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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend the research on tourist walkability and Walk Score® by posing the question “does tourist accommodation benefit from being located in walkable places?”. Design/methodology/approach: Using Tel Aviv municipality as a case study, the prices and number of reviews of 81 hotels and 97 Airbnb listings were associated with their corresponding Walk Score® measures. Findings: The relationship between Walk Score and prices and number of reviews was not linear or strong. However, the most expensive accommodation and more popular hotels were below the median Walk Score of Tel Aviv. Research limitations/implications: The findings may reflect the specific conditions associated with Tel Aviv, such as city compactness, topography and planning regulations. Practical implications: The study suggests that accommodation is beneficial if it is located on the margins of very walkable areas. This raises regulatory and promotion issues for accommodation, and challenges for transport and tourism planners. Originality/value: The study adds to the limited knowledge regarding tourism-related walkability, and is the first examination of links between walkability (measured by Walk Score index) and tourist accommodation (hotels and Airbnb).

ABSTRACTThe premise for this paper is that tourism scholars researching in Israel and Palestine are, in effect, actors in the geopolitical landscape of the Holy Land. Political tourism is a significant factor in how the Israel–Palestine geopolitical conflict is represented. The current paper provides an analysis of how tourism academics address the situation. A research team of Israeli, Palestinian and a third country origins collaborated to produce a narrative synthesis by systematically reviewing 35 academic papers selected through defined criteria. This approach minimized bias and aimed for analytical robustness and validity. Two main conclusions are derived from the analysis. First, papers tend to focus on the social, touristic and religious aspects of tourism not on the core issues of the geopolitical conflict. Second, the works did not contribute to dialogue between parties but reinforced separateness thus reflecting the political conflict.

ABSTRACTThis research note presents a new tool for analysing the benefits of landscapes for visitors and tourists using the Cultural Ecosystems Services (CES) framework as defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) in 2005. The authors reflect on the challenges of defining Cultural Ecosystem Services and interpreting and translating these categorisations for the purposes of questionnaire research. Previous studies had noted the difficulties inherent in capturing many of the intangible elements inherent in the CES terminology. Familiarisation with CES categories arguably affords new opportunities to bring together many of the disparate elements which have often been managed independently in landscape and tourism studies (e.g. cultural and intangible heritage, eco-systems, socio-cultural impacts of tourism and community-based tourism). A questionnaire was designed consisting of nineteen statements which related closely to the CES categorisations. It was translated into eight languages and distributed in autumn 2015 to visitors in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Netherlands and Poland in six different kinds of landscape: forest, mountains, lakeside, seaside, mountains, desert and a combination of nature and manmade. In total, 876 valid questionnaires were obtained and were proven statistically to make a useful contribution to the field of CES research, landscapes and tourism studies.

This study investigates the links between a destination's gay-friendliness and the travel preferences of tourists with different levels of affiliation with the LGBT community. Overseas tourists to Tel Aviv (Israel) participated in two surveys: during LGBT Pride events (n = 168) and two months later (n = 117). Due to a terror attack, the before-and-after effects of safety perceptions and gay-friendliness were also tested. Analyzing responses of tourists with different levels of affiliation with the LGBT community revealed that the on-going inclusive policy of the city raises positive attitudes among all inbound tourists (regardless of their level of affiliation with the LGBT community) and that LGBT tourists do not spend more money than tourists who are not LGBT. Unexpected risk mitigation effects of gay-friendliness were observed, when all tourists linked gay-friendliness to safety perceptions, and perceived Tel Aviv as a safe place, even after a terror attack. This finding suggests that gay-friendliness is an asset in building resilience for urban destinations, even in unstable geo-political regions.