Mar Vila

Interest in understanding environmental attitudes and behaviors after traumatic events has been widely studied, but research specific to the COVID-19 pandemic has yielded inconclusive results. This study addresses a gap by exploring the relationship between COVID-19 and pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in marine protected areas (MPAs), which are vital for preserving marine ecosystems and biodiversity. We focus on scuba divers’ environmental attitudes and behaviors within an MPA, using a mixed methodology that combines surveys based on the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale with covert participant observation. Our findings indicate a moderate increase in pro-environmental concerns post-pandemic, particularly regarding nature’s fragility. However, a gap remains between expressed attitudes and actual behaviors, with notable differences in pro-ecological behavior during leisure activities compared to behavior at home. Additionally, risk perception related to COVID-19 has gained prominence, often overshadowing environmental concerns. This study contributes to a better understanding of environmental attitudes and behaviors in the context of MPAs during the ongoing social changes post-COVID-19. These insights can guide more sustainable management of MPAs and inform future research, which should further explore these trends in similar contexts.

The proliferation of social media platforms for sharing and posting photos is radically changing the experiences of foodies and food tourists, and businesses are becoming increasingly dependent on them. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the modifications of the motivations of foodies and food tourists caused by the intensive use of Instagram, who are referred to using the moniker foodstagrammers. We used ethnography to explore, over the course of six months, the motivations of foodstagrammer tourists visiting the city of Barcelona, a very popular food-tourist destination. We performed observations and completed immersion experiences in six food tours with 48 participants, most of whom were using Instagram. The data collected were analysed and interpreted regarding the actions, people, and activities, both live and online. Our data suggest that motivations usually associated with foodies and food tourists become secondary in the case of foodstagrammer tourists, for whom the primary motivations are related to information sharing and taking photos. It offers new insights into the effects of social media on the tourist experience that are relevant for managers interested in marketing food-related business and destinations, since the momentum for experience-socialisation platforms is widely expected to continue expanding.

Many destinations are implementing various water management alternatives to diminish the environmental impacts of tourism and increase sustainability. These efforts toward sustainability can be understood as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies implemented by tourism destinations. This paper is focused on the tourism destination of the Costa Brava (Catalonia, Spain) and proposes a method for selecting a list of influential factors in water management for sustainable tourism destinations by considering stakeholder preferences for technical, economic, social, political, and environmental factors. A new qualitative Delphi technique is used to identify a set of qualitative and quantitative factors by surveying eight stakeholders (six water management experts and two hotel managers). In addition, the study presents the weight for each of the influential factors that decision-makers – water planners, policy-makers, tourism destination managers and hotel managers – can use in assessing water management alternatives. Although research to date has addressed many aspects of responsible tourism, there is little literature on the importance of water management in responsible strategies for tourism destinations. This paper contributes to a more efficient selection of CSR strategies in tourism destinations by proposing a new methodology for identifying key factors for assessing sustainable solutions for water problems.

El objetivo del presente trabajo es valorar la efectividad de un videojuego de contabilidad en relación a sus atributos, motivación y resultados de aprendizaje. Los resultados muestran que, en relación a los atributos, la mayoría fueron evaluados favorablemente,destacando los relacionados con diversión, adicción y la provisión de información clara sobre los objetivos mientras que los menos valorados fueron los relacionados con la retroalimentación. En cuanto a la motivación, los resultados muestran que los estudiantes perciben la actividad como motivadora, sobre todo en cuanto a disfrute con el juego y sensación de éxito. Y, en cuanto a los objetivos de aprendizaje, los resultados dan sus valores más altos demostrando que los participantes perciben que aprenden y que consiguen sus objetivos.

Sustainable marketing is one of the main challenges facing firms over the next few years because of its potential impact on both the growth of firms and the image of business people, hence the need for executives to manage its implementation. This article explores how hotel marketing managers in Spain perceive and manage the role of marketing in improving sustainable business management and the changes needed to make sustainable marketing work. The study contributes twenty-four empirical cases to discover what corporate changes managers consider necessary in order to make the hotel industry sustainable. The main research contribution is an initial framework of four fields in which executives set company management priorities with a view towards implementing sustainable marketing.

Hotels and second home rentals are two of the most important tourist accommodation options in Spain. In terms of seasonality, almost all previous studies have analysed tourism demand from the point of view either of total arrivals or the number of tourists lodged in a single accommodation type (hotels, rural accommodation, etc). However, there are no studies focusing on price seasonality or comparing seasonality among different accommodation types. By using seasonality indicators and a price index constructed by means of hedonic methods, this paper aims to shed some light on seasonal pricing patterns among second home rentals and hotels. The paper relies on a 2004 database of 144 hotels and 1,002 apartments on the Costa Brava (northeast Spain). The results show that prices for second home rentals display a smoother seasonal pattern than hotels due to reduced price differences between shoulder (May and October) and peak periods (August).