Dr James Kennell


Associate Professor in Events & Hospitality
Ph.D, MA, SFHEA
+44 (0)1483 689652
30 AP 02

Academic and research departments

School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

About

University roles and responsibilities

  • Programme Director, BSc International Event Management & MSc International Event Management

    Publications

    Hugues Seraphin, Anca C. Yallop, James Kennell (2023)Connecting transformative luxury with individual and collective well-being: a conceptual approach, In: Worldwide hospitality and tourism themes Emerald Group Publishing

    Purpose - The tension between individual and collective well-being is at the core of the macromarketing perspective, and transformative luxury research (TLR) has recently begun to consider this in the context of luxury consumption. This conceptual paper reviews TLR in the setting of the tourism and hospitality industry.Design/methodology/approach - The study is based on a literature review in the field of marketing and tourism management.Findings - The authors propose a TLR-management model (MM), which identifies the link between TLR and well-being, as well as four elements that are important for the success of luxury innovations: risk; trust; ethics and ambidextrous management practices. Further studies will be able to apply this conceptual model in diverse luxury markets to develop more industry-specific versions of it but should always maintain the model's focus on individual and collective well-being to ensure that it supports the growth of transformative luxury in the future.Practical implications - The research has highlighted the benefits (individual and community well-being) of transformative research in the field of luxury products and services, but also the requirements (taking risk, trust and ambidextrous management) to achieve this transformative stage.Originality/value - The study provides a guideline to be followed by the luxury yachting industry to reach its transformative potential.

    Ahmad Anouti, Samantha Chaperon, James Kennell (2023)Tourism policy and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16: peace and stability in the Middle East and North Africa, In: Worldwide hospitality and tourism themes15(2)pp. 108-116 Emerald Group Publishing

    PurposeThis article explores the ways in which the relationship between tourism, sustainable development and peace in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is presented in national tourism policies, with a focus on United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)16: peace justice and strong institutions.Design/methodology/approachLeximancer 5.0 software is used to analyze national tourism policy documents. Themes and concepts from the documents are presented visually in a concept map, and further qualitative analysis is carried out on the theme of sustainability to generate insights.FindingsThe relationship between tourism and peace is not well developed in tourism policies in the MENA region. This is a missed opportunity to use the engine of tourism development to promote regional sustainable development, but increased engagement with nongovernmental organization (NGOs) and communities by tourism policy-makers can help to address this.Originality/valueThis article links SDG 16 to tourism policy and provides insights into how this relationship could be developed in a region experiencing recurrent crises and high levels of tourism growth.

    Charles Bladen, James Kennell, Emma Abson, Nick Wilde (2023)Events management: An introduction (3rd Ed.) Routledge

    Introduction to events management -- Event project management : feasibility, planning, delivery and evaluation -- Event design and production -- Event operations -- Event human resource management -- Event finance -- Event marketing -- Event law, health, safety and risk management -- Sporting events -- Mega-events -- Events in the public and third sectors -- Business events -- Cultural events and festivals -- Event impacts and sustainability -- Events and the media.

    Azizul Hassan, Anukrati Sharma, James Kennell, Priyakrushna Mohanty (2023)Tourism and Hospitality in Asia: Crisis, Resilience and Recovery Springer Singapore

    This book analyses the ways in which crises, including COVID-19, can be managed within the tourism and hospitality industries in Asia, in ways that support the future of these industries and help to make them more resilient. This book supports efforts to develop a new direction for the tourism and hospitality industry by considering their development holistically in the context of sustainable development. Going further, this book highlights actions to make the tourism system more resilient to external shocks and crises. Readers of this book will get insights into the economic, social, technological, and environmental implications of crises on the tourism and hospitality industry in Asia, including issues within the food and beverage industry in the Asian post-COVID-19 period. This book has three major objectives: to explore the crisis context of Asian tourism and hospitality, to present multiple cases from countries in Asia, and finally to envisage the paths to make the Asian tourism system more resilient, through the discussion of new trends and issues emerging following the pandemic. This book examines the economic, social, environmental, and technological implications of crises on the Asian tourism and hospitality industry and discusses the various ways of managing these crises more efficiently, contributing new knowledge to the industry. In its wider context, this book covers tourism management, crisis management, and destination management. At the more micro level, themes explored include tourism economics, marketing management, hospitality management, food and beverage management and tourism technology.

    James Kennell, Priyakrushna Mohanty, Anukrati Sharma, Azizul Hassan (2022)Crisis Management, Destination Recovery and Sustainability Taylor and Francis

    The COVID-19 pandemic brought travel to a halt and the global tourism industry has been one of the sectors hit hardest during the pandemic. This book looks at how the tourism industry can enhance its resilience and prepare for future crises more effectively. The book provides insights into the economic, social, geopolitical and environmental implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism and hospitality industries and the responses in diverse international contexts. It highlights key concepts and includes cases with real-life applications. The book also discusses future research directions in a post-pandemic scenario. This book will be an invaluable resource for practitioners in the areas of tourism and crisis management and for readers to compare and contrast tourism destination recovery and crisis management practices through different research methodologies and settings.

    Miroslav D. Vujicic, JAMES KENNELL, Uglješa Stankov, U Gretzel, Đorđije A. Vasiljević, A Morrison (2022)Keeping up with the drones! Techno-social dimensions of tourist drone videography, In: Technology in society68101838 Elsevier Ltd

    Tourists are increasingly using drones on vacation, but how they use them and the nature of the videos that they produce are not well understood. Conceptual advances in the study of tourist videography have produced a new model of these practices which is applied here to explain the nature of tourist videography with drones. An international sample of 351 vacation drone videos was subjected to content analysis, and an analysis of their metadata. The results show a significant variation in the content, technological and social practice of production of vacation drone videos depending on the type of video creator and, therefore, empirically validate and expand extant knowledge of drone videography as an emerging visual practice in tourism contexts. The findings establish that analysing the videos from the perspective of videography generates insights that are of value to destination management organizations and tourist businesses. We conclude that destination management organizations should see vacation drone videos as a new type of user-generated content for their destinations, as well as a potential source of innovative marketing ideas, and that they should engage more proactively with vacation drone videographers to maximise the impact of this opportunity. •Vacation drone videos are new type of user-generated content used for innovative destination marketing.•Content analysis of vacation drone videos supported by analysis of metadata.•The social dimension of tourism drone videos plays a more important role than the technological dimension.•Tourists and influencers, as drone vacation video creators, are more oriented to self-promotion.

    James Kennell (2020)Tourism Policy Research after the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reconsidering the Role of the State in Tourism, In: Skyline Business Journal16(1)pp. 68-72 Skyline University College

    Over the last thirty years of research into tourism policy, there has been a dominant assumption that the appropriate role of the state in tourism is mostly settled. The state has a legitimate role in the tourism industry, but it is essentially one of 'steering and not rowing'. This assumption has developed against the backdrop of the neoliberal shift towards small states, powerful markets and light touch policy interventions in industry. This research note argues that the measures that have been taken by governments around the world in respect of their tourism industries, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are sufficiently significant and long-term to warrant a re-appraisal of the role of the state in tourism. Specifically, this note makes the case for a renewed focus on research into tourism policy in non-Western contexts, where the role of the state has not been as constrained by the neoliberal shift, and for an increase in international comparative policy research, which has been notably absent in the tourism policy field to date.

    Azizul Hassan, James Kennell, Samantha Chaperon (2020)Rhetoric and reality in Bangladesh: elite stakeholder perceptions of the implementation of tourism policy, In: Tourism Recreation Research45(3)pp. 307-322 Taylor & Francis

    National tourism policy in Bangladesh is a relatively new development and this research is the first to focus on the implementation of tourism policy in Bangladesh. Taking a social constructivist perspective, interviews were carried out with 13 elite stakeholders, from the public and private sectors, who are associated with the creation and implementation of tourism policy in Bangladesh. The data were analysed qualitatively using a content analysis approach to examine perceptions of the policy implementation process, and its success. In the case of Bangladesh, it is the persistence of hierarchical governance structures that appears to be hindering the effective implementation of tourism policy. This can be seen in the selection of priority areas by the government, the preferred policy instruments, and in the ways in which the private sector is being incentivised to support national tourism development.

    A. Mandić, J. Kennell (2021)Smart governance for heritage tourism destinations: Contextual factors and destination management organization perspectives, In: Tourism Management Perspectives39100862 Elsevier

    The sustainable development of tourism is a major concern for destination management organisations (DMOs) in heritage tourism. Smart tourism advocates claim that technologically-driven innovations can help DMOs to optimise tourism development by addressing issues such as carrying capacity, stakeholder management and community involvement. This study enhances the understanding of smart tourism governance (SG), showing how contextual factors affect DMO perspectives of SG. A mixed-methods approach was used to investigate heritage tourism destinations in the United Kingdom. The results demonstrate that well-established DMOs do not perceive SG as potentially beneficial, as they already perform well in many areas in which SG promises improvements, such as citizen engagement, decision-making, and stakeholder engagement. Despite this, this research highlights the aspects of SG that these destinations can take advantage of as social inclusion, environmental performance and the provision of citizen-centric services. All of these can help heritage tourism destinations to optimise their tourism development. This research additionally demonstrates the effect of contextual factors, such as the level of public-sector support for tourism and the growing influence of non tourism stakeholders in destination management, on DMO perceptions of SG and makes recommendations for how developments in the use of SG by DMOs can be made, in light of these.

    Miroslav D. Vujicic, James Kennell, A Morrison, Viachaslau Filimonau, Ivana Štajner Papuga, Uglješa Stankov, Djordjije A. Vasiljević (2020)Fuzzy Modelling of Tourist Motivation: An Age-Related Model for Sustainable, Multi-Attraction, Urban Destinations, In: Sustainability12(20)8698

    Tourist motivation, as a core of travel behavior, significantly influences consumer intentions and has attracted academic attention for decades. A plethora of studies analyse sets of internal and external motivators, while methodologies that exclusively focus on a single factor, such as age, that can sometimes have a determining influence in multi-attraction destinations, are less prevalent. This study introduces a fuzzy logic approach to develop a new model for analysing the internal motivations of different-aged consumers in multi-attraction urban destinations. Fuzzy models, as a mathematical means of representing vagueness and imprecise information, have the capability of recognizing, representing, manipulating, interpreting, and utilizing data and information, which typically for urban tourist motivations, are vague and lack certainty. This research tests the model in a real-life setting, using the example of Novi Sad, a mid-sized European city, which is typical of many similar cities who are attempting to develop sustainable tourism by attracting older tourists. The new model shows how tourist motivations for multi-attraction destinations are affected by age, through a specially developed m-file for MATLAB, so that it can be applied and tested in other tourism contexts. Theoretical and practical implications for sustainable destination management and marketing are described.

    Milena Nedeljkovic Knezevic, Olga Hadzic, Sladana Nedeljkovic, James Kennell (2020)Tourism entrepreneurship and industrial restructuring: globe national and organizational culture dimensions, In: Zbornik radova (Geografski institut "Jovan Cvijić". Online)70(1)pp. 15-30 Geografski Inst Jovan Cvijic Sasa

    National culture can influence entrepreneurship by creating a specific cultural framework that defines the possibilities for the recognition of opportunities for entrepreneurial activities, as well as their social desirability. Very large corporations, especially those that dominate a region, also have their own organizational cultures, which in turn influence local social culture, and which can constitute a specific subculture within society. The "Kolubara" mine is the largest in Serbia, employing more than 11,000 workers. As most of its employees are living close to its headquarters, the small town of Lazarevac (Central Serbia), the culture nurtured within this organization and among its employees is heavily intertwined with the social culture of the inhabitants of the town. The GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) approach was used to investigate the relation between this organizational culture and national culture, by measuring the nine GLOBE cultural dimensions of the "Kolubara" employees and of the inhabitants of Lazarevac. The results of this are discussed and analyzed in the context of the ongoing economic transformation in many post-socialist economies. This study highlights the readiness of the people of small industrial towns, such as Lazarevac, to adapt to this ongoing transition and to undertake entrepreneurial activities in tourism during periods of industrial restructuring and the growth of service industries in former industrial areas.

    P Booth, Samantha Chaperon, James S. Kennell, A Morrison (2020)Entrepreneurship in island contexts: A systematic review of the tourism and hospitality literature, In: International Journal of Hospitality Management85102438 Elsevier

    Entrepreneurship is vital to the success of tourism and hospitality and the sector makes an important contribution to many island economies. Despite this, far too little attention has been paid by researchers to tourism and hospitality entrepreneurship in islands (THEI). This research helps to address this gap through a systematic review of the literature, conducted to provide a platform for further research and to help investigators set their research priorities. Using the Scopus database and the PRISMA technique, a total of 132 articles were included in bibliometric and thematic content analyses. Although there has been an increase in THEI research, this has tended to focus on the Asia-Pacific region. It is suggested that researchers consider redressing this geographical bias and conduct more quantitative and comparative THEI studies. Further opportunities exist to investigate the characteristics and behaviors of island entrepreneurs and the impacts of the industrial and spatial aspects of THEI.

    Yee-Shan Chang, Jun-Hwa Cheah, Xin-Jean Lim, A Morrison, JAMES KENNELL (2022)Are unmanned smart hotels du jour or are they here forever? Experiential pathway analysis of antecedents of satisfaction and loyalty, In: International journal of hospitality management104103249 Elsevier Ltd

    Unmanned hotels are regarded as the future of hospitality in a post-Covid 19 world, based upon smart, contactless technologies. The purpose of this research was to determine if unmanned smart hotels create more positive outcomes such as enhanced experiential satisfaction and loyalty. Grounded on Cognitive Appraisal Theory, scholars support the notion that psychological states such as experiential motivation and confidence enhance outcomes. An online survey was conducted with 364 guests of unmanned smart hotels. Structural equation modeling results with partial least squares path analysis indicated that experiential quality, confidence, motivation, and satisfaction were positively associated with loyalty. Several recommendations were provided for the unmanned smart hotel literature and practices with regards to improving the effectiveness of guest experiences. •This study examines the experiential pathway of the unmanned smart hotel.•Cognitive Appraisal Theory was used to explain the proposed relationships.•Data were collected using purposive technique and analysed via PLSPM.•Results found that loyalty was affected by quality and psychological states.•Psychological states and satisfaction sequentially mediated the direct path.

    Tamara Gajić, Marko D Petrović, James Kennell (2022)Editorial: The paradigm of creating a new environment for travel industry consumers during the crisis and instability in the world, In: Frontiers in Psychology131074451 Frontiers Media

    The humanity of the twenty-first century is faced with numerous natural and social disasters, which leave great and long-lasting consequences on the entire society and economy. Turbulence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is still felt in the tourism sector today, and it is uncertain whether the invisible enemy of humanity is only in a period of lull, or whether it will completely withdraw. The goal of this Research Topic was to fully explore the emerging key problems in this newly created environment, both for businesses in a wide range of tourism activities, and for tourists themselves. The crisis situation has led to significant changes in the economic sphere, but also in the sphere of human interaction, reaction, and behavior. The results of the research on the given Research Topic pointed to all the visible consequences of the pandemic that the tourism industry and its related activities are facing, but the authors tried to identify the given problems to devise and propose strategic measures that would be applied in the recovery of the entire sector.

    P. Mohanty, A. Sharma, J. Kennell, A. Hassan (2022)The Emerald Handbook of Destination Recovery in Tourism and Hospitality Emerald Publishing Limited

    Featuring a broad geographical range of examples and pan-disciplinary perspectives, The Emerald Handbook of Destination Recovery in Tourism and Hospitalityis an essential reference and illuminating guide on developments in the theory and practice of tourism development post-pandemic.

    Jelena Farkic, James Kennell (2021)Consuming dark sites via street art: Murals at Chernobyl, In: Annals of Tourism Research90103256 Elsevier

    This paper aims to extend dark tourism scholarship concerned with existential aspects of the human nature and the power of ‘dark places’ to provoke our thinking about the meaning and purpose of human existence. Our main focus is on the artistic expressions in the form of murals that have emerged in the years following the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, questioning the significance and meanings they have for the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, in the context of tourists' perceptions and, more generally, in the context of our being in the world. To that end, we deconstruct the tourist experience of dark sites through knitting together dark tourism, existentialism and street art.

    Hugues Seraphin, JAMES KENNELL, SIMON SMITH, Ante Mandić, M Kozak (2022)Determining and making sense of recruitment practices for tourism academics in the UK, In: International journal of organizational analysis (2005) Emerald

    Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of neoliberalism and managerialism on the recruitment of tourism academics in the UK. The study analyses how sustainable the recruitment and retention of talents are in the tourism industry. Importantly, this study provides particular focus on sustainable tourism roles, as well as the impacts of COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative content analysis focuses on academic jobs in tourism advertised on Jobs.ac.uk between June 2020 and July 2021. Findings Study findings reveal how, in the case of the UK, current educational ideologies, including neoliberalism and managerialism, significantly influence curriculum and recruitment. Such an approach facilitates the hidden curriculum of undisciplined tourism programmes and significantly constrains the prominence of sustainability principles. The development of curriculum, student life course and recruitment of academics are influenced by several variables (personal, environmental, behavioural), which must be identified to enable decision-makers to engage in efficient planning. Originality/value This study provides a unique focus on the recruitment of tourism academics encompassing crucial factors like sustainable tourism and COVID-19. The proposed framework creates the foundation for the investigation and discussion of academics’ recruitment in different contexts. This study also offers several new avenues for future research.

    Uros Delevic, JAMES KENNELL (2022)Multinationals and wages: Evidence from employer-employee data in Serbia, In: Economic Annals67(232)pp. 49-80 University of Belgrade

    Many studies have reported that foreign-owned companies pay higher wages on average than domestic companies. However, this can be attributed to the different composition of the workforce or to a wage premium at the individual worker level. This paper contributes to this literature by observing whether individuals that change their job from a domestic to a foreign- owned company experience a change in their wages. Furthermore, it investigates whether this difference in wage patterns is moderated by workers? education. This paper is one of the very few micro-econometric studies that deal with this question in a transition country, Serbia, using employer- employee data on the private sector over a long time period (15 years). Changing jobs is found to be positively associated with workers? wages: the change in wages is higher when moving from a domestic to a foreign company than vice versa. The evidence suggests that more-educated workers benefit the most from leaving domestic companies.

    James Kennell, Raymond Powell (2021)Dark tourism and World Heritage Sites: a Delphi study of stakeholder perceptions of the development of dark tourism products, In: Journal of Heritage Tourism16(4)pp. 367-381 Routledge

    Dark tourism has attracted increasing academic attention, but the extent to which it exists as a separate form of tourism from heritage tourism is not yet clear. Despite the growth of UNESCO World Heritage Site designations, little research has considered the relationship between dark tourism and World Heritage Sites. Because the development of dark tourism is beset with ethical concerns, heritage professionals can have negative perceptions about the acceptability or attractiveness of it for the sites that they are involved in managing. This research used a qualitative Delphi Panel method to evaluate stakeholder perceptions of the potential development of dark tourism to the Greenwich Maritime World Heritage Site in London, United Kingdom. The findings show that stakeholders are broadly supportive of tourism to the site and positive about future tourism growth. Despite this, they did not support the development of dark tourism to the site because it was perceived as inauthentic, tacky and sensationalist. In order to address this issue, recommendations are made that future attempts to develop dark tourism at WHS should involve enhancing the knowledge of stakeholders about dark tourism, and of the resources within their sites that could be included in a dark tourism offer to tourists.

    Samantha Chaperon, JAMES KENNELL (2022)Tourism Policy, In: Dimitrios Buhalis (eds.), Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketingpp. 459-462 Edward Elgar Publishing
    Milena Nedeljkovic Knezevic, M Petrovic, Sanja Kovacic, Maja Mijatov, Darko B. Vukovic, James Kennell (2021)Acting the part: Emotional intelligence and job satisfaction as predictors of emotional labor in travel agencies, In: Tourism and Hospitality Research21(2)pp. 183-201 Sage

    Employees of retail travel agencies in sales roles can have long-lasting, direct contact with tourists which, in the case of poor customer service, can be extremely problematic for businesses. Because of this, it is important to understand how employees manage their emotions to help them to remain satisfied with their work, thus contributing to the satisfaction of tourists. However, job satisfaction, emotional intelligence and emotional labor in tourism have not previously been studied together as variables in a single model. This research analyses the mediating role of emotional intelligence in the relationship between job satisfaction and emotional labor in travel agencies, as well as job satisfaction as an antecedent of emotional labor. Data were collected from 160 employees of 45 travel agencies in the Serbian cities of Belgrade and Novi Sad. Results show that employees' emotional intelligence mediates the positive relationship between job satisfaction and emotional labor. Management implications: Increasing employees' emotional intelligence through training and development and actively recruiting employees with high emotional intelligence will reduce emotional exhaustion and improve customer satisfaction for retail travel agencies. Future research should include employees from other countries, in order to make comparisons and to validate results, as well as to test the created model by structural equation modelling (SEM), involving some other possible mediators, such as socio-demographics, personality traits or work motivation.

    Hugues Seraphin, JAMES KENNELL, Ante Mandić, SIMON SMITH, M Kozak (2022)LANGUAGE DIVERSITY AND LITERATURE REVIEWS IN TOURISM RESEARCH, In: Tourism, culture & communication Cognizant Communication Corporation

    Language bias is a common yet undiscussed practice that can significantly constrain the rigour and generalisation of place-based studies and literature reviews. This paper discusses how research published in English compared with other languages is considered or not when conducting literature reviews. This research focuses specifically on tourism research and explores specific journal article examples in the contemporary subject area of overtourism within destination-based studies. To do this, we take a critical-linguistic, post-positivist approach to three case studies drawn from the literature on the phenomenon of overtourism. The study highlights how research in languages other than English is often discounted or omitted in academic fields that are dominated by English language publications.Nevertheless, our findings strongly support the proposition that place-specific research, to be rigorous and generalisable, should be supported by research carried out in relevant languages for its location. This research provides evidence that place-based research, based on literature from multiple languages and interdisciplinarity, can be reliable, valid and trustworthy. The study also notes the recommendations for conducting literature reviews within place-specific research and avenues for future research.

    Uglješa Stankov, James Kennell, Alastair M. Morrison, Miroslav D. Vujicic (2019)The view from above: the relevance of shared aerial drone videos for destination marketing, In: Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing36(7)pp. 808-822 Taylor & Francis

    The use of drones to produce videos has generated a large amount of visually appealing footage of various destinations. They attract much attention, but there are issues that affect their production, and their relevance to destination marketing. This research examines YouTube meta-data and spatial overlay analysis of shared aerial drone videos from the United Kingdom (UK). The results suggest that shared aerial drone videos have some unique user-generated content (UGC) characteristics and their spatial distribution tends to favor more populated areas. Theoretical and practical implications for destination marketing are further discussed.

    Metod Šuligoj, JAMES KENNELL (2022)The role of dark commemorative and sport events in peaceful coexistence in the Western Balkans, In: Journal of sustainable tourism30(2-3)pp. 408-426 Routledge

    In order to analyse the ways in which problematic ethno-national behaviour at dark events in the Western Balkans undermines the transition from conflict, to post conflict and then peaceful societies, this research employed a sociological discourse analysis to critique the role dark events play in post-conflict tourism development and peaceful coexistence. Accordingly, by combining previous analyses of dark commemorative events with a new analysis of sport events, this research explains the relationship between event tourism and 16th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) focused on peace, justice and strong institutions. This media-based analysis shows that dark commemorative and sport events share similar historical contexts, dissonant heritage and the dark leisure practices of attendees. These dark events attract tourism flows across national boundaries in the region, as well as including more widely dispersed diasporas, and international media and politicians. The prevalence of dark events in the region, which feature strongly in tourism flows, require significant attention in order to promote sustainable development. The findings of this research can be used to develop future research into the relationship between dark events and SDG16, using methods that build on this exploratory study and the new model of dark events that it provides.

    David Hradecky, JAMES KENNELL, Wenjie Cai, RL Davidson (2022)Organizational readiness to adopt artificial intelligence in the exhibition sector in Western Europe, In: International journal of information management65102497 Elsevier Ltd

    This exploratory study explores perceptions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and organizational readiness to adopt AI, in the exhibition sector of the events industry. A theoretical framework synthesizing the Technology - Organization - Environment framework and the Technology Readiness Index was developed to guide this qualitative study. Seventeen senior managerial representatives from exhibition organizations across nine Western European countries were interviewed, and a reflexive thematic approach was adopted to analyse the data. The findings suggest that the European exhibition industry is a slow adopter of AI, which may impact its future competitiveness, despite the stimulus provided to AI adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic. The degree of confidence in organizational technological practices, financial resources, the size of the organization, and issues of data management and protection, as well as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, motivate or inhibit readiness for AI adoption in the event industry. A new Exhibition Sector Readiness for AI Adoption Model is presented in this research that managers and researchers can use to analyze inhibitors and motivations for AI adoption, which is contextualized for the current challenges facing the exhibitions sector. •Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers significant benefits to the events industry.•Qualitative research reveals European-wide perceptions of AI adoption in events.•The exhibitions sector of the event industry is a slow adopter of AI.•A new model is proposed to understand and guide AI adoption in the exhibitions sector.

    Sanja Kovacic, Tamara Jovanovic, Miroslav D. Vujicic, A Morrison, JAMES KENNELL (2022)What Shapes Activity Preferences? The Role of Tourist Personality, Destination Personality and Destination Image: Evidence from Serbia, In: Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland)14(3)1803 Mdpi

    Understanding activity preferences and their antecedents is essential for creating personalized tourism offers and effective destination marketing, vital components of a sustainable tourism destination. Previous studies have provided insights into tourist behavior and activity choices, but without research on activity preferences and their relationship with perceptions of destinations. The literature still lacks an integrative model exploring the antecedents of activity preferences, including tourist characteristics, destination personality, and destination image, and explaining the nature of the relationships between them. This research proposes and tests a structural model of individual characteristics, destination image, destination personality, and activity preferences. A survey was conducted on a sample of 502 visitors to The Trail of Roman Emperors in Serbia. The results confirmed the influence of personality (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness) and destination personality (sincerity and ruggedness) on activity preferences. Additionally, the model revealed the significant influence of individual characteristics on perceptions of destination personality and image. Managerial implications were given in light of the importance of this research for destination branding that will support long-term destination sustainability.

    M Liu, JAMES KENNELL (2022)Events Management in the "Chinese Century", In: Event management26(4)pp. 805-812 Cognizant Communication Corporation