In the past decade, neurophysiological and physiological tools have been used to explore consumer behaviour toward advertising. The studies into brain processes (e.g., emotions, motivation, reward, attention, perception, and memory) toward advertising are scant, and remain unclear in the academic literature. To fill the gap in the literature, this study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol to extract relevant articles. It extracted and analysed 76 empirical articles from the Web of Science (WoS) database from 2009–2020. The findings revealed that the inferior frontal gyrus was associated with pleasure, while the middle temporal gyrus correlated with displeasure of advertising. Meanwhile, the right superior-temporal is related to high arousal and the right middle-frontal-gyrus is linked to low arousal toward advertisement campaigns. The right prefrontal-cortex (PFC) is correlated with withdrawal behaviour, and the left PFC is linked to approach behaviour. For the reward system, the ventral striatum has a main role in the reward system. It has also been found that perception is connected to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial (Vm) PFC. The study’s findings provide a profound overview of the importance of brain processes such as emotional processes, reward, motivation, cognitive processes, and perception in advertising campaigns such as commercial, social initiative, and public health.

The presence of Covid-19 has brought a number of negative consequences globally including economic disaster. In the context of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Covid-19 has severely impacted the Umrah tourism, and this has led to many Umrah business operators to experience loss. In addition, many small and medium business operators have to stop operating due to financial difficulties. This study aims to identify the strategies that have been employed by the Umrah business operators to survive the downward of market due to Covid-19 pandemic. Specifically, the study attempts to understand the mechanisms that have been adopted by the affected Umrah business operators to maintain their business. As such, a total of three business operators in the Makkah region were selected to be interviewed. The interviews were later transcribed and thematically analyzed. The analysis of interview responses followed the Wenzel (2020)'s Crisis Response Strategies that has been the study's conceptual framework. Findings showed that the strategies that the business owners adopted can be grouped into two themes; first is retrenchment where the business owners will reduce the number of staff being employed and second is perseverance where the business owners will actively look for assistance mainly from the government. The findings have highlighted limited strategies employed by the business owners. This information can be helpful for training purposes where many strategies can be adopted by business owners when they are faced with economic difficulties.

The suspension of Umrah tourism by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the year 2020 and 2021 following the breakout of Covid-19 pandemic has caused economic problems to business owners that operate their businesses around Umrah activities. Problems such as retrenchment and closure of businesses have been reported due to significant financial risk and loss. Hence, this study is conducted to identify the role of the government i.e., Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to assist the business owners in managing the economic crisis. Specifically, the study attempts to identify the economic strategies employed by the government and the future outlooks that have been set in the future planning of Umrah tourism. A total of 13 government officers have been recruited for a semi-structured interview protocol. Interview responses were analysed following the framework by Persson-Fischer & Liu (2021)'s government crisis management. From the analysis, it has been found that the economic strategies that the Kingdom has employed are providing financial support and making adjustment to the financial policy. On the other hand, future practices will see the Kingdom to continue with the financial support, develop cooperation between agencies, change the nature of tourism and employ digital platforms as a way to reduce cost. The study is important as it has shed lights on the strategies that the Kingdom has employed to assist the business owners and how Umrah tourism will be shaped in the future practice.