The impact of COVID-19 on international tourism flows to Italy: Evidence from mobile phone data.

This paper analyses the response to the COVID-19 pandemic of inbound tourism to Italy looking at variation across countries and provinces. To this end, it uses weekly data on the number of foreign visitors in Italy from January 2019 until February 2021, as provided by a primary mobile telephony operator. We document a very robust negative relation at the province level between the local epidemic situation and the inflow of foreign travellers. Moreover, provinces with a historically higher share in art-tourism, and those that used to be 'hotel intensive' were hit the most during the pandemic, while provinces with a more prevalent orientation to business tourism proved to be more resilient. Entry restrictions with varying degrees of strictness played a key role in explaining cross-country patterns. After controlling for these restrictions, we observed that the number of travellers that could arrive by private means of transportation decreased proportionally less. Overall, this evidence emphasises that contagion risk considerations played a significant role in shaping international tourism patterns during the pandemic.

Structural breaks in international tourism demand: Are they caused by crises or disasters?

It is recognised that the tourism industry is vulnerable to some form of crises or disaster. However, despite the attention given to the nature and consequences of tourism crises and disasters, there is a gap in the literature regarding the ex-post detection of these events. In this article, we estimate both the number and date of structural breaks in international tourism arrival series for 25 countries and Madeira Island using the Bai and Perron (1998) structural break test. We compare the date of tourism crises and disasters to the dating of these structural breaks. We observe that tourism crises and disasters are largely consistent with the dates of breaks. Therefore, this method allows us to solve a gap in the tourism industry related to the correct allocation of negative shocks in international tourism arrival demand to crisis or disaster phenomena.

Environmental impacts of international tourism: examining the role of policy uncertainty, renewable energy, and service sector output.

The contributions of the tourism sector and its development to economic growth are widely recognized across the economies. However, development in this sector also has its impacts on environmental quality and sustainability. In addition, elevated economic policy uncertainty also has repercussions on the environment. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of international tourism on environmental sustainability while considering EPU, renewable energy consumption (REC), and service sector output (SSO) in the model estimated based on panel data from 17 economies. Having the heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation issues in the panel data, the author used multiple econometric methods (pooled OLS with Drisk/Kraay standard errors (DKSEs), GLS, PCSE, and quantile regressions) to examine the relationship between international tourism and environmental sustainability. DKSEs address the common issue of heteroskedasticity and GLS also accounts for both heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation. PCSE method corrects these errors. Finally, quantile regression estimates the relationships between variables at different points of the distribution. The results show that international tourism and EPU adversely impact environmental quality and sustainability by increasing GHG emissions. The findings show that increased GHG emissions from international tourism and EPU harm environmental sustainability. Furthermore, SSO and REC significantly reduce GHG emissions and enhance sustainability. Nevertheless, the tourism sector should adopt sustainable practices like using eco-friendly lodging, conserving energy and water, and utilizing renewable energy (RE) to reduce negative environmental impacts. Conserving biodiversity and regional cultures while minimizing waste and resource use is also essential. Tourists should embrace eco-friendly practices such as choosing green hotels, conserving energy and water, and supporting environmental causes while adhering to regulations to reduce emissions. The study recommends establishing uniform trade laws that support green technology and RE to reduce EPU. The findings stress the need for international collaboration to promote eco-friendly tourist practices and minimize the sector's environmental impact.

Impact of Economic Policy Uncertainty and Pandemic Uncertainty on International Tourism: What do We Learn From COVID-19?

Uncertainty is an overarching aspect of life that is particularly pertinent to the present COVID-19 pandemic crisis; as seen by the pandemic's rapid worldwide spread, the nature and level of uncertainty have possibly increased due to the possible disconnects across national borders. The entire economy, especially the tourism industry, has been dramatically impacted by COVID-19. In the current study, we explore the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and pandemic uncertainty (PU) on inbound international tourism by using data gathered from Italy, Spain, and the United States for the years 1995-2021. Using the Quantile on Quantile (QQ) approach, the study confirms that EPU and PU negatively affected inbound tourism in all states. Wavelet-based Granger causality further reveals bi-directional causality running from EPU to inbound tourism and unidirectional causality from PU to inbound tourism in the long run. The overall findings show that COVID-19 has had a strong negative effect on tourism. So resilient skills are required to restore a sustainable tourism industry.

International tourism and business productivity: does eco-friendly technologies matter?

This research is aimed at determining whether eco-friendly technologies go beyond and above in providing business productivity in international tourism. For this, the study obtained data from different databases, and this data range consisted of 2010-2020. The study applied the co-integration analysis, random and static technique, regression analysis technique, split analysis technique, and mediating effect tests on Chinese data. This research shows that tourism business innovation contributed 12%, value proposition as 9%, internal marketing as 16%, customer relationship management as 19.3%, tourists motivation as 34.05%, tourists time as 18.94%, green technological adoption as 17.3%, tourists visit intention as 8.11%, and green technical transfer as 28.1% in study model. Thus, the findings confirmed that international tourism and business productivity have a dynamic empirical nexus with the mediating role of eco-friendly technology adoption. Furthermore, such findings are robust empirically and validate the empirical connections among the study variables. These results imply that Chinese tourism industry stakeholders may use eco-friendly technologies to good effect, significantly enhancing tourism business productivity, international tourists' satisfaction, and tourists' revisit intentions. Hence, the study also directs practical implications related to the study topicality and China's tourism industry for prudent growth acquisition.

Longitudinal Analysis of Sustainable Tourism Potential of the Black Sea Riparian States Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

The three states that border the Black Sea benefit from an important potential for tourism and consider the development of this sector to be a major objective. Nonetheless, they face environmental risks. Tourism does not have a neutral impact on the ecosystem. We evaluated tourism sustainability for three states bordering the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. We used a longitudinal data analysis applied to five variables for the period between 2005 and 2020. The data were taken from the World Bank website. The results show that tourism receipts significantly influence the environment. For all three countries, the total receipts from international tourism are unsustainable, while the receipts for travel items are sustainable. Sustainability factors are different for each country. The international tourism expenditures for Bulgaria, the total receipts for Romania and the receipts for travel items for Turkey are sustainable. In Bulgaria, the receipts from international tourism contribute to higher greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., negative environmental impact. In Romania and Turkey, the number of arrivals has the same impact. No sustainable tourism model could be identified for the three countries. Tourism activity was found to be sustainable only due to the receipts for travel items, that is, indirectly, from tourism-related activities.

Does Distance Still Matter? Moderating Effects of Distance Measures on the Relationship Between Pandemic Severity and Bilateral Tourism Demand.

This study aims to investigate the moderating effects of various distance measures on the relationship between relative pandemic severity and bilateral tourism demand. After confirming its validity using actual hotel and air demand measures, we leveraged data from Google Destination Insights to understand daily bilateral tourism demand between 148 origin countries and 109 destination countries. Specifically, we estimated a series of fixed-effects panel data gravity models based on the year-over-year change in daily demand. Results show that a 10% increase in seven-day smoothed COVID-19 cases led to a 0.0658% decline in year-over-year demand change. The moderating distance measures include geographic, cultural, economic, social, and political distance. Results show that long-haul tourism demand was less affected by a destination's pandemic severity relative to tourists' place of origin. The moderating effect of national cultural dimensions indulgence versus constraints was also confirmed. Lastly, a discussion and implications for international destination marketing are provided.

The insufficiency of the Malaysian contact tracing app from the perspective of Chinese tourists: preparing for international tourism in the post-COVID-19 world.

Understanding tourists' feedback on using Mysejahtera is critical for tourism recovery in these destinations, and even more so for countries like Malaysia and China, where national Contact Tracing Applications (CTA) are mandatory. However, Previous surveys on CTA use have mainly focused on voluntary CTA users, using qualitative research methods. In this research, Chinese overseas students in Malaysia are included as the reference group, and Chinese tourists with experiences traveling overseas are put into the experimental group. A total of 890 questionnaires were collected and taken as the original data to carry out the Chi-squared and Mann-Whitney U tests. Meanwhile, the experiment implemented a multiple linear regression mechanism to explore the variables that may improve the app Mysejahtera, with further analysis being conducted. According to the results, language issues are the most significant barrier to Chinese visitors using MySejahtera; the inability to register with a Chinese mobile phone number and the need to register a permanent address in Malaysia have a significant negative impact on the use of MySejahtera; and visitors' trust in science positively related to MySejahtera use.

International tourism, digital infrastructure, and CO2 emissions: fresh evidence from panel quantile regression approach.

The main motivation behind this study is the importance of tourism and ICT industry in the economic development of a country and their potential effects on the country's environmental quality in the digital era. For empirical analysis, the study applies FMOLS, DOLS, and quantile regression techniques for Asian economies. The findings of the study confirmed that tourism and digitalization improve environmental quality in FMOLS and DOLS models. In the basic quantile regression model, the estimates attached to tourism arrival are positive 5th quantile to 40th quantile and then turn negative from 60th quantile and onwards. Likewise, the estimates attached to tourism receipts in the robust quantile regression model are positive from quantile 5th to quantile 20th and negative and increasing from quantile 30th and onwards. Conversely, the estimates of digital infrastructure are insignificant in the basic quantile model at all quantiles except the 95th. However, the estimated coefficients of digital infrastructure in the robust model are negative and rising from 40th quantile to 70th quantile and negative and declining from 80th quantile to 95th quantile. In general, we can say that as the tourism and digital sectors grow, the CO2 emissions decline.

Tourism at the Crossroads between Well-Being, Public Health and the Environment: Panel Data Evidence from the European Union.

The recent pandemic crisis led to a drop in tourism, and it highlighted the connection between tourism, healthcare, environmental concerns and well-being. In this context, the purpose of the research is to clarify the relationship between tourism, happiness, healthcare and environmental expenditure. Statistical data provided by the World Bank, Eurostat and the World Happiness Database from the EU27 countries, from 2000 to 2019, were used. In order to investigate the relationship between these indicators, the panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method was used. In the long run, happiness and environmental and healthcare expenditure have a statistically significant and positive impact on tourism arrivals and receipts. It follows that a 1% increase in happiness supports between 4% and 9% of international tourism, while a 1% increase in environmental expenditure supports an increase of 2% in international tourism. Additionally, there is a significant interaction between happiness and either environmental or healthcare expenditure in the long run. This means that increasing happiness diminishes the effect of the later on tourism arrivals and receipts. No short-term relationship was identified between arrivals and any of the above-mentioned variables. In the same context, healthcare expenditure has a negative short-term effect on tourism receipts. The research contributes to the literature by suggesting that increasing national happiness, healthcare and environmental expenditure has a beneficial spillover effect on tourism arrivals and receipts in the long run.

The Impact of Different Factors on Repeat Visits to Selected International Tourism Enterprises: Case Study From Czechia.

The aim of this article is to identify the influence of the different factors on the repeat visits to selected international tourism enterprises based on the responses of customers in Czechia. The selected factors were divided into three main groups: service, environment, and offer, and each of these groups consists of other different factors. Primary data were analyzed using SPSS software. Statistical hypotheses were formed, reflecting the relationship between the difference in customer responses and selected quality factors, which can affect repeated visits to selected tourism enterprises. Most customers of repeat visits to selected tourism enterprises are affected by professional behavior, staff empathetic approach, offer knowledge and ability to provide as much information as possible, cleanliness and tidiness, overall atmosphere of the establishment, lighting and thermal comfort, air cleanliness, and plenty of space, taste and quality of food and ingredients, and last but not least also corresponding ratio of price/quality, good experience and attractive price level. Studying consumer behavior is important because it helps marketers understand what influences consumers' buying decisions not only in the tourism area in the Czechia but can fill in the market gap and identify the new products and services that are needed.

Pathways to decarbonization in India: the role of environmentally friendly tourism development.

The paradigm of sustainable tourism policy implications aims to prioritize the decoupling association between tourism development and environmental deterioration. The study revisits the dynamic associations among carbon dioxide emissions, economic growth, international tourism, education, renewable energy consumption, and gross capital formation for the case of India through the lens of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis framework. The long-run dynamics among the variables confirm the inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for India. The regression findings affirm that higher international tourist arrivals, renewable energy use, and gross capital formation curb emissions in the long run. Besides, the coefficient of the interaction term between tourist arrivals and capital formation is evidenced to be positive implying capital formation has not been conducive in the pathway of sustainable tourism practices. On the other hand, the negative coefficient of the interaction term between education index and renewable energy consumption unveils the importance of educational advancement in the pathway of renewable energy penetration to thrive environmental sustainability. This study concludes with some policy suggestions to be incorporated within the existing ecological and energy approaches that may aid India in practicing the smooth functioning of low-carbon tourism models.

Vaccine Passport and Traveler Behaviors in the New Market of the Domestic and International Tourism Industry Facing the With-Corona Era.

To ensure a smooth and rapid recovery of tourism, countries around the world are stepping up vaccinations against COVID-19. China, in particular has a very high vaccination rate due to its own vaccine production. Following this trend, many countries have started introducing vaccine passports as an alternative solution to verify valid and vaccinated travelers. This study attempted to understand the fundamental perceptions of travelers' intentions using vaccine passports. A total of 601 samples were investigated and analyzed. As a result, four factors were identified: perceived usefulness, destination trust, risk perception, and perception of incentives. Also, this study performed means comparisons analysis with the major demographic characteristics of respondents. Based on this study, it is expected that the results will contribute to the revival of the travel industry in the future and provide valuable implications for marketing plans to help the travel industry suffer from COVID-19.

Economic and tourism growth impact on the renewable energy production in Vietnam.

High economic and tourism growth demand extensive energy production that needs the energy creation industry's attention and demands the researchers' and policymakers' emphasis. Hence, the present study examines the impact of economic and tourism growth on renewable energy production (REP) in Vietnam. The present research has taken the gross domestic product (GDP), exports, human capital, and employment rate to measure the economic growth, while international tourism receipts and expenditures have been used to measure the tourism growth. The secondary data have been extracted from 1983 to 2020 using World Development Indicators (WDI) database. The Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (NARDL) model has been applied to investigate the linkage between the constructs. The findings indicated that GDP, exports, human capital, employment rate, international tourism receipts, and expenditures have a significant and positive relationship with REP in Vietnam. These results guide the regulators while making regulations related to the extensive energy production in return for high economic and tourism growth.

The response of hotel performance to international tourism development and crisis events.

This study uses panel regression tests to examine the response of hotel performance to international tourism development and crisis events in Taiwan. Hotel performance measures are revenue (revenue per available room and occupancy rate), profitability (return on assets and return on equity) and stock performance. The crises were the earthquake on September 21, 1999 (the 9/21 earthquake), the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the US (the 9/11 terrorist attacks) and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on April 22, 2003 (the SARS outbreak). This study makes four major contributions. First, test results confirm that international tourism development (ITD), proxied by the growth of total inbound tourist arrivals, has a more direct influence on hotel sales and profitability than it does on hotel stock performance. Second, this study identifies that the absence of a strong tie between ITD and hotel stock returns that was found in previous studies is due to the time-varying discount rate caused by investors' changing expectations for the prospect of future cash flows from holding hotel stocks. Third, this study finds new evidence that while the poor performance of hotel stocks caused by the 9/21 earthquake and the 9/11 terrorist attacks was attributed to the loss of hotel sales revenue, the adverse effect of the SARS outbreak on hotel stock returns is attributed not only to decreased hotel sales revenue but also to the increased discount rate. Lastly, this study is the first to investigate whether the response of hotel stock returns to ITD depends on the state of economy and concludes that the response of hotel stock performance to ITD in business cycle contraction is statistically different from that in business cycle expansion. Further, although the influence of ITD on hotel stock performance is still irrelevant during expansion periods, ITD can significantly enhance hotel stock returns during contraction periods.

The Impact of Temperature on the Risk of COVID-19: A Multinational Study.

The current understanding of ambient temperature and its link to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is unclear. The objective of this study was to explore the environmental and climatic risk factors for SARS-CoV-2. For this study, we analyzed the data at the beginning of the outbreak (from 20 January to 31 March 2020) to avoid the influence of preventive or control measures. We obtained the number of cases and deaths due to SARS-CoV-2, international tourism, population age, universal health coverage, regional factors, the SARS-CoV-2 testing rate, and population density of a country. A total of 154 countries were included in this study. There were high incidence rates and mortality risks in the countries that had an average ambient temperature between 0 and 10 °C. The adjusted incidence rate for temperatures between 0 and 10 °C was 2.91 (95% CI 2.87-2.95). We randomly divided the data into a training set (80% of data) for model derivation and a test set (20% of data) for validation. Using a random forest statistical model, the model had high accuracy for predicting the high epidemic status of a country (ROC = 95.5%, 95% CI 87.9-100.0%) in the test set. Population age, temperature, and international tourism were the most important factors affecting the risk of SARS-CoV-2 in a country. An understanding the determinants of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak can help to design better strategies for disease control. This study highlights the need to consider thermal effect in the prevention of emerging infectious diseases.

The dynamic links among energy consumption, tourism growth, and the ecological footprint: the role of environmental quality in 38 IEA countries.

We examine the impact of energy consumption and tourism growth on the ecological footprints and economic growth of 38 International Energy Agency (IEA) countries, as moderated by labor and capital, over the 1995-2018 period. We develop a comprehensive empirical analysis that applies second-generation unit root and cross-section dependence analysis. The co-integration analysis indicates long-run relationships among the variables, while the fully modified least square (FMOLS) approach specifies that energy consumption promotes economic growth and degrades environmental quality in the long run, and tourism growth improves environmental quality and stimulates economic growth in the long run. In addition, the result of a pairwise Granger causality test reveals bidirectional causality between energy consumption and economic growth and unidirectional causality from the ecological footprint to energy consumption. Policy implications for theory and practice and directions for future research in the area are presented.

Facilitators and Reducers of Korean Travelers' Avoidance/Hesitation Behaviors toward China in the Case of COVID-19.

Given that little is known about overseas travelers' responses and behaviors toward China after the outbreak of COVID-19, this study aimed to uncover risk perception factors and investigate its role in Korean travelers' avoidance/hesitation behaviors toward China as an international tourism destination in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. To explore the relationship with risk perception, anticipated emotion and avoidance/hesitation behavior, a quantitative method along with an online survey was employed. This focus was on Korean tourists who had traveled to China at least once. Findings revealed that risk perception and negative anticipated emotion are vital facilitators of avoidance/hesitation behaviors, and that positive anticipated emotion reduces such behaviors. The efficacy of a higher-order structure of risk perception, which encompasses six dimensions, was also demonstrated. In addition, destination attachment lowered the influence of risk perception on the formation of avoidance/hesitation behaviors. Overall, our results will help tourism researchers and practitioners understand what factors drive and reduce international travelers' avoidance/hesitation behaviors toward China in the post-pandemic world. Implications for theory and practice are offered.

Identification of Factors for the Development of Medical Tourism in the World.

The overall objective of the given paper was to study the relationship of inbound medical tourism destinations with international tourism, economic development of recipient countries, the development of national healthcare systems and the institutional features of their environment, in terms of protection of the rights and freedoms of both business and citizens. In order to achieve this objective, the authors used methods of grouping, as well as correlation and regression analysis. The conducted study revealed that the formation of medical tourism destinations in countries with high social and economic development occurs in a balanced and unidirectional manner; simultaneously, one can see that the countries with "new economic development" form a sufficiently powerful and competitive market for medical tourism. All these countries have one thing in common: namely, there is a link between medical tourism and healthcare funding, international tourism and development of political and civil freedoms. Nevertheless, the noted aspects are not dominant enough, and this indicates that there are other internal factors and their configurations which shape a positive image of countries for medical tourism development. This finding leads to the necessity of further analysis in this field with a breakdown into separate countries or destinations.

Cross-Cultural Bayesian Network Analysis of Factors Affecting Residents' Concerns About the Spread of an Infectious Disease Caused by Tourism.

COVID-19 has had a severe impact globally, and the recovery can be characterized as a tug of war between fast economic recovery and firm control of further virus-spread. To be prepared for future pandemics, public health policy makers should put effort into fully understanding any complex psychological tensions that inherently arise between opposing human factors such as free enjoyment versus self-restriction. As the COVID-19 crisis is an unusual and complex problem, combinations of diverse factors such as health risk perception, knowledge, norms and beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are closely associated with individuals' intention to enjoy the experience economy but also their concerns that the experience economy will trigger further spread of the infectious diseases. Our aim is to try identifying what factors are associated with their concerns about the spread of the infectious disease caused by the local experience economy. Hence, we have chosen a "data-driven" explanatory approach, "Probabilistic Structural Equational Modeling," based on the principle of Bayesian networks to analyze data collected from the following four countries with indicated sample sizes: Denmark (1,005), Italy (1,005), China (1,013), and Japan (1,091). Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the contextual differences in relations between the target variable and factors such as personal value priority and knowledge. These factors affect the target variable differently depending on the local severity-level of the infections. Relations between pleasure-seeking via the experience economy and individuals' anxiety-level about an infectious hotspot seem to differ between East Asians and Europeans who are known to prioritize so-called interpersonal- and independent self-schemes, respectively. Our study also indicates the heterogeneity in the populations, i.e., these relations differ within the respective populations. Another finding shows that the Japanese population is particularly concerned about their local community potentially becoming an infectious hotspot and hence expecting others to comply with their particular social norms. Summarizing, the obtained insights imply the importance of considering both cultural- and individual contexts when policy makers are going to develop measures to address pandemic dilemmas such as maintaining public health awareness and accelerating the recovery of the local experience economy.