MOOCs in tourism and hospitality: a review

ABSTRACT

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have grown significantly and globally in less than ten years. However, practices and research in tourism and hospitality MOOCs remain nascent. This study proposes the MOOC Components Framework with six groups of course components: scaffolding, lectures, networking, collaboration, assessment, and affirmation. Drawing on this framework and a case study method, the study analyses 18 tourism and hospitality MOOCs from higher education institutions. The results highlight that: tourism and hospitality MOOC offerings lack diversity; the forum is the preferred communication tool; social media are comparatively underused; the discontinuity of MOOC instructors needs attention; and finally, littless multilingual support is available.     

The willingness of heritage tourists to pay for perceived authenticity in Pingxi,Taiwan

Authenticity plays an important role in heritage tourism. Previous studies have employed secondary data to assess the value of authenticity. This study goes further and empirically measures the intrinsic value of authenticity directly by integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study was conducted in Pingxi, Taiwan and used open-ended questions to guide respondents to construct their own perceived authenticity. The respondents were asked whether they were willing to pay for what they had described. Four hundred and three valid responses were obtained. By using the dichotomous choice method and logistic distribution function, the willingness to pay (WTP) was estimated as NT$233. The study compiled 15 items to measure perceived authenticity based on previous literature and on-site visitor surveys. Three factors were derived by employing exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analyses. Discriminant analysis showed that intra-personal authenticity has a greater impact on WTP than object-related and inter-personal authenticity. This study might be the first empirical study to propose three independent concepts of authenticity, and to estimate the intrinsic value of perceived authenticity. The paper concludes suggestions that contribute both to theories of authenticity and applications by heritage management agencies.     

To go or not to go: travel constraints and attractiveness of travel affecting outbound Chinese tourists to Japan

The fast growth of the Chinese economy has transformed Chinese outbound tourism into one of the major players in the tourism industry worldwide. However, Chinese outbound tourists may still encounter travel constraints in some countries, such as Japan, which has had a close and complicated relationship in history with China. This study adopted the qualitative approach by applying focus group and in-depth interviews to investigate and triangulate the travel barriers affecting Chinese outbound travel to Japan. The findings indicated that domestic nationalist sentiment played a key constraining role in influencing Chinese outbound travel decision-making, followed by current political factors, while quality products and service, as well as social environment encouraged tourists to travel. This research also found that visitors and non-visitors have perception differences in terms of travel barriers and attractiveness of travel.     

The contribution of vacations to quality of life

The contribution of vacations to people’s life satisfaction and Quality of Life (QOL) has recently attracted substantial attention among tourism researchers. Yet, most QOL scales do not include vacations: 7% explicitly measure vacations whereas 42% only include items relating to vacations within the broader Leisure domain. Leisure and vacations, however, differ substantially in nature with leisure referring to regular home-based activities and vacations being infrequent leisure activities away from home. As a consequence of the common amalgamation of vacations with leisure, there is limited knowledge about the specific contribution of vacations to people’s QOL. The present study (1) presents empirical evidence for the contribution of vacations to QOL, (2) determines the extent of this contribution, and (3) investigates variation in the extent to which vacations contribute to the QOL of different people. Results indicate that vacations contribute to the QOL of the majority of people, are as important a QOL domain as Leisure and People, and that QOL means different things to different people at different points in their life, representing an individual and dynamic concept.     

A preliminary study on customer expectations of hotel hospitality: Influences of personal and hotel factors

This study attempts to explain the influence of personal and hotel factors on the expectation level of hotel hospitality as well as to propose a scale to measure commercial hospitality for hotel services. A total of 101 local and international hotel guests were involved in the study. The results revealed that the expectations of hotel hospitality are influenced by personal factors such as gender, purpose of stay, nationality, and private domain of hospitality. The hotel's star rating is the only hotel factor that might have strong association with hotel hospitality.     

Impact of financial/economic crisis on demand for hotel rooms in Hong Kong

The main objectives of this study are (1) to identify the factors that influence the demand for hotel rooms in Hong Kong and (2) to generate quarterly forecasts of that demand to assess the impact of the ongoing financial/economic crisis. The demand for four types of hotel room from the residents of nine major origin countries is considered, and forecasts are generated from the first quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2015. Econometric approaches are employed to calculate the demand elasticities and their corresponding confidence intervals, which are then used to generate interval demand predictions. The empirical results reveal that the most important factors in determining the demand for hotel rooms in Hong Kong are the economic conditions (measured by income level) in the origin markets, the price of the hotel rooms and the ‘word of mouth’ effect. Demand for High Tariff A and Medium Tariff hotel rooms is estimated to have experienced negative annual growth in 2009 due to the influence of the financial/economic crisis, whereas that for High Tariff B hotel rooms is thought to have grown in 2009 after having decreased in 2008. The demand for tourist guesthouse rooms is expected to be the least affected by the crisis. Overall demand is predicted to recover gradually from 2010 onwards.     

Assessment of the Partnership Quality between Travel Agencies and Health Care Organizations on the International Medical Tourism Market in Taiwan

The medical tourism literature lacks insight into related issues of these types of partnerships. Those that integrate multiple perspectives into one research framework are especially rare. This study evaluated and compared the influence of external environment uncertainty, trust, and resource dependence perspectives on the quality of interorganizational partnerships in the international medical tourism market and quantified these elements using external environment uncertainty assessment on the international medical tourism development. The research sample was based on a survey from 161 travel agency managers in Taiwan. This study found that external environment uncertainty has direct negative impact on trust and resource dependence has a positive influence on interorganizational partnership. Moreover, trust has a significant impact on partnership quality while resource dependence does not. Therefore, medical travel agents should extend their network of trustworthy health care organization partners in order to improve performance, decrease their self-risk, collect information, and avoid missed opportunities.     

基于车辆数据的k近邻联合概率数据关联算法

在交通场景中采用一些预警措施能够有效地减少交通事故发生。例如,对车辆轨迹进行跟踪并预测车辆的驾驶行为,就是一个常用的预警方法。在对车辆进行跟踪的过程中,数据关联是很重要的部分,它可以对车辆的观测点和轨迹进行关联,从而更新车辆的轨迹,完成跟踪过程。在此背景下,提出了一种新的数据关联算法,即k近邻联合概率数据关联算法(k Nearest Neighbor-Joint Probability Data Association,kNN-JPDA)。实验结果表明,该算法能够较好地解决在交通场景下车辆数据的数据关联问题,在精度以及运行效率方面都有所提高。     

简论人才流动政策的调整

人才单向流动不利于经济社会科学发展,规范和引导政府、用人单位、中介组织和人才的行为,建立互相衔接的社会保险制度,改革档案管理制度,打破身份界限,改革住房制度,建立统一的人才市场,完善人才中介服务等,确保人才“全方位自由流动”,实现人才与组织及其工作岗位的合理配置,是推动经济社会可持续发展的根本要求。     

我国基础养老金财务平衡与可持续性分析——基于财政合理支付视角

在老龄化危机持续加深背景下,现行基本养老保险制度未来是否具有足够的债务偿付能力,关系社会稳定与发展大局.本文通过建立基础养老金长期收支模型分析了收支平衡状况,并从财政合理支付角度对其财务可持续性进行了动态评估.结果显示,政府每年约拿出财政收入的2.34％即能保持基础养老金支付需要,据此提出政府必须建立起稳定的养老金财政补贴机制等建议,以应对潜在的缺口危机.