodology to design and implement a system of surveys of inbound tourism. It has been thought for the homogeneisation of the information systems of the EU countries and for the development of the cooperation in the field of tourism statistics between the European Union and other relevant extra‐Europe regions. Furthermore, the methodology wants to give a common framework of analysis for the collection and processing of comparable statistics at each territorial level. The general research process has been split up into nine fundamental steps which represent the stages a researcher has to follow in order to obtain reliable data on visitor flows, visitors' and trip characteristics, consumption behaviour and opinions and impressions on the trip and the visit. It has been implemented for closed areas (areas with political borders, e.g. a country, geographical borders, e.g. a island, artificial borders, e.g. a museum, a theme park, an archaeological area) and open areas (a macro‐region, a region, a single tourist destination, e.g. a city, or tourist site, e.g. a square).

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of the relevance of shore excursions in the distribution of cruise passenger flows; an approach which has been overlooked by many studies on cruise tourism. Specifically, the paper focuses on two destinations: Barcelona, a mature cruise destination suffering from the impact of overcrowding; and Valencia, an emerging cruise destination facing the risk of future (similar) impacts.

The method used is multiple-case study with replication logic. First, web content analysis is conducted of shore excursion descriptions of the destinations selected so as to identify the itineraries, as well as the municipalities and the specific tourist attractions included in the tours. Then, word-processing tools are used to create a regional and local data set to arrange the narrative data. Finally, density maps are drawn in order to examine the different visitor flows within the tourist hinterlands from the supply perspective.

The results indicate that most shore excursions are concentrated in the port cities. Comparing the two destinations, the paper argues that the redistribution within the cities is not equally balanced. Nevertheless, the results also reveal that the excursions offered by local shore tourism operators (TOs) in both destinations have contributed to the expansion of the cruise tourist hinterland over a wider regional area.

This paper evaluates the visitor flow distribution from a supply perspective. Hence, future studies should examine the demand dimension in order to gain a deeper understanding of the concentration intensity. Additionally, it would be worth examining not only visitors taking guided tours but also the independent ones (those who visit the destination on their own).

Despite the growing importance of cruise tourism, research on the role of local shore TOs in this sector is quite limited. One element that deserves more research attention is related to the role of shore excursions in the spatial configuration of the cruise tourist hinterland. Finally, the results obtained could also have significant implications for policy makers developing and promoting effective measures to prevent overcrowding.

One of the major changes recently noted in the evolution of world tourism demand seems to be represented by the shift from “sun and beach” holidays to more active and special interest ones. This trend will affect some destinations more than others. There will be losers and winners.

This paper aims to monitor the urban landscape through the perceptions of residents and visitors, identifying features that cause visual impacts and providing insights for landscape management decision-makers. Captured impressions about the city whilst moving around are important to assess the satisfaction of city residents and city visitors through key elements, such as directional signage, outdoor advertising, restaurants’ outdoor terrace furniture, urban furniture, green spaces, traffic, cleaning, pedestrian areas, visitor flow and conservation of monuments, museums and buildings.

A survey was applied in the historical Porto city centre (Portugal) to understand residents’ and visitors’ perceptions of the city landscape and assess the differences between these two groups. Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the reliability of the constructs (dimensions) of urban landscape. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was used to find significant differences in the perceptions of residents and visitors.

The results suggest significant differences in the perceptions. Residents value more two constructs of the landscape (heritage conservation and transport mobility) whilst visitors value more other two (pedestrian mobility and aesthetic quality). It is showed that residents have a strong sense of place and are concerned with the conservation of historical heritage. Visitors are more concerned with dimensions intrinsically related to tourism.

This research allowed to fill a gap found in the literature, namely, the importance of considering the perceptions of different actors in the urban landscape monitoring. These results are an important contribution for local authorities to understand the value of urban landscape elements from the perspective of residents and visitors. This study opened the possibility of comparing the results from different historical cities centres.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how technological innovation serves as an enabling factor to innovation in tourism management. The motivation of this paper is related to the question of how to innovate destination marketing as a tool to manage long‐term customer relationships.

The authors use mobile positioning‐based research methods to measure visitors' behaviour. This provides new data for the detection and measurement of destination loyalty that could be used as valuable input to improve destination marketing strategy and develop new services.

The use of mobile positioning helps to improve the quality of data about tourism flows in Estonia. The authors were able to observe and measure the duration, timing, density, seasonality and dynamics of visitations. Further, it allowed also to distinguish repeat visitors. The rich dataset provided by passive mobile positioning (PMP) allowed the implementation of the proposed, more detailed, classification of segments of repeat visitors and the identification of not loyal, somewhat loyal, loyal, very loyal, functionally loyal and forced to be loyal visitors. This analysis made it possible to reveal transit, long‐term, one‐day and other specific visitors among repeat visitors.

The theoretical novelty of the paper consists in the creation of the innovation model of the destination marketing of the country and providing the new approach of segmentation of repeat visitors. Empirical novelty is the use of PMP in studying repeat visitations for destination marketing. The paper offers new ways for governments to shape service policies and allows tourism industry firms to offer new services.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the crowd dynamics of the visitors at Al-Masjid al-Nabawi during the most oversaturated period to characterize the most critical conditions and suggest technical solutions to accommodate visitors and provide them safe passage.

In this study, the time of entrance from the Al-Salam Gate to the tomb and from the tomb to the exit from the Al-Baqi’ Gate has been collected in the most oversaturated period. To be precise and to model the worst case, important crowd measures of effectiveness data are collected in the two holiest times considered by Muslims, during the holy month of Ramadan and the month of Dhul-Hijjah and during the busiest hours of the day to consider safety factors while proposing future solutions. The conventional manual head-counting method has been adopted to determine the crowd density and to carry out actual counting of the visitors from the recorded videos and photos captured by the legitimate authority.

The analyses revealed that the crowd dynamics in the month of Ramadan (peak) are statistically different from those for other times (off peak). In general, the crowd dynamics at all times on days other than Ramadan are almost identical.

The results of crowd characterization from this study are expected to help optimize crowd management in the Masjid at the most critical location and time. The data collected in this study could be used for future research to simulate similar crowd scenes or for even different crowd management scenarios in case of emergencies such as fire hazards or evacuation process.

This paper aims to provide a network study of the structural and dynamical characteristics of tourism flows in Europe from 1995 to 2012.

Travels in Europe were studied by following the network science research paradigm and by focusing on the whole network of intra-European tourism destinations. Network analysis was used to map and reveal the pattern of connections between states as shaped by bilateral tourism flows. Data were provided by the United Nations World Tourism Organization, and the data were integrated with tourism data available from national statistical offices of the individual countries, when necessary.

For 2012, results obtained from the UNWTO record-based network were compared to geo-located Twitter data as a proxy of human mobility patterns. The present analysis provides evidence of a shift towards an increased homogeneity in the travelling preferences of European tourists, an acquired attitude of visitors to travel shorter distances and a tendency of mobility patterns to merge. Finally, the comparison between UNWTO and Twitter data shows a different spatial distribution of visitors. These results provide a useful insight for policymakers involved in tourism planning.

The contribution of this study is threefold. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study that focuses on the bilateral tourism flows between all countries falling, geographically or politically, under the definition of Europe. Second, evidence is provided of a shift towards a greater homogeneity in the travelling preferences of European tourists. Lastly, for the first time, this study provides a comparison between topological structure and bilateral mobility patterns of tourism flows, based on two different data-recording methods.

This study aims to explore the impact of spatial configuration on behavioral patterns of visitors in the ground floor of health-care spaces.

In this study, the Space Syntax analysis was used to combine visibility graph analysis and axial line analysis with empirical observation of visitors’ activities. Two types of observation methods on visitors were conducted to discover the behavioral patterns of individuals, respectively, named “gate counts” and “people following.”

The outcomes of this research revealed that the spatial arrangements of pathways, public areas, vertical circulations, entrance space, lobby, emergency department, reception desk and pharmacy have a significant influence on the way that visitors perceive the health-care environment.

The current research is limited to two aspects of effective wayfinding (configuration of health care and geometry). Future work can investigate the other potential factors coupled with the current factor as an integrated research for enhancing wayfinding and sustaining accessibility. Another limitation is that the observation results for this study had been conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic and future studies can compare these results with the current COVID-19 situation within health care environments.

A large amount of research has focused on the needs of populations in developed countries. This topic has not been investigated thoroughly by professionals in developing countries such as Iran. Accordingly, this study benefits environmental psychologists and architects by revealing the effective characteristics of legible spaces in health-care environments.