Socialising tourism after COVID-19: reclaiming tourism as a social force? (Special Issue: The re-imagination of New Zealand tourism.)

Purpose: This article considers the possibilities of and barriers to socialising tourism after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Such an approach allows us to transform tourism and thereby evolve it to be of wider benefit and less damaging to societies and ecologies than has been the case under the corporatised model of tourism. Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual analysis draws on the theorisation of "tourism as a social force" and the new concept of "socialising tourism". Using critical tourism approaches, it seeks to identify the dynamics that are evident in order to assess the possibilities for socialising tourism for social and ecological justice. It employs an Indigenous perspective that the past, present and future are interconnected in its consideration of tourism futures. Findings: COVID-19 has fundamentally disrupted tourism, travel and affiliated industries. In dealing with the crisis, borders have been shut, lockdowns imposed and international tourism curtailed. The pandemic foregrounded the renewal of social bonds and social capacities as governments acted to prevent economic and social devastation. This disruption of normality has inspired some to envision radical transformations in tourism to address the injustices and unsustainability of tourism. Others remain sceptical of the likelihood of transformation. Indeed, phenomena such as vaccine privilege and vaccine tourism are indicators that transformations must be enabled. The authors look to New Zealand examples as hopeful indications of the ways in which tourism might be transformed for social and ecological justice. Practical implications: This conceptualisation could guide the industry to better stakeholder relations and sustainability. Social implications: Socialising tourism offers a fruitful pathway to rethinking tourism through a reorientation of the social relations it fosters and thereby transforming its social impacts for the better. Originality/value: This work engages with the novel concept of "socialising tourism". In connecting this new theory to the older theory of "tourism as a social force", this paper considers how COVID-19 has offered a possible transformative moment to enable more just and sustainable tourism futures.

COIVD-19 IMPACT MONITORING OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

The COVID-19 pandemic has had substantial impacts on the Earth system and socioeconomic activities. Restrictions aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19 by limiting human interaction have led to significant reductions in air pollution and CO2 emissions, improvement in water quality, changes in agricultural output, and changes in economic activity for certain industries such as airlines and shipping, among others [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Those economic impact assessment related information are made available on the trilateral COVID-19 Earth Observing Dashboard (https://eodashboard.org) [6]. The presented use cases in economic activities make full use of the combined satellites fleet of NASA, ESA and JAXA as well as the expertise of the Earth Observation community. © 2021 IEEE.

USING COPERNICUS SENTINEL MEASUREMENTS TO MONITOR COVID-19 IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, many countries worldwide implemented a series of social distancing and containment measures as an attempt to limit its spread. Those measures have led to a significant slowing down of economic activities, drastic drops in road and air traffic, and strong reductions of industrial activities in nonessential sectors, which in turn affected atmospheric emissions and air quality worldwide. Concentrations of short-lived pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, are indicators of changes in economic slowdowns and are comparable to changes in emissions. Nitrogen oxides are mainly produced by human activity and the combustion of (fossil) fuels, such as road traffic, ships, power plants and other industrial facilities. Nitrogen Dioxide can have a significant impact on human health, both directly and indirectly through the formation of ozone and small particles. The Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite nitrogen dioxide concentrations measurements have been used to investigate COVID-19 impact on air quality from space. Global maps of Copernicus Sentinel-5P tropospheric Nitrogen Dioxide measurements have been included – together with other Sentinel measurements – into an on-line tool (dashboard) to provide investigations/results about changes to the Earth environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to the public: race.esa.int. © 2021 IEEE.

A MULTI-AGENCY COVID-19 DASHBOARD WITH SATELLITE AIR QUALITY DATA

After the initial COVID-19 lockdown in China during February 2020, NASA and ESA pollution monitoring satellite instruments quickly detected significant decreases in NO2 over the Wuhan region. This change was attributed to reductions in fossil fuel combustion from motor vehicles and industrial activity. The same phenomenon, the satellite measured reduction of NO2, happened next in northern Italy, and then in New York City as the coronavirus spread to these areas. Satellite remote sensing of NO2 has been a useful tool to document changes in fossil fuel combustion and associated economic activity as various countries or regions have implemented lockdowns as a means to try to contain the spread of the virus. In April 2020, ESA reached out to NASA and JAXA and suggested working together to construct an Earth Observing (EO) Dashboard to provide the public with information on the changes occurring within the environment due to the pandemic that are observable from satellites. Satellite air quality data - specifically, tropospheric NO2 - was one of the primary Earth observations provided by this tri-agency COVID-19 satellite data dashboard. © 2021 IEEE.

THE COVID-19 EARTH OBSERVATION DASHBOARD: A NASA-ESA-JAXA COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT

The measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic have had worldwide impacts on our environment, societies and economies. The 'COVID-19 Earth Observation Dashboard' (https://eodashboard.org) jointly developed by ESA, NASA and JAXA, combines a wealth of data from the tri-agencies' Earth-observing satellites to monitor the worldwide impacts of COVID-19. Developed in an Open Science framework, the dashboard is openly available to users worldwide and allows to track changes in air and water quality, climate, economic activity and agriculture. © 2021 IEEE.

Analysis on the spatio-temporal characteristics of COVID-19 in mainland China.

COVID-19 has brought many unfavorable effects on humankind and taken away many lives. Only by understanding it more profoundly and comprehensively can it be soundly defeated. This paper is dedicated to studying the spatial-temporal characteristics of the epidemic development at the provincial-level in mainland China and the civic-level in Hubei Province. Moreover, a correlation analysis on the possible factors that cause the spatial differences in the epidemic's degree is conducted. After completing these works, three different methods are adopted to fit the daily-change tendencies of the number of confirmed cases in mainland China and Hubei Province. The three methods are the Logical Growth Model (LGM), Polynomial fitting, and Fully Connected Neural Network (FCNN). The analysis results on the spatial-temporal differences and their influencing factors show that: (1) The Chinese government has contained the domestic epidemic in early March 2020, indicating that the number of newly diagnosed cases has almost zero increase since then. (2) Throughout the entire mainland of China, effective manual intervention measures such as community isolation and urban isolation have significantly weakened the influence of the subconscious factors that may impact the spatial differences of the epidemic. (3) The classification results based on the number of confirmed cases also prove the effectiveness of the isolation measures adopted by the governments at all levels in China from another aspect. It is reflected in the small monthly grade changes (even no change) in the provinces of mainland China and the cities in Hubei Province during the study period. Based on the experimental results of curve-fitting and considering the time cost and goodness of fit comprehensively, the Polynomial(Degree = 18) model is recommended in this paper for fitting the daily-change tendency of the number of confirmed cases.