Stand your ground: The case for publishing in hospitality and tourism journals

The hospitality and tourism field has been struggling for academic legitimacy since its founding. Despite the impressive growth of research in the field, as well as the publication of a respectable number of high-quality scientific journals, voices are being heard from the community of hospitality and tourism researchers calling for more focused efforts on publication in journals of more established and traditional disciplines. It is argued here that this demand may have negative implications for research in the field, on the contribution of academia to the industry, and on the advancement of the career of hospitality and tourism scholars. The scientific community should reverse this trend and instead concentrate its efforts on developing the field by promoting publishing in hospitality and tourism journals in order to promote relevant, up-to-date, and innovative research for the benefit of science and industry.     

An overview of Internet-based surveys in hospitality and tourism journals

Survey research has reached an era when the Internet is commonly used as a research tool in different fields of study. Yet, the use of this method in tourism and hospitality research has not been fully explored. This study provides a state-of-the-art assessment of journal publications in the past ten years to reveal how the Internet has been incorporated into tourism and hospitality research. Various aspects of online research in tourism and hospitality are identified via reviewing relevant articles retrieved from the EBSCOhost.     

TOURISM AND HOTEL COMPETITIVENESS RESEARCH

Competitiveness has been a subject of study in the manufacturing and related sectors since the early 1990s. However, only recently have some researchers started to examine the tourism and hospitality competitiveness, both conceptually and empirically, with a particular focus on tourism destinations and the hotel industry. The goal of this article is to review the published studies on destination and hotel competitiveness, provide critiques, and point out future directions in tourism and hotel competitiveness research. Such a review shall provide researchers with a good understanding of the current status of competitiveness research and with a vision for advancing the existing knowledge of destination and hotel competitiveness.     

Revisiting importance–performance analysis

As a tool to develop marketing strategies, importance–performance analysis has gained popularity among hospitality and tourism researchers for its simplicity and ease of application. This article revisited several conceptual and methodological issues inherent, but often overlooked, in using the importance–performance analysis framework. The author conducts a critical review of past studies, reanalyzes published data to raise questions, and develops suggestions for future hospitality and tourism research applying importance–performance analysis. The primary goal of this article was to stimulate further discussion and research on the validity and reliability of widely adopted importance–performance analysis.     

The Role of Functional and Wellness Values in Visitors' Evaluation of Spa Experiences

Ever since the introduction of commercial software, software piracy has been an issue in most, if not all, regions. To address this issue, most official authorities have been trying to stop the spread of pirated software in their own jurisdictions. In spite of the generally agreed importance of intellectual property rights, hospitality and tourism researchers have rarely, if ever, investigated the issue of software piracy. The absence of published articles on the issue of software piracy is particularly true in the context of hospitality and tourism education. This paper reports on a study that examined the perceptions and experiences of hospitality and tourism students on software piracy. On the basis of the empirical results collected from hospitality and tourism students in Hong Kong, it is concluded that most students have used or purchased pirated software. In addition, low prices and easy accessibility are the major reasons for the widespread use of pirated software.     

State-of-the-art social customer relationship management

The rise of social media challenges the traditional notion of customer relationship management (CRM) and has led to the emergence of social CRM. This study collected and content-analyzed recent literature along the intersection between social media and CRM, to present an overview of the social CRM research in tourism and hospitality. Findings indicate that most studies focus on the context of hotel and restaurant. These studies lack a solid theoretical underpinning and tend to adopt qualitative research methods. Five research themes are identified from supply-focused research, while two themes are observed from demand-focused research. Overall, uneven attention has been paid by researchers in the field, with more emphasis on supply than on demand sides. According to the findings of the literature review, a conceptual framework and a research agenda are presented. Theoretical and practical implications to the tourism and hospitality industry are also discussed.     

A review of experiments in tourism and hospitality

Well-designed and executed experiments prove cause-and-effect relationships. The ability to draw causal conclusions is critical to knowledge development in any field of research. In this article, we discuss the benefits of experimental designs over alternative research approaches for the social sciences, discuss advantages and disadvantages of different types of experiments, review existing experimental studies specific to tourism and hospitality, and offer guidance to researchers who wish to conduct such studies. Properly executed experiments using actual behaviour of real stakeholders as a dependent variable lead to conclusions with high external validity. Our discussion of practical implementation issues culminates in a checklist for researchers. The article launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on experimental research in tourism and hospitality.     

Balanced scorecard in the hospitality and tourism industry: Past,present and future

After its introduction in 1992, the balanced scorecard (BSC) has attracted considerable interest from both scholars and practitioners. This is evidenced by the increasing number of publications addressing BSC and the large number of professional events devoted to it. However, there is little research on BSC in the hospitality and tourism industry. This study aims to contribute towards filling this significant gap through studying 106 top-ranked journal articles on BSC, of which 37 belong to the hospitality and tourism industry. In so doing, the study highlights the research focus that has been placed so far on BSC and examines its trends and the relationships amongst its perspectives. It also provides valuable input to identify gaps currently impeding BSC development in the hospitality and tourism industry, recommends future research opportunities intended to improve understanding and practice of BSC along with building up on emerging research topics like sustainable tourism and new tourism management.     

Event management research over the past 12 years: What are the current trends in research methods,data collection,data analysis procedures,and event types?

The meetings, expositions, events, and conventions sector has gained recognition as an academic field by growth in higher education programs including courses, programs, and textbooks, as well as research. The purpose of the extant research is to review event, tourism, and hospitality journals from 2004 to 2016 to provide insight into the current state of research in terms of data collection and data analysis procedures. Results can assist researchers identify the type of journal to target for publication with consideration of the type of event, methods, and data analysis procedures.     

Encouraging hospitality guest engagement in responsible action: Building comprehensive theoretical models to support effective action (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

Growing concerns about the state of the global environment and growing awareness of issues related to poverty and economic inequality are putting pressure on both the public and private sector to improve their sustainability performance. Hospitality businesses are at the frontline of such pressures on leisure and tourism consumption. In response there has been extensive adoption of corporate environmental and social responsibility programs in accommodation and food businesses. These programs need both the support of consumers to pay for theses initiatives and their participation in a range of behaviors. The challenge for hospitality managers is how to encourage this guest participation in corporate responsibility programs. The challenge for hospitality researchers is provide guidance to these managers based on sound research guided by appropriate theory. While researchers have begun to respond to this challenge with increasing studies focused on guest participation, the area as whole suffers from a number of misuses of psychological theory. The paper reviews the available studies focusing on their use and misuse of psychological concepts and theories. It then seeks to address these issues by setting out a dual-processing theoretical framework that links different pathways to desired guest participation to their appropriate concepts and theories. The aim is to provide researchers in this area with a better understanding of the core aspects of psychology relevant to this research area. It is hoped that the use of more appropriate concepts and theories will both improve the quality of research in this area and through this, provide more practical recommendations for hospitality managers.     

Campsite choice and the camping tourism experience: Investigating decisive campsite attributes using relevance-determinance analysis

Camping tourism represents a growing part of the overall tourism industry. Despite this fact, this form of tourism has so far been rather neglected by tourism and hospitality research. Using a case study of a major campsite operator in the coastal part of Croatia, this study thus aims to contribute to the understanding of this specific tourist segment. In particular, a relevance-determinance analysis is conducted to reveal most decisive attributes for campsite choice, on the one hand, and for the actual campsite experience, on the other hand. Overall, the results provide valuable insight to practitioners, especially for the purposes of campsite marketing and experience management.     

The interface between hospitality and tourism entrepreneurship,integration and well-being: A study of refugee entrepreneurs

Previous hospitality and tourism entrepreneurship research has emphasized the economic and financial outcomes of entrepreneurship whilst paying less attention to social outcomes. Specifically, minimal academic attention, both in mainstream entrepreneurship research and hospitality and tourism scholarship, has been paid to entrepreneurship as a means to facilitate the integration of refugees and enhance their well-being. To address this gap, this study aims to showcase how entrepreneurial activities in the hospitality and tourism industry contribute to the integration and subjective well-being of entrepreneurs. Drawing on data collected through 38 semi-structured interviews with Syrian refugee entrepreneurs in Turkey and the UK, the findings reveal that several factors influence the contribution of entrepreneurial activities to the integration of entrepreneurs and their families within the host society. Entrepreneurial activities also appear to have positive spillover effects on subjective well-being. This paper offers new insights into the social outcomes of hospitality and tourism entrepreneurship by conceptualizing and empirically supporting the relationship between hospitality entrepreneurship, integration and well-being.     

Research Productivity and Institutional Characteristics of Hospitality and Tourism Programs

Although some prior studies have examined research productivity, little is known about institutional characteristics and their influence on research productivity. The study reported in this article examined the relationship between research productivity and institutional characteristics of faculty composition, supporting staff, and doctoral research among the world's leading hospitality and tourism departments and schools. Empirical findings indicated that while faculty size was positively associated with productivity, a higher composition of senior researchers in the rank of professor tends to yield higher productivity. Similarly, a larger group of supporting staff and the availability of a doctoral program were the significant predictors of research productivity. Another interesting finding was that the autonomy of institutions offering hospitality and tourism programs emerged as another characteristic influencing higher research productivity.     

We are not yet done exploring the hospitality workforce

With the ongoing notices of labour shortage and need to foster inclusion in the hospitality workplace across time and space, this calls for a mindset that is dynamic and accommodative to changes within the tourism discourse. However, this note proposes that this can only be truly fostered when the discourse in the industry is challenged. Specifically, questions need to be raised regarding the role of discourse in shaping the individual as not only an employee but as a hospitality professional or service worker subject. This opens an avenue for further discussions in human resources, organisational behaviour and culture, areas that seem to have been extensively researched. Through the lens of Foucault’s analysis of power, these proposed questions can be answered, however, its applicability has yet to be extended to the literature. Therefore, as hospitality researchers, for the greater good, we are not yet done exploring the hospitality workforce.     

A thematic analysis of crisis management in tourism: A theoretical perspective

The hospitality and tourism industry for a variety of reasons is vulnerable to crises of various origins and scope. Thereby, research regarding crises in this industry has received significant attention among scholars. This study presents the results of a qualitative thematic analysis (TA) of the literature concerning crisis management in hospitality and tourism. A total of 207 research publications from 1986 to 2019 were analyzed. The findings revealed eight major themes that emerged in the literature over time. We critically discuss these themes with suggestions and directions for future research in this area. The study also identifies a shortage of scholarly attempt to conceptualize crisis management and thus explores the sensemaking perspective to shed further light on explaining the themes that emerged in the analysis.     

THE MOBILITIES OF HOSPITALITY WORK: AN EXPLORATION OF ISSUES AND DEBATES

In this paper we highlight the contribution which an understanding of mobilities brings to an analysis of hospitality work. The complex mobilities of hospitality employees are playing an increasing role within global tourism and hospitality sectors. Our discussion explores notions of voluntary mobility as motivated by work and lifestyle factors. We challenge the commonplace conceptualisation of tourism and hospitality employment which has been predicated upon the nature of the work itself rather than on the diverse experience backgrounds; social and geographical origins; and motivating attributes of those who work in the sector. In taking this approach, we question conventional management discourses of hospitality labour processes and illustrate the value of adopting a mobilities framework within tourism and hospitality studies.     

Sustainable hospitality: a meaningful notion?

This paper explores the concept of sustainable hospitality. The relevance and status of this area of enquiry are assessed by discussing the current status of the concepts involved. These discussions are then linked to progress made in sustainable hospitality both in research and practical applications in the hospitality industry. At least six principal schools of thought within hospitality are noted: hospitality science, hospitality management, hospitality studies, the “three domain school”, the systems thinking school and the pragmatic tradition. This complexity and lack of clear definition are problems. The differences between sustainability and sustainable development, and between weak and strong sustainability add further complexities. This paper shows that progress in both sustainable hospitality and tourism has been limited by these problems. A series of technical, ethical and commercial problems are discussed. However, while sustainable hospitality as a research area is still in its infancy, it is concluded that it is very relevant within the wider context of sustainable tourism research, based on its impact and its specific position within the social–ecological–economic systems under investigation. Key areas of future work are suggested, notably to better understand the impacts of hospitality on the triple bottom line, and to explore systems approaches towards implementation.     

Cross-institutional collaboration networks in tourism and hospitality research

This paper examines cross-institutional collaboration in tourism and hospitality research using a co-authorship network model based on papers published in six top-tier tourism and hospitality journals over the past 20 years. Data analysis reveals that multi-author, multi-university studies are the fastest-growing type of authorship structure in tourism and hospitality research. We use several network measures to evaluate the intensity of research collaboration among academic institutions in tourism and hospitality disciplines. Institutions with tourism and hospitality programs worldwide are ranked according to their centricity in cross-institutional research collaboration networks and categorized according to their characteristics in collaboration. The empirical analysis shows significant associations between research performance and a university's centricity position in cross-institutional research networks. Through advanced social network analysis, this study provides new insights into institutional collaboration in tourism and hospitality research over the past two decades.     

A Review of Personality Research in the Tourism and Hospitality Context

Most commentators agree that human relations are central to tourism and hospitality. Different personalities thus display different reactions to the same task. This article provides an overview of prior studies on personality in the context of tourism and hospitality. Using EBSCOHost's Hospitality & Tourism Index, the largest online database for tourism and hospitality research, we analyzed published articles on the topic. Broadly speaking, prior studies can be grouped into the seven dimensions of disposal, biological, intrapsychic, cognitive, social, and adjustment in personality research, plus brand personality. Interestingly, our results show although the Internet has become one of the major marketing channels for hospitality and tourism, only a small number of published articles are related to consumers' online behavior. We thus propose that this area be further researched in the future.