Ugljesa Stankov

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Novi Sad

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into smartphones represents a transformative shift in mobile technology, enabling smartphones to seamlessly blend physical and digital realms and thereby enhance phygital tourism experiences. This viewpoint explores the implications of AI-powered smartphones for phygital tourism experiences by focusin...

This exploratory article analyzes the contemporary trend in the music and event industry of organizing and filming electronic dance music (EDM) events at tourist destinations. These videos featuring DJ sets in attractive locations, referred to as destination DJ videos (DDJVs), accumulate a substantial number of views on social media platforms, prim...

Spirits tasting is typically seen as an on-site sensory experience predicated on the tasting of whisky, wine, beer, or other spirits by professionals, aficionados, and general consumers. However, given its increasing significance in shaping tourist experiences, which relies on mutual engagement between providers and consumers, the domain of spirit...

Generation Z represents an innovative generation that is set to shape the future of the travel market. Their distinctive desires, ideas, motives and choices influence every aspect of their lives, including decisions related to tourism. Similarly, as this generation has gradually become the mainstream consumer group in tourism, researchers have dire...

The advent of Industry 4.0 technologies, encompassing the Internet of Things (IoT), Big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, location-based services, and virtual and augmented (VR/AR) reality systems, has revolutionized the tourism landscape, automating production and service delivery. As the momentum of Industry 4.0 propels us...

Tourism research has acknowledged the importance of mindfulness as a theoretical concept with important implications for tourism practice, but it has done so from a very specific point of view. The most common way to think about mindfulness in tourism research is through the lens of applied social psychology. This way of thinking focuses on ideas l...

Various tourism destination competitiveness indicators and models have been developed and applied by different researchers and regions. Scholars emphasize that there is no single set of competitiveness indicators applicable to all destinations, and a more specific approach for each destination is required. Therefore, this paper aims to present the...

Abstract: Although cross-cultural interactions and cultural bubbles have been researched extensively in tourism, these issues have often been viewed one-sidedly. More precisely, in contemporary literature, cultural bubbles are mostly considered one-sided biases that prevent tourists from fully enjoying the culture of their hosts. Besides that, it i...

This special issue aims to help broaden the often-narrow academic understanding of accessibility and the single-task oriented accessibility practices of the tourism industry, but also seeks to identify new possibilities brought about by Tourism 4.0 technologies. In this special issue, we showcase six noteworthy contributions from authors who cover...

Nowadays, cultural institutions face the challenge of answering the requirements of a very diverse audience in order to be more socially inclusive, enabling everyone to have access to their cultural content. However, there are different barriers to participation in culture and unequal access to cultural contents of a large number of sensitive socia...

Abstract Purpose: Understanding the multifaceted images of tourism destinations is critical for effective destination marketing and management strategies. Traditional approaches, including conceptualization of destination images or analysis of their antecedents and consequences, are commonly employed. The study advocates the inclusion of visitors'...

This paper presents the development and validation of the Project Manager Skills Scale (PMSS), a novel instrument designed to quantify and evaluate the critical skills of project managers. The PMSS is anchored in a comprehensive literature review and expert feedback and identifies five key dimensions of project manager skills: Technical Skills, Man...

Although cross-cultural interactions and cultural bubbles have been researched extensively in tourism, these issues have often been viewed one-sidedly. More precisely, in contemporary literature, cultural bubbles are mostly considered one-sided biases that prevent tourists from fully enjoying the culture of their hosts. Besides that, it is importan...

Understanding the factors that influence the competitiveness of a tourist destination is crucial for decision-makers, tourism industry, and academia. In previous research, the evaluation of a country's tourism competitiveness involved analyzing various dimensions, including natural and cultural resources, infrastructure, marketing, management, and...

Purpose The purpose of this perspective paper is to draw attention to energy communities (ECs) in the tourism domain as voluntary initiatives combining non-commercial aims with environmental and social community objectives. ECs offer a range of potential benefits for local communities, tourism providers and destinations, including reduced energy co...

This study addresses the motivations behind Generation Z’s attendance at conferences and aims to contribute to a better understanding of their conference-participation behavior. The study identified six latent factors that influence conference-attendance motivation: green and digital conference experience, educational and professional opportunities...

The environmentally and economically sustainable provision of safe drinking water remains one of the most significant public health challenges facing society. It is particularly difficult in small municipalities that lack the human and financial resources to maintain complex and/or expensive water treatment systems, especially in regions where the...

Emerging city destinations frequently face numerous managerial challenges, resulting in common pitfalls and rookie mistakes. The evolution, new dynamics, and shift in tourism demand, together with many cities’ efforts to diversify offerings and exploit their multi-attractiveness, necessitate a re-evaluation of present viewpoints on what motivates c...

This study addresses the motivations behind Generation Z's attendance at conferences and aims to contribute to a better understanding of their conference participation behavior. The study identified six latent factors that influence conference attendance motivation: Green and Digital Conference Experience, Educational and professional opportunities...

This study aimed to conduct an examination of prior research on tourism destinations' competitiveness to shed light and broaden the field of knowledge on the topic.The review focuses on 45 practical and applicable studies that addressed the competitiveness of tourism destinations. The findings indicatethat half of the analyzed articles are model-dr...

Purpose The technology readiness and acceptance model were mostly employed as theoretical bases to analyze tourist behaviors of adoption of innovative technologies that are part of the smart tourism offer. This study attention now turns to the field of smart tourism human resource management and tries to establish a model to explain the relationshi...

Spiritual travel is increasingly viewed as an asset for the development of sustainable tourism. A great deal of research has been conducted on travel motivation to comprehend spiritually-motivated travel, but less is known about Generation Z’s travel motivation. This subject is relevant since Generation Z will represent the travel market of the fut...

At the destination level, destination branding may coexist with climate change communication. These two communication streams often overlap because they are both designed for large audiences. This poses a risk to the effectiveness of climate change communication and its ability to prompt a desired climate action. The viewpoint paper advocates the u...

At the destination level, destination branding may coexist with climate change communication. These two communication streams often overlap because they are both designed for large audiences. This poses a risk to the effectiveness of climate change communication and its ability to prompt a desired climate action. The viewpoint paper advocates the u...

The development of smart cities and destinations heavily relies on geospatial technologies and intelligence. Geospatial aspects encompass location-based data and tools and are of significant importance in governing smart tourism destinations. This paper investigates the geospatial elements involved in the development of smart tourism destinations,...

European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) is an initiative that promotes European cultural diversity with the aim of economic, cultural, and social revitalization. Measuring complex impacts is a constant challenge for both practitioners and academia. Thus, the paper presents a comprehensive impact assessment framework (iECoC) quantified through an integr...

This chapter examines how the COVID-19 pandemic could influence the acceptance of alternative pathways for or post-pandemic tourism development. Under alternatives, this chapter considers not just alternative forms of tourism as a consequence of alternative consumer lifestyles, but also all alternative ways of organizing and conducting tourism busi...

The Mindful Tourist presents the first comprehensive theoretical perspective on mindfulness in contemporary tourist experiences. This innovative new study is based on the detailed exploration of mindful consumer behaviour and draws on insights from new cases of mindful tourism experiences, examining the potential for broader uptake across the indus...

The Mindful Tourist presents the first comprehensive theoretical perspective on mindfulness in contemporary tourist experiences. This innovative new study is based on the detailed exploration of mindful consumer behaviour and draws on insights from new cases of mindful tourism experiences, examining the potential for broader uptake across the indus...

The Mindful Tourist presents the first comprehensive theoretical perspective on mindfulness in contemporary tourist experiences. This innovative new study is based on the detailed exploration of mindful consumer behaviour and draws on insights from new cases of mindful tourism experiences, examining the potential for broader uptake across the indus...

The Mindful Tourist presents the first comprehensive theoretical perspective on mindfulness in contemporary tourist experiences. This innovative new study is based on the detailed exploration of mindful consumer behaviour and draws on insights from new cases of mindful tourism experiences, examining the potential for broader uptake across the indus...

The Mindful Tourist presents the first comprehensive theoretical perspective on mindfulness in contemporary tourist experiences. This innovative new study is based on the detailed exploration of mindful consumer behaviour and draws on insights from new cases of mindful tourism experiences, examining the potential for broader uptake across the indus...

The Mindful Tourist presents the first comprehensive theoretical perspective on mindfulness in contemporary tourist experiences. This innovative new study is based on the detailed exploration of mindful consumer behaviour and draws on insights from new cases of mindful tourism experiences, examining the potential for broader uptake across the indus...

Serbian spas, with their abundant geothermal springs and air qualities, are a significant natural resource for the country. Nowadays, tourism industry has become a predominant beneficiary attracting both leisure- and health-related visits. Nonetheless, the literature on current consumer behavior is devoid of a model that incorporates both motivatin...

Purpose Virtual spaces, commonly referred to as the Metaverse, are predicted to disrupt consumption patterns in tourism, hospitality and events (THE) by shifting some user experiences to a virtual world. Scholarly investigations are necessitated to aid in an understanding of virtual spaces and the implications of their consumption for THE industri...

Aims and scope of this special issue: Tourists represent one of the most diverse types of consumers, including a large group of people with disabilities. Many of them frequently face physical, sensory, cognitive, or cultural barriers in service provision and delivery. These barriers may occur in any of the typical tourist experience phases - inspi...

Many technologically driven societies currently experience a "pandemic of loneliness". The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to conceptualize loneliness as a persistent and widespread issue among consumers that has been amplified by the CO-VID-19 pandemic and increasingly spills over into the travel and tourism domain. This issue creates many chal...

Tour guide performance has been a hotly debated academic topic, owing to the critical role they play in facilitating a variety of tourist experiences. Similarly, museum tour guides are the initial point of contact for tourists and have a substantial impact on the total visitor experience, but their performance is far less investigated. Visitors’ sa...

To increase the entrepreneurial intention, it is necessary to understand the main drivers that are driving students, as carriers of future economic development, towards starting a personal business venture. With regards to that, the main aim of this research was to analyze the entrepreneurial intention among students (managers in training) in the f...

Cave tourism is a very important aspect of the global tourist market, because in some parts of the world, it has been an active form of economic affirmation for decades. Precisely because of the need to improve and modernize the strategic management of this form of tourism, it is necessary to understand the needs of tourists who visit show caves, t...

The persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus imposed vaccination passports for traveling in most countries. We investigated psychological factors that predict the intention to vaccinate for travel. In a cross-sectional study, we examined how demographic variables, vaccination status, perceived risk of infection and severity of disease contracted at trav...

National hunters' associations (NHAs) are non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dealing with topics of hunting and conservation. We believe that NHAs have an important role in promoting hunting, wildlife protection, and shaping a positive public opinion about these subjects. Paper explores the basic characteristics and activities of the official Fa...

This is a follow-up to the study A mindful shift: an opportunity for mindfulness-driven tourism in a post-pandemic world, which was published in Tourism Geographies. The original paper advocated that, during a major crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus could be put on (more) mindful tourists as a driver of mindful change for the global...

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...

People have appreciated the beauty of natural landscapes, the result of the interplay of different natural processes, for at least three hundred years in Europe. Many have been inspired by this beauty to promote such places for visits by others. Some have understood the importance of individual places visited within the local or regional environmen...

People have appreciated the beauty of natural landscapes, the result of the interplay of different natural processes, for at least three hundred years in Europe. Many have been inspired by this beauty to promote such places for visits by others. Some have understood the importance of individual places visited within the local or regional environmen...

New Age tourism is traditionally situated within the scope of alternative tourism and, as such, it is considered to attract a small portion of tourism demand. However, with the proliferation of New Age lifestyles in Western societies, New Age-themed products and services are becoming more of a regular norm in tourism offerings, causing blending and...

Nowadays, the research focus is mainly on how tourists perceive the destination image, while the local community, as a very important key actor, is very often neglected in the studies. In light of the fact that Novi Sad has been declared the European Capital of Culture 2021, great attention has been placed on the local community and its perception...

The Fruška Gora Mt., as a dominant orographic complex in the Pannonian plain, was selected for a pioneer geodiversity quantification study area due to its unique geology and soil properties. The methodology is based on the geodiversity quantification assessment approach of Serrano and Ruiz-Flaño (Geogr Helv 62:140–147, 2007). It employed a 500 × 50...

Emerging tourism destinations repeatedly face many managerial challenges, often leading to common pitfalls and rookie mistakes. The current study aims to analyze relationships between destination attractiveness factors (Destination Amenities, Tourism Infrastructure and Accessibility, Active Family Destination, Hospitality and Services, and Social–S...

Temporal and spatial variability of annual and seasonal precipitation from 71 stations located in Western Balkan (WB) countries (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro) and their correlations with nine atmospheric circulation patterns was examined for the period 1950-2016. Annual precipitation increased significantly throughout the WB (from...

This special issue of the Journal of Information Technology & Tourism focuses on the challenges and opportunities ICT uses or practices create for well-being in tourism contexts. This special issue aims, on one hand, to elaborate on ICTs and their potential negative influence on tourism experiences and overall well-being. On the other hand, it seek...

Digital well-being has become a popular theme within a public discourse that increasingly attracts consumers, businesses, government institutions and technology providers who all face challenges in their technology-driven existence. However, there have been no attempts to create a comprehensive framework for a general understanding of digital well-...

Cycling tourism is a rapidly developing type of tourism in Europe and it is recognised in the tourism strategic documents of the Republic of Serbia as one of the key tourist products that should be developed specifically in the Danube region. This paper aimed to examine residents’ perceptions towards cycling tourism on the Danube cycle route in Ser...

Cycling tourism is an important and growing niche tourism market in Europe. It can contribute to the sustainable development and branding of the tourist destination, the preservation of natural and cultural heritage, the development of other forms of tourism, the creation of the tourist offers and active inclusion of the local community in developm...

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-...

Building on the momentum of Industry 4.0 developments in production and manufacturing, the tourism-specific concept of Tourism 4.0 currently fuels visions of similar technology-based transformations towards highly interconnected and phygital systems in the tourism industry. There is an implicit assumption that the technological innovations of Touri...

Music festivals are often seen as a key driver of the city's economies. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in the impacts associated with them. The aim of this research is to examine residents' perceptions of the social impacts of two European music festivals, Sziget (Budapest, Hungary) and Exit (Novi Sad, Serbia), applying the modified Fes...

Many see the COVID-19 pandemic as a turning point for tourism, a chance to reflect on the pressing environmental and socioeconomic concerns of the industry, and an opportunity to pinpoint a more desirable direction. However, for tourism to revive as a less impactful and more meaningful industry, more mindful consumers are needed to take factual ben...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce e-mindfulness as a tourism trend. Mindfulness meditation is becoming increasingly mainstream, which is reflected in a rapidly growing number of related technology applications. Such technology-assisted mindfulness is typically referred to as e-mindfulness. The e-mindfulness trend creates opportuniti...

With the proliferation of ICT and ubiquitous access to the internet, the cultural sector has been strongly affected. It had to rethink its new role by moving from a process of transforming from analogue to digital, to more engaging actions within the digital transformation. Here, one of the most important constituents was digital competencies of cu...

The aim of this paper is to develop a new perspective on urban tourist motivations and demotivation's by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model in order to better understand how tourists make decisions about which destinations to visit. Authors discovered that most important factor within city break travel is internal force, followed b...

The practice of meditative mindfulness as a process of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experiences is considered important in achieving subjective wellbeing. In the era of increasing digitization, a new trend in the use of technological devices and smartphone applications has arisen which aims to cultivate mindfulness in...

The penetration of online booking among hotels has been growing steadily. In order to maintain its market position, online travel agencies (OTAs) are offering small and medium hotels, mainly to those which have not yet adopted e-commerce, their own booking engines for websites or as apps to be integrated on hotels' platforms. Hotels are persuaded b...

The practice of producing drone videos for hobby or commercial purposes has already created a vast amount of open and free video datasets. When these videos are properly authored, time-stamped and geo-referenced, they receive characteristics of volunteered geographic information (VGI). As alternative forms to user-generated content (UGC), these vis...

The fast changing conjuncture in tourism industry, new tendencies both in supply and demand market together with the enlarging influence of the branch globally, cause sustained dynamics in hospitality business as well, being a part of the whole process. Hence new generation of guests is formed that makes necessary totally new approaches when it com...

Social networking sites (SNS) became an indispensable part of people’s everyday life, but also a powerful tool of communication during urgent situations, such as during natural disasters. This is evidenced by a large number of research papers showing the use of SNS in difficult circumstances. Some of the ways of using are the dissemination of infor...

The aim of this study is to explore a tourist preference towards information-communication technologies (ICTs) use at large-scale events, as well as disadvantages of insufficient ICTs implementation. In addition, we highlighted the importance of ICT usage on large-scale events for achieving smart tourism agenda. The importance and performance analy...

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...

With the ICT proliferation and related issues that follow people in everyday lives, commitment to digital well-being is becoming a preoccupation of technology providers as well as of users. As a form of a defence mechanism, the practices of so-called “mindfulness”, as a process of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experien...

The European Union (EU) is giving significant financial support to member states through Common agricultural policy (CAP). The problem is that the effects of EU funds are not presented in the way that would allow wide auditorium to understand their benefits. This is very important because it explains where the money collected from the EU citizens i...

Tourism industry practitioners should understand the controversial nature of the information and communication technology (ICT) proliferation to ensure that ICT solutions do not consume too much of consumer attention, thus jeopardising enjoyment of tourism services. The concept of calm technology or calm design serves this purpose. Calm design sugg...

This paper reviews the literature on tourism destination competitiveness from different aspects, focusing on comparative and competitive advantages. Also, the paper highlights the importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in tourism destinations and their increasing impact on the achievement of destination competitiveness. Tha...

There has recently been a call for revisiting the effect of ICT on guest experience in hotels. This is because the ICT solutions can act not only as enhancers of hotel guest experience, but also as its inhibitors. In response to this call, the notion of calm ICT design has been introduced. Calm ICT design describes the ICT solutions that are used o...

The trend of information and communication technologies (ICT) employment to enhance transactions and to deliver better experience to visitors of mass events has been growing increasingly popular over the years. The emergence of “smart tourism” agenda which highlights new, more sustainable ways of business management, experience enhancement and dest...

During the Second World War, technology was developed for tracking objects or enemy aircraft, now known as contactless technology, which at that time was limited to only one type of technology, called RFID - Radio Frequency Identification. For years, contactless technology has evolved and NFC technology has emerged from RFID technology, which is la...

The principal aim of the article was to explore the psychological aspects of Facebook (FB) users’ travel-related behavior on FB. This especially refers to the time they post their travel-related information, the type of information they post (photos, videos, comments, etc.), when they watch the photos of other people, are they keen to post the info...

Constantly changing nature of social network sites creates the need for continuous process of online benchmarking for identifying practices used by other parties. Facebook as the most used SNS still plays an increasingly important role as a marketing channel for destination marketing organizations (DMO). This paper explores basic characteristics of...

Inland excess waters cause numerous considerable problems in economy, society and environment on a low lying parts of Serbia. The SEERISK methodology has been used for assessing the risk of inland excess water in Kanjiža municipality in Serbia. By applying the GIS tools, inland excess areas were extracted and categorization of different hazards lev...

Web branding is an important strategic tool for building a promising travel experience that is uniquely associated with the destination and that reinforces the emotional connection between the visitor and the place. With the proliferation of the Internet, destination marketing organizations' (DMO) websites became a crucial communication channel for...

Spatial autocorrelation methodologies can be used to reveal patterns and temporal changes of different spatial variables, including tourism arrivals. The research adopts a GIS-based approach to spatially analyse tourist arrivals in Serbia, using Global Moran's I and Anselin's Local Moran's I statistics applied on the level of municipalities. To ass...

The main goal of this study was to analyze the applicability of Ritchie and Crouch's competitiveness model for the assessment of tourism advantages and disadvantages of a relatively small, unknown region with under-developed tourism. For this purpose, the authors selected the South Banat district in Serbia. The model was found suitable for the inte...

This paper examines temporal and spatial patterns of annual and seasonal maximum temperatures (Tmax) in Slovenia and their relationship with atmospheric circulation patterns. A significant increase in maximum temperature (Tmax; from 0.3°C to 0.5°C∙decade−¹) was observed throughout the country at the annual scale in the period 1963–2014. Significant...

Current research details methodological framework for the land planning of the recreational activities based on ecologic approach. Human impacts on landscapes caused by touristic activities should be in accordance with sustainability level, i.e. without changing natural landscape elements, their function and processes, as well as environmental qual...

Spatial autocorrelation methodologies can be used to reveal patterns and temporal changes of different spatial variables, including tourism arrivals. The research adopts a GIS-based approach to spatially analyse tourist arrivals in Serbia, using Global Moran's I and Anselin's Local Moran's I statistics applied on the level of municipalities. To ass...