Niccolò Comerio

Tourists often make suboptimal decisions in digital environments, due to information overload and cognitive biases. As sustainable and responsible tourist behavior becomes increasingly important, this paper presents a prospective viewpoint on how chatbots and digital nudging can shape tourists’ digital choices and foster more optimal decisions. The paper calls for an interdisciplinary approach integrating insights from information systems and behavioral economics to advance sustainable decision-making in tourism. Specifically, research should address three priorities: (a) artificial intelligence chatbot adoption by tourists through behavioral-centric theories; (b) understanding the determinants of behavioral intention for responsible behavior; and (c) application of tailored digital nudging techniques to shape the desired behavior. This agenda strengthens the theoretical foundation of information systems, behavioral economics, and tourist decision-making, while also outlining practical implications for businesses aiming to foster sustainable and responsible tourist behavior.

Although the level of extreme poverty has declined in recent decades, income inequality in many countries is at historic levels, thus representing a concern. Theoretically, tourism can play a crucial role in the fight against poverty and economic inequalities, but the limited existing literature has failed to reach a general consensus about this topic. By focusing on Italy, this paper investigates the extent of the role played by tourism in pursuing a reduction in income inequalities, while also observing effects on economic growth. In fact inequalities have also been increasing in Italy, but little is known about the role that tourism has played in this process. The main findings reveal that tourism is able to reverse the actual trend of increase in dispersion in terms of per capita income which characterized the Italian provinces from 2010 to 2019. This industry can therefore be effectively used as a tool to promote both the catching up of poorer provinces with richer ones, thus narrowing the income gap, and the reduction of overall income disparities among different provinces, leading to a more uniform distribution of wealth.

Lease accounting has often been criticized for being too reliant on bright lines and subjective judgments, as lessees were not required to disclose assets and liabilities arising from operating leases directly on the balance sheet, thereby improving the appearance of the financial condition to investors. To remedy this, in January and February 2016 the IASB and the FASB issued the new accounting standard IFRS 16 and ASC 842, starting a new era of lease accounting and ending the guesswork previously required when calculating companies' lease obligations. This paper investigates the impact on investors' risk perception level of EU and US airline companies, following the enactment of these accounting standards. Results confirm the importance of disclosing all the relevant information about leases directly within the financial statements and not in footnotes, as this increases transparency and comparability between financial statements, protecting all investors, ranging from the rational ones to the more credulous.

Although the overall extent of extreme global poverty has decreased in recent years, the level of income disparity remains historically high in several nations, continuing to raise concerns. From a theoretical perspective, the tourism sector has the potential to significantly contribute to the fight against poverty and income disparities. However, the current limited body of empirical literature has so far failed to reach a unanimous agreement regarding this potential opportunity. The aim of this article is to review existing studies which address the nexus between tourism expansion and income inequality, and to indentify future research trajectories.