Exploring the factors of gastronomy blogs influencing readers’ intention to taste

In recent years gastronomy blogs providing an important channel for electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) to take place are quickly becoming a popular new source of reading material for blog readers. However, little is published to understand what factors from gastronomy blogs play critical roles in predicting readers’ intention to taste local food and beverages. Based on reviewing previous studies, this study developed a research model containing three main categories of variables: (1) inspiring taste desire (i.e., experiencing appeal and generating empathy), (2) forming taste awareness (i.e., providing image, delivering knowledge and presenting guides) and (3) facilitating interpersonal interaction (i.e., social influence and cybercommunity influence), and suggested that these potential variables can influence readers’ behavioral intention to taste directly. Data collected from 329 respondents in Taiwan were tested against the research model using the structural equation modeling approach. The results indicated that excluding delivering knowledge, all the other proposed variables (i.e., experiencing appeal, generating empathy, providing image, presenting guides, social influence and cybercommunity influence) were the critical components significantly influencing online readers’ intention to taste, and the proposed model accounted for 70% of the variance. The findings of this study will not only help hospitality and tourism practitioners in understanding the perceptions of potential customers, but also provide insights into research on technology's influence on hospitality and gastronomy.     

Hawker centres as tourist attractions: The case of Singapore

Cooked food hawkers are a sometimes neglected part of the tourism and hospitality industries, yet can play a significant role as a visitor attraction which offers both inexpensive food and insights into the contemporary society and heritage of the destination. Hawking is ubiquitous in much of South East Asia where it is integral to the life of local residents and this includes Singapore, the focus of the paper which also comments on the relationship between food and tourism in general. The cooked food hawker sector in the city state is described and the results of a survey of tourists about their experiences of dining at hawker centres are presented. Responses appear favourable on the whole, but some concerns are identified. It seems that hawkers may have unrealised potential as an amenity for tourists, although widening their appeal and use is a challenging task compounded by the threat to the survival of hawker centres from urban development pressures.     

Gender discrimination in haute cuisine: A systematic literature and media analysis

Haute cuisine has become an essential activity within the hospitality industry, and gastronomy plays a vital role in tourism economics, receiving significant attention from the media each day. Thus, women’s access to the culinary profession and their barriers to progress in the field to chef status have been profusely studied within the academic literature and covered by global media. This article will analyze and compare how academia and media have dealt with the issue of gender discrimination in haute cuisine, whether their conclusions are similar, and what they outline; it is a relevant contribution with an original literature analysis on gender and haute cuisine.     

Effects of ethnic restaurant experience on prospective tourist intentions: Mediating role of food image

Study examines the ethnic restaurant experiences' unique outcomes to determine whether they extend to prospective tourism experiences. To further understanding of the ethnic restaurant experience's effects, the experience's influence on perceptions of a destination's food image and mediation effect of this image between the experience and tourist intentions are also examined. Uncertainty reduction theory and cultural loss concept offered a suitable theoretical background for formulating the hypotheses. The sample comprises 387 ethnic restaurant diners in Antalya, Turkey. Hypotheses are tested using PLS-SEM with the hierarchical component modelling approach. Findings help to identify ethnic restaurants' consumer as potential gastronomy tourists since they have desires to taste ethnic food in its original place, where it is called local. Favourable ethnic restaurant experience also provides useful informational inputs for forming food image to reduce perceived risks and to decide whether it is worth visiting the destination from which the ethnic restaurant originates.     

Sustainability through food and conversation: the role of an entrepreneurial restaurateur in fostering engagement with sustainable development issues

Food justice, food cultures and people's engagement with healthy food production and consumption are key contemporary concerns, with a growing sustainable hospitality and tourism literature. Efforts range from narrowly focused initiatives, such as promoting organic produce and fair trade, to more holistic challenges to current systems through initiatives like the slow food and locavore movements, which may represent systemic alternatives. However, little analysis is available on how cafés and restaurants might become sites for experimentation in profitable and just sustainable hospitality, and places for sustainability engagement and education. Focusing on the evolution of a sustainable café in Adelaide, South Australia, this article explores how one entrepreneurial restaurateur uses his café to engage customers and community in a collaborative conversation about sustainable development, food, hospitality and tourism, helping transform our food culture and even lifeways. Our findings indicate the value of deep local embedding as a pathway to meaningful sustainability. The study offers insights into how hospitality and tourism can contribute to dialogues on alternative consumption which may offer visionary pathways to alternative futures. It also explores the role of pioneers in sustainable business and hospitality, their drivers and their views. A forthcoming global research initiative is discussed.     

Total Quality Management and Tourism and Hospitality Education

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the application of quality management concepts in relation to the provision of tourism and hospitality education, with a specific focus on Thailand. The key quality concepts, namely quality control, quality assurance, quality audit and “Total Quality Management” (TQM) are identified, and the applications of these concepts in the provision of tourism and hospitality education are discussed. The paper explores three main themes. The first is to examine how quality issues have been applied to tourism and hospitality education. Second, the paper outlines the concepts of quality management, which represent the key element of a TQM strategy to implement conformance to standards and quality improvement. The third theme discusses the specific case of Thailand, drawing on research in its early stages which examines quality management in tourism and hospitality education in Thailand. An outline of the nature of tourism and hospitality education in Thailand is provided, followed by a synopsis of the significant challenges facing Thai tourism and hospitality education. A procedure for examining quality in tourism and hospitality education in Thailand is proposed.     

Robot chefs in gastronomy tourism: What's on the menu?

The use of robots in hospitality and tourism is rapidly evolving. Restaurants progressively include robots as part of their staff, not only as waiters but also as chefs. The robotization of tourism and gastronomic experiences is a vital challenge that both service providers and customers need to cope with. Within this context, the paper investigates the perceptions of tourists towards the use of robots in restaurants. Drawing from a qualitative research design and built on a grounded theory approach, the results reveal the opportunities derived from the implementation of robots in hospitality and tourism. On the other hand, tourists also perceive the growing presence of robots in food services as a form of dehumanization of the gastronomic experience. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed with regard to a new experiencescape that is increasingly dominated by human-robot interactions.     

Examination of the adoption of augmented reality: a VAM approach

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing importance and popularity of augmented reality (AR) technologies in hospitality and tourism, little research to identify the degree of user adoption, particularly in the business travel sector, has been conducted. Based on a questionnaire administered to 161 stakeholders attending two international conferences in Hong Kong, user experiences and adoption intention were examined and analyzed through structural equation modeling. Adoption was explored using a value-based adoption model. AR adoption is affected by its perceived value to which the benefits of usefulness and enjoyment contribute, along with newly identified components of technicality and captivating inputs.     

Therapeutic benefits of dining out,traveling, and drinking: Coping strategies for lonely consumers to improve their mood

The people in modern societies have found to be more lonely due to longer life span, rising single-person household, and disconnected interpersonal networks. Recently has research begun to shed light on how this phenomenon influences consumers’ compensatory consumption to cope with negative moods caused by loneliness. The hospitality and tourism industries need a better understanding of the ways in which their products and services (e.g. dining-out, traveling, and drinking alcohol) provide opportunities for consumers to cope with such loneliness. Thus, this study explored the benefits of hospitality and tourism experiences for individuals who dine out, travel, and drink as a means of coping with feelings of loneliness. Hence, the goals of the current study are threefold: (1) to examine if loneliness influences consumers to engage in consumption in order to cope with their feelings, (2) to compare age-related differences in coping strategies related to loneliness, and (3) to investigate the therapeutic benefits of dining out, traveling, and drinking across loneliness levels. The results of this study suggest that traveling and dining-out can provide significant ‘therapeutic benefits’ by repairing feelings of loneliness.     

When users decide to bypass collaborative consumption platforms: The interplay of economic benefit,perceived risk,and perceived enjoyment

Bypass, which consists of intentionally circumventing a collaborative platform in the final transaction phase, represents a threat for commission-based platforms. This paper examines collaborative consumers' motivations to bypass and proposes a conceptual model explaining bypass intention. Multigroup analysis of 549 UK respondents (310 accommodation-rental users; 239 ride-sharing users) using PLS-SEM shows that perceived enjoyment and perceived risk are strong predictors of bypass intention. Our findings also confirm the significant impact of economic benefit influencing bypass decisions, both directly and indirectly, by reducing perceived risk and increasing perceived enjoyment. This study extends the literature on collaborative consumers’ bypass motivations, identifying an interplay of utilitarian motive (economic benefit), hedonic motive (perceived enjoyment), and perceived risk. It also contributes to the field of misbehaviors in hospitality and tourism, by showing empirically the link between pleasure and deviance. Finally, it helps platforms to determine the types of exchange that are more prone to bypass.     

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.     

Customer-robot interactions: Understanding customer experience with service robots

Technology developments relating to automation, artificial intelligence, and robots have transformed the landscape of service industries, including hospitality and tourism. Through a qualitative content analysis of online review data, this study seeks a comprehensive and grounded understanding of customer experience with service robots in hospitality and tourism settings. The analysis identified four categories of customer experience: (1) sensory experience (verbal language, physical appearance, kinesics, and paralanguage), (2) cognitive experience (utility, cuteness, autonomy, coolness, interactivity, and courtesy), (3) affective experience (enjoyment, novelty, negative emotion, and satisfaction), and (4) conative experience (approach/resistance). Results led to the development of a framework representing customer experience with service robots and to insights into customer-robot interactions. Most customers described positive experiences, and while service robots performed well in delivering functional and emotional value, social interaction skills need improvement.     

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.     

Digital identity and the construction of distinctiveness by American wineries

Hospitality and tourism entrepreneurs need to balance uniqueness with conformity. Organizational identity theory proposes that an organization’s central and enduring attributes make it distinctive while helping observers categorize it. Since distinctive value creation is central to success in hospitality, this study asks how entrepreneurs in hospitality and tourism construct distinctive identity claims and how these identities help firms create distinctive value. The research context is the American winemaking industry, where entrepreneurs strive to present their wineries as destinations. The data comes from the digital identity statements of 314 members of the WineAmerica trade association. We identify seventeen identity themes and several clusters of themes that demonstrate how entrepreneurial claims shape distinctive organizational identities and contribute to distinctive value creation.     

“Couchsurfing has made me a better person and the world a better place”: the transformative power of collaborative tourism experiences

ABSTRACT

Presented as an alternative form of tourism, Couchsurfing is a predominantly non-commercial accommodation type where hosts offer a “couch” to travelers through a hospitality network. Couchsurfing.com is considered as an icon of the sharing economy and more specifically of shareable tourism. This article provides a deeper understanding of couchsurfers’ motivations and shared values. Through an empirical qualitative study, we discuss the transformative power of Couchsurfing experiences, the underlying transformational processes, conditions, and socio-psychological and behavioral consequences. We also discuss the findings’ implications for society, businesses, and tourism in general.     

‘What’s on your Bucket List?’: Tourism,identity and imperative experiential discourse

The concept of the Bucket List has achieved rapid and widespread recognition. This article makes an original Critical Discourse Analysis of the Bucket List as a cultural phenomenon that provides important insights into the interrelation between identity and tourism. The Bucket List is used to communicate specific suggestions of desirable tourism experiences and uses what can be termed the experiential imperative discourse, where the language, tone and framing of the text positions the experience described as essential and obligatory. Ultimately, the Bucket List discourse serves to prescribe culturally specific ideas of what constitute ‘good’ tourism experiences and is imposed on individuals who are prompted to desire a constantly renewing range of tourism experiences.     

Hospitality management education in Greece An exploratory study

The importance of hospitality management education has been recognized all over the world for many years. Formal education plays a crucial role in the provision of skilled and competent human resources. Traditional tourism destination countries like Greece have developed tertiary hospitality education systems aiming at satisfying the needs of the tourism and hospitality industry. This paper examines the hospitality management education system in Greece and reports the initial findings of a qualitative research project undertaken for an assessment of the Greek system. The concept and the need of hospitality management education are explored and their struggle for identity is described. Furthermore, the graduates’ views on the hospitality education that they had received are examined through a large number of in-depth interviews. Finally, based on the research findings, a number of conclusions are drawn and specific suggestions for the future of the hospitality education in Greece are proposed. These proposals are reflected in the numerous current developments taking place in Greece as well as in the suggestions for further research.     

Tourist Motivation Among Backpacker Visitors to the Wet Tropics of Northern Australia

Motivational responses of four hundred backpacker visitors to the Wet Tropics region of Northern Australia were examined in conjunction with enjoyment expectations, preferences for the company of other tourist and negative experiences encountered while at the destination. Levels of Maslows (1954) hierarchy of needs motivations. Positive motivations were inferred form anticipated positive experiences, whereas negative motivations were inferred from anticipated negative experiences at this destination. Most likely positive motivators were friendships/relationships and personal fulfillment whereas most likely negative motivators involved accommodation and food/drink. Examination of patterns of association between motivational levels and enjoyment levels, preference for company and reported negative experiences suggest important theoretical associations. Implications of these findings for this growing segment of visitors have been explored.     

Academic foundations for hospitality and tourism research: A reexamination of citations

A 1999 study looking at the research relationships within and between the disciplines of hospitality and tourism is revisited. When compared to the 1999 study, the current study reveals that there is more within-discipline citing, suggesting that both the hospitality and tourism academic areas are maturing, and not relying as heavily on other disciplines. Further analysis of the citations outside hospitality is done to elicit a more in-depth picture of where hospitality and tourism citations are coming from. Implications are discussed.