“Pacific Rim: The forefront of international tourism”: Report on the 1997 conference of the international society of travel and tourism educators (ISTTE)

The 1997 conference of the International Society of Travel and Tourism Educators (ISTTE) was held from October 23–26, 1997 in San Diego, California, USA. More than 150 travel and tourism educators and industry professionals gathered at the Mission Valley Hilton Hotel to attend the society's ninth annual event. Delegates represented over 80 tow‐ and four‐ year colleges and universities, private travel schools, and high school in Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United Sates. Also present were representatives of nearly 30 companies from various sectors of the travel and tourism industry. Special to this year's conference was the theme of “The Pacific Rim: Tomorrow‐Today” —a recognition of the region as the fastest growing inbound and outbound market of international tourism. It was the first time the society chose a region as the center stage of its biggest annual event. It also was the first conference held after the society adopted its present name. At last year's conference in Ottawa, Canada, the Society's Board of Directors recommended, and members voted, to add “International” to its original name to reflect the increasing representation of international membership in the organization. This year's conference was presided over by Dr. Kaye Chon, President of ISTTE and Professor of Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston, USA.     

Experienscape: expanding the concept of servicescape with a multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary approach (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

Since Bitner’s (1992) introduction of the servicescape concept, many conceptual and empirical studies have been conducted. Even though a relatively solid theoretical base has been established, the nature of the concept has not been updated with contemporary views on theories explaining behavior of consumers, employees and other stakeholders. Hence, the current study scanned the literature on servicescape and relevant concepts in order to update servicescape. The review of literature resulted in a new term, experienscape that is enhanced with the organizational culture of hospitality and the inclusion of employees, as both internal customers and service providers, as well as other stakeholders. For a comprehensive understanding of experienscape, a multidisciplinary approach is proposed by integrating views and theories from marketing, human resource management, organizational behavior, psychology, social psychology, communication, architecture, environmental design, and other related fields.