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Gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline industry has faced many restrictions. Based on the determining factor of repurchase intention, this research paper addresses the roles of brand engagement (BE) and consumer trust during the pandemic.

A number of 439 out of 500 questionnaires, which were distributed among the Iranian airlines' customers, were completed and returned (an 87% response rate). SmartPLS 3 was used to carry out the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in order to validate the research hypotheses.

The results show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, BE had a significant effect on customer purchase intention. In addition, BE boosted customer trust and thereby increased repurchase intention. Perceived risks of COVID-19 moderated these relationships. The findings also show that airline customers are highly sensitive to various perceived risks and were especially so during the COVID-19 pandemic. These perceived risks have major impacts on customers' intention to reuse the services of airline companies. High levels of perceived risk decrease customer trust, BE and repurchase intention rates, and vice versa.

This paper provides authorities and decision-makers of the air transport industry with several practical recommendations based on the research findings. As the results confirmed, there is a worthwhile relationship between BE and customer trust; regarding the both direct and indirect benefits of customer trust for for-profit firms and the huge importance of trust in creating competitive advantages, different airline companies need to implement various strategies to engage customers with their brand names, and thereby institutionalize trust in their customers' minds during the pandemic. Since customer trust was also found to improve repurchase intention rates significantly, authorities of the airline industry must take actions to reduce feelings of mistrust and risk among consumers and increase customer trust during COVID-19.

This paper is the first to explore the effect of BE on airline customers' repurchase intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has produced practical suggestions to employees and activists of the air transport industry regarding the use of BE as a tool to restore customer trust during and after the COVID-19 epidemic. This research focuses on the airline industry, which is particularly interesting given the industry's intensely competitive environment and the dramatic effect of COVID-19 on the industry.

In most countries, independent hotels are a major contributor to both national economy and the hospitality sector, but to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is a lack of any study on brand co-creation (BCC) in independent hotels. This study aims to examine the interrelationship of moral judgement (MJ), self–brand connection, customer–brand engagement (CBE), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and how BCC occurs in independent hotels and contrasts visitors’ perspectives between two different Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness clusters in independent hotels. Furthermore, this study also examines the moderating impact of privacy concern (PC) on the relationship between eWOM and brand co-creation.

Data were collected from two groups of tourists, Iranian (290) and European (224), who visited and stayed in independent hotels in some major cities in Iran. The structural equation modelling using AMOS 22 was adopted to test the hypotheses.

The study’s findings revealed that there are significant differences between two culturally different travellers in terms of selected variables, suggesting that MJ is a main antecedent of CBE, which leads to eWOM among Iranian travellers, which consequently leads to BCC. Moreover, the study’s data indicates that European travellers show a high level of PCs while staying in independent hotels in Iran, which prevents them from sharing and getting engaged in the social media, which could delay the BCC process especially in international level.

This study contributes to literature by providing new insights on the differences in the concept of brand co-creation between two culturally different groups in the context of independent hotels, which require special attention of independent hotel managers.

Health tourism is a relatively new branch of international tourism that has developed more rapidly than other tourism sectors in recent years. This study aimed to investigate the effect of government supports on health tourism development by considering the mediating role of internal and external infrastructures.

The study population consisted of all experts of two hospitals in Iran, which are frequently visited by foreign tourists (N = 151). A questionnaire, developed by combining standard and researcher-made questionnaires, was used to collect the data. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model was developed in SmartPLS 3 to test the hypotheses.

The main hypothesis test results indicated that government supports positively affect the development of health tourism. Internal and external infrastructures were also found to mediate the relationship between government supports and health tourism development. In addition, the sub-hypothesis test results showed that internal and external infrastructures are positively affected by government supports, which puts forth the development of health tourism. As the results explained, the most important aspects of internal infrastructures affected by government support were health service quality, cost of health services and applying advanced medical technologies, respectively. Also, different aspects of external infrastructures affected by government supports are as follows: economic, infrastructures and cultural factors.

This study is the first of its kind to examine the impact of both medical and non-medical factors on health tourism and signifies the crucial role of governments in the development of health tourism.