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HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics) was a three-year project undertaken by a consortium of five English universities between 2002 and 2005. HELM released a range of workbooks and online resources, designed to enhance the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates, which were well received, and widely used. All that remained in 2020 from HELM were PDFs of “student workbooks” which could not be edited. Since 2018, the University of Edinburgh has developed and taught fully online courses for university mathematics in which all materials form part of coherently organised digital exercises and expositions. The work reported in this paper combines the two approaches: we take a similar approach to the existing successful Edinburgh course and rejuvenate the static HELM materials by creating online resources designed to support the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates. The paper describes the rationale, educational design, practical execution and preliminary analysis of the workbooks’ usage at the University of Edinburgh. HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics) was a three-year project undertaken by a consortium of five English universities between 2002 and 2005. HELM released a range of workbooks and online resources, designed to enhance the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates, which were well received, and widely used. All that remained in 2020 from HELM were PDFs of “student workbooks” which could not be edited. Since 2018, the University of Edinburgh has developed and taught fully online courses for university mathematics in which all materials form part of coherently organised digital exercises and expositions. The work reported in this paper combines the two approaches: we take a similar approach to the existing successful Edinburgh course and rejuvenate the static HELM materials by creating online resources designed to support the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates. The paper describes the rationale, educational design, practical execution and preliminary analysis of the workbooks’ usage at the University of Edinburgh.

World Heritage (WH) is acknowledged as a prominent tourism brand. However, research on the intangible relationship between World Heritage sites (WHSs) and outstanding universal values (OUVs) is lacking. This study employed advances in text-mining, using digital textual data, and Brand Personality (BP) lexical methods to explore descriptions of WHSs. Although existing BP dictionaries are useful for measuring the personalities of destinations and attractions, they need further development. This is due to the perception that the current BP dictionary is limited to capturing distinct brand cultural meanings from large digital texts. Additionally, a BP dictionary construction technique is still necessary to enable BP analysis using substantial online text. The necessity to specifically identify the WHSs personality categorization dictionary as microelements of destination that may have significance for affecting visitor preference is still needed. Using 13,741 post-experience visitor-generated TripAdvisor reviews, and 1,121 WH centre website descriptions, a natural and cultural WHSs personality dictionary was developed. Significant differences in the way UNESCO experts and visitors perceive WHSs were explored and practical and managerial implications were discussed.

Despite having received considerable academic attention, existing brand personality (BP) scales are difficult to generalize and likely need further development. The aim of this study was to design a novel method for constructing context driven-BP categories through the use of a multi-disciplinary approach and advances in personality studies in psychology and natural language processing. Based on a textual analysis that relies on devising hypotheses of psycholexical representation and the distributed representation of words, the aforementioned method was employed to explore World Heritage Site (WHS) personalities using information from all 1,121 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) and 9,920 user-generated reviews on TripAdvisor. The study identified a 192-item WHS personality dictionary organized into five clusters: Exceptionality; Attractiveness; Identification; Responsibility; and Prominence. These categories could be employed to measure other tourism attractions. The results show that UNESCO strongly associates WHSs with the attributes of Attractiveness and Identification.

In the current time of high globalisation, mobility has changed the concept of distance; as such, it has thus altered the cultural identity of people who choose to practise tourism or to migrate. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the multi-centred bicultural identities that immigrants develop during their stay in a new cultural context and, as well, the factors that trigger the switch from one ‘self’ to another. To meet this aim, e-mail interviews were conducted with 32 lifestyle immigrants in order to discover a plurality of factors of self-reflection shared by locals, tourists and immigrants. Through theoretical thematic analysis, the importance of place attachment and social interaction has been highlighted as the generator of micro-moments when selves are switched, explaining that bicultural individuals, in actuality, develop five different selves in relation to the surrounding cultural context.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) must necessarily display Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs), as these play a vital role in constructing competitive brand personality (BP) in tourism marketing. However, how these WHS qualities are perceived by visitors still needs substantial investigation. Adopting a visitor-driven approach, this study seeks to explore the intangible attributes of WHSs and, for the first time, uses the BP concept to measure these attributes in cultural attractions. To investigate how visitors perceive WHS personality traits, 5579 visitor-generated reviews of 175 French (39), German (44), Italian (50), and Spanish (42) cultural WHSs on TripAdvisor were analysed using empirical, mixed methods. Results show that four personality dimension categories can be attributed to WHSs: Sophistication, Sincerity, Competence, and Excitement. Moreover, a novel BP lexical technique is presented along with a 222-item personality trait dictionary, which can be used to measure personality traits in cultural attractions. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.

The beginning of 2020 has been marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economical effect at a global scale. One of the most negatively influenced sectors is tourism since in a time of limited mobility and lock downs, seems unable to continue producing and offering most of its products and services. Traditional marketing is put aside by the need of two particular types of marketing, that is, social marketing and lateral marketing, which call for the behavioral change of the consumer side, and the creative reaction of the production side, respectively. This essay tries to highlight the importance of these strategies in times of crisis.

The quest for tourist destinations that few have visited, and the experience of a journey that few can share, is becoming even more difficult for those individuals who seek a reputation as tourists. Although this search for authenticity has already been studied, there is still much to be explored. Tourists can enhance their identity as travellers by place attachment with destinations they have visited, and that no longer exist. The fact that these destinations have vanished makes their experiences unrepeatable, turning them into connoisseurs of a gone place. The narration of that past visit enters into a re-interpretation process, especially by those who have not been to these places. Through this transformation of the visit into a chance event, this article shows the connection between chance, tourism and social spatialization. Through a content analysis approach, visitors’ online comments to three tourist sites are used: the World Trade Centre in New York before 9/11, the historical sites of Nepal before the destructive earthquake of 2015 and the ‘Pioneer Cabin Tree’, a giant thousand-year-old sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, before it was blown down in a storm in 2017.

espanolNo crucen la linea: planificacion de los limites del turismo en BarcelonaDurante el periodo 2010–2019 se llevan a cabo mas de 20 planes en la ciudad de Barcelona, algunos de los cuales con una afectacion directamente turistica. La nueva planificacion estrategica propone nuevos metodos de gobernanza al mismo tiempo que ensaya nuevos metodos de elaboracion y desarrollo; en cuanto a la planificacion turistica, los planes asumen que la condicion turistica es uno de los ejes centrales de la identidad urbana, de modo que, para mantener dicha identidad, es necesario limitar la actividad turistica. La nueva planificacion estrategica y turistica llevada a cabo durante el ultimo decenio tambien contribuye a la creacion de nuevas narrativas urbanas y turisticas. El articulo analiza los planes de turismo y de ciudad realizados entre 2010 y 2019 fijandose en el caracter estrategico que se atribuye al turismo, su potencial configurador de la ciudad y sus necesidades de gestion. EnglishMore than 20 plans were rolled out in Barcelona from 2010 to 2019, some of which have had a direct impact on tourism. The new strategic planning approach proposes new governance methods while testing new methods of preparing and developing such plans; as far as tourism planning is concerned, the plans assume that tourism is one of the central axes of urban identity, so that, in order to maintain this identity, it is necessary to limit tourist activity. The new strategic and tourism plans rolled out over the last decade have also contributed to the creation of new urban and tourism narratives. This article analyzes the tourism and city plans of Barcelona developed between 2010 and 2019, focusing on the strategic character that is attributed to tourism, its configurative potential of the city and its management needs.

The current research on hosts’ perceptions of tourism has focused on survey-based studies, proving their heterogeneity at the moment of the study, but lacking to present any evolution over time. This paper aims to show if, and how, hosts’ public narratives of tourism have changed in the particular case of the city of Barcelona (Spain) from 2004 to 2015, analyzing any common and opposing points of their argumentation as they may change over time. These narratives represent the perspectives of two opposing groups of hosts: residents and destination management organizations (DMOs). We used thematic analysis to portray their public discourse, as expressed in the residents’ magazine Carrer, and the annual reports of Turisme de Barcelona. Through the analysis of common and opposing points of their argumentation, our findings show a clear division between the residents’ tourism-phobic perception and the DMO’s tourism-philic one, which appears to change their structure over time, going from complete opposites to searching for common ground when tourism is addressed as part of the city’s identity by both sides.

Dark tourism has recently garnered significant interest as a niche market on an academic level, witnessed by the increasing number of papers on the subject. Despite various attempts having been made to categorize different types of dark site, most of these have been place-dependent, therefore overshadowing the role of the cultural intermediary at a dark site. This conceptual research attempts to offer a different categorization of dark attractions based on the Netflix documentary series Dark Tourist. The aim is to show that, given the role played by the cultural intermediary in dark storytelling, some dark attractions are basically person-dependent and award little importance to the place, which opens up new marketing options within the dark attraction spectrum. Six fundamental roles of dark intermediaries are identified, ranging from typical tour guides to the villains themselves; that is, from light to darker person-dependent attractions.

An unconventional urban environment often acts as an attraction for tourists. This is exemplified by the old city centre of Amsterdam, through its urban gentrification which offers a unique tourist experience through an interplay of contradicting concepts: legal and illegal, or moral and immoral. Based on Foucault's heterotopias of informational deviance and the informational role of tour guides, the aim of this paper is to show the critical influence of the tour guide's contribution to the tourist experience of visiting these often morally contradicting concepts. Tour guides operate in this context as ‘information filters’, based on the tourist guides' personalities and background. To analyse this information sensitivity, five tours were examined in the Red Light District, three related to prostitution and two to Coffee Shops. Through systematic participant observation, descriptive results were obtained, which highlight the importance of the guides' personal profile in interpreting this experience to tourists.

Many studies have stated that tourists are searching for authenticity – or what they perceive as such – within foreign cultural contexts. Accepting forms of culture that reflect day-to-day life as tourist attractions, many tourists have developed an interest in the real life of their hosts. Yet, the definition of authenticity in tourism has become multifaceted. Divided between experiences and objects, authenticity has been perceived through either objective, constructive or postmodern approaches. This paper examines the various elements on which a new tourist attraction, namely Los Angeles Gang Tours, bases its commercialization upon authenticity as communicated through online communication channels. For this purpose, content analysis was applied to the textual and visual online data available. Finally, the discussion is developed as to what form of authenticity this tour represents, as well as the perception of authenticity that tourists share online after experiencing the tour.

Existing investigation on tourism and crime has indicated a negative relation between these two concepts where crime appears as an influential factor in limiting tourist flows. Albeit tourists have repeatedly reported the importance of safety in their travels, this paper presents a paradoxically positive relation between tourism and present crime, where gang culture is the main attraction of the visit. This case study is focused on ‘LA Gang Tours’, a non-profit organization and its use of social marketing in the re-interpretation of an organization threat to an opportunity in Los Angeles, the ‘gang capital of the world’. For this purpose, I have applied conceptual content analysis of online data referring to this touristic attraction.

Previous research into the ethics of accessing information goods using alternative means (the informal economy or social exchanges) has failed to study the moral arguments used by music consumers to justify their behaviour or explain actions they considered to be (un)ethical. To fill this gap, we conducted a study from the perspective of music consumers in which we grounded a theory that would explain and predict individual arguments and behaviour. Our findings suggest that the morality of accessing culture depends on the social, economic and cultural context in which an individual has been raised. Interestingly, this contextual aspect interacts with economic and cultural resources, affecting the moral arguments used to justify behaviour. Lastly, we describe a model that explains variations in the contextual theory in regard to accessing music and that predicts consumer behaviour in other countries that can be classified in either of the two contexts delineated in our research.

Grounded in how individuals access recorded music, we have developed a comprehensive description that classifies social exchanges aimed at accessing cultural resources and that also clarifies the forces that shape individual choices regarding particular social exchanges. We also highlight the exchange properties that socially integrate and classify individuals in a social context. Our analysis integrates, but also demonstrates as misleading, recent interpretations regarding the sharing of cultural resources as a gift or consumer-to-consumer system, suggesting instead a correspondence with generalized exchanges. Finally, we discuss the implications of our interpretation for the dematerialization of cultural resources.

Las primeras investigaciones que han estudiado el comportamiento etico de los consumidores que acceden a los bienes de informacion utilizando medios alternativos (economia informal o intercambios sociales) no han encontrado relacion alguna entre las escalas de etica utilizadas y el acceso a los bienes de informacion mediante medios alternativos. Sin embargo no han investigado los argumentos morales utilizados por los consumidores de musica, u otros bienes de informacion, para justificar su comportamiento o explicar las acciones que consideran eticas. En esta investigacion nos proponemos estudiar los argumentos morales que los consumidores esgrimen para justificar su modo de acceso a la musica. Nuestros hallazgos sugieren que los argumentos morales que justifican la forma de acceso a la cultura dependen del contexto social, economico y cultural en el que un individuo se ha socializado. Llama la atencion que el contexto social interactua con los recursos economicos y culturales personales a la hora de influir en los argumentos morales esgrimidos por los consumidores para justificar su comportamiento. Por ultimo, proponemos un modelo que explica las variaciones que observamos en la teoria contextual del acceso a la musica, y que puede predecir el comportamiento del consumidor en otros paises si pueden clasificarse en cualquiera de los dos contextos delineados en nuestra investigacion.

Nowadays, there is an increased concern about what leisure is and how people spend their leisure time. When we are talking about leisure, all of us have “images” in our minds; different from person to person. These are images of freedom out of constrains and obligations. The purpose of the research is to identify and describe the leisure activities among the Romanians and the influence of respondents’ profile in respect with their preferences. As a research method, the descriptive research based on investigation was used. For data collection, an interview based on a short questionnaire was implemented for several months during the year of 2015 and 2016. The research reveals that in average the respondents spent 4,6 hours engaged in leisure activities in a working day and 9,3 hours in a free day. In a working day, the most frequent leisure activity is surfing on the internet (more than 60% of the respondents) and the rarest is visiting tourist attractions or destinations (almost 39%). In a free day, ones again, surfing on the internet (61% respondents) is the most frequent leisure activity and the rarest one is participating at cultural activities like visits at the museum, art galleries etc. (36.53%). The study shows that the respondents prefer non-home-based leisure activities and also active ones.

Hasta la fecha, muchas investigaciones se han realizado indicando que cada vez más vivimos en un mundo complejo y más propenso al desastre (Burton et al. 1978; Richardson 1994; Faulkner 2001). Los cambios que ocurren en nuestro alrededor en la mayoría de los casos no son bruscos e imprevistos, sino lentos, previstos bajo una gestión adecuada, y posibles de enfrentar; estas transformaciones se llaman crisis o desastres. Según Faulkner (2001), la diferencia entre estos dos significados es que la crisis es el resultado de un acción equivocada o de la falta de una acción adecuada por parte del ser humano, llegando a una situación negativa para una persona o comunidad, mientras que el desastre se refiere a situaciones donde una institución ha tenido que enfrentarse a cambios inesperados y catastróficos, donde el ser humano tiene mínimo control (Selbst 1978), como son los desastres naturales (por ejemplo inundaciones, terremotos o tornados).

Previous research into the ethics of accessing information goods using alternative means (the informal economy or social exchanges) has failed to study the moral arguments used by music consumers to justify their behavior or explain actions they considered to be (un)ethical. To fill this gap, we conducted a study from the perspective of music consumers in which we grounded a theory that would explain and predict individual arguments and behavior. Our findings suggest that the morality of accessing culture depends on the social, economic and cultural context in which an individual has been raised. Interestingly, this contextual aspect interacts with economic and cultural resources, affecting the moral arguments used to justify behavior. Lastly, we describe a model that explains variations in the contextual theory in regard to accessing music and that predicts consumer behavior in other countries that can be classified in either of the two contexts delineated in our research.

La investigacion existente sobre el crimen y el turismo ha indicado una relacion negativa entre estos dos conceptos, donde el crimen aparece como un factor influyente en la limitacion de los flujos turisticos. Aunque los turistas han enfocado en repetidas ocasiones la importancia de la seguridad en sus viajes, se presenta una relacion paradojicamente positiva entre el turismo y el crimen actual, donde la cultura de las pandillas es la atraccion principal de la visita. Este estudio de caso se centra en “LA Gang Tours”, una organizacion sin animo de lucro que se centra en la creacion de oportunidades de organizacion en Los Angeles, a traves de la industria del turismo. La intencion de este trabajo es representar esta atraccion alternativa de turismo y su intento de reinterpretar una amenaza organizativa como una oportunidad de cambio social dentro tanto de estos barrios como a su alrededor.

This study contributes to the understanding of how individuals access recorded music, and how they attach meanings to the social exchanges they use to access music. Theoretically we frame the analysis in social exchange theories in order to develop a contextual theory of exchanging music, a theory grounded on data. With that aim, we conducted 23 in-depth interviews with individuals that regularly access music through different ways, and used secondary sources during the process of interpreting data. The theory that emerged from our data explains how individuals attach meanings to the different way of accessing music through social exchanges depending on their personal and contextual cultural capital.

Although we found a general trend favouring the omnivorousness thesis, as soon as we adjusted it to a set of structural factors and consumers’ tastes it was clear that this was caused by elitist inclusive omnivores who had increased the scope of their tastes. In general, younger cohorts were becoming less omnivorous, nevertheless, they were also becoming more educated and had greater to higher levels of inc ome, making the youth more omnivorous. As expected, upscale consumers set limits on their popular taste: musical genres, whose audiences had educational levels below the mean profile were less preferred by upscale respondents. In spite of this, as time passed, some popular brows gained social status.