thesis on travel and tourism

Travel & Tourism Bachelor Master Thesis Topics

When I did my master’s degree in economics, I strongly considered writing about something related to travel and tourism. That part of the world has always interested me. I’ve always been a traveler – and will hopefully always be one. In the process of finding out what to write for my own thesis, I spent probably 100 hours investigating different bachelor/master topics that in some way can be related to the travel industry. Personally, I went on writing about how Scandinavian companies could benefit from taking their manufacturing process home from SouthEast Asia. But that left me with a lot of travel/tourism-related topics that I want to share with you – for free. Let’s start.

Table of Contents

Categories of travel/tourism thesis topics, eco-tourism: traveling and its environmental impact, tourism marketing: what inspires people to travel, other tourist marketing thesis ideas, economic development, politics: how can people in power determine where tourists go, digital nomads: earn money online & travel anywhere, domestic traveling: why do people travel in their own country, the sharing economy in tourism, did you find something interesting, other “topic thesis articles”.

I’ve divided this article into the following different categories:

These are the main topics that I will let you know more about in this article.

If you are a student looking for thesis topics related to tourism/travel, I will strongly recommend you to keep reading.

I’ll provide you with unique, high-quality, and very specific thesis suggestions that you can steal (for free). And if you’re not satisfied with the ones I have suggested, feel free to drop a question in the comment section.

I usually answer everyone in between 0-24 hours.

Enough off-topic. You came here for the thesis topics. Let’s get to it.

First of all, I’ve written some articles about this that might help you to understand the concept better:

• Ecotourism – How can I travel more environmentally friendly?
• What are the positive environmental impacts of tourism?

Now that you’ve read through those articles (…or have you? 😉 ), I’ll go to some specific thesis topics that I considered writing about.

Specific topic suggestion: What will happen with the new wave of Indian and Chinese travelers?

Many environmentalists are seriously worried about the economic growth in high-population countries like China and India. The reason for that is clear:

The more money people get between their hands, the more likely are they to get on an airplane and fly.

As you might already know, airplanes have been proven to leave a HUGE environmental impact. So should we be worried about the two graphs seen below…?

China GDP growth

Number of international travelers from China between 2001-2015

The answer is: yes. We should be worried. But how worried should we be?

That’s for you to find out. 🙂

PS! If you’re interested in this topic, I would strongly suggest that you read this article published in traveldailynews.com . The author explains how there is a correlation between economic growth in one region and the willingness to travel abroad from the people living in that region/country.

Other thesis topic suggestions related to eco-tourism

• Do most people care at all about the environmental footprint that they leave when going on a holiday? BBC published an article called “ Should we give up flying for the sake of the climate? “
• In my article about eco-tourism, I gave loads of examples of places that have been destroyed by mass tourism . It would be interesting to see what the people of Venice, Italy think about the massive number of cruise ships sailing into their city every day….(video can be seen below).

This video had you thinking, right?

Well, let’s move on to our next main topic: tourism marketing.

If you look back at the mid 90s, you would often see ads on TV featuring exotic travel destinations with crystal clear water and white sand beaches. These commercials don’t appear on the TV anymore. Now we get inspired somewhere else. But where?

Topic 1: Social media

Social media is now a larger part of the marketing budget for almost every travel company. This is one of the topics that I was researching the most, and therefore I got loads of specific suggestions:

• Analyze how different airlines use different strategies to get in touch with and interact with potential customers on Facebook.

Pictures above : Instagram pages of KLM and American Airlines. They have a very different strategy on Instagram in regards to the pictures they upload. Why do they have that? Who succeeds the most? How frequently do they update posts? Do these airlines also comment on other posts? There are loads of things to investigate on such a topic!

• I would love to contact a big hotel chain and ask how they try to reach their audience through social media.
• How do airlines and hotels work with “user-generated content”? Many backpacker hostels give away free breakfast if someone post a picture of themselves on Instagram “tagging” the official hotel account.

A company called amara-marketing.com has published a case study on how hotels use social media. In this article , they feature the most successful hotel chains.

Might be worth checking out.

Topic 2: Travel “influencers”

There are (loads of) people out there that have a huge follower base on Instagram/Facebook. Many of them are paid by hotels and airlines to promote their products and services.

Is that a good or a bad thing?

Does it make us travel somewhere just to get disappointed?

I mean…it’s quite a big difference between social media and real life sometimes.

You could investigate topics like:

• Can we trust “travel influencer marketing” anymore? Or is it all paid for and fake?
• What do these travel influencers get paid every time? How big of a business model is it for “influencers”?
• Is this type of influencer marketing more or less efficient compared to the more traditional tourism marketing?

Research tips: A great way to do research for this type of thesis would be to get in touch with both a travel influencer AND a hotel that uses this type of marketing to reach new customers. Try to find some good research questions that can discover problems or difficulties in having influencers as a part of your marketing strategy.

• Ask a group of people where they got inspired when they researched their last holiday. Compare a group of 50 year-olds to a group of 18-year-olds. Are there any differences in how they do “travel research”?
• Contact a company that produces and sells physical travel magazines. Are sales declining due to the massive amount of free information online?
• Despite the hype, AirBNB has not totally taken over the accommodation market. According to BusinessInsider , loads of travelers do still prefer to live in hotels. Why? Do most people know about the advantages of using AirBNB?

Instead of giving in-depth thoughts about these sub-topics, I’ll go straight to some research questions that I considered using:

• What happened to the economies of tourist agencies during the Covid-19 pandemic?
• How much of Thailands’ economy is based on tourism? What happens when tourists disappear?
• How much money goes out of Norway every summer due to the fact that 1 million people travel abroad? Does tourism overall have a negative impact on Norway’s’ economy?
• Which nationalities spend the most money when they’re traveling? According to Statista.com , Chinese tourists spend a staggering ~250 billion (with a B) dollars abroad every year. 🙂

Hot tips: In order to do proper research, I would contact someone to make some interviews when you researched this. These are some examples of people to contact:

• A group of Chinese people to ask why they spend so much on luxury clothing when they’re abroad
• A hotel in Thailand to ask how they survived the Covid-19 crisis
• Some business owner that went bankrupt due to the lack of tourists in 2020
• And a lot more…

Ooooh, this is a topic that I know quite a lot about.

As a previous expat in China, I met a lot of people that had traveled to North Korea to “experience something crazy”.

My first reaction was:

“How can you allow yourself to put money into that country? Do you find that to be OK?”

Surprisingly, a lot of people had no problem supporting North Korea. That’s why this is an extremely interesting topic to discover more.

Tourism Politics thesis topic ideas

• I’ll just continue on my previously mentioned example. Contact a group of people that have been to North Korea. Why did they go? Did they have any problems supporting a regime that spends money on nuclear weapons instead of food for their inhabitants?
• What happens to tourism in a country when they experience a radical and negative shift in power? For instance, you could look at how the 2009 terrorist attacks in Cairo or the Egyptian revolution had an impact on tourism in Northern Africa around 2008-2012.
• Certain countries have super strict visa policies. Gather a group of people and ask them if they refuse to visit certain countries because of expensive visas – or long visa processes with a lot of paperwork. That would be super interesting to find out. 🙂

Even though it might be a small topic to write about, I have yet to see someone writing a good bachelor or master thesis about digital nomads .

Most people are not familiar with the concept so I’ll explain it very quick.

Certain people ( like me …) have an online income. That means we are not dependent on a physical destination to do our work. All we need is access to the Internet.

As you might already have figured out; that gives a lot of freedom. And a lot of young people use online income as an excuse to travel to low-cost countries and live their life.

Even though this might seem like a niche topic, there are many things you could use as your research question:

• Why do people decide to become digital nomads? High living cost back home? Are they going on an adventure? Do they want to meet people that work with similar online projects as themselves?
• How does the future look for digital nomads? Many shared co-working spaces pop up. In the future, do companies in Stockholm allow their employees to work from a beach in Bali?
• Which destinations seem to be the most popular? And why? What do these places have in common?

Tips : If you find a good research question, I would strongly recommend you to interview several digital nomads. That could easily be done by finding them on groups on Facebook. Or, even better, fly down to a typical “digital nomad destination” and meet them face-to-face. 🙂

For many of us, the world “travel” is connected with somewhere exotic.

A place where people speak another language that we cannot understand. Long, white beaches and crystal clear water. Affordable drinks in different colors.

But a lot of people also prefer to travel domestically. This might sound like a boring topic to choose, but there are loads of variations that might make it interesting:

• Do people prefer to buy a cabin or spend that money on luxurious travels abroad?
• How many people travel by car when they travel domestically. And why?
• Are people from larger countries (The US/Russia) more likely to travel domestically compared to people from smaller countries (Denmark/Austria)?

Examine how the rise of the sharing economy has impacted the tourism industry.

Possible perspectives:

• How has the sharing economy impacted the traditional hotel and transportation industries?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the sharing economy for tourists?
• How do sharing economy platforms impact local communities and neighborhoods?
• What are the regulatory challenges facing the sharing economy in tourism?
• How can traditional tourism companies adapt to the sharing economy?

Sources for your research:

• The Sharing Economy UK – This organization publishes research on the sharing economy, including its impact on tourism.
• “ The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism ” by J. Botsman and R. Rogers
• “The Sharing Economy and Tourism: A Review of Research” by J. Scott and S. Gössling
• “The Sharing Economy: A Path to Sustainable Consumption” by J.A. Fernández-Caldas, L.G. Lorenzo-Romero and P.A. García-Palomares

I hope you did.

If you didn’t, feel free to add a comment in the comment section below. I’ve been through the exact same struggle that you are currently in – and I’m more than willing to give you my two cents if you message me. 🙂

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9 thoughts on “travel & tourism bachelor master thesis topics”.

Hi Amund, I’m doing my MBA currently. I’m onto my Master’s thesis now…trying to find a good topic to propose. I’m thinking of researching how travel agencies in Malaysia survived during the pandemic by taking two agencies as a case study; one is a medium-sized agency while the other is a well-known agency that has its own hotel. I will be conducting interviews and giving out questionnaires to their regular customers to gauge their loyalty to these agencies. Would appreciate it if you could suggest any points I should include? Thank you in advance.

Hi MP, unfortunately, Amund isn’t longer part of the website team. I’d love to help you, however, I am not an expert for this topic.

Hi Amund, nice topics and website 🙂 I´m about to write my master thesis, my idea was chinese outgoing tourism to Balkans – I´m a bosnian living in China (push and pull factors, tourism flow/routes, china ready destinations) but my supervisor says it´s too descriptive. Do you have any hints? 🙂

I am from Malaysia and some places here offer eagle feeding boat tours. I would like to write a master thesis about the topic but my supervisor is a bit worried that I would produce a biology thesis instead of a tourism thesis XD Have you got any idea what should my research objectives or questions be? Thanks =)

Hi Yin! Yes, absolutely. I would actually try to conduct some proper research on the whole industry myself.

1) Conduct interviews with the eage feeding boat tour operators. Why do they offer these services? Do they think it’s the best way to portratit Malaysia? 2) If possible: find some people who have actually been on these eagle feeding trips. Do they think it is of value to Malaysia? Or are they just interested in birds?

Those are the research methods I would use. However, coming up with a research question on such a specific topic might be difficult as I don’t know anything about the boat trips myself.

We are a couple of Danish guys who might think that the digital nomad thesis topic sounds like something we would love to explore in the new year. So we will pack our bags and leave for a “digital nomad city”.

As you seem to know a thing or two about the community: do you have one place in mind where you think we should go? Just a destination where you think it’s easy to get people to talk to you.

Hej Kasper & Julian. Great choice – I’m sure you will write a great thesis about that. Super interesting topic that deserves much more attention compared to what it currently gets.

Yep, I got a couple of options (that are far away from Denmark…):

1. Chiang Mai, Thailand. 2. Bali, Indonesia.

Have fun!! 😉

Thanks Amund, I will start my bachelor thesis in Marketing Tourism in January and this article was helpful..

Do you think my supervisor will accept all these thesis proposals you wrote in this article?

Hi Jermaine.

Unfortunately, I can’t promise anything. It’s up to your supervisor to decide whether or not the thesis topic should be approved.

That being said: most of these topics are quite relevant and not very controversial. You should bring a couple of them to your supervisor and ask whether or not he/she will be happy with your choice.

Good luck on your exam!

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Home > USC Columbia > Hospitality, Retail and Sports Management, College of > Hospitality and Tourism Management > Hospitality and Tourism Management Theses and Dissertations

Hospitality and Tourism Management Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Platform of Growth: An Analysis of Earnings and Social Media Engagement Among Esports Athletes , Colleen Marie Dibble

Capturing Visuals in Hospitality: A Multi-Dimensional Exploration of Photographs in Interdisciplinary Research , Ningqiao Li

Employee Experience in the U.S. Casual Dining Restaurant Industry: Conceptualization, Scale Development, and Effects on Employees’ Retention , Xiao Ma

An Examination of Celebrity Product Involvement and Endorsement Effectiveness , Eric Nichols

Southeastern Conference (SEC) International Student-Athlete (ISA) Career Transitions - A Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Perspective , Tsu-Lin Yeh

The Impact of Interactivity on Information Processing for Virtual Tourist Destinations , Hongxiao Yu

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Customer Touchpoint: Conceptualization, Index Development, and Nomological Validation , Hyunsu Kim

“No Tits in the Pits!”: An Exploratory Analysis of the Experiences of Female Decision Makers in Motorsports in the United States , Alexia Pedo Lopes

Affective Risk Perceptions Toward Travel in a COVID Era: Policy and State Political Influences , Chloe Riley

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

“The Lifeblood of College Sports”: The NCAA’s Dominant Institutional Logic and the Byproducts of an (Over)emphasis on Recruiting , Chris Corr

Customers’ Acceptance of Automated Hotel , Jianhong Feng

Effects of Information Exposure, Emotions, and Self-Efficacy On Risk Perception and Travel Intention During the COVID-19 Pandemic , Chunsheng Jin

Positioning Customer Service Through Customer Journey Mapping in Service Consumption and Recovery , Dan Jin

Does the Tendency of Loss Aversion Depend On The Level of Competition? Evidence From Multilevel Esports Tournaments , Zeqing Mao

The Impact of Social Media Account Types on Travel Intention , Nuri Seo

Technology Experience: Measurement Development and Validation , Hyejo Hailey Shin

Why Do Tourists Accept Lodging Through Accommodation Sharing Platforms? Model Development and Model Comparison , Ge Zhu

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

The Downside of National Team Identity: A Model to Measure Negative Outcomes of Team Identity , Fei Gao

Newcomer Student-Athlete Perceptions of Coaches’ Socialization Strategies: Scale Development , Evelyn Su Jara-Pazmino

Comparing the Success of Official Sponsors and Ambush Marketers: An Event Study Analysis of Brazil Following the 2014 Fifa World Cup and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Games , Timothy Koba

The Impact of Hotel Service Robot Appearance and Service Attributes on Customer Experience , Chuhan Thomsen

The Economic Impact of Tennis in South Carolina , Xue Zhang

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

The Importance of Twitter to Destination Marketing Organizations , Tatiana Allgeyer

Finding the Perfect Match: Dimension Analysis and Development of the External Sponsorship Congruence Scale , Kelly Evans

Premium Seating in College Athletics: Trends of Today and the Future , Kendra Holaday

“WE NEED DAWGS!”: Narrative Construction of Athletic Identity Among Black High School Football Players , Victor Dion Kidd

Measuring Long-Term Advertising Effects in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry , Rui Qi

Selling Rooms and Making Money in the Lodging Industry: Analyzing the Effects of RevPAR and GOPPAR Together , Thomas Rogers

Investigating Managerial Priority of Environmental Inputs and Outputs in Public Assembly Venues , Walker Ross

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

College Students and Corporate Social Responsibility: An Examination of Corporate-Social Responsible Behavior in College Athletics From the Students’ Perspective , R. Jacob Gilbert

An Analysis Of Perceptions Of Restaurant Authenticity At Food Tourism Destinations In The Southeastern U.S , Jamie A. Levitt

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Motivation To Play Esports: Case of League of Legends , Yaoyao Sun

Theme Park Demand, Theme Park Attractiveness, and Visitors’ Theme Park Choices , Yingsha Zhang

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

An Examination Of Destination Choice Behavior Using Meme Maps, Images and Decision Making Styles , Hilmi Atahan Atadil

Memorable Dining Experiences: Formative Index And Model Development , Yang Cao

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

The Influence of Warmth and Competence Perceptions on Employees’ Attitudinal and Behavioral Responses in Casual Dining Restaurants , Diego Riva Humbert Bufquin

Media Effect on Resident Attitude Toward Hosting the Olympic Games: A Cross-National Study Between China and the USA , Qiulin Lu

Self-Determination Theory and Wellness Tourism: How Do Wellness Facilities Contribute to Wellbeing? , Karen I. Thal

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Understanding Destination Choice from a Cultural Distance Perspective , Hongbo Liu

Revisiting Gender Constraints and Benefits in Leisure Tourism: Man-Up, It’s Time to Travel Like a Woman , Holly L. Rabin

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Responding to Tripadvisor: How Hotel Responses to Negative Online Reviews Effect Hotel Image, Intent to Stay, and Intent to Return , Tiffany Avant

An Analysis of The Possibilities of Applying The North American Management Model to Most Large-Scale Sports Facilities in China , XI LI

Examining Long-Haul Chinese Outbound Tourists' Shopping Intentions , Pei Zhang

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Is the Current United States Tennis Association's Adult League System Restrictive? , Edward Horne

Manager Training In the Hotel Environment and Its Effect On Employee Turnover Intentions , Kristin Marie Malek

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Examining Japanese tourists' U.S.-Bound Travel Constraints , Lin He

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Hotel Guests' Intentions to Choose Green Hotels , Amy Elizabeth Jackson

Green Inside and Out: Case Study On Green Events In Large Public Assembly Facilities , Peyton Jeter

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Motivations and Constraints of Chinese Outbound tourists: A Case Study , Chengting Lai

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Tourism and Hospitality Dissertation Topics and Titles – Best Advice

Published by Grace Graffin at January 10th, 2023 , Revised On August 16, 2023

Introduction

As a tourism student, you will be required to study the basics of tourism, hospitality, and event management. Some important issues surrounding tourism include but are not limited to medicine, finance, culture, geography, and more.

We understand that choosing the right dissertation topic can be a bit overwhelming for you. Therefore,  our writers have provided a comprehensive list of tourism dissertation topics. These topics are recent, relevant, and exploratory enough for you to conduct a comprehensive research study.

We can even customize topics according to your needs. So, go through our list of dissertation topics, choose the one that interests you, and let us know if you would like any help from our writers.

Check our  dissertation example to get an idea of  how to structure your dissertation .

You can review step by step guide on how to write your dissertation  here.

Tourism Research Topics for 2022

Investigating how the tourism industry has taken green and sustainable measures- a case study of uk.

Research Aim: This study will investigate the various aspects of the UK tourism industry towards making green and sustainable measures for the environmental benefits. It will also look into the consumer’s perspective towards green tourism and its positive and negative impacts on the tourism industry and the tourists. It is also helping you develop a better understanding of the concept of a green environment and its influence on the tourism industry.

Environmental Management Systems and their Implementation in the UK- A Systematic Review.

Research Aim: This study will explore the quality of environmental management systems, environmental performance, improvements, and implementation in the UK. We will be focusing on different companies with high environmental impacts and how they have improved the environment and the use of environmental management systems (EMS). This study will also look into how it has changed or influenced the hospitality industry.

Investigating the impact of Social Media Recommendations on Hotel Booking in the UK.

Research Aim: Social media is a part of every aspect of our daily life. This research will investigate the influence of social media on tourism and specifically on choosing a hotel; and help you evaluate if consumers perceive social media-based recommendations differently than more traditional sources of internet-based marketing. Qualitative research will be used in this, followed by thematic analysis to find the role of social media in recommendations in influencing consumers’ search, decide and book hotels.

Assessing the Impact of Virtual Reality on Tourism.

Research Aim: Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology in tourism. This study will find the impact of virtual reality on the tourism industry. It will also investigate consumer behaviour towards it. We will better understand how VR has affected the tourism industry and significantly influenced the results. TAM research model will be developed to describe the nature of the 3D virtual world. It will also cover some psychological aspects to understand the consumer perspective.

Role of Social Media Marketing in deciding a Travel Destination- A Systematic Review.

Research Aim: This study investigates the role of social media marketing in deciding a travel destination. This study aims to find and understand how social media can achieve marketing objectives. Taking a quantitative approach, we will find the role of social media marketing and its effect on making travel choices through interviews and surveys. It will further explore the tourist’s perception, expectations, and experiences.

Effects of Covid-19 on Tourism and Hospitality Dissertation Topics 

Topic 1: tourism after coronavirus pandemic - way forward for tourism and hospitality industry in the uk or any other country of your choice.

Research Aim: Tourism is a reason for most of the human mobility in the modern world. According to the World Tourism Organization (2020), international tourism has indicated continuous growth for the tenth consecutive year reporting 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals in 2019 and an estimated 1.8 billion international tourist arrivals by 2030 )people are forecasted to be. This particular research will focus on the effects of the Covid-19 outbreak on the tourism and hospitality industry in the United Kingdom or any other country of your choice.

Topic 2: Investigating the Long Term Effects of Prolonged and New Travel Restrictions on the UK Tourism Industry

Research Aim: Britain will require anyone entering the country to self-quarantine for two weeks, and other European countries are pondering similar measures, but the prospects of prolonged and even new travel restrictions are destroying what hopes the continent’s airlines and tourist industry have been harbouring of at least a partial coronavirus rebound. Can the tourism sector of the UK overcome these challenges?

Topic 3: Coronavirus: Dubai Tourism Insists Emirate's Hotel Sector is Healthy, Rejects Bloomberg Report but Is It Really the Case?

Research Aim: Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) has denied a Bloomberg report about the emirate’s hospitality businesses being adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This research will employ primary research methodology to gather data from the key stakeholders of the Emirates hoteling industry to assess whether or not the ongoing Covid-19 crisis is causing panic and financial damages to the hoteling industry.

Topic 4: Will Easing the Travel Restrictions Benefit the UK Tourism Sector in the Short Term?

Research Aim: Many European countries, including the UK, are easing lockdown measures, including tourist destinations preparing for the summer. Cafes and restaurants in London and other cities hardest hit by the virus in the UK have opened two weeks behind the rest of the country. However, with most travellers preferring to stay home in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, how effective are these measures going to be?

Topic 5: Coronavirus outbreak: Caribbean Tourism Struggles as Visitors Stay Home

Research Aim: In the Caribbean, the government plans to require all visitors to undergo rapid Covid-19 testing upon entry. They hope provisions such as virus tests for all industry workers and socially distanced resort dining will make people feel comfortable travelling. This research study will explore whether the measures taken by the Caribbean government will actually encourage the visitors to leave the comfort of their home and travel in the midst of the Covid-19 Crisis.

More Tourism and Hospitality Dissertation Topics 

Topic 1: online tourism agents and websites.

Research Aim: This research aims to study online tourism websites and travelling agents

Topic 2: Advances in Tourism and Hospitality Post-pandemic

Research Aim: This research aims to assess the advances in Tourism and Hospitality post-pandemic

Topic 3: Impacts of Social Distancing on Tourism Managements

Research Aim: This research aims to study the impacts of social distancing on tourism managements

Topic 4: Advances in Hotel Management Post-pandemic

Research Aim: This research aims to assess advances in Hotel management post-pandemic

Tourism and Hospitality Dissertation Topics for 2020

Topic 1: factors impacting destination selection for medical tourism.

Research Aim: Medical tourism is a growing trend. An increasing number of people travel to another country, seeking medical treatment which is expensive or unavailable on their own. Various factors impact the destination selection process for medical treatment purposes. The destination can be local or international. With limited evidence on the factors that impact destination selection for medical tourism, there is a need for a comprehensive study exploring these factors in detail.

Topic 2: Impact of Low budget Airline Services on Boosting International Tourism in Europe: A Case Study of Ryanair.

Research Aim: With increasing costs of air travelling, the demand for low-budget airline services is on the rise. Ryanair is one of the leading low-budget airline services based in the UK. Its cheap air tickets attract many regular travellers. Given this, the main aim of this research will be to explore whether or not low-budget airlines are actually helping to increase international tourism in Europe or not. This research will be conducted based on quantitative data which will be collected from a sample of Ryanair international tourism travellers.

Topic 3: Eco-friendly Practices and Their Effect on Hotel Selection Decision: A Case Study of UK Hospitality Industry.

Research Aim: Various technologies can be implemented to achieve eco-friendliness, such as; internet of things, automation technology, bamboo industrialisation, and sustainable building construction. On the other hand, eco-friendly practices include; water and energy conservation, renewable energy use, waste recycling and management, alternative plastic products, and more. Many hotels in the UK install solar panels and automated systems, which generate renewable energy and ensure complete automation for lights and water. It is worth evaluating how eco-friendly technologies and practices affect the hotel selection decision of guests in the UK hospitality industry.

Topic 4: How Economic Conditions of a Country Impact its Local Tourism: Identifying the Economic Factors Influencing the Tourism Sector.

Research Aim: Economic factors have a great impact on tourism. When a country is economically strong, it spends a great deal on tourism development. On the other hand, tourism could be adversely affected if a country is struggling with its finances. This research aims to investigate and critically analyse the economic factors which tend to affect the tourism sector of a country. The study will also weigh the economic upsides and downsides of these factors concerning local tourism.

Topic 5: Assessing the Impact of Social Media Platforms on Tourism Destination Selection.

Research Aim: These days, social media websites play a tremendous role for tourists in destination selection. The experiences and reviews that people share on online social platforms have a huge impact on making or breaking the future of any tourist destination. This research will analyze the role of different social media platforms in choosing tourism destinations among tourists. This research will also shed light on the rationale and factors people rely on social media to select their tourism destination.

Topic 6: Assessing the Impact of Government Rules, Regulations, and Policies on Tourism Development: A Case Study of Developing Countries.

Research Aim: The tourism sector of any country is greatly looked after by governmental and regulatory bodies. This research will analyze the role played by such bodies from the perspective of policymaking and regulation implementation. The study will also explore how the impact of policymaking and government regulations in developed countries might be different from that of developing countries.

Topic 7: Analysing the Impact of Natural Hazards on the Tourism Industry of the UK: Recommending Effective Measures to Minimise Risk.

Research Aim: Natural hazards can have a disastrous effect on the tourism industry of any country. The UK is one of the countries where the tourism industry has experienced huge success. Thus, this research will be carried out to analyze the impact of such hazards on the UK’s tourism sector.

Topic 8: Assessing the Factors and Preferences Impacting Tourist's Decisions to Travel to a Dark Tourism Site.

Research Aim: As a result of a shift in preferences of tourists and an urge to explore and learn, dark tourism has gained immense popularity and success in recent times. This research will explore the factors and reasons why tourists choose dark places as their tourism destination.

Topic 9: The Impact of Travel Bloggers and vloggers on the Tourism Industry.

Research Aim: Travel bloggers and vloggers are an important part of the tourism industry now. These people travel the world, document their experiences through their writing or videos, and influence people. Tourists throughout the world now depend on their reviews and choose their travel destinations accordingly. This research will aim to explore how these influencers have completely changed the tourism industry.

Educational Tourism Dissertation Topics

Tourism has gained tremendous popularity among academicians and researchers in recent times. Educational tourism primarily takes into consideration technical competencies and new knowledge gained outside the classroom environment.

Educational tourism brings to light the idea of travelling to learn about the cultures of other nations. Exchange student programmes are perhaps the most commonly employed educational tourism strategy, allowing students to learn about the culture of the host nation through research work and travel. Possible areas of research in this field of tourism for your dissertation are provided below;

Topic 1: Educational Tourism Programmes and the Popularity of Host Nations

Research Aim: This research will discuss the educational exchange programmes in detail and will also assess how educational tourism can add to the appeal of the host nations for prospective tourists.

Topic 2: Factors Affecting the Decision of British Students to Join International Student Exchange Programmes.

Research Aim: Even though student exchange programmes are popular throughout the world, there are certain countries where they are practised the most. This research will study one such country, the UK, concerning the factors that encourage British students to join international exchange programmes.

Topic 3: Factors Contributing Towards the Success of Work & Study Programmes in the UK

Research Aim: This research will analyse the factors that contribute towards the success of study programmes in the UK, i.e. benefits of studying in the UK and the attractiveness of the UK as a place to live and study.

Topic 4: To Analyse the Satisfaction of International Students Enrolled in Student Exchange Programmes in the UK

Research Aim: This research will cover an important topic, i.e., measure the satisfaction of international students enrolled in exchange programs in the UK – the same topic can be used for any other country such as the USA or Canada.

Topic 5: To Investigate Potential Marketing and Communication Tools to Promote “any country” as the Best Place to Pursue Higher Education.

Research Aim: This research will investigate and conclude the most successful marketing and communication tools that are used to promote exchange programmes in a particular country. The topic can be customised according to the country of your choice.

Topic 6: What are the factors Influencing British Students’ Decision to Join Academic Year Exchange Programme in Japan?

Research Aim: Japan is one of the most popular destinations when it comes to student exchange programmes. This research will assess the factors that influence a British student’s decision to go to Japan to pursue education.

Topic 7: To Examine the Popularity of Student Exchange Programmes Offered by Chinese-speaking Countries.

Research Aim: This research will explore the reasons for the popularity of student exchange programmes in countries where Chinese is the official language such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, etc.

Topic 8: To Investigate the Attitude and Perception of British Students toward Summer Camps.

Research Aim: Summer camps are extremely popular in the west. This research will explore the perceptions of British students towards summer camps and what motivates them to attend them.

Topic 9: Factors Affecting the Decision of University Students to Pursue a Placement Programme in the US?

Research Aim: This research will aim to understand the rationale of university students’ decisions to pursue placement programmes in the US,

Topic 10: To Examine the Satisfaction of University Students Returning from Cultural Exchange Programmes in the US.

Research Aim: This research will aim to understand the satisfaction of university students who are on their way back from exchange programmes in the US.

Medical Tourism Dissertation Topics

Medical tourism is a new area of study in the tourism industry. The gap in the prices of medical facilities available in developing and developed countries is significant, propelling many patients to travel to far destinations to benefit from economic, medical services.

Similarly, many financially well-off patients decide to have medical treatment in foreign countries with advanced and established medical systems that provide state-of-the-art medical facilities unavailable in their home countries.

Although there may be insufficient secondary data to analyse this tourism sub-topic, researching this area will prove to be interesting. You can choose your medical tourism dissertation topics from this list.

Topic 1: Investigating the Reasons Why British Citizens Travel to Different Countries for their Dental Procedures

Research Aim: This research will identify and discuss in detail the reasons why British citizens travel to different countries for dental treatment.

Topic 2: The efficacy of marketing and communication tools employed by Thai plastic surgery and extreme makeover service providers – An investigation into the attitude and perception of British travellers.

Research Aim: A large number of British citizens travel to Thailand for cosmetic and plastic surgeries. This research will aim to understand the attitudes and perceptions of British travellers who opt for these surgeries in a foreign country. The research will also assess the marketing and communication tools employed by Thai medical service providers.

Topic 3: To Identify and Discuss Critical Marketing Strategies to Promote a Weight Loss Centre in the UK.

Research Aim: This research will talk about the marketing strategies that are undertaken in the UK to promote weight loss centres.

Topic 4: Measuring Customer satisfaction of British Lesbians After Having Sex Reassignment at Yanhee International Hospital, Bangkok

Research Aim: This research will measure the customer satisfaction of British lesbians after they have undergone gender reassignment at the Yanhee International Hospital in Bangkok.

Topic 5: To Examine the Factors Influencing the Decisions of British Women to Buy Body Contour Tour Packages in East Asia.

Research Aim: This study will analyze the factors that influence the decision-making of British women when burying body contour tour packages in East Asia.

Topic 6: To Investigate the Extent to Which Swiss Weight Control Tour Packages Have Influenced Women in the UK.

Research Aim: This research will focus on the decision-making detriments of British Women who opt to purchase weight control tour packages in Switzerland.

Topic 7: How Young British Females Perceive Facial Lifting package Tours in East Asia?

Research Aim: This study will analyze how young British females perceive facial lifting package tours in East Asia.

Topic 8: To Understand and Discuss the Factors Affecting Buying Decisions to Benefit from Extreme Makeover Tour Packages in Eastern Europe.

Research Aim: This research will critically explore the factors that influence the buying decision of customers who purchase extreme makeover packages from Eastern Europe.

Topic 9: How Attractive are the Plastic Surgery Makeover Services to Female British Customers – A Qualitative Study

Research Aim: This research will understand and analyze the attractiveness of plastic surgery makeover services that influence British females to purchase them. The research will be descriptive in nature.

Topic 10: How Homosexual Men Choose Medical Tour Packages for Sex Reassignment.

Research Aim: This study will investigate gender reassignment tour packages that interest homosexual men and the factors influencing their decision-making process.

Tourism Management Dissertation Topics

Tourism management is perhaps the most interesting area of the tourism industry. It mainly involves travelling for the purpose of leisure and recreation. People travelling to other countries and outside their usual environment with the intent of leisure can be classified as tourists.

It should be noted that the phenomenon of tourism has grown tremendously in recent years, thanks to the impact of globalisation. There are many countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Maldives, and Fiji, whose largest source of income is tourism. In these countries, tourism generates huge revenue for the government and also provides employment opportunities for the working class as well as businesses.

The suggestions below can help you to narrow your research for your tourism dissertation.

Topic 1: How British Tourists Perceive Chinese World Heritage Tour – A Qualitative Study

Research Aim: This research will focus on how Chinese heritage is perceived by British tourists and what compels them to visit China.

Topic 2: Exploring the Factors that Make London the Most Popular Destination for Christmas Shopping

Research Aim: This research will analyse and explore the various factors that promote London as one of the most attractive destinations for Christmas shopping.

Topic 3: Investigating the Underlying Factors that British Citizens Consider when Choosing a Destination for Their Winter Holidays.

Research Aim: This research will analyse the various factors that British citizens consider and evaluate when choosing a destination for their winter vacations.

Topic 4: An Analysis of Factors Affecting Employees’ Motivation in Luxury Hotels of Dubai.

Research Aim: This research will study the factors influencing employee motivation in luxury and five-star hotels in Dubai. The study will make use of secondary data and primary research to establish the exact factors that motivate employees to work for luxury hotels in Dubai.

Topic 5: How the Tourism Industry of Thailand Responded to the Tsunami.

Research Aim: This study will dive into the past to establish how the Thai tourism industry responded to Tsunami.

Visit our topics database to view 100s of dissertation topics in your research area.

Topic 6: Factors Influencing British Customers’ Decisions of Purchasing Egypt Tour Packages.

Research Aim: This research will explore the factors that British citizens consider when planning their holiday to Egypt.

Topic 7: Attitude and Perception of British Tourists Toward Thailand as a Winter Holiday Destination

Research Aim: This study will research why the British choose Thailand as their winter holiday destination.

Topic 8: The Increasing Popularity of Cruise Travel in South Africa Among British Tourists

Research Aim: This research will consider the reasons why South African cruise is extremely popular amongst British tourists.

Topic 9: To Investigate the Efficacy of Integrated Marketing Communication Tools to Restore the Image of Amsterdam as the Best Tourist Destination in Europe

Research Aim: This research will explore the marketing and communication tools utilized to market Amsterdam as the best tourism destination in Europe.

Topic 10: Factors Influencing British Customers’ Decision to Choose a Particular Destination During the Summer/winter Holiday

Research Aim: This research will discuss all the factors that influence British citizens to choose a destination for their summer or winter holidays. This topic can be customized according to a country of your choosing.

Hospitality Dissertation Topics

Hospitality industry  consists of casinos, resorts, restaurants, hotels, catering as well as other businesses that serve the tourists. At its core hospitality can be defined as the relationship between a guest and the hotel.

Other aspects of hospitality include but are not limited to liberality, friendliness, warm welcome, entertainment, goodwill, and reception. Modern-day businesses pride themselves on their acts of hospitality. Thus, it is an extremely interesting sub-topic to base your dissertation on. Some topics in this area of tourism are suggested below.

Topic 1: Examining How Popular Travel Agents Such as eBrooker and Opodo are Perceived by British Tourists

Research Aim: This research will evaluate some of the best and most popular travel agents such as Opodo and eBookers and how they assist British tourists with their destination planning.

Topic 2: Identifying the Factors that Influence Leisure Hotel Buying Decisions of British Customers

Research Aim: This research will identify the factors that influence British customers’ decision to opt for luxury hotels.

Topic 3: Identifying Features of a leisure hotel that attract British honeymoon couples

Research Aim: This research will identify features of a luxury hotel that attract British couples looking for a honeymoon location.

Topic 4: Investigating Hospitality Practices of Popular Leisure Hotels in Dubai

Research Aim: This study will investigate hospitality purchases of attractive luxury hotels in Dubai.

Topic 5: What are the Prime Factors Influencing Restaurant Selection Decisions of Young British Couples?

Research Aim: This research will explore the factors that influence British couples to select restaurants for their time out.

Topic 6: Investigating and Reviewing Strategies Employed by Hotel Restaurants and Pubs in London to Keep Their Employees Motivated

Research Aim: This research will study an important aspect of the tourism industry, i.e., how hotel restaurants and pubs in London keep their employees motivated.

Topic 7: Exploring the Relationship Between Culture and Leisure Hotel Buying Decisions in London.

Research Aim: This research will investigate the relationship between how customers in London choose a luxury hotel based on their culture.

Topic 8: Creating Brand Sales and Recognition Using Integrated Marketing Communication Tools.

Research Aim: This research will explore how brand sales and recognition are built using various marketing and communication tools.

Topic 9: Understanding the Relationship Between Customers’ Buying Decisions and Leisure Hotel Hospitality Features within the Context of Overseas Holidays

Research Aim: This research will explore the relationship between customers’ decision to choose a luxury hotel while visiting different countries.

Topic 10: The Impact of Hospitality Companies’ Brand Image on Tourists’ Buying Decisions.

Research Aim: This research will first talk about different hospitality companies and how their brand image impacts tourists’ buying decisions.

Black Tourism Dissertation Topics

Black tourism, also known as dark tourism and grief tourism, involves travelling to historical sites/places associated with death, casualties, and suffering.

Dark or black tourist sites such as battlefields, monuments, castles, Tsunami sites, and Ground Zero are man-made or natural. They are found commonly in Scotland, South Asia, China, and Eastern Europe.

Dark tourism may not be the ideal choice for many students. However, it is an exciting topic to explore. Possible research topics under this field of tourism are listed below:

Topic 1: How Local Communities Can Benefit Commercially and Socially from Tours to Death/Casualty Sites – A Qualitative Study

Research Aim: This research will explore the various benefits that local communities can experience from touring death or casualty sites.

Topic 2: Attitude and Perception of Tourists Towards Taj Mahal in India

Research Aim: Taj Mahal can be categorised as a dark tourism site because many people consider it a mausoleum. This research will discuss the attitude and perceptions of tourists when visiting the Taj Mahal.

Topic 3: To Investigate and Identify the Factors Influencing Tourists’ Decisions to Visit gGrief Sites in the UK

Research Aim: This research will explore the factors that influence the decisions of tourists to visit grief sites in the UK.

Topic 4: Is Mercat Tour in Scotland a Grief Tourism Site for Potential Tourists?

Research Aim: Mercat Tour in Scotland is considered a ghost site. This study will explore what makes this site a dark tourism destination.

Topic 5: Developing a Highly Effective Marketing Strategy to Promote London Dungeon Among the Tourists

Research Aim: This research will understand the various marketing strategies undertaken to promote the London Dungeon amongst tourists.

Topic 6: What are the Primary Factors Influencing British Tourists’ Decision to Choose Grief Sites?

Research Aim: This research will understand the various factors that influence British tourists’ decision to select a dark tourism site.

Topic 7: Developing a Marketing Strategy to Promote Beaumaris Prison in Wales as Another Black Tourism Site in Britain

Research Aim: This research will focus on developing a successful marketing strategy that will help promote Beaumaris Prison in Wales as a black tourism site in Britain.

Topic 8: How are Man-made Grief tourism Sites are Perceived by British Tourists?

Research Aim: This research will discover how British tourists perceive man-made dark tourism destinations.

Comparing the Man-made Black Tourism Sites with the Natural Disaster Grief Sites from the Perspective of Tourists

Research Aim: This research will compare manmade and natural dark tourism destinations with a focus on tourists’ perceptions.

Topic 10: Do the Local Communities Economically Benefit from Tourists Visiting Dark Tourism Sites?

Research Aim: This research will explore whether or not local communities are impacted in any way when dark tourist sites in their locality are visited.

Sustainability and Tourism Dissertation Topics

At its core, this field of tourism primarily focuses on the way tourists can live harmoniously with the planet earth. Ecotourist sites or sustainable tourist sites are those that promote fauna and flora and cultural heritage. Another objective of  eco-tourism  is to provide social and economic opportunities to local communities. Some interesting topics worth exploring, in this area, are suggested below:

Topic 1: Investigating the Impact of the Internet on the Growth of Eco-tourism in the UK

Research Aim: This research will study the impact of the internet on the rising eco-tourism trend in the UK.

Topic 2: Factors Affecting British Customers’ Decision of Choosing an Eco-tourism

Research Aim: This research will study the reason why British tourists opt for an eco-tourism site as compared to traditional destinations.

Topic 3: Establishing and Discussing Strategies to Promote Swansea as the Best Eco-tourist Spot in the UK

Research Aim: This research will discuss the various ways through which Swansea can be promoted as the best eco-tourist spot in the UK.

Topic 4: Analysing the Role of Price in the Selection of Eco-tourism Destinations

Research Aim: This research will understand the various factors that influence the tourists’ decision to choose an eco-friendly site for their next holiday destination.

Topic 5: Examining the Use of Integrated Marketing Communication Tools to Promote Eco-tourism in Great Britain

Research Aim: This research will study and analyze the different ways through which integrated marketing communication tools should be used to promote eco-tourism in the UK.

Topic 6: Comparing Developing World Eco-tourism Sites Against Western Eco-tourism Sites

Research Aim: This study will compare developing eco-tourism sites and developed or Western eco-tourism sites. The study will conclude which sites tourists prefer and what factors lead them to their decision.

Topic 7: Does Eco-tourism Develop Social and Economic Opportunities for Local Communities?

Research Aim: This research will explore whether or not eco-tourism helps develop social and economic opportunities in the local communities. If it does, the study will explore those factors as well.

Topic 8: Exploring the Factors Affecting the Buying Decisions of Customers Interested in Eco-tourism Sites

Research Aim: This research will identify and discuss the various factors that affect the buying decision of customers who are interested in eco-tourism sites. These factors will then be explored in detail in this study.

Topic 9: Analysis of the Potential of Edinburgh as an Eco-tourism Site in the UK

Research Aim: This research will compare manmade and natural dark tourism destinations and will also include tourists’ perceptions.

Topic 10: Assessing the Impact of Grass Root level Education in Promoting Sustainable Tourism in Europe – A Review of the Literature

Research Aim: This research will discuss the impact of grass root level education to promote sustainable tourism in Europe. The study will be based on the qualitative research method.

Important Notes:

As a tourism and hospitality student looking to get good grades, it is essential to develop new ideas and experiment on existing tourism and hospitality theories – i.e., to add value and interest in your research topic.

The field of tourism and hospitality is vast and interrelated to so many other academic disciplines like civil engineering ,  construction ,  law , engineering management , healthcare , mental health , artificial intelligence , physiotherapy , sociology , management , marketing and nursing . That is why it is imperative to create a project management dissertation topic that is articular, sound, and actually solves a practical problem that may be rampant in the field.

We can’t stress how important it is to develop a logical research topic; it is the basis of your entire research. There are several significant downfalls to getting your topic wrong; your supervisor may not be interested in working on it, the topic has no academic creditability, the research may not make logical sense, there is a possibility that the study is not viable.

This impacts your time and efforts in  writing your dissertation  as you may end up in the cycle of rejection at the very initial stage of the dissertation. That is why we recommend reviewing existing research to develop a topic, taking advice from your supervisor, and even asking for help in this particular stage of your dissertation.

While developing a research topic, keeping our advice in mind will allow you to pick one of the best tourism and hospitality dissertation topics that fulfil your requirement of writing a research paper and add to the body of knowledge.

Therefore, it is recommended that when finalizing your dissertation topic, you read recently published literature to identify gaps in the research that you may help fill.

Remember- dissertation topics need to be unique, solve an identified problem, be logical, and be practically implemented. Please take a look at some of our sample tourism and hospitality dissertation topics to get an idea for your dissertation.

How to Structure your Tourism and Hospitality Dissertation

A well-structured   dissertation can help students   to achieve a high overall academic grade.

• A Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Declaration
• Abstract: A summary of the research completed
• Table of Contents
• Introduction : This chapter includes the project rationale, research background, key research aims and objectives, and the research problems to be addressed. An outline of the structure of a dissertation  can also be added to this chapter.
• Literature Review :  This chapter presents relevant theories and frameworks by analysing published and unpublished literature available on the chosen research topic, in light of  research questions  to be addressed. The purpose is to highlight and discuss the relative weaknesses and strengths of the selected research area while identifying any research gaps. Break down of the topic, and key terms can have a positive impact on your dissertation and your tutor.
• Methodology:  The  data collection  and  analysis  methods and techniques employed by the researcher are presented in the Methodology chapter which usually includes  research design, research philosophy, research limitations, code of conduct, ethical consideration, data collection methods, and  data analysis strategy .
• Findings and Analysis:  Findings of the research are analysed in detail under the Findings and Analysis chapter. All key findings/results are outlined in this chapter without interpreting the data or drawing any conclusions. It can be useful to include  graphs ,  charts, and  tables in this chapter to identify meaningful trends and relationships.
• Discussion  and  Conclusion: The researcher presents his interpretation of results in this chapter, and states whether the research hypothesis has been verified or not. An essential aspect of this section is to establish the link between the results and evidence from the literature. Recommendations with regards to implications of the findings and directions for the future may also be provided. Finally, a summary of the overall research, along with final judgments, opinions, and comments, must be included in the form of suggestions for improvement.
• References:  Make sure to complete this in accordance with your University’s requirements
• Bibliography
• Appendices:  Any additional information, diagrams, graphs that were used to  complete the dissertation  but not part of the dissertation should be included in the Appendices chapter. Essentially, the purpose is to expand the information/data.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How to find dissertation topics about tourism and hospitality.

To find tourism and hospitality dissertation topics:

• Examine industry trends and challenges.
• Explore cultural, environmental, or tech impacts.
• Research niche areas like ecotourism or event management.
• Analyze customer behavior and satisfaction.
• Consider sustainable practices.
• Select a topic aligning with your passion and career aspirations.

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Tourism and COVID-19: Impacts and implications for advancing and resetting industry and research

The paper aims to critically review past and emerging literature to help professionals and researchers alike to better understand, manage and valorize both the tourism impacts and transformational affordance of COVID-19. To achieve this, first, the paper discusses why and how the COVID-19 can be a transformational opportunity by discussing the circumstances and the questions raised by the pandemic. By doing this, the paper identifies the fundamental values, institutions and pre-assumptions that the tourism industry and academia should challenge and break through to advance and reset the research and practice frontiers. The paper continues by discussing the major impacts, behaviours and experiences that three major tourism stakeholders (namely tourism demand, supply and destination management organisations and policy makers) are experiencing during three COVID-19 stages (response, recovery and reset). This provides an overview of the type and scale of the COVID-19 tourism impacts and implications for tourism research.

1. Introduction: Setting the necessity and parameters for tourism COVID-19 research

The COVID-19 (declared as a pandemic by WHO, 12 March 2020) of significantly impacts the global economic, political, socio-cultural systems. Health communication strategies and measures (e.g. social distancing, travel and mobility bans, community lockdowns, stay at home campaigns, self- or mandatory-quarantine, curbs on crowding) have halted global travel, tourism and leisure. Being a highly vulnerable industry to numerous environmental, political, socio-economic risks, tourism is used to and has become resilient in bouncing back ( Novelli, Gussing Burgess, Jones, & Ritchie, 2018 ) from various crises and outbreaks (e.g. terrorism, earthquakes, Ebola, SARS, Zika). However, the nature, the unprecedented circumstances and impacts of the COVID-19, demonstrate signs that this crisis is not only different, but it can have profound and long-term structural and transformational changes to tourism as socio-economic activity and industry. Indeed, the global and huge scale, the multidimensional and interconnected impacts challenging current values and systems and leading to a worldwide recession and depression are the most distinctive characteristics of this pandemic.

COVID-19 tourism impacts will be uneven in space and time, and apart from the human tool, estimates show an enormous and international economic impact: international tourist arrivals are estimated to drop to 78% causing a loss of US$ 1.2 trillion in export revenues from tourism and 120 million direct tourism job cuts representing seven times the impact of September 11, and the largest decline in the history ( UNWTO, 2020 ). Being one of the most important global employer (1 in 10 jobs are directly related to tourism, UNWTO, 2020 ) and the major GDP contributor for several countries, tourism and COVID-19 are the epicenter of all international discussions and economies.

Within the burgeoning industry discussions and research about tourism and COVID-19, there is an unanimous call to see and use the pandemic as a transformative opportunity ( Mair, 2020 ). Industry should not only recover but also reimagine and reform the next normal and economic order ( McKinsey, 2020 ), while researchers should not solely use COVID-19 as another context to replicate existing knowledge for measuring and predicting tourism impacts ( Gössling et al., 2020 , Hall et al., 2020 ). Although such studies are important for managing the pandemic, they do not advance knowledge and/or guide the industry to a step beyond. Moreover, because of the interlinked socio-cultural, economic, psychological and political impacts of COVID-19 of this magnitude, unforeseen trajectories instead of historical trends are expected and the predictive power of ‘old’ explanatory models may not work. Moreover, there is enough evidence to claim that both the tourism industry and research have matured to a good extent providing sufficient knowledge about how to study and effectively: (1) design and implement crisis recovery and response strategies (e.g. McKercher & Chon, 2004 ); (2) build resilience to address future crises ( Hall, Prayag, & Amore, 2017 ). What is still lacking is knowledge about how crisis can foster industry change, how companies can convert this crisis disruption into transformative innovation and how to conduct research that can enable, inform and shape the rethinking and resetting of a next normal.

Crises can be a change trigger, but none crisis has been so far a significant transition event in tourism ( Hall et al., 2020 ). Crises have also been used as a political tool to stabilize existing structures and diminish the possibility of collective mobilization ( Masco, 2017 ). As change can be selective and/or optional for the tourism stakeholders (e.g. tourists, operators, destination organisations, policy makers, local communities, employees), the nature and degree of crises-led transformations depend on whether and how these stakeholders are affected by, respond to, recover and reflect on crises. Consequently, to better understand, predict but also inform and shape change, tourism COVID-19 research should provide a deeper examination and understanding of the tourism stakeholders’ (behavioural, cognitive, emotional, psychological and even ideological) drivers, actions and reactions to their COVID-19 impacts. Research should also examine and understand the stakeholders’ lived and perceived COVID-19 experiences as well as their consciousness, mindfulness, capabilities and willingness to understand and act (pro-actively and re-actively) to the pandemic, as all these can equally influence their attitudes, behaviours and change potential.

COVID-19 tourism research should also advance our knowledge for informing, fostering, shaping or even leading such crises-enabled transformations. Otherwise, we will simply experience one crisis after the other ( Lew, 2020 ). Responding to the mushrooming euphoria of COVID-19 tourism related research, Gretzel et al. (2020) also plead for transformative e-tourism research that can shape tourism futures by making value systems, institutional logics, scientific paradigms and technology notions visible and transformable. To achieve scientific paradigm shifts, e-tourism research should embrace historicity, reflexivity, transparency, equity, plurality and creativity ( Gretzel et al., 2020 ). To avoid the bubble of the COVID-19 research orgasm and advance tourism research, others have also suggested to adopt inter-disciplinary ( Wen, Wang, Kozak, Liu, & Hou, 2020 ), multi-disciplinary ( Gössling et al., 2020 , Hall et al., 2020 ) or even anti-disciplinary ( Sigala, 2018 ) research to enable out-of-the-box, creative and flexible thinking that challenges and goes beyond existing pre-assumptions and mindsets.

To address these needs and gaps, this paper aims to critically review past and emerging literature to help professionals and researchers alike to better understand, manage and valorize both the tourism impacts and transformational affordance of COVID-19. To achieve this, first, the paper discusses why and how the COVID-19 can be a transformational opportunity by discussing the circumstances and the questions raised by the pandemic. By doing this, the paper identifies the fundamental values, institutions and pre-assumptions that the tourism industry and academia should challenge and break through to advance and reset the research and practice frontiers. The paper continues by discussing the major impacts, behaviours and experiences that three major tourism stakeholders (namely tourism demand, supply and destination management organisations and policy makers) are experiencing during three COVID-19 stages (response, recovery and reset). This analysis is useful because it provides an overview and understanding of the type and scale of the COVID-19 tourism impacts, while it also demonstrates that the way in which stakeholders and researchers understand, react and behave in each stage may form and set the next (new) normal in the post COVID-19 era. Responding to the call for transformative research, discussions are developed based on the rational that tourism research should go beyond replicating and reconfirming existing knowledge within the COVID-19 context; instead tourism COVID-19 research should see new things and see them differently to inform and guide tourism futures. Hence, the paper suggests potential new research areas and theoretical lenses that can be used for advancing and resetting industry practice and research. The paper does not aim to provide a fully comprehensive and inclusive analysis of all the impacts, theories, topics and tourism stakeholders that COVID-19 tourism research can examine. Instead, it aims to provide practical and theoretical implications on how to better research, understand, manage and transformative valorize COVID-19 tourism impacts.

2. COVID-19 circumstances and tourism: Shifting the research focus to challenge, reset and contradict institutional logics, systems and assumptions

Research investigating, measuring and predicting the COVID-19 tourism impacts is important in order to eliminate ‘casualties’, draft, monitor and improve response strategies (i.e. you cannot manage what you cannot measure). However, research focusing on the features and impacts of crises instead of their structural roots tends to conceal and stabilize the conditions and corollary social structures through which crises are produced ( Barrios, 2017: 151 ). Investigating the real roots of COVID-19 may go beyond the boundaries and scope of tourism research. Yet, the latter needs to look into and challenge the tourism ‘circumstances’ and structures that have enabled and sometimes accelerated the global spread and impact of COVID-19. Unfortunately, the economists downplay the pandemic as a purely natural event originating and operating outside of the economic system ( Nowlin, 2017 ). But, treating COVID-19 as an exogenous shock and phenomenon that has nothing to do with socio-economic structures and values, can perpetuate and strengthen the pandemic roots during the post COVID-era as well as constrain change and transformational processes.

COVID-19 is a crisis of the economized societies rooted in the growth-paradigm ( Ötsch, 2020 ). COVID-19 is also a result of the intersection of broader processes of urbanisation, globalisation, environmental change, agribusiness and contemporary capitalism ( Allen et al., 2017 ). The nature of tourism (requiring traveling) and its evolution and growth paradigms are a significant contributor to such circumstances and the current socio-economic system accelerating the spread and impact of this contagious and infectious virus. Tourism is a result but also responsible for: our highly interconnected and global world; pollution, waste and climate change; global, national and regional economic development and growth; superiority of capitalism values in people’s and business decision-making but also policy and politics formulations. As climate change increases the frequency of pandemics and outbreaks, pandemics are expected to become more common in the future ( World Economic Forum (2019) (2019), 2019 ), which in turn highlights the interwoven nature and vicious circle forces between the biological, physical and socio-economic systems.

Moreover, the economic system and mindset contributing to the COVID-19 has also been guiding and shaping the COVID-19 response and recovery strategies of governments, institutions, businesses and people alike. This can significantly perpetuate and repeat crises as we are treating their symptoms and not their roots. For example, economic priorities for maintaining business continuity and jobs, resume and recovering to the old ‘economic success growth’, have been driving governments’ policies and practices such as: economic support (e.g. subsidies, tax reliefs) to tourism businesses and employees; debates for relaxation of restrictions for re-opening and re-starting economies at the expense of a second way and human lives. Similarly, people have engaged in panic buying and (over)-consumption of online experiences (e.g. virtual entertainment, dining, drinking, traveling) during lock-downs, that demonstrate their persistence, preference and fear of loosing to their ‘consumerism’ traditional lifestyles deemed essential for their success and happiness. Early COVID-19 tourism research also reinforces a similar mindset, e.g. many studies trying to measure the economic impacts of COVID-19 trading them off to socio-cultural and biological impacts, studies aiming to predict and measure when tourists will start traveling again and when we can reach the old tourism targets. As governments race to minimise economic losses, and be the first to reopen borders and (tourism) businesses, and financial markets, investors, cash liquidity and financial survival are equally pressing multinational and small tourism enterprises, they are all also looking for tourism research that can ‘feed’ and ‘reconfirm’ their mindset and help them resume operations based on the old paradigms and business models they are founded. Debates and research are based on trading between economic benefits and losses in exchange of human rights, lives, morals and ethics. There is no discussion why trade-offs are the best methodology and mindset to decide, no one has re-imagined ‘solutions’ enabling co-existence or regenerative forces between these concepts.

Overall, research, education and our socio-economic and political system (which they shape and are shaped by each other), have all framed our mindset on how we research, measure, understand, respond and aim to recover from the COVID-19. Consequently, we have converted COVID-19 from a biological virus contagion to a financial crisis contagion and recently, an economic race to re-build our old financial competitiveness. To avoid such perpetuations, tourism research should assume more responsibility in informing, driving and leading sustainable futures. To that end, COVID-19 tourism research should not be solely seen, conducted and used as a useful tool to help resume old states. Instead, COVID-19 tourism research should also challenge our growth-paradigms and assumptions that have led to the current situation and enable us to reimagine and reset tourism (e.g. Ioannides and Gyimóthy, 2020 , Gössling et al., 2020 , Hall et al., 2020 , Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020 ). To achieve this, COVID-19 tourism research should criticize ontological and epistemological foundations and assumptions that underpin the current science and growth paradigms ( Brodbeck, 2019 ). It should also deconstruct and challenge the mechanisms and systems that sustain the deleterious unsustainable tourism evolution ( Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020 ). But to regenerate and transform tourism and its socio-economic system, tourism research should not only support new ways and perspectives of researching, knowing and evolving. COVID-19 tourism research should also inspire, motivate and inform all tourism stakeholders alike to adopt new ways of being, doing and politicising. For example:

At a macro-level, COVID-19 tourism research should generate dethinking, rethinking and unthinking of pre-assumptions and mindsets including ( Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020 ): globalisation as an unstoppable force; neoliberal capitalism as the best system and decision-making tool for organizing and allocating resources; growth as the sole way for development and success. It should also challenge the ‘surveillance capitalism’, whose institutionalisation and normalisation is perceived as inevitable and unstoppable because of forces including ( Zuboff, 2015 ): institutionalised facts (e.g. data collection, analytics and mining); leading tech and disrupting companies being respected and treated as emissaries of a better future solving the “faults of capitalism” (e.g. sharing economy platforms ‘democraticing’ micro-entrepreneurship); and people seeing technologies as a necessity requirement for social and civic participation, securing employment and addressing the increasingly stressful, competitive, and stratified struggle for effective life. The COVID-19 is accelerating the institutionalisation and acceptance of this algorithmic governance, management and society, previously contested as violations of human rights, privacy and laws ( Zysman, 2006 ), but now becoming normalised in the name of health and common good.

Technology is at the core of solutions for combating the COVID-19 and re-opening tourism and the economy (e.g. mobility tracing apps, robotised-AI touchless service delivery, digital health passports and identity controls, social distancing and crowding control technologies, big data for fast and real time decision-making, humanoid robots delivering materials, disinfecting and sterilizing public spaces, detecting or measuring body temperature, providing safety or security), while technology is seen as a panacea to our COVID-19 driven-needs to normalise surveillance, to ensure health and safety, to collect and analyse personal data for fast decision-making. Although COVID-19 tourism research cannot stop these technological advances, it should fight this digital trojan horse from the inside by questioning and resetting their purposes, designs and affordances, interpretations and application ethics. Technologies are constituted by unique affordances, whose development and expression are shaped by the institutional logics in which technologies are designed, implemented, and used ( Zuboff, 2015 ). COVID-19 tourism research could simply investigate and advance our information and technological capabilities to collect, analyse and use (big) data for better knowing, predicting, controlling, and modifying human behavior (e.g. tourists and employees behaviour) as a means to produce revenue and market control ( Zuboff, 2015 ). But such research will simply further support the making of everydayness qua data imprints an intrinsic component of organizational and institutional life and a primary target of commercialization strategies ( Constantiou & Kallinikos, 2015 ). Technologies have always been an enabler, a catalyst of innovation and change, a disruptor of tourism, as well as a tool to build tourism resilience in crisis ( Hall et al., 2017 ). The COVID-19 has further enhanced the role of technologies in the recovery and reimagination of tourism, while it reinforces existing paradigms in the e-tourism evolution. Developmental trends and adoption of smart destinations and tourism services, AI, robotics and other digital advances are now accelerated to combat the COVID-19 tourism implications. COVID-19 tourism research should reimagine and re-shape the purposes, usage and means of such technological advances that significantly form how our societies and economies are being transformed, how tourism is being practiced, managed and evolves with the help and/or because of the COVID-19.

At a micro-level, COVID-19 tourism research should question and reset why tourism is viewed, practiced and managed as a way to ‘escape’, ‘relax’, ‘socialise’, ‘construct identities/status’, ‘learn’ and reward themselves from a routine, unpleasant and meaningless life. Why tourism should be researched and practiced as an escape from a boring life, instead of life being rewarding and meaningful itself? Why people have to travel thousands of miles away from home to ‘learn’ and ‘be happy’? Why companies have to commercialize and commoditize communities, people and their tangible and intangible resources as tourism attractions ‘please’ the tourists’ needs and drive economic development? Tourism paradigms and mindsets like this, have led and intensified crises like COVID-19 and this cannot be sustainable for much longer. Consumerism and tourism should not be seen as the sole way to achieve happiness, self-expression, and (economic) development. COVID-19 tourism research should inspire tourists, businesses and destinations alike to re-imagine and reset new mindsets, frontiers and behaviours such as: how to use and develop tourism to valorize and not consume tourism resources, to generate well-being, sustainability and transformational learning; how to study and practice environmental/sustainable management not as a legal necessity for lobbying and formulating policies, not as marketing tool to build brands’ and people’s identities, not as an expense to be minimized, but as a mindful business investment and personal lifestyle for a responsible future.

Overall, COVID-19 tourism research should not only be the mean to overcome the crisis and resume previously chartered economic growth trajectories. It should lead the refocusing, repurposing, reframing and re-interpretation of research questions, methodologies and outcomes, so that tourism stakeholders can in turn re-direct their actioning, conduct and evolution. To that end, COVID-19 tourism research will be benefited by embedding, adapting, reflecting and expanding the theoretical lenses and perspectives of a much greater plurality of disciplines and constructs to guide and implement research. Transformative (service) research, philosophy, criminology, ethics, law, anthropology, behavioural and religious studies, political science and diplomacy, governance, bioethics, rhetoric. Researching within unchartered waters, COVID-19 tourism research may also need to apply new methodological approaches and tools that are capable to combat roots and not symptoms of tourism crises and use the latter as transformational opportunity to reset research agendas and re-imagine and re-shape unthinkable tourism futures. Due to the newness of the field qualitative approaches such as (cyber)ethnography and the need for urgent, fast and real-time research processes and outcomes, COVID-19 tourism research may also need to intensify and advance “new” methods of (big) data collection, analysis and interpretation/visualization, such as participatory sensing (i.e. using tourists as sensors for data collection).

Paradox research, as a meta-theory and/or methodology, can also be very instrumental for informing and supporting COVID-19 tourism research. Originating in philosophy and psychology (e.g. Aristotle, Confucius, Freud), paradox research (also frequently requiring multi-disciplinarity) has helped to inform, advance and transform management science research ( Schad, Lewis, Raisch, & Smith, 2016 ) and organisations ( Cameron & Quinn, 1988 ) alike. As a meta-theory, paradox research offers a powerful lens for enriching extant theories and fostering theorizing processes in management science, because it provides deeper understanding and conceptualisation of constructs, relationships, and dynamics surrounding organizational tensions. By investigating contradictions between interdependent elements that are seemingly distinct and oppositional, one can better unravel how one element actually informs and defines the another, tied in a web of eternal mutuality. As a methodology, the paradox lens encourages researchers to approach organizational paradoxes paradoxically ( Cameron & Quinn, 1988 ). Incorporating paradox research into COVID-19 research may also be inevitable, as the COVID-19 circumstances, impacts and debates have uncovered and intensified existing paradoxes, but also generated new ones. Paradox research is also paramount to COVID-19 tourism research, if the latter is to become innovative and transformative. These are because (adapted by Schad et al., 2016 ):

• • Interruptions in socio-economic life can reveal structural contradictions and paradoxes, and by studying and understanding them, one can make the crisis positive and transformative
• • paradoxes intensify, grow and intensify, as contemporary organizations and their environments become increasingly global, fast-paced, and complex; the evolution and circumstances of tourism and COVID-19 are a strong evidence of a highly interconnected, fast paced and complex world
• • paradox is a powerful meta-theorizing tool: opposing theoretical views may enable vital insights into persistent and interdependent contradictions, fostering richer, more creative, and more relevant theorizing
• • paradox identifies and challenges our pre-assumptions: as antinomies, theoretical paradoxes remain perplexing, even paralyzing, when researchers are confined by the past and/or assumptions
• • paradox help us think creatively and out-of-the box, because contradictions provoke established certainties and tempts untapped creativity

Paradox research is limitedly used within tourism research, but its applicability, versatility and value are shown already in investigating: macro-level tourism and destination management issues ( Williams & Ponsford, 2009 ); business operations ( Sigala, Airey, Jones, & Lockwood, 2004 ) and tourism demand ( Mawby, 2000 ). However, as the present and post COVID-19 era is a fertile ground of persistent and new paradoxes in tourism, tourism researchers should seriously consider adopting a paradox lense. For example, the circumstances of COVID-19 (e.g. stay at home lockdowns, social distancing) have necessitated and accelerated the use of technologies by both tourists (e.g. information about travel restrictions, online crisis communication, online COVID-19 alerts and hygiene measures) and businesses (e.g. online food delivery, virtual dining, virtual wine experiences, festivals/events, virtual visits of museums, destinations). However, persistent ‘paradoxes’ (e.g. increase use of social media and loneliness, democratisation of information accessibility and information darkness, technology and (small) business empowerment/equalizing competition rules) are questioning the effectiveness of such technology solutions and have fuelled debates on whether they are a ‘cure’ or a ‘fertiliser’ and “diffuser’ of the pandemic. Not everyone has access to technology and those that they have do not necessarily have the capabilities and knowledge to effectively use the technology tools and information. The persistent digital divide found in consumers and businesses (which mainly represents a socio-economic divide of citizens and size of businesses), has converted the pandemic to an infodemic (e.g. lack or mis-information, diffusion of fake COVID-19 news and advices, emotional contagion of global depression and mental health) and a tool deepening the economic divide and competitive gap between larger and smaller tourism operators. Digital inequalities in tourists potentiated their vulnerability to COVID-19 (e.g. putting themselves and their loved one in health risk while traveling or willing to travel during and after the COVID-19), while COVID-19 vulnerability potentiate to enlarge the digital inequalities [e.g. those who have the tools and means to easier go through the COVID-19 impacts will also be the only ones who can pay and access virtual tourism experiences, who will be well informed on how, where and when travel and who will be able to afford to travel in the future, as increased (hygiene and technology) operating costs and transportation oligopolies may increase costs of tourism]. Similarly, digital inequalities in tourism businesses potentiate COVID-19 vulnerability (as larger operators that were technology ready and ‘inherited’ by size resilience, were the first and maybe the only ones to be able to virtualise operations and experiences for maintaining business liquidity, surviving, re-opening and recovering post COVID-19), while COVID-19 vulnerability increases digital and economic inequalities in the tourism competitive landscape (e.g. larger companies/destinations which are characterised by greater cash liquidity, know-how, technology readiness and resilience and so, have lower COVID-19 vulnerability, will be the ones to survive and thrive post COVID-19). Paradox research that can investigate such contradictions between the abovementioned distinct and oppositional, but also elements interdependent elements can better define, understand, manage and address their concepts and the dynamics of their web of eternal mutuality.

The COVID-19 fortified and generated many other paradoxes, which are also identifiable at all tourism management levels (macro, meso and micro) and COVID-19 tourism research can investigate for advancing and transforming research. Table 1 provides some ideas for applying such paradoxes in COVID-19 tourism research.

Paradox Research: advancing and transforming COVID-19 tourism research.

3. COVID19: Dismantling and re-mantling tourism in three stages

It is widely accepted that crisis management needs to be implemented before, during and after a crisis. Table 2 provides an overview of the impacts and implications of COVID-19 on three major stakeholders (tourism demand, tourism operators, destinations and policy makers) under three stages (representing the respond, recovery and restart stage from the pandemic) to incorporate a transformational stage envisioned in the post COVID-19 era. COVID-19 tourism research does not have to address issues in the last stage in order to be transformative. It can equally be transformative if it re-examines ‘existing’ issues and relations but through new theoretical lenses and/or methodological approaches by embedding a plurality of ‘new’ disciplines into the research designs. By doing this, one can significantly unravel unknown issues and dynamics, provide a better explanatory power and understanding of concepts and relations as well as identify and test new ‘remedies’.

COVID-19 and tourism in three stages: major impacts and some ideas for future research.

3.1. Tourism demand

Tourists have experienced themselves, through their loved ones and/or through the shared experiences of others (e.g. user-generated-content) significant disruptions and health-risks in their travel and bookings plans. The tourists’ experiences and/or exposure to others’ experiences (that are also magnified through the emotional contagion and information diffusion of the social media) can have a significant impact on their travel attitudes, intentions and future behaviours. Psychiatric research investigating the impact of traumatic experiences on people’s life, behaviours and experiences of places and services (e.g. Baxter & Diehl, 1998 ) can provide a useful theoretical lenses for understanding the travel behavior and attitudes of tourists that have been exposed to own or others’ COVID-19 travel trauma. Tourism research has mainly focused on studying how tourists develop their perceived risk and the impacts of the latter on tourists’ decision-making processes, future intentions and segmentation profiles (e.g. Dolnicar, 2005 , Aliperti and Cruz, 2019 , Araña and León, 2008 ). Others have also examined the impact of the tourists’ perception of crisis management preparedness certification on their travel intentions (e.g. Pennington-Gray, Schroeder, Wu, Donohoe, & Cahyanto, 2014 ). Such research is important, as risk perceptions are important for predicting future tourism demand and drafting appropriate recovery strategies ( Rittichainuwat & Chakraborty, 2009 ). It is also relevant for COVID-19 tourism research because of the new COVID-19 standards and certification rules that companies are now required to adopt. Research has shown that perceptions of risks may differ between tourists with different origin-country, final destination, age, sex and the typology of travel ( Rittichainuwat & Chakraborty, 2009 ). However, the impact of crisis communication and social media on perceived risk has been totally ignored. Some research is done for examining the impact of social media use on tourists’ mental health ( Zheng, Goh, & Wen, 2020 ) and crisis information systems and communication – social media ( Sigala, 2012 , Yu et al., 2020 ), however, given the increasing role and impact of social media on crisis communication and people’s health and risks perceptions, this is an area where more research is granted. As a vaccine for COVID-19 may take long to be developed and travelers may need to live with it, tourism research might benefit from medical and health research investigating how people behave, live and cope with chronic and lifestyle-related diseases (e.g. AIDS).

During lockdowns, people have experienced and become familiar with virtual services and tourism experiences. Research in technology adoption would claim that increased technology familiarity and trialability will increase its adoption. But will this apply for the controversial technologies introduced by COVID-19? Political economy and law research explaining how people react and accept human rights ‘violations’ (e.g. surveillance measures, freedom of speech, lockdowns) under conditions of ‘state of exception’ like terrorism or the COVID-19 ( Carriere, 2019 , Bozzoli and Müller, 2011 , Scheppele, 2003 ) can provide a new lenses for studying adoption of the COVID-19 controversial technologies and restrictions Research on political ideologies could further enlighten why people’s ideologies and political values may further perplex their reactions and behaviours to such interventions in their human rights.

It is claimed that while experiencing low pace, new lifestyles and working patterns, people are reflecting and recalibrating their priorities and social values. Is that true in relation to their travel behavior? Would people require and expect greater responsibility and sustainability from tourism operators and destinations? Would they be motivated to travel more but for a meaningful purpose? Or would people go back to their previous travel behaviours and preferences? Past research ( Pieters, 2013 ) has shown that consumers face a “material trap” in which materialism fosters social isolation and which in turn reinforces materialism. This might explain why during lockdowns people increased their online shopping and consumption of virtual entertainment and probably they might not have reflected and reset their values. Is that true and what is its impact on tourists’ behaviours? Consumer psychology and behavioural science explaining how people wish to align the time they spend with their values (congruence theory) can provide useful insights into such investigations. In addition, religion and spirituality studies can further enlighten the impact of COVID-19’s living conditions on tourists’ tourism sustainability preferences and attitudes as well as responses to tourism operators’ and destination sustainability practices and communications. This is because religion and spirituality is found to play an important role in influencing individuals’ thoughts and behaviors ( Laurin, Kay, & Fitzsimons, 2012 ).

Social distancing imposed by COVID-19 includes actions such as, reducing social contact, avoiding crowded places, or minimizing travel. Social distancing can significantly impact how people experience and evaluate leisure and travel activities like hiking, outdoor activities and nature-based tourism or even personal services like spas, dining, concierge services. Social distancing or better physical distancing may influence tourists’ perceptions of health hazards, insecurity and unpleasant tourism experiences. But how ‘far’ away is enough for tourism employees and other customers to be from each other without compromising sociality, personal service and perceptions of social distancing measures? Social distancing has not been studied before in service provision, while law and criminology research on ‘sexual’ consent may provide a different perspective on how people define social space and the ‘invasion’ or not of others into it.

Tourism is heavily a hedonic and sensorial experience. Servicescape design plays a major role in tourism experience by influencing customers’ emotions, behaviors, attitudes and service evaluations. However, COVID-19 operating standards require servicescapes to be redesigned eliminating or inhibiting sensorial elements and ‘changing’ tourism experiences, e.g.: smell of cleanliness instead of fragrance; social distancing and number of co-presence of clients in restaurants, festivals and other tourism settings will influence new standards of psychological comfort and acceptable levels of perceived crowdness; raised voices may generate a wider “moist breath zone” increasing viral spread; warmer temperatures create relaxing environments encouraging customers to stay and spend more, but poorly ventilated or air-conditioned indoor spaces may spread COVID-19. Would tourists and tourism firms change their behaviour and attitudes towards these new COVID-19 servicescapes? What new service etiquettes, customer expectations, behaviours and experiences would COVID-19 determined servicescapes and operational procedures may generate?

These and many other fields of research have been raised due to COVID-19 conditions, and as explained a plurality of theoretical lenses can be beneficial to provide a better understanding of these new concepts introduced in tourism research.

3.2. Tourism supply – Businesses

Tourism businesses have been racing to ensure the safety of their employees, customers, brand image and cash liquidity. To re-start, tourism companies are re-designing experiences (e.g. winery experiences, museum visits, tours, sports events, in-room dining and entertainment instead of hotel facilities) to feature smaller groups of tourists, outdoor activities and/or private experiences complying with social distancing and gathering restrictions and travellers’ expectations. Tourism companies have already upgraded their cleaning procedures by adopting new standards and restraining staff. Many of companies promote their hygiene certifications accredited by health expert associations. Tourism professionals are being trained to become ‘contact tracers’ obtaining relevant certifications confirming their skills to identify cases, build rapport and community with cases, identify their contact and stop community transmission. Restaurants, hotels, airports, public spaces are re-engineering their operations to make them contact-free or contactless. Mobile apps (for check-in, check-out, room keys, mobile payments, bookings-purchases), self-service kiosks, in-room technologies for entertainment and destination e-shopping (e.g. virtual reality for destination virtual visits to museums, attractions and destinations, movies), robots (for reception and concierge services, food delivery museum guides), artificial intelligence enabled websites and chatbox for customer communication and services, digital payments (e.g. digital wallets, paypal, credit cards). In addition, the new operating environment enforced by COVID-19 measures require firms to adopt new technologies and applications to ensure management of crowds and number of people gathered in public spaces (e.g. airports, shopping malls, museums, restaurants, hotels), human disinfectors and hand sanitiser equipment, applications identifying and managing people’s health identity and profiles.

Research can conduct a reality check and benchmarking of the effectiveness of the various respond and recovery strategies adopted by tourism operators. Research can also investigate the role and the way to build resilience to fast develop and implement such strategies. However, such research is useful and important but probably not enough for investigating the resetting of the next tourism industry normal. Transformative COVID-19 research should help industry to reimagine and implement an operating environment that is human-centred and responsible to sustainability and well-being values.

3.3. Destination management organisations and policy makers

Governments and destinations have been providing stimulus packages and interventions (e.g. tax reliefs, subsidies, deferrals of payments) to ensure the viability and continuity of tourism firms and jobs. Governments have intervened in mobility restriction and closures of businesses. Because of these, COVID-19 has resulted in a greater intervention of governments in the functioning and operations of the tourism industry. The government has also become a much bigger actor in the tourism economy (e.g. re-nationalisation of airlines and other tourism firms and tourism infrastructure like airports). This is very unique for COVID-19, as previous crises have generated research and institutional interest, but they did not have policy impact, specifically in tourism ( Hall et al., 2020 ). Would such government interventions and role sustain in the future? How will this influence the structure and functioning of the industry at a national and global level? Debates have already started questioning the effectiveness of such interventions, their fairness and equal distribution amongst tourism stakeholders ( Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020 ), their long-term impacts in terms of austerity and cuts of public expenditures. Future research looing into these issues is highly warrantied. In their CIVID-19 reactions and responses governments and destinations seem to have acted individually and nationalistic and recently selectively (e.g. bilateral and multilateral agreements amongst tourism bubbles). However, systems theory and crisis management, would argue that crises need to be addressed collectively. What would be the impact of such governmental behaviours on the future of tourism and destinations tourism policy making and strategies? As it seems, COVID-19 has raised political, geopolitical and governance issues that frameworks and concepts from these disciplines would need to be used to enlighten such research.

4. Conclusions: What is more and what is next

COVID-19 resulted in numerous socio-cultural, economic and psychological impacts on various tourism stakeholders, some of them for years to stay. Consequently, the pandemic has created a ‘fertile’ new context whereby tourism researchers can conduct research with valuable end-user benefits. However, COVID-19 tourism research should try to avoid the ‘publish or perish’ old mantra that has been driving and mushrooming tourism research ( Hall, 2011 ). Although studies conducting a reality check of impacts, predicting tourism demand, and benchmarking good and best practices are very useful and contextually interesting to assess COVID-19 impacts on various geographies sectors and stakeholders, they potentially offer limited scope to advance our knowledge on crisis management as well as to potentiate the pandemic’s affordance to reset our research agendas and expand the contribution and frontiers of tourism research and industry. It is the aim of this paper to inspire tourism scholars to view and use the COVID-19 as a transformational opportunity for reforming their mindsets in designing and conducting research and for the tourism institutions to reset their standards and metrics for motivating and evaluating the purpose, role and impact of tourism research. In addition, crises also accelerate technology innovation and change ( Colombo, Piva, Quas, & Rossi-Lamastra, 2016 ). However, these should not be viewed as inevitable, unquestionable and impossible to re-shape and re-adjust to serve real needs and meaningful values. It is the responsibility scholars to ensure that COVID-19 tourism research can ensure the latter.

The present analysis is not exhaustive in terms of the COVID-19 impacts, while impacts may not be uniform across all the actors of the same tourism stakeholder group. For example, the COVID-19 has different impacts on tourism operators based on their characteristics such as, the nature of the tourism sector (intermediaries, event organizers transportation, type of accommodation or attraction provider), their size, location, management and ownership style. Similarly, the highly heterogenous tourism demand (e.g. leisure and business travelers, group and independent tourists, special interest tourists such as religious, gay & lesbian, corporate travelers) also means that different COVID-19 impacts and implications are anticipated and worthy to be investigated for different market segments. COVID-19 tourism research should not only disclose such differentiated COVID-19 impacts, but it should also provide an enriched explanatory power about the roots of such disparities with the scope to envision and/or test any suggestions on how to address any inequalities and disadvantages that they may cause to various groups of tourism stakeholders. The analysis did not also include other major tourism stakeholders such as tourism employees, local communities, tourism entrepreneurs and tourism education (scholars, students and institutions alike). Recent developments and pressures faced by some of these tourism stakeholders were further strengthen by the COVID-19, which in turn place them in a more disadvantaged situation. COVID-19 research related to these stakeholders is equally important.

For example, COVID-19 has worsen the already difficult situation (e.g. high labour flexibility but at the expense of low salaries, lack of job security, insurance and other benefits) faced by an increasing number of tourism micro-entrepreneurs (e.g. food delivery people, ‘Uber taxi drivers’, “Airbnb hoteliers”) ( Sigala & Dolnicar, 2017 ). Algorithmic management, increased pressure and work stress are some of the negative impacts of the gig economy, which become more evident and fortified due to the COVID-19 (e.g. food delivery employees have no health insurance or coverage of lost salaries in case they get infected while working; ‘micro-hoteliers’ risk loosing their homes, as they cannot collect ‘accommodation fees’ to pay off home mortgages). Being an unofficial and sometime black economy/employment, gig tourism workers may not even be entitled to governmental subsidies provided to COVID-19 vulnerable employees or businesses. As the COVID-19 is expected to continue and reinforce contemporary paradigms and trends of this ‘causalisation’ of tourism employment (due to the upcoming economic recession and greater operating costs of tourism firms), COVID-19 tourism research needs to urgently investigate issues of employee psychological, mental and physical health, engagement, working conditions (e.g. remote working, virtual teams and virtual leadership) and other human resource issues within the COVID-19 setting. For example, traditional leadership, recruitment, management, and motivational incentives may not inspire, engage, motivate, and attract employees who have recalibrated their personal values and priorities during the COVID-19 lockdown and remote working.

The COVID-19 impacts on tourism employment create further pressures on tourism education that has severely affected by the pandemic. Apart from the virtualization of teaching and learning processes, tourism students and graduates have to also address the halt of industry interships, recruitment and questionable career paths. Tourism programs and universities are faced with reduced students’ intakes, industry and government sponsorship and research funding. Tourism researchers need to find new ways and sources for conducting research addressing social distancing, respecting the mental health and privacy issues of COVID-19 affected stakeholders. Investigating pedagogical issues such as how to make the design and delivery of tourism curricula more ‘resilient’, agile and updated to develop graduates with flexible and transferable skills to other industries is also equally important. For example, new online and offline courses and certifications have already emerged training graduates to become professional ‘contact tracer’ possessing the technical, emotional/social and ethical skills to manage customers and employees in situations of contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine (e.g. how contact tracing is done, how to build rapport with cases, identify their contacts, and support both cases and their contacts to stop transmission in their communities ( https://uh.edu/medicine/education/contact-tracer/ , https://www.coursera.org/learn/covid-19-contact-tracing?edocomorp=covid-19-contact-tracing , https://sph.uth.edu/news/story/trace ). However, is that just an opportunistic educational offering and/or a new ‘skill and qualification standard’ that tourism industry and demand would expect alike?

Many other specialized topics also warrant research within the domain of COVID-19. For example, the social entrepreneurship has been booming in tourism during the last decade ( Sigala, 2019 ) for several reasons including the 2008 economic recession. COVID-19 has boosted such tourism social ventures aiming to create social value, solve social problems created by the COVID-19 and provide help to people in need (e.g. marketplaces enabling the repurposing of various tourism unutilized resources such as labour, hotel and function space, food, cleaning material, e.g. HospitalityHelps.org ). The mushrooming of COVID-19 related tourism social ventures provides many opportunities to study and better understand this phenomenon within new and various ecosystems, stakeholders and circumstances.

Marianna Sigala is Professor at the University of South Australia and Director of the Centre for Tourism & Leisure Management. She is an international authority in the field of technological advances and applications in tourism with numerous awarded publications, research projects, keynote presentations in international conferences. In 2016, she has been awarded the prestigious EuroCHRIE Presidents’ Award for her lifetime contributions and achievements to tourism and hospitality education. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Service Theory & Practice, and the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management. Professor Sigala was also appointed as CAUTHE Fellow in 2020.

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Aurora Tourism in Iceland: You Can Seek, but You May Not Find

The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights — especially this year, which is a peak time for solar activity. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found.

In Reykjavík, Iceland, aurora borealis tourism is a booming business. Hopeful tourists board buses to head out into the night in search of the northern lights. Credit... Sigga Ella for The New York Times

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By Amelia Nierenberg

Amelia Nierenberg spent four nights searching for the northern lights in Iceland.

• March 25, 2024

From the outside, it may seem like the northern lights dance across Iceland’s skies each night. On Icelandair ads, planes fly across shimmering curtains in the sky. On social media, travelers gaze at the green bands above them . The lights are even on some recycling bins in Reykjavík, the capital: “Keep Iceland Clean.”

In the past decade or so, an aurora borealis industrial complex has boomed in Iceland. Many rent a car and go out on their own, but there are northern lights big bus tours and northern lights minibus tours and northern lights Super Jeep tours . There are private guides and boat cruises . There’s an observatory base camp . There’s even a museum .

But the lights can be elusive.

“Tourists sometimes expect, like, ‘At what time do you turn them on?’” said Björn Saevar Einarsson, a forecaster at Iceland’s meteorological office , chuckling. “Like we have a switch in the back room.”

This year, the letdowns are especially intense.

The northern lights, which are also called the aurora borealis, are most visible when there are solar flares, which are big eruptions on the sun that send charged particles toward Earth. This year, the sun is approaching the peak of its 11-year cycle of activity , which some assume means that the displays could peak, too.

But the enhanced solar activity doesn’t necessarily mean the northern lights will be brighter or more frequent, scientists wearily explain. Instead, they mostly mean that the lights can be seen farther south than usual: In recent months, they have been visible in Arizona , Missouri and southern England .

That doesn’t mean much for Iceland.

In fact, Icelanders and scientists said, this winter is nothing special. Sometimes, the lights are there. Sometimes, they aren’t. Just like always.

Hunting the lights

But nothing special, with the northern lights, is still very special. And so tourists keep coming .

Last month, I joined the fray. For four nights, I looked for telltale sky shimmers in and around Reykjavík.

I booked my tickets riding high — this was the best year yet, right? But as I learned more, and as my flight neared, my hopes ebbed. Scientists and tour leaders gently told me that the skies were cloudy and the solar activity seemed quiet.

“Just to let you know the forecast doesn’t look too good” Inga Dís Richter, the chief commercial officer at Icelandia , a tourism agency, wrote in an email two days before I planned to take a minibus trip with Reykjavik Excursions , one of its tour operators.

“But,” she added, “this can change.”

To find the lights, guides and travelers often rely on aurora forecasts, which overlay cloud cover and solar activity. They check them constantly, like a bride with an outdoor wedding in mid-April.

Some of the forecasts are free, like the aurora forecast run by Iceland’s meteorological office or Iceland at Night , which includes space weather. (Some are not — Aurora Forecast , which costs $12.99 a year, sends alerts.) Many people also turn to Facebook pages , where enthusiasts hungrily swap sightings.

Luck, though, is everything.

“There’s only one thing less predictable with the northern lights, and that’s the Arctic weather,” said John Mason, a global expert on the northern lights. “An aurora forecast is barely worth the paper that it’s written on.”

The guides work hard to explain the science, and set expectations. Most companies offer a free rebooking option if the lights do not show.

On my first night of aurora stalking, despite Ms. Richter’s warnings, I joined an expectant group on the Reykjavík Excursions minibus. For $88, I got a seat on the 19-person bus, which left the city’s central bus station at 9:30 p.m.

Over the next three to four hours, we would drive through the Icelandic night together. I’d either see something astonishing with these strangers — the sky, banded with light — or shiver with them shoulder-to-shoulder, awkward in the cold.

As we pulled onto the road, Gudjon Gunnarsson, the guide, set the mood early. “We are going hunting for the lights,” he said, emphasizing the word “hunting,” “similar to going out fishing in a lake.”

He drove for about 45 minutes, letting Reykjavík’s glow fade behind us. The city has about 140,000 people, and no real skyscrapers, so there’s limited light pollution. Although the northern lights can appear over the city, it’s best to see them in total darkness.

Then he paused and consulted with another guide.

“It is too cloudy here,” he told his flock. “So we will keep driving.”

But as we kept driving, clouds turned to a dense fog, so thick that the moon all but disappeared.

Mr. Gunnarsson turned off the main highway about an hour after we left Reykjavík. He parked in a parking lot. Or maybe it was a side street? The darkness was so deep that I could only make out the moonlight on the ocean, and only then after my eyes adjusted.

We disembarked and stood dutifully beside him, staring up at the sky. Then, one woman pointed toward Reykjavík. Were those the lights? (No. That was light pollution.)

Christof Reinhard, 65, who owns a medical laser company and was visiting with his family from Paris, mused that our search was a little bit like a safari. Sure, the desert is amazing, but it’s much better with lions. Or, maybe, was this more like a whale watch?

“Instead of a boat,” he said, “you have a bus.”

Mr. Gunnarsson watched the group stomp their feet and bend into the wind. Fifteen minutes. Then, half an hour. The clouds hung thick above. “There’s nothing happening here, as you can see,” he finally said to relieved chuckles. “It’s one of those nights where you just have to give up.”

Tourists can get mad, Mr. Gunnarsson and other guides said. It’s rare, but it does happen.

“It’s the trip that has our worst reviews,” said Eric Larimer, the digital marketing manager for Gray Line Iceland , a day tour and airport transport company.

A wake-up call for the aurora

For some, the joy is in the search, even if there is no find. A few focus on astronomy, often opting to stay at Hotel Rangá , which is just off the main ring road (Route 1) near Iceland’s south coast.

The hotel looks unassuming — low-slung and wooden — but it’s one of the most famous in Iceland. (The Kardashians stayed there . So did the Real Housewives of Orange County .) A standard room costs more than $300, depending on the season.

But Rangá doesn’t just cater to celebrities. It also draws astronomy buffs, enticed by its “aurora wake-up call” service and its observatory, which has state-of-the-art telescopes.

“One thing is to sell them,” said Fridrik Pálsson, the hotel’s owner, speaking of the northern lights. “Another thing is to deliver them.”

About 20 years ago, before the northern lights industry took off, he delegated the night security guard to monitor the sky. The guard pokes his head out every few minutes to look for the telltale flicker. If he sees the lights, he alerts the guests.

The service aims to address one of the main issues with hunting for the northern lights: They are usually only visible on winter nights, when it is very cold, very windy and very late.

“To be a good northern lights observer, you need the constitution of an insomniac polar bear,” Dr. Mason said.

My room phone, alas, stayed silent. But I did dream about the lights — great Wonka colors swirling, strangely, behind the Chrysler Building.

Mr. Pálsson built the observatory, too. Even if the lights didn’t show up, he figured, the stars are still magnificent — and, for city dwellers, also rare. The hotel contracts astronomers to work the telescopes and explain the stars to guests.On my second night in Iceland, as twilight slipped below happy-hour skies, I crunched across the snow to the observatory with Saevar Helgi Bragason, an Icelandic science communicator who leads the astronomy program.

He bent into a toddler-size telescope, focusing it on the moon’s craters. They looked clearer than the hotel, just a short walk away. It was too early for the lights, he said. And that evening seemed too cloudy (on Earth) and too quiet (on the sun).

Mr. Bragason joked that the lights can get in his way — they create a mist over the stars he really wants to see. But tourists often come specifically to see them. And sometimes, he said, as they wait impatiently, they can miss the real wonder.

“You’re left with these beautiful skies above you,” he said. “Basically, literally, another universe opens up.”

Creating a lights season

Hotel Rangá was a pioneer in Iceland’s northern lights tourism industry: About two decades ago, people came to Iceland for the long summer days, and left as daylight slipped farther south.

“I found it rather stupid in the beginning,” admitted Mr. Pálsson, the owner of Rangá, speaking of northern lights tourism.

But spreading tourism throughout the year made sense. Partly, that was an environmental concern. The tourists would crowd the country’s extraordinary natural sites over just a few months. It was also economic. When the visitors left Iceland, tourism jobs would ebb with the sunlight.

So the northern lights, which are reliably visible from September to March, became the backbone of the country’s winter branding, said Sveinn Birkir Björnsson, the marketing and communications director at Business Iceland , which promotes the country.

“To be able to sell this product of cold and darkness, you have to have something to offer,” he said.

Now, even though June, July and August are the busiest months, tourism has evened out over the seasons. In 2023, there were about 1.1 million international visitors to Iceland during the aurora months, based on departures from Keflavík Airport, according to data from Iceland’s tourist board . From April to August, there were about 1.1 million, too.

About a decade earlier , when tourism overall to Iceland was lower, there were about 336,000 departures from the main airport in colder months, and about 446,000 in the spring and summer.

The winter travelers are drawn by the lights — and the hot springs, glaciers and icy waterfalls. It’s also cheaper than the summer season.

Some try to visit volcanoes , but the country recently warned tourists to avoid the lava flows — Iceland is living in an unusually active period of seismic activity . In January, lava flowed into a small town and last week a volcano erupted with just 40 minutes’ notice near the Blue Lagoon thermal springs, one of the country’s biggest attractions.

The final attempts

Near midnight on my last night, a Sunday, I drove to the Grótta Lighthouse , a popular spot on the outskirts of Reykjavík.

A few die-hard experts had warned me off — many tourists go there because it’s darker than most of Reykjavík, but then don’t think to turn off their headlights. It was also raining, greatly diminishing my chances of seeing the lights.

But I only had three hours before I had to leave to make my predawn flight. I felt a little desperate, a little dazed. I parked, and approached two people who were sitting in the rain on a wet wall, looking at the water in the darkness. I climbed over seaweed, and introduced myself. What would it mean to them, I asked, if the lights suddenly appeared?

“It’d be a little bit like the cherry on top,” said Catherine Norburn, 29, who was visiting from England.

She and her husband were set to fly out the next morning. They had not yet seen the lights.

“We don’t have high hopes,” said her husband, Reece Norburn, 29, “but it’s now or never.”

We didn’t see the lights. And I didn’t see them later, even after pulling off the highway halfway between Reykjavík and the airport at 3:30 a.m., half convinced by a shimmery cloud.

But I did spend more time looking up at the sky. And it’s a marvel.

In New York City, where I live, the night sky blooms orange-mauve. In Iceland, the nighttime darkness is just that — darkness. Clouds roll, breaking the deep blue. Stars actually shine. Northern lights or no northern lights, it was still cosmically beautiful.

Amelia Nierenberg writes the Asia Pacific Morning Briefing , a global newsletter. More about Amelia Nierenberg

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places:  Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Mumbai:  Spend 36 hours in this fast-changing Indian city  by exploring ancient caves, catching a concert in a former textile mill and feasting on mangoes.

Kyoto:  The Japanese city’s dry gardens offer spots for quiet contemplation  in an increasingly overtouristed destination.

Iceland:  The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found .

Texas:  Canoeing the Rio Grande near Big Bend National Park can be magical. But as the river dries, it’s getting harder to find where a boat will actually float .

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Tourism is expected to become a $16 trillion industry by 2034, the World Travel & Tourism Council says.

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The 14-figure sums can be broken down into three types of travel transactions, Bloomberg notes. Direct travel spending includes things like hotels, tours, and transportation, as well as public investment in these types of services. Indirect travel spending covers the expenses of those businesses, such as sheets and towels or the ingredients for the breakfast buffet. Finally, induced spending accounts for the trickle-down effects of hospitality employees.

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Sights of Elektrostal: the history of the city, what to see, photos and reviews

Table of contents:, history of the city, attractions, engineering plant, church of the righteous john of kronstadt, city recreation and culture park, cinema gallery, avangard paintball club.

2024 Author : Harold Hamphrey | [email protected] . Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

Elektrostal is a fairly large industrial city, which is located near the Vokhonka River and almost 40-50 km from the eastern part of Moscow. There are a lot of powerful factories here, where many residents of Elektrostal work. They are perfectly combined with the most beautiful green boulevards, streets and parks, bright lawns and flower beds that adorn almost the entire town. It is picturesque due to amazing reservoirs and forests. It is worth learning more about the main attractions of Elektrostal, photos of which are in the article.

The city was founded in 1916 thanks to the construction of a metallurgical plant. Previously, this place was the natural boundary of Calm. To start construction, the labor of local peasants was used. In the middle of 1925 herebuilt the first railway line that connected Elektrostal with Moscow. After the onset of 1938, the village turned into a separate city.

It is noteworthy that during the Great Patriotic War, the Electrostal plants produced ammunition that was needed for victory. In particular, it is worth noting the production of the legendary Katyushas.

A new stage for the factories of the city began after the invention of atomic weapons. The local plant was on the list of the main production facilities of the nuclear industry. This led to the fact that in 1954 the production of fuel was launched, which was used for the operation of nuclear power plants.

In 1963, the cultural center "October" was built, and this was done by the masters of the Novo-Kramatorsky plant, named after Stalin. It featured a spacious auditorium that could seat more than 850 people, as well as a unique revolving stage for actors to change scenery in seconds.

At different times, eminent creative groups performed in this cultural center, as well as the Beryozka ensemble, famous at that time. It is noteworthy that even in our time the cultural center is actively functioning, and the square in front of it is considered the most beautiful place in Elektrostal with fountains operating in the summer. In mid-2013, it received the status of a city of labor and military glory.

There are many numerous monuments in the city that tell about the history of this amazing place: a monument to Nikolai Vtorov -the founder of the famous plant "Elektrostal" near the House of Culture, a monument to Tevosyan - the chief engineer, monuments to M. Gorky and K. Marx, a sculpture "Steelworker", a monument to Korneev - Hero of the Soviet Union, as well as a memorial and a monument to soldiers who died in Afghanistan and on North Caucasus.

This is a fairly large and old factory in the city that specializes in the production of fuel for local gas stations. The plant is part of the structure of the company FC "TVEL" of the state corporation "Rosatom". The General Director of the enterprise is O. L. Sedelnikov.

This plant produces nuclear fuel, which is used by many nuclear power plants, transport power plants and research reactors, not only in Russia, but also in other European countries. The company has quality certificates OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001, ISO 9001.

The museum of the plant presents its history, shows old photographs of the streets of the city, there are achievements of workers, as well as photos of significant people, there are many of the most interesting models produced at the machine-building plant. It also stores presentations showing the principles of the enterprise.

This temple - a landmark of Elektrostal - is a single-dome centric church, which is made in the style of Byzantine times. It was erected in the 20th century, in the immediate vicinity of St. Andrew's Church. The temple was designed by T. V. Trubnikov and V. A. Drozdov, according to the developments of which the iconostasis and interior were exactly designed.

The church plays the role of a baptismal church and belongs to the Moscow diocese. The main shrines of the church are the most ancient and valuable icons of Nikandor Gorodnoyezersky and the Great Martyr Panteleimon. In addition, particles of the relics of saints are kept here. Divine services are held in the temple only during religious holidays.

The local park - a landmark of Elektrostal is an ideal place where everyone can stay alone with nature, ride numerous attractions, and also spend time playing slot machines. The park is especially popular in the summer - it is full of families, youth companies and couples in love.

Especially for the summer in 2013, the park was re-planned, which made it possible to accommodate more modern entertainment and interesting playgrounds for young visitors. Swimmers will love the dragon and swans, and trampolines have been installed for more active children.

It is noteworthy that the prices in the local park are quite affordable: the cost of a ticket for various attractions ranges from 30-100 rubles. Today it is called "Wonder Park", and it is divided into a quieter "Quiet Alley" and "Entertainment Alley", where there is an inexpensive cafe, a summer stage, and also quite a lot ofattractions.

This cinema is very popular, so it can be called a landmark of Elektrostal. It is located in the shopping center "Elgrad" and consists of 5 spacious halls that can accommodate more than 800 people. To show 2D and 3D films, only modern equipment is used: Dolby Digital Surround EX and MasterImage acoustics, as well as huge screens with a special coating. In all cinema halls, very comfortable conditions for visitors were created: climate control and soft chairs.

In the foyer of the Cinema Gallery there is a play area, a fairly spacious cafe, fast food establishments (Suneki, Tashir-pizza, Rostiks, Kebab-tun, etc.) and popcorn- bar. This is an attractive local leisure center, where the residents of Elektrostal are shown all the latest cinema.

This is a whole complex where you can spend your free time pleasantly and profitably. In addition to the playgrounds, which are fully equipped for playing laser tag and paintball, guests are invited to visit a local cafe where delicious home-cooked dishes are prepared, a banquet menu, karaoke, as well as a relaxing sauna with a warm font.

What do tourists who have visited the city say? It is not tourist, but industrial. Attractions are quite specific, but overall interesting. Tourists were pleased with low prices.

Looking at the photo of the sights of the city of Elektrostal, you may want to go there and spendunforgettable weekend.

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The Moscow Metro Museum of Art: 10 Must-See Stations

There are few times one can claim having been on the subway all afternoon and loving it, but the Moscow Metro provides just that opportunity.  While many cities boast famous public transport systems—New York’s subway, London’s underground, San Salvador’s chicken buses—few warrant hours of exploration.  Moscow is different: Take one ride on the Metro, and you’ll find out that this network of railways can be so much more than point A to B drudgery.

The Metro began operating in 1935 with just thirteen stations, covering less than seven miles, but it has since grown into the world’s third busiest transit system ( Tokyo is first ), spanning about 200 miles and offering over 180 stops along the way.  The construction of the Metro began under Joseph Stalin’s command, and being one of the USSR’s most ambitious building projects, the iron-fisted leader instructed designers to create a place full of svet (radiance) and svetloe budushchee (a radiant future), a palace for the people and a tribute to the Mother nation.

Consequently, the Metro is among the most memorable attractions in Moscow.  The stations provide a unique collection of public art, comparable to anything the city’s galleries have to offer and providing a sense of the Soviet era, which is absent from the State National History Museum.  Even better, touring the Metro delivers palpable, experiential moments, which many of us don’t get standing in front of painting or a case of coins.

Though tours are available , discovering the Moscow Metro on your own provides a much more comprehensive, truer experience, something much less sterile than following a guide.  What better place is there to see the “real” Moscow than on mass transit: A few hours will expose you to characters and caricatures you’ll be hard-pressed to find dining near the Bolshoi Theater.  You become part of the attraction, hear it in the screech of the train, feel it as hurried commuters brush by: The Metro sucks you beneath the city and churns you into the mix.

With the recommendations of our born-and-bred Muscovite students, my wife Emma and I have just taken a self-guided tour of what some locals consider the top ten stations of the Moscow Metro. What most satisfied me about our Metro tour was the sense of adventure .  I loved following our route on the maps of the wagon walls as we circled the city, plotting out the course to the subsequent stops; having the weird sensation of being underground for nearly four hours; and discovering the next cavern of treasures, playing Indiana Jones for the afternoon, piecing together fragments of Russia’s mysterious history.  It’s the ultimate interactive museum.

Top Ten Stations (In order of appearance)

Kievskaya station.

Kievskaya Station went public in March of 1937, the rails between it and Park Kultury Station being the first to cross the Moscow River.  Kievskaya is full of mosaics depicting aristocratic scenes of Russian life, with great cameo appearances by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.  Each work has a Cyrillic title/explanation etched in the marble beneath it; however, if your Russian is rusty, you can just appreciate seeing familiar revolutionary dates like 1905 ( the Russian Revolution ) and 1917 ( the October Revolution ).

Mayakovskaya Station

Mayakovskaya Station ranks in my top three most notable Metro stations. Mayakovskaya just feels right, done Art Deco but no sense of gaudiness or pretention.  The arches are adorned with rounded chrome piping and create feeling of being in a jukebox, but the roof’s expansive mosaics of the sky are the real showstopper.  Subjects cleverly range from looking up at a high jumper, workers atop a building, spires of Orthodox cathedrals, to nimble aircraft humming by, a fleet of prop planes spelling out CCCP in the bluest of skies.

Novoslobodskaya Station

Novoslobodskaya is the Metro’s unique stained glass station.  Each column has its own distinctive panels of colorful glass, most of them with a floral theme, some of them capturing the odd sailor, musician, artist, gardener, or stenographer in action.  The glass is framed in Art Deco metalwork, and there is the lovely aspect of discovering panels in the less frequented haunches of the hall (on the trackside, between the incoming staircases).  Novosblod is, I’ve been told, the favorite amongst out-of-town visitors.

Komsomolskaya Station

Komsomolskaya Station is one of palatial grandeur.  It seems both magnificent and obligatory, like the presidential palace of a colonial city.  The yellow ceiling has leafy, white concrete garland and a series of golden military mosaics accenting the tile mosaics of glorified Russian life.  Switching lines here, the hallway has an Alice-in-Wonderland feel, impossibly long with decorative tile walls, culminating in a very old station left in a remarkable state of disrepair, offering a really tangible glimpse behind the palace walls.

Dostoevskaya Station

Dostoevskaya is a tribute to the late, great hero of Russian literature .  The station at first glance seems bare and unimpressive, a stark marble platform without a whiff of reassembled chips of tile.  However, two columns have eerie stone inlay collages of scenes from Dostoevsky’s work, including The Idiot , The Brothers Karamazov , and Crime and Punishment.   Then, standing at the center of the platform, the marble creates a kaleidoscope of reflections.  At the entrance, there is a large, inlay portrait of the author.

Chkalovskaya Station

Chkalovskaya does space Art Deco style (yet again).  Chrome borders all.  Passageways with curvy overhangs create the illusion of walking through the belly of a chic, new-age spacecraft.  There are two (kos)mosaics, one at each end, with planetary subjects.  Transferring here brings you above ground, where some rather elaborate metalwork is on display.  By name similarity only, I’d expected Komsolskaya Station to deliver some kosmonaut décor; instead, it was Chkalovskaya that took us up to the space station.

Elektrozavodskaya Station

Elektrozavodskaya is full of marble reliefs of workers, men and women, laboring through the different stages of industry.  The superhuman figures are round with muscles, Hollywood fit, and seemingly undeterred by each Herculean task they respectively perform.  The station is chocked with brass, from hammer and sickle light fixtures to beautiful, angular framework up the innards of the columns.  The station’s art pieces are less clever or extravagant than others, but identifying the different stages of industry is entertaining.

Baumanskaya Statio

Baumanskaya Station is the only stop that wasn’t suggested by the students.  Pulling in, the network of statues was just too enticing: Out of half-circle depressions in the platform’s columns, the USSR’s proud and powerful labor force again flaunts its success.  Pilots, blacksmiths, politicians, and artists have all congregated, posing amongst more Art Deco framing.  At the far end, a massive Soviet flag dons the face of Lenin and banners for ’05, ’17, and ‘45.  Standing in front of the flag, you can play with the echoing roof.

Ploshchad Revolutsii Station

Novokuznetskaya Station

Novokuznetskaya Station finishes off this tour, more or less, where it started: beautiful mosaics.  This station recalls the skyward-facing pieces from Mayakovskaya (Station #2), only with a little larger pictures in a more cramped, very trafficked area.  Due to a line of street lamps in the center of the platform, it has the atmosphere of a bustling market.  The more inventive sky scenes include a man on a ladder, women picking fruit, and a tank-dozer being craned in.  The station’s also has a handsome black-and-white stone mural.

Here is a map and a brief description of our route:

Start at (1)Kievskaya on the “ring line” (look for the squares at the bottom of the platform signs to help you navigate—the ring line is #5, brown line) and go north to Belorusskaya, make a quick switch to the Dark Green/#2 line, and go south one stop to (2)Mayakovskaya.  Backtrack to the ring line—Brown/#5—and continue north, getting off at (3)Novosblodskaya and (4)Komsolskaya.  At Komsolskaya Station, transfer to the Red/#1 line, go south for two stops to Chistye Prudy, and get on the Light Green/#10 line going north.  Take a look at (5)Dostoevskaya Station on the northern segment of Light Green/#10 line then change directions and head south to (6)Chkalovskaya, which offers a transfer to the Dark Blue/#3 line, going west, away from the city center.  Have a look (7)Elektroskaya Station before backtracking into the center of Moscow, stopping off at (8)Baumskaya, getting off the Dark Blue/#3 line at (9)Ploschad Revolyutsii.  Change to the Dark Green/#2 line and go south one stop to see (10)Novokuznetskaya Station.

Check out our new Moscow Indie Travel Guide , book a flight to Moscow and read 10 Bars with Views Worth Blowing the Budget For

Jonathon Engels, formerly a patron saint of misadventure, has been stumbling his way across cultural borders since 2005 and is currently volunteering in the mountains outside of Antigua, Guatemala.  For more of his work, visit his website and blog .

Photo credits:   SergeyRod , all others courtesy of the author and may not be used without permission

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Travel and tourism to break records, bring over $11 trillion in 2024: report

The global travel and tourism industry is expected to be at an 'all-time high' this year.

Air travel demand is incredibly strong: TSA Administrator David Pekoske

TSA Administrator David Pekoske discusses air travel demand, flight disruptions, his experience going through TSA and firearm detections at checkpoints.

Travel and tourism is expected to be a boon for the global economy this year.

Countries around the world will see travel and tourism produce $11.1 trillion in 2024, according to a report released Thursday by the World Travel & Tourism Council.

The group said the forecasted global economic contribution would mark an "all-time high" from the roughly $10 trillion the industry brought in pre-pandemic 2019.

Countries around the world will see travel and tourism produce $11.1 trillion in 2024, according to a report. (  / iStock)

The coronavirus hit many industries hard, with travel and tourism in particular seeing negative impacts from the lockdowns and restrictions instituted in the early days of the pandemic.

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This year,   both international and domestic tourists are expected to splash out during their travels.

The report, which involved a partnership with Oxford Economics, projected a record $5.4 trillion in spending would come from domestic travelers. That would set a record, according to the WTTC.

Meanwhile, international tourists will reportedly contribute $1.89 trillion.

The report projected a record $5.4 trillion in spending from domestic travelers. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images / Getty Images)

And the WTTC had an even rosier outlook for a decade from now, when it predicted global tourism and travel will be responsible for nearly $16 trillion and 449 million jobs.

ECLIPSE TOURISM EXPECTED TO BRING BIG BUCKS TO AREAS IN PATH OF TOTALITY

The travel and tourism industry’s performance in 2023 provided momentum for this year, the group said.

In 2023, it produced $9.9 trillion around the world .

"This isn’t just about breaking records, we’re no longer talking about a recovery – this is a story of the sector back at its best after a difficult few years, providing a significant economic boost to countries around the world and supporting millions of jobs," WTTC CEO Julia Simpson said in a Thursday statement. "There’s a risk however, we need the U.S. and Chinese governments to support their national Travel & Tourism sectors."

Passengers walk past a flight status board in Terminal C at Orlando International Airport, Jan. 11, 2023, after the FAA grounded all U.S. flights, reportedly due to an FAA computer system failure. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via / Getty Images)

The head of the WTTC warned the U.S . and China could "continue to suffer whilst other countries are seeing international visitors return much faster" if they don’t.

CRUISE LINES SAILING INTO 2024 SEEING STRONG DEMAND, AAA SAYS

The group pegged 2023’s U.S. international visitor spending at "more than a quarter below the peak of 2019" and China’s "almost 60% down."

In August, the WTTC issued a prediction that the U.S. travel and tourism industry would provide $2.2 trillion in 2023. It was responsible for $2 trillion the year prior to that.

Plan Your Trip to Elektrostal: Best of Elektrostal Tourism

Essential elektrostal.

Elektrostal Is Great For

Eat & drink.

• Apelsin Hotel
• Elektrostal Hotel
• Apart Hotel Yantar
• Mini Hotel Banifatsiy
• Restaurant Globus
• Amsterdam Moments
• Cafe Antresole
• Viki Cinema
• Statue of Lenin
• Park of Culture and Leisure