Quality-of-Life Perception among Young Residents and Visitors: The Impact of COVID-19

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

1. Please recheck the results of table 2, some of Cronbach Alpha values for periods 1 and 2 both residents and tourists less than 0.7.  (see some studies Hair et al., 2010, 16, 17) and Kundan. Z et al., (2022) for more recommendations. 

2. The hypothesis statements part should replace under "Literature Review"

Author Response

Please find the answers to reviewers' comments in the table attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

REVIEW COMMENTS
Thank you for writing this timely review. While the topic is indeed of great value to both academia and the practitioner communities, there remain few issues that ought to be addressed before this paper can be accepted.
I suggest the following revisions to strengthen the paper further:
1.    To begin with, there are some typos and grammar mistakes. Some long sentences could make readers confused.
2.    Please carefully choose the keywords which are not repeated in the manuscript title.
3.    What criteria does the author base on to select the experimental sample (number of questionnaires sent out and received)? As stated in the article, the author has sent 751 copies of questionnaires for resident in period 1 and 311 copies in period 2. Additionally, the author has sent 603 copies of questionnaires for tourists in period 1 and 250 copies in period 2. What is the statistical significance of the number of questionnaires for this study?
4.    I think that in the “Introduction” section need some development. I think the authors should highlighted that questionnaire just measure the conscious behaviour of individuals, which represents less than 10% of actual decision-making and behaviour, therefore, the authors should refer to the benefits of neuromarketing techniques such as but not limited to, eye-tracking in measuring unconscious behaviour of individuals in general and the perceptions of individuals in specific which is considered one of attention processes. I suggest reference which can be beneficial for improving the introduction, i.e., doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v18i08.31959,
5.    The authors need to clearly articulate the main contributions at the end of the 'Introduction' section. I suggest reference which can be benefits to improve that issue " global research trends of neuromarketing: 2015-2020".
6.    The authors should explicitly state the novel contribution of this work and its similarities and differences with their previous publications.
7.    For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges and your original achievements to overcome them in a clearer way in the abstract and introduction.
8.    How could/should futures studies improve the model?
If these revisions can be made in the manuscript, I believe that this study can be accepted for publication.
I wish the authors all the very best with this study.

Author Response

Please find the answers to reviewers' comments in the table attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

REVIEW COMMENTS
Thank you for writing this timely review. While the topic is indeed of great value to both academia and the practitioner communities, there remain few issues that ought to be addressed before this paper can be accepted.
I suggest the following revisions to strengthen the paper further:
1.    To begin with, there are some typos and grammar mistakes. Some long sentences could make readers confused.
2.    I think that in the “Introduction” section need some development. I think the authors should highlighted that questionnaire just measure the conscious behaviour of individuals, which represents less than 10% of actual decision-making and behaviour, therefore, the authors should refer to the benefits of neuromarketing techniques such as but not limited to, eye-tracking in measuring unconscious behaviour of individuals in general and the perceptions of individuals in specific which is considered one of attention processes. I suggest reference which can be beneficial for improving the introduction, i.e., doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v18i08.31959; doi.org/10.3390/bs12120472,
3.    For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges and your original achievements to overcome them in a clearer way in the abstract and introduction.
4.    How could/should futures studies improve the model?
If these revisions can be made in the manuscript, I believe that this study can be accepted for publication.
I wish the authors all the very best with this study.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Reviewer Comments

Thank you very much, “Sustainability” for inviting me as a reviewer to review the research works. Before starting my academic report, I would like to spend some words wishing that the author(s) and their loved ones are safe and healthy. I accept the paper with some minor issues to be resolved for publication.

Introduction

My understanding of your study is that “there are two comparisons: before and after pandemic COVID-19, perception of residents and tourists. My question “Is it your key contribution to the study?” if, what is your theoretical contribution? Please address the theoretical gaps and contribution in the last paragraph of the introduction following your actual problem statements.

Objectives and significance are not clear.

Literature review

What is the underpinning of your study?

Where is the conceptual model? It may help to see the relationship between constructs. If, QoL is your dependent variable, so, what are the other types of variables? I could not see the debate of literature on constructed relationships.

No hypotheses?

The paper introduction and literature review look like a review paper but the methodology and findings show it is not.

Methodology

Justification of random sampling was not presented. What is the sample size justification? In distributing the online questionnaire, translation procedures are not mentioned. Why did you use the online procedures for post-pandemic time?

Analysis

Explain the why findings are different for the two periods.

Dependent variable: Community well-being; R2=0.458 with which variable? So, Community well-being is your independent variable?

Discussion and Conclusion

Need more empirical views to support your findings. For the example study period, gender age is not significant. Why?  

Table 2: QOL perception items not itens. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

In the table, reviewer can check all our answers and changes in the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presents the results of the quality of life perception from the perspective of residents and tourists towards Coimbra, a city with an important World Heritage Site. It also analyzes the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on perceptions of quality of life, both from the tourists’ and residents’ perspectives. The research has two different phases, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The concept of the research may raise some objections. While research on the perception of the quality of life among residents does not require any justification, measuring the quality of life from the perspective of tourists is not so obvious. Not every tourist visiting a given touristic destination will be able to reliably assess, for example, city services like police and fire protection. Moreover, it can be assumed that when assessing a feeling of belonging in community, a tourist will assess his belonging to the community in his place of residence, and not belonging to the Coimbra community. It is a pity that the authors of the research did not collect additional information about tourists, e.g. by dividing them into one-day tourists and those who use the accommodation base, tourists who visited Coimbra at one time and those returning.

The structure of the study is correct, but in the Methodology section no hypotheses were formulated. In Methodology, the original scale used in the article should be given. The authors used factor analysis but did not provide any detailed results (what method were the factors extracted? Was rotation used?). Have the authors replicated the scale (validation results were not provided) or modified it? In the opinion of the Reviewer, the Authors have modified the scale, but no detailed analysis results (MSA, factor loadings) are provided here. 

Why did the Authors assume the linearity of the relationship between community well-being and other variables and apply linear regression analysis? The results of verification of the assumptions for the regression analysis (e.g. verification of the normality of the distribution) were not presented. The assumption of the linearity of the relationship could have influenced the low fit of the model (especially in the case of the first model, where R2 = 0.458)

In the Results section, the discussion of the results of Table 5 is inconsistent with its content. The p-value for Recreation amenities is greater than 0.001. According to the data from Table 5, the third most important variable to predict Community Well-being is Economic Strength and after that is Community Pride and Awareness.

In the current version, I do not recommend the article for publication. In my opinion, it requires a major revision.

 

Selected detailed comments: 

Lines 31-32 - unclear sentence; incorrectly used term "transversal" 

Line 40 - what is the „satisfaction index”? 

Line 67 - what are the „…few studies all about…”? Specific studies should be indicated 

Line 101 - "... Uysal and colleagues ..." - include all authors or, for example, Uysal et al. (6)  

Line 197 - invalid table name "Frequency of ... Age" In table 1, the decimal places are dots and then commas 

Lines 214, 237 - The Authors misuse the name "factorial analysis" 

Author Response

In the table, reviewer can check all our answers and changes in the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Reviewer Comments

Thank you very much, “Sustainability” for inviting me as a reviewer to review the research works. Before starting my academic report, I would like to spend some words wishing that the author(s) and their loved ones are safe and healthy. I accept the paper with some minor issues to be resolved for publication.

Please revise table 2. Some of your measurement items do not give a good meaning.  The questions were answered by the tourist and residents. You just put simple words for measurements. Make these “readable sentences”.

For example, “feeling safe” based on what? Make a nice sentence that will help the reader to understand.

Urban Issues: The prevention of (crowding and congestion) “NOT CLEAR” How a tourist can answer this question in a short time visit?

Way of life: A feeling of belonging in my community “MEANING NOT CLEAR” tourists can answer this?

Community pride and awareness: “An understanding of different cultures”- Is it possible to understand the different cultures in a short visit of the tourist?

Please explain how did you develop the scale in methodology. 

 

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

I will not recommend the article for publication because the concept of the article is incorrect. It is possible to study the impact of tourism on the quality of life of residents of tourist destinations or the opinions of tourists on the tourist attractiveness of a given place. However, it is difficult to find a justification for researching and comparing the perceptions of the quality of life of residents and tourists. A tourist, especially a one-day tourist or one who has visited the city of Coimbra only once, will not be able to judge the quality of life in the city, just like its permanent residents. The scale used in the article in the original study of Andereck and Nyaupane [2] was applied to research the impact of tourism on the quality of life of residents, and in this context, it does not raise any objections, because tourism strongly affects the lives of residents of tourist destinations. I appreciate the efforts of the authors of the article in terms of the introduced amendments and/or additions, but I believe that not all the doubts I have raised have been resolved.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx