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This paper aims to give meaning to the smart tourism destination (STD) certification, highlighting its main advantages and limitations. The case of Medellín (Colombia) presents characteristics worth studying. The city has suffered from stigmatization and has recently started the steps to become an STD with the Spanish company Segittur (December 2020). Thus, this study aims to focus on the implications of the STD process, especially in an area that has been impacted by tourist activity.

This paper is a qualitative and exploratory case study about Medellín in Colombia and its tourism development in an STD framework. After a theoretical exploration of the STD from an urban perspective, the paper will present a multiple data corpus to analyze the city’s certification process to turn into an STD. This methodology explores stakeholders on the destination, including an observation, and allows us to obtain an overview of the implications of the STD certification for Medellín.

During the past decade, Medellín passed from a dangerous destination to a trendy destination. Findings reveal interesting results, considering the need to consider all aspects of territory as a central issue for the STD settlement and look beyond a technological approach.

This paper lets to understand better the STD process established by the institution. Moreover, it highlights the gap between the coveted certification to become the first STD in Colombia and the realities of a Latin American territory.

Este articulo pretende dar un significado a la certificación de destino turístico inteligente (DTI), destacando sus principales ventajas y limitaciones. El caso de Medellín (Colombia) presenta características relevantes de estudio. La ciudad ha sido ampliamente estigmatizada y recientemente ha iniciado el proceso de certificación para convertirse en destino turístico inteligente con la entidad española Segittur (dic. 2020). Dicho esto, queremos enfocarnos en las implicaciones de este proceso, especialmente en un área que ha sido impactada por la actividad turística.

Este artículo comprende un estudio cualitativo y exploratorio sobre Medellín en Colombia y su desarrollo turístico en un marco de DTI. Luego de una exploración teórica del destino turístico inteligente desde una perspectiva urbana, el artículo presentará un corpus de múltiples datos para analizar el proceso de certificación de la ciudad en su conversión en una DTI. Nuestra metodología explora a los stakeholders sobre el destino, incluyendo una observación, y nos permite obtener una visión general de las implicaciones de la certificación DTI para Medellín.

Durante la última década, Medellín pasó de ser un destino denominado de alto riesgo a un destino altamente recomendado. Los hallazgos revelan resultados interesantes, mostrando la necesidad de considerar todos los aspectos del territorio como un tema central para el asentamiento del DTI y mirar más allá de un enfoque tecnológico.

Este trabajo permite tener una mejor comprensión del proceso de DTI establecido por la entidad Segittur. Además, resalta la brecha existente entre la deseada certificación y las realidades de un territorio latinoamericano.

Thailand's Halal-friendly destination attributes are the focus of this study. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Halal-friendly attributes on tourists’ intentions to visit non-Muslim destinations. Also, this study analyzes the impact of Muslim tourists’ attitudes on Halal-friendly characteristics and their intentions to visit countries that are not predominantly Muslim.

To accomplish objectives, a survey was used to gather the data by using a convenient non-probability sampling approach from Muslim-majority countries Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. A proposed structural equation model was used to assess the influence of the variables above on the outcomes.

This study found that the factors of Halal-friendly facilities and Halal-friendly service positively influence the visiting intentions of Indonesian, Malaysian and Brunei Muslim tourists. In contrast, the social environment, food/beverages and local and staff attributes do not influence visit intentions. The tourist attitude mediates the relationship between the intention to visit and three dimensions of Halal-friendly attributes (social environment; food/beverage; and locals and staff).

This study did not investigate different kinds of dimensions for Muslim tourists visiting Thailand, such as preferences regarding personnel and families, cultural and artistic characteristics and the attributes of events and festivals. These dimensions cover a wide range of Halal-friendly tourism aspects. Second, this research did not investigate the associations between the demographics of Muslim tourists (age, gender, education level and income level) and the model variables. Such an investigation could have helped business developers and marketers in Thailand develop an efficient strategy for target marketing. The results of this research provide fundamental guidance and information for tourist enterprises in non-Muslim nations on how to enhance Muslim travellers’ images and intentions. However, because of the influence of other variables, locations in various areas of Asia, Africa and Europe may exhibit somewhat different effective qualities (e.g. environment, culture, history, etc.).

This study sheds light on the factors contributing to visitor satisfaction in the context of a desire to go to a Halal-friendly site. This insight from this study can be adapted and applied by tourism managers and marketing executives to build or develop the Halal-friendly destination image of a tourist destination (Phuket) in the right dimensions. It is a possibility that the image of a tourist attraction has a tight relationship with travelers’ perceived value, contentment and loyalty (Hsu et al., 2008; Khunrattanaporn, 2013; Pike, 2008). Battour et al. (2022) found that Muslims’ behavioural intentions are affected by the Halal attributes of the destination. It indicates that Halal attributes are very important for Muslim tourists when selecting a destination. To attract Muslim tourists, this study can be used for strategies and planning.

This study sheds fresh light on the concept of Halal tourism. It examines the perspective of Muslim tourists using Halal goods or services in anticipation of a future trip to a non-Muslim location (Phuket). This study is crucial for destination tourism operators, managers and marketers who lead Muslim tourists to non-Muslim destinations.

The current study is designed to investigate the factors that foster the framing of destination competitiveness and establish the factors that drive the contribution of tourism innovations to economic growth in smart tourism destinations.

A four-year panel data were extracted from the World Economic Forum's travel and tourism competitiveness index and data were analysed using Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood regression model.

The findings demonstrate that both the enabling environment and airport infrastructure significantly affect tourism's impact on the economy of the selected smart European tourism destinations. Conversely, human resources and general infrastructure display a negative correlation with tourism's contribution to the economy. However, no data in the sample support the idea that tourism policies, government prioritization or readiness of tourism information and communication technologies impact tourism's contribution to the economy. Additionally, the marginal effects indicate that improving the enabling environment and airport infrastructure can generate additional benefits for the economy through tourism.

The uniqueness of this study is the integration of smart tourism destinations with the measure of destination competitiveness to provide an empirical bridge that links tourism competitiveness to economic growth.

There is an ongoing discussion on tools that can lead to sustainable tourism, as well as attempts to implement them. In the selection of tools, the attitudes of residents – local stakeholders and their degree of acceptance of such tools should be analysed and taken into account. Some cause conflicts, and hence, the purpose of this study is the comparative analysis of three cities (Prague, Krakow and Braga).

Analysis of the basic types of conflicts was conducted using the division proposed by Moore. The research was conducted among residents – experts representing the tourism sector. Based on the literature review, three hypotheses were formulated. Statistical tests were used to analyse the results.

The results showed a strong impact of the conflict of information and the interests of those dependent on the degree of development of the city’s tourist function. It was established that in the process of achieving sustainable tourism, to minimize conflicts, the following are necessary: paying attention to communication and the involvement of local communities, creating attractions that benefit both residents and visitors, measuring and monitoring tourist traffic, supporting initiatives for new tourist offers and initiating discussions on development problems, and setting common goals for all residents.

The research was conducted during the pandemic and is based on the opinions of experts indicated by the city authorities. While the attitudes of the inhabitants towards the development of tourism were recognized in earlier studies, the awareness of tourists and their readiness to accept limitations related to respecting the needs of the inhabitants were not examined. This aspect may be an interesting direction for further research. A limitation of this research is the small scope of the study, caused both by the restrictions in force during the research period (related to the COVID-19 pandemic) and also by the inability to conduct in-depth interviews with experts. It should also be noted that among the experts participating in the research were tourist entrepreneurs directly interested in rebuilding tourism after the pandemic. Due to this, their opinions may have been biased, but there is no way to prove or disprove this. However, the answers gathered were considered collectively; therefore, the opinions obtained were considered to be objective. Attempts to balance tourism so far have focused mainly on limiting the access of tourists to attractions and tourist areas and introducing (or increasing) admission fees. It is still too early to assess the effectiveness of such tools, hence the lack of scientific analyses of implemented tourism policies.

The role and tasks of institutions managing tourism in cities will probably also change, in particular, so-called destination management organizations. The current declarations indicate the need to respect inhabitants and take measures to limit conflicts arising in the context of the development of the tourist function. However, there is no empirical evidence of the positive results achieved.

The results will allow the implementation of tourism balancing tools that are accepted by the local community.

The selection of the historical cities and the posing of a research problem based on the same tool allowed for comparative inference. The results can help shape tourism management in cities and the choice of tools for their sustainable development.

关于实现可持续旅游的工具以及运用这些工具的尝试始终是学界热议的话题。 在选择工具时, 应当分析和考虑居民和当地利益相关者的态度以及他们对工具的接受程度, 因为有些会引起冲突。基于此, 本文的目的是对三个城市（布拉格、克拉科夫、布拉加）的居民-当地利益相关者冲突进行比较分析。

本文采用摩尔提出的划分方法对冲突的基本类型进行了分析。 该研究是在居民——代表旅游部门的专家中进行的。文章基于文献综述提出了三个假设, 并 使用统计测试来分析结果。

结果表明, 信息冲突和利益冲突的强烈影响取决于城市旅游功能的发展程度。在实现可持续旅游的过程中, 为了尽量减少冲突, 有必要采取以下措施：注重当地社区的参与和沟通, 创造有利于居民和游客双方的景点, 测量和监测旅游流量, 支持旅游产品创新并发起针对发展问题的讨论, 同时为所有居民设定共同目标。

本文选择历史名城作为案例地, 加之基于同一工具提出的研究问题, 使得本研究具备用于比较推断的条件。 研究结果有助于塑造城市的旅游管理以及引导可持续发展工具的选择。

Hay un debate en curso sobre las herramientas que pueden conducir al turismo sostenible, así como los intentos de implementarlas. En la selección de herramientas, se deben analizar y tener en cuenta las actitudes de los residentes – agentes interesados locales y su grado de aceptación de dichas herramientas. Algunas provocan conflictos, de ahí que el objetivo de este artículo sea el análisis comparativo de tres ciudades (Praga, Cracovia, Braga).

El análisis de los tipos básicos de conflictos se realizó utilizando la división propuesta por Moore. La investigación se llevó a cabo entre residentes, expertos que representan el sector turístico. A partir de la revisión de la literatura se formularon tres hipótesis. Se utilizaron pruebas estadísticas para analizar los resultados.

Los resultados mostraron un fuerte impacto del conflicto de información y los intereses de quienes dependen del grado de desarrollo de la función turística de la ciudad. Se estableció que en el proceso de lograr un turismo sostenible, para minimizar los conflictos es necesario: prestar atención a la comunicación y a la implicación de las comunidades locales, crear atractivos que beneficien tanto a los residentes como a los visitantes, medir y monitorear el tráfico turístico, apoyar iniciativas de nuevas ofertas turísticas e iniciar debates sobre los problemas de desarrollo, y establecer objetivos comunes para todos los residentes.

La selección de las ciudades históricas y el planteamiento de un problema de investigación basado en la misma herramienta permitieron realizar una inferencia comparativa. Los resultados pueden ayudar a configurar la gestión del turismo en las ciudades y la elección de herramientas para su desarrollo sostenible.

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.

Spiritual tourism is becoming a significant growth area of the Indian travel market, with more Indians opting to go on pilgrimage to popular religious cities. There are many spiritual destinations where some of this life's essences can be sought to enjoy harmony and peace. The study aims to prioritize motivators driving the intentions of the tourists to visit the spiritual destination.

The current study applied the analytical hierarchical process, a multi-criteria decision-making technique, on the sample of visitors from all the six spiritual destinations to rank the motivational factors that drive the intentions of the tourist to visit a spiritual destination.

The study's results postulated that spiritual fulfillment motives and destination atmosphere are the top prioritized motivations, while destination attributes and secular motives emerged as the least prioritized.

The research study provides valuable insights to the spiritual tourism industry stakeholders to target the tourists' highly prioritized motivations to augment the visits to a particular spiritual destination.

Previous research has explored the motivations and modeled their relationships with tourists' satisfaction and intentions. But, the present study has applied a multi-criteria decision-making technique to add value to the existing knowledge base.

This study intend to investigate a theoretical model looking at how particular tourist emotions, such as “joy,” “love,” and “positive surprise,” might predict their behavior by looking at how satisfied they are with their whole experience when visiting spas, and to examine the relationship of emotional experience, destination image, satisfaction and intention to revisit for spa tourism.

A sample of 345 individuals who traveled to Alleppey as domestic tourists participated in the research study. A non-probability (purposive) sampling method in this study. The structural model was analyzed using Structural Equation modeling (SEM), and the path coefficients were examined to test the hypotheses.

The results supported the hypotheses, indicating that specific emotions, image of the destination, and satisfaction significantly impacted tourists' intentions to revisit Alleppey as a spa tourism destination. This study demonstrated that “emotions of joy, love, and positive surprise” have a considerable influence on the image of the destination and satisfaction. The findings reveal a substantial correlation between satisfaction and behavioral intention (“Intention to revisit”). The research suggests that a higher degree of satisfaction would encourage visitors to revisit the location.

The research suggests that a higher degree of satisfaction would encourage visitors to revisit the location. This research offers vital information for developing, planning, and putting into practice tourism policies in the spa tourism sector. This article focuses on domestic travelers who travel to Alleppey, so the conclusions may not be relevant to research utilizing foreign tourists.

According to the literature study, and to the authors` knowledge, only limited number of studies that look at spa tourism from a wellness perspective. Additionally, Alleppey is used in the study as the study’s setting, providing insight into the visitor experiences of this expanding spa tourism business. This study gives understanding about how emotional experience predicts behavioral intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reintegration process of Wounded, Injured or Sick Employees (WISE) of the Dutch Military Armed Forces.

The research method is an exploratory, qualitative case study. A purposive sampling was drawn, including 10 WISE, and 6 reintegration stakeholders. A total of 16 interviews were conducted to explore the individual, organisational and socio-environmental factors that influence reintegration of WISE.

Findings show the importance of involvement and participation of members of the social environment in the reintegration process. Findings show that the complexity of the plethora of WISEs' injuries and disabilities requires a more person-centric reintegration approach with personalized-customized provisions, rather than a policy-driven approach to the reintegration, in order to enhance the reintegration experience and to arrive at beneficial individual and organisational reintegration outcomes.

This cross-sectional study on a limited sample of WISE and reintegration stakeholders does not allow for making inferences about the long-term effects of the reintegration process on reintegration outcomes of the wider population of WISE. Future longitudinal research, encompassing a larger sample, could examine the long-term career, organisational and societal implications of reintegration of WISE within and outside the Military Armed Forces.

This paper presents a “Wounded Warrior Workplace Reintegration Program”, aimed at deriving beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders involved in the reintegration trajectory.

This paper contributes to the literature by presenting a Model of Occupational Reintegration of WISE that considers the factors at an individual, social-environmental, and institutional level as determinants of successful reintegration.

By adopting a cultural lens, this study aims to conceptualize destination-community hospitality to capture societal hospitality at the destination as an intangible asset. Destination-community hospitality comprises a set of attitudes and traits that are organically conveyed by community members and directly experienced by tourists. The paper contributes to efforts aimed at freeing hospitality from the confines of commercial lodging and food and beverage establishments.

This study proposes an affection–attention–awareness (AAA) framework by drawing on the pertinent literature and leveraging the affective–behavioral–cognitive model of attitudinal change. It focuses on the effects of cognition in conceptualizing destination-community hospitality as the core of the framework. Methodologically, the framework is illustrated with qualitative data including observational fieldwork and interviews conducted in Iran.

Illustration of the AAA framework in the context of Iran highlights how welcoming attitudes are leveraged at a destination as an ingrained community mindset even in the absence of formal initiatives or professional training. It underscores the hospitality advocacy role of local-community members irrespective of public-sector policy and capacity deficiencies.

Destinations that strive to attract tourists should tap into the significant wealth of intuitive hospitality within communities as an intangible resource. The ingenuity should be preserved to sustainably enhance the overall tourist experiences. The framework can serve as a guide to strategically facilitate destination-community hospitality.

Research on community-wide hospitality at destinations, as a major cultural asset in the context of strategic hospitality management, remains underdeveloped. With illustrative evidence, the findings elevate the critical role of community members as innate advocates of hospitality in developing destinations. The proposed framework of destination-community hospitality provides a new perspective and impetus for investigating hospitality beyond commercial domains.

This paper investigates the usage and trust of Chinese social media in the travel planning process (pre-trip, during-trip and post-trip) of Chinese tourists.

Through a combination of structured online survey (n = 406) and follow-up interviews, the research identifies the diversification of the demand-and-supply patterns of social media users in China, as well as the allocation of functions of social media as tools before, during and after travel.

Social media users are diverse in terms of their adoption of social media, use behaviour and scope; the levels of trust and influence; and their ultimate travel decisions and actions. Correlations between the level of trust, influence of social media and the intended changes in travel decisions are observed. Destination marketers and tourism industries should observe and adapt to the needs of social media users and potential tourist markets by understanding more about user segmentation between platforms or apps and conducting marketing campaigns on social media platforms to attract a higher number of visitors.

This paper demonstrated the case of social media usage in mainland China, which has been regarded as one of the fastest growing and influential tourist-generating markets and social media expansions in the world. This study further addressed the knowledge gap by correlating social media usage and travel planning process of Chinese tourists. The research findings suggested diversification of the demand-and-supply pattern of social media users in China, as well as the use of social media as tools before, during and after travel. Users were diversified in terms of their adoption of social media, use behaviour, scope, the levels of trust, influence and the ultimate travel decisions.

Destination marketing organizations should note that some overseas social media platforms that are not accessible in China like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook and Instagram are still valued by some Chinese tourists, especially during-trip period in journeys to Western countries. Some tactics for specific user segments should be carefully observed. When promoting specific tourism products to Chinese tourists, it is necessary to understand the user segmentation between platforms or apps.

Social media is a powerful tool for tourism development and sustainability in creating smart tourists and destinations worldwide. In China, the use of social media has stimulated the development of both information and communication technology and tourism.