The effect of the 2018 Giro d’Italia on Israel’s tourism firm value

Abstract

On September 18, 2017, the organizers of the 2018 Giro d’Italia announced that for the first time in its history, this world famous event would begin outside of Europe—in Israel. This article contributes to the literature by taking advantage of this unique opportunity of analysis; in particular, it tests the effect that this announcement had upon Israeli tourism companies’ market value. The results show that on the very same day the announcement was made, there was an increment in the firm value of these companies. We propose a conceptual model and argue that the hype generated helps enhance the country’s image, leading to higher expectations of incoming tourism. This article presents a contribution to the growing evidence regarding the impact of such announcements upon actual market value of tourism companies.

Keywords

destination image event study firm value Israel sports events

Introduction

In the extensive literature studying the effects of staging mega¹ sports events, there are several studies that focus on the numerous economic impacts for host countries (Burgan and Mules, 1992; Gelan, 2003; Hotchkiss et al., 2003; Lee and Taylor, 2005; Lee et al., 2017; Meurer and Lins, 2017). There is a realization, however—especially in the tourism literature (Lee et al., 2005; Li and Kaplanidou, 2013; Ritchie and Smith, 1991)—that staging these events can help a host country create and perhaps even recreate a desired brand image for itself as a tourism destination. In this line, when announcing the 2018 edition of one of the most iconic races on the world cycling calendar, the Giro d’Italia, would commence in Israel, the organizers emphasized how the race would give visitors a chance to see an Israel that they might not read about in the newspapers (Jerusalem Post, 2017). Classical finance theory posits that the market value of firms, as reflected in stock prices, incorporates all issues pertinent to firm performance. Consequently, any changes in a destination’s brand image resulting from creating positive brand association such as hosting these hallmark events can be expected to have an impact on brand knowledge and, thus, be reflected in the firm value of the country’s tourism companies. Accordingly, the central objective of this article is to analyze the effect of the announcement of the 2018 Giro d’Italia’s planned start in Israel on the expected future cash flows performance of Israel’s tourism firms measured through their changes in their market value.

This certainly does not imply that other more direct economic impacts of hosting large-scale sporting events are, by any means, minor. These impacts include, of course, the revenues from spectators, advertising, licensing and from the sale of broadcast rights to media covering the event (Baade and Matheson, 2016; Chalip et al., 2003). Economic impacts can also come in the form of income effects that arise from a country staging a major international sports event. The 2002 FIFA World Cup resulted in the creation of more than 30,000 full-time jobs and produced output worth more than US$1.3 billion (Korea National Tourism Organization, 2002). Furthermore, it is not necessarily the costliest events that produce the greatest income (Fourie and Santana Gallego, 2011). Major international sports tournaments of a smaller scale than the Olympics or FIFA World Cup can also generate substantial income effects for the hosting region. For example, Gelan (2003) estimates net income effects from the British Open golf tournament to be US$21.8 million. Dwyer et al. (2005) use an input–output model to show that the 2000 Australian Grand Prix had an impact of US$120.1 million on Australia’s real output.

Nevertheless, in addition to the direct economic effects that mega-sports events provide to host countries, these events can also deliver a substantial boost to the home country’s tourism (and therefore to the market value of tourism firms) by enhancing the brand image of the country. This image, referred to as the destination image in the tourism literature, may be conceptualized as a prospective visitor’s mental impression, encompassing beliefs, perceptions, and feeling about a particular destination (Chen and Tsai, 2007; Fakeye and Crompton, 1991; Kim and Richardson, 2003). From a tourism perspective, the notion of destination image is of vital importance in building brand knowledge and enhancing global visibility. Changes in the image of a country as a tourism destination are in turn reflected in the market value of tourism firms of that country (Nicolau, 2012). The extensive media coverage of sports mega-events reaches a global audience and serves as a very strong platform for the host country to market itself as a tourism destination. The marketing aspects of these events have become a key area of study for researchers interested in studying the financial performance of firms in the tourism industry.

The far-reaching publicity that these hallmark events receive helps create knowledge and awareness about the destination staging them. This, in turn, facilitates the creation of a brand image that becomes associated with the destination. By showcasing itself convincingly in the international arena, a country staging an event can create an enduring and favorable image for itself as an attractive tourism destination. Indeed, Kim and Morrsion (2005) find that, for the case of South Korea, foreign tourists had a significantly more positive image of the country after it hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup than they did before the tournament. Likewise, Ritchie and Smith (1991) found that following the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, residents of the United States and Europe demonstrated higher levels of increase in awareness about the city of Calgary compared to other Canadian cities. The increased awareness that these events provide creates increased visitation as new source markets are tapped (Arnegger and Hertz, 2016), and this stimulates the tourism market value of the host country.

Although the more direct economic benefits outlined previously can be substantial, the goal of building a brand image may in fact be the primary motivation behind a country’s decision to bid for a major sports event. This is because even when the accounting-based costs of hosting an event exceed direct economic benefits, the objective of creating a long-term positive destination image can still justify the decision to submit a bid to host a sports mega event. Moreover, unlike the direct economic impacts, which in general are realized in the short run, a strong brand image of a destination is likely to remain for much longer. For this reason, there tends to be considerable competition among countries to host high-profile sports tournaments. Accordingly, to capture these future results, a forward-looking measure is required, so that the potential future cash flows of tourism companies are employed via their market value.

The effect of the Giro d’Italia on the Israeli tourism market value

Recall that the primary objective of this article is to examine the effect of the official announcement regarding Israel hosting the 2018 Giro d’Italia on the market value of Israeli tourism firms. This happens as follows.

By creating a strong brand image, a destination increases the likelihood that it would be included in a consumer’s choice set of possible destinations for future visits. When including a destination in this consideration set, a positive influence should be expected on the tourism market value of the host country, as reflected in the returns of tourism stocks of the country.

When choosing to expand one of the premier races on the cycling calendar—Giro d’Italia, outside of Europe, the organizers may have considered several locations. Jerusalem was chosen as the destination where the first three stages of the 2018 event would take place. By hosting the early stages of the mega-event, Israel is expected to be able to increase the level of brand knowledge about the country as an attractive tourist destination. Consequently, Israel’s tourism market value should experience a rise.

We use the Associative Network Memory (ANM) Theory-based conceptualization of brand knowledge developed by Keller (1993), to illustrate in more detail the link between Israel hosting the early stages of the 2018 edition of the Giro and the increase in the market value of Israeli tourism firms. ANM theory views memory as a network of information nodes connected by associative links (Krishnan, 1996; Till and Shimp, 1998). Each node can then potentially activate one or more nodes associated with it (Spry et al., 2011). Accordingly, the destination brand “Israel” would for most people be held in the memory structure consisting of these nodes and links which make a variety of associations relating to Israel possible. Such associations might include a variety of attributes, experiences, and evaluations (Nicolau, 2012) relating to Israel. Hosting the early stages of the prestigious Giro d’Italia becomes a concept node that turns out to be favorably associated with the “brand” Israel. Once this favorable association is formed, individuals may examine the experiential and symbolic benefits that they can derive from visiting Israel.

Figure 1 presents this ANM-based framework in the context of the Giro announcement. This announcement brings about an increase in the market value of the Israeli tourism firms via tangible and intangible components. The announcement implies the creation (arrow 1) of an immediate association with the country (the country has different associations: As1, As2, etc.). The announcement of the Giro results in an association that is for the host Israel, favorable, strong, and unique. This will enhance the brand image of the country (arrow 2), which in turn will boost brand knowledge (arrow 3). In a parallel way, the announcement also has a direct and positive impact on brand awareness (arrow 4) as this will foster brand recall and brand recognition, which, again, will bolster brand knowledge (arrow 5). This two-way effect on brand knowledge (arrows 3 and 5) will automatically be incorporated by decisions makers of tourism firms at the destination and cause them to adjust prices (e.g. prices of hotel rooms and airline seats) based on the expected uptick in the demand (arrow 6). Higher prices along with that higher demand will lead to greater revenues (arrow 7) and, in turn, increased profits (arrow 8). This tangible component of the model (profits) will have an obvious effect on the market value of those companies (arrow 9): the shareholders, expecting higher dividends and strong future returns, will see tourism stocks as an attractive investment and, therefore, purchase a larger number of shares of tourism companies. The intangible element, on the other hand, stems from the impact of brand destination knowledge on the market value itself of each firm (arrow 10).

Figure 1.

Abnormal returns derived from the 2018 Giro’s route announcement.

The possibility of enhancing the brand image of a destination can be particularly significant for locations that have considerable tourism potential, but have traditionally not been highly visited tourism destinations (Baade and Matheson, 2016). For example, Barcelona only became a popular tourist destination after hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics (Zimbalist, 2017), and Utah became a much more popular ski destination after hosting the 2000 Winter Olympics (Baade and Matheson, 2016). Under the ANM framework, this might indicate that previously inactive or weakly active links that relate to Barcelona and Utah as tourism destinations became activated after these destinations hosted hallmark sporting events.

Despite the historical importance of many of Israel’s sites and attractions, the country only registered a relatively modest 2.9 million arrivals in 2016 (World Tourism Organization, Yearbook of Tourism Statistics, 2017). The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (2015) ranked Israel 91st among 141 countries in terms of overall travel and tourism competitiveness. When one considers Israel’s tourism potential, these statistics may suggest that the current tourism market in Israel is untapped and unsaturated. In other words, the ANM associations for brand Israel might not typically include attributes, experiences, and evaluations relating to Israel as an alternative in people’s destination choice set.

There are a number of possible reasons why Israel does not currently experience higher tourism flows. One main reason is the decades old Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the ensuing geopolitical instability that has plagued the region and resulted in possible unfavorable images about Israel as a tourism destination. It is no wonder that a number of studies find that political conflicts can exert a negative impact on a country’s image (Gartner and Shen, 1992; Heslop et al., 2008; Sönmez, 1998) and incoming tourism (e.g. Mansfeld, 1999). At the same time, the academic literature and policymakers realize that tourism can play a relevant role in the dissemination of desired political images. Belhassen et al. (2014), for example, describe the planned and successful transformation of the Palestinian village of Bil’in from a site of local dispute into a symbol of resistance through the development of tourism in the village. In another example, the establishment of the “Island of Peace” at the border between Israel and Jordan was envisioned as a vehicle of peace and cooperation between the two countries (Gelbman and Moaz, 2012).

Israel’s image as a tourism destination may be affected by the general feeling of animosity toward Israel that exists in certain parts of the world. For instance, Alvarez and Campo (2014) not only observe widespread negative images of Israel among Turkish residents but also find that these images are further exacerbated after individual political incidents in the broader and ongoing geopolitical conflict. Participants in Alvarez and Campo’s (2014) study expressed little interest in visiting Israel, despite their acknowledgement of certain positive attributes they associate with Israel, after learning about the dispute with the Palestinians.

Considering that perceived risk is found to have a central effect on destination choice and, more generally, on travel decisions (Fennell, 2017; Walters et al., 2017), another possible source of unfavorable image of Israel may be the perception of an unsafe destination. Fleischer and Buccola (2002) use an index-based approach to observe that a 2-SD increment in Israel’s terrorism index results in a foreign visitor demand for Israeli hotel bed nights to fall by 49,600 per month. Interestingly, Pizam and Fleischer (2002) observe that tourism demand in Israel may be lackluster to a greater extent by the frequency of terrorist attacks than their severity. This is perhaps because continued attacks, even if not severe, reinforce in people’s mind the image of Israel as an unsafe destination.

In promoting itself as a tourism destination overseas, the Israeli government has been aware of issues with its image and, over the years, has taken certain remedial steps (Avraham, 2015): for instance, in order to address the stigma associated with its belonging to the Middle East, it has often referred to itself as belonging to the Eastern Mediterranean (Beirman, 2000).

While the objective of branding is certainly important, the notions of rebranding and reimaging (Smith, 2005) seem particularly applicable in the case of Israel—a destination that evokes mixed images. Florek and Insch (2011) find that by hosting the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Germany was able to rebalance and soften some of the less positive images of itself around the world that were likely generated from Germany’s role in World War II. Similarly, Knott et al. (2013) note that by being home to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa tried to attenuate certain negative images that may have been associated with its history of race-related issues and rebrand itself as an attractive tourist destination.

Governments are well aware that they can influence their country’s image by staging important international sports events. China’s 2008 Olympic bid stressed that by awarding the city of Beijing the 2008 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee could help with the development of human rights (Florek and Insch, 2011). The games were one of the most expensive historically, with China investing approximately US$45 billion into the 17-day event (Baade and Matheson, 2016). Clearly, the Chinese government understood that the games provided China with an opportunity to moderate many of the unfavorable connotations that may have been associated with China’s image. By rebranding itself through hosting the Olympics, the Chinese government understood certain negative images could be recreated. There is at least some evidence that Chinese government’s efforts to rebrand itself were successful. A survey conducted by the Nielsen Company (2008) showed a considerably higher percentage of respondents expressing an interest in visiting China when interviewed after the Olympics than when they were surveyed before the Olympics.

Recognizing the role of hosting major sports events in carving destination image, the Israeli government has overtly promoted the 2018 Giro d’Italia as a “message of peace and coexistence, with its journey representing the ability of sport to build bridges between people, religions and nations” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2017). This objective is undoubtedly aimed at easing possible concerns about the prevailing destination image of the region. By hosting a prestigious sporting event, the Israeli government would hope to reshape its image and rebrand itself as an attractive tourist destination.

In Keller’s (1993) two-component framework, brand knowledge consists of brand awareness and brand image. While brand awareness encompasses brand recall and recognition, image has to do with the various associations the brand may evoke in the mind of the consumer. In hosting early stages of the Giro, the organizers would implicitly influence both elements of this two-component framework that comprise brand knowledge about Israel as a travel destination.

It should be noted that destination branding is not only geared toward international visitors but rather to prospective domestic tourists as well. Singh and Krakover (2015) find considerable reluctance among Israeli citizens to classify themselves as tourists unless certain conditions apply to the domestic travel experience: (i) locations visited must remind domestic travelers of overseas destinations, (ii) people involved must contribute to the perception of a touristy ambience by not behaving or interacting in a familiar manner, (iii) domestic travelers must observe people speaking in foreign languages, and (iv) the social norms local travelers experience must be distinct triggers of feeling like a tourist. In hosting a major international sports event, each of these four conditions described by Singh and Krakover (2015) would be implicitly addressed, potentially adding to the touristic appeal for Israeli residents.

Method

The event study methodology (ESM) is used to test the effect of the official announcement of the 2018 Giro d’Italia’s route on the Israeli tourism firms. The purpose is to detect any potential reaction in the stock market; if this reaction is to exist, it should lead to abnormal returns derived from the announcement.

The ESM is a popular financial econometrics-based technique that allows researchers to assess whether there are any atypical (or abnormal) changes in stock prices in response to certain event(s) of interest. The strength and relevance of this method to this study lies in its ability to isolate changes in market value from specific and clearly defined events, from general and normal trends in security prices. Although the ESM to assess abnormal returns resulting from various types of events has been used predominantly in some of the more traditional avenues of the economics and business-related literature, the method is not absent from the tourism and hospitality scholarship. This scholarship encompasses the impact on hospitality and tourism firm value of events such as corporate social responsibility-related initiatives by hotels (Nicolau, 2008), food crises like the escherichia coli outbreaks in restaurant firms (Seo et al., 2014), food safety events (Seo et al., 2013), hotel quality awards (Nicolau and Sellers, 2010), new hotel openings (Nicolau, 2002), hotel innovations (Nicolau and Santa María, 2013), and mergers (Hsu and Jang, 2007).

While the literature listed above describes firm-specific microlevel events, there is also a strand of the tourism and hospitality literature that looks at broader industry-wide shocks of the kind that are perhaps more pertinent to the theme of this article. In an event study using Taiwanese data following the 2003 SARS outbreak, for instance, Chen et al. (2007) observe a substantial drop in market value of hotel stocks across the industry. Similarly, Zopiatis et al. (2018) use ESM to detect the presence of abnormal returns in hospitality and tourism-related indices after terrorist acts, natural catastrophes, and war conflicts.

In the sports tourism literature specifically, Nicolau (2012), for example, uses the ESM to detect statistically significant changes in market value of Spanish tourism stocks resulting from Spain winning the 2010 edition of the FIFA World Cup. Nicolau and Sharma (2018), in a similar event study, analyze a larger sample of World Cups and observe no general effect on tourism stocks. Market shocks can result from occurrences in other sports too—Nicolau and Santa María (2017) use the ESM to demonstrate that tennis results can also lead to abnormal returns for tourism-related firms. The breadth and depth of event studies in the literature enable us to be confident that the ESM is an appropriate tool to measure the any changes in firm value of hospitality and tourism firms in Israel, resulting from the announcement of the Giro’s commencement in Israel.

Formally, the underlying hypothesis of this study is to test the null hypothesis:

H0: That there will be no change in the market value of Israel’s hotel and tourism firms in response to the Giro announcement, against the alternative hypothesis.

H1: That there will be a change in the market value of Israel’s hotel and tourism firms in response to the Giro announcement.

The announcement date was September 18, 2017, which defines the event day for this empirical application. Therefore, we collect daily returns for the tourism-related companies trading on the Israel stock market through Bloomberg database, which are Africa Israel Holdings, Aviation Links, Dan Hotels, El Al Airlines, GaiBeach Hotel, Isrotel Hotels, Issta Lines Tourism Company, Knafaim Holdings, and Netz Hotels. For each firm, 150 daily returns before the event day are obtained.

Given a firm i and a day t, we define R_it as the firm’s daily returns, R_mt as the market portfolio’s returns (for this study, we use the Index-TA35), α_i is the returns of a firm by itself regardless of the current market’s trends, and β_i is the sensitivity of the firm to the market. Calling ε_it the error term, the market model is expressed as

R_{i t} = α_{i} + β_{i} R_{m t} + ε_{i t}

From this equation, the potential abnormal returns from the Giro’s route announcement are obtained as the discrepancy between the returns actually materialized and the returns one would expect if not event were to happen

{AR}_{i t} = R_{i t} - (a_{i} + b_{i} R_{m t})

where a_i and b_i are the parameters estimated from the market model.

Considering the small sample size of this study (still, note that the nine firms are the whole population of tourism-related firms trading in the Israel stock market), we rely on nonparametric distribution-free procedures to estimate the abnormal returns and analyze their significance, leading to the so-called complete nonparametric event study approach (Dombrow et al., 2000).

Parameter estimation

The standard sequence of steps to estimate the parameters is as follows (Dombrow et al., 2000): first, the T pairs (R_t , R_mt ) in the estimation period are sorted in ascending order of R_mt ; second, the data pairs are split into two groups using the median (if T is odd, the median pair is excluded); third, a slope parameter β is estimated for each of the T/2 data pairs in each group by calculating

β_{t, t + \frac{T}{2}} = \frac{R_{t + \frac{T}{2}} - R_{t}}{R_{m, t + \frac{T}{2}} - R_{m t}}

Fourth, the calculated slope parameters are sorted in ascending order; fifth, β is estimated with the median slope and the values of ${\hat{α}}_{t}$ are computed for all data pairs; and sixth, α is estimated with the median value of ${\hat{α}}_{t}$ .

Testing abnormal returns

To examine the significance of the abnormal returns, we use Corrado’s (1989) nonparametric test

t_{2} = \frac{\frac{1}{N} \sum_{i = 1}^{N} [K_{i o} - \frac{1}{2} (T + 1)]}{\sqrt{\frac{1}{T} \sum_{t = 1}^{T} {[\frac{1}{N} \sum_{i = 1}^{N} [K_{i t} - \frac{1}{2} (T + 1)]]}^{2}}}

where K_it is the rank in the time series of firm i’s abnormal returns, and T represents the days in the time series.

As the reaction, if any, could appear before the announcement (e.g. because of some information leak) or after the announcement (e.g. for some reassessment on the part of the shareholders), apart from analyzing the event day, we examine an event window (−2, +2) around the announcement day; consequently, we are left with an estimation period of 148 days. Note that rather than just analyzing the potential cumulative abnormal returns over the event window, we examine the reaction day by day. In fact, in this context, we would expect that shareholders incorporate the information immediately in the price of the shares: considering that most of tourism firms base their decisions on their forecasting, and according to it they will opt for different choices (e.g. the level of hotel rates), any new information will be included in the decision-making process and materialized in real actions in the market instantly. It is important to remember that with the application of revenue management, any piece of information will have an instantaneous influence on any decision related to revenue (e.g. according to the basic principles of revenue management, when the Giro announcement was made, an increase in hotel rates for the period in which the race will be held should have been taken place). Therefore, this immediate decision in the real market should have an instant materialization in the stock market: shareholders regard the Giro as a great opportunity and they also see that managers of tourism firms are already taking action to make the most of that opportunity in terms of revenue, so they will react in a way that stock prices will rise and, consequently, the market value as well.

Results

Table 1 shows the results of the event study and presents significant and positive abnormal returns on the event day, that is, on the day of the announcement of the Giro d’Italia’s route. This finding supports our central hypothesis and means that the Israeli tourism-related firms’ values are expected to increase because of the image amelioration that will result from hosting the opening rounds of the Giro d’Italia. Specifically, we observe a statistically significant positive abnormal return of 1.6% on the day the announcement was made.² This represents a substantial economic impact: prior to the announcement, the total market value of the tourism firms in the sample—the aggregate for all companies of the product of number of shares and the share price—was Israeli New Shekel 6,912,485,752 (USD$1,959,876,860). The 1.6% positive abnormal returns obtained from our analysis represent, therefore, an increase in the market value of Israeli tourism firms of Israeli New Shekel 110,599,772 (USD$ 31,358,029).

Table 1.

Abnormal returns derived from the 2018 Giro’s route announcement.

Day	AR Theil	Corrado’s test
−2	0.0109	1.4209
−1	0.0034	0.7996
0	0.0160	2.3183^a
1	−0.0060	−0.3164
2	0.0071	1.5704

^a p < 0.05.

Our results are, of course, in line with reimaging and rebranding strategies (Smith, 2005). In accordance with the conclusions of the ANM model, hosting the early stages of the Giro d’Italia might become a favorable node associated with the country and, in turn, with its name (which in the end, as a country’s name, it is a brand). This association may affect favorably its image and, along with the hype generated, could enhance brand awareness via brand recall and brand recognition, and ultimately, brand knowledge. As a consequence, the likelihood of potential tourists including the country in their evoked sets would increase, thus augmenting the probability of visiting the country and resulting in a positive impact on the market value of tourism-related firms in the country.

Conclusions

High-profile sports events are expected to exert a positive effect on the host destination brand in terms of awareness and image. In line with the literature that has analyzed how beneficial hosting an event has been for a country, this article examines the 2018 Giro d’Italia and its start in Israel—the first time this race began outside Europe. The analysis focuses on the consequences of Israel’s tourism industry. Specifically, we show that the connection between the Giro and Israel can strengthen the associated node created, and the awareness and image of the country can thus be enhanced after the race. Consequently, the country’s brand would be evoked more readily and more often, augmenting its recognition and recall. Thus, people would more likely include the country in their evoked sets, making it a more probable choice for a vacation destination. This should bring about an increment in the tourism firms’ profits, and in turn, these future expectations should materialize via the firm’s market value. In the empirical application, we use the event study method and detect a significant rise in the market value of the Israel tourism industry. The abnormal returns obtained show that the effect is common across the different industries related to tourism but size matters: large firms, with their bigger resources, seem to be able to better capitalize on this opportunity.

Managerial implications

Destination managers attempt to boost the umbrella brand that covers all the individual brands at a destination. According to the result of this study, they can use the market value of the firms under the umbrella brand as a forward-looking indicator to measure (and build) the equity of that global brand; equity that should be spilt over the individual brands. While the consumer’s mental associations between sports and destinations are sought by destination managers of public institutions responsible for promoting the region, private entities must collaborate intensively as there is a clear transference of brand knowledge between the umbrella destination brand and their own corporate brands. Also, the brand enhancement obtained must be active for as long as possible. Although the hype of the event has a positive effect, it is relevant to consider the long-term impact; thus, any actions aimed at maintaining destination brand knowledge are fundamental.

Limitations

While the use of the market value has the advantage of being a forward-looking indicator (as opposed to accounting measures), its applicability is constrained to those firms trading on the stock market.

Future threads of research

As the market value represents the expectations of future profits, a relevant analysis should be to observe whether these future expectations become really effective. Analyses of pre- and post-Giro inbound tourist flows to Israel as well as their effect on Israeli tourism-related firms should be conducted to validate these positive predictions and, of course, to examine how valuable this governmental investment is for the country once the actual numbers are available.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Juan Luis Nicolau

Notes

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