Reinventing luxury travel imaginaries: Early responses of travel influencers to the COVID-19 pandemic

This chapter assesses how luxury travel imaginaries were modified in the aftermath of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Drawing on long-term fieldwork among travel influencers, the chapter presents their response strategies to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on an analysis of evidence from participant observation in tourist sites, network visualisations, in-depth interviews and platform profiles, I trace the transformations luxury travel imaginaries have undergone since the beginning of 2020. Before this global crisis, travel influencers became new puissant players in the highly globalised tourism industry as they regularly received assignments from tourism boards and hotels. Although brand sponsorship was considered a substantial source of revenue for travel influencers, their collaborations in travel destinations and the monetisation of travel content on YouTube were further assets to secure a livelihood. The coronavirus outbreak, however, turned their life-worlds upside down. This ethnographic investigation identified three main responses of travel influencers to the current long-term crisis of tourism: (1) diversification of content creation and orientation towards other influencer genres, (2) support for local tourism organisations and online promotion of staycations and (3), finally, travel to tourist sites for circulating online content on safe travel standards. Digital platforms became a major arena where the future of tourism has been re-negotiated in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. The in-depth investigation suggests that travel influencers were in a position to create new powerful representations of luxury as safe travel since they acquired the skills to establish stable storyworlds for their travel experiences, which attracted the attention of large platform audiences. © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.

Humanistic communication professionals: dialogue and listening skills as core competencies of humanistic communication professionals in the Netherlands

Purpose>Many organisations wrestle with how to develop value-oriented businesses and societies. A humanistic communication approach that promotes understanding and dialogue amongst stakeholders can contribute to a solution. Communication professionals play a pivotal role in achieving a humanistic communication process. This paper aims to determine the significance of humanistic communication professionals and their characteristics.Design/methodology/approach>A literature review was conducted to identify the characteristics of humanistic communication professionals. Thereafter, the extent to which such characteristics have been implemented in competency models in the Netherlands was investigated. This country’s strong tradition of developing competencies for communication professionals has resulted in competency models that serve as standards for professional development.Findings>The literature review shows that a humanistic approach to communication is characterised by dialogic engagement and social listening to build and maintain trust, foster transparency and create engagement with stakeholders. Communication professionals can act as “cultural interpreters”, “organisational listeners” and “stewards of meaning”. The human element plays a key factor in the competency standards for communication professionals in the Netherlands, although the extent to which they are embedded varies. The analysis shows a shift from passing on a message towards dialogue and engagement.Originality/value>Most studies of communication professionals’ competencies have been based on roles or tasks they perform. Little scholarly attention has been paid to competencies that add to developing value-oriented businesses and societies. This paper focuses specifically on how communication professionals can contribute to creating humanistic organisations.

Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of Government Policies Relating to the Early Childhood Sector Across Ten Countries

The relationship between early childhood education and care (ECEC, birth to 8 years), children’s lifelong learning trajectory and the economy is undisputed. This relationship was particularly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an auto-ethnographical study, this chapter discusses government responses across 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Denmark, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal reveal much about the perceptions of children and their early childhood professionals from a political, social and economic stance. The chapter interrogates how government responses situate children and early childhood professionals within the educational landscape in the countries studied and asks how it shapes early childhood education in particular. It illustrates that Governments overall, in the countries studied, did not recognise ECEC as fundamental to the educational continuum. In looking to the future, we question how early childhood education should develop to prepare children for the times we live in so that children are able to flourish and shape future societies with confidence and purpose. Finally, we ask whether the pandemic could possibly see the dawn of a new era in knowledge and understanding of the centrality of Early Childhood Education and Care. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

ESSENTIALLY UNCARE: CHALLENGES OF TECHNOCARE IN THE COVID ERA

The relationship between care and technoscience generates a highly dynamic field of study in the social sciences, such as the project in which the results presented here have been incorporated (Sustainability of care for people in a situation of dependency: experiences and dilemmas in the design of techno-care. PT18-2624;PAIDI2020). This article analyses the implications of technology on the specific work of the Home Help Service (HHS). To do so, a longitudinal qualitative approach was conducted through interviews with HHS auxiliaries whose discourses provide an opportunity to study how care practices have been reconfigured by technology following the onset of the pandemic. Other aims that have focused the analysis are to discover the requirements with regard to competencies, abilities and skills that the new situation requires to be mobilised as well as the demands that this entails;and to identify how they help to define care with technologies in a space that tends to resist changes such as the domestic environment.