Strategic Issues in the Australian Tourism Industry: A 10-year Analysis of National Strategies and Plans

Predicting future events, trends and issues that may affect the tourism industry is not an exact science. Already the 21st century has seen a number of significant, radical and unexpected events, including September 11, SARS and, more recently, the worldwide economic downturn and natural disasters, such as earthquakes and cyclonic activity. Within this increasingly volatile global landscape, more than ever there is a need for the tourism industry to embrace a disciplined, structured and continuous approach to identifying and monitoring future trends and issues to inform policymaking and strategic planning. Yet in Australia it has been claimed that a preoccupation with marketing and short-term tactical planning, at the expense of long-term, strategic thinking, has led to limited planning perspectives for tourism. To explore these claims, this paper reports on a content analysis of 28 Australian national-level tourism strategic planning documents across a 10-year period (2000–2009 inclusive).     

Achieving relational outcomes in casual dining restaurants through consumer commitment

The purpose of the study is to identify how we can achieve positive word-of-mouth (WOM) and share of purchases through consumer commitment in casual dining restaurants. This study proposes the theory of organizational commitment and the framework of the relationship development process as the theoretical foundation to identify the antecedents of consumer commitment (i.e. identification, switching costs, and satisfaction), and tests the role of consumer commitment between its antecedents and relational outcomes (i.e. share of purchases and positive WOM). The results of the study support that commitment plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between its antecedents and share of purchases. In addition, commitment exerts a full mediating role on the effects of identification and switching costs on positive WOM intentions, while it plays a partial mediating role between satisfaction and positive WOM intentions. Managerial implications are discussed to maximize delivering relational outcomes based on consumer commitment and its antecedents.     

Dyadic Exploration of the Relationship of Leisure Satisfaction,Leisure Time,and Gender to Relationship Satisfaction

The stress suppressing model proposes that sufficient resources reduce stress. The stress exposure model suggests that certain factors expose individuals to more stress. The current study tested these two models by assessing the within-person lagging effect of leisure time on perceived severity of daily stressors. Analyzing eight-day diary data (N=2,022), we found that having more leisure time than usual on a day reduced perceived severity of daily stressors the next day and that the decrease in severity became larger with further increase in leisure time. Additionally, the effect is much stronger among busy individuals who usually had little leisure time. The findings demonstrated an accelerated suppressing effect that differed between-person, and the lagging effect affords stronger implication for causality than correlational analysis.     

The influence of guarantees,active requests to voice and failure severity on customer complaint behavior

Anecdotal evidence suggests that service guarantees and requests by service workers to complain encourage customers to voice following failure, while holding negative word of mouth and exit at bay. However, empirical support for these tactics is limited. To address this deficiency, we conducted an experiment examining the influence of these devices on customer complaint behavior (CCB) across restaurant failures of varying severity. Findings suggest that offering a guarantee, regardless of it being unconditional or combined, encourages voice. Failure severity had the strongest influence on CCB, and it interacted with both active request and guarantee type in influencing exit. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

Linkages between creativity and intention to quit: An occupational study of chefs

Human resource issues persist as a vexation for tourism managers. Foodservice is a core component of many tourism destinations and attractions yet the foodservice labour market is historically volatile. This article reports on the findings of a job satisfaction survey of chefs working in Australia's tourism and hospitality industry. This study's aim is to determine empirically whether there is a positive relationship between creativity and job and occupational satisfaction. A customised instrument is designed to mitigate the shortcomings of generalising scale items and findings of generic job satisfaction surveys to a single occupation. This paper focuses on identifying a range of dimensions of job satisfaction and occupational attributes connected to creativity and its associated dimensions. Reliability and data reduction analyses were conducted to validate the construction of composite ‘creativity’ variables for the basis of further comparisons. The findings indicate that the sample ranks creativity more highly than working conditions and that there is a clear relationship between creativity and both organisational and occupational satisfaction. Results vary as a function of gender. In conclusion, theoretical and practical implications for occupational and tourism management are discussed.     

Continued decline for ethnic minorities in the transition?

Using three Bulgarian cross‐sectional household surveys from 1986, 1993 and 1997, this essay shows that the mean log wage differential between ethnic Bulgarians and Turks increased from 0.1615 in 1986 to 0.2874 in 1993 and again to 0.4075 by 1997. Bulgarian gains over ethnic Turks in the early transition are related to both changes in the relative returns to skill and changes in the composition of demand for goods and services as the country moved toward a market economy. The Turks began the transition with fewer years of education than the Bulgarians, and began to close the education gap over this time. The Bulgarians, however, were more likely to have obtained more general secondary and university degrees than the ethnic Turks – degrees that, in contrast to technical or vocational degrees, are experiencing increased remuneration in the transition. With more of an asset that has become more valuable, the ethnic Bulgarians improved their relative position.     

The effects of analyst forecasts and earnings trends on perceptions of management forecast credibility

We examine whether analyst forecasts influence investors’ perceptions of the credibility of a good news management earnings forecast. We hypothesize that the effect of analyst forecasts will depend on whether the analyst forecast confirms management’s forecast and the extent to which management’s forecast is consistent with the prior earnings trend. Findings indicate that the positive effect of a confirming analyst forecast is greater when the management forecast is trend inconsistent than when it is trend consistent. The negative effect of a disconfirming analyst forecast does not differ based on management forecast trend consistency.     

Investor reactions to derivative use and outcomes

How do investors evaluate managers who choose whether or not to use derivatives once the outcomes of those decisions become known? Different theories offer different predictions, and we test these in three experiments. Results show that investors are more satisfied with firm managers and assign a higher value to firms when managers use derivatives (that address firm risks) than when they do not. This result occurs even though we hold constant the economic differences typically present when comparing derivative use versus non-use (that is, ex ante risk and ex post outcome), suggesting that investors reward firms that use derivatives. Additional tests reveal that investors believe that managers who use derivatives in these situations exhibit a higher level of decision-making care than those who do not use derivatives. We also document that these inferences about greater decision-making care do not apply to the speculative use of derivatives. Overall, our study adds to our understanding of how investors judge companies that use derivatives, given the resulting outcomes of such use.     

Getting consumers to eat more whole-grains: The role of policy, information, and food manufacturers

The 2005 Dietary Guidelines were unique because they offered quantitative recommendations for consumption of whole-grains. This case study examines the hypothesis that the changed recommendations were responsible for the recent increase in retail sales and consumption of whole-grain food products. We find that release of the Dietary Guidelines and related media attention did increase availability and sales of whole-grain foods. A large impact on consumption occurred through reformulation of existing products, induced by competition among food suppliers. This study reveals the key role product reformulation plays in inter-firm competition and in realization of dietary changes recommended by public policy.     

Implementing Evidence-Based Practice in Health Care

This article summarizes recent research on the effectiveness of efforts to implement evidence-based health care. The authors conclude that the evidence in support of single interventions being effective in bringing about practitioner change is weak at best. The authors give examples and evaluative comments on more complex organizational and systemic interventions that are aimed at changing clinical practice, and discuss some of the barriers to their application.