The missing component in the ‘greening’ of tourism: The environmental performance of the self-catering accommodation sector

The self-catering accommodation sector has witnessed substantial growth for well over 20 years due to a range of factors, including increases in second home and holiday home ownership and property investment. During this time, debate has arisen over the impact of such ‘holiday homes’ on local communities and rural economies. However, today they are also a substantial element of tourism supply in the self-catering accommodation category in many rural areas, which has largely been ignored and particularly so in the context of the ‘greening’ of tourism and environmental performance (EP) of tourism enterprises. This article aims to address this paucity of attention. First, the background to the ‘greening’ of tourism and tourism enterprises is established and the significance of this to self-catering accommodation. Subsequently, the main findings of a survey into the EP of self-catering accommodation undertaken in the Lake District National Park are discussed.     

The self-catering accommodation market: A review of electronic and other sources

This paper contributes to a better understanding the self-catering accommodation sector by considering its nature and scope within Scotland, the UK and the international context. It reviews the available literature search and also presents an exhaustive search of the Internet. The term “self catering accommodation” typically refers to cottages and holiday flats, but also may include larger premises as well as mobile units such as boats. Student accommodation comes into this category, as do serviced apartments for business use. Self-catered accommodation is widely used for activity holidays, and courses for outward-bound or country pursuits. The sector is considered in terms of economic impact, ownership, and mode of use, and an analysis of the market shows that it has grown and changed rapidly since the 1980s driven by changes in the economy and advances in technology. During the same period demand has increased due to demographic, economic and lifestyle changes, the predominant segments being older and middle-aged customers and young couples without children. The growth of short break holidays and a growing interest in country pursuits and activity holidays favour the self-catering sector.     

Advertising and farm-based accommodation: a British case study

Research into farm diversification typically considers aspects of marketing at a generalized level. This exploratory article focuses specifically on farm-based accommodation to provide a detailed exploration of advertising strategies employed by farm businesses in the promotion of this enterprise. Drawing upon evidence from a survey of over 200 farm businesses in three English counties, types of advertising media are considered and their relative benefits evaluated. Results show that from the complex range of available options, holiday accommodation ‘guidebooks’ produced by private companies and organizations represent the most popular methods of advertising used by farm businesses. However, the success of individual guidebooks in generating custom was highly variable between the different study areas. Cooperative marketing groups provide important advertising alternatives to guidebooks, mainly for bed and breakfast and self-catering operators. Overall, the need to advertise accommodation enterprises actively means that many farm family businesses develop closer interactions with external agents from the nonagricultural sector.     

The self-catering accommodation sector in Yorkshire,England

Little baseline data exist concerning the outlook and business practices of those operating in the self-catering accommodation sector. Drawing on a survey of operators in Yorkshire, England, this paper finds a concentration of micro-enterprises that are unsophisticated in their approach to managing their business. The findings pose challenges to those agencies charged with enhancing the competitiveness of the sector.     

Economic aspects of hotel and catering industry changes

Changes in the hotel and catering industry are analysed within the context of technical change and economic growth in the economy. The implications of economic growth for the industry depend on the causes of economic growth and the disposition of increased output through the changing pattern of demand. Increasing relative demands on the service sector will lead to increasingly capital-intensive and standardised production away from the point of service. The greater flow of market goods relative to household time resources causes adjustments in household activities, with more market-oriented consumption. In the restaurant sector, less on-site more off-site large-scale production will necessitate a new approach to the organisation of labour. There will be a continuing upgrading of consumer demands. The development of pub catering is seen as just one aspect of this. The hotel sector will face increasing competition from self-catering accommodation facilities, and customers will rely less on the catering facilities provided.     

Delivering world class Scottish self-catering in world markets

An owner's perspective on operating in the self-catering accommodation sector in Scotland, with particular emphasis on the relationship between the private and public sectors in pursuing world markets.     

The Role of Chinese Students as Tourists and Hosts for Overseas Travel

With more visas being granted and application processes streamlined, more Chinese students are studying abroad. These students have an influential and continuing effect on the host country's tourism industry over and above their own education-related activities and expenditures because they attract family members and friends to visit the countries where they study. Unfortunately, the research on the role of Chinese students as hosts for overseas travel is quite limited. Therefore, this paper provides some insights into this issue by looking at the influence of students' satisfaction on their role as hosts for the friends and family sector while also providing some data on the students' own holiday motives and assessments of New Zealand. The data were derived from 504 self-completed surveys by Chinese students from four universities in North Island, New Zealand. Evidence was found of students fulfilling a number of roles as guides, sources of information and acting as hosts, but the relationships between their own holiday experiences and satisfaction and the degree to which they fulfilled these roles was weak at best, indicating, therefore, the importance of other variables.     

The hotel sector in Tanzania: A comparison of operating performance

A survey of international hotel accounts for 1976 in Tanzania shows considerable revenue and cost differences between town and holiday hotels. These differences are confirmed by comparisons of equivalent occupancy levels which show that higher revenue and profit are associated with higher operating costs. Town hotels generate more employment and value added, than holiday hotels, and as much foreign exchange, but at a greater use per unit of materials and services. There are also significant differences between state sector and non-state sector hotels. Should hotel-investment policy concentrate more on optimizing returns from town-hotel investments, rather than seeking to maximize returns from more risky holiday-hotel investments? These results should be of interest to tourism planners in several African countries.     

产业关联视角下中国住宿业碳排放结构路径研究

识别中国住宿业碳排放增长路径,是应对气候变化、精准制定旅游减排政策的关键。本研究从产业关联的视角出发,采用环境投入产出和结构路径分析方法,探究1997—2017年中国住宿业碳排放演变特征与影响住宿业碳排放变动的关键路径。结果表明：（1）研究期间中国住宿业碳排放量波动增长,但排放强度持续下降,电力和热力消耗是住宿业碳排放最主要的能源消耗类型。（2）最终需求引致的直接住宿业碳排放对住宿业全部碳排放量贡献始终较大,但住宿业消费中间产品投入引致的隐含碳排放量逐渐增多。（3）从供应链路径来看,"（上游供应部门）→食品制造业→住宿业→最终需求"与"（上游供应部门）→电力、热力的生产和供应业→住宿业→最终需求"是驱动中国住宿业碳排放变动的主要路径类型,上游供应部门涉及农林牧渔、道路运输、化学工业等部门。实现住宿业低碳发展应实施"源头减量、过程控制、末端治理"的综合治理战略,优化住宿业的中间产品投入结构,引导住宿业传统供应链向绿色供应链转型。     

Social tourism for all—the Swiss Travel Saving Fund

Out-dating by far the modern industry we know as tourism are the holiday organizations for the lower income groups that were set up in Europe around the beginning of the century. One offspring of this movement, the Swiss Travel Saving Fund (REKA), was founded in 1939 to give the working population with limited income a chance to go on holiday. Hans Teuscher, its Deputy Director, discusses its past, present and future.     

Impacts of Climate Change on Winter Tourism in the Swiss Alps

This paper examines the impacts of three consecutive snow-deficient winters at the end of the 1980s on the winter tourism industry in Switzerland. It is shown that ski areas in lower areas suffered severe consequences. Ski areas at higher altitudes (in particular glacier ski resorts) on the other hand increased their transport figures and therefore profited from the lack of snow in lower areas. The snow-reliability of all Swiss ski fields under current climate conditions and under a 2"C warming are investigated. Under current climate conditions 85% of all Swiss ski areas are snow-reliable. This number would drop to 63% if temperatures were to rise by 2"C. This is likely to threaten the regionally balanced economic growth which winter tourism has provided. Possible strategies for the winter tourism industry to adopt if climate change occurs are presented.     

Tourist accommodation price setting in Australian strata titled properties

Strata title units (dwelling complexes in which individual units are owned by small investors) represent the vast bulk of Australian self-catering tourism units. In many areas, such as Australia's Gold Coast, strata title owned properties have overtaken hotels as the most popular form of tourist accommodation (Warnken, J., Russell, R., Faulkner, B., 2003. Condominium developments in maturing destinations: potentials and problems of long term sustainability. Tourism Management 24, 155–168).     

Causes and consequences of underutilised capacity in a tourist resort development

There is a widespread presumption that the development of tourism resorts brings direct and indirect benefits to the area where they are located. There has been extensive critical discussion about the magnitude and distribution of these benefits. This paper adds to knowledge of these benefits by investigating the causes of under-utilisation of tourist resort capacity, typified by the problem of “empty beds”. Many owners of holiday homes in tourist resorts choose not to rent out their property when they are not making personal use of it, thereby reducing income earning potential of businesses in the area. This paper reports on a qualitative and quantitative study of holiday home owners at a ski resort in France. While personal use of properties was low, 40% of owners had never rented out their property. Analysis of the data converged on four emergent themes to explain this apparent reluctance to rent out: fears about the social habits of renters; issues of freedom and flexibility in use of their property; life course changes which forced renting/non-renting decisions; and financial issues. Financial issues were not a driver of investment/rental decisions, but derived from other social and lifestyle factors. The paper makes suggestions about how resort management can help to reduce owners' reluctance to rent, and thereby alleviate problems associated with empty beds.     

Innovation activity in the hotel industry: Evidence from Balearic Islands

The paper provides empirical evidence on technological activity in the Spanish service sector, in particular for the tourist accommodation in the Balearics. The study wants to fulfil the lack of analyses in the field of tourism. Commonly, the study of innovation activity has been carried out from a manufacture perspective, for that reason the paper discusses the precise definition of innovation in accommodation services. The data refer to a large representative sample of hotels in Balearic Islands (Spain), providing a homogeneous set of information. The results show as higher-categories hotels are more innovative than lower-categories hotels; an aggregated measure of technological innovation presents a rate over the average for hotels that belong to a chain, and that for hotels under management contract. Half of innovative companies adjust the human capital skills and abilities. The hotel industry is a supplier-driven sector that innovates introducing R&D embodied technology rather than undertaking internal R&D activities.     

Effect of customer orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on innovativeness: Evidence from the hotel industry in Switzerland

While researchers have explored the relationship between customer orientation, entrepreneurship and innovativeness with business performance in different organizations, few such studies exist on the hotel industry. This current work investigates the potential influences of these variables on hotel industry performance. Data for this study was collected through personal questionnaires collected from 156 hotel managers and owners from German and French speaking cantons located in Switzerland in order to examine the interrelation between innovativeness, customer orientation, entrepreneurship and service business performance dimensions (i.e., profit goal achievement, sales goal achievement and ROI achievement). The findings support aspects of prior research, but also provide some new insights by exploring customer orientation and innovativeness simultaneously and revealing how these factors impact upon the performance of the Swiss hotel industry. In the light of existing literature, limitations and future research directions are subsequently addressed.     

Price formation and market segmentation in seaside accommodations

This paper analyses key factors that determine holiday accommodation prices in Ibiza (Spain), one of the major tourist destinations in the Mediterranean. The paper argues that prices depend on hotel category, accommodation regime and geographical location. The companies that offer accommodation constitute a market dominated by monopolistic competition and characterized by a progressive product differentiation. Using a multiple regression model, tangible characteristics of each establishment are used as explanatory variables of price. In practice, we will attempt to operate with the minimum number of characteristics that give sufficient explanatory power.     

Determining factors in entry choice for international expansion. The case of the Spanish hotel industry

The hotel sector, as a service industry where it is possible to separate capital investment from management skills, is a clear example of how internationalisation can be modelled without shareholding involvement through foreign direct investment. This paper is an empirical examination of the key factors influencing the decision process carried out by Spanish hotel companies in choosing an entry mode for international expansion. The main objective is to verify whether the concepts derived from the transaction-cost, agency and the strategic theories of organisational capability and knowledge in companies can really explain the mode of foreign expansion employed by the Spanish hotel sector. This study will allow comparison of findings on holiday resort hotel chains with other analyses on the international hotel industry.     

The impact of holiday tourism development on tourism total factor productivity: Evidence from China

Tourism development during holiday periods may influence tourism total factor productivity (TTFP) in the industry. However, little is known about the impact of holiday tourism on TTFP. Focusing on China's Golden Week holiday system, this study applies dynamic panel models to test the effect of holiday tourism development on TTFP with panel data of 31 provinces in mainland China from 2001 to 2019. The study also compares the effects before and after 2008 when the Golden Week holiday system changed from three weeks to two weeks with shorter holiday breaks. Results show that holiday tourism development has a negative effect on TTFP. Before 2008, the magnitude of the negative effect was constant while after 2008 the negative effect was reduced significantly. This study contributes to the understanding of TTFP from a holiday tourism perspective. The findings offer valuable implications for national holiday governance and tourism productivity in developing countries.     

The evolution of ‘Airbnb-tourism’: Demand-side dynamics around international use of peer-to-peer accommodation in Australia

This paper investigates the evolution of Airbnb and other peer-to-peer accommodation use by international visitors in Australia over 12 quarters, from 2015 to 2017. It applies a dynamic logistic regression to investigate how user characteristics associated with peer-to-peer accommodations evolve over time. This study contributes to understanding the development of consumption patterns around the Airbnb phenomenon. It is also the first paper to investigate the consumer dynamism in the peer-to-peer accommodation sector beyond Airbnb. Findings indicate that Airbnb consumption has evolved, showing patterns of convergence and ‘normalisation’, supported by a growing Asian participation and increasing regional stays. This dynamism is not shared by other platforms, which suggests peer-to-peer accommodation is becoming a single-platform story rather than a thriving broader accommodation-category.This article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Peer-to-peer accommodation networks, a special selection of research in this field.     

Senior tourists’ accommodation choices

The current trend towards short-term travelling and reduced spending on accommodation has had a significant impact on the hotel sector. However, the hotel industry is becoming increasingly interested in the senior tourist segment, a population group that prefers hotel-type accommodation to other more inexpensive alternatives, even in periods of economic uncertainty. This paper aims to identify the variables that determine senior tourists’ accommodation choices in Spain. In so doing, it identifies the following variables: length of stay, self-perceived health, self-perceived economic status, self-perceived available time, security/safety at the destination, medical coverage, climate, events and festivals, places of historical/artistic interest, and attractions and natural landscapes. These results have important implications for both the hotel industry and the development of tourist destinations.