Still pounding on the glass ceiling: A study of female leaders in hospitality,travel, and tourism management

Today, U.S. females represent the majority in both the hospitality and tourism management classroom and the work environment. However, the proverbial “glass ceiling” continues to exist, and evidence of career advancement obstacles remain salient in the hospitality, travel, and tourism management workplace. The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of successful female industry leaders in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry, as well as their perceptions as to how they were able to overcome gender barriers and disparities. Findings offer participant reported “top issues” facing female leaders in the workplace, as well as strategies for overcoming these issues.     

Activity outsourcing and competitive strategy in the hotel industry. The moderator role of asset specificity

This paper analyzes hotel outsourcing from the perspective of the competitive strategy and asset specificity. A comprehensive model is developed to establish the relationships among the competitive strategy (cost leadership and differentiation strategies), asset specificity and activity outsourcing. Asset specificity is used as a moderator variable in the relationship between the competitive strategy and activity outsourcing. A specificity-outsourcing matrix is developed to classify the activities by their level of asset specificity and outsourcing. The main hotel activities are investigated in a representative sample of hotels in Taiwan. The findings indicate that the cost leadership strategy positively and partially influences outsourcing, while the differentiation strategy has a negative impact on outsourcing an activity. The results confirm the negative relationship between asset specificity and the level of activity outsourcing. Moreover, they show that asset specificity positively moderates the relationship between the competitive strategy and outsourcing.     

Water use efficiency in the hotel sector of Barbados

Barbados is water stressed, with water production close to its renewable freshwater resources. The hotel sector uses far more water than the general population (756 vs. 240 L/cap-d); water savings there would improve the overall water balance. No comprehensive analysis exists for water use by the Barbados hotel industry; this study addresses the gap. Data were collected from the Barbados Water Authority and from onsite surveys; consumption patterns were compared with international studies which had established environmentally acceptable benchmarks. The water use efficiency of Barbadian hotels was also studied as a function of “influential variables”: unit water consumption was somewhat correlated with the number of rooms, average room rate, property size and number of employees. The lack of success in reducing hotels' water consumption is tied to the fact that water bills represent less than 5% of their annual expenses. A model for unit water consumption was derived using two influential variables: the annual number of guest nights and the number of employees. Ways of fostering sound water practices include promotion among guests of the need to save water, schemes to promote the financial benefits of water conservation by relating unit water pricing to total consumption and awareness-raising among hotel managers.     

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.     

Impact of location on profitability in the Spanish hotel sector

This paper analyzes the impact of market structure on hotel profitability in a sample of 8992 Spanish hotels in 2005–2011, using variables relating to the hotel and tourist destination in addition to structure–conduct–performance (SCP) and Chicago School frameworks simultaneously. The results show that profitability depends largely on the market structure and the level of demand of the tourist destination and we confirm the SCP proposals. Regarding characteristics of each hotel, there are unobservable characteristics which influence on profitability and we identify the existence of economies of scale.     

Strategic planning and business performance in the quoted UK hotel sector: results of an exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to conduct an exploratory investigation of the relationship between strategic planning and business performance. A multidimensional model of 11 variables was formulated after a review of the strategic planning-performance literature. Data were obtained from 63 hotel units representing eight quoted hotel companies, and various planning-performance relationships were examined. The results indicated that the key planning characteristics of throughness, sophistication, participation, and formality were positive, and in most cases significantly related, to seven indicators of business performance.     

Innovation in tourism: Re-conceptualising and measuring the absorptive capacity of the hotel sector

Recent reviews of research on innovation in tourism have highlighted a number of weaknesses in the literature. Among these is the limited theorising and empirical investigation of innovative practices by tourism organisations. This paper responds to these concerns by examining one important dimension of innovation within commercial tourism organisations, namely their ability to acquire, assimilate and utilise external knowledge (absorptive capacity) for competitive advantage. The topic is pertinent because there is evidence to suggest that tourism organisations are particularly dependent on external sources of knowledge when compared with businesses in other sectors. Following a discussion of the conceptual antecedents of absorptive capacity and its dimensions, a validated instrument for its measurement is developed and used to measure the absorptive capacity of the British hotel sector. The results suggest that current conceptions of absorptive capacity have limitations when applied to tourism enterprises. Absorptive capacity is re-conceptualised to overcome these deficiencies. The research and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Linking transformational leadership and employee creativity in the hospitality industry: The influences of creative role identity,creative self-efficacy,and job complexity

Integrating transformational leadership, creativity and social cognitive theories, we explore the relationships among transformational leadership, creative role identity, creative self-efficacy, job complexity and creativity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping estimation was conducted using data from 395 supervisor–employee dyads from international tourist hotels in Taiwan. The results show that supervisors' transformational leadership positively influenced employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. Moreover, creative role identity was found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative self-efficacy, while both creative role identity and creative self-efficacy were found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Specifically, job complexity was found to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative role identity, the relationship between employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy, and the relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. We discuss the implications of these results for research and practice in hospitality context.     

Managing the service brand value of the hotel industry in an emerging market

This study integrates the resource-based view (RBV) of a firm and institutional theory to investigate how top management team (TMT) leaders promote the quality of employees’ service by leveraging the resource-based advantages (e.g., service brand value, TMT leadership, human capital (HC) management, and service culture) of their hotel brands to compensate for institutional influences at the global, regional, and local levels in an emerging market. The results show that a hotel develops its resource-based advantages by creating service brand value, which is cultivated by the TMT's transformational leadership through HC investment and the creation of a service culture to improve the quality of service behaviors. At the same time, resource-based and institutional advantages are applied in a complementary fashion to achieve successful market expansion in China as an emerging market.     

Sustainable water demand management in the hotel sector: a policy network analysis of Singapore

Abstract

Water use in the tourism industry is a vital sustainability issue in destination development. Achieving sustainable water demand management (WDM) is challenging and requires destination stakeholder collaboration for effective participatory policymaking. Taking the WDM of Singapore’s hotel sector as a case, this article applies a policy network analysis to prevailing stakeholder collaboration based on public policy documents published between 2001 and 2015. Thirty-three interconnected organisational stakeholders and 76 policy domains were identified. Longitudinal analyses revealed structural changes in stakeholder collaboration during WDM policy development. The findings also indicate that the policy stakeholders of WDM are becoming increasingly diverse, and with this expansion in stakeholder participation, the collaboration network has evolved from being simple to remarkably complex. This article also discusses the relationship between policy stakeholders and policy domains, revealing that the responsibility, available resources, and interests of stakeholders are the main factors influencing their policy preferences in this discourse. The results enrich our understanding of inter-stakeholder relationships and the dynamic relational structure of interdisciplinary policy system.     

Intellectual capital in the hotel industry: A case study from Slovenia

Human, structural and non-end-customer-relationship capital in the hotel industry need end-customer-relationship capital to reflect themselves in financial performance, as a study of the Slovenian hotel industry has shown.     

International hotel development: A study of potential franchisees in China

Franchising is a strategic partnership formed by the franchisor and the franchisee, and consequently partner selection between the franchisor and the franchisee is critical to the long-term success of a franchise. However, the literature has primarily taken the viewpoint of franchisors, but failed to explore the perspective of the potential franchisees. As China represents a significant growth opportunity for international hotel franchisors, this study examines the perspective of China's domestic hotel operators regarding franchising and analyzes a mix of factors that may affect such perspective. The study of 182 Chinese hotel general managers shows that China's hotel practitioners have considerable interest in franchising and are knowledgeable about the concept as it pertains to hotels. The findings indicate that the length of work experience and educational background of Chinese hotel operators may influence their franchising preferences. Hotel chains that have strong brand awareness, supportive centralized reservation systems, and offer relatively high returns on investment at relatively low franchise fees, are most attractive to potential Chinese franchisees.     

Application of EMSs in a hotel context: A case study

In the last decade, hotel companies have become increasingly interested in the application of environmental management systems (EMSs). However, research on the effectiveness of EMSs in the hotel industry has been sparse. This study aims to address this research gap by exploring and evaluating the application of EMSs in a hotel context. Various approaches to EMSs are identified in the literature on environmental management and EMSs, including six core EMS elements specific to the hotel industry context. To develop a rich and deep understanding of the application of EMSs in the hotel industry, a qualitative case study was conducted in which data were collected from three levels of employees, executive, supervisory and general, from an international hotel. A series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted and relevant documents were collected for analysis. Four influential factors were identified in the formation stage of the hotel's EMS: (1) Corporate governance, (2) Piloting activities, (3) Initial gap analysis and (4) Partnership with external consultancy. It was also found that the six elements identified in the environmental management literature play important roles in the implementation of EMS in this case. In addition, although EMSs can help promote a bottom-up approach to change, a top-down approach to implementing EMSs was more suitable for a hotel with a predominantly Chinese workforce, due to cultural issues. This study identified a number of factors specifically related to EMSs to complement mainstream environmental management research.     

Mass tourism and water efficiency in the hotel industry: A case study

Mass tourism, which has traditionally been associated with an unsustainable use of natural resources and intensive land use, is frequently identified as a major environmental stressor in coastal regions. Nonetheless, mass tourism resorts typically have a compact and vertical urban configuration and have been shown to make more efficient use of water resources than other low-density tourist destinations. This article investigates how the main variables identified by the literature as determinants of water consumption by hotels influences water efficiency in hotels in Lloret de Mar, a well-known mass tourism destination on the Costa Brava in Spain. The results of a generalized linear mixed model show that large, high-rise hotels that attract thousands of tourists annually also benefit from economies of scale in terms of water efficiency.     

Social media friending in building coworker guanxi: A study in the hotel industry

An omnipresent ingredient in personal and professional lives, social media has changed interpersonal relationships in numerous ways. Using the case of Facebook, this paper explores the role of social media use with coworkers in hotels through a mixed method approach. The purpose of the study is twofold. First, in-depth interviews are conducted to develop scales of key factors that influence coworker social media friending. Second, a survey is employed to investigate the consequences of such work-life-crossing behaviors. A framework is tested leading from the motivational/de-motivational factors to workplace guanxi via interaction intensity, workplace fun, and stress. The results indicate that motivations for relationship reinforcement, career advancement, and compliance with peers lead to increasing coworker social media interactions, while negatively-valenced factors do not have a salient impact. Furthermore, while social media interactions induce both workplace fun and stress, the overall impact on coworker guanxi is positive.     

The role of public space in constructing experience capital: A longitudinal analysis in the hotel context

Public space plays a primary role in shaping customers' hospitality experiences. Yet how public space conditions customers' experiential outcomes in accumulating capital for hospitality organizations remains underexplored. Inspired by the theory of psychological ownership, this research presents an in-depth analysis of the impacts of customers' public space experiences on their experiential outcomes using a longitudinal hotel industry dataset merging information from customer surveys, property performance, and surrounding accessibility insights. Findings revealed the positive effects of customers’ public space experiences on their overall service experiences, the perceived value of the experience, revisit intentions, and recommendation intentions. Moreover, hotel class, other customers, and surrounding accessibility were empirically verified as moderators conditioning the positive impact of public space. These findings offer valuable implications for theory and practice that are worthy of further exploration.     

A multi-level approach to the study of production chains in the tourism sector

This paper proposes a multi-level approach to analyse the production chains in which two characteristic tourism activities – the hotel and travel agency industries – participate. Firstly, from a macroeconomic perspective, input-output techniques are used to identify the most significant tourism production chains from the regional input–output table of Andalusia (Spain). Secondly, from a microeconomic perspective, a different approach is taken based on the concept of Global Value Chains (GVC). In this respect, the structure and main agents participating in the tourism GVC are presented, and the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the hotel and travel agencies industries in Andalusia is put forward. Finally, these two approaches are compared and connected, exploring some characteristics of these tourism production chains at the mesoeconomic level of analysis.     

The signaling effect of management response in engaging customers: A study of the hotel industry

Hotels today actively respond to online reviews given their tremendous influence on travelers' decisions. Yet, the questions of how to respond to online reviews continue to baffle hotel managers. By focusing on prospective travelers, we propose the effective management response signals hotels' care for customers and quality of service. Particularly, we postulate the frequency, speed and length of response influence the effectiveness of signaling in reducing information asymmetry. Based on the large-scale field data from TripAdvisor, this study demonstrates that the frequency and speed of response significantly enhance travelers’ engagement as indicated by more reviews, higher average valence, more votes for helpfulness, and higher popularity ranking. Furthermore, the frequent and speedy response is more effective for budget (vs. premium) hotels. Thus, management response to online reviews serves as a critical channel of communication to engage customers.     

Prices,prices and prices: A study in the airline sector

This article creates and empirically analyzes a dynamic pricing framework. The model includes the main theories on prices in the literature, and dynamically analyzes how companies change their pricing policies according to different circumstances. Through the use of regressions, the article shows the relative long and short-term impact on pricing equations (strategic versus operational matters), and on production conditions versus demand perspectives in the setting of operational prices. In addition, it highlights how the proportions of these pricing perspectives change in the airline sector according to the effect of the environment on the configuration of the strategy (determined by monthly and hourly seasonality), and also according to the nature of this competitive strategy (determined by the characteristics of the company and the destination airport). The results confirm our framework, and show how firms combine the different perspectives in their pricing strategies.     

The moderating role of context in the effects of choice attributes on hotel choice: A discrete choice experiment

This study used discrete choice modeling to identify the moderating role of context in the effects of cognitive, affective, and sensory attributes on hotel choice. To evaluate a hotel consumer's choice for attributes in a different choice context (leisure vs. business), a stated preference experiment based on D-optimal design was conducted using both a multinomial logit (MNL) model and a random parameter logit (RPL) model. The results show that while leisure travelers' choices for family vacation trips were more influenced by price and overall atmosphere than were business travelers', business travelers put an emphasis on room quality and comfort when on a business trip alone. The study demonstrates the trade-offs made by leisure and business travelers when choosing a hotel through discrete choice modeling. The findings provide hotel managers with important insights and implications in terms of target segmentation, product development, and marketing communication strategy.