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This study addresses the motivations behind Generation Z's attendance at conferences and aims to contribute to a better understanding of their conference-participation behavior. The study identified six latent factors that influence conference-attendance motivation: green and digital conference experience, educational and professional opportunities, conference costs, destination and conference stimuli, stimulating factors, and conference accessibility. These factors align with Generation Z's unique characteristics and preferences, such as their environmental consciousness, their reliance on digital technologies, and their desire for continuous learning, career advancement, and experiences. The study also found that destination characteristics and educational and professional opportunities are significant motivators for conference attendance by members of Generation Z across different cultural contexts. Additionally, their strong interest in sustainability and financial challenges highlights the need for eco-friendly practices and affordable registration fees to make conferences more appealing and accessible. The study further explores the impact of socio-demographic characteristics, revealing gender and past-conference-attendance differences in motivation. Finally, the study discusses the implications of its findings for the conference industry and suggests areas for future research to enhance the understanding of conference-attendance motivation among members of Generation Z. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmentally and economically sustainable provision of safe drinking water remains one of the most significant public health challenges facing society. It is particularly difficult in small municipalities that lack the human and financial resources to maintain complex and/or expensive water treatment systems, especially in regions where the water is naturally contaminated with toxic substances such as arsenic. This paper analyses two municipalities (Kanjiža and Senta) in northern Serbia with groundwater arsenic concentrations significantly higher than the 10 µg/L maximum allowable concentration. Two different water supply approaches are compared: (1) local supply, where each settlement has their own treatment plant using existing sources; (2) creation of a centralised network, which connects several settlements together with better quality water sources. The analysis considers techno-economical aspects and the quantity and quality of available water, as well as the yields investment and exploitation cost projections for both approaches. The results demonstrate that for small municipalities, a holistic approach to decision making is necessary to find the best solutions for drinking water supply, which in the case of the two municipalities studied is connection to a centralised system supplied from better quality water sources and the creation of connections beyond municipal administrative boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spiritual travel is increasingly viewed as an asset for the development of sustainable tourism. A great deal of research has been conducted on travel motivation to comprehend spiritually-motivated travel, but less is known about Generation Z's travel motivation. This subject is relevant since Generation Z will represent the travel market of the future. Therefore, managers of spiritually-themed locations must understand the characteristics of their prospective visitors (Generation Z) in order to create more comprehensive tourism offerings. We use exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to validate the scale and inferential statistics to analyse the data regarding the main socio-demographic characteristics. Spiritual and Canonical Experiences, Escapism, Ascetic Life, and Social Interactions, Natural and Cultural Values, Religious Events, and Active Participation were identified as the main dimensions in this study. In our conclusion, the ramifications of the findings for destination management and marketing are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tour guide performance has been a hotly debated academic topic, owing to the critical role they play in facilitating a variety of tourist experiences. Similarly, museum tour guides are the initial point of contact for tourists and have a substantial impact on the total visitor experience, but their performance is far less investigated. Visitors' satisfaction and behavior intentions are inextricably linked to museum guide performances in this case. The purpose of this research was to implement and test a well-established scale for assessing tour guide performance in the museum context. Moreover, the aim was also to single out and discuss museum guide types based on their performances. The research was conducted during May and June 2021 on a sample of 255 visitors from five museums in Serbia. The data were processed by SPSS, R and RStudio. The results indicate the existence of five museum guide types: Classic Professional, Agile Empath, Operational Erudite, Trustworthy Caretaker, and Passionate Socializer. The study explores sociodemographic differences in visitors' evaluations of tour guide performances and gives theoretical and managerial implication for each museum guide type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the entrepreneurial intention, it is necessary to understand the main drivers that are driving students, as carriers of future economic development, towards starting a personal business venture. With regards to that, the main aim of this research was to analyze the entrepreneurial intention among students (managers in training) in the field of tourism and hospitality management. Particular attention was paid to the influence of their socio-demographic characteristics, as well as their parents on entrepreneurial intention. The research was conducted in survey form on a sample of 310 students in Serbia in 2020. The main findings indicated that entrepreneurial intention is higher among the male students, as well as among those students whose parents are entrepreneurs or whose fathers are retired. Besides theoretical contribution, the research results might contribute to scientific and research organizations and institutions in providing the guidelines for forming study programs that will raise the students' entrepreneurial intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging tourism destinations repeatedly face many managerial challenges, often leading to common pitfalls and rookie mistakes. The current study aims to analyze relationships between destination attractiveness factors (Destination Amenities, Tourism Infrastructure and Accessibility, Active Family Destination, Hospitality and Services, and Social–Safety–Economic Values), satisfaction, destination image, and revisit intentions to test a mediating role of satisfaction between destination attractiveness factors and both destination image and revisit choices within so-called rookie destinations. For this purpose, a quantitative study was carried out using a questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. Data were collected from a sample of 2030 visitors to Serbia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) in R was applied to analyze the data. The results revealed the positive direct effects of destination attractiveness factors on satisfaction, destination image, and revisit intentions. Moreover, the research confirmed the mediating role of satisfaction in the relationship between destination attractiveness and destination image, and revisit intentions. The results are further discussed from the perspective of emerging tourism destinations to make their management more sustainable for the future and mitigate the repetition of rookie mistakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourist motivation, as a core of travel behavior, significantly influences consumer intentions and has attracted academic attention for decades. A plethora of studies analyse sets of internal and external motivators, while methodologies that exclusively focus on a single factor, such as age, that can sometimes have a determining influence in multi-attraction destinations, are less prevalent. This study introduces a fuzzy logic approach to develop a new model for analysing the internal motivations of different-aged consumers in multi-attraction urban destinations. Fuzzy models, as a mathematical means of representing vagueness and imprecise information, have the capability of recognizing, representing, manipulating, interpreting, and utilizing data and information, which typically for urban tourist motivations, are vague and lack certainty. This research tests the model in a real-life setting, using the example of Novi Sad, a mid-sized European city, which is typical of many similar cities who are attempting to develop sustainable tourism by attracting older tourists. The new model shows how tourist motivations for multi-attraction destinations are affected by age, through a specially developed m-file for MATLAB, so that it can be applied and tested in other tourism contexts. Theoretical and practical implications for sustainable destination management and marketing are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]