Overtourism is an emerging concept facing the world’s main tourist destinations. The growth that tourism has undergone in recent decades is of two different types. On the one hand, the development of new technologies and the creation of low-cost airline carriers have increased tourism levels, leading to growth even in emerging economies. On the other hand, uncontrolled demand alongside a concentration of tourism in particular destinations impact negatively both territories and local communities. The problems caused in some destinations by the increasing, ongoing growth in tourism have created the issue of “overtourism,” which is assuming an increasing significance in the literature. This paper contributes to the literature by providing an exploratory study with which to better understand the origins of overtourism, its implications, and predicted future perspectives in respect to the issue. Examination of the new evidence presented here contributes to the expanding knowledge of particular problems of tourism development.

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This study investigates the value relevance of the Other Comprehensive Income (OCI). Limited literature has focused on the relevance on equity price and return. We go further by including the usefulness of OCI volatility on equity total risk which contributes to the inconclusive debate on how markets perceive different pieces of accounting information. After the adoption of the IAS (1), companies must disclose information about OCI, which shifts the focus from net income to comprehensive income. It shows the return that a company has made on its economic resources, determining a potential support for improving investors' decision‐making process. Contrarily, some studies demonstrated that comprehensive income is not a true performance indicator because it includes nonrecurring items (i.e., unrealized gains and losses related to the change in the fair market value of available‐for‐sales securities). To test the relevance aspects of the OCI, we focus on the European context, and in particular on the analysis of the super sector leaders in Europe, the companies of the STOXX 50 index over the period from 2010 to 2016. We find a weak negative association between OCI and equity price, and it is a firm specific effect. Similar weak mixed relationships with equity return is found and in particular it is a year‐specific effect. In addition, our findings reveal that the volatility of OCI is positively related to equity total risk. Compared to U.S and other international contexts, the findings provide novel insights at the European Union level about the inconsistent valuation usefulness of OCI.

PurposeThere is still an ongoing debate on the value relevance of capital structure and its determinants. Recently the issue has been explored in family firms after being explored in mature firms. This paper investigates the role of institutional investors and the firm's innovation activity in influencing the firm's decision and ability to acquire debt capital.Design/methodology/approachA large sample of 700 privately-held family firms in Italy from 2010 to 2019. Two analysis techniques are used: panel analysis and path analysis. The value of debt and the debt ratio are used as leverage measures. The value of patent (as a proxy for innovation) and institutional investor are the explanatory variables.FindingsThe results show that institutional investors have no relationship with financial leverage measures except when controlling for an interaction variable (Institutional investors × Lombardy region). The patent value is positively correlated with debt; however, the ratio patent-to-asset is negatively related to financial leverage indicating higher risk exposure. The nonlinearity test demonstrates a turning point when the relationship between patent value and debt inverts.Practical implicationsFirms should monitor their innovation activity since excessive innovation increases risk exposure and affects financing opportunities and value. The involvement of institutional investors does not always enhance value.Originality/valueExisting literature focuses separately on family firm innovations and financial leverage as outcome variables, emphasizing the role of institutional investors in both fields by adopting agency theory and socioemotional wealth framework. In this study, the authors go further by merging both relationships, investigating the dynamics of the institutional-family firm innovation relationship in influencing the firm's capital structure. The authors contribute to the ongoing debate by providing original findings on capital structure, governance and innovation, supported by rigorous methods to enhance family firms' decision-making.

Increasingly, innovation is seen as a novel leverage tool with which to create business and social value and thereby place its finders and users at a competitive advantage. Contemporary research suggests that the determinants of the innovation activity of firms are numerous. In this paper, we consider the financial and governance characteristics that might influence the innovation activity of a sample of 700 family firms in Italy. Our study was conducted over a 10-year period, from 2007 to 2016, using panel analysis models alongside robustness tests for the lagging effect and the probability regression as well as diagnostic statistics to ensure the use of an appropriate model. The results show that the existence of institutional investors, as a proxy for governance, has a persistent positive relationship with patent value, as a proxy for innovation, but not with the likelihood of being innovative. Moreover, financial indicators such as net working capital, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, debt, and equity are found to explain innovation activity better than other indicators in both the panel and probability regressions. We also find very little significant difference between the sectors and regions featured in the study, suggesting that the relationship among them is quasi-systematic. Concluding the paper, our findings are discussed in relation to their policy implications and suggestions for further research are made.