The why,how, and what of public policy implications of tourism and hospitality research

We synthesized policy implications of tourism and hospitality research by reviewing 12,269 articles published in 10 leading journals from 2012 to 2021. The most common rationale for policies (i.e., the why) is market failure, while the most typical role of policies (i.e., the how) is to create incentives. In addition, policies are typically hybrid and include suggestions for formal and informal institutional setups (i.e., the what). Because our review revealed that only 114 articles (i.e., 0.93%) included the why, how, and what of actual policies, we offer a theory-based research agenda on policy-making focused on making tourism and hospitality more inclusive and focusing on evolutionary dynamics, providing an understanding of the impact of crises and contemporary solutions, focusing on resilience and institutional complexity, and addressing the actors and time dimension. Our results, combined with those of our suggested research directions, will benefit organizations and society and simultaneously enhance the perceived societal value-added, contributions, and stature of tourism and hospitality research.     

Exploring home-based accommodation operators' responses to Covid-19: Implications of untact hospitality adoption

Unlike the mainstream research conducted on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on both large-scale tourism and hospitality firms, and also at the destination level, the current study focused on home-based accommodations in Iran which have experienced rapid development throughout the country. In-depth interviews with a number (n = 45) of such accommodation operators revealed that due to their perceived high vulnerability to the pandemic and self-protection, they adopted “untact hospitality”, thereby decreasing their direct interaction with guests. Looking through the lens of Protection Motivation Theory, four main themes were explored: motivations to work in the hospitality industry; local accommodation operators' perception of threat; coping appraisal; and protection behavior intention. The results revealed that many local ventures were unable to survive, leading to the bankruptcy of such units throughout the country. With few exceptions, the public sector's responses to the pandemic, and the hospitality sector's measures, were generally unsuccessful in managing the health crisis. The current study contributes to the risk, crisis preparation and crisis management of hospitality organizations at the local level in the context of their health protection motivation behavior.     

The impact of women's empowerment on sustainable tourism development: Mediating role of tourism involvement

Women's empowerment has been prioritised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) recently, in line with the Saudi Vision 2030; albeit, women are still underrepresented in tourism industry. However, if robust women's empowerment is consolidated into planning and implementation processes, tourism can act as a vehicle for encouraging gender parity. This study examines the direct impact of women's empowerment (psychologically, politically, and socially) on sustainable tourism development (STD) and the indirect impact through tourism involvement. A total of 1000 women involved in the tourism industry in KSA filled out self-administrated questionnaires, analyzed using SPSS™ and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS. The results suggest that tourism involvement partially mediates the relationship between psychological and political empowerment and STD. Nonetheless, it fully mediates the relationship between social empowerment and STD. Several implications of the results for both policy-makers, tourism planners and tourism scholars are discussed.     

Predictors of Service Effort

ABSTRACT

Improving service quality will continue to be a vital goal for hospitality and tourism organizations in the new millennium. As service worker performance directly impacts customer's evaluation of quality, further investigation of methods of improving performance are necessary. Service effort is a construct that has received little attention in the literature, but may be a significant factor in linking employee attitudes and customer perceptions of service quality. This exploratory study tested three popular managerial constructs to determine the extent to which they predict service effort. Using data from 331 service workers from two cruise line operations organizations, motivation, organizational commitment and job satisfaction were regressed against service effort. Results indicate that organizational commitment was the greatest predictor of service effort, followed by motivation. One dimension of job satisfaction (satisfaction with company), failed to yield a significant relationship with service effort, while satisfaction with supervisor yielded a slightly negative coefficient. Implications for hospitality and tourism managers and organizations are discussed.     

Recent Tourism and Hospitality Research in China

ABSTRACT

Although China's tourism has become a vital part in the world tourism market, little is known internationally about tourism and hospitality research in China. This study reviewed 500 articles published from 2000 to 2005 in China's leading tourism research journal, Tourism Tribune, and provided an overview of China's recent tourism and hospitality research. Content analysis results showed that tourism research themes in China primarily focused on tourism attraction/resources development and management, tourism planning, and tourism industry development issues. Most research under review used a qualitative approach, while 15% of the articles employed some quantitative methods. Articles using advanced statistical techniques were scarce.     

Tourism Education in Canada

SUMMARY

This paper explores the past, present, and future directions of tourism education in Canada, from its origins in the late 1960s until today. The study reviews the development of tourism education over four decades, with a particular focus on developments in Ontario. The influence of tourism organizations, and the impact of legislation on tourism and hospitality education in developing future industry leaders capable of sustaining and growing Canada's tourism industry are discussed. The paper also reflects on the current status of tourism education in Canada, the lack of government support for tourism research initiatives, and the loss of research talent to overseas universities. The research discovered a paucity of past historical documentation of tourism education in Canada and this paper is perhaps the first concerted effort to chronicle the 40-year cumulative history of formal tourism education in Canada.     

Does workplace fun matter? Developing a useable typology of workplace fun in a qualitative study

A fun work environment is a positive atmosphere for organizations to attract and retain employees. This study identifies the significant factors of workplace fun and develops a useable typology of workplace fun activities in the hospitality industry. A qualitative case study with grounded theory approach was used by conducting interviews with ten hotel human resource (HR) practitioners in the People's Republic of China. The results identified four “S”s of workplace fun factors, namely: (1) Staff-oriented workplace fun, (2) Supervisor-oriented workplace fun, (3) Social-oriented workplace fun, and (4) Strategy-oriented workplace fun. This study provides a roadmap to guide future hospitality management research in workplace fun domain.     

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.     

Leveraging human-robot interaction in hospitality services: Incorporating the role of perceived value,empathy, and information sharing into visitors’ intentions to use social robots

Social robots have become pervasive in the tourism and hospitality service environments. The empirical understanding of the drivers of visitors' intentions to use robots in such services has become an urgent necessity for their sustainable deployment. Certainly, using social androids within hospitality services requires organisations' attentive commitment to value creation and fulfilling service quality expectations. In this paper, via structural equation modelling (SEM) and semi-structured interviews with managers, we conceptualise and empirically test visitors' intentions to use social robots in hospitality services. With data collected in Singapore's hospitality settings, we found visitors' intentions to use social robots stem from the effects of technology acceptance variables, service quality dimensions leading to perceived value, and two further dimensions from human robot interaction (HRI): empathy and information sharing. Analysis of these dimensions' importance provides a deeper understanding of novel opportunities managers may take advantage of to position social robot-delivered services in tourism and hospitality strategies.     

Towards decolonising tourism and hospitality research in the Philippines

In recent years, scholars have focused their attention on demarcating the neocolonial situations that permeate the tourism and hospitality academy. The ‘critical turn’ in tourism studies called for the decolonisation of tourism and hospitality research. In this paper, I explore and challenge the state of tourism and hospitality research in the Philippines, by analysing the works of Filipino tourism and hospitality academics. Through a systematic quantitative literature review, I identify the research themes investigated by Filipino scholars on Philippine tourism and hospitality and examine the methodologies and epistemologies employed in the selected research outputs. The findings indicate that colonial legacies and neocolonial situations are strongly present in Philippine tourism and hospitality knowledge production. To challenge these scenarios, I suggest a decolonial agenda informed by Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology), a native epistemological perspective. This article serves as a contribution to the epistemological decolonisation of tourism knowledge production in Asian contexts.     

Justice and trust’s role in employees’ resilience and business’ continuity: Evidence from Egypt

Resilience is increasingly recognized as a means of reducing the effects of disasters on tourist destinations. However, there is limited understanding of the contextual factors that promote resilient attitudes and behaviors among employees of tourism and hospitality organizations, which in turn lead to business recovery and success. Using a capital-based approach, this study explores the impact of employees' resilience – as manifested by hardiness, resourcefulness and optimism– on two indicators of business continuity: perception of job insecurity and creative performance. The mediating effects of distributive justice and trust in the organization are also tested to establish how they affect this relationship. Data were gathered from 960 employees in tourism and hospitality organizations affected by terrorist attacks in Egypt. Using results obtained through structural equation modeling, we demonstrate a direct relationship between employees' resilience and business continuity, with distributive justice and trust partially functioning as mediators. The implications and limitations are discussed.     

Hospitality and Tourism Curriculum Development

Abstract

This project presents a case study illustration of a qualitative research approach for enhancing an undergraduate curriculum of a hospitality and tourism management program at a large university. Four focus groups consisting of current students, alumni, faculty, and industry practitioners provided extensive information about past and current performance of the travel and tourism program. The data collected indicated areas of concern in three different levels: the university, the hospitality and tourism program, and the university's relationships with external constituencies. Recommendations and suggestions for curriculum enhancement took into consideration the perceptions of the focus groups' participants.     

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS IN HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM: A REVIEW OF PUBLICATIONS FROM 2005 TO 2007

The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. Grouping the findings into the categories of consumers, technologies, and suppliers, the article sheds light on the evolution of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries. The article demonstrates that IT is increasingly becoming critical for the competitive operations of the tourism and hospitality organizations as well as for managing the distribution and marketing of organizations on a global scale.     

The business case for diversity management in the hospitality industry

Societal and regulatory pressures increasingly encourage firms to invest in and manage workplace diversity. In service industries like hospitality and tourism (HT) where customer interface and service is salient, diversity management assumes even greater importance than compared to other industries. Yet the link between investment in diversity and its relationship with financial performance is not known. This study compares diversity management between HT and non-HT firms, and finds that HT firms manage diversity by taking more initiatives than other firms. More importantly, it finds that investment in diversity translates into superior financial performance when measured by Tobin's Q and firm credit rating.     

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).     

Green and non-green outcomes of green human resource management (GHRM) in the tourism context

Globally, organizational espousal of green and sustainable operations has been critically facilitated by green human resource management (GHRM) initiatives, especially in the tourism and hospitality sector. This research is an effort to examine the nuances of employees' responses to GHRM and contribute to this field by examining how narcissism, an individual trait and boundary condition, influences GHRM's relationship with employees' green (voluntary and task-related practices) and non-green outcomes (task performance and job satisfaction). Our hypotheses, grounded in social identity and trait activation theories, were tested with data obtained through a time-lagged two-wave survey of 219 UK-based hotel employees via the Prolific Academic platform. Analysis revealed significant associations between GHRM and all employee outcomes. Narcissism was shown to have a significant moderating effect on GHRM's associations with both green and non-green (task performance) behaviors. Our results imply important understandings for the advancement of theoretical knowledge and practical implementation of GHRM.     

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.     

Perceptions of determinants of job selection in the hospitality and tourism industry: The case of Korean university students

ABSTRACT

This study explores the key factors influencing potential employees in the hospitality and tourism industry and examines whether causal relationships between behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control influence students' job selection. The study suggests that the career decision-making process is related to job selection. A total of 307 responses were analyzed. The results explain individual students' attitudes toward a behavior and perceived behavioral control in the context of their job selection. Attitudes toward a behavior and job selection had significant effects on career decisions. On the other hand, opinions of significant others had no significant effect. Perceived behaviors required to decide on jobs had a significant effect on job selection intentions. Students with internship experience were likely to form positive attitudes toward the hospitality and tourism industry, suggesting internships to be a useful source of a stronger relationship between the industry and job aptitudes of students in hospitality and tourism programs. The results have important implications.     

Relevance and Quality in Australian Tourism Higher Education

Abstract

Partnerships between educators and industry professionals can facilitate students' tourism career opportunities. Considering this, a mail-out questionnaire was undertaken to assess the attitudes and perceptions of tourism educators (n = 56) and tourism professionals (n = 100) on tourism education issues. Results indicated that one-quarter of professionals believe university tourism majors provide graduates with a competitive advantage and both groups consider tourism/hospitality, marketing and management as important business majors. Competencies in logical thinking, social interaction, tourism knowledge and concepts, and generic skills are also considered important by both groups with specific workplace competencies and professional experience considered relatively less important by educators (p < .05). In conclusion, communication networks jointly facilitatedby academicsand industry are recommended.     

Undergraduates’ perceptions of tourism and hospitality as a career choice

This study explored undergraduate tourism and hospitality student's views of the industry as a career choice. Three hundred and seventy-nine tourism and hospitality students, from eight Australian institutions, completed a questionnaire rating the importance of 20 factors in influencing their choice of career, and then the extent to which they believed tourism and hospitality, as a career, offers these factors. A number of factors have been identified as being significantly different. From the results it is clear that students generally do not believe that a career in tourism and hospitality will offer them the factors that they find important.