Dr Kyriaki Glyptou

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd With the remaining ambiguity around COVID-19 effective treatment, the decision-making process for 2020 tourists remains fraught with complexity. Drawing from a sample of 385 permanent Athenian residents, the study explores the decision-making attributes driving their accommodation purchasing preferences in times of increased uncertainty. The complex dynamics are investigated using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. A complementary analysis evaluates the size effect of the examined conditions using Necessary Condition Analysis. In total, four solutions are generated concerning: (i) health and safety; (ii) the price-quality nexus; (iii) risk aspects; and (iv) quality related health and safety. The study contributes towards the initiation of the theoretical discourse on the foundations of the exploration of tourists’ accommodation choice triggers and dilemmas in times of pandemics. The results inform market intelligence with regard to accommodation-related customer priorities, perceptions and intentions during the pandemic which lay several important managerial implications for the accommodation industry.

In an era of a perceived need for certain levels of standardization within the supply and management of tourism products and destinations, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have brought sustainability to the forefront as a primary management objective. In general, the literature notes that sustainable tourism models or frameworks remain rather sparse which is particularly noteworthy given that Target 12.b of the SDGs acknowledges the importance of monitoring in the pursuit of sustainable development. The disconnect between aspirations and applications of sustainable development indicators is reflected in the way key international tourism organizations address the issue of monitoring. This chapter argues that the first step to redefine sustainable tourism development indicators relies on the ideology, norms, and beliefs of decision-makers. Building from the theory of Le Gales and Lascoumes on the governance of indicators, this chapter sheds light on the ideology and the mechanisms behind established sustainable tourism indicators. Moreover, it questions how indicators can actually support in the fulfilment of the ambitious SDGs agenda. Finally, the chapter discusses the transition from ideologies to indicators by suggesting a third-order change to support the aspirations of the SDGs and its application to tourism.

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd The aim of this study is to evaluate the operating efficiency and productivity changes of the Greek airports, during the first years of the severe economic crisis in Greece (2010–2014), by using two methods: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist Productivity index (MPI). Findings have shown that, despite the dramatic effects of the economic crisis on the socio-economic life of the country, overall airport efficiency and productivity improved, mainly due to exogenous factors such as international tourism growth. The MPI reveals that over the period of the study, airports have experienced an annual average increase in total factor productivity (TFP) of 0.9% (an increase of 3.6% over the examined period). On examining the components of this productivity change, it becomes evident that this is due to the combination of both positive (a slight progress) annual average technology change (0.5%) and technical efficiency change (0.4%). The results also indicate that 65.8% of airports have an increase in average TFP during the period 2010–2014, ranging between 0.4% and 20%. However, as Greek airports operate at poor levels of efficiency, there is still considerable space for improvements in most of the airports.

Customer co-creation feeds from customer engagement, value recognition and experience appreciation. Tourists participation in the image communication of a destination in adversity is well documented along literature addressing their motivations and their reliability as information intelligence. What remains still vague is an exploration of the above dynamics in the case of destinations in sustained crisis hence the customer predispositions for destinations under an extended duration yet reduced intensity turbulent destination image. Using Lesvos (Greece) as a case study of a destination affected by refugee and immigrant mobilities since 2012, this paper explores those constructs affecting tourists’ response and engagement in the formulation, promotion and hence co-creation of an affected destinations’ cognitive and affective image. The theoretical contribution of the paper lies in the exploration of the conscious and unconscious tourist triggers that could promote the co-repair and co-restoration of a long-affected destination’ image, with direct managerial implications both for destination and crisis management.

Major street events, such as carnivals, offer a unique opportunity for destination experience value co‐creation by participants which relates directly to the destination image. This study uses service‐dominant logic (SDL) to consider the effects of event co‐creation on destination image from the point of view of a participatory process rather than from an outcome perspective. Drawing from a sample of 400 street event participants in the Patras Carnival in Greece, it examines the complexity aspects of co‐creational experience and its influence upon the destination image of the host city. Those aspects are examined by means of fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis. The findings revealed three sufficient configurations (co‐creational involvement and satisfaction; co‐creational event image; experience‐satisfaction nexus) that could affect the destination image of the host destination. The paper contributes to the theoretical body of experiential co‐creational approaches to destination image with clear managerial implications for both event organizers and destination managers.

The resilience of events has been primarily entangled to the recovery and coping capacity of the host destination. This approach considers events to be destination-dependent, omitting sufficient consideration on an event’s internal systemic dynamics that dictate its inherent self-organising and adapting capacity to externalities at operational level. This study adopts a systems thinking approach to explore the dynamic interface of interacting elements, attributes and actors that dictate an event’s identity, structure and behaviour, as grounding foundations of its operational resilience independently to the hosting destination. Resilience thinking has been employed through the exploration of the seven principles of Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) resilience. Building on the contextualisation of academic events, the study applied a qualitative research design to explore perceptions, attitudes and experiences of primary academic event stakeholders (participants, attendees, keynotes, members of event academic committee and members of event organisation) during the period of Covid-19 pandemic. Research findings contribute to the conceptualisation and operationalisation of operational academic and business event resilience, through the identification of enablers and inhibitors from the perspective of primary stakeholders. From a managerial perspective, research findings inform event contingencies and management during times of system disturbance with the aim to ensure event viability and multi-stakeholder value satisfaction.

The adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set the strategic vision for the next decade. Yet, their operationalisation, more so, at the tourism industry and destination level is fraught with challenges leaving destination managers and tourism officials to appeal for meaningful and effective decision support tools. This paper addresses the academic and institutional recommendations for monitoring and implementing the SDGs in the tourism sector. It introduces a systems thinking framework (the Tourism Sustainability Assessment Framework (TSAF)) for delineating the dependencies and dynamics of variables and monitoring indicators in a tourism industry versus tourism destination ecosystem of relationships. The TSAF proposes a roadmap for integrating information and data from the various nationally adopted tourism statistics frameworks to effectuate the assessment of tourism sustainability. A comparison along with the SDG indicators then accentuates the importance and necessity for industry-specific, effective units of measurement.

Customer co-creation feeds from customer engagement, value recognition and experience appreciation. Tourists participation in the image communication of a destination in adversity is well documented along literature addressing their motivations and their reliability as information intelligence. What remains still vague is an exploration of the above dynamics in the case of destinations in sustained crisis hence the customer predispositions for destinations under an extended duration yet reduced intensity turbulent destination image. Using Lesvos (Greece) as a case study of a destination affected by refugee and immigrant mobilities since 2012, this paper explores those constructs affecting tourists’ response and engagement in the formulation, promotion and hence co-creation of an affected destinations’ cognitive and affective image. The theoretical contribution of the paper lies in the exploration of the conscious and unconscious tourist triggers that could promote the co-repair and co-restoration of a long-affected destination’ image, with direct managerial implications both for destination and crisis management.

Within the globalized tourism market, tourism destinations have the option to turn to sustainability as a conceptual and management framework for their unique branding and identity proposition. This research highlights the importance and utility of sustainability branding that stems from clustering tourism destinations based on the similarities of their tourism performance attributes. The study builds on secondary data from 11 coastal destinations in 8 Mediterranean countries. The analysis leads to the formulation of three main sets of evaluation indicators: (a) environmental footprint; (b) destination dependency on tourism; and (c) locals’ prosperity, incorporating elements of social and psychological carrying capacity. Findings identify three to four distinct destination clusters based mainly on the attributes of destinations’ cultural and natural attributes, seasonality of supply, typology of prevailing accommodation and tourist profile. From a theoretical perspective, the research identifies key clustering attributes of sustainable destinations that could inform management interventions around destination branding and competitive sustainability performance positioning.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), in Northern Tanzania, was among the first areas established as Multiple Land Use Model (MLUM) to foster coexistence between wildlife and the semi‑nomadic Maasai community. Over time, growing tourism interest in the Maasai and the gradual transition towards a service economy contributed to nomadic sedentarisation and population growth straining NCA’s resilience as a Socio‑Ecological System (SES). This paper builds on Political Ecology and Systems Theory to assess the MLUM’s effectiveness amidst expanding tourism development and a growing local population within UNESCO‑designated Biosphere Reserves. A two‑decade analysis of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes in the NCA uncovers the long‑term impacts of sixty years of policy interventions and the associated dynamic interactions and feedback‑loops between ecosystem services, tourism‑driven human activity, market pressures and evolving socio‑cultural values. By integrating these theoretical lenses, the study offers a nuanced exploration of the complexity surrounding Biosphere SES transitions and resilience amidst tourism development. The findings emphasize the enduring tensions among conservation goals, tourism expansion, and the evolving socio‑economic needs of indigenous communities, challenging the adaptability of MLUM to balance development in Biosphere Reserves while upholding cultural and environmental integrity overtime.

In an era of economic crisis and serious environmental constraints, the transition to sustainability enters dynamically the debate over long-term preservation and welfare at a systemic level. Tourism is a resource- (capital, human and natural) demanding sector; this paper explores the variety and diversity of methodological approaches and tools employed in the evaluation of tourism, and their potential to support sustainability-oriented assessments and practices. Ranging from traditional economics-oriented frameworks to assessments of impact and ecological footprint, this paper discusses the prevailing assessment frameworks of specific tourism dimensions heading towards the integrative approaches for Tourism Sustainability Assessment. The review highlights that despite the widespread acceptance of the concept and the international consensus on the importance of its operationalization, the transition towards tourism sustainability remains still a complicated and rather problematic endeavour. © 2014 IEEE.

Traditional cultural events provide unique opportunities for resident-attendee destination experience and image co-creation, yet the cognitive, perceptual and behavioural disparities between these key actor groups remain rather sparse. Focusing on the process rather than the outcome of co-creation, this paper adopts a Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) to explore the underlying dynamics of social and economic actor encounters and their role in service value and image co-creation and destination resource management. More specifically, the study applies a mixed method approach to study the interface of social and psychological carrying capacity during the Easter Rocket War in Chios (Greece). Building on the particularities of this traditional event, the research identifies variables that trigger cognitive and perceptual conflicts of interests that may jeopardise an event’s and a destination’s image co-creation process, resulting in its co-destruction. Research findings contribute to the broader event image co-creation and destination branding body of literature, though the exploration of the underlying dynamics of multi-stakeholder and multi-attribute event dimensions (cultural, spiritual, historical, recreational). From a managerial perspective, research findings aim to inform destination planning and decision-making processes that dictate event viability, publicity and multi-stakeholder satisfaction.

The current consensus on Sustainable Tourism Development emphasizes the necessity for all tourist planning and policy making decisions to consider the impacts of tourism activity on all three dimensions of sustainability: economic efficiency referring to the capacity of an economy to be competitive, social justice aiming at the better distribution of produced welfare in the society and environmental preservation as the conservation of ecosystem’s capacity to provide humans with goods and services essential for their survival.A successful evaluation of the tourism activity presupposes the extensive examination of certain elements of the tourism product itself (expressed as characteristics of supply, demand and the organization of the tourist market), along a series of parameters related directly to the tourism products (effects), and indirectly to its implications for the destination (impacts). This paper presents a methodological framework for an integrated evaluation and monitoring of the tourism activity, in support of planners and policy makers towards both tourism and regional policy.A case study on the island of Samos in Greece is employed to demonstrate the scope of the methodology based on real data, its potential value but also its limits. The results of the study indicate that tourism remains the main developmental force in the island for over two decades without unfortunately, succeeding to deviate from the rule of decreasing tendencies, of similar mass tourism destination.

The paper explores the predisposition of domestic and international urban tourists of Athens, Greece, to pay an app‐calculated green levy based on the carbon footprint (CF) of their hotel stay. The study employs fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the complex configurations between the effects of the sustainable hotel profile, disposable income for tourism, digital literacy, knowledge around CF, and environmental behavior during hotel stay on guests' willingness to pay for the technology‐calculated green levy appropriated to their individual behavior. fsQCA produced three sufficient pathways, namely, pragmatistic, environmental conscious, and opportunistic, as plausible customer profiles. Findings are compared against other dominant correlational modes of analysis to highlight the underlying complexity of tourist behavior and hence the need for the application for non‐parametric methods of analysis. The theoretical contribution of the paper lies in the integration of the concepts of digital literacy, environmental awareness, and behavior‐based levies. Technology‐enabled and self‐controlled tools can support transparent and appropriated green levies and promote ownership of carbon offsetting in the hospitality industry.

Abstract Purpose This study aims to explore the interface of competitive productivity (CP) levels in times of turbulence. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from a sample of 507 Athenian holidaymakers, the study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the chaordic systems amongst perceived risks (social; destination; price; quality) in tourism purchasing intentions. It considers three grouping variables (age; monthly income; trip [domestic; overseas]). It further evaluates the effect sizes of those risks upon purchasing intentions by complementary using necessary condition analysis (NCA). Findings fsQCA revealed three sufficient configurations: price-quality nexus (micro); generated experience (meso) and perceived destination image (macro). NCA showcased that the effect size of the examined perceived risks is relatively low, while destination risks have the highest impact. Research limitations/implications Only a few studies use fsQCA and NCA in the field of tourism and hospitality studies thus, their full potential and implications of exploring the interface of tourism decision-making components with CP levels are still unexplored. Originality/value This is the first study examining the nonlinearity of risk-induced decision-making triggers of holidaymakers affected by the recession in line with the principles of CP. Its theoretical contribution lays in the exploration of the interface of CP and its three levels of application (micro [tourist], meso [firm/business], macro [destination]) in times of turbulence. Managerially, it strengthens the assumption that CP and customer loyalty are strongly associated even in times of turbulence when destinations and firms should make a strong point to maintain their competitive edge. Methodologically, the study highlights the value of fsQCA for identifying multiple pathways, a relatively new method in tourism. Furthermore, it introduces NCA, a new complementary method in tourism research.

Tourism destination resilience relates to a destination’s ability to adapt, transform, and self-organise in order to ensure enhanced system performances and quality tourism experiences. Smart tourism emerging transformations bring ‘smartness’ into tourism destinations allowing the interconnection of multiple stakeholders through dynamic platforms mediated by Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This supports the prompt information exchange through machine-to-machine learning algorithms which enhance the decision-making process while encompassing attributes of innovation, inclusivity, connectivity, accessibility, and poly-centricity. Smart tourism destinations thus offer an optimal ground for the exploration of emerging transformations that dictate tourism destination system foundations, as well as the level of elasticity in system element interactions and interlinkages which define a destination’s resilience. This book chapter aims to explore the structural and operational advantages of smart tourism emerging transformations in the pursuit of destination resilience. Building on the case study of Glasgow, the first smart city in the UK, this chapter delineates smart tourism interventions and transformations that contribute directly and indirectly to the continuous improvement of tourism performance and experience, as well the optimisation of a destination’s resources in the benefit of its competitiveness and resilience.

Tourism destination resilience relates to a destination’s ability to adapt, transform, and self-organise in order to ensure enhanced system performances and quality tourism experiences. Smart tourism emerging transformations bring ‘smartness’ into tourism destinations allowing the interconnection of multiple stakeholders through dynamic platforms mediated by Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This supports the prompt information exchange through machine-to-machine learning algorithms which enhance the decision-making process while encompassing attributes of innovation, inclusivity, connectivity, accessibility, and poly-centricity. Smart tourism destinations thus offer an optimal ground for the exploration of emerging transformations that dictate tourism destination system foundations, as well as the level of elasticity in system element interactions and interlinkages which define a destination’s resilience. This book chapter aims to explore the structural and operational advantages of smart tourism emerging transformations in the pursuit of destination resilience. Building on the case study of Glasgow, the first smart city in the UK, this chapter delineates smart tourism interventions and transformations that contribute directly and indirectly to the continuous improvement of tourism performance and experience, as well the optimisation of a destination’s resources in the benefit of its competitiveness and resilience.

Our presentation reports on a Living Lab research project set up in 2022 by Leeds Beckett University and The Travel Foundation to explore the practical support needed by destinations to commit to and implement Climate Action under the Glasgow Climate Declaration (GCD). The aim being to understand the enablers and barriers to climate action for destinations. Principally the research sought to: •Examine the state of development of Climate Action Plans (CAPs) across a sample of signatory destinations; •Examine the issues involved, challenges and enablers in developing CAPs; and •Elicit the barriers to involvement in the GCD and CAPs amongst a sample of non- signatory destinations (primarily from the Global South). Desk research facilitated two subsequent rounds of data collection. First, one-to-one online interviews were held with 17 signatory destination management organisations (DMOs) comprising national, regional, and local (city/town) levels. The DMOs provided geographic representation from North America, Latin America, and Europe. Second, to understand the barriers and challenges to climate action planning, 7 online interviews/focus groups took place with 12 participants from a sample of non-signatories to the Glasgow Climate Declaration. Representation within this group was predominantly from national organisations and the geographic representation was from Africa and Latin America. The empirical research findings highlighted key barriers as (but not limited to) a lack of clear and relevant climate policies and regulation; lack of funds; poor understanding of the scope and sphere of the destination management organisation itself; literacy, and technical knowledge across the destination; and a lack of data sharing and user-friendly measurement tools. In contrast enablers included a clear mandate and resources available for the CAP; availability and use of funding; integrated, clear, and effective governance to mainstream climate action; strong partnerships and effective communication to engage all stakeholders; and climate literacy training; advocacy and capacity building across the destination. To this end our research identified several areas in which Climate Action Planning can be moved forward, namely via guidance on how to develop CAPs; clarity on climate action communication and terminology; knowledge exchange and transfer; and clarification of stakeholder roles and responsibilities.

This paper analyses policies and practices designed to support digital transformation in the tourism workforce in six OECD countries, namely Germany, Greece, Iceland, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Data for the project were gathered via a questionnaire survey, interviews with key informants and examination of various policy documents in 2021. Contrasting practice in relation to digital skills development is revealed. Significant deficiencies are evident in relation to the availability of high-quality data, evaluation, understanding, leadership, and infrastructure among the six countries. Ways in which effective policy development might emerge are suggested.