Travel frequency of seniors tourists

Current demand for tourism is characterized by more frequent, shorter trips throughout the year. Such trends may have adverse effects on the hospitality industry but benefit the travel industry. Most current literature assumes that the variables that determine travel participation are identical to those that influence travel frequency, though there is no evidence to support this assumption. Therefore, the current study seeks to identify variables that influence travel frequency among Spanish senior tourists, who represent a key target market for the tourism industry. The results specify that gender, self-perceived economic status, and self-perceived time available variables strongly determine Spanish seniors' travel frequency.     

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.     

Modeling Tourist Flows to Indonesia and Malaysia

Summary

The purpose of this study was to examine the major factors that influence the flow patterns of tourists from six important tourist-generating countries to Indonesia and Malaysia. The primary determinants included in the demand models were income, prices, and time trend. Two models that employed different indicators for the price variable were estimated; one with exchange rates in addition to relative prices, whereas the other included only an exchange rate adjusted-relative price variable. Annual time-series data covering the period 1980 to 1997 were used for estimation. The results generally indicated that the factors provide reasonably good explanations for the demand for Indonesian and Malaysian tourism. The measure of thejoint effect of the changes in exchange rates and relative prices also seems to be a better indicator for the price variable for both destination countries. The study has important marketing implications for the tourism industries in Indonesia and Malaysia.     

Modeling domestic holiday tourism demand in Australia: Problems and solutions

An econometric model is very useful for understanding the underlying relationship between tourism demand and economic variables such as income and travel prices. However, a long time series horizon of data is essential to run an econometric model that is consistent with economic theory. Although time series data on the number of domestic trips and visitor nights in Australia are available since 1978–79, breaks in the time series in different years have made it difficult to estimate a domestic holiday demand model. It is because the data series in different periods are not directly comparable. In this study, a simple data adjustment technique has been used to obtain comparable data series. Among several econometric demand models, a single equation multivariate time series demand model in a double log linear functional form was found to be the most appropriate and practical model to estimate and analyze the demand parameters of domestic holiday travel in Australia. However, the model with variables in level terms was observed having the “spurious regression problem” which has been corrected using the cointegration and error correction mechanisms. The estimated income and price elasticity of domestic holiday travel demand are consistent with economic theory and therefore can be used for forecasting and other purposes.     

中国城市居民旅游需求函数的实证研究

旅游需求问题是旅游研究的核心问题之一,中国居民旅游需求函数是旅游需求问题研究的基础,旅行成本模型广泛地被用于估计居民旅游需求函数。文章基于停留时间内生的旅行成本模型,在考虑游客动态出游行为的情形下,使用中国39个城市2000~2007年间国内旅游抽样调查数据,采用广义矩估计方法对中国居民旅游需求函数进行了估计。研究表明,旅行成本、时间成本和居民收入是影响居民旅游需求的关键因素;旅游需求收入弹性的绝对值大于旅行成本弹性的绝对值,城市旅游产业发展的居民收入激励政策较之于成本竞争策略更有效;旅游需求的旅行成本弹性和时间成本弹性差异显著,减少旅行成本政策较之于缩短旅行时间政策更能提高城市的旅游收入;旅游需求和停留时间的影响因素存在异同,扩大旅游需求和延长停留时间的选择面临"两难",但也可"两顾"。     

旅游产业的区域集聚、收敛与就业差异:基于分省面板的说明

本文利用1992-2005年分省面板数据分析了中国旅游产业,主要是饭店业和旅行社业的区域集聚,以及在此过程可能出现的收敛和发散;研究发现分省数据无法有效提供产业的分布对就业的显著影响,但是,分区域(东部、东北、中部和西部)的数据表明,1992-2001年旅游产业的集聚总体上呈现发散态势,而2002年之后则呈现收敛态势,并且显著地支持就业增长的假说.最后,根据这些结论提出合理的政策建议.     

中国旅游业产业关联的定量分析

本文利用<2002年中国投入产出表>定量测度旅游业对国民经济发展的地位与作用,并提出相应的政策建议.研究结论如下:(1)旅游业对国民经济的推动作用远大于受到国民经济发展后的拉动作用;(2)我国旅游业对交通运输、住宿业和餐饮业的直接拉动能力最大,但非基本旅游消费占旅游消费的比率比较低,我国旅游消费还有很大增长空间;(3)旅游业是劳动密集型产业,"乡村旅游"能就地转移大量农村富余劳动力,这对构建和谐社会、促进社会主义新农村建设将发挥重要作用;(4)我国旅游业发展八分靠国内旅游,二分靠国际旅游,旅游业发展的重点应该放在国内旅游上.     

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on domestic tourism: A DEMATEL method analysis on quarantine decisions

Countries' most effective methods to reduce the impact of outbreaks are quarantine the regions during the pandemic periods. Quarantine decisions during a pandemic directly affect the hospitality industry. There is no universal guideline regarding the quarantine decision during a pandemic. There is a gap in the literature on making the right quarantine decisions to decrease the negative effect of a pandemic on the hospitality industry. To fill this gap, this study uses a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to help countries for quarantine decisions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the critical hospitality industry indicators is the inter-regional travel flow between regions for local tourism. Data from the household domestic tourism survey obtained from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) is used to acquire the number of people entering and exiting among regions. This study's findings indicate that Istanbul has an essential impact on Turkey's rest. The results also demonstrate that the DEMATEL method provides convenient solutions for quarantine decisions during a pandemic. The DEMATEL application results concerning the COVID-19 pandemic effect might shed light on the hospitality industry’s prospects and challenges. This study's findings might be adopted to prepare the hospitality industry for the COVID-19 pandemic and similar pandemic.     

Operations management perspectives and the hospitality industry

This paper examines the links between operations management principles developed in manufacturng industry and problems presented by service industries, such as the hospitality industry. The value and applicability of O.M. perspectives is discussed and several examples of recent and potential application are given.     

An investigation of the mean reversion of hospitality stock prices towards their fundamental values: The case of Taiwan

This paper tested the mean reversion behavior of stock prices in the hospitality and other industry sectors towards their fundamental values, namely earnings per share (EPS) and dividend per share (DPS). Cointegration test results showed that DPS is not a good proxy of fundamental values of stock prices in all sectors, while EPS can serve as a good proxy of fundamental values of stock prices only in the hospitality and construction sectors. Further, although hospitality stock prices have diverged away from their fundamental values from time to time, there exists an error correction mechanism in the market, which adjusts hospitality stock prices to return to their fundamental values. We also found that hospitality stock prices driven by their EPS are due to less noise trading and small size in the hospitality industry. Lastly, empirical findings suggest that hospitality stock investors should pay more attention to the underlying performance of hospitality stocks in terms of their earnings per share.     

Exploring tourists’ stress and coping strategies in leisure travel

Leisure travel can mediate daily stress, but also provoke stress. Tourists experience multiple stress during their vacations. The aim of this study was to identify what types of stress tourists encounter during their travel experiences and what strategies they use to cope with stress. Using semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the study findings reveal that tourists encounter four major types of stress (i.e., service-provider-related stress, traveler-related stress, travel-partner-related stress, and environment-related stress) during their vacations and use many strategies (i.e., problem-focused and emotion-focused coping) to cope with stress. These findings not only contribute to tourism research by documenting specific types of stress in the travel context and exploring new insights into ways of coping with stress, but also provide suggestions for how tourism and hospitality professionals should modify programs/experiences in response to tourists’ stress and the need to cope with stress during travel experiences.     

Pooling international tourism in Western Europe

This paper examines potential improvements in measures of international travel demand elasticities by pooling cross sections and time series of travel receipts. International travel receipts for 18 European countries are pooled and estimates of elasticities with respect to income, exchange rates, relative prices, transport costs, and number of terrorism events are computed. Indexes are developed for the purpose of measuring and aggregating transport costs and terrorism. The results show that the responses to changes in these variables are significantly different across countries. When the countries are constrained to have the same elasticities, but the constants are allowed to be different, it is found that all variables affect tourism in the expected direction and are statistically significant.     

Impact of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of households on demand for Food Away from Home in the United Arab Emirates

Using a random sample of 485 household from Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi, the study estimates household demand for Food Away from Home (FAFH). The study uses household production model to estimate the demand for FAFH. The estimated income elasticities for FAFH are positive and elastic implying that growth in expenditure on FAFH outpaces growth in income. Urdu speaking have the highest growth in expenditure on FAFH as their income grow, followed by Emiratis, English and Arabs. As compared to Emiratis, Arabs and English spend significantly less amount on FAFH while Urdu speaking spend significantly higher amount. The expenditure on FAFH in popular restaurants is statistically less as compared to Asian restaurants. Hence, the industry should expect a growth in demand for FAFH especially keeping in view the expanding Emirati economy.     

Consumer Confidence Regarding the Safety of the US Food Supply

ABSTRACT

This study assessed the perceptions of Kentucky consumers regarding the safety of the nation's food supply. Data were collected through a telephone survey of 728 respondents. Overall, most consumers were very or somewhat confident in the nation's food supply. Significant differences were noted among consumers based on age, gender and household income. The most likely locations for food safety problems were identified as food processing plants, followed by restaurants. Respondents that were most confident in the nation's food supply believed food poisoning occurred less frequently than those who were not confident in the food supply. Those consumers who were very confident and somewhat confident in the food supply had a significantly different perception of health risks in food from germs, pesticide residues and preservatives than those who had no confidence in the food supply. Respondents with someone in the household working in the foodservice industry were not significantly different in their confidence of the nation's food supply, or in their opinion of where food safety problems occur, than those who did not. Implications for the foodservice and hospitality industry are discussed.     

Key Managerial Accounting Skills for Lodging Industry Managers: The Third Phase of a Repeated Cross-Sectional Study

This study is the third phase of a repeated cross-sectional study that explores the current rankings of important accounting skills to lodging managers and the changes in the importance of accounting skills to lodging managers over time. In this study, as with two prior studies, financial executives were asked to rate the importance of a list of managerial accounting skills used by hotel general managers. The top three managerial accounting skills were the operating budget, the income statement, and analysis of variances. This study can provide a better sense of the perception of importance of accounting skills utilized by lodging managers. It will be useful for hospitality educators in designing the curriculum for managerial accounting courses to meet the expectations of the current hospitality industry.     

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 exploration of hotel reference prices under dynamic pricing scenarios and different forms of competition

The reference price, used by consumers to evaluate market prices, has tremendous relevance in dynamic pricing. Reconciling current heterogeneous theories and studies on reference prices, this paper analyzes the impact of hotel price sequences on consumers’ reference prices through a lab and a field experiment. Experiment 1 tests the importance of retrospective price evaluations, while Experiment 2 evaluates the impact of three forms of competition: (i) simultaneous behavior, where firms adjust prices simultaneously; (ii) leader–follower behavior, where one firm acts as the leader; and (iii) independent behavior, where each player takes its rival's strategy as given and seeks to maximize its own profits. The results show that consumers decrease their reference price when competing hotels adjust their prices simultaneously. Relevant managerial implications are drawn for the hospitality industry, which is affected by the presence of online travel agencies that announce the daily rates offered by each competitor.     

Student career prospect and industry commitment: The roles of industry attitude,perceived social status,and salary expectations

This study examines the effects of students' perceptions of the nature and social status of work in the tourism and hospitality industries, and of their salary expectations, on their attitudes toward career prospects and employment intention. Results based on a sample of tourism and hospitality students in a major Asia Pacific travel destination indicated that the perceived nature of the work had no significant relationship with career prospects; however, nature of the work was a significant factor contributing to the perceived social status of the industry. In addition, social status had an effect on the students' perceptions of the career prospects, and perceived career prospects was a significant determinant to students' commitment to the industry. The author further explores the moderating effect of salary expectation and discusses theoretical and practical implications of the results. Findings of this study provide a fuller understanding of industry commitment and its antecedents.     

Recreation vehicles : A perspective

The growth and popularity of recreation vehicles in the United States and other countries has implications for the travel and tourism industry. Owners of these vehicles require no separate lodging facilities while traveling and rarely patronize hotels or motels. They often perceive that they spend less for their vacations by staying at travel parks and campgrounds, but survey results and comparative cost analysis reveal that they spend more than automobile travelers when total fixed and variable costs are taken into account. Recreation vehicle (RV) preferences by income category suggest alternative modes of recreation travel and a vacation life style which has considerable appeal. This “RV life style” is characterized by a strong desire to experience the outdoors and socialize with other campers while still retaining the comforts and conveniences of a familiar domicile. Limiting characteristics include the provincial nature of recreation vehicle travel and the impact of mandatory fuel conservation measures.     

U.S. tourism in Mexico: An empirical analysis

This study estimated demand functions for tourism by U.S. residents in Mexico border areas, the Mexican interior, and overseas. There was no evidence that U.S. tourists substitute Mexico for more distant destinations as transportation costs rise. Border tourism is income elastic when the share of U.S. income of the border states is held fixed. Tourism in the Mexican interior is also income elastic. Tourism along the border is price elastic, while tourism in the interior is elastic with respect to U.S. and overseas prices but inelastic with respect to Mexican prices. The rise in the share of the Mexican interior in U.S. overseas tourism is not related to price factors. Recent devaluations of the Mexican peso are unlikely to provide benefits to the Mexican tourism industry.