Residents’ Perceptions of Sustainable Tourism Destination Recovery: The Case of Northern Cyprus

As nations and tourism destinations are beginning to relax nonpharmaceutical measures for the prevention of the COVID-19 virus, a major quest of tourism stakeholders is to restart and restore the once viable and productive industry to its prior state. While the urge to restart and restore may necessitate a strategic plan and drastic measures, care must be taken not to undermine the sustainability of the destination. The current study seeks to understand the perceptions of residents of Northern Cyprus as key tourism stakeholders concerning the impacts of COVID-19 to the island’s tourism activities and recommendations for recovery post pandemic. To this end, the study used grounded theory and semistructured interviews to explore how residents perceive the contribution of focused advertisements and stakeholder engagement in the sustainable restoration of tourism activities post COVID-19 on the island. While divergent opinions were gathered, it can be inferred that stakeholders expect the implementation of strategic plans aided by focused advertisements to ensure the sustainability of their tourist destinations. Policy directions and academic contributions are also stated as requirements.

Analysis of Budapest as a Film Tourism Destination

The Hungarian film industry has undergone a huge change recently, becoming a pull sector and repositioning the country in Europe. The economic performance of Budapest's film industry is growing steadily, which has also been facilitated by the strategic steps of recent years, making the capital a key player on the film map of Europe. In the case of Budapest, the diversity of the city is clearly outlined, as it primarily serves as a backdrop for various film productions. Using primary and secondary sources, the research focuses on the supply elements of film tourism in Budapest and the changes in the economic environment affecting the film industry. In the analysis, different types of film tourism are explored through interviews with the actors of film tourism. The research seeks to highlight factors that can boost film tourism in Budapest and make the city even more prominent on the film map of Europe.

Prospect of Promoting Sikkim as a Smart Tourism Destination

Since 2006, Sikkim progressively switching to a full-fledged tourism-centred state having declared it a predominant industry as an engine for its economic growth. The state accounted for the highest influx of foreign tourists amongst the eight north eastern states of India during the last 20 years or so. The smart city mission was commissioned by government of India as a centrally sponsored scheme destined to provide financial support for the allotted cities to the extent of INR. 100 Crore per city per year spanning over five years. Studies suggest that induction of smart city concept will act as precursor for growth of smart tourism destinations (STDs) across the country. The STD as a concept revolves around “6A's,” an essential ingredient for promoting smart tourism in destinations. Incidentally, two cities in Sikkim have been enlisted amongst the top 100 cities in India for promoting smart city, instrumental in promoting STD in tourism-driven states. The chapter delves into the concept of smart city as an antecedent for promoting STD along with conditions with respect to Sikkim.

Destination's Image and Tourism Experiences

The development of world tourism and the increase in the number of tourism destinations has led to the development of competition. Therefore, to gain a competitive advantage, efforts to create a destination image have gained importance. It is necessary to create an image for the destinations and communicate this image clearly to the visitor. An accurate and effective strategy should be pursued in the creation of the destination image, and the impression and perception that will create behavioural intention should be given importance. It is very important to include tourism experiences because of the undeniable necessity of managing and marketing services and experience in tourism. Destination image consists of the sum of the information individuals have about a region, their experiences, and impressions. Therefore, effective and efficient use of tourism experiences is very important for a positive destination image.

Experiencing the Story

The importance of destination image in film tourism has been recognized by scholars and practitioners. However, despite a large number of research papers related to the destination image within the field of film tourism, several issues remain unclear. This chapter provides insights into how movies influence the featured destination's image by focusing on specific film tourists' perceptions, their motivations, and emotional relation to the movies. The chapter begins by offering a film tourism definition followed by film tourist typology with the context of film fans. Then, factors influencing film tourism destination image are examined, in particular destination marketing activities, film-specific factors, and destination attributes. Two case studies will also be provided to better showcase the findings from the literature review. Theoretical and practical implications are also presented.

Complexity of Tourism Destination Governance

Tourism destinations can be considered as complex systems of interrelated and interdependent stakeholders. The complexity and limited power of influencing the number of stakeholders resulted in network approach to tourism destination governance. This approach is considered both theoretically and practically as a tool for strengthening its sustainable competitiveness, fostering innovation and knowledge sharing. Although the network analysis of tourism destinations has gained a significant attention in recent years, the complex understanding of its contribution to smart development is still missing. The aim of this chapter is to create a framework for smart approach in destination governance using the network science perspective. The chapter provides insights in using network analysis for strengthening the tourism destination governance. The chapter uses a case study methodology on two mature tourism destinations, providing an example of the use of network analysis for destination governance strengthening.

Georgetown as a Gastronomy Tourism Destination

Nasi Kandar is one of the most favourable delicacies for tourists when visiting Penang. However, the hygiene level in most of Nasi Kandar restaurants has slumped lately. Thus, the purpose of this study is to describe the relationship between visitor awareness towards revisit intention to Nasi Kandar restaurants. Three hundred eighty-four respondents from Penang Island were accessed using a simple random sampling. The results revealed that there is a positive relationship between visitor awareness and revisit intention. Price and service eventually give a strongly positive impact towards revisit intention. This result will help the local authorities to increase the quality and hygiene of Nasi Kandar in Penang, hence bring more tourists to visit this tourism destination.

Importance-Performance Analysis of Tourism Destination Attractiveness

This chapter presents an importance-performance analysis to evaluate the ability of a destination's attributes to attract tourists through tourism stakeholder perceptions. In this case, one of Europe's larger destination cities, Lisbon, was considered. It departs from the proposition that tourists are not the most knowledgeable about a destination while the evaluation of a destination's competitiveness from the supply side perspective is scarce. This stakeholder feedback approach to identifying a destination's attributes to attract tourists showed that only 7 of the 40 attributes (five of them related to accessibility and technological infrastructures as municipality responsibility) fall in the IPA grid Concentrate Here quadrant, results that are consistent with the recently received Best City Destination and Best City Break World Travel Awards. This research shows the relevance of multiple stakeholders' feedback to evaluate a city's attributes, including the feedback about the city's need to improve its technological offer through an integrated digital strategy.