The appeal of sustainability in luxury hospitality: An investigation on the role of perceived integrity

This research investigates the effect of a luxury hotel's marketing communication strategy on consumers' willingness to book a room. In particular, the article compares two types of communication message: one that mainly highlights the hotel's attention to environmental sustainability and the other that focuses on customer service. The paper tests the hypothesis that a sustainability-focused communication leads to a higher willingness to book a room (compared to the customer service-focused strategy) because it increases consumers' perceptions about the hotel's integrity. Moreover, the study proposes that consumers' dispositional environmental concern magnifies this effect. One online and one realistic field experiment provide empirical evidence for the research hypotheses. This article contributes to the literature on sustainable luxury tourism and hospitality by proposing a novel theoretical framework, grounded in perceived hotel integrity, to explain why consumers might react positively when learning that a luxury hotel is committed to sustainability.     

Information asymmetry in the innovation adoption decision of tourism and hospitality SMEs in emerging markets: A mixed-method analysis

Investment decisions, particularly innovation adoption decisions, can sustain long-term viability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, information asymmetry could limit the ability of SME management to make informed innovation adoption decisions. Even though information asymmetry is a multidimensional construct, prior literature has only focused on financial information asymmetry in such decisions. Therefore, the current study fills the research gap by conducting two separate studies: one analyzes World Bank Group data from 1250 observations in 11 emerging markets, and the other interviews eight SME owners and managers. The findings of the mixed-method studies suggest that financial, business regulation, and court information asymmetry decrease the likelihood of SMEs' product innovation adoption. The study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of information asymmetry in SMEs’ decision-making rooted in agency theory. Moreover, its methodological contribution lies in measuring information asymmetry with micro-level data.     

Came and gone? A longitudinal study of the effects of COVID-19 on tourism purchasing intentions

The study is based on a multi-year research conducted in three successive years (2019; 2020; 2021). Drawing from three samples (N = 507; 463; 488) it longitudinally examines the complexity and the derived chaordic systems of the impact of COVID-19 upon the purchasing intentions of adult Athenian holidaymakers by using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. In doing so, it evaluates the simple conditions of impact of recession, destination selection, and price and quality risks, also progressing to a complementary examination through Necessary Condition Analysis. The findings generate three pathways (price-quality nexus; financial focus; destination orientation) leading to the same outcome (purchasing intentions), the hierarchy of which changed over time. They also highlight the impact of recession and quality risks as constant necessary conditions, and demonstrate the transformation over time of destination selection and price risks from influential to necessary. The contribution of the study lies in both the theoretical and methodological domains.     

Drivers of management control systems in tourism start-ups firms

This study examines the use of Management Control Systems (MCS) in travel and tourism start-ups. The study empirically examines 176 European tourism start-ups; data are collected via an online survey of start-up CEOs, and supplemented by financial statements of early-stage tourism firms. The results show that travel and tourism start-ups use formal systems for management control. We observe a relationship between the usage of these systems with specific internal and external environment characteristics. Finally, the results show that the historical financial performance of travel and tourism start-up firms affects MCS usage.     

Cluster Analysis for mixed data: An application to credit risk evaluation

Credit risk is one of the main risks faced by a bank to provide financial products and services to clients. To evaluate the financial performance of clients, several scoring methodologies have been proposed, which are based mostly on quantitative indicators. This paper highlights the relevance of both quantitative and qualitative features of applicants and proposes a new methodology based on mixed data clustering techniques. Indeed, cluster analysis may prove particularly useful in the estimation of credit risk. Traditionally, clustering concentrates only on quantitative or qualitative data at a time; however, since credit applicants are characterized by mixed personal features, a cluster analysis specific for mixed data can lead to discover particularly informative patterns, estimating the risk associated with credit granting.     

A model of tourism advertising effects

This study develops the AIEDA tourism advertising effects model and examines this model by tourism destination types and advertising formats in a field experiment. The AIEDA model extends the traditional AIDA model in the advertising field and additionally considers the unique features of tourism products. It includes five hierarchical stages: Attention→ Interest→Evaluation (Perceived Usefulness→ Perceived Credibility) → Desire →Action. Findings of experimental research indicate that destination type and advertising format have main effects and interaction effects on tourism advertising effects. In addition, this study discovered that, for natural and cultural destinations, video ads yielded similar or more positive advertising effects than virtual reality ads, whereas print was the least effective advertising format.     

Tourism,terrorism and political violence in Tunisia: Evidence from Markov-switching models

This study investigates the impact of terrorist attacks and political violence on the number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays in Tunisia. The dataset employed consists of monthly data that covers the period from January 2000 to September 2016, which includes several political and terrorist attacks in Tunisia and the region. Empirically, we investigate the true data generating process (DGP) of these two proxies of tourism activity by accounting for four statistical properties that characterize these series: (1) seasonality, (2) unit roots, (3) breaks, and (4) long memory behavior.Our empirical findings show strong evidence of stationarity, five breaks in the tourist arrival time series and spurious long memory behavior. By estimating a 3-state Markov switching model consisting of the mean, trend, and variance, we find that the Tunisian Jasmine revolution and two recent terrorist attacks, one at the Bardo National Museum on March 18, 2015 and the other at the tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, Sousse on June 26, 2015, played an important role in influencing the tourism activity of the country. Our empirical findings show also that local shocks have a more important impact than international shocks in influencing tourism activity. Interestingly, we find that the effects of terrorist shocks have a long duration compared to political violence shocks. Several security, marketing, and economic policies have been proposed and discussed in the paper.     

产业集群内生性集体行动影响因素案例研究与效度检验

基于利益集团等多重主流理论视角和半开放性编码技术的部分探索性案例研究，发现产业集群内生性集体行动受到内生需求、长期导向、本地嵌入、政策激励、同行反应、协会治理、集群规模和集群类型等因素的综合影响。经因子分析和逐步回归等方法检验，上述影响因素组合具有较为理想的建构效度和效标效度。其中，内生需求、长期导向、本地嵌入、政策激励、同行反应和协会治理等属于正面激发因素，对集群企业参与内生性集体行动具有积极促进作用，而集群规模和集群类型等则属于负面阻碍因素，对集群企业参与内生性集体行动具有消极抑制作用。     

Hotel performance: Rigor and relevant research topics

Academic research (rigor) in alignment with practitioners’ challenges (relevancy) has been advocated as a way of overcoming the ivory tower syndrome. Performance measurement is at the heart of strategic management processes, as it provides a mechanism of demonstrating outcomes. Given the importance of this topic for both theory and practice, this article explores the contribution of academic outputs in terms of academic research outputs (rigor) and current practitioners’ needs (relevancy).Using network analysis and cross-citation bibliometric approaches, a sample of 1155 articles is examined and fourteen clusters are identified. The emergent topics and subtopics from the academic literature are compared to ten insights proposed by Ernst Young to the hotel sector. The findings suggest a good fit between the two approaches together with some gaps. Based from empirical results, nine propositions are articulated.     

Acquiescence and conflict in exchanges between inbound tour operators and their overseas outbound partners: A case study on Tanzania

Achieving partner acquiescence is critical in interfirm exchanges because it allows the focal firm to achieve its desired outcomes. Using a case study on dyadic relationships between inbound tour operators in Tanzania and their overseas outbound partners, this paper investigates the effect of partner irreplaceability and distributive fairness on acquiescence, and the subsequent effect that acquiescence has on conflict. The case study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling on data collected from 129 dyadic relationships. Results show that partner irreplaceability and distributive fairness are positively associated with acquiescence, which in turn reduces conflict. The effect of distributive fairness on acquiescence was found to be larger than that of irreplaceability. In addition, the direct effect of distributive fairness on conflict, although not hypothesised, was found to be significant. This emphasises the importance of distributive fairness, and its role as a possible buffer to conflict in less acquiescent exchanges.