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Curiosity stands as a significant driving force in comprehending tourist behaviour. Nonetheless, within the realm of anime pilgrims, the objects of interest, the underlying mechanisms and the resulting behaviours stemming from their curiosity deviate notably from those exhibited by typical tourists. Through the utilization of in-depth case studies of anime pilgrims, this research unveils an innovative impetus for tourism known as 'fantasy curiosity' with four distinct attributes, differentiating it from prevailing conceptualizations of general curiosity. Moreover, by utilizing a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model, we pinpoint distinct characteristics of anime-related behaviours across different phases of anime tours. These findings serve to propel the progression of research within the realms of tourism motivations, while concurrently broadening the horizons of curiosity theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, political tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China over the territory's status, culminating with the 2019/20 pro-democracy demonstrations, spilled over into tourism, with rising antagonism among "HongKongers" toward Chinese tourists. Central to these strained relationships are complex identity tensions that position HongKongers as distinct from mainland Chinese, despite being essentially "compatriots." The sense of belonging to a social group is derived from the interactions that distinguish "us" from "others," whilst the Chinese have been signified as "others" in this scenario, their perspectives on the issue are poorly understood. This study utilizes social identity theory to unpack these identity positions. Our results uncover changes in Chinese tourists' reflections on perceived othering they experienced by HongKongers and how identity plays a significant role in redefining relationships between hosts and guests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unpredictable external shocks exacerbate the negative effects usually attributed to cyclical seasonality. Two such recent shocks, the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, shifted debates from crisis management toward concerns for greater resilience in visitor economies. Social tourism is an effective stimulus to destination economies and ameliorates some negative effects of seasonality, but there is little evidence on its contributions to greater destination resilience. Furthermore, resilience, a relatively new concept, is poorly defined. We establish a conceptual link between seasonality and resilience through a holistic multivariate analysis of supply, demand and employment patterns. An empirical study examines resilience longitudinally using municipal-level data, applying multivariate analysis and innovative visualization techniques, and assesses how, where and to what degree the Imserso social tourism program has contributed to the greater resilience of Spanish destinations, demonstrating its effectiveness in contributing to resilience in those which are more vulnerable due to high seasonal imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]