Age of first hunting experience: Results from a nationwide recreation survey

Abstract

Hunting participation, as indicated in the 1983 Nationwide Recreation Survey, is examined to determine the relationship between age of first hunting experience and adult level of participation. A statistically significant association between these two variables is found. In addition, more than 83 percent of those who hunt began their involvement by 18 years of age. The findings have implications for future hunting participation and the provision of programs for hunters.     

Dimensions of hunting satisfaction: Multiple‐satisfactions of wild turkey hunting

Abstract

Dimensions of hunting satisfaction were studied among a sample of hunters who received permits to hunt wild turkeys in Michigan. Principal components analysis revealed seven dimensions of turkey hunting satisfaction: preparation, search, harvest, nature, out‐group social, companionship, and season. Although some components of turkey hunting satisfaction were similar to those studied previously for deer hunters, components found in this study to be important to turkey hunters’ satisfaction point to the importance of studying hunting groups of diverse species in order to understand more fully the satisfactions people derive from hunting.     

Applying the counseling-learning approach to a tourism-related massive open online course

ABSTRACT

This study discusses how to apply counseling-learning (CL) principles to a particular e-learning solution for teaching a tourism-related subject via a massive open online course (MOOC). Several effective caring patterns in achieving learning-related goals and being part of a community according to the CL principles are presented and discussed using the MOOC “eTourism: Communication Perspectives” as a case study. The study underlines how the MOOC platform can act as a place for contents enjoinment and active learning. Moreover, the active role of social media for increasing the engagement of learners in the proposed activities and for developing a sense of the community is identified. In particular, Facebook and Twitter can act as places for community building and informal social interactions among learners that last beyond the completion of the course, which in turn can be a valid aid for continuing the relationships among instructors/learners and learners/learners, and for reaching new ones.     

Strategy Communication in Family-Owned Restaurants: Ad Hoc and Ad-Lib

ABSTRACT

Most New Zealand restaurants are small family-owned businesses, which could be expected to communicate their purpose, business strategy, and goals to their employees. However, this expectation may be at odds with the informal mode of a family operation. This exploratory study therefore examines the communication of strategies in family-owned restaurants to determine the likely impact of family ownership on strategy communication. Interview data from family business owners and employees indicate that communication was largely ad hoc, relating to tactics more than strategies, and that many owners lacked the skills needed to operate a profitable and successful business. The weak understanding of strategic business skills identified may explain the high rate of failures identified in the New Zealand restaurant industry.     

Mediated Effects of Customer Orientation on Customer Relationship Management Performance

ABSTRACT

Drawing on relationship marketing and management theory, the author examines how customer orientation can stimulate employee training and customer information processing capability when firms implement customer relationship management (CRM). The researcher also investigates how employee training and customer information processing affect CRM performance in light of customer satisfaction and financial performance. Restaurant data support the proposed model, which incorporated mediated relationships among customer orientation, training orientation, customer information processing, and CRM performance. The findings indicate that training orientation and customer information processing mediate the effect of customer orientation on CRM performance. The empirical results suggest theoretical and managerial implications for CRM implementation and strategies.     

The Effect of Healthy Food Knowledge on Perceived Healthy Foods’ Value,Degree of Satisfaction,and Behavioral Intention: The Moderating Effect of Gender

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to determine how knowledge about healthy food impacts its perceived value, satisfaction, and behavioral intention among college students to access healthy foods, and to investigate the moderating effect of gender on the formulated relationships. The results show that knowledge about healthy food positively influences perceived value and behavioral intentions, and perceived value is a significant predictor of satisfaction and behavioral intentions toward healthy foods. In addition, knowledge about healthy food does not significantly influence on satisfaction in this study. The results regarding the moderating effects of gender show that gender only moderates the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral intentions toward healthy foods. These results offer useful information for foodservice companies and educational institutions; more specifically, for gaining a better understanding of college students’ behaviors and perceptions toward healthy foods and developing marketing strategies accordingly.     

Hotel Guest Satisfaction and Brand Performance

ABSTRACT

The value and significance of guest satisfaction, brand management, and franchising in the hotel industry have been well documented and researched as independent topics. While previous research has suggested that franchising has an overall negative effect on hotel quality, it has rarely investigated the important links between hotel brand performance and guest satisfaction, and the role of brand franchising strategy in the relationship between hotel brand performance and guest satisfaction. This study examines the relationships among guest satisfaction, revenue performance and growth, and franchising strategy at the hotel brand level. Results indicate that guest satisfaction is a key to brand growth, while the positive effect of guest satisfaction on brand revenue performance is moderated by the extent of franchising within each brand.     

Predicting Hunting Intentions and Behavior: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Using a mail survey ( n = 395) of outdoor recreationists, the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) was applied to the prediction and explanation of hunting. In a series of hierarchical regression analyses, it was found that hunting intentions, but not perceptions of behavioral control, contributed to the prediction of self-reported hunting frequency. Hunting intentions, in turn, were strongly influenced by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceptions of behavioral control, and these predictors correlated highly with theoretically derived sets of underlying beliefs. Broad values related to wildlife and to life in general correlated weakly with hunting behavior, and their effects were largely mediated by the components of the theory of planned behavior.     

Process,goal, and social interaction differences in recreation: What makes an activity substitutable

Abstract

In the present study two recreational activities, deer hunting and goose hunting, both similar in form, are compared. The study shows that the activity with the fewest perceived substitutes, deer hunting, also showed higher mean ratings on items measuring the importance of various elements of the experience, such as the process of participation, the goal of the activity, and the social interaction that accompanies the activity by the participants. Deer hunters also reported greater participation in the activity by peers and were more likely to be introduced to the activity by a family member. It is argued that these differences in the importance of the elements of the experiences influence the perceived substitutability of a recreational activity.     

Effects of temporal distance and related strategies on enhancing customer participation intention for hotel eco-friendly programs

Hotel eco-friendly programs (HEFP) depend on the support of both internal and external customers. While hotel environmental management has received considerable attention, little research focuses on how customers evaluate and respond to HEFP, particularly in the context of variable temporal distance. This study thus examined the effects of different temporal distance strategies on promoting customer participation in HEFP. Based on data collected from 235 undergraduate students, this study employed two 2 × 2 between-subjects design experiments by using foot-in-the-door and outcome simulation strategies for the hypotheses testing. The analytical results indicated that the foot-in-the-door strategy significantly increases distant-future HEFP intention while the outcome simulation strategy significantly enhances near-future HEFP intention. Implications for green hotel management strategies were also discussed.     

Disproportionate sampling and recreation demand estimation with the 1980 national survey of fishing,hunting, and wildlife‐associated recreation

Abstract

Data on recreation activity often are obtained from national surveys using stratified, disproportionate sampling. One such survey is the 1980 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife‐Associated Recreation (1980 Survey). This paper examines the effect of disproportionate sampling on estimates of recreational fishing demand with data from the 1980 Survey. Contrary to some expectations in the literature, disproportionate sampling appears to cause few problems for demand estimation with the 1980 Survey. The evidence suggests that household characteristics determining sampling ratios have little relation to the level of fishing by household members.     

Outdoor recreation participation and views on resource development and preservation

Abstract

Views on the preservation of resources versus their development for recreation are compared among participants in three types of outdoor recreation: “appreciative”; activities (cross‐country skiing, hiking, and canoeing); “consumptive”; activities (fishing and hunting); and “mechanized”; activities (motorboating, snowmo‐biling, and trail biking). The results from a 1984 questionnaire survey conducted in Edmonton and Calgary, Canada, indicate a stronger preservationist orientation among participants in appreciative activities, whereas (with the exception of hunters) participants in consumptive and mechanized activities hold stronger pro‐development views. These differences cannot be attributed to simultaneous variations in socioeco‐nomic characteristics or environmental attitudes among the recreational groups. The findings suggest that differences in outdoor recreational activity preferences represent an important source of variation in views about appropriate levels of preservation versus development of Alberta's natural and wildernesss resources.     

Accounting for Varying Setting Preferences Among Moose Hunters

Recreation planners and managers realize the importance of different tastes and preferences among recreationists. This fact is explicit in recreational planning efforts and in the theories developed to understand recreational behaviors. While market segmentation approaches steeped in behavioral theory provide a rich source of information to planners and managers, we argue that such exogenous market segmentation approaches alone are insufficient to understand the degree of variability in tastes and preferences among recreationists. In this paper we employ a random parameters logit model to account for both the extent and sources of heterogeneity in preferences among recreationists. We illustrate the random parameters logit choice model with an application to the stated choices for hunting sites by moose hunters from northwestern Ontario. The application shows that the random parameters logit represents a considerable improvement over multinomial logit models based on market segmentation approaches.     

Announcements

Abstract

In this study we examined the effect of specialization on behavioral choice among Wisconsin goose hunters, who were able to choose a relatively easy hunt at the Horicon Marsh or a more complex hunt in the exterior zones. Past research has shown that more specialized recreationists have differing motives, attitudes, satisfaction levels, crowding perceptions, environmental preferences, and management preferences. Our goal in this study was to extend this research to behavioral choices and to learn more about the dimensions of specialization in goose hunting. Specialization did not predict behavioral choice among the sample. Specialization, as measured by past experience, commitment, media involvement, club membership, and preferred hunting style, did not differ significantly when comparing Horicon goose hunters and exterior zone hunters. Novice hunters hunted alongside experienced hunters, and behavioral choice appeared to be more a function of structural constraint than attitu‐dinal preference. Specialization did explain differences in hunter judgments of quality, correlating negatively with shooting and bagging and positively with social and natural components of a quality experience. These findings indicate that although the specialization framework can effectively predict attitudinal differences among participants in a given activity, it is less efficient at predicting behavioral choice. Consequently, specialization researchers need to be cautious about inferring levels of specialization from observations of locational choice.     

How to create competitive advantage: the moderate role of organizational learning as a link between shared value,dynamic capability,differential strategy,and social capital

Based on the organizational strategy and capability perspective, we theorized a serial mediation-moderation analysis that links critical beneficial attributes of dynamic capabilities, differential strategies, social capital, shared goals, and organizational learning to creating competitive advantage. Results from a survey of 328 travel agencies were analysed to support our hypotheses. We found that travel agencies’ shared goals may influence competitive advantage through the characteristics of dynamic capability development, differential strategy implications, and social capital accumulation. We also found that organizational learning is the most critical attribute for improving the relationships between shared goals, dynamic capabilities, and social capital to achieve competitive advantage. The implications of these findings for managerial and theoretical frameworks are also discussed.     

Hospitality Student Expectations

ABSTRACT

This article reports the findings of an exploratory study that primarily examined the relationship between hope and expectations of success among hospitality students at a southeastern university. It also discusses relationships among factors such as grade point averages, student class standing, and declared program majors. The article presents results of the study that identify relationships between measurable criteria associated with the concept of hope and expectations for student success, as well as other associated factors. The article concludes with areas for future research, as well as implications for hospitality educators and human resource practitioners.     

The age of digital activism in tourism: evaluating the legacy and limitations of the Cecil anti-trophy hunting movement

Abstract

When Cecil the Lion was shot in 2015 by the American tourist, Walter Palmer, the story sparked a global “cybermovement” against trophy hunting, questioning its sustainability from a moral-ethical standpoint. Indeed the incident was hailed as a possible turning point for the wildlife tourism industry. It remains unclear however whether a movement of this nature could have any meaningful impact. Thus, 2 years on from Cecil, what has (not) changed, and why? Findings reveal interventions aimed at deterring hunters, tightening international legislation, and furthering research on African wildlife conservation. However, trophy hunting still persists in much of Southern Africa, pointing to the limitations of digital movements. In explaining the limits of these movements, the article applies Social Movement Impact Theory and juxtaposes the divergent, competing moral criteria operating in the international “Cecilgate” context.     

Applying the community capitals framework to the craft heritage trails of western North Carolina

ABSTRACT

HandMade in America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of craft heritage, identified tourism as an economic development strategy for their service area, the North Carolina Appalachian Mountains. In 1996, HandMade released a guidebook, The Craft Heritage Trails of Western North Carolina, which was designed to draw visitors to rural mountain communities where they could discover artists among the surroundings where they draw inspiration. The book was updated in two subsequent additions, and a spin-off book Farms, Gardens, and Countryside Trails was released in 2002. This study utilizes the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) to illustrate how HandMade’s tourism strategy of trail development positively impacted multiple forms of community capital in rural communities. The CCF is a holistic system encompassing several forms of capital: natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built. The results demonstrate the ripple effect of impacts of HandMade’s heritage trail development efforts.     

Problem-focused or Emotion-focused: Which Coping Strategy has a Better Effect on Perceived Career Barriers and Choice Goals?

According to social cognitive career theory, barriers have an impact on an individual's career progress. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationships between perceived career barriers (internal barriers, external barriers) and choice goals, and the moderating effect of coping strategies on the relationships. Data were collected from 309 tourism and hospitality college students in Taiwan. A structural equation modeling analysis showed that both internal and external barriers had direct negative effects on choice goals. However, internal and external barriers had a direct positive effect on coping strategies, and indirectly, through the coping strategies, had a positive effect on choice goals. Furthermore, problem-focused coping strategies could moderate the relationship between internal/external barriers and choice goals. The implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions are provided.     

Examining the impact of experiential value on emotions,self-connective attachment,and brand loyalty in Korean family restaurants

ABSTRACT

This study examines how experiential value as perceived by customers of Korean family restaurants influences consumption emotions, self-connective attachment to the restaurant brand, and, ultimately, brand loyalty. Having conducted a comprehensive literature review, the study proposes and estimates a model that specifies the interrelationships among four dimensions of experiential value (i.e., atmosphere, escapism, customer return on investment, and service excellence), and latent variables of positive and negative emotions, self-connective attachment, and brand loyalty. Analysis with structural equation modeling was conducted with data collected from customers of family restaurants in South Korea. The results show that dimensions of experiential value influence either positive or negative emotions. The emotion variables, together with self-connective attachment, also mediate the relationships between perceived value of dining experience and brand loyalty.