This study adjusts the Driving forces–Pressures–State–Impact–Response framework (DPSIR) to analyze the interregional similarities and differences with regard to sustainable tourism development in selected Mediterranean (MED) regions. The study involved three steps. The first step was a critical reflection on sustainable tourism indicators and DPSIR as a grouping approach. The analysis yielded 29 sustainability indicators distributed within four components of the DPSR framework. The data were collected for 54 NUTS 2 level MED regions. In the second step, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by a cluster analysis (CA) were performed to group homogenous regions and generate the Med Regions Cluster Matrix (MRCM). The investigation revealed that although countries in the Mediterranean share many characteristics in terms of tourism development and impacts, universal policies in mitigating the pressures are not appropriate. The main contributions of the study are (1) the application of the DPSIR model in the sustainable tourism context (2) and the analysis of the similarities and differences regarding the sustainability of tourism development in the selected MED regions. The conclusions of the analysis may stimulate the debate on mutual responses and sustainable tourism policy responses in the MED region.

Innovation is, alongside, skills, investment, enterprise and competition, a major driver of productivity in economy. In tourism also, it is believed that the competitiveness of enterprises to a great extent depends upon their innovation activity. Surprisingly, in tourism the research on innovation has so far received poor attention from scholars, especially in empirical research. This article aims at filling that gap. It will present results from an empirical study of innovation activity carried out during the spring/summer 2010 in the hotel sector in Croatia. Due to the problem of empirical measurement of innovation and the specific characteristics of hotel sector, the CIS IV¹ questionnaire design was used and adapted for this purpose. CIS questionnaire has been criticized by scholars for its deficiencies in measuring innovation in services. Still, after an extensive literature and research review, it has been concluded that with the adaptations made, it is the best available tool for this purpose. The research preliminary results suggest that Croatian hotels can be portrayed as only moderately innovative and with different innovation activity according to innovation type and newness. Furthermore, parallels, where possible, are drawn to other similar research carried out in other countries (Spain and Austria) as to be able to benchmark the innovation activity of Croatian hotels. Based upon the empirical results, recommendations and guidelines for hotel practice as well as for activities of regulatory bodies are given.

Purpose – To improve the employability of tourism and hospitality (T&H) graduates, faculty must continually reassess what soft skills are essential for T&H graduates to possess and amend their curricula to meet these needs. Thus, this study aims to identify the soft skills perceived as essential for the T&H graduates through a systematic literature review (SLR). Methodology – Google Scholar was systematically queried from 1990 to April 2018, resulting in 77 T&H soft skills-related peer-reviewed publications. Four T&H researchers/educators produced an initial pool of 1447 T&H soft skills from these publications, categorized them in either conceptual/creative, leadership or interpersonal dimensions of Sandwith’s (1993) Competency Domain Model and trimmed for relevance. Finally, the elicited key soft skills were further edited via an online survey of 19 T&H researchers/educators from Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain. The relevance of generated soft skills was double-verified thought same SLR based process for literature from April 2018 onwards. Findings – A final set of 30 items emerged – 10 items per each of the three soft skills dimensions – i.e. conceptual/creative, leadership, and interpersonal. Based on these findings, both T&H higher education institutions and faculty should evaluate their classes/curricula to determine whether a particular soft skill identified in this study is included as a learning objective of one or more specific classes. Contribution – The main contribution lies in devising a theoretically-and methodologically-based list of key soft skills for a broad range of segments of the T&H industry. From a methodological point of view, the SLR conducted is considered as novelty in T&H soft skills research. Practically, this study provides educators with an updated benchmark tool to identify gaps in the curriculum. The related positive implications are expected for the students and T&H industry as well.

Building on a TripAdvisor data for five Mediterranean destinations, namely, Greece, Croatia, Italy, France and Spain, this study analyses the constituents of restaurants' online reputation and their interrelation with destination competitiveness, in particular two Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) pillars, namely, Prioritisation of Travel and Tourism and Price Competitiveness. The analysis has revealed that restaurants' online reputation is positively influenced by two factors, namely, Core elements, i.e. cooking, service and price-quality ratio, and Price. Furthermore, the restaurants' online reputation does not influence destination competitiveness (TTCI) directly, but indirectly throughout its main constituents, i.e. service and price. Price is the only variable with significant influence on overall TTCI. Within the sample of these destinations, Balkan countries, i.e. Greece and Croatia, perform very well in terms of their restaurants' online reputation. On the other hand, considering the overall TTCI rating, their competitive positions are substantially lower than those of Italy, France and Spain. The study provides new insights into the relationship between gastronomic offer and destination competitiveness, and valuable practical implications for destination and hospitality management. Moreover, this study addresses various gaps in existing research on this topic. Specifically, it validates the reputation elements presented online using TripAdvisor data and analyses the impact of electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) not only as the outcome variable of other constructs, as is the case in the literature, but also as a central construct of the analysis. In doing so, it extends current research on this topic and fills the gap regarding the inclusion of the supply-side stakeholder perspective, which has long been recognised as necessary in any attempts to measure competitiveness.