Smart tourism technologies (STTs) have dramatically changed the travel experience since they can provide customized services on demand. STT customization relies on massive amounts of data collected from users, which has raised privacy concerns among travelers. STT's potential to contribute to tourism sustainability is constrained when users’ privacy concerns inhibit their use of the technology. Drawing on protection motivation theory (PMT), this study examines the antecedents and consequences of travelers’ privacy concerns and protection intentions as well as the role of trust in STT service providers in mitigating threats and coping appraisals. Quantitative data from 550 travelers to major destinations in China with well-established STT implementation were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings confirm the significant impact of perceived susceptibility to data breaches on privacy concerns and the impact of perceived severity of privacy threats and coping self-efficacy on protection intentions. Trust in STT providers significantly reduced perceived susceptibility and enhanced coping appraisal. Furthermore, privacy concerns and protection intentions significantly influenced traveler satisfaction and destination loyalty, mediated by satisfaction. Implications are given for empowering travelers and building trust in STT providers. Future research should incorporate privacy concerns as a key factor limiting the potential of STTs to support sustainable tourism.

Despite the growing market for grandtravel (grandparent–grandchild travel) within the field of senior tourism, research remains limited on the behavior of grandparents who engage in grandtravel across diverse tourist destinations. Adopting a means-end chain (MEC) approach, this study proposes a cognitive framework for grandparents’ grandtravel experiences based on 50 soft laddering interviews. By identifying 14 destination attributes, 10 consequences, and 5 distinct values embedded in grandparents’ grandtravel experiences and elucidating their connections, the analysis provides valuable theoretical insights into grandtravel and destination marketing. Drawing on grandparents’ narratives of their grandtravel experiences, this study highlights the complexity and depth of intergenerational exchanges uniquely fostered by grandtravel, thereby distinguishing it from general senior tourism. Additionally, this research explores the cultural context, revealing how deeply embedded Chinese cultural values significantly shape grandparents’ destination perceptions and choices. These insights not only deepen the scholarly understanding of senior tourism but also offer nuanced, narrative-rich implications for destination managers and marketers seeking to authentically engage senior tourists within intergenerational contexts.

Risky recreation consumption (e.g., bungee jumping) has grown rapidly across the globe with Europe representing the largest market, compared to the Asia-Pacific area. However, seldom does research examine risky recreation consumption from a cultural perspective, although its consumption growth shows great differences across regions. This article investigates how power distance belief (hereafter PDB), as an important cultural dimension, affects risky recreation consumption. We propose that PDB decreases risky recreation consumption via sensation seeking. Perceived economic mobility is proposed to moderate the above effect so that consumers with low (vs. high) PDB are more (vs. less) likely to engage in risky recreation consumption when they perceive high (vs. low) economic mobility. We demonstrate these effects with six studies. Study 1a reveals a negative correlation between chronic PDB and risky recreation consumption. Study 1b primes PDB to establish a causal relationship between PDB and general risky recreation consumption propensity. Study 1c manipulates PDB to establish a causal relationship between PDB and specific risky recreation consumption activities. Study 1d enhances the generalizability of the focal relationship by using a different set of risky recreation consumption activities. Study 2 tests the mediating role of sensation seeking, and Study 3 examines perceived economic mobility as the boundary condition for the above relationship. Companies in the risky recreation industry could benefit from our findings in understanding different ways of communicating with high- versus low-PDB consumers.

This exploratory study gathers insights about the heterogeneity in guest interest in wellness activities at leading wellness resorts in Southeast Asia. Specific objectives are to investigate the efficacy of theoretically derived strategies for dealing with wellness guest heterogeneity and to explore how wellness resorts manage positive and negative operational aspects. The significance of the study derives from (a) the booming nature of the global wellness resort sector, (b) confusion about who is a wellness guest, and (c) the lack of a management perspective in previous related studies. The multi-method qualitative study obtained data from three different sources and revealed five themes. The findings illustrate the innovative tactics used by resorts to manage negative trigger points. However, the incongruence of the traditional strategic approach for the recruitment of wellness guests with wellness principles suggests that a more adaptive style of management would be beneficial.

While accessible tourism has gained traction, memorable tourism experience (MTE) research has largely overlooked how people with disabilities construct and interpret meaningful travel. This study addresses that gap through autophotography and photo elicitation with 57 people with disabilities to show that MTE dimensions are shaped by uneven, embodied processes influenced by inclusion, exclusion, and stigma. We reframe MTE by centring agency, affect, and identity and identify five mechanisms central to their memorability: autonomy, identity exploration, creative expression, personal achievement, and experiential learning. These led to outcomes tied to people with disabilities’ self-esteem, self-awareness, self-affirmation, self-efficacy, and self-growth. We provide recommendations for tourism marketing, helping destinations design and communicate experiences that resonate emotionally and meaningfully with people with disabilities.

The rise of social media and online social interaction has significantly contributed to the field of tourism marketing. However, the underlying mechanism of member–member social interactions (M-MSI) in online tourism communities (OTCs) and their emotional benefits remain underexplored. Grounded in social penetration and social exchange theories, this study investigates how the self-driven mechanism of M-MSI, which comprises online social support (OSS), social capital (OSC), and social cohesion (OSN) enhances co-creation experiences (hedonic, social, and cognitive) fosters brand love. An analysis of survey data from 535 Chinese OTCs members using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) revealed that OSS promoted OSC and OSN, with OSC further facilitating OSN. Moreover, high-quality M-MSI significantly strengthens brand love through co-creation experiences, a relationship positively moderated by affordances. Additionally, a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to identify six configurational paths to brand love, supplementing linear model limitations. These findings expand the understanding of OTCs experience management and underscore the marketing potential of sustained emotional value co-creation through optimized M-MSI.

Immersive technology has become an effective tool for stimulating consumer interest in tourism destinations. However, its application in ecotourism, particularly in promoting tourists’ responsible behavior at destinations, remains underexplored. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, environmental psychology theory, and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study investigates how multidimensional stimuli of immersive virtual environments influence tourists’ intention to engage in responsible behavior through their effects on attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms. Based on an environmental psychology perspective, the stimuli are categorized into three dimensions: functional (telepresence), emotional (vividness), and social (social presence and connectedness), integrating findings from prior research on immersive virtual environments. The study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze data from 481 respondents who watched a 360-degree online immersive ecotourism video. Results show that telepresence positively affects attitude and perceived behavioral control; vividness positively influences perceived behavioral control but has no significant effect on attitude; social presence and connectedness positively influence attitude and subjective norms. Attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms positively predict tourists’ intention to engage in responsible behavior. Furthermore, imagination proclivity is a significant moderating trait that amplifies the effects of virtual environment stimuli. This study contributes to the literature on tourism marketing, responsible tourist behavior, and the application and development of the S-O-R model, environmental psychology theory, and TPB.

Rapid dissemination of information on social media challenges effective destination image management. Through text mining, this study explores how public emotions triggered by the tourism crisis event on social media affect users’ engagement behavior. It is found that specific discrete emotions—particularly anger and love—significantly enhance user engagement, identifying them as the most influential negative and positive drivers, respectively. Unlike previous studies that merely consider the presence or absence of emojis, this research shows that a higher proportion of emoji use weakens the impact of these emotional drivers. The study further uncovers the internal structure and the dynamic evolution of high-impact emotions using structural topic modeling. These findings provide actionable insights for tourism stakeholders, enabling them to refine public opinion strategies and respond swiftly to online emotion shifts.

Transmedia storytelling, an emerging marketing strategy in themed entertainment, involves extending stories across different media platforms. Its success is partly attributed to prior knowledge effects, where imparting visitors with specific story world knowledge prior to their visit enhances attraction experiences at the destination that are part of a shared transmedia storytelling universe. With lacking theoretical framing and empirical support, our aim was to unravel the underlying dynamics of such prior knowledge effects and to assess their effectiveness. Drawing on media entertainment theory, we hypothesize that prior knowledge facilitates enhanced understanding of the narrative content of theme park attractions, resulting in heightened emotions and ultimately better evaluated attraction experiences. We tested this hypothesis by collecting questionnaire and skin conductance data from theme park visitors engaging with transmedia storytelling practices surrounding a dark ride attraction in a European theme park destination. The collected data support our hypothesis and provide evidence for the role of enhanced narrative understanding as the key driver of the effect. To enhance the effectiveness of transmedia storytelling strategies, themed entertainment destinations are recommended to incorporate key backstory elements in previsit media to enrich visitors’ understanding of the narrative content presented in their attractions.

This study aims to examine the effects of social media influencers’ sponsorship disclosure on social media users’ behavioral outcomes (i.e., influencer avoidance and destination avoidance) and whether social media users’ expectancy violation mediates these relationships. One factor, two conditions, and between subjects experimental design is employed across three studies. Study 1 was conducted with a fictitious influencer, and Study 2 and Study 3 corroborated the results with a real influencer in cross-cultural contexts. Study 1 found that explicit sponsorship disclosures about promoting a tourism destination by travel influencers increased influencer and destination avoidance. Study 2 and Study 3 revalidated these relationships. All studies show that users’ expectancy violation mediated the relationships. Thus, this research extends the discussion from consumer marketing to the tourism domain by illuminating social media users’ negative behavioral outcomes (i.e., influencer avoidance and destination avoidance) toward travel influencers’ brand-paid promotions through the expectancy violation lens. Furthermore, this study contributes by examining the effect of influencer-destination brand sponsorship, presenting a novel amalgamation of consumer psychology and the tourism domain.