Exploring tourism business model importance with the emergence of blockchain system: directions for tourism industry of China.

The study aims to explore the importance of the tourism business model with the emergence of the blockchain platform in China. The study focused on the importance of the tourism business model of china, studied the need to improve the tourism business infrastructure, and traced the value of the blockchain system in the tourism industry of china. For this, the researchers used a semi-structured interview approach to conduct a qualitative research design. About nine Chinese tourism and travel industry experts were interwar after initial screening using purposive sampling techniques. The respondents' responses were analyzed by applying a thematic analysis approach, and by this, the researchers extracted the main themes on study topicality to fill the gap in the literature. The study's novelty is in its topicality and context, for which it also provides viable, practical directions for stakeholders.

Greening tourism with environmental wellness: importance of environmental engagement, green tourist intentions, and tourist' environmental stimulus.

The appearance of COVID-19 has highlighted the critical nature of well-being and health in the modern world that affected the tourism industry at large. Thus, the research aims to estimate the nexus between green tourism inspiration and tourists' environmental wellness, environmental engagement, and green revisit intentions in China. The study obtained data from Chinese tourists and applied the fuzzy estimation technique. The study estimated the findings using fuzzy HFLTS, fuzzy AHP, and fuzzy MABAC techniques. The study results show green tourism inspiration, environmental engagement, and green revisit intentions, while fuzzy AHP revealed that tourism engagement has the highest fuzzy-weighted score in developing the revisit intentions of Chinese tourists. Moreover, the fuzzy MABAC score indicated that green tourism inspiration and environmental wellness matter most in reshaping tourists' revisit intentions. The study results are found to be robust in determining the relationship. Hence, research findings and recommendations for future study will help companies and society at large while elevating the Chinese tourism industry's reputation, impact, and worth in the eyes of the public.

Integrating the natural environment into tourism firms' business model for sustainability.

The link between the business model (BM) and sustainability is recognized in tourism research and practice, especially as far as its socioeconomic consequences are concerned. Moreover, prior studies have highlighted some key factors influencing the sustainable business models (SBMs) of tourism firms but have mainly done so by adopting static perspectives. Thus, how these firms can contribute to sustainability through their BMs with positive effects, particularly on natural resources, remains overlooked. Thus, we adopt coevolutionary lenses to explore the main processes surrounding tourism firms' SBM. Coevolution conceives the firm-environment relationship as both circular, with mutual influence and reciprocal changes, and dialectical. Accordingly, we analyze 28 Italian agritourism firms during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency period focusing on the dynamics of their relationship with various multilevel actors (including institutions, local communities, tourists) by considering internal and external factors influencing their SBM. The dialectical nature of this relationship is stressed. We find three new factors: sustainable tourism culture, tourist loyalty, and local natural resource setting. Moreover, from the coevolutionary analysis of the findings, we derive a framework that conceptualizes agritourism SBMs as a virtuous coevolutionary process through effective coadaptations between multilevel actors influenced by 12 factors. Tourism entrepreneurs and policy-makers should carefully consider the factors influencing SBMs and try to act upon them to effectively organize and manage relationships of mutual functionality in light of current challenges, especially environmental concerns.

The Impact of Social Loafing on Turnover Intention for Tourism Employees Post COVID-19: The Mediating Role of Mental Health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread changes in the way that people work, including an increase in remote work and changes in group dynamics. Social loafing, the phenomenon of reduced individual effort in group settings, has been widely studied in the literature. However, less is known about the potential impacts of social loafing on mental health and turnover intention in this relationship. In this study, we hypothesized that social loafing would be related to turnover intention and that mental health would mediate this relationship. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 700 full-time tourism employees in Egypt. The obtained data were analyzed by Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Our results indicated that social loafing was significantly related to turnover intention and negative mental health consequences significantly mediated this relationship. The results showed that stress (as a dimension of mental health) experienced by employees may act as a mediator between social loafing and turnover intention. On the other hand, depression and anxiety were not observed to have a similar mediating effect. This implies that stress could play a vital role in the decision-making process of employees who are contemplating leaving their job due to social loafing. These findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing social loafing may have the added benefit of improving mental health and decreasing turnover intention in the workplace.

The development and effectiveness of web-based psychological capital intervention on the mental well-being of tourism workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current COVID-19 situation has forced many tourism businesses to close. Tourism workers have suffered chronic stress, discouragement, despair, and failure to find solutions for their businesses, resulting in deteriorating mental health. A psychological capital intervention (PCI) is therefore deemed necessary as it promotes the mental well-being of tourism workers. This article reports the development of a web-based PCI for the mental well-being of tourism workers and an investigation of its effectiveness using a mixed-methods intervention design. A qualitative approach was used to develop the intervention by conducting interview techniques with 20 tourism entrepreneurs. A content analysis was carried out. The intervention was tested through an experimental research design. The sample comprised 600 tourism workers who undertook a web-based PCI. Data on their mental well-being were collected before the intervention and 1 month afterward and analyzed using ANCOVA. The research revealed that 4 themes are needed for the intervention: having a goal, tolerance of difficulties, inspiration from a role model, and the appropriate way of thinking. An effectiveness examination showed that the web-based PCI improves mental well-being scores significantly. In conclusion, this web-based PCI, which focuses on developing strengths, effectively improves the mental well-being of tourism workers facing difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Boost the resilience of protected areas to shocks by reducing their dependency on tourism.

Ecotourism is widely considered a strong mechanism for the sustainable funding of protected areas (PAs). Implemented during the 1990s in Madagascar, nature-based tourism experienced positive growth over the last 30 years with increasing numbers of visits to the parks and reserves. Revenue earned from entrance fees to the network of PAs managed by Madagascar National Parks has never been sufficient to finance their management. Political crises and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, have highlighted for park managers, the risk of relying on such earnings when they covered just 1% of the required funding in 2021. Alternative mechanisms of funding are analysed for all of Madagascar's PAs with a view to facilitating sustainable conservation of the localities and protection of the island's biodiversity.

Economic impact of nature-based tourism.

Protected areas (PAs) can help address biodiversity loss by promoting conservation while fostering economic development through sustainable tourism. Nature-based tourism can generate economic benefits for communities in and around PAs; however, its impacts do not lend themselves to conventional impact evaluation tools. We utilize a Monte Carlo simulation approach with econometric estimations using microdata to estimate the full economic impact of nature-based tourism on the economies surrounding three terrestrial and two marine PAs. Simulations suggest that nature-based tourism creates significant economic benefits for communities around PAs, including the poorest households, and many of these benefits are indirect, via income and production spillovers. An additional tourist increases annual real income in communities near the PAs by US$169-$2,400, significantly more than the average tourist's expenditure. Conversely, lost tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic costs of human-wildlife conflict have disproportionately large negative impacts on local incomes.

Post-pandemic tourism strategies: A case of Himachal Pradesh.

Tourism has always been a vulnerable industry. Minimal disturbances can halt or even destroy tourism and its associated economy. There is no dearth of research on vulnerability and resilience of the tourism industry for various tourism destinations,, and on post-disaster studies, but mainly these were limited to a city or tourist destination and focused on the destination image recovery. The primary purpose of this study is to identify different tourism stages and the local community's issues and desires associated with each stage and to propose strategies that can be used during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The district-wise monthly domestic and foreign tourist arrival data from 2008 to 2018 for Himachal Pradesh (HP) were observed. The observations reveal that HP experiences overtourism, balanced tourism, and undertourism. Two hundred seven telephonic interviews were conducted with different stakeholders such as tourism department officers, urban planners, hotel owners and managers, environmentalists, and state residents. Research themes were identified based on the interview responses, and these themes were further validated using a review of newspaper reports and court and local administration order. This study identified nine broad problems and patterns associated with tourism and proposes 17 sustainable tourism strategies that the post-COVID-19 crisis can follow. The proposed strategies give special attention to confidence-building of tourist and residents, image building of the location, and increasing tourism number sustainably and tourism earning of the state. This study investigates problems and suggests sustainable strategies for a state in India for the first time and may be used for policy decision and regional sustainable tourism development plan.

Descriptive Analysis of International Bariatric Surgery Tourism Services.

Inadequate access to public bariatric surgical services has favoured the growth of bariatric tourism. This study analysed data extracted from bariatric surgical centres that care for patients travelling from abroad. The research highlights apparent deficits in accreditation, communication, perioperative care, and travel health advice. An international registry of accredited bariatric tourism providers and patient education may be indicated.

Health and Wellness Tourists' Motivation and Behavior Intention: The Role of Perceived Value.

In recent years, with the rapid change of people's health concept, health and wellness tourism has shown a vigorous development trend. However, existing literature has been lacking on travelers' behavioral intentions, influenced by their motivation in health and wellness tourism. To fill in this gap, we designed scales of tourists' behavioral intention and motivation in health and wellness tourism and investigated the aforementioned effects, with a sample of 493 visitors who have traveled in health and wellness tourism. Factor analysis and structural equation models were applied to explore the relations among motivation, perceived value, and behavioral intention in health and wellness tourism. The results indicate that health and wellness tourists' motivation significantly positively predicts their behavior intentions. Travelers' perceived value of health and wellness tourism significantly partially mediates the associations between their behavioral intention and escape motivation, attractive motivation, environmental motivation, as well as interpersonal motivation. No empirical evidence supports the mediating role of perceived value in the correlation between consumption motivation and behavioral intention. Health and wellness tourism industries are encouraged to meet the intrinsic motivation of travelers and make them perceive the value of this kind of tourism, which in turn promotes tourists' choice, evaluation, and satisfaction of health and wellness tourism.

Financial impact of cost of capital on tourism-based SMEs in COVID-19: implications for tourism disruption mitigation.

Opportunities for funding Tourism SMEs are emerging globally due to the expansion of tourism sector. However, it is still being determined how these financial arrangements will be controlled at more significant sizes equitably. In the contemporary period, E7 economy is deficient in producing the financial resources to ensure the availability of funds for the acquisition of funds for tourism-based SMEs. However, this research tested the empirical position of cost of debt in E-7 economies during COVID-19 crises. Study findings have shown significant outcomes between the constructs. The variation of conditions, structural uncertainty, transection systems, and variation in support by the financial institution for tourism-based SMEs are the main reasons that lessen borrowing and lending system of funds, from banks to SMEs. However, theorists must revisit the transaction system of debt financing for SMEs. Policymakers are suggested to develop viable and SME system-friendly policies to finance through debt capital from the banks in the time of structural imposed crises, like COVID-19.

Exploring the relationships between heritage tourism, sustainable community development and host communities' health and wellbeing: A systematic review.

Previous studies examining the impact of heritage tourism have focused on specific ecological, economic, political, or cultural impacts. Research focused on the extent to which heritage tourism fosters host communities' participation and enhances their capacity to flourish and support long-term health and wellbeing is lacking. This systematic review assessed the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development, as well as the health and wellbeing of local communities. Studies were included if they: (i) were conducted in English; (ii) were published between January 2000 and March 2021; (iii) used qualitative and/or quantitative methods; (iv) analysed the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development and/or the health and wellbeing of local host communities; and (v) had a full-text copy available. The search identified 5292 articles, of which 102 articles met the inclusion criteria. The included studies covering six WHO regions (Western Pacific, African, Americas, South-East Asia, European, Eastern Mediterranean, and multiple regions). These studies show that heritage tourism had positive and negative impacts on social determinants of health. Positive impacts included economic gains, rejuvenation of culture, infrastructure development, and improved social services. However, heritage tourism also had deleterious effects on health, such as restrictions placed on local community participation and access to land, loss of livelihood, relocation and/or fragmentation of communities, increased outmigration, increases in crime, and erosion of culture. Thus, while heritage tourism may be a poverty-reducing strategy, its success depends on the inclusion of host communities in heritage tourism governance, decision-making processes, and access to resources and programs. Future policymakers are encouraged to adopt a holistic view of benefits along with detriments to sustainable heritage tourism development. Additional research should consider the health and wellbeing of local community groups engaged in heritage tourism. Protocol PROSPERO registration number: CRD42018114681.

Topics and destinations in comments on YouTube tourism videos during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study examines the comments posted on tourism-related YouTube videos during the Covid-19 pandemic to establish sustainable development strategies in destinations. Its objectives were: (i) to identify the topics of discussion, (ii) to establish the perceptions of tourism in a pandemic crisis, and (iii) to identify the destinations mentioned. The data was collected between January and May 2020. 39,225 comments were extracted in different languages and globally through the YouTube API. The data processing was carried out using the word association technique. The results show that the most discussed topics were: "people," "country," "tourist," "place," "tourism," "see," "visit," "travel," "covid-19," "life," and "live," which are the focus of the comments made on the perceptions found and represent the attraction factors shown by the videos and the emotions perceived in the comments. The findings show that users' perceptions are related to risks since the "Covid-19" pandemic is associated with the impact on tourism, people, destinations, and affected countries. The destinations in the comments were: India, Nepal, China, Kerala, France, Thailand, and Europe. The research has theoretical implications concerning tourists' perceptions of destinations since new perceptions associated with destinations during the pandemic are shown. Such concerns involve tourist safety and work at the destinations. This research has practical implications since, during the pandemic, companies can develop prevention plans. Also, governments could implement sustainable development plans that contain measures so that tourists can make their trips during a pandemic.

Nostalgia in Tourism.

Tourism research has recognized nostalgia as an intrinsic motive, an emotion that tourists may experience at or after visiting a destination, and an effective appeal to market destinations. This article reviews the multifaceted roles of nostalgia in four domains: heritage tourism, sport tourism, film tourism, and contemporary tourism. The former three tourism domains have distinctive attractions that inspire nostalgia, suiting for corresponding scales for nostalgia as a motive. Moreover, nostalgia contributes to sustainable tourism and can be applied in virtual reality. Furthermore, research has uncovered nostalgia's restorative function and provided evidence of its mediating effects on the linkage between COVID-19 reactions (perceived severity, travel constraints, and the need to belong) on behavioral outcomes.

Does Pandemic Fatigue Prevent Farmers' Participation in the Rural Tourism Industry: A Comparative Study between Two Chinese Villages.

Rural tourism is an important income generation method for farmers post-pandemic. However, few studies have focused on how pandemic fatigue has affected their willingness to participate in rural tourism development. We conducted a quasi-experiment to test these effects using data from two Chinese villages. Shanlian village, which was more severely affected by COVID-19, was the experimental group, while Huashu village was set as the control group. Our results reveal that both physical and mental fatigue hinder farmers' intention to engage in rural tourism. Further, there were significant interaction effects between physical and mental fatigue on the farmers' participation in rural tourism. For farmers with low physical fatigue, the higher their mental fatigue, the less willing they were to participate in rural development. Conversely, for the higher physical fatigue group, farmers with low levels of mental fatigue were still more willing to participate in rural tourism development. These findings reduce the current research gap concerning the relationship between pandemic fatigue and farmers' participation in rural tourism and indicate that practitioners and policymakers should consider farmers' fatigue management as an important factor for the sustainability of rural tourism during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Risk Perception of COVID-19 as a Cause of Minority Ethnic Community Tourism Practitioners' Willingness to Change Livelihood Strategies: A Case Study in Gansu Based on Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory.

This study based on the cognitive-experiential self-theory, with risk attitude as the mediator and livelihood capacity as the moderator, explores the mechanism of the effect of risk perception of COVID-19 on minority ethnic community tourism practitioners' willingness to change livelihood strategies. Taking 423 tourism practitioners from five minority ethnic tourism communities as the objects of investigation in Gansu Province, China. This paper empirically tests the theoretical model by using Amos and SPSS. The results indicated the following: Risk perception of COVID-19 has a significant positive impact on the willingness of minority ethnic community tourism practitioners to change their livelihood strategies. Risk attitude partially mediated the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and willingness to change livelihood strategies. Livelihood capacity negatively moderated the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and willingness of minority ethnic community tourism practitioners to change their livelihood strategies. Livelihood capacity also negatively moderated the mediation effect of the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and willingness to change livelihood strategies. Based on the research conclusions, it provides theoretical guidance and practical enlightenment for minority ethnic community tourism practitioners on how to improve the stability and sustainability of their livelihoods through the adjustment and transformation of livelihood strategies in the post-epidemic era.

Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on China's tourism economy and green finance efficiency.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, production costs have grown, while human and economic resources have been reduced. COVID-19 epidemic costs can be reduced by implementing green financial policies, including carbon pricing, transferable green certificates, and green credit. In addition, China's tourist industry is a significant source of revenue for the government. Coronavirus has been found in 30 Chinese regions, and a study is being conducted to determine its influence on the tourism business and green financial efficiency. Econometric strategies that are capable of dealing with the most complex issues are employed in this study. According to the GMM system, the breakout of Covid-19 had a negative effect on the tourism business and the efficiency of green financing. Aside from that, the effects of gross capital creation, infrastructural expansion, and renewable energy consumption are all good. The influence of per capita income on the tourism industry is beneficial but detrimental to the efficiency of green finance. Due to the current pandemic condition, this report presents a number of critical recommendations for boosting tourism and green financial efficiency.

Can mask mandates boost nature-based tourism? The role of escapism and travel anxiety.

Tourism in a post-pandemic era will likely be oriented toward nature because contact with nature has restorative health benefits. The purpose of this study was to analyze the antecedents of tourists' intentions to visit nature-based resorts during a pandemic. A nationally representative sample of the Spanish population (n = 500) was recruited by an online commercial panel to test and empirically validate the proposed conceptual framework. The findings confirmed a direct relationship between negative perceptions of wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and tourists' intentions to visit nature-based resorts. The relationship between the perceived negative effects of wearing face masks and the intention to visit nature-based resorts was positively mediated by the need for escapism. This impact was less pronounced for anxious travelers, as shown by results corroborating the moderating effect of travel anxiety. The findings of this study contribute to research on tourism crises and provide future insights into the recovery of the industry during COVID-19.

A Study on the Structural Relationships between COVID-19 Coping Strategies, Positive Expectations, and the Behavioral Intentions of Various Tourism-Related Behaviors.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of coping strategies, attitudes, and positive anticipated emotions on the positive expectations and behavioral intentions of Korean tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic. An integrated model was proposed and tested, and the results indicate that effective coping strategies, attitudes, and positive anticipated emotions have a positive effect on the positive expectations of tourism during the pandemic, which in turn positively influences behavioral intentions. Practical suggestions were also provided based on the findings. This research has implications for understanding the ways in which individuals cope with and adapt to travel during times of crisis, and for identifying strategies that may facilitate positive expectations and behavioral intentions in the tourism industry.