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Northeast Brazil is a region with great international tourist potential. Among the states that make up this region, Paraíba stands out due to the presence of vulnerable groups and factors that contribute to adverse outcomes of COVID-19. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the epidemiological data on the incidence, mortality, and case fatality of COVID-19 in Paraíba. An ecological, population-based study was performed, with data extracted from the Brazilian Ministry of Health database. All cases and deaths from COVID-19 from March 2020 to December 2022 were included. The time series was built by applying the Prais–Winsten regression model, and the daily percent change was calculated to analyze the trends. The highest case fatality of the entire period was in April 2020 (7.8%), but in March 2021, the state broke the dismal record of 1248 deaths and the highest mortality rate (30.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants). Stationary mortality and case fatality were better in 2022; however, in February 2022, the mortality rate was at levels similar to the same month of the previous year. These results illustrate that COVID-19 is evolving and needs to be constantly monitored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious journeys of humanity and their components are now recognized as cultural heritage values. UNESCO, WHC, ICOMOS, CIIC, and COE are organizations that actively work and issue international certificates for the protection, promotion, and survival of religious routes. These organizations have certified 14 faith-based routes as of 2023. A route's certification is critical since it allows the route to be recognized globally and accessible to international tourism. However, each institution has its own set of requirements to obtain these certificates. When all religious cultures are examined, 14 routes are insufficient to explain the phenomenon of religion to today's people. For this reason, it is beneficial to increase the current number by re-activating the religious routes that have affected large masses. Many countries apply every year to obtain certificates from these organizations with various route studies. However, many applications are rejected as insufficient. Therefore, the goal of this study is to determine the effective criteria for religious routes to receive international certification. In this regard, St. Paul's Route stands out for its extensive geography spanning 12 countries and international potential. St. Paul is regarded as the most important figure in the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Anatolia and Europe. However, the St. Paul Routes being implemented do not meet the criteria of the any certificates. But the authentic St. Paul Route has the potential to receive certification from all organizations. In this research, the criteria required for the St. Paul Route to be certified by international organizations were investigated. A certified St. Paul Route will benefit many issues, including inter-religious dialogue between 12 countries, international cooperation, world peace, and sustainable tourism. It is thought to be an exemplary route with these features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism has become one of the most important sectors in many countries, significantly contributing to their economic growth and development. However, the expansion of tourism has also brought about various environmental and social challenges. The relationship between tourism, economic growth, trade openness, and the environment is diverse and complex. The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the international tourism development index, GDP per capita, CO2 emissions, trade openness index as well as the energy intensity index in EU 27, over the 1995–2019 period. A composite index for international tourism was developed using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Panel Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is used to reveal the long- and short-run impact of GDP per capita, CO2 emissions, trade openness index as well as the energy intensity index on the tourism development index. Panel ARDL estimates confirm some of our research hypotheses: at the level of EU countries, there is a short-run relationship between tourism and GDP per capita, but only in a few EU countries, trade openness influences tourism development index. Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test confirms long-run feedback relationship between tourism development index and trade openness, between tourism development index and CO2 emissions, and between tourism development index and GDP and unilateral causality running from tourism development index towards energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant decline in human mobility during the past three years. This may lead to reconfiguring future tourism flows and resulting transformations in the geographic patterns of economic activities and transportation needs. This study empirically addresses the changes in tourism mobility caused by the pandemic. It focuses on the yet unexplored effects of the destination type on tourism volume change. To investigate this, 1426 metropolitan, urban/resort and dispersed destinations were delimited based on Airbnb offers. Airbnb reviews were used as the proxy for the changes in tourist visits in 2019–2022. Linear mixed-effects models were employed to verify two hypotheses on the differences between the effects of the pandemic on three kinds of tourism destinations. The results confirm the tourism de-metropolisation hypothesis: metropolitan destinations have experienced between −12.4% and −7.5% additional decreases in tourism visits compared to secondary cities and resorts. The second de-concentration hypothesis that urban/resort destinations are more affected than dispersed tourism destinations is not supported. The results also confirm that stricter restrictions and destination dependence on international tourism have negatively affected their visitation. The study sheds light on post-pandemic scenarios on tourism mobility transformations in various geographic locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since curbing the upward trend of energy consumption has become a global pursuit in achieving environmental sustainability, macroeconomic factors such as energy transition and international tourism may be of crucial importance in mitigating environmental degradation. However, the combined role of economic welfare, population, international tourism, and energy transition towards mitigating environmental degradation has not been investigated extensively. In this regard, this study looks at the combined interplay between these variables for a panel of ten southeastern Europe (SEE) countries, covering the period of 1997–2018 under the umbrella of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) phenomenon. Two indicators of environmental degradation, namely, ecological footprint and carbon intensity, were used in this study. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with Driscoll–Kraay (DK) and the panel Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) with fixed effects were used to disclose the following outcomes: firstly, the environmental degradation–economic welfare nexus firmly established an inverted U-shaped relationship, thereby depicting the validity of the EKC hypothesis. Secondly, energy transition and international tourism manifest negative effects: they induce environmental degradation. Thirdly, the impact of the population is positive but not significant. Given the empirical outcomes, energy transition and international tourism are proposed as critical to mitigating the environmental degradation of the inspected sample of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gion Festival is a world-famous festival that takes place in Kyoto in July. It dates back to the Heian period (794–1185) and originated as a goryō-e ritual to placate departed spirits and disease-divinities. It is linked to the Yasaka Shrine, and it represents a great variety of religious and cultural influences. It is a complex and multidimensional event where issues of globalization can be seen at play at the local level. Against this background, this paper analyzes the Gion Festival as a religious and cultural phenomenon in relation to glocalization and the production of locality. In particular, it explores how the City of Kyoto represented the festival in connection with the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the local–global interactions that relate to international tourism and global bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tropical Andes in South America stand at the top of the world's list of endemism hotspots, due to their high species richness per unit area. Thus, our study focuses on the Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) of the Utcubamba River (PER-84), one of the 96 KBAs, with an extension of 35,534 hectares. This area is located in northwest Peru, within the hotspot of the tropical Andes. The study area is well known as the waterfalls valley, which holds the world's third highest waterfall "Gocta", an outstanding national and international tourist attraction. Nevertheless, despite its great ecological and tourist value, research reports are deficient in the area. Therefore, we conducted a biological inventory in 2019 during the wet season, with the aim of recording and identifying species of tetrapod fauna, as well as promoting actions for their conservation. Based on field assessments, the following number of species was recorded: amphibians (14), reptiles (6), birds (229), and mammals (20). Interestingly, for the first time, two species of amphibians (Gastrotheca aguaruna and Gastrotheca spectabilis) and two reptiles (Dipsas palmeri and Tachymenis affinis) have been recorded; furthermore, the following several endemic species have been observed: amphibians (3), reptiles (2), birds (3) and mammals (1) that have not yet been reported for the ACB, which have not yet been reported for the KBA. This finding, in fact, increases the number of species of endemism in this part of Peruvian territory. Consequently, this study aims to be the basis for promoting further research to discover new species for science and to propose strategies for their conservation over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the nonlinear impact of tourism development on economic growth in Southeast Asian countries using the panel kink regression model. Due to the paucity of Southeast Asian data, we may face the overparameterization problem in our model. To deal with this problem, this study proposes the Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) estimator to estimate the unknown parameters in this nonlinear model. Several important tourism development indicators consisting of the total international arrivals, international tourism expenditure, and tourism receipts are considered. In addition, we also consider the gross capital formation and real effective exchange rate as a control variable in our nonlinear model. Our findings show that the effect of international tourist arrivals on economic growth should be separated into two regimes, while other factors do not exhibit a nonlinear relationship with Southeast Asian economic growth. Thus, we construct the empirical model with the kink effect in the variable of international tourist arrivals. To confirm the performance of the GME estimator, we compare it to the ordinary least squares and the fixed effect estimators. According to the mean squared and root means squared errors, we find that our GME estimator performs better than the ordinary least squares and the fixed effect estimators. This indicates that GME estimation is an applicable method for estimating the nonlinear effect of tourism growth on economic growth. Our empirical results show that there are positive impacts of tourism growth on economic growth for regime 1 (low tourism demand) and regime 2 (high tourism demand) with the effect of the low tourist arrivals regime being relatively larger. We also find a positive influence of gross capital formation, real effective exchange rate, international tourism expenditure, and tourism receipts on Southeast Asian economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aviation industry is a prominent contributor to economic development. The existence of an airport hub that provides a worldwide transportation network generates economic growth, creates jobs, and facilitates international trade and tourism. This industry also helps in connecting different continents, countries, and cultures. This study utilizes the Data Envelopment Analysis models Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (CCR), Banker, Charnes, and Cooper (BCC), Slacks-Based Measure (SBM), and Epsilon Based Measure (EBM) in analyzing and evaluating the operational performance of the 21 major airports runway design during the years of 2016–2019 using the data of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) air transport statistics. The objective of this paper is to assess the efficiency of various airport runway configurations based on input factors such as number of runways, dimension of runways, airport area, and output factors such as annual number of flights and annual number of passengers. In the four applied models, the results indicated London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and Munich International Airport (MUC) are efficient in utilizing the runway during the considered periods. Surprisingly, airports in the Asian continent with a parallel runway design are more efficient than in North America and Europe. This study can be a valuable reference for operation managers in evaluating and benchmarking the performance of an airport with different types of runway configurations. Moreover, it can be used by decision-makers, investors, stakeholders, policymakers, private companies, and government agencies as a guideline suitable for an airport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a quantile regression spatial dynamic Durbin panel data (SDDPD) model with fixed effects. Conventional fixed effects estimators of quantile regression specification are usually biased in the presentation of lagged response variables in spatial and time as regressors. To reduce this bias, we propose the instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) estimator with lagged covariates in spatial and time as instruments. Under some regular conditions, the consistency and asymptotic normalityof the estimators are derived. Monte Carlo simulations show that our estimators not only perform well in finite sample cases at different quantiles but also have robustness for different spatial weights matrices and for different disturbance term distributions. The proposed method is used to analyze the influencing factors of international tourism foreign exchange earnings of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation and trend prediction of tourism economic vulnerability (TEV) in major tourist cities are necessary for formulating tourism economic strategies scientifically and promoting the sustainable development of regional tourism. In this study, 58 major tourist cities in China were taken as the research object, and an evaluation index system of TEV was constructed from two aspects of sensitivity and adaptive capacity. On the basis of the entropy weight method, TOPSIS model, obstacle diagnosis model, and BP neural network model, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns, obstacle factors, and future trends of TEV in major tourist cities in China from 2004 to 2019. The results show three key findings: (1) In terms of spatiotemporal patterns, the TEV index of most of China's tourist cities has been on the rise from 2004 to 2019. Cities throughout the coast of China's Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration show high vulnerability, whereas low vulnerability has a scattered distribution in China's northeast, central, and western regions. (2) The proportion of international tourists out of total tourists, tourism output density, urban industrial sulfur dioxide emissions per unit area, urban industrial smoke and dust emission per unit area, and discharge of urban industrial wastewater per unit area are the five major obstacles affecting the vulnerability degree of the tourism economy. (3) According to the prediction results of TEV from 2021 to 2030, although the TEV of many tourist cities in China is increasing year by year, cities with low TEV levels occupy the dominant position. Research results can provide reference for tourist cities to prevent tourism crises from occurring and to reasonably improve the resilience of the tourism economic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2007, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has issued data on the factors and policies that contribute to the development of tourism and competitiveness across countries worldwide. While WEF compiles the yearly report out of data from governmental and private stakeholders, we seek to analyze the representativeness of the open and collaborative platform OpenStreetMap (OSM) to the international tourism scene. For this study, we selected eight parameters indicative of the tourism development of each country, such as the number of beds or cultural sites, and we extracted the OSM objects representative of these indicators. Then, we performed a statistical and regression analysis of the OSM data to compare and model the data emitted by WEF with data from OSM. Our aim is to analyze the tourist representativeness of the OSM data with respect to official reports to better understand when OSM data can be used to complement the official information and, in some cases, when official information is scarce or non-existent, to assess whether the OSM information can be a substitute. Results show that OSM data provide a fairly accurate picture of official tourism statistics for most variables. We also discuss the reasons why OSM data is not so representative for some variables in some specific countries. All in all, this work represents a step towards the exploitation of open and collaborative data for tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brucellosis is a highly prevalent zoonotic disease characterized by abortion and reproductive dysfunction in pregnant animals. Although the mortality rate of Brucellosis is low, it is harmful to human health, and also seriously affects the development of animal husbandry, tourism and international trade. Brucellosis is caused by Brucella, which is a facultative intracellular parasitic bacteria. It mainly forms Brucella-containing vacuoles (BCV) in the host cell to avoid the combination with lysosome (Lys), so as to avoid the elimination of it by the host immune system. Brucella not only has the ability to resist the phagocytic bactericidal effect, but also can make the host cells form a microenvironment which is conducive to its survival, reproduction and replication, and survive in the host cells for a long time, which eventually leads to the formation of chronic persistent infection. Brucella can proliferate and replicate in cells, evade host immune response and induce persistent infection, which are difficult problems in the treatment and prevention of Brucellosis. Therefore, the paper provides a preliminary overview of the facultative intracellular parasitic and immune escape mechanisms of Brucella, which provides a theoretical basis for the later study on the pathogenesis of Brucella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all areas of socio-economic life around the world. Its impact concerns not only the health system and the health of the population, but also the economy. Tourism is one of the sectors hardest hit by the restrictions imposed by governments in the wake of the pandemic. The pandemic has resulted in restrictions and limitations on movement and travel, covering both domestic and international tourism, which raises the question of have these restrictions imposed on tourist activities also caused an environmental impact? The aim of this article is to examine what impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the environmental issues within the tourism sector in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. The research task is to investigate whether this impact has changed in the pandemic era compared to previous years, and whether it has been positive or negative. The research method is multiple regression analysis. The results of the study indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from tourism in all CEE countries. Such decreases are both relative to 2019 and the estimated level of emissions that would be achieved if the countries surveyed achieved economic growth in 2020 consistent with the European Commission's projections for that year. The scale of the impact varies from country to country, while the relationship between tourism development and pollution levels is positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the middle of the 1990s, geotourism was introduced through the first geotrails, their evolution, and the first geopark worldwide in Gerolstein/Vulkaneifel, Germany. The latter is one of the founding members of the European Geoparks Network, which was established in 2000 at the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Berlin. The main goal of the first geopark was to link geological heritage with tourism in a rural area that was trying to create new perspectives to inspire young people to stay in their home territory. Geotourism was initiated as part of sustainable tourist development and for future sustainable development at that time in the Gerolstein region. The first steps to implement the Gerolstein/Vulkaneifel Geopark, Germany, were taken in 1992. The core aspects included geological heritage, science transfer, and education as tools for developing geotourism in the broad sense and integrating local people and municipalities in the geopark activities of the rural region. Close collaboration with the local and regional tourism organizations highlighted the need to both define tools and demonstrate their success. Up to now, practice has shown that such success can be demonstrated by the infrastructure created, as well as adjacent measures and activities. A network of factors was determined to play a significant role in ensuring the successful sustainable development in a geopark across the field of geotourism. There are many activities and publications on geological heritage, geosite assessment, significance, and use, but there are fewer which reflect on the network of factors highlighted in this contribution which were first presented in 2002. In many publications and investigations, one factor in particular is emphasized, e.g., infrastructure development, such as panels or other items. Not all of the mentioned factors, however, are being addressed. As a result, a selection of good practice examples of UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGP) working on the network-oriented conceptual basis has been studied here, in line with the conceptual principle set forth about 25 years ago. The geopark examples in this study include Lesvos Island UGGp (Greece), Naturtejo UGGP (Portugal), Vulkaneifel UGGp (Germany), and Hong Kong UGGP (China), as well as the example of the Messel Pit World Heritage Site (WHS) (Germany). The latter was integrated to present an example which is not a geopark, showing that this concept can also be transferred to a WHS as a tool for sustainable development according the UN 2030 Agenda. The information on the development of the selected examples was obtained by visiting the geopark territory and from the geopark's websites and published material as a combined methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Nature tourism, which includes birdwatching, has experienced a significant boom in recent years, becoming a highly attractive tourist typology. The economic benefit it generates for the destinations in which it develops is accompanied by a greater awareness in society about the importance of conserving its natural resources, which is materialized in a greater channeling of investments aimed at ensuring the correct conservation of natural heritage. Therefore, birdwatching has become a highly sustainable tourist product, with which a beneficial interaction between humans and the environment is achieved. In order to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to know exhaustively what the target market is like, that is, the profile of the birdwatcher; what are their sociodemographic characteristics, how do they behave at their destination, or what characteristics influence a greater probability of doing this practice. The purpose of this work is to identify the main characteristics of the demand in a territory that, due to its excellent endowment of natural resources, can become a priority destination for this type of tourism, the Extremadura region (Spain). Birdwatching is a tourism activity that relates closely to protected natural spaces and that helps contribute to the balance between economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainability. In some European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland), this recreational activity has a large number of followers, making it a new segment of tourist demand with great possibilities for growth. The objective of this study is to identify the main characteristics of the demand for birdwatching in one of the European territories having a high resource supply, as is the case with Extremadura (Spain). To do this, a logit modelization has been proposed in order to estimate the probability of going birdwatching in the region, based on a random sample of over 3000 tourists that visited the region in 2017. This characterization of birdwatching demand was carried out using variables such as gender, age, type of travel, type of lodging, and assessment of tourism services. Given that the national and the foreign demand of this tourism modality may present distinct behaviors, and therefore, specific characterizations, a structural change test (Chow test) was also conducted in order to determine to what extent these two segments of demand, based on the source markets, have (or do not have) distinguishing features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to an efficiency measurement of the maritime industry presented through the joint value of industry stakeholders. A list of factors contributing to the efficiency of the state maritime policy and factors in the development of the maritime industry were defined and separated into four groups: group 1 (infrastructural factors): Renewal of port infrastructure; coastal infrastructure of sea stations; ecological and physical safety; and convenience in reaching the port of departure of a cruise ship; group 2 (management factors): The effectiveness of management mechanisms; the level of automatization and effective communications technologies; the coordination of various types of transport; and the efficiency of port services; group 3 (marketing factors): Tariff policies (tariff amounts, number of port fees, flexibility of the price policy); and competition in the ports; group 4 (service factors): Attractiveness of logistics conditions; the development of international tourism; the development of sea leisure; the development of merchant shipping, shipbuilding, ship repair, and instrument making in the port; and the simplification of port entry procedures. The joint value was considered to be a category at both a macroeconomic and microeconomic level, and it was combined with a multivariate regression model performed on the basis of the statistical analysis and data processing system Statistica 8.0. The complex combination of the results of the multifactorial linear model of the joint value created in the maritime industry led to the conclusion that the best alternative to the development of the port industry in Ukraine is the scenario of state modernization and corporatization in the port business model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international tourism competition poses new challenges to the cruise sector, such as the achievement of the tourists' satisfaction and the increase in on board comfort. Moreover, the growing sophistication of tourists' needs leads to a more user-centric touristic offer. Consequently, a personalized cabin environment, which fits the users' activities and their characteristics, could be a plus value during the cruise vacation. These topics, however, are strictly connected with the diffusion of digital technologies and dynamics, which represent the tools to achieve the goal of a customized on-cruise experience. This paper presents E-Cabin, a novel Internet of Things (IoT) framework architecture that has at its core a reasoning system tuned on data gathered from the environment and from each specific passenger and the activities he/she performs. The framework leverages on knowledge representation with ontologies and consists of a publisher–subscriber communication framework that allows all of the IoT applications to use the reasoner and the provided ontologies. The paper demonstrates the proposed system in a demo cruise cabin where, by using the E-Cabin application, it is possible to set various atmospheres based on the users and activities occurring in the cabin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]