Development and validation of the hospitality emotional labor scale

This paper describes the development and validation of a 19-item instrument (hospitality emotional labor scale, HELS) for assessing employees’ perception of emotional labor in hospitality organizations. Three studies were conducted to purify the scale items, examine the scale's dimensionality, and to evaluate the scale's reliability, factor structure, and validity. The internal consistency coefficients from the three studies, ranging from .69 to .88, evidence the reliability of the HELS. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential applications of the scale.     

Measuring the experience of hospitality: Scale development and validation

This paper identifies what customers experience as hospitality and subsequently presents a novel and compact assessment scale for measuring customers’ experience of hospitality at any kind of service organization. The Experience of Hospitality Scale (EH-Scale) takes a broader perspective compared to existing scales, which predominantly measure hospitable behavior of service employees and are specifically developed for organizations in the hospitality industry. A thorough approach containing two qualitative and two quantitative studies resulted in the thirteen-item EH-Scale. The scale measures three experiential factors of hospitality: the experience of inviting (open, inviting, freedom), the experience of care (servitude, empathy and acknowledgement), and the experience of comfort (feeling at ease, relaxed and comfortable).     

Changing tires on a moving car: the role of timing in hospitality and service turnaround processes

Corporate turnaround processes consist of two main strategies: retrenchment and recovery. Whereas retrenchment focuses on efficiency and cost reduction, recovery entails strategic repositioning for long-term growth. Prior research has emphasized the timing of turnaround strategies as critical for the overall turnaround success and proposed a sequential or simultaneous timing of retrenchment and recovery. However, a sequential timing of turnaround strategies may have important disadvantages in the particular context of the service sector, given that it may quickly lead to staff demotivation, declining service quality and loss of customers.This research investigates the timing of retrenchment and recovery activities in service industry turnarounds with a multi-method approach. 35 service industry turnarounds in the German-speaking markets of Western Europe (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) were analyzed. Based on the results of the first study, the research was complemented with a qualitative study of six turnaround cases in the Swiss hospitality industry. The converging evidence from both studies suggests that retrenchment and recovery activities interact in predicting the performance of service turnarounds. This suggests that a simultaneous turnaround process provides a more adequate timing for turnarounds in the specific service environment. The findings have important implications for turnaround theory and for managerial practice in service turnarounds.     

Dimensions of Chinese culture values in relation to service provision in hospitality and tourism industry

Factor and reliability analyses were employed in this exploratory attempt to investigate and refine the structure and dimensions of Chinese cultural values (CCVs) in relation to service provision. Based on the results of factor analysis, CCVs could best be conceptualized as a five-component construct that influences the attitude or behavior of employees in providing service. These five factors were identified as follows: Integration 1 (attitude towards work); Integration 2 (attitude towards people); moral discipline; status and relationships; and moderation. The identification of these dimensions has two major implications to human resource development and service management practice in the hospitality and tourism industry. First, Chinese cultural values play a critical role in determining specific interventions, challenges and barriers in service organizational management. Second, given the profound influence of Chinese cultural values on service provision, international tourism and hotel managers, particularly in human resource development, should realize the importance of ensuring that Western management practices are adopted critically in Chinese organizations. Given the limited amount of research on this topic, the findings generated from this study are very important in guiding future research and providing insights into an area that deserves more academic attention.     

A bibliometric analysis of trust in the field of hospitality and tourism

The emerging field of trust has evolved dramatically with an increasing number of academic publications in this area. However, there is a lack of better clarification to draw a global picture of scientific knowledge, from a statistical perspective, using the three structures of knowledge: conceptual, intellectual, and social, to obtain a structured overview of its characteristics, identify dynamic aspects and find intellectual representations. This paper presents a new insight into scientific production through bibliometric (Bibliometrix) and network (VOSviewer) analysis, not previously fully clarified in hospitality and tourism. A total of 305 articles published between 2004 and 2020 were analyzed, covering 580 authors, 19 journals, and 43 countries. This research’s main findings showed that trust is one of the most decisive variables in the digital market, and keywords such as satisfaction, loyalty, service quality are closely related. The results provide clues for further investigation in this field.     

Visual representation of knowledge networks: A social network analysis of hospitality research domain

Intellectual relationships and collaboration networks are the basis for the development of a knowledge domain. The visual representation of such “knowledge networks” contributes to the overall understanding of intellectual collaborations in a particular knowledge domain. Based on the co-authorship data from recent journal publications over a period of five years, the authors applied social network analysis to explore the network structures and identify their network properties in the hospitality research domain. The analysis revealed the core and peripheral networks where the power law distribution was observed on the pattern of publishing academic papers. The overall network was further examined by nine research streams in both “global” and “contextual” views to understand a broad variety of the collaboration patterns of hospitality researchers.     

Knowledge agents as drivers of environmental sustainability and business performance in the hospitality sector

This study examines the role of knowledge agents as key enablers in the process of creating and updating the environmental knowledge base of a firm and, in doing so, having a positive effect on business performance. From the perspective of a hotel as the most important cog in the machinery of the hospitality sector, knowledge agents are those individuals who can provide information and knowledge that enables the firm to deal with environmental issues effectively. The paper describes an empirical, longitudinal study of 87 organisations in the Spanish hospitality industry. The results highlight the importance of the relationship between knowledge agents and environmental knowledge for business performance. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the role of knowledge agents is also relevant for the future management of the environmental knowledge base of a firm within the hospitality sector.     

Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility in tourism: Development and validation of an efficient measurement scale in the hospitality industry

This article aims at developing an efficient measurement scale for corporate social responsibility in the tourism industry, given the contextual character that is recognized in the practice of this construct. Indicators were generated on the basis of a literature review and qualitative research. To assess the reliability and validity, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis were carried out. Results show a multidimensional structure of this construct—including economic, social, and environmental issues. This study contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field of social responsibility through its practical application regarding concepts of sustainable development which have mainly been theoretical. The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for many helpful comments and suggestions. E-mail: shumookh333alghamdi@hotmail.comView all notes     

The impact of changes in household vacation expenditures on the travel and hospitality industries

Two large tourism industries, travel and hospitality, are strongly affected by changes in household demand for vacations. In recent years, rising income and declining prices per unit of quality have led to changes in patterns of household vacation consumption. To understand the impact of these changes on the travel and hospitality industries, we develop a theoretical model distinguishing between travel and on-site expenditures and apply it to Israeli data. We find that under certain circumstances, the changes in income and prices are responsible for a shift toward multiple, short vacations. This trend can be a boon to the travel industry but a disadvantage for the hospitality industry. Both industries are expected to face a rise in the demand for high-quality products.     

Thirty years of research on tourism and hospitality management in China: A review and analysis of journal publications

The tourism industry in China has undergone rapid development since 1978 and is foreseen as being the world's largest tourism market by 2020. However, no comprehensive review of literature in this context has been completed, and international academics have little understanding of China tourism research. This paper aims to provide an overview of 119 articles selected from six leading English language academic journals published from 1978 to 2008. Content analysis points to the evolving trend in Asian universities in terms of journal contributions. Consumer behavior has gained popularity as a research topic, and will likely remain as a prevalent research theme in the near future. A tendency toward multiple-authorship, rather than single authorship, and more sophisticated methodological procedures has also been found. Future analysis may focus on including other forms of publications and Chinese language journals to capture the full picture of China tourism.     

Impacts of positive and negative corporate social responsibility activities on company performance in the hospitality industry

In spite of growing concern for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in various industries including the hospitality industry, the relationship between CSR activities and financial performance is a rarely examined subject in the hospitality context. Especially, research measuring the separate impacts of positive and negative CSR activities on companies’ financial performances remains, as yet, unconsidered. Thus, this study examines different impacts of positive and negative CSR activities on financial performance of hotel, casino, restaurant and airline companies, theoretically based on positivity and negativity effects. Findings suggest mixed results across different industries and will contribute to companies’ appropriate strategic decision-making for CSR activities by providing more precise information regarding the impacts of each directional CSR activity on financial performance.     

The contributions of economics to hospitality literature: A content analysis of hospitality and tourism journals

This paper aimed to develop a concrete understanding of economics topics and methodologies that have been applied to hospitality research and to suggest areas for further research. Content analysis of 292 full-length articles was performed. The results showed that the contributions of economics to hospitality literature were largely empirical and microeconomics-related. Most of the research topics focused on market analysis, which involves demand and supply modelling and price determinants, followed by performance analysis, involving efficiency and productivity studies. Limited contributions of macroeconomic topics to hospitality were determined, highlighting the lack of studies on the impact of government or public policies on the hospitality industry. Moreover, the application of game theory to market structures was found to be limited, creating a vacuum in terms of understanding the competitive and cooperative behaviours of hospitality firms. As a contribution to the literature, the study provides suggestions for future research.     

Effect of consumer sentiment on hospitality expenditures and stock returns

Given the importance of consumers to the U.S. economy and especially to the hospitality industry, we explore how consumer sentiment (i.e. confidence in the economy) affects consumption expenditures and stock returns in the hospitality industry.We find that not only does consumer sentiment partly predict changes in future consumption expenditures, but changes in consumer sentiment are contemporaneously related to hospitality industry stock returns. More importantly, our results indicate that changes in consumer sentiment can partly predict changes in stock prices of hospitality firms, an indicator of firm performance. The predictive ability of consumer sentiment can thus be useful to managers in business forecasting, planning, and strategizing for profit maximization.     

Asymmetric effects of tourist arrivals on the hospitality industry

This study makes a unique contribution to the hospitality literature by examining the asymmetric effects of total tourist arrivals in six segments of tourist arrivals (pleasure, business, visiting relatives, conference, study, and others) on Taiwan’s hospitality industry. Regression test results confirm that the contribution of the overall tourist arrivals and both pleasure and visiting relatives segments to hospitality industry growth is not asymmetric, as it is found in periods of expansion and contraction. The beneficial effect of the business segment on hospitality industry growth is asymmetric, existing only in periods of business cycle expansion. However, the conference, study, and other segments make no significant contribution to hospitality industry growth. The study’s valuable policy implications offer guidance to Taiwan’s tourism authorities, hospitality business owners, and managers.     

Factorial validation of hospitality service attitude

Numerous studies have shown that service attitude is a cornerstone of the client's perception of service quality. However, little research has explored the construct of service attitude from the customers’ perspective. This study collected data from two sets of samples consisting of 448 customers from international hotels in Taiwan. Through a rigorous process, the results testify service attitude, the most frequently mentioned sub-dimension of interaction quality, and conclude its four dimensions: Problem-solving, empathy, enthusiasm, and friendliness. Implications for practical applications and research limitations are also provided.     

Exploring employees’ perceptions of costs and benefits of unionization in the hospitality industry

There is scant research on the impact of unionization on hospitality employees’ job security, health, and working conditions. This research explores employees’ beliefs of costs and benefits of unionization in hospitality organizations given that previous research has mainly focused on its influence on the firm and the industry. The findings of this study suggest that unionization can present a unique set of challenges both for line-level employees and managers. The ‘it’s not my job’ attitude associated with unionization can have a dampening impact on employees’ future career opportunities. Future research needs to consider the long-term consequences of unionization on employees.     

Understanding the impact of COVID-19 intervention policies on the hospitality labor market

Using new high-frequency data that covers a representative sample of small businesses in the United States, this study investigates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting state policies on the hospitality industry. First, business closure policies are associated with a 20–30% reduction of non-salaried workers in the food/drink and leisure/entertainment sectors during March-April of 2020. Second, business reopening policies play a statistically significant role in slowly reviving the labor market. Third, considerable differences exist in the impact of policies on the labor market by state. Fourth, the rise of new COVID-19 cases on a daily basis is associated with the continued deterioration of the labor market. Lastly, managerial, practical, and economic implications are described.     

Towards a theoretical model of technology adoption in hospitality organizations

Technology is an important strategic asset for hospitality organizations to improve organizational performance and strategic competitiveness. However, adoption and diffusion of technology are complex processes, which are affected by a number of internal and external factors. As a result, understanding the factors affecting a hospitality organization's technology adoption behavior is of paramount importance to both practitioners and academia. This study proposes a model that describes the process of technology adoption in hospitality organizations. Specifically, two modifications of the existing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) have been proposed in order to capture the adoption behavior at the organizational level.