Tourism significantly increased in the EU-28 in recent years. In the present study, the 28 member states were analysed for the period between 2012 and 2018, depending on data availability. The authors tested empirically whether economic convergence took place from the perspective of three types of revenue from the tourism sector. The contribution of tourism revenue to economic growth varied across different countries. The analysis of β and σ-convergence showed a low-intensity and slow process based on the revenues generated by accommodation, transport, and restaurant and coffee shop services. Contrary to expectations, the factors analysed did not strongly support the EU-28 tourism sector convergence. We argue the existence of a positive and direct relationship between tourism and economic growth. The convergence did exist but its pace was sometimes slow and of low intensity, preceded by periods of divergence. The three types of services generated tourism revenue but not decisively. The paper complements the literature using indicators that strictly describe the tourism sector and brings into focus findings that contradict those from other studies. Our conclusion is that convergence was not accelerated, but slow and it was not determined by tourism factors but by related ones.

This paper aims to analyse the nexus between tourism activities, including tourists’ circulation, accommodation or entertainment, and environmental degradation. Consequently, the conceptual framework captures the complexity of the nexus between tourism and the environment, given that tourism activities can be performed by tourists or for tourists and that tourism depends on the environmental quality, and, consequently, we highlight the impact of tourism activities on biodiversity loss through the pollution effects that they generate, i.e., air pollution, water pollution, or noise pollution, as well as their contribution to waste increase or to the depletion of natural resources. To achieve this goal, we apply structural equation modelling based on partial least squares analysis (PLS). The results based on tourists’ opinions highlight the existence of a direct and significant nexus between tourists’ activities and environmental degradation, with many implications and consequences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to activities in many fields, including education and lifestyle. Major changes have taken place in the education system, where specific activities migrated suddenly from onsite to online. As a result, this period has witnessed an increased interest in impact studies that analyse the perceptions of the actors involved in the educational process. Based on the survey data (N = 665), the perceptions of the students in Romanian universities with regard to the effects of online education during the pandemic on their wellbeing were analysed. The empirical apparatus—SEM analysis—reached the following conclusions: the students’ wellbeing was increased under the traditional education system; the economic crisis has caused concern, and a decrease in their wellbeing; their contamination fear is moderate to low, and does not influence their wellbeing; they have been discouraged in terms of their personal development during the pandemic, and their wellbeing has suffered as a result; the role of institutions is extremely important, given that the students’ ability to study online depends on the universities’ efficiency in implementing the online system.

This study investigates safety and security from the perspective of Romanian tourists by assessing the level of importance that tourists give to safety and security depending on the level of classification of the services they experienced and the generation to which they belong. We used a quantitative research method in the form of a questionnaire and analysed eight dimensions of safety and security: detectors, emergency preparedness, medical preparedness, staff security, guestroom security, pool and beach security, hotel access control, and cyber security. We identified the differences between tourists’ perception of safety and security depending on the level of classification of accommodation services and on generation.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation, energy consumption and patents on environmental technologies on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) recorded in European countries for a period of nine years (2010–2018).Design/methodology/approach: Two empirical methods were integrated into the theoretical approach developed based on the analysis of the current scientific framework. Multiple linear regression, an extended version of the OLS model, and a non-causal analysis as a robustness method, Dumitrescu–Hurlin, were used to achieve the proposed research objective.Findings: Digitalisation described by the number of individual Internet users and patents on environmental technologies determines the amount of GHG in Europe, and economic growth continues to have a significant effect on the amount of emissions, as well as the consumption of renewable energy. European countries are not framed in well-established patterns, but the economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy have an impact on the amount of GHG in one way or another. In many European countries, the amount of GHGs is decreasing as a result of economic growth, changes in the energy field and digitalisation. The positive influence of economic growth on climate neutrality depends on its degree of sustainability, while patents have the same conditional effect of their translation into environmentally efficient technologies.Research limitations/implications: This study has a number of limitations which derive, first of all, from the lack of digitalisation indicators. The missing data restricted the inclusion in the analysis of variables relevant to the description of the European digitalisation process, also obtaining conclusive results on the effects of digitalisation on GHG emissions.Originality/value: A similar analysis of the relationship among the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy is less common in the literature. Also, the results can be inspirational in the sphere of macroeconomic policy.

Economic and social progress is directly and closely related to energy consumption. In the latest decades, there is a higher need to reduce energy consumption from conventional sources, replacing it with energy obtained from unconventional sources. The environmental concern is one of the objectives of the European economic policy, with a particular focus on renewable energy consumption and energy efficiency in order to lower the environmental impact. In this context, we analyzed energy consumption per capita and renewable energy consumption per capita in the EU with the help of parametric methods, using the β-convergence model, and semiparametric methods, using the σ-convergence model. In this research we proposed to study six analysis models of the period 1960–2015, based on the availability of data. We concluded that the EU states went through a convergence process in a slow pace of energy consumption per capita and renewable energy per capita, showing a convergence pattern. The results of the study show that there is a relationship between the convergence of conventional energy consumption and the convergence of renewable (unconventional) energy consumption. The study covers a long period of time in which EU member states had different economic and social systems, implicitly different degrees and rates of development. In addition, the interest in renewable energy is relatively recent in the whole world. There is a possibility that future research will provide more optimistic results, in terms of accelerating the convergence rate, as appropriate measures and technologies are applied to renewable energy production in all EU member states.