Environment management in the hotel industry: does institutional environment matter?

Limited theoretical attention has been paid to understand the underlying drivers of hotels’ engagement in environment management (EM). By using institutional theory, this study provides an integrated model that captures various social drivers of hotels’ engagement in EM. The associations between the three dimensions of institutional environment and hotel environmental practices were empirically tested, as well as the moderating role of hotel characteristics. A total of 414 usable surveys representing 414 hotels were collected from hotel managers in China. The results demonstrate positive associations of hotel EM practices with supportive state regulations, shared industry standards, competitors’ EM practices and expectations from various stakeholders such as employees, local community, and investors. Particularity, the strength of positive relationships between specific institutional pressures vary across hotel sizes and scales. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed     

Compensation practices in the lodging industry: Does top management pay affect corporate performance?

The current study examines the relationship between executive compensation and firm performance in the U.S. lodging industry. It is not clear-cut whether performance leads to compensation or compensation drives firm performance. Our contention is that cash and lagged equity-based compensation drive the firm performance. Our findings suggest that chief executive officer's (CEO) contemporaneous cash-compensation and one-year lagged equity-compensation positively affect the accounting performance measures return on assets and Tobin's Q; but neither compensation components affects the market-performance measure, stock returns, in the lodging industry. Quantitatively similar findings are found for the chief financial officer (CFO). Further robustness test show that further lags of equity compensation of both named executives do not result in increased stock performance in the lodging industry.     

Can innovative behavior be led by management? A study from the lodging business

This study examined the effects of hotel management leadership on employee innovative behavior in Chinese hotel organizations. Using a dyadic sample of 164 hotel supervisors and 603 service employees at 23 four-star and five-star hotels in 11 Chinese cities, we investigated whether organizational commitment mediated the effects of leadership on employee innovative behavior. We also examined how organizational tenure moderated leadership and innovative behavior through organizational commitment. Findings from our moderated-mediation model revealed that organizational commitment mediated the relationship between leadership and innovative behavior. Similarly, organizational tenure moderated the relationship between leadership and organizational commitment: there was a stronger relationship for long-tenured employees and a weaker relationship for short-tenured employees. However, the effect of higher leadership on organizational commitment was stronger for short-tenured employees than long-tenured employees. Our results spotlight the importance of fostering organizational commitment, which directly affects innovative behavior and through which supervisors can influence individual innovative behavior.     

Tourism in Maasai communities: a chance to improve livelihoods?

This paper examines community-based tourism among Maasai communities in Tanzania in the context of national policies that have increasingly devolved control over natural resources to local communities. It focuses on economic revenues generated from tourism growth, their distribution to village communities and the constraints and conflicts resulting from attempts to control or access resources. Specific cases illustrate the political and economic complexity of devolved resource management and increased income generation at the community level. Ecotourism and community-based tourism are frequently claimed to be possible remedies for wildlife and natural resources conservation, but research indicates that implementation and revenue-sharing are far from straightforward. The paper uses case studies from communities in northern Tanzania, in Ngorongoro District (Loliondo and Lake Natron), Simanjiro District and Longido District (West Kilimanjaro) to explore issues between pastoralism, cultivation, hunting tourism, photographic tourism, conservation and governance systems. It discusses the implementation of the 1998 National Forestry and Wildlife Policies, the creation of Wildlife Management Areas and the 1999 Land Act and Village Land Act. Data and experiences were gathered over a three-year period working with the Sand County Foundation – Tanzania from 2006 to 2008. The paper contributes to the assessment and discussion of pro-poor tourism and poverty alleviation concepts.     

Do Loyalty Groups Differ in the Role of Trust in Online Tourism Shopping? A Process Perspective

Today, Internet use is becoming increasingly prevalent, and people all over the world are shopping online with increasing frequency. While much of the current literature tends to focus on the dependent variable of loyalty on online tourism shopping, this study draws heavily on the moderating role of loyalty. In particular, this study aims to examine the relationships among perceived security, website properties, navigational functionality, trust, and satisfaction, as well as to use a process theory to investigate the differences in these constructs between low- and high-loyalty groups. The results of this study reveal that perceived security, website properties, and navigational functionality significantly and positively affected trust. In addition, loyalty was found to reinforce the relationships among perceived security, website properties, navigational functionality, and trust.     

Can receiving managerial responses induce more user reviewing effort? A mixed method investigation in hotel industry

The purpose of this study is to explore factors contributing to users' reviewing effort in the online review platform and understand the mechanism behind the effect. Based on a mixed method including secondary data analysis and experimental data analysis, the results indicate the following. (1) A user receiving more managerial responses tends to exert more reviewing effort. (2) The number of high-quality user opinions (i.e., expert reviews) for a hotel negatively moderates the influence of the number of managerial responses on user reviewing effort. (3) The sense of reciprocity mediates the influence of the number of managerial responses on future reviewing effort. (4) The mediation process is attenuated amongst users facing numerous high-quality user opinions. This study contributes to the literature of managerial response and online user engagement in the context of travel websites.     

Asia Pacific Tourism Trends: Is the Future Ours to See?

This paper explores current and emerging tourism trends in the Asia Pacific region via content analysis of industry publications and subsequent review of related academic literature. Experience economy and activity-oriented travel lead the development of the sector in the region and impact other trends. Economic growth, favourable political environment and improved infrastructure have sustained continual growth in visitor numbers from long-haul and intra-regional markets. However, the profile of travellers and their interests are increasingly diverse. Additionally, technology has been playing a significant role in hospitality and tourism industries, while human resources remain one of the biggest challenges in the region. Despite the huge increase in academic literature on sustainability, the industry has not appeared to be engaged with the subject. A number of knowledge gaps are identified for future research to better understand tourism development in the Asia Pacific region.     

Ports closed to cruise ships in the context of COVID-19: What choices are there for coastal states?

In the COVID-19 context will coastal States open their ports to cruise ships to meet the needs of people in danger? Can they prefer a more self-centered approach to protect their territory and exercise their sovereignty? The purpose of this study is to analyze the legal framework for the management of health risk by coastal States in the context of the coronavirus threat on cruise ships. The lack of a clearly defined common management strategy in face of major health risk complicates the situation. Only cooperation between flag States and port States will make it possible to overcome any conflicts of implementation between the State sovereignty principle and assistance to persons in distress at sea.     

Are you good enough? CSR,quality management and corporate financial performance in the hospitality industry

Hospitality firms are increasingly investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) to generate strong relationships with stakeholders while aiming to benefit their own performance. However, CSR may bring both costs and benefits to the focal firm. We analyze how corporate financial performance (CFP) is affected by CSR, finding that the impact of CSR on CFP has a U-shaped form, where CSR is a cost that translates into higher benefits only when it generates solid relationships between firms and their stakeholders. Furthermore, we adopt a contingency approach, assessing the role of quality management (QM) on the CSR-CFP relationship. We find that the simultaneous implementation of CSR and QM is less beneficial to CFP than the isolated implementation of CSR due to the redundancy of different activities aimed at similar goals, i.e., stakeholders’ satisfaction. In doing so, we advance academic understanding of the impact of CSR and QM on CFP.     

Terminator or accelerator? Lessons from the peer-to-peer accommodation hosts in China in responses to COVID-19

This study investigates how peer-to-peer accommodation (P2PA) hosts in China have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. A multi-case study approach was adopted to depict the decision-making logic of three different types of hosts—speculators, diplomats, and entrepreneurs—based on an awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) framework under COVID-19. The findings highlight the role of owner motivation (profit/sharing/entrepreneurial-driven) and capabilities, such as having a unique value proposition and linkages with other hospitality experience, under COVID-19. Meanwhile, the platform collaboration capability failed to support survival during the pandemic. Moreover, the current study indicated that, after the COVID-19, entrepreneurs will continue to innovate, diplomats’ operations will remain unchanged and speculators will quit hosting. Hence, COVID-19 is an accelerator of P2P industry that reserving the hosts who embrace the original features of the P2PA sector, e.g. sharing and a focus on the experience, and eliminating the hosts who have diluted the uniqueness of the sector.     

Business attitudes to sustainable tourism: Self‐regulation in the UK outgoing tourism industry

Much debate about sustainable tourism has focused on how to change business practices which lead to environmental and social damage in tourist destinations. There is much disagreement between campaigners, who wish to make industry more responsible for sustainable tourism, and companies, which fear regulations may damage business performance. Many companies have adopted their own practices of sustainable tourism. Yet these are sometimes criticised by campaigners for being superficial. This paper describes research undertaken to list current practices of self‐regulation adopted by the UK outgoing tourism industry, and to identify how far these satisfy principles of sustainable tourism identified by campaigners. The research also identified perceived obstacles to the adoption of sustainable practices, and how practices could operate in the commercial favour of companies. Results indicated that many companies saw sustainable tourism practices to be of commercial benefit; in particular, they could add value to holiday products, thus allowing companies to compete with each other on more than price alone. However, most sectors of the industry said that host governments, rather than they, were ultimately responsible for sustainable tourism. The survey therefore concluded that the industry was in favour of long‐term regulation, but this was not being achieved by current self‐regulation. A better understanding of the commercial opportunities of sustainable tourism may enable companies to take a more proactive role in seeking change.     

Social responsibility and total quality in the hospitality industry: does gender matter?

This empirical study examines the role of gender diversity in top management teams (TMTs) and their impact on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is an underexplored topic within the hotel sector. Based on stakeholder theory, we argue that the relationship between gender diversity and hotel performance is indirect and mediated by CSR. Our study also analyses how the implementation of total quality management (TQM) and CSR influences hotel stakeholder results, and hence business performance. Using a sample of Spanish hotels, we provide evidence that gender diversity in TMTs increases the level of implementation of CSR within the hotel industry. The results show that the impact of gender diversity on hotel performance is mediated by CSR. The findings also suggest that the adoption of TQM and CSR management philosophies improves the capacity of hotels to benefit their stakeholders, and that this improvement has a positive effect on hotel performance.     

Managers’ psychological diversity climate and fairness: The utility and importance of diversity management in the hospitality industry

ABSTRACT

Despite corporate investments in diversity management programs, there is a dearth in the literature that examines managers' attitudes toward diversity management practices. This is a glaring gap in the literature because the success of diversity management programs is highly depend on managers. A survey was distributed to hotel managers from properties in the southern United States. The results showed that psychological diversity climate predicted the perceived utility and importance of diversity management, and these relationships were mediated by the fairness of diversity management. These results suggest that psychological diversity climate has an impact on attitudes toward diversity management practices.     

A review of the literature on culture in hotel management research: What is the future?

This paper aims to provide insights into the development of research on culture in the hotel industry by reviewing the existing literature. A total of 107 journal articles published between 1985 and 2010 were retrieved from 12 refereed journals, all of which could be accessed online. The papers were categorized into six major groups according to Pizam's (1993) hierarchy of cultures, and were further sorted by year of publication, source, subject area, region of focus, and the nature of the research. National culture, organizational culture, and cross-cultural comparison were found to be the most popular research topics. In contrast, few studies have investigated industry, occupational, and corporate cultures in association with hotel management studies, prompting concern for future research. In summary, this review paper offers a first and important attempt to understand the development of research on culture in the hotel management field and identifies future research opportunities.     

Poststructural feminist theories of representing Others: a response to the ‘crisis’ in leisure studies' discourse

References made to a contemporary theoretical ‘crisis’ in leisure studies discourse have been made by a number of scholars in the field (Scraton, 1994; Coalter, 1997; Mommaas, 1997). This article examines the origins and nature of such a ‘crisis’ and attempts to map one possible route through the current academic impasse. It is argued that leisure studies’ reluctance to embrace recent theoretical advances in cognate disciplines and subject fields, together with a reticence to engage with poststructural discourse, has rendered culture marginal to leisure studies research. Increasing cultural analyses in sociology, geography and gender studies have been accompanied by widespread engagement with postmodernism and a concomitant disengagement with social and material analyses of power. This article discusses the role of the subaltern discourses of poststructural and postcolonial feminism as theoretical and political projects capable of addressing cultural and material power. The false dichotomy of social and cultural analyses in leisure, tourism and culture is then addressed in a dicussion of Othering. This discussion reveals the significance of the social-cultural nexus of leisure relations and the potential for research that engages with poststructuralism whilst continuing to further leisure studies' welldeveloped social policy discourse. In summary, poststructural feminist analyses are cited as one means of enhancing the theoretical sophistication of the subject field and of addresssing the current ‘crisis’.     

Trust and outsourcing: Do perceptions of trust influence the retention of outsourcing providers in the hospitality industry?

The global trend toward outsourcing necessitates unprecedented symbiosis between client-based organizations—purchasers of these services—and their multiple suppliers. Building on existing empirical work that suggests that the level of trust that exists between a purchaser and a supplier is fundamental in determining the strength of such a dyadic relationship, we examine how an organization's outsourcing efforts can be influenced by trust, and how perceptions of trust influence buyer retention of outsourcing providers. The resulting causal model suggests that communication, benevolence, and trust are vital to developing and maintaining productive, enduring relationships between purchasers and suppliers.