Revealing Unknown Aspects: Sparking Curiosity and Engagement with a Tourist Destination through a 360-Degree Virtual Tour

Over the past decades, 360-degree virtual tours have been used to provide the public access to accurate representations of cultural heritage sites and museums. The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a rise in the popularity of virtual tours as a means of engaging with locations remotely and has raised an interesting question: How could we use such experiences to bring the public closer to locations that are otherwise unreachable in real life or not considered to be tourist destinations? In this study, we examine the effectiveness of promoting engagement with a city through the virtual presentation of unknown and possibly also inaccessible points of interest through a 360-degree panoramic virtual tour. The evaluation of the experience with 31 users through an online questionnaire confirms its potential to spark curiosity, promote engagement, foster reflection, and motivate users to explore the location and its attractions at their leisure, thus enabling them to experience it from their personal point of view. The outcomes highlight the need for further research to explore this potential and identify best practices for virtual experience design. © 2023 by the authors.

A study of determinants that affect the intention to participate in online tours and the role of constraints under COVID-19 pandemic

To overcome the challenges presented by COVID-19, the tourism sector has introduced online tours to the market, in which tour guides introduce product via video conferencing tools. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing people's behavioral intentions to consume this new product. For this study, we conducted a web-based questionnaire survey in Japan in December 2020. The data analysis results confirm that positive emotions and telepresence positively influence people's intention to participate in online tours. Additionally, we identified that travel constraints did not directly influence participation intention. Alternatively, they have an indirect influence through interactions with other factors. Specifically, structural constraints caused by external factors, such as lack of time, amplified the effect of authenticity, but attenuated the effect of telepresence. In addition, interpersonal constraints, such as incompatibility of schedules with companions, were found to increase the effect of telepresence, but weaken the effect of authenticity. Furthermore, the analysis results suggested that while daily travel constraints indicated a significant mediation influence on tourists' participation intention, COVID-19 constraints indicated no significant influence for either direct or indirect effects. The findings of this study are beneficial in designing online travel experiences that can benefit tourists under travel constraints in the future.

Indian tourism and hospitality, the FTAs, domestic tourism, GDP and tourism promotion

Tourism and hospitality have had a dynamic role in different countries and became the mainstay of the economy. Tourism, if proliferated appropriately, supports countries to accrue the benefits of the industry. Considered to have multiplier effects, tourism banks on visitors who come to a host country from other countries or are domestic visitors who move around the country. Countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, India and the Maldives have depended on Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTA) for several years. More the FTAs, the higher the benefits. India too had the facet of promoting the country as a tourist destination to the world and inviting them to be part of the tourism juggernaut. Unfortunately, the metrics are not in line with the quality of destinations in India compared to the FTAs in Thailand, the Maldives or even in Singapore. With a black swan event like the twenty-first century COVID-19 pandemic, many countries focus on domestic travellers, so does India. Just before the pandemic, several plans and policies encouraging domestic travel made their way along with the promotion of quality tourism globally with a lesser number of Overseas Tourism Offices (OTO). The Federal Government in India, in a strategic manner, ensured that domestic travel and FTAs would happen in tandem. It was done through robust global tourism promotion through the India Missions and OTOs that ensured a positive growth trajectory and the metrics that provided the ammunition for economic growth. The research team also got to interview former officers of the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and players from the private sector that have played a role in the sectoral business operations. © 2022 Shaheed Khan and Freeda Maria Swarna M.

THE MINISTRY OF TOURISM AND ANTIQUITIES (MoTA). Audiovisual Efforts to Promote Egypt's Civilization in the Post-Lockdown Era

Blessed with its rich cultural heritage but cursed with its rich history of terrorist attacks, Egypt has witnessed a decline in tourism revenue, which is vital for the country's economic development. Tourism suffered due to Egypt's revolution on January 25th, 2011, and the imposed travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, Egypt's former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Dr. Khaled El-Anany, initiated numerous promotional campaigns to revive tourism. As the world experienced a continuous lockdown, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA) encouraged people to explore Egypt online through their website and social media platforms. Accordingly, this article examines the MoTA's recent efforts to promote Egypt's civilization by utilising virtual tours, events, and videos to encourage cultural tourism and the traditional sun-and-beach holidays to local and international markets. In addition, three interviews were conducted with leading Egyptologists to gain their opinion about the Ministry's efforts in promoting tourism to Egypt. According to these interviews, the future is bright for Egypt's tourism. However, the country faces different challenges than in the past, such as problems in the hospitability industry and harassment, which can affect tourists' revisit intentions. © 2022 Vita e Pensiero / Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Whether and how free virtual tours can bring back visitors

Many tour providers have pinned their hopes on providing virtual tours to bring back visitors in the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, we develop an analytical model to examine whether free virtual tours can help attract more visitors. We consider a tour provider deciding whether to provide a free virtual tour and its grade if any is provided to maximize visitors' physical presence. Potential visitors possess heterogeneous preferences and perceived equivalence, and the tour provider knows only their respective random distributions. The model is solved to maximize tour providers' physical demand. Our analysis finds that a free virtual tour can help if potential visitors significantly underestimate the physical tour and identifies the critical threshold;we also find that the COVID-19 pandemic reduces the likelihood that a free virtual tour can help. This paper contributes to the tourism management community by accentuating the dark side of virtual tours, suggesting that tour providers should be prudent before introducing any virtual tour. We also provide guidelines for virtual tourism, helping tour providers respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and other uncertain situations.

Accessibility for Virtual Tours: On Designing a Prototype for People with Visual Impairments

Virtual tours are tools that could be effectively used in many different contexts. The COVID-19 pandemic has let emerge how they can be useful and efficacy in those situations where it is not possible to access physical places and attend events. Besides that, they can be used for several goals in different contexts. In fact, in simple words, virtual tours are essentially based on using 3D images and videos, letting the users interact with the virtual environment and its points of interest through them, emphasizing the need for navigation and orienteering mechanisms within the virtual environment. Due to these characteristics, virtual tours represent digital barriers affecting users with disabilities, in particular those people with visual impairments. This paper presents an innovative solution we have adopted by designing and developing a prototype devoted to exploring a University Campus, with accessibility in mind. A preliminary evaluation has been conducted, and the obtained results are presented in the paper, which discusses some potentialities and limitations that emerged, © 2023 IEEE.

Experiential Learning Through Virtual Tours in Times of COVID-19

Many argue that experience plays a significant role in learning. However, previous research has shown that experience alone does not necessarily produce learning. This study describes the application of Kolb's experiential learning cycle (experiencing, reflecting, thinking and acting) as a framework to design assignments for an English for Tourism Industry course at a private university in Japan. The scope of the study was to ensure students a firsthand tourism experience through active participation in virtual tours and events during emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to explore the implications such an approach may have on students' learning, in acquiring new knowledge and reflecting on its further use. Through the use of free virtual tours available online, students completed three assignments over a 15-week semester. Each assignment included a different type of virtual activity: (1) a tour of a UNESCO World Heritage Site using Google Earth, (2) an online event, museum exhibition or concert, and (3) a walking tour of a major world city using 360 degrees interactive video. Analysis of the collected data, in form of students' assignments, revealed how the implementation of such an approach not only allowed for various realizations about the perceived usefulness and benefits of virtual tours, but also motivated students themselves to think more about the use of virtual tours in the tourism industry beyond COVID-19 pandemic.

New perspectives of experiential tourism: an exploratory analysis of live virtual tours during the COVID-19 outbreak

Purpose>This paper aims to find out if it is possible to consider live virtual tours, in the connotation assumed during the COVID-19 outbreak, as experiential tourism products. The paper focuses on Holbrook's “four Es” (“experience”, “entertainment”, “exhibitionism” and “evangelising”) to study the experience of live virtual tours.Design/methodology/approach>This article develops an exploratory analysis and presents a content analysis of 1052 reviews of 108 live virtual tours posted on TripAdvisor and Viator.Findings>The findings show that live virtual tours are perceived as experiences, all “four Es” are covered and two more sub-categories emerge.Research limitations/implications>The analysis is limited to the perception of tourists that are confident with the technology, to a small sample and a period of travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 outbreak.Practical implications>Live virtual tours create a new segment, which “travels from home”. This does not preclude tourists from deciding to physically visit the places seen virtually.Originality/value>Research on the analysis of the reviews of live virtual tours has not yet been carried out.

The Museum in Quarantine: Architecture, Experience and the Virtual Museum

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in early 2020, were felt across all industries and public institutions, including art museums. Shuttered art museums sought to maintain public interest in their collections and exhibitions by promoting existing online tools, such as the virtual art museum tours hosted by Google Arts & Culture. This article analyses these tours from the perspective of museology and architecture and argues that, rather than a form of virtual reality, these tours are a peculiar kind of image database. As such, they are part of Google’s growing efforts towards mass digitization and data accumulation. © 2022 Intellect Ltd Article. English language.

Delivering Experiential Learning Through Virtual Study Tour and Alternative Internship Options During

The unprecedented impact of COV1D-19 recreated our learning environment. With nearly all institutions shifting to remote teaching during the outbreak, our program was quickly tasked to transition to online instruction for two experiential courses: The May intersession New York study tour for undergraduate students and the summer internship program for graduating seniors whose internships were cancelled or could not be secured due to the pandemic. We integrated experiential learning through appointment journaling in the May intersession New York study tour and through weekly activity reports in the virtual alternative summer internship. Throughout the entire process and in logical sequence, students in both courses were able to engage in the experiential learning cycle developed by Kolb (1984). These modifications successfully connected students to fashion companies and exploratory career experiences.

Experiential Learning Through Virtual Tours in Times of COVID-19

Many argue that experience plays a significant role in learning. However, previous research has shown that experience alone does not necessarily produce learning. This study describes the application of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (experiencing, reflecting, thinking and acting) as a framework to design assignments for an English for Tourism Industry course at a private university in Japan. The scope of the study was to ensure students a firsthand tourism experience through active participation in virtual tours and events during emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to explore the implications such an approach may have on students’ learning, in acquiring new knowledge and reflecting on its further use. Through the use of free virtual tours available online, students completed three assignments over a 15-week semester. Each assignment included a different type of virtual activity: (1) a tour of a UNESCO World Heritage Site using Google Earth, (2) an online event, museum exhibition or concert, and (3) a walking tour of a major world city using 360° interactive video. Analysis of the collected data, in form of students’ assignments, revealed how the implementation of such an approach not only allowed for various realizations about the perceived usefulness and benefits of virtual tours, but also motivated students themselves to think more about the use of virtual tours in the tourism industry beyond COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

ABC: Archaeology in Bedriacum-Calvatone. An educational project

In 2011, with the launch of the project called "ABC. Archaeology in Bedriacum-Calvatone", promoted by the Municipality of Calvatone (CR) and by Prof. Maria Teresa Grassi, the educational activity of the University of Milan at the archaeological excavation of Calvatone began. The project's goal is the communication of research and excavation activities in the Roman settlement of Bedriacum. Communication activities target a wide audience, including schoolchildren and youth in order to raise awareness on the local cultural heritage. During the first nine years (before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020), by using different communication tools, the educational activities have involved almost two thousand and five hundred children and teenagers.

Virtual Museum Visits in a Pandemic: Older Adults Discuss Experiences of Art, Culture and Social Connection

This paper focuses on a series of guided virtual museum visits designed for older adults over the COVID-19 pandemic. The visits were undertaken as part of a research project in collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and brought together small groups of older adults for weekly guided visits facilitated by trained guides. The visits were held for twelve weeks between March and May 2021. We conducted a qualitative study on the visits, which included weekly observations as well as interviews with the older tour participants, the guides and the research and museum staff to understand the experiences of the virtual guided museum tours from the perspective of older adults. We explore how virtual museum tours provide opportunities for engagement with art, technologies and people, especially during the pandemic when visits to the museum were limited by social distancing measures. We bring these findings into conversation with our previous work with on-site museum visits and reflect on questions related to accessibility of virtual museum visits as well as the challenges for socialization. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The role of travel in business portfolio of Czech mini-breweries in the COVID pandemic period

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to propose a way to minimize the negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the activities of mini-breweries. Research questions: Has pandemic affected the decrease in mini-breweries production? Can tourism help to save mini-breweries? What specific problems has the pandemic caused to mini-breweries? How do mini-breweries solve their problems? Research Methods: The paper presents a comparative analysis of the results of primary sources obtained through a questionnaire survey. The research tool used was an online survey conducted between 10 September and 10 October 2020 capturing answers from 59 mini-breweries in the Czech Republic. The survey examined effects of the pandemic, views on the changing beer market, mitigation measures, effects on demand for beer and other services and evaluation of government measures. Minibreweries were contacted in writing or in person. There were three categories for the length of operation of the minibrewery on the market. 33 microbreweries have been on the market for more than 5 years, 23 for a period of 2 to 5 years and the remaining 3 have been on the market for less than 2 years. It was also examined where mini-breweries have their headquarters. The majority of respondents was from municipalities with less than 2,000 inhabitants, a total of 14. Cities of 2 - 5 000 habitants were represented by 6 microbreweries, 5 - 10 000 by 8, 10 - 50 000 by 9, 50 - 100 000 by 1 and larger than 100 000 by 9. The second largest group consisted of breweries from Prague with 12 responses. Results and Discussion: The pandemic negatively or rather negatively affected the economy of mini-breweries (75%). The pandemic did not affect the economy at all (10%). It is too early to assess effects of the pandemic (10%). The economy of mini-breweries has improved (5%). The pandemic caused a dramatic drop in sales (67.8%). The mini-brewery lost customers (40.7%). The mini-brewery sustained economic losses due to the wastage of already brewed beer (25.4%). The mini-brewery lost employees (22.0%). The pandemic had no impact (16.9%). The mini-brewery reported higher sales (1.7%). Mini-breweries responded to the situation: 76.3% opened a takeaway window;59.3% distributed beer to clients;52.5% changed the structure of beer bottling;45.8% started using social media more;42,4% increased Internet advertising;40.7% started online sales;10.2% reduced the range of products. Brewers perceive tourism as a possible starting point. The role of off-trade is often mentioned, as well as the price of beer as factors influencing the demand for beer. The research clearly confirmed the need to strengthen the role of tourism as a tool to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on microbreweries. It demonstrates the need for a specific focus on a specific tourist segment coming to the Czech Republic, not only in beer or gastronomic tourism but also in experiential, cultural-historical and educational tourism in deeper cooperation with destination management organizations. Implications: The pandemic has an impact on the activities of mini-breweries, beer production has been reduced, employees have lost their jobs, premises have been closed and the number of customers dropped. Most mini-breweries have introduced product and marketing innovations. Renewed tourism can revive the activities of mini-breweries with their original products (tourist brewery tours, tastings, sale of souvenirs) and new ones (opening a beer museum, social and entertainment events, beer brewing experience courses, etc.). The research suggests the cooperation of several entities - mini-breweries with a specific DMO of the region in which the mini-brewery is located - the CzechTourism national tourism centre - by selected travel agencies or offices focusing on experiential gastronomy, beer, educational and cultural-historical tourism. As part of the proposed cooperation, it will be possible to streamline national and foreign marketing projects to raise the profile of mini-breweries and increase tourists' awareness of the ex

Analysis of socioeconomic resources, infected and death cases of BRICS nations and its effect on the stock market indices: post COVID-19

The novel coronavirus is respiratory infections affected as cold and fever. The World Health Organization denoted as "coronavirus disease 2019" (COVID-19). China was the first country invented in December 2019. This disease affects the health of humans but also influencing financial markets harshly affected across the globe. In April 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected the severity of Covid-19 crossways the world affected by 3% this was higher than the 2008-09 financial crises. The Middle East and Central Asia region expressed that the growth of an economy decreased from 1.2% to 2.8% during 2019-20. In the same way, the oil import and export countries were affected by 4.2% and 0.7% correspondingly (IMF, 2020). The stock market is one of the barometers exposed to the economic status of the country. Due to Covid-19, the economic and social impact on BRICS countries were rigorously affected the manufacturing, services, education, health, hotels, real estate, hospitality tours and travel, media, IT, retails, and banking sector (M. Chaudhary, P.R. Sodani, S. Das, 2020). Last year, the worldwide stock markets crashed due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation. This study mainly focuses on investigating the impact of socioeconomic resources during COVID-19 on BRICS Nations;to analyze the performance of stock indices and its relation with the Covid-19 infected and death cases of BRICS nations. This study is empirical from official stock exchanges of respective countries in the pandemic situation on the stock market from January 2020-August 2021. The Covid-19 number of cases and their deaths are from the official website of the World Health Organization, Dashboard. Finally, to find out the relationship between the numbers of infected and deaths influencing the stock markets in BRICS Nations. This study finds the present situation based on that will further decisions for diversification of funds for getting benefits in the future especially post BRICS formation.

Self-Guided Smartphone Excursions in University Teaching-Experiences From Exploring "Water in the City"

Like many other university teachers, we were faced with an unprecedented situation in spring 2020, when we had to cancel on-site teaching and excursions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we were in the fortunate position that we had already started to develop a smartphone-based self-guided excursion on the topic of "Water in the City". We accelerated this development and used it to replace the traditional group excursion in our Bachelor level introductory course in Hydrology and Climatology. The excursion of this course is visited by around 150 students each year. Because the student feedback was overall very positive, we used the self-guided excursion again in 2021 and plan to continue to use it in the coming years. In this paper, we describe the excursion, discuss the experiences of the students and ourselves, and present recommendations and ideas that could be useful for similar excursions at other universities.

Geotagged data from social media in visitor monitoring of protected areas;a scoping review. (Special Issue: COVID-19.)

The present study undertakes a scoping literature review on the use of geotagged data in protected areas' tourism research. We contribute to the literature by providing a detailed exploration of visitor monitoring's main aspects that can be extracted from geotagged data. The revised studies presented various methodological approaches to obtain meaningful information from geotagged data. Their findings outlined new data sources' potential to assess visitor behaviour and provide visitors' use indicators. Further, the data nature makes it possible to analyse visitors' spatial and social behaviour. The literature review allows us to draw conclusions about geotagged data's validity as indicators of visitors in Protected Areas and the benefits and limitations of using such data in research.

Maintenance and Development of Tourism Destinations in Nusa Penida

The purpose of this study is to analyze Producer Performance and Consumer Assessment of Tourism Destinations in Nusa Penida. The research method used proportional sampling for 144 respondents. The results of the research, the performance of producers (Government, Private, Tourism Managers, and Community) has carried out the Maintenance and Development of Tourism Destinations in Nusa Penida by emphasizing on activities: Security Guarding, Planning, Budgeting, Regulatory Systems, Transparency of the use of donations, and Rules of Tour Guides. Thus, consumers (tourists) provide an assessment that tourism destinations are comfortable, sea transport operations are on time, land transport provides professional services, accommodation is quite good, food consumption is always available, and tour guide services are friendly. Regression analysis, the quality of tourism destinations as the dependent variable, while the independent variables, security safeguards, planning, budgeting, regulatory systems, donation transfers, and tour guide rules produce the equation: Y1 = 2.195 + 0.176X1 - 0.045X2 + 0.048X3 - 0.017X4 + 0.146X5 + 0.114X6. In conclusion, performance (government, private sector, tourism managers, and the community) has a positive impact on tourists who visit and enjoy the state of tourism destinations in Nusa Penida with satisfaction. Unfortunately, the presence of Covid-19 has made tourists not return as before. The implication is that the results of this study are useful for the government, as a material for consideration in determining sustainable tourism development in Nusa Penida.

Assignment of broadcasting rights as a source of financing sports activities

The goal of this paper is to provide a review of the transfer of rights to broadcasting sporting events as one source of financing sporting activities and clubs through comparative practice and current legal regulations. Sports and the law are deeply intertwined, primarily due to the fact that sports are exposed to various challenges, ranging from doping, prevention of violence at sports manifestations, all the way to competition regulations, managing sports organizations and business processes. In this paper, we will analyze the positive legal regulations that enable the realization of income based on the right to broadcast. Sources of financing are necessary for the conduct of sporting activities. The most successful clubs generate the biggest part of their revenue through leasing broadcasting rights for sporting events and marketing. Broadcasting sporting events not only enables generation of direct revenue, but also removes the shackles of previously existing spatial barriers and thus contributes to the popularity of sports, athletes and their clubs. Occurrences such as the coronavirus pandemic have led to the organization of sporting events in controlled conditions, without the presence of an audience or with numerous limitations and restrictions. In such situations, numerous institutions have offered interactive forms of communication with the consumers (online museum tours, concerts, etc.), thus not only minimizing losses, but also maintaining contact with the audience. This situation has proven the significance of digital communication with the consumers. Even though the year 2020 went by without the previously planned Olympics and, in most cases, without sports fans in the stands, the sporting industry recorded a jump (from 388.28 billion dollars in 2020 to 440.77 billion of dollars in 2021). The growth in earnings was achieved predominantly due to the increase in media revenues.

Marketing whisky and white spirits in 2021

This chapter provides an overview of the marketing of whisky and some white spirits. It builds on the marketing information from Chapter 28 by addressing the rise in the use of social media for marketing, mobile and other technologies, e-commerce, and the changes in consumer purchase habits arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples are used to illustrate how social media platforms, influencer marketing, storytelling, cancel culture, and virtual and augmented reality marketing are currently being used to market whisky and some white spirits. New product examples include: RTD cocktails, twists on traditional spirits, and the rise of seltzers. Consumers’ changing views, especially the expectation that companies must demonstrate social responsibility as it pertains to the sustainability of the planet and that companies will use technology to provide increased transparency as well as better consumer experiences, such as easy e-commerce options, are discussed. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.