Search Results (1,971)

Tourism is an excellent pathway with which to promote and provide access to cultural heritage. Sustainable cultural tourism offers a new perspective, as it places cultural heritage and local communities at the centre of decision-making processes. In this context, traditional tourism must be updated accordingly to the new times. This research aims to classify a cultural heritage piece found in the ruins of what used to be the Castle of Montilla, and produce a 3D virtual model using innovative technologies, to be appreciated in the metaverse, as a virtual museum. The idea of tourism as a real movement of people should be shifted little by little to an idea of connection without the need of being there exactly. This research succeeded with this idea. A ‘perfume burner’, catalogued as a lamp, and currently located in the medieval section of the Local Historical Museum of Montilla (Cordoba, Spain), was virtually reconstructed. In the attainment of these physical subjects transferred to the metaverse, photogrammetry played a crucial role. Obtaining a 3D digital model of a heritage asset enables the public in general, present and non-present visitors, to appreciate such cultural pieces. In this context, tourist agents and resources might be changed and updated to bring tourist services and clients. The metaverse is paramount in creating virtual museums, providing the possibility of establishing connections with people without the need to be physically in a certain place. The virtual museum leverages digital technology to promote sustainability by reducing travels and minimising the environmental impact. To date, this research enhances the experiences of the users at the local museum. Full article

Analysing the spatial distribution patterns of the urban tourism and leisure industry is crucial for meeting the dual demands of residents and visitors for a better quality of life. Most existing studies on spatial distribution characteristics and the accessibility of leisure tourism have been carried out individually and lack the relationship between the tourism and leisure industry and accessibility. Based on Qingdao’s POI data, spatial visualisation methods and Geodetector are used to explore spatial distribution, accessibility, and influencing factors. (1) It is found that the overall and various types of the tourism and leisure industry in Qingdao exhibit clustered distribution, with an imbalance between coastal and inland areas. (2) There are notable spatial disparities in overall accessibility within Qingdao, with most regions falling within the 70-min isochrone. The spatial distribution of accessibility at the county level aligns with the overall accessibility patterns. (3) Various factors influence the spatial distribution of the tourism and leisure industry. Per capita disposable income is the primary factor affecting the spatial layout of Qingdao’s tourism and leisure industry. After interacting with other factors, GDP per capita and tourist trips become key influencing factors. These findings can promote the sustainable development of urban tourism in Qingdao and provide a valuable reference for other cities. Full article

The pervasive use of anthropogenic light at night has significantly increased the brightness of the night sky, which negatively affects human wellbeing, the ecology of plants and animals, night sky aesthetics, and astronomical observations. However, public awareness of light pollution remains limited. This study evaluates the effectiveness of an ‘eco-art installation’ in raising awareness about the impacts of anthropogenic light at night (ALAN). The installation, ‘Scope’, used light as a medium to convey the adverse effects of anthropogenic light at the Te Ramaroa festival in Nelson, New Zealand, which is held to celebrate light in the depths of winter. An online survey assessed the awareness of Nelson region residents, comparing responses between those who experienced the installation and those who did not, and assessing the self-reported knowledge increase after engagement with the installation. The findings indicated that eco-art installations can significantly enhance the public’s understanding of ALAN’s environmental and health impacts. The installation successfully increased self-reported specific knowledge about ALAN, with 92% of visitors reporting learning something new; however, overarching knowledge and levels of concern were largely similar between the groups. Emotional engagement was high, with 62% of viewers stating that the installation invoked an emotional response. While the study did not measure beha-vioural changes, 94% of festival participants found it at least ‘somewhat appropriate’ and 64% found it ‘very’ or ‘entirely appropriate’ to raise awareness of these issues at such events, suggesting a potential foundation for future action. This research underscores the promise of art–science collaborations in environmental education and public engagement. Full article

The growing interest in safeguarding agroecosystem biodiversity has led to interest in studying ecological interactions among the various organisms present within the agroecosystem. Indeed, mutualisms between weeds and pollinators are of crucial importance as they influence the respective survival dynamics. In this review, the mutualistic role of flower visitors and the possible (often predominant) abiotic alternatives to insect pollination (self- and wind-pollination) are investigated. Mutualistic relations are discussed in terms of reward (pollen and/or nectar) and attractiveness (color, shape, scent, nectar quality and quantity), analyzing whether and to what extent typical weeds are linked to pollinators by rigid (specialization) or flexible (generalization) mutualistic relations. The entomofauna involved is composed mainly of solitary and social bees, bumblebees, Diptera, and Lepidoptera. While some of these pollinators are polylectic, others are oligolectic, depending on the shape of their mouthparts, which can be suited to explore the flower corollas as function of their depths. Consequently, the persistence dynamics of weed species show more successful survival in plants that are basically (occasional insect pollination) or totally (self and/or wind pollination) unspecialized in mutualistic relations. However, even weed species with typical abiotic pollination are at times visited during periods such as late summer, in which plants with more abundant rewards are insufficiently present or completely absent. Many typically insect-pollinated weeds can represent a valid indicator of the ecological sustainability of crop management techniques, as their survival dynamics are closely dependent on the biodiversity of the surrounding entomofauna. In particular, the presence of plant communities of species pollinated above all by butterflies (e.g., several Caryophyllaceae) gives evidence to the ecological compatibility of the previous agronomic management, in the sense that butterflies require certain weed species for oviposition and subsequent larva rearing and, therefore, provide further evidence of plant biodiversity in the environment. Full article

Zoo conditions are unique for reindeer, since domestic reindeer are not kept in captive facilities like cattle. In the zoo, reindeer are usually surrounded by many different animals that they would never encounter naturally. Thus, they might be infected with new helminths. Numerous petting zoos raise concerns about the safety of tactile interactions for human visitors. Our study is the first large-scale one. Qualitative and quantitative fecal analyses were carried out for 233 reindeer distributed over 50 Russian zoos according to the National Standard of the Russian Federation (GOST R 54627-2011) Ruminant animals—Methods of Laboratory Helminthological Diagnostics. Where possible, DNA analyses of helminths were performed targeting internal transcribed spacer region. As a result, F. hepatica, Paramphistomum sp., Moniezia sp. (including M. expansa), gastrointestinal strongylids (including Nematodirus spp.), Dictyocaulus sp., E. rangiferi, Trichuris sp., and Capillaria sp. were found in 106 (45%) zoo reindeer. All these helminths were previously reported in reindeer and pose no direct danger for humans. The intensity of invasions was mostly low. Fecal examination might be considered as an indirect method for mange diagnostics, as Chorioptes and Demodex mites were found in reindeer fecal samples. The latter may represent a novel species of mite specific for reindeer. Full article

(1) Background: the penalty kick is an action in football that decides many matches. The aim of this research was to establish the success rate of penalty kicks in Spain between the seasons 2012/2013 and 2019/2020 considering different key performance variables. (2) Methods: A total of 941 penalty kicks were analysed from eight seasons of the first division of the Spanish men’s football league (La Liga). An observational methodology was used and, in order to obtain the results, different analytical techniques were employed: descriptive and chi square with a significance level of p < 0.05. (3) Results: The effectiveness of penalty kicks was 76.7%. Most of the penalties were taken by the home team (60.9%), with a tie on the scoreboard (44.2%) and within the last 30 min of the match (41.9%). The highest success rate was observed for balls kicked to the upper side of the goal (100%), even though the highest number of penalties were taken low, to one of the two sides of the goal (57.0%). Up to 5.6% of the penalties were not kicked inside the goal. (4) Conclusions: Effectiveness does not depend on home–visitor status, player laterality, score or remaining match time, studied independently. A loss of effectiveness is observed when the match scores of both teams are close and in critical moments of the match. Full article

Identifying and understanding visitor needs and expectations is of the utmost importance for a number of stakeholders and policymakers involved in the touristic domain. Apart from traditional forms of feedback, an abundance of related information exists online, scattered across various data sources like online social media, tourism-related platforms, traveling blogs, forums, etc. Retrieving and analyzing the aforementioned content is not a straightforward task and in order to address this challenge, we have developed the StreetLines platform, a novel information system that is able to collect, analyze and produce insights from the available tourism-related data. Its highly modular architecture allows for the continuous monitoring of varying pools of heterogeneous data sources whose contents are subsequently stored, after preprocessing, in a data repository. Following that, the aforementioned data feed a number of independent and parallel processing modules that extract useful information for all individuals involved in the tourism domain, like place recommendation for visitors and sentiment analysis and keyword extraction reports for professionals in the tourism industry. The presented platform is an outcome of the StreetLines project and apart from the contributions of its individual components, its novelty lies in the holistic approach to knowledge extraction and tourism data mining. Full article

As the number of European Union (EU) visitors grows, implementing novel border control solutions, such as mobile devices for passenger identification for land and sea border control, becomes paramount to ensure the convenience and safety of passengers and officers. However, these devices, handling sensitive personal data, become attractive targets for malicious actors seeking to misuse or steal such data. Therefore, to increase the level of security of such devices without interrupting border control activities, robust user authentication mechanisms are essential. Toward this direction, we propose a risk-based adaptive user authentication mechanism for mobile passenger identification devices for land and sea border control, aiming to enhance device security without hindering usability. In this work, we present a comprehensive assessment of novelty and outlier detection algorithms and discern OneClassSVM, Local Outlier Factor (LOF), and Bayesian_GaussianMixtureModel (B_GMM) novelty detection algorithms as the most effective ones for risk estimation in the proposed mechanism. Furthermore, in this work, we develop the proposed risk-based adaptive user authentication mechanism as an application on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B device (i.e., playing the role of the mobile device for passenger identification), where we evaluate the detection performance of the three best performing novelty detection algorithms (i.e., OneClassSVM, LOF, and B_GMM), with B_GMM surpassing the others in performance when deployed on the Raspberry Pi 4 device. Finally, we evaluate the risk estimation overhead of the proposed mechanism when the best performing B_GMM novelty detection algorithm is used for risk estimation, indicating efficient operation with minimal additional latency. Full article

The development of sustainable tourism has various stakeholders such as local residents, businesses, governments, visitors, travel agencies, and tourism companies. Tourism destinations need to be protected not only to ensure a better travel experience but also to ensure that they can be enjoyed in the future. This study explored the degree of influence of key stakeholders such as the government, travel agencies, local residents, and tourists on the development of sustainable tourism in Haikou, the capital city of the island province Hainan, China. This city is rich in tropical natural resources and offers unique opportunities for the development of tourism. In 2018, Haikou was selected as one of the first “International Wetland Cities” by the 13th United Nations Ramsar Convention. However, the high dependence on tourism and centralized consumption have caused several ecological and environmental problems in Haikou. An online questionnaire survey of 419 stakeholders was conducted, and factor analysis was used to identify five dimensions. The structural equation modeling method was used to explore the degree of influence of different relationships on sustainable tourism development in Haikou. The results indicated that key stakeholders are most concerned about tourism awareness, ecological protection, and sociocultural development. Therefore, further efforts to promote and develop tourism must focus on ecological and environmental protection. Creating positive travel experiences and managing tourism wisely can meet the demands of today without compromising the future. Full article

This paper applies selected methodologies for the measurement of the environmental and economic sustainability of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (PGC) in Venice with a view to assessing the PGC’s sustainability and commitment to implementing selected SDGs. To assess environmental sustainability, a life cycle assessment (LCA) has been carried out. The museum is conceptualized as a “firm” that produces several outputs and needs several inputs. The results provide the number of annual CO₂e (and other pollutants) emissions linked to the regular activity of the museum. The environmental cost (in EUR), linked to the impacts obtained from LCA, has been calculated. To assess economic sustainability, a survey and econometric methods were used to value services directly generated by the museum, and input/output methods were used to compute the direct and indirect impacts on the local economy. Nonetheless, PGC visitors (those who travel to Venice with the main objective of visiting the PGC) contribute to around 1.2%/1.4% of Venice’s GDP. The results from input–output tables show that, although the final demand generated by the PGC’s own activities amounted to about EUR 620 million in 2022, the economic benefits of the PGC beyond this final demand are significant and very positive due to carry-over effects. Specifically, the PGC leads to an increase in GDP of around EUR 1.200 million, with a multiplier of 1.9. In terms of employment, around 8200 jobs are associated with the presence of the PGC. The net public finance revenue also clearly benefits, with a net income of around EUR 150 million in 2022. Comparing both the environmental and economic impacts of the PGC, one can conclude that the annual activities performed by the museum are highly sustainable, with the economic pillar strongly offsetting the costs generated using natural resources. The creation of economic value, therefore, is generated in respect of environmental boundaries, even if some minor flaws can be highlighted. The connection between museums and sustainable development goals is highly recognized. The findings show the PGC’s commitment to achieving and implementing selected SDGs, including SDG 4, SDG 11, and SDG 16, by implementing actions and strategies that are aligned with these goals. Full article

The sustainable development of tourism in cultural heritage sites benefits from the active participation of tourists in the co-creation process. Location-based AR games show great potential in tourists’ participation in creation and positive experiences. This study explores the relationship between the stage factors of the co-creation experience and the overall co-creation. Combining the service-dominant logic and process perspective of value co-creation theory, this research proposes a conceptual framework for co-creating experiences in cultural heritage tourism using augmented reality technology through two studies. In the first phase of the study, quantitative research was conducted on 256 visitors to measure the impact of factors in the three processes of pre-co-creation experience, on-site experience, and post-co-creation experience on the overall co-creation experience. In the study’s second phase, follow-up qualitative interviews were conducted based on multiple linear regression analysis results to expand the interpretation of the relationship and importance of factors affecting the co-creation experience process. The results show that psychological engagement, awareness, knowledge, and social relations during pre-visitation help enhance the overall co-creation experience. In contrast, the overall co-creation experience is enriched by real-time storytelling, interaction, and emotional resonance in both on-site and post-experience processes. The proposal of this framework model advances the discussion of augmented reality technology and co-creation experience to the empirical level. It provides a basis for further tourism co-creation experience design practice. Full article

This study investigated the psychological constructs related to ocean conservation among visitors to a marine mammal park in Portugal. A survey was conducted with 335 adult visitors, assessing value orientations, awareness of ocean vulnerability, attribution of responsibility, personal norms, and behavioral intentions towards ocean conservation. The results revealed two distinct attitudinal profiles among the visitors. ‘Anthropocentric visitors’ prioritize human interests over environmental concerns, along with heightened awareness of the ocean’s vulnerability and greater ascription of responsibility to humans for environmental problems. ‘Ecocentric visitors’ recognize the intrinsic worth of nature, reporting deeper awareness of the consequences of environmental issues on the ocean, more robust personal norms centered on moral obligations towards conservation and higher behavioral intentions to support ocean conservation. Compared to whale-watching tourists from a previous study, the zoo visitors exhibited more polarized anthropocentric and ecocentric profiles, suggesting the whale-watching tourists fell somewhere between the two zoo visitor profiles in their psychological orientations. These contrasting profiles emphasize the heterogeneity in environmental attitudes and highlight the importance of tailoring interventions to resonate with the distinct psychological motivations of different audience segments. Institutions like zoos can play a vital role in shaping public attitudes through targeted communication strategies aligned with visitors’ unique value systems and beliefs. Full article

Urban protected biodiversity areas conserve some of the world’s critically endangered and isolated biodiversity while providing essential ecosystem services. However, these urban habitats are threatened by the presence of alien and invasive plants. We studied alien plant species richness and identified the potential predictors in urban protected biodiversity areas in Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa. Data on alien plant species were collected through surveys and consultations with protected area managers. We determined the relationship between the observed species richness and potential alien plant species predictors, such as area size, number of visitors, proximity to residential areas, and the year the reserve was proclaimed. We documented 574 records of 189 alien plant species from 60 families across 14 protected areas. Phanerophytes were the most common (46.5%), with many species native to South America, North America, and Africa. Most species have formed naturalised populations (67.7%), followed by invasive populations (20.6%) and casual populations (12%), posing future invasion threats. Most species (55.5%) were introduced as ornamental plants, with many of these species forming invasive populations. Half the recorded species were listed under the NEM:BA A&IS regulations, mostly categorized as 1b. Our findings indicate that the annual number of visitors strongly predicted alien plant species richness in urban protected areas. Additionally, a significant negative correlation was observed between species richness and the proximity to residential areas and years since the proclamation. Understanding the distribution patterns and predictors of species richness is crucial in monitoring invasive alien species and conserving biodiversity in urban environments. Full article

The current Chinese standard utilizes a single thermal comfort index guide to regulate indoor parameters for public buildings. However, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) settings often do not align with the occupant’s needs. To address this, a 2-year winter field survey was conducted in four large-scale shopping malls across severely cold regions of China, considering the complex age structure of mall visitors. Physical environmental parameters were measured, and a subjective questionnaire yielded 1464 valid responses. Neutral temperatures for different age groups were 17.4 °C for children (0–12 years of age), 19.3 °C for early youth (13–24), 20.0 °C for mature youth (25–44), and 23.3 °C for middle-aged adults (45–59). The limit of the 80% acceptable temperature range for the children and early youth was lower than the current Chinese GB 50736 standard, suggesting that HVAC temperatures for the corresponding shopping malls can be appropriately reduced for the target consumer groups. Significant differences occurred between customers’ demand for thermal environments in shopping malls and various standards. These findings provide valuable insights into energy-efficient architectural design and operational management of shopping malls in the Shenyang area, promoting the sustainable development of human thermal comfort environments. Full article

This paper presents the first data on the biodiversity of lithophytic algae from Bulgarian megaliths obtained after the application of the direct sampling method, subsequent cultivation, and processing by light microscopy. A rich algal flora was found: 90 species and 1 variety of 65 genera from Cyanoprokaryota/Cyanobacteria (29 species, 13 genera), Chlorophyta (40 species and 1 variety, 38 genera), Streptophyta (5 species, 1 genus), and Ochrophyta (16 species, 13 genera). Among them were the globally rare Pseudodictyochloris multinucleata (Chlorophyta), found for the first time in such lowland and warm habitats, and Scotiella tuberculata (Chlorophyta), for which this is the first finding in the country. Three of the recorded species are conservationally important. The low floristic similarity between the sites (0–33%) shows the diversity of the algal flora, with no common species found for all the megaliths studied. The most widespread were the strongly adaptive and competitive Stichococcus bacillaris, Apatococcus lobatus, and Chloroidium ellipsoidium (Chlorophyta). The correlations estimated between the species number and substrate temperature (18.1–49.6 °C) suggest the prospect of future research related to the impact of global warming. In addition, the study points to the safety aspects as it revealed species from nine potentially toxin-producing cyanoprokaryotic genera that could be harmful to visitors’ health. Full article