The COVID-19 pandemic has entailed an unprecedented health crisis with significant economic impacts in many sectors worldwide. The tourism sector has been one of the most affected, with significant impacts on the number of cancelled reservations, a decrease in international travel and changes in consumption behaviour. This study aims to analyse the main changes in promotion and marketing in the tourism sector in Spain after the pandemic. To this end, a qualitative analysis was carried out via questionnaire-based interviews with 65 experts in the areas of marketing, consumer behaviour and tourism. The main findings show that online information sources gained weight over consulting friends and relatives, and a great advance in digitization is expected, where physical travel agencies will be displaced by online platforms, except for specialized and advisory services. Additionally, technologies such as virtual reality (VR) or artificial intelligence (AI) may play an increasingly important role in the medium term.

Flooding, as a result of heavy rains and/or storm surges, is a persistent problem in coastal areas. Under scenarios of climate change, there are expectations that flooding events will become more frequent in some areas and potentially more intense. This poses a potential threat to coastal communities relying heavily on coastal resources, such as beaches for tourism. This paper develops a methodology for the assessment of coastal flooding risks, based on an index that compares 16 hydrogeomorphological, biophysical, human exposure and resilience indicators, with a specific focus on tourism. The paper then uses an existing flood vulnerability assessment of 724 beaches in Galicia (Spain) to test the index for tourism. Results indicate that approximately 10% of tourism beaches are at high risk to flooding, including 10 urban and 36 rural beaches. Implications for adaptation and coastal management are discussed.

The COVID-19 crisis has encouraged a major shift towards greater environmental awareness and sustainable consumption. However, in times of severe crisis, SMEs primarily look to return to normalcy and their own survival rather than implementing a sustainable agenda. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the learning problems faced by small tourism enterprises in a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores the learning capacity of SMEs and the importance of establishing mechanisms that provide SMEs with the keys to organizational learning as a source of continuous knowledge. Open-ended semi-structured interviews with 39 tourism SMEs managers in Galicia (Spain) were conducted during the toughest months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that SMEs have not been fully involved in the learning process, which is mainly related to knowledge transfer and integration. DMOs can act as promoters of knowledge management for organizational preparedness by providing SMEs with learning mechanisms and strategies to go beyond simple problem solving when they arise.

In sun-and-beach destinations, weather has a decisive influence on the variability of the daily flow of tourists. Uncertainty in demand flows directly affects businesses and employment. This work aims to improve understanding of the behaviour of tourists in response to changes in weather conditions. The analysis is carried out in the Rías Baixas, a sun-and-beach destination in north-west Spain. The paper analyses the relationship of weather conditions with daily flows during the high season at the main tourist beaches in the area, also considering two beach typologies. The density of beach use is measured three times a day through the analysis of webcam images in combination with real-time weather, and an online survey is conducted among tourists who have visited these beaches. The results show that the hours of sunshine are the most influential weather factor. Weather forecast greatly or totally influenced the decision to go to the beach for almost 70% of respondents and about 80% of the respondents checked on the weather before visiting a beach.

Technologies have massively burst into all fields, including Higher Education. The current students have grown up surrounded by technologies, which is reflected in their behavior. For this reason, universities have adapted by integrating digital competence into their training offer, improving learning processes and adjusting to the university profile. The objective of this work is to ascertain how digital skills are used by Spanish higher education (bachelor’s and master’s degree) students, thus verifying whether so-called digital competence is being actively used in higher education. A survey was applied to 324 individuals, highlighting among its results that the university panorama is in a situation where digital tools are very useful for its improvement. These data were collected before the global pandemic, after which the use of online tools intensified. However, the students are still not aware of all of them, or they do not use them.