Asian Journal of Mathematics

Dark tourism is fascinating because it unifies cultural heritage, history, and travels with death. Travels usually refer to hedonism and relaxation, but this niche tourism brought to the stage new dimensions: death and morbidity. Knowing that death is one of the greatest human fears, the authors investigated the domestic tourists? perceptions of dark tourism and its development in Serbia. The research was conducted using an online survey. The questionnaire included three units: 1) sociodemographic characteristics, 2) familiarity and understanding of the dark tourism phenomenon, and 3) motivation for engaging in dark tourism. The results revealed that domestic tourists support dark tourism development, mainly due to its educational role. Tourists marked the acquisition of new knowledge, curiosity, and compassion as the primary motivators. Therefore, the older male population particularly expressed a dominant positive attitude toward the development of dark tourism. Once again, the important role of the local community in tourism development is confirmed, especially in ?sensitive? forms of alternative tourism. Finally, the research contributes significantly to the theoretical framework and provides valuable guidelines for the planning and further development of dark tourism in Serbia.

Urbanization in Indonesia's cities is increasing, leading to various impacts, including negative consequences due to insufficient investment in local public infrastructure. Urbanization assessment primarily relies on examining changes in built-up areas over the past decade. These changes serve as an indicator that can be effectively derived from remote sensing data. In our study, we applied remote sensing data from the Google Earth Engine (GEE) catalog to delve into the urbanization dynamics within Greater Surabaya area, Indonesia. We employed satellite imagery from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor (OLI TIRS) for 2012 and 2022. We used Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification techniques to construct precise urban expansion models. Our analysis revealed distinct urban expansion trends in Mojokerto and Sidoarjo, which contrast with the relatively stable urban development trends in northern Surabaya due to the construction of toll roads. The findings provide valuable inputs for urban management, necessitating targeted interventions and strategies to address the urbanization disparities between these two areas. It underscores the critical importance of resource allocation, infrastructure development, and urban planning initiatives, with a specific focus on Gresik, to ensure sustainable urban growth and mitigate potential challenges associated with rapid expansion.

The present study uses methods based on Geographic Information System (GIS) to investigate the distribution of new residential buildings in Craiova (Romania) and assess their accessibility to key urban services. The focus is on collective housing developments constructed after 2015, encompassing both completed and ongoing projects. The research evaluates accessibility at the neighborhood level, considering key facilities and services such as banking services, pharmacies, kindergartens, primary schools, supermarkets, sport facilities, and green urban areas. Data for urban services were collected from open-source databases (OpenStreetMap, Copernicus Land Monitoring-Urban Atlas) and completed by field investigations. Isochrones, representing travel time from each residential building to the selected services, are used to measure the residents' accessibility by multiple travel modes. Additionally, the study considers the proximity of new residential buildings to the old historical city center, as a hub for shopping and leisure activities, and the walkability of the neighborhoods where the collective residences are located. The findings shed light on the spatial distribution of new residential developments in relation to essential urban services, providing valuable insights for urban planning and development strategies in Craiova, as well as for future residential investments.

This research presents a comprehensive analysis of the production of terrain passability maps in southeastern Serbia, employing a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) analysis. The study integrates various geographical and infrastructural aspects, assigning coefficients to each input parameter, including rivers, roads, rails, CORINE Land Cover (CLC), soil, slope, and the Topographic Ruggedness Index (TRI). The introduction of the TRI marks an innovative advancement in terrain analysis and passability. By comparing wet and dry periods, the study provides critical insights into the dynamic nature of terrain passability, with implications for transportation planning and emergency response. The research's innovative approach and detailed examination set it apart, offering valuable contributions to scholarly comprehension and practical applications. The findings underscore the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration and the broad impact of geographic information systems (GIS) and terrain analysis in addressing real-world challenges. Future research may explore additional factors influencing terrain passability and expand the geographical scope of the study.

In Algeria, at the present time, there are no rainwater harvesting systems (RWHS) registered with the public authorities as an alternative to the public water supply. This is explained by numerous factors, the most important being inhabitants? acceptance. The aim of this article is to investigate the current level of acceptance of an RWHS as a viable method for backing up the public water supply system. Our hypothesis is that inhabitants? acceptance can be improved by the increasing awareness of the benefits of an RWHS. For the purposes of this study, an RWHS located in northern Algeria was designed, and its benefits were measured and discussed with the direct participation of residents living in the building. The first benefit was the potential potable water saving (PPWS) and the second was the benefit-cost ratio (BCR). The PPWS was estimated at 51 m3/year. The BCR was estimated at 7% (15% with local council funding). This paper shows that, in the case of an existing building, inhabitant acceptance of an RWHS depends on three factors: (1) the amount of rainwater delivered by the RWHS; (2) the cost of building and managing it; and (3) the extent of the modifications made to the building.

As clusters currently represent a significant support in the development of regions, it is important to analyze their potential in the tourism industry. In Slovakia, tourism clusters work alongside local tourism organizations for legislative reasons. The main aim of the present study is to use appropriate identification methods to map the microeconomic environment of the selected tourism region and subsequent analysis to evaluate the existing preconditions for successful and efficient operation of the tourism cluster. The results of the survey serve as an input database for the application of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method, which revealed the current cluster potential in the Upper Povazie region. The individual determinants of the Porter?s Diamond model achieved favorable results. Using multiple regression analysis, quantification and interpretation of the interrelationships between input variables were enabled. The applied analysis shows that the potential pillars for the creation of a tourism cluster in the Upper Povazie region are the determinants of firm strategy, structure, and rivalry in the region, related and supporting industries, and factor conditions. The results show that the examined determinant factors create conditions for the functioning of a potential cluster in the region at an average level.

User-generated content (UGC) is increasing, so it is critical to clearly understand what customers think about the positive and negative aspects of specific goods. Such information is crucial for customers as well as for businesses. Online reviews are a powerful tool for a deep comprehension of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. This research intended to recognize the sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among business travelers in city hotels in Serbia. A total of 5,596 online reviews from 120 city hotels in Serbia were collected. Keyword-based visualization was used to display the most frequent words related to the experience during the hotel stay, reflecting the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of consumers. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) was used for grouping positive and negative reviews into various topics. Results showed that business travelers' primary satisfaction sources are ?Conference facilities?, ?Atmosphere?, ?Amenities?, ?Accessibility?, and ?Location?. On the other hand, the sources of dissatisfaction are ?Dirtiness? and ?Internet Connection?. Based on the obtained results, hotel managers can direct their activities to improve the spheres that have proven to be the sources of dissatisfaction for customers.

Modern human resource management involves a series of methods that ensure employee satisfaction, intending to achieve organizational goals. The perception of hotel staff as a factor of market success implies the creation of a working environment within which the performance of employees would be adequately used for these purposes. Consequently, the need for extensive research of leaders who will be able to respond to all business and social challenges arises as a basic prerequisite for achieving enviable business results. This paper aims to examine the impact of servant leadership on positive and negative outcomes in the field of hotel business. For the purposes of the survey, 412 hotel workers, employed in various hierarchical positions, were surveyed. The results of the research indicate a positive correlation between servant leadership and job satisfaction and work engagement, that is, a negative correlation between this leadership style and turnover intention and burnout. Furthermore, regression analysis confirmed the direct impact of servant leadership on job satisfaction and work engagement, as well as turnover intention. This study fills theoretical gaps in the aspect of choosing purposeful leadership styles in the sphere of hotel business in Serbia.

Destination image perceptions have a strong impact on the visit intention of tourists. While positive representations of a destination affect this intention favorably, negative representations decrease it. During the first year of the pandemic, intensified tourist flows toward dominantly nature-based destinations influenced the increase of prices, crowdedness, and pressures on nature within them. These developments were covered by numerous media reports and were heavily present on social media, which is a strong channel for modifying image perceptions. This study aims to establish the strength of the presence of these negative image elements in the consciousness of tourists and the strength of the impact of these elements on the intention to spend the summer holiday in Serbia, as well as on the desire to spend the summer holiday at the seaside. During June and July of 2021, a survey was conducted among 234 participants. The collected data was analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM). It was established that all three negative elements are moderately present in the image perceptions of domestic destinations, whereby overpricing was determined to be slightly more present than the excessive amount of visitors and nature endangerment. Despite this, the studied elements do not pose a negative impact on the tourists' intention to spend the summer holiday in the country. A strong positive effect of the perceived expensiveness of destinations (ED) on the desire to go to the seaside (DGS) was established.

The submitted contribution deals with the current status and view of the recreational vouchers as a tourism support tool from the point of view of employees who are entitled to use this option. The aim of the study was to find out, describe, and evaluate the perception of recreational vouchers as a tool of sustainable domestic tourism by employees who used this option and compare them with the perception of those who have not done it yet. Overall, 188 respondents took part in the questionnaire research held in person and online, in the period from December 2022 to February 2023. The methodology of the research to verify the perception of respondents included the use of Shapiro-Wilk normality test, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman correlation coefficient, which were evaluated in Software Gretl. The results of the research brought a positive opinion even from the public who did not have the opportunity to use them, but the statistical verification of the hypotheses did not show a different perception of the voucher among the respondents and their selected characteristics (age and place of residence). On the other hand, a positive opinion about the recreational voucher is confirmed, from which it can be concluded that the voucher can be perceived as an important and necessary tool oriented toward the development of sustainable domestic tourism in Slovakia.

Tourism is a significant segment of development policy at the national level, and it is important in terms of contributing to the Gross domestic product (GDP) diversifying of economy, reducing disparities between regions, fostering development capital, and promoting regional development. Tourism greatly contributes to the sustainable development of a region and a unit of local self-government, in an environment where sometimes there are no other alternatives for achieving that goal. Theories of regional development and tourism have evolved over a similar period after the Second World War. The concept of regional development has undergone a significant transformation through various theories. The paper analyzes the main principles of the theory of endogenous regional development and the possibility of its application for tourism research as a development factor. Tourism development policy is often created by the views of these theories. The purpose of this paper is to indicate, based on the analysis of modern ideas and approaches to regional development, whether they are suitable for the study of tourism and which factors are decisive in achieving its development function. The paper points out certain elements of theories that can individually or together represent the theoretical basis for tourism development planning in regions and local government units.

Migration acts as a growth driver for urban agglomerations, posing a difficult methodological task of its statistical accounting as well as further assessment of migration?s impact on the economy of agglomerations. The paper analyzes the contribution of migration to the change in population during the intercensal interval 2010-2021 in 20 urban agglomerations of Russia identified as promising centers of economic growth by the Russian Federation Government Decree ?On Approval of the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period until 2025?. The study showed that the most underestimated net migration rate was demonstrated by the agglomerations of Krasnodar, distantly followed by Krasnoyarsk and the capitals (Moscow and Saint Petersburg). The leader in terms of the absolute value of unrecorded migration is the Moscow agglomeration. In Nizhny Novgorod and Perm agglomerations, indirect assessment of net migration showed that migration balance was overestimated as per the registered migration data. The identified differences in the volume of net migration between the two sources indicate the unreliability of the data, thus questioning in some urban agglomerations the alignment of the demographic potential with economic development goals.

This paper describes the frequency analysis of absolute maximum air temperatures, using annual maximum series (AMS) in the period 1961-2010 from 40 climatological stations in Serbia with maximum likelihood estimation of distribution parameters. For the goodness of fit testing of General Extreme Value (GEV), Normal, Log-Normal, Pearson 3 (three parameters), and Log-Pearson 3 distribution, three different tests were used (Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Anderson-Darling, chi-square). Based on the results of these tests (best average rank of certain distribution), the appropriate distribution is selected. GEV distribution proved to be the most appropriate one in most cases. The probability of exceedance of absolute maximum air temperatures on 1%, 0.5%, 0.2%, and 0.1% levels are calculated. A spatial analysis of the observed and modeled values of absolute maximum air temperatures in Serbia is given. The absolute maximum air temperature of 44.9?C was recorded at Smederevska Palanka station, and the lowest value of maximum air temperature 35.8?C was recorded at Zlatibor station, one of the stations with the highest altitude. The modeled absolute maximum air temperatures are the highest at Zajecar station with 44.5?C, 45.6?C, 47.0?C, and 48.0?C and the lowest values are calculated for Sjenica station with 35.5?C, 35.8?C, 36.1?C, and 36.2?C for the return periods of 100, 200, 500, and 1000 years, respectively. Our findings indicate the possible occurrence of much higher absolute maximum air temperatures in the future than the ones recorded on almost all of the analyzed stations.

In this article, the application of the Individual Travel Cost Method (ITCM) aims at providing a deeper insight into visitors? preferences and their expenses on marketed and non-marketed services when travelling to the Tra Su Melaleuca Forest Natural Park, an ecotourism destination in An Giang Province of Viet Nam. The empirical findings from the survey of 237 visitors in 2022 showed that the frequency of trips to this recreational site was 1.3 per year on average and relied strongly on the travel costs. Additionally, the estimate of tourism revenues for 2022 of this site was 82,3 billion Viet Nam Dong (VND; equivalent to 3,5 million USD). Meanwhile, its economic value calculated by the ITCM application reaches 206,2 billion VND (or 8,8 million USD). It is obvious that a greater economic value over the monetary amount of revenue also raises several ideas of managerial implications dedicated to the recreational site. It includes building a marketing team for developing recreational services and digital marketing performance, expanding tour services like transportation, lodging, local guides. Finally, enabling local people to engage in dialogues, decision-making, and interest shares is also necessary for the sustainable development of ecotourism.

The article provides an assessment of climatic characteristics and changes in floodplain soils after the implementation of a drainage system. The study was conducted in the northern forest-steppe zone of the East European Plain (Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia). Through the analysis of long-term meteorological observations from 1961 to 2020, it was found that there was a steady increase in air temperature in all months and throughout the year, an increase in the period with positive temperatures, a slight increase in annual precipitation, and a reduction in precipitation during certain months of the warm season. Over the past 40 years, the drainage system has transformed the soil cover from Gleysols to Anthrosols, due to a decrease in the level of groundwater, agricultural use, as well as warming of the climate in the region. Thus, the transformation of soil cover can potentially contribute to climate change through the depletion of soil organic carbon stocks and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, currently, the natural and climatic conditions, morphological, water-physical, and agrochemical properties of Anthrosols allow for the production of two harvests of fodder crop (Bromus inermis L.) during the vegetation period. In general, the change in climatic indicators in the study area is consistent with the global trend. Our results underscore the sensitivity of soil systems to climatic variations and human activities, highlighting the need for local studies to understand regional and global environmental changes.