Tourism specialization,economic growth,human development and transition economies: The case of Poland

This study examines the relationship between tourism specialization economic growth, and human development in a transition economy. It proffers a conceptual link between tourism specialization and human development through a division of labor framework. Dynamic comparative advantage, Sen's capability approach, and the translog production function characterize the conceptual relationship. The Limited Information Maximum Likelihood (LIML) estimates this relationship's nature in the case of Poland. Tourism specialization has a short-term effect on economic growth and a negative and indirect link to human development. Economic growth seems the channel that supports human development expansion, indicating short- and long-term significant, positive effects. Human capital reveals a U- shape pattern in its relationship with economic growth and human development. The study's implications are two testable propositions and two policy options suggesting tourism specialization's potential impact on private and public incomes, which are relevant developmental channels in transition economies.     

Would you really recommend it? Antecedents of word-of-mouth in medical tourism

Medical tourism (MT) is a valuable component of many national service economies. Understanding the marketing and recruitment of MT patients is therefore an important consideration for MT providers. Research shows that word of mouth (WoM) remains the most important acquisition channel in this sector. Yet, there is only a limited understanding of antecedent factors behind a patient referral. We develop a framework for WoM, finding support for tourism factors, service quality and perceived value as key antecedents on WoM referrals. We further extend the MT literature by integrating a novel perspective on value creation that surfaces the experiences of frontline service providers for the first time. This paper incorporates two complementary studies, one with a focus on value creation, the other on perceived value. By combing the two in a mixed-methods approach, we emphasise the role of service delivery on WoM. Several implications can be drawn from the study's findings.     

Tell us your concern,and we shall together address! Role of service booking channels and brand equity on post-failure outcomes

The extant literature on service failure and recovery has overlooked the post-service failure evaluations when customers interact through different online service booking channels, such as direct websites (Direct) and online travel agents (OTAs). In this study, following the attribution theory and the expectation disconfirmation framework, we analyse the impact of service failure across service booking channels (direct vs. OTA) and its influence on post-service failure outcomes. Besides this, the study also examines the moderating roles of co-created service recovery and brand equity between channel type and post-recovery outcomes. A between-subjects experimental design revealed that when a service failure occurs in a direct (vs. OTA) website, it creates adverse outcomes of higher magnitude. The results also suggest that, in the case of a direct channel, co-created service recovery generates favourable service outcomes when the channel carries low brand equity. However, in the case of an OTA, the use of co-created service recovery works better when that OTA carries high level of brand equity. Further, the results also supported that these post-recovery outcomes are driven by recovery satisfaction and channel engagement. Thus, this study findings offer novel insights into online service recovery literature and managerial practice, primarily for efficient design and execution of recovery efforts across channels.     

Determinants of Innovative Behaviour in the Hotel Industry: A cross-Cultural Study

The present study develops a conceptual framework that sheds light on whether institutional pressures (i.e., normative, mimetic, and coercive) and corporate support can improve innovative behavior across different societies and the moderating role of national cultural dimensions on this link. Our study validated these arguments empirically using data from the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Data were collected and analyzed from 2,618 respondents. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of full-time non-managerial employees selected, from different departments of various four- and five-star hotels across five economically and culturally different societies (UK, UAE, Germany, China, USA). Our results indicated that both institutional pressures and corporate support have positive influence on employees’ innovative behaviour. Furthermore, Hotels in cultures with high levels of individualism and low levels of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity will indicate higher levels of innovative behaviour in response to corporate support programs. While, hotels in nations with high levels of power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity will indicate higher levels of innovative behaviour in response to normative, mimetic, and coercive pressure. These findings provide important implications for innovative behaviour by developing and validating a multilevel model empirically in the hospitality context.     

Collaboration between practitioners and public agencies in preserving and promoting musical heritage in Macao

This study attempts to explore the nature of collaborative relationship between the local government and performers of Cantonese opera in Macao by using in-depth interviews and field trips. Based on the results, a framework has been developed to demonstrate how the local government and performers joint forces to preserve and promote Cantonese opera through tourism. The framework also suggested an approach to balance the power relationship between key players by revealing how the local government and performers interchanged their roles in different areas of the project. The study empirically confirmed the importance of sharing common goals and having sufficient communication and coordination between key players for effective collaboration.     

What kind of marketing distribution mix can maximize revenues: The wholesaler travel agencies' perspective?

This study attempts to identify the variety of marketing channel efficiencies for marketing activities and sets up an optimal marketing distribution mix when using different distribution channels for wholesaler travel agencies. This research examines 12 large-scale travel agencies in Taiwan and offers seven direct and indirect distribution channels in order to establish an optimal marketing distribution mix and identifies the different forms of distribution involved. We also implement the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to prioritize the seven main marketing distribution channels of travel agency: websites, cable TV, radios, professional magazines, retailer travel agencies, strategic alliances, and newspapers. Five criteria are categorized as a distribution channel selection: overall cost of the channel, target audience respondent rate, impression rates, transactional capabilities, and gross profit of the channel. The results show that Taiwan's wholesaler travel agencies adopt the retailer travel agency as their highest priority of channel selection, while travel agency websites hold it as their second priority. Transactional capabilities, gross profit of the channel, and overall cost of the channel are the top three favorable choices among the five criteria considered. This study proposes an innovative hierarchy model of marketing distribution mix to a wholesaler travel agency practitioner when making decisions in order to effectively exploit the different distribution mix, to maximize performances and revenues, and to overcome the traditional experience based on the shortcomings of the selection.     

Hotels’ dependency on online intermediaries and their chosen distribution channel portfolios: Three country insights

New intermediaries are entering the market, challenging the hospitality industry to find an appropriate distribution channel portfolio. This research investigates how many channels hotels in Austria, Germany and Switzerland choose and what role the various channels play. Findings based on 1014 questionnaires reveal an average mix of 8.06 offline and online channel categories. Traditional channels, such as walk-ins and telephone, still play a major role; however, about one fifth of the bookings are completely generated online. On average, 3.61 online travel agencies (OTAs) are used. With regards to OTA penetration, an oligopolistic market structure is prevalent. Swiss and German hotels’ OTA dependency is higher than Austrian's. A series of a posteriori cluster analysis results in four distribution portfolio groups hoteliers choose: multi-channel-, electronic-, real time-, and traditional distributors. Distribution portfolio profiles facilitate learning from strategies used by hotels with certain characteristics such as target group and star-rating.     

How to win the consumer’s heart? Exploring appraisal determinants of consumer pre-consumption emotions

Emotions are key drivers of consumption in the tourism and hospitality sector. Therefore, advancing our understanding of the determinants of consumer emotions is critical for tourism and hospitality marketers to effectively influence consumer affect-driven consumption behavior. However, research on the determinants of pre-consumption emotions remains under-explored. This study aims to fill the research gap and proposes a theoretical framework to explain affect-driven behavior. Grounded on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions, we hypothesize that marketing stimuli are personally appraised based on several dimensions such as novelty and goal relevance. These appraisal dimensions determine the elicitation of positive emotions, leading to behavioral intentions. A total of 655 participants were recruited for an empirical study to test this framework in the context of a tourism event experience. We use an experimental research design to examine consumer appraisals, emotions and behavioral intentions in four conditions: two marketing visual formats (poster vs. video) over two delivery channels (advertising vs. e-word-of-mouth). Research outcomes support the theoretical framework of consumer affect-driven behavior, suggesting that the elicitation of positive emotions beneficially guides consumer behavior in goal striving and novelty seeking. Based on this, emotion-focused marketing implications are recommended, including goal-based segmentation, goal-relevant content development and the use of eWOM as an emotion-enhancing message delivery channel.     

我国旅游业线上与线下企业的竞合理论构建--基于扎根理论的探索性研究

"互联网+旅游"模式的发展与应用,改变了我国旅游市场的结构、实践方式与营销策略,加大了旅游业线上与线下业务的竞争与合作。本文以在线旅行社(线上)与传统旅行社(线下)的竞争与合作问题为研究对象,运用扎根理论分析方法对在线旅行社和传统旅行社的访谈信息进行挖掘,基于竞合二维模型构建竞合理论模型,从竞合的成因、互动与演化等视角,探索竞合过程的"推、拉、阻"等作用力。研究结果表明,旅游企业的战略需求、资源异质性以及风险分摊等因素推动竞合关系的形成和发展,提供综合服务、旅游信息共享、专业人才发展等因素拉动竞合关系演变,利益分配不均、企业文化差异性以及沟通渠道单一或闭塞等因素阻碍竞合关系的深入。本研究首次厘清了在线旅行社与传统旅行社的竞合机制,对实现线上与线下旅游企业的深度融合与互利共赢具有借鉴意义。     

A strategic website evaluation of online travel agencies

Online travel Web sites have been the most frequently visited online information facilities by travelers. To evaluate the effectiveness of a travel Web site, the Web site manager should regularly check whether or not it is fulfilling the objectives that were established for it. This research uses a strategic Web site evaluation framework to introduce a five-stage process for examining the consistency of Web site’s presence and its intended strategies. Two leading online travel agencies with different business strategies are selected to demonstrate methods of implementing a strategic evaluation framework and to compare the evaluation results. A hierarchical evaluation structure is introduced to explicitly delineate the two Web sites’ different strategy intentions and related evaluation criteria. Results show that an individual Web site’s strategy-inconsistent criteria can be easily identified through a gap analysis and criteria performance matrix. A strategy-inconsistent dimension can be discovered through a radar chart analysis of the 4PsC (Product, Promotion, Price, Place, and Customer Relationship) dimensions and a transaction phases analysis.     

The Role of Service Quality,Perceived Value,and Relationship Quality in Enhancing Customer Loyalty in the Travel Agency Sector

Relationship quality is crucial to enhancing a tourist’s loyalty. Little empirical research has been conducted to link service quality, perceived value, and relationship quality to customer loyalty in the travel agency sector. This study attempts to investigate the role of service quality, perceived value, and relationship quality on customer loyalty among tourists. Relationship quality consists of three components: customer satisfaction, customer trust, and customer commitment. Structural equation modeling is used to test the linkages between the six variables that have been identified. Findings reveal that service quality and perceived value of a travel package are antecedent factors to the relationship quality with a travel agency; three components of relationship quality significantly influence a customer’s loyalty to a travel agency.     

Deconstructing the internal structure of perceived authenticity for heritage tourism

Abstract

Although modern society is more inclined to view authenticity from a postmodernist perspective, few quantitative studies on heritage tourism explored existential authenticity in detail. This study deconstructs authenticity into three components – object-related, intra-personal, and inter-personal – and then constructs a complete model by exploring each component’s internal structures, asking to what extent travel motivation is an antecedent and loyalty, a consequence. Data were obtained from 1,088 valid survey questionnaires distributed in Pingxi, Taiwan. Study findings confirmed the reliability and validity of the items used to measure the construct of authenticity. Regarding the internal structure of authenticity, intra-personal authenticity plays a mediating role between object-related authenticity and inter-personal authenticity, and this inter-personal authenticity may be the final value that tourists perceive. Compared with recent related studies, this model more comprehensively explains the degree of variation in loyalty, reflecting its importance for heritage tourism management and marketing. If a destination remains authentic, tourists are willing make a return visit. Authenticity may enable tourism managers to strike a balance between preservation and development when achieving the long-term goal of sustainable development.     

Customer engagement with tourism social media brands

In tourism, customer engagement has been found to boost loyalty, trust and brand evaluations. Customer engagement is facilitated by social media, but neither of these phenomena is well-researched in tourism. This research contributes in two ways. First, we validate the Customer Engagement with Tourism Brands (CETB) 25-item scale proposed by So, King & Sparks (2014) in a social media context, and offer an alternative three-factor 11-item version of the scale. Second, we replicate their proposed structural model, and test our alternative model, to predict the behavioural intention of loyalty from engagement, and to test customer involvement as an antecedent to engagement. Ultimately, we propose a customer engagement scale and a nomological framework for customer engagement, both of which can be applied in both tourism and non-tourism contexts. Managers of tourism brands on social to better assess the nature of customer engagement with the parsimonious 11-item scale.     

Paths to success: Benchmarking cross-country sustainable tourism

Given the complexity of the issues surrounding the concept of sustainable tourism, the current paper tries to provide a unified methodology to assess tourism sustainability, based on a number of quantitative indicators. The proposed methodological framework (Sustainable Tourism Benchmarking Tool – STBT) will provide a number of benchmarks against which the sustainability of tourism activities in various countries can be assessed. A model development procedure is proposed: identification of the dimensions (economic, socio-ecologic, infrastructure) and indicators, method of scaling, chart representation and evaluation on three Asian countries. This application to three countries shows us that a similar level of tourism activity might bring on different sorts of improvements to implement in the tourism activity and might have different consequences for the socio-ecological environment. The heterogeneity of developing countries exposed in the STBT is useful to detect the main problem that each country faces in their tourism sector.     

Advance booking across channels: The effects on dynamic pricing

This research analyzes the effects of advance booking and channel type on hotel rates. While this relationship has been addressed in the literature, most studies take a partial approach by focusing only on one distribution channel or one destination. This study fills this gap by analyzing the price dynamics for four channels and multiple destinations. The data set consists of 39,363 bookings for 1085 hotels over 27 consecutive months. We used two-stage least squares to solve potential endogeneity issues, and the results proved that distribution channel, hotel type and hotel size have an influence on the effect of advance booking on hotel rates. Critical managerial implications are discussed.     

The impacts of tourism on poverty alleviation: an integrated research framework

This paper aims to contribute to the academic research on tourism and poverty alleviation, by providing an integrated research framework on the impacts of tourism on poverty. First, a conceptual discussion is presented in order to understand the potential of tourism to reduce poverty, as well as different approaches to promoting a direct link between tourism and poverty alleviation. Second, empirical studies published between 1999 and July 2014 were critically analysed in order to generate an empirical research framework that embraces the following issues: geographical scope, level of analysis, tourism context, study methods and poverty measure. Moreover, an integrative discussion of the empirical evidence regarding the contribution of tourism to poverty reduction is included. The proposed framework, which is intended to be useful for guiding future empirical research in this field, suggests associations between tourism initiatives, the poverty rate and the economic, socio-cultural and environmental conditions of the poor.     

When family rooms become guest lounges: Work–family balance of B&B innkeepers

Work–life balance is one of the major challenges faced by bed-and-breakfast (B&B) innkeepers due to the lack of spatial boundaries between home and workplace in a typical B&B establishment. Grounded in the work–family border theory, the present research develops a conceptual framework to understand the impact of work–life border characteristics and entrepreneurial motivation on the work–life balance of B&B innkeepers. The findings of an online survey among 369 innkeepers in the United States suggest that border tangibility is positively related to work–life balance and the relationship between the two is fully mediated by work–life integration. In contrast, border strength is negatively related to work–life balance and this relationship is direct and not mediated by work–life integration. Innkeepers can enjoy a higher level of work–life balance by maintaining a tangible work–life border to reduce the level of integration of work and personal life domains. The study also shows that entrepreneurial motivation moderates the relationship between work–life integration and work–life balance such that lifestyle-oriented B&B innkeepers enjoy higher levels of work–life balance than business-oriented B&B innkeepers.     

The Channel That Offers the Lowest Online Room Rates: A Case Study of Hotels in Hong Kong

Online distribution channels increasingly serve as platforms hotels can use to offer competitive room rates to attract price-sensitive customers and maximize yield. Capturing the lowest and highest daily room rates over a 360-day period from five of the most popular online travel agencies, and two batches of data showing the lowest room rates over 28 days from a last-minute bookings website, this study compares the lowest prices offered. The results indicate that no single online channel outperforms the others in any of the hotel star-rating categories, and that the last-minute reservation service provides the lowest hotel room rate across different star ratings.     

Service Fairness,Consumption Emotions,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions: The Experience of Chinese Heritage Tourists

Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory and the justice theory from the marketing and tourism literature, this study attempts to illuminate the embedded impact of tourist experience on overall satisfaction and behavioral intentions in a cognitive-affective-behavioral framework. The findings suggest that service fairness is an antecedent of consumption emotions (positive and negative) that, in turn, influence satisfaction and behavioral intentions in the context of Chinese natural heritage tourism. Notably, the results highlight the mediating role of tourists’ consumption emotions. This article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications to heritage tourism researchers and managers.     

我国旅游酒店组织结构再造研究

旅游酒店的发展不仅需要良好的外部环境,而且需要完善的组织结构,两者的有机结合才能使酒店的整体效能充分发挥出来.本文从旅游酒店内部的组织结构角度分析了我国旅游酒店现存的结构问题以及对其发展的影响,进而借助企业再造理论对传统旅游酒店的组织结构进行再造,在宏观和微观两个层面各构筑起一种适应现代科技的以知识和计算机为纽带的团队型旅游酒店网络组织结构.