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The third International Conference on Responsible Tourism and Hospitality (ICRTH) took place in Bogor, Indonesia, in August 2023. The conference aimed to raise awareness of tourism as a driver of development and the preservation of culture and natural heritage. It brought together academics, government officials, practitioners, and the public to discuss responsible tourism practices. The conference also emphasized the importance of collaboration and convergence of indicators towards responsible tourism. The event left a positive legacy by engaging with the local community and promoting responsible tourism in Bogor. The conference concluded with the announcement that ICRTH 2024 will be held in Kuching, Malaysia. [Extracted from the article]

Vaping (also known as electronic cigarettes) has taken the world by storm and is now a multi-million-dollar global industry. Yet, government policies and regulations do not keep pace with the segment's explosive growth. Some countries have banned the sale of such products outright, though others have enforced rules surrounding its circulation. Nevertheless, vaping products appear easily accessible through online sales channels and often fall into the hands of a younger market segment. Vaping is considered a national issue among many countries, due to rising rates of youth adoption and addiction. The rise of vaping can be explained by its framing as a more desirable alternative to traditional tobacco products, as well as its range of flavours to suit different peer, and subculture groups. Nonetheless, this viewpoint traces the development of vaping in several Southeast Asian countries and the development of several government policies and regulations. Related to responsible tourism, this viewpoint explores the scenarios of vaping-induced tourism and support for or against such a development. Framed through the lens of a narcotics-induced tourism lens, this viewpoint argues how vaping can be classified as a form of irresponsible leisure in tourism, drawing upon its social and environmental negative outcomes. Future strategies and actions are proposed to help countries stem the tide of vaping, especially from an inbound tourism perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MICE tourism legacies have become more important as these business events explore ways to give back to their respective host destinations. The purpose of this viewpoint is to unpack how such MICE tourism legacies can be operationalized, as applied to the context of an international conference. Drawing from extant literature surrounding MICE tourism legacies, the International Conference on Responsible Tourism and Hospitality (ICRTH) is an example of how such legacies can shift from a narrow focus to broader stakeholder benefits, nudge passive engagement toward more active forms of participation, mobilities from urban to rural environments, enhancing education outcomes for better empowerment opportunities, and revenge travel proclivities to a more responsible MICE tourism stance. Collectively, these exemplars inform other conferences as to how such MICE tourism legacies can manifest elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based tourism (CBT) is part of East Asia's tourism landscape as local communities seek to diversify their livelihoods towards tourism. However, little is known about the evolution of research surrounding CBT in the region. Through undertaking a bibliometric analysis of 401 Scopus-indexed articles, this research found that CBT practices have increasingly questioned the legitimacy and authenticity of its value to local communities. Findings also illustrated most studies centred on China, and co-authorship networks mostly occurring between research supervisors and their students. Theoretical and practical insights to advance CBT research in East Asia are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He then expanded on the idea of regenerative tourism, where tourism innovations are promoted by embedding tourism practices within local communities and ecological processes that elevate human and non-human wellbeing (Bellato & Cheer, [1]). The 2nd International Conference on Responsible Tourism and Hospitality (ICRTH) was held at UCSI Hotel Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia from 1 to 3 September 2022. The second roundtable session consisted of both international and local experts on eco-tourism where they highlighted the new possibilities and demands of eco-tourism in Asia. [Extracted from the article]

Blockchain technologies are predicted to substantially transform the tourism industry. At present, cryptocurrencies are the most advanced application of public blockchains that promise benefits such as a universal means of payment and minimal fees through the removal of intermediaries. In the tourism industry, though many tourism vendors have been accepting cryptocurrencies and the potential of using cryptocurrencies in travel-related consumption has been intensively documented, existing knowledge about travellers' intention to use cryptocurrencies for payment purposes is limited. Traditional models do not account for the idiosyncrasies of cryptocurrencies and are therefore less appropriate to foster the understanding of travellers' adoption of travel-related payments. To fill this knowledge gap, an exploratory study was conducted with 161 travellers from the Asia-Pacific region who have previously consumed travel-related services with cryptocurrencies. Their previous usage experiences are analysed and reported. Through harnessing the correspondence analysis, several technological contingency factors were identified, as well as positive and negative perceptual antecedents. Additionally, their levels of satisfaction and intention to re-use the technology in future trips were investigated. Based on these findings, several propositions are suggested for guiding future research on travellers' cryptocurrency adoption in the travel and tourism contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of China Tourism Research is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a rigorous methodology to undertake systematic literature reviews for coffee and tea tourism, thereby providing prospects and challenges of developing these niche markets for destinations. Design/methodology/approach: The approach taken in this research is via a systematic literature review on past studies conducted in English related to coffee and tea tourism. In total, 30 articles related to coffee tourism and 33 papers on tea tourism were analysed. Findings: The research revealed that studies to date are largely fragmented, often using the lens of a coffee or tea tourism context or the perspectives of a single stakeholder such as consumers or producers. Few studies have attempted to undertake interdisciplinary frameworks to study coffee or tea tourism, which this research then documents as future avenues of investigation. Research limitations/implications: This study is conducted through the analysis of secondary data published academic material related to coffee and tea tourism in English and would have omitted other relevant resources that have been documented in the realm of other languages. Empirical, quantitative studies conducted based on this systematic literature review can also validate some of the key arguments central to this qualitative piece of work. Practical implications: The research synthesises academic literature to date, providing a succinct overview of what is known about coffee and tea tourism based on the dominant themes and frameworks, thereby increasing practical knowledge and awareness of best practices in the field. Originality/value: This paper contributes to uncovering the scope of coffee and tea tourism literature to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study probes the ethics of intrusive technologies for experimental research in tourism, through the lens of collaborative ethnography. Amidst the increasing uptake of technology to assess participant responses, the role of ethics in an experimental setting has received scant attention in tourism and hospitality. While intrusive technologies such as eye tracking, skin sensors and neuroscience headgear become more ubiquitous, the ethical boundaries of using such equipment are increasingly blurred and inconsistently approved. Seeking convergence of ethics concerning intrusive technologies is complicated when framing political spaces, target audiences and management of data obtained. Rather than view the role of intrusive technologies as a dichotomous outcome of ethical or unethical approaches, this paper argues that ethics needs to be contextually embedded with increased collaboration and co-creation in the application preparation and approval process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tourism Review is the property of Emerald Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The popularity of adopting ecotourism initiatives has led to a mushrooming of eco-precincts around the world. Arguably, ecotourism fulfils an ideological paradigm because of its inherent benefits to both natural and human environments. However, whilst theory has guided the justification for ecotourism and development of its principles, very little exists to steer how ecotourism should be unpacked across considerably varying dimensions of ecotourism across the globe. This research seeks to explain the notion of manufactured ecotourism from the perspective of Singapore. In a land-scarce country, ecotourism could hardly be conceivable in an environment where occupying physical space is expected to bring high economic returns on infrastructural investment. However, from a comparative case study approach, three specific exemplars of ecotourism developments have shown that the manufacturing of ecotourism has shifted the narrative of land use in Singapore and continues to transform the tourism landscape in the country. The outcomes of the research steer the directions of planning and stakeholder partnership for new destinations embarking on their ecotourism journey to 'Envision Eden'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the notion of external referencing has been undertaken across a range of disciplines, its adoption in a tourism setting remains largely fragmented. This project applies a 'floating classroom' as part of a virtual Community of Practice (CoP) to enable tourism policy and planning educators to perform a benchmarking exercise for maintaining teaching quality despite geographical separation and social distancing mandates. Virtual CoPs can help maintain teaching quality at a time when universities are increasingly required to uphold international standards of excellence and as the coronavirus continues to make face-to-face interactions risky. The CoP enabled mutual support and knowledge sharing for the design of teaching approaches, materials, and authentic assessments. The paper was limited to three educators teaching similar courses in Anglophone institutions and reports the results of a one-off study. But findings will assist educators interested in maintaining or enhancing teaching quality over the course of the pandemic and post-COVID-19 futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies investigating the influence of social media on destination choice are in an exploratory stage. Essentially, social media disseminates word of mouth electronically, unlike traditional word of mouth. However, within tourism, evidence has suggested that both terms may be used interchangeably. In this article, five points of difference suggest that electronic word of mouth is to be treated as a unique entity. The distinctive characteristics of electronic word of mouth are little known source-receiver relationships, channel variety and presentation of contents, opportunities for information solicitation, message retention capabilities, and content provider motivations for disclosure. Three considerations for destination management organizations are creating opportunities for past visitors to narrate memorable tourism experiences, involving industry partners to build relevant destination images and greater engagement with social media. This conceptual article advances the understanding of electronic word of mouth in presenting distinctive credibility profiles toward a proposed influence on destination image and choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the major tourism-related cryptocurrencies is investigated. More precisely, the variable lag causality is used, to test whether data related to the pandemic and more precisely, confirmed cases and lockdown stringency index, cause the cryptocurrencies from the field of tourism. Then, a possible long-run relationship is tested, employing the multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis, and finally, a time-varying regression model through a Bayesian framework is structured. According to the results, the COVID-19 pandemic had a diverse impact, of different magnitude, on the tourism-related cryptocurrencies for the years of the pandemic examined. This paper is the first to examine the impact of the pandemic on tourism, through the financial performance of the relevant cryptocurrencies related to this sector, also comparing the various years of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As COVID-19 pandemic has left great consequences on all economic activities, social media has served as a vastly helpful communication tool for most industries, including tourism. The spa destinations are trying to attract tourists by changing the way of using social media while adapting to the new situation. The aim of this paper is to analyze the social media used in the promotion of spa tourism. The authors compare two different phases: pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 using data collected from 126owners of tourist accommodation in spas destination. The research showed that during the period of COVID-19, the respondents most often use Instagram and Booking, they post the content most often once a week using photos and text. In addition, the results show that the respondents emphasize the location and price (in the pre-COVID-19), but during the COVID-19 pandemic, they put importance on health safety andcleanliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unreliable and inefficient public transportation system can be a barrier to the successful development of a destination's tourism industry. Uber, a convenient ride-hailing service, can complement underdeveloped public transport and play a significant role in stimulating the tourism economy by increasing tourists' mobility and accessibility to attractions and service facilities. Using the data of 48 sub-Saharan African countries, this study conducted propensity score matching and difference-in-differences analysis to empirically examine the influence of Uber on a country's tourism industry. The results showed that Uber contributed $20 million annually in total tourist spending—$24 per tourist spending—on average, to a country's economy between 2013 and 2016. However, it did not have a significant influence on the number of international arrivals. The findings of this study provided insights into the benefits of Uber service in promoting per tourist spending by providing a reliable and efficient means of travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the relationship between Cuba and the United States evolves, many Americans are entertaining the idea of travel to Cuba. This study used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine predictors of US residents’ intentions to travel to Cuba across three time horizons: 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. TPB constructs were administered to a cross-sectional panel of US residents. Results varied by time horizon, with US residents’ negative attitudes toward Cuba having a positive and significant influence on their intention to visit Cuba within one year. This finding suggests that some US residents match Plog’s Allocentric profile of tourists and that the current “rough edges” of Cuba are what attract them to travel in the short rather than long term. Findings from this study provide baseline data that is valuable for Cuban and American tourism organizations, should the US market become more accessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]