This study explores the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on customer perceptions and behavior in restaurants, airline companies, and hotel sectors within the hospitality industry of Iran. The primary objective is to analyze how AI affects customer trust, brand engagement, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), and tourists’ readiness to use AI technologies. Using a comparative analysis approach and surveys, this research tests hypotheses about the effects of artificial intelligence on various dimensions of customer interaction. The findings highlight significant relationships between the quality of artificial intelligence and customer engagement metrics, such as trust and brand loyalty, which are crucial for understanding and predicting customer behavior in response to technological advancements. This study lays the groundwork for theoretical assumptions about sustainability in these sectors in developing countries, providing a basis for future empirical research that could validate these assumptions and explore broader implications of AI integration in enhancing sustainable practices within the hospitality industry.

As a main input for economic growth and competitiveness, foreign direct investments (FDI) remain one of the most important sources in both emerging and developing countries. This study emphasizes the importance of FDI into Serbia’s economy by analysing the forecasts between FDI, GDP, the unemployment rate and global competitive index (GCI). In this paper, authors focussed on a comparison of FDI inflows from China, Russia and the EU countries. According to the multiplicative and seasonal aspects of trend analysis considered, projections show a gradual increase in GDP, FDI, competitive ranks and a decrease in the unemployment rate for the following 5 years. These results shed light on the future potential directions under which investment and other public policies should be created. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether different elements of the work environment (manifested by job demands, job control, and social support) and personal resources were linked to employees’ well-being at work. Based on data gathered from 574 employees in the hospitality industry in Serbia, it was also tested if personal resources, expressed through self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience, could moderate the relationship between work environment and employees’ well-being at work. Correlation analyses showed that high job demands had negative effects on employees’ well-being, causing negative emotional reactions to their job, while job control and social support developed positive relationships with positive employees’ well-being. The moderating effect analysis found that personal resources can fully moderate the relationship between job demands and well-being at work, and job control and well-being at work. On the other side, personal resources were not a significant moderator in the relationship between social support and well-being at work, indicating that even when employees have adequate personal resources, they are not enough to decrease the negative effects of lack of social support on employees’ well-being at work. This shows how important the support of supervisors and colleagues is for employees in hospitality.

The primary goal of this paper was to investigate the strength of the influence of different types of risk on the travelers’ intention to visit destinations in future, that are, prejudiced due to COVID-19, marked as “stigmatized”, “isolated”, or “risky destinations”. Field interview research was conducted at the “Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport” (Serbia). The results obtained by multiple regression analysis showed that all types of risks influenced the intention of travelers, with financial risk showing a more significant impact. Canonical discriminant analysis indicated that men were most afraid of human induced risk, service quality risk, natural disaster and COVID-19 risk, and they chose safer destinations. Among the women, the biggest fear was financial risk, socio-psychological risk, and food safety risk. Older respondents and those under the influence of external factors decided on safer destinations, while financial status did not play a significant role in predicting the choice of destination. The selection of the destination according to the degree of security was determined by the ordinal regression methodology. The entire research presents a certain novelty, because so far in the numerous studies on the topic of the negative consequences of COVID-19 on tourism, there has been no discussion of stigmatized or risky destinations that received that epithet, and were therefore negatively and unfairly marked in the minds of tourists for future visits.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the motives of tourists for participating in wine tourism in Serbia. The research was conducted using the survey method. From the total number of sent questionnaires, there was received 160 fully completed ones. Results of the research show that the most important motives for the inclusion of tourists to the wine tourism are: wine tasting, trying different sorts of wines, visiting wineries, getting information about wine and its production and organization of the trip. Wine tourists showed a high degree of readiness to visit wineries that produce their favorite wine. Secondary motives of wine tourists are: participating in the production of wine, visiting shops that sell local products and meeting people with similar interests. Motivation of tourists is the driving force that affects their intention to visit a wine destination and take part in wine tourism. On the other hand, barriers such as free time, distance of wine regions and financial expenditure do not significantly affect the motivation and future behavior of wine tourists.