RESUMO
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic having affected the lives of all citizens, some groups, as people with disabilities (PwD), have felt its effects more intensely, specifically due to social distancing measures adopted. However, PwD are a heterogeneous group and the impacts of COVID-19 are, therefore, experienced differently. Blind people (BP) face considerable challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, since they "access the world" through touch, something strongly discouraged in order to control the spread of the virus. Nevertheless, no studies are known which analyze the constraints experienced by BP during COVID-19 on participating in recreation and tourism activities. To extend knowledge in this field, the intention of this study is to examine the constraints faced by BP during COVID-19 on participation in outdoor recreation and tourism activities and the strategies used to overcome these constraints. A qualitative methodology (in-depth interviews with BP) was used. The results reveal that during the COVID-19 pandemic, BP faced several constraints that made their participation in outdoor recreation and tourism activities difficult. The paper ends with a discussion of the strategies used by BP to overcome these constraints. Management implications: Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the recreation and tourism practices of blind people, and the constraints that they face as a consequence of this pandemic, this study provides relevant implications managers for public and private tourism supply agents. Therefore, managers and planners can use the findings of this study to design strategies to overcome the strong constraints faced by blind people due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to minimize risk exposure and to increase their quality of life. Thus, the type of activities offered and the marketing strategy should be rethought to increase the engagement of blind people in recreation and tourism experiences in an "untouchable world."
RESUMO
The present study intends to explore the relationship between tourism growth and air pollution at a regional level for five important tourism European destinations: France, Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy. Most of the studies found in the literature examine this relationship on a national scale and focus only on the CO2 pollutant, which is a greenhouse gas but not a critical pollutant in terms of air quality and human exposure. This research focuses on a regional basis (NUTS 2 classification) and takes into account the main critical pollutants in terms of urban air pollution (namely: NOx, PM10, and PM2.5), and considers 10 years, from 2009 until 2018. This work aims to investigate evidence of a tourism-induced Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for the countries through the construction of five panels, one for each country, including different variables: the Gross Domestic Product, the energy consumption, and the number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments from both domestic and foreign tourists. The Levin-Lin-Chu unit root test proves the variables to be stationary, while the Pedroni cointegration test shows that they are integrated. The pooled OLS estimator is employed throughout the countries to check the relationship among the variables. Results reveal that the tourism-induced EKC hypothesis is not validated for any of the countries. The findings also show that in Portugal, Italy, and Greece, there is a negative relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution, while mixed evidence is found for France and Spain. Moreover, differences in the impacts of international and domestic tourists on air pollution are found: foreign tourists negatively impact emissions, while domestic ones increase them. This result is clear for Spain, Greece, and Italy. The Granger panel causality test is then conducted to see the causality among the variables.