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This introductory essay explores some of the commonalities and differences that emerge from reading this thematic issue on religion and tourism in China and India. Economic growth has led to an explosion in domestic tourism activity in both countries, and the respective states are deeply involved in this development. The Indian state sees tourism as a means to create jobs, revenue and regional development. While this is also true for the Chinese state, it further treats tourism as a means to control and manage religion. In both countries, official tourism development can lead to complete makeovers of particular sites as beautification projects and tight regulation drives out informal economies and change the religious dynamics on the ground. The local management, be it formal or informal, affects not only where the money flows, but also how temples are visited and gods worshiped. Buddhism related tourism plays a peculiar role in India, where the government employs it as a vehicle for articulating pan-Asian and even global aspirations. Asian Buddhists visit Indian Buddhist destinations in growing numbers[1]. At the same time, Buddhist sites attract a steady stream of Western tourists who are most comfortable labelling themselves as spiritual travellers. For these travellers, the notion of 'tourism' threatens sources of authentic spirituality. In China, tourism is contributing to a revival of religion, sometimes providing means for temple institutions to legitimate their religious activities. Self-professed secular domestic tourists in China routinely engage in short acts of veneration at Buddhist places of pilgrimage. In this respect, Han Chinese tourists appear not so different from their Hindu counterpart in India. Increasingly, Hindu visitors at sites of pilgrimage opt for short acts of worship, rather than long rituals. Travel guidebooks, however, paint different pictures: Chinese tourists are given practical advice and encouragement on the performance of rituals, and their representation of religion recalls orientalist tropes of Western guidebooks. Indian guidebooks, on their part, retain elements of traditional Hindu pilgrimage literature assuming that the reader has the required know-how of religious practices. The tourist imaginaries of the Global North, as expressed in English language guidebooks, still rest on Orientalist underpinnings when it comes to both India and China. ; publishedVersion

In the original publication of the article, the name "Tamsin Phillipa Paige" has been incorrectly cited throughout the article as "Tasmin Phillipa Page". The correct name should read as Tamsin Phillipa Paige.

Migration on a global scale is clearly linked to a multiplicity of causes that, in addition to economic factors, include conflicts, natural disasters and local political conditions. However, it is possible to pinpoint what are the main variables that underlie migratory movements between macro areas of the planet. This study analyzes the 2015 UN report data and interprets them through a gravitational model, whose independent variables are indicators of the socio-economic situation of a population. Progressively eliminating the less significant contributions, the level of education of migrants emerges as one of the most important factors.

A global transformation from an economic towards a sustainable development is promoted by current policies from the United Nations and the European Union. Young engineers must be trained to anticipate the sustainability challenges for contributing bottom-up to a global sustainable development. Besides, they must be capable of performing in a more and more dynamic, transnational, and intercultural global working environment. Consequently, new perspectives for teaching and learning in higher engineering education are required, providing the competencies for coping with the sustainability challenges and for working within the dynamic global society. A transnational and project-oriented teaching and learning framework is outlined, which provides the future key competencies for young engineers. Based on this framework, the inter-university master course "European Engineering Team" is presented. The master course fosters the development of sustainable and entrepreneurial initiatives by leading the students through the development phases of a start-up company grounding on a sustainable innovation. A first evaluation of the master course shows, that most of the students' key competencies have been improved significantly.