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The paper aims to explore the array of individual experiences (initial reactions and impact and lasting impressions) relating to Obersalzberg, an authentic site of National Socialist history that had originally been Adolf Hitler’s holiday residence in the 1930s and later became an important Government centre during the Second World War. Obersalzberg is considered a “site of the perpetrators” because here war crimes were planned on a major scale but carried out elsewhere.

The study uses innovative methodological approaches to capture initial reactions and lasting impressions of the visit. These include extensive, qualitative interviews with visitors (n = 20), and to clarify the long-term effects of the visit, phone interviews were conducted with selected visitors (n = 22) three months after the visit. The aim of the study is to increase the existing pool of knowledge on the quality of experience of visitors to National Socialist sites.

Overall assessment of the exhibition and the analysis of individual sections of it and individual objects clearly showed that a visit to Obersalzberg is an emotional experience for many people that “gets under the skin” and can possibly never be forgotten. Although the impact of the exhibition is different for each individual, various modes of confrontation with the exhibition contents are discernible in the visitors. Although these are naturally also dependent upon the degree of knowledge and the motives for the visit, spontaneous reactions certainly also occur – depending on the intensity of the examination of the topic of National Socialism. The four reactions to the events can be designated as modes of rationalization, memory, empathy and overwhelming distress.

This paper sheds new light on the reaction of visitors to this kind of exhibition. Visitors find themselves thinking over what they have seen, and together with their overall assessment of the exhibition, visitors go into detail about many particularly moving topics; they are stunned about the world view of those in power at that time and the resulting events; they report on surprising, new knowledge about Obersalzberg; many times, they express empathy toward the evicted residents and experience the bunker as a formidable complex. Their past experiences are often linked to the present, even if the quality and intensity of the experience is different for each individual.

This study attempts to answer how values and holiday preferences were shaped by the pandemic, how travellers view the future of tourism and how they are willing to contribute to potential changes. Furthermore, it examines the impact of socio-structural background factors, basic values and holiday preferences, and pandemic-related factors on the views of post-pandemic tourism.

A longitudinal online survey was conducted in which 155 frequent travellers were interviewed both before and during the pandemic about their values and holiday preferences, attitudes towards travelling during the pandemic, and their prospective views regarding tourism.

The findings revealed that values remained rather stable, but nature experiences, heritage tourism and beach offers gained more relevance when it came to holiday preferences. Concerning travellers’ expectations of future tourism, environmental concern was ranked higher than economic profit. However, those striving for self-direction, stimulation and city tourism offers stated to be less willing to restrict their travel behaviour in the future.

Although our study is just based on a convenience sample, the authors were still able to address notable research gaps. First, because a longitudinal design was selected, it was possible to investigate any potential transitions in basic values and travel style and trace these changes back to the pandemic. Second, thanks to a sophisticated online survey, all concepts could be measured with well-developed scales, which increased the quality of the measurements and led to stable results. Third, young travellers can be considered proponents of future travel styles. Their way of acting and thinking about future tourism could significantly impact the prospective direction of tourism.

This study makes a valuable contribution to changing holiday preferences and provides useful insights for the tourism industry about travellers’ willingness to change their travel behaviour.

Since this study primarily considers human values and socio-structural factors, the findings are of particular interest from a sociological perspective and are also interpreted from this viewpoint.

This study is one of only a few longitudinal studies focusing on holiday preferences and shifting values during COVID-19 and attempting to detect crucial drivers of potential tourism transformations in terms of perceptions from the demand side.

This paper aims to present a model including essential constructs for the measurement of travellers' characteristics in a perceived unsafe destination. This model functions as the basis for three empirical case studies testing the relevance and explanatory power of stable factors regarded as crises‐resistant (e.g. values and holiday preferences) and dependent aspects regarded as crises‐sensitive (attitudes, perceptions and holiday activities).

In total, 930 tourists completed a standardized questionnaire in three regions confronted with or threatened by terrorist attacks as a specific form of tourist crisis (Bali, Indonesia; Sinai, Egypt and Catalonia, Spain). Owing to the coincidence that during fieldwork the second attack on Bali happened it was possible to compare travellers before and after the attack and to test the conception of crises‐stable and crises‐sensitive factors (RQ1). Linear multiple regressions were run to detect significant influence factors on sensation seeking and holiday needs (based on the whole sample) (RQ2) and on risk perceptions and intercultural contact efforts (analysed separately for every destination) (RQ3).

The results in Bali predominantly justify the model of crises‐stable and crises‐resistant indicators. Considering influences on the stable level values referring to openness for change (self direction, hedonism and stimulation) and to self transcendence (universalism, benevolence) exert the highest influence on travel needs. The weak influences of sensation seeking on security feelings during a holiday lead to the conclusion that these two constructs have to be clearly differed. The perception of a convenient, relaxing atmosphere, a low awareness of risks on holidays and a commitment towards tourism‐related problems seem to be highly relevant for open contacts with the host society.

The empirical results of the study in Bali are of particular importance because there is still little scientific knowledge about the immediate psychological reactions of tourists to crises states in destinations. Highly relevant explanatory factors are reported in this study due to high effect sizes regarding sensation seeking, holiday needs and intercultural communication efforts.

The paper aims to profile the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) theme issue “Dark tourism – visitation, understanding and education; a reconciliation of theory and practice?” by drawing on reflections from the theme editor and theme issue outcomes.

The paper uses structured questions to enable the theme editor to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question and the outcomes.

It was observed that visitors to dark tourism sites are often motivated by respect and remembrance and that this motivation is frequently reported by the practitioners who manage these sites.

The paper presents dark tourism site educational guidelines for practitioners.

This paper provides a rich array of insights from practitioners involved in managing museums and related educational programmes, conceptual development and applied academic research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide conclusive evidence that infrastructure constitutes a separate asset class and cannot be classified as real estate from an investment point‐of‐view. Furthermore, optimal allocations are determined for direct and indirect infrastructure within a multi‐asset portfolio.

Portfolio allocations are optimized by using an algorithm, which accounts for downside risk, rather than variance. This approach is more in accordance with the actual investor behaviour and might meet their investment objectives more effectively. An Australian dataset comprising stocks, bonds, direct real estate, direct infrastructure and indirect infrastructure is applied for portfolio construction.

Although infrastructure and real estate have common characteristics, the conclusion is that that they constitute two different asset classes. Furthermore, the diversification benefits of direct and indirect infrastructure within multi‐asset portfolios are highlighted and determine efficient allocations up to 78 percent for target rates of 0.0 percent, 1.5 percent and 3.0 percent quarterly.

The results will help investors and portfolio managers to efficiently allocate funds to various asset classes. Most institutional investors are not familiar with investments in infrastructure. The study facilitates a better understanding of the asset class infrastructure and yields some important implications for the optimal allocation of infrastructure within institutional investment portfolios.

This is the first study to examine the role of direct and indirect infrastructure within a multi‐asset portfolio by applying a downside‐risk approach.