Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Innovations is the research proceedings of the SECSA Federation of International Council of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education.
ICHRIE-SECSA 2020 Conference Proceedings
Chief Editor and Reviewer Lionel Thomas, Jr. PhD, MPM, CDM, CFPP Associate Professor International Hospitality, Hotels and Event Management Donald R. Tapia School of Business Saint Leo University, FL ICHRIE-SECSA Director of Research
Assistant Editor Dr. Andrea White-McNeil, Ed. D., CHE, CHIA Assistant Professor Bob Billingslea School of Hospitality Management Bethune-Cookman University, FL ICHRIE-SECSA Director of Education
Special Thank You to: Dr. Martin O’Neill, Horst Schulze Endowed Professor of Hospitality Management and Head of Department Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management, Auburn University for hosting our 5th Annual SECSA Conference. A special thank you to Dr. Imran Rahman (host conference chair) for his time, effort, and dedication to ensure a successful conference.
Cover Art by Shaniel Bernard, Graduate Student, Department Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management, Auburn University
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
ICHRIE-SECSA BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2019-2020
Immediate Past President President Vice-President Miranda Kitterlin-Lynch, PhD Ruth Smith, EdD Faizan Ali, PhD Associate Professor & Coco-Cola Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Endowed Professor Bob Billingslea School of College of Hospitality & Chaplin School of Hospitality & Hospitality Management Tourism Leadership Tourism Management Bethune-Cookman University University of South Florida Florida International University, FL [email protected] Sarasota-Manatee, FL [email protected] [email protected]
Secretary Treasurer Director of Research Marissa Orlowski, PhD Yvette Green, PhD Lionel Thomas Jr., PhD Assistant Professor Interim Director, Associate Professor Rosen College of Hospitality Undergraduate & Graduate Donald R. Tapia School of Management Coordinator Business University of Central Florida, FL Lester E. Kabacoff School of Saint Leo University, FL [email protected] Hotel, Restaurant and [email protected] Tourism Administration The University of New Orleans, LA [email protected]
Director of Education Director of Networking Director of Industry Relations Andrea White-McNeil, EdD Kate Price-Howard PhD Barry Bloom, PhD Assistant Professor Assistant Professor President & Chief Operating Bob Billingslea School of Hospitality, Sports and Officer Hospitality Management Tourism Management Xenia Hotels & Resorts, FL Bethune-Cookman University Troy University, Global [email protected] [email protected] Campus [email protected]
Director of Member Services & Director of Marketing Development Lias Cain, PhD Heather Lewis, PhD Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Chaplin School of Hospitality Hospitality, Sports and Tourism & Tourism Management Management Florida International Troy University, AL University, FL [email protected] [email protected]
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
All Times are CST
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
Time Event Location
5:00PM - 8:00PM Registration Boardroom
5:30PM - 6:30PM Welcome Cocktail Reception Terrace Room Sponsored by HOSCO 6:30PM Dinner and Free Time (on your own) Downtown Auburn Explore Downtown Auburn
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2020
Time Event Location
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM Registration Boardroom/Lobby 8:00 AM - 8:45 AM Breakfast Terrace Room
8:45 AM - 9:15 AM General Session Terrace Room
9:15 AM - 10:15 AM Keynote Speaker: Mr. Horst Schulze Terrace Room
10:30 AM -12:05 PM Breakout Session 1 Longleaf, Camellia, &
(Research Track) Azalea Rooms
12:15 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch Terrace Room
1:45 PM - 3:00 PM Guest Speaker: Dr. James May Terrace Room
3:10 PM – 6:00 PM Breakout Session 2 Longleaf, Camellia, &
(Research and Pedagogy Tracks) Azalea Rooms
6:00 PM Dinner on Your Own
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2020
Time Event Location
8:00 AM - 11:00 AM Registration Boardroom/Lobby
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
8:00 AM - 8:45 AM Breakfast Terrace Room
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Breakout Session 3 Longleaf, Camellia, &
(Research and Pedagogy Tracks) Azalea Rooms
11:05 AM - 12:20 PM Guest Speaker: Mrs. Peggy Berg Terrace Room 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch Terrace Room 1:45 PM - 2:55 PM Breakout Session 4 Longleaf, Camellia, &
(Research Track) Azalea Rooms
3:00 PM - 3:45 PM Research Workshop: Dr. Faizan Ali Terrace Room
3:45 PM - 4:15 PM Sparkling Reception Terrace Room
Sponsored by Trinchero Family Estates
4:15 PM – 5:30 PM Awards Dinner Terrace Room
Sponsored by Mr. Kevin Elliot Sr. Management Consultant at Chick-fil-A, Inc. & Trinchero Family Estates
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
All Times are CST
5:00 PM - 8:00 PM Registration Boardroom/Lobby
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM Welcome Cocktail Reception Terrace Room Sponsored by HOSCO Presented by Mr. John Lohr, Director of Development
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2020
All Times are CST
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Registration Boardroom/Lobby
8:00 AM – 8:45 AM Signature Continental Breakfast Buffet Terrace Room
8:45 AM – 9:15 AM Welcome
• Dr. Ruth Smith, ICHRIE-SECSA President, Bethune-Cookman Terrace Room University • Dr. Susan Hubbard, Dean, College of Human Sciences, Auburn University • Dr. Martin O’Neill, Horst Schulze Endowed Professor of Hospitality Management and Head of Department Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management, Auburn University
9:15 AM – 10:15 AM
Keynote Speaker Terrace Room
Mr. Horst Schulze, Chairman Emeritus
The Capella Hotel Group
Former President of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
Creating and Delivering Customer Service Excellence
Concurrent Session 1.1 – RESEARCH Longleaf Room
Moderator: Dr. Yee Ming Lee, Auburn University
10:30 AM – 10:50 AM Successful women’s views on mentorship and sponsorship in the hospitality industry.
Carole Soxa, Sheryl Klineb
aColumbia College, bUniversity of Delaware
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
10:55 AM – 11:15 AM Ostracism as an antecedent of service employee engagement: A second stage moderated-mediation model.
Souji Gopalakrishna Pillai, Woody G. Kim, Kavitha Haldorai
Florida State University
11:20 AM – 11:40 AM The slow food movement and its role in food tourism in Tennessee.
Eda Gokcecik, Borham Yoon, Michelle Lynn Childs
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
11:45 AM – 12:05 PM Bibliometric analysis of articles on smart tourism in Turkey.
Gozde Turktarhana, Cihan Cobanoglua, Abdulkadir Corbacib
aUniversity of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee, bAdiyaman University
Concurrent Session 1.2 – RESEARCH Camellia Room
Moderator: Dr. Lionel Thomas, Jr., Saint Leo University
10:30 AM – 10:50 AM Guests’ perception of the movement away from plastic straws in coastal restaurants.
Kate Price-Howard, KatieAnn Lawrence
Troy University
10:55 AM – 11:15 AM Pack your camera: The serious leisure of social media travel.
Sarah Frankel, Domenique Jones, Bomi Lee
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
11:20 AM – 11:40 AM The effect of Hotel Biophilic Design on customer delight and willingness to pay premium: Moderating effect of health-consciousness.
Luana Nanu, Alecia Douglas, Anudari Munkhtuya
Auburn University
11:45 AM – 12:05 PM A qualitative analysis of factors for hotel selection by leisure travelers.
Cihan Cobanoglua, Seden Doganb
aUniversity of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
bOndokuz Mayis University
Concurrent Session 1.3 – RESEARCH Azalea Room
Moderator: Dr. Faizan Ali, University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
10:30 AM – 10:50 AM Is job satisfaction the key to higher guest service scores?
Heather Lewis, Onick Lewis, Alexandria Finch, Camryn May, Yunbo Jin
Troy University
10:55 AM – 11:15 AM Culinary competencies for the modern chef: Updating the skills needed for success in today's kitchen.
Mark Traynor, Imran Rahman, Erol Sozen, David Martin, Yejia Guo
Auburn University
11:20 AM – 11:40 AM Statistical research of the airlines service performance: The gap between employees’ service expectation and customers’ perception of American Airlines.
Xiuwen Liao, Imran Ahmad
Florida International University
11:45 AM – 12:05 PM Perceived supervisor support and hotel employees’ emotional exhaustion: The role of job crafting and employee mindfulness.
Han Chen, Yvette Green
University of New Orleans
12:15 PM – 1:30 PM Buffet Lunch Terrace Room
1:45 PM – 3:00 PM
Guest Speaker Terrace Room
Dr. James May, Faculty Fellow for Innovation and Technology
Valencia College, Orlando, FL
It’s Not the APP, It’s the Application: Understanding the Power of Pedagogy before Technology
Concurrent Session 2.1 – RESEARCH Longleaf Room
Moderator: Dr. Lisa Cain, Florida International University
3:10 PM – 3:30 PM Analysis of cruise online ratings and reviews: Cruisers satisfaction in the Chinese cruise market using latent dirichlet allocation.
Sijun Liu, Alecia Douglas, Pankush Kalgotra
Auburn University
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
3:35 PM – 3:55 PM The impact of temporary visa availability on US luxury resorts.
Rebecca Neal, Marketa Kubickova, Scott Smith
University of South Carolina
4:00 PM – 4:20 PM Motivators and barriers for baby boomer solo female travelers.
Luana Nanu, Shaniel Bernard, Imran Rahman
Auburn University
4:25 PM – 4:45 PM Business strategies employed by sustainable restaurants.
Kristin Martin, Carole Sox
Columbia College
4:50 PM – 5:10 PM Breach of trust: Privacy concerns over perceived value.
Semsettin Yuksek, Faizan Ali
University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
5:15 PM – 5:35 PM Do you even lift traveler? Examining healthy traveling.
Hilmi Atadil, Helena Allman
University of West Florida
5:40 PM – 6:00 PM “Sharks in a pond of minnows” Professional vs. non-professional hosts in peer to peer accommodations: Text analysis of user-generated reviews on Airbnb.
Kyle Townsend, Soyoung Boo, Jailene Gambaro Sanchez
Georgia State University
Concurrent Session 2.2 – PEDAGOGY Camellia Room
Moderator: Dr. Alecia Douglas, Auburn University
3:10 PM – 3:30 PM Addressing the project management discipline gap in hospitality management curriculum.
Timothy Flohr
University of Memphis
3:35 PM – 3:55 PM Rethinking the use of industry resources.
Carl Winstona Miranda Kitterlin-Lynchb,
aSan Diego State University, bFlorida International University
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
4:00 PM – 4:20 PM Strategies & lessons from a unique approach to experience learning.
Domenique Jones, Michelle Lynn Childs
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
4:25 PM – 4:45 PM Play your cards right with market segmentation.
Annamarie Sisson
University of Florida
4:50 PM – 5:10 PM Experiential avatar-based reality.
Lionel Thomas Jr., John Lax, Emily Kochanski
Saint Leo University
Concurrent Session 2.3 – RESEARCH Azalea Room
Moderator: Dr. Kate Price-Howard, Troy University
3:10 PM – 3:30 PM Message framing and food allergy communication in the restaurants.
Yee Ming Leea, Han Wenb
aAuburn University, bUniversity of North Texas
3:35 PM – 3:55 PM Expanding the restaurant value chain through digital delivery: An assessment of the emergence of third-party delivery aggregators as a significant disruptor in the US restaurant industry.
Mark Traynora, Shaniel Bernarda, Andrew Moreob, Bendegul Okumusc
aAuburn University, bFlorida International University
cUniversity of Central Florida
4:00 PM – 4:20 PM Impact of culinary and nutrition course on cooking self-efficacy and dietary behaviors for college students.
Borham Yoon, Kyungyul Jun
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
4:25 PM – 4:45 PM Residents’ perceptions toward the effect of online sports betting in Tennessee.
Kenia Taylor, Rachel J.C. Chen
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
4:50 PM – 5:10 PM Travel-related online communities research in the field of hospitality and tourism.
Yuan Zhoua, Cihan Cobanoglub, Woody G. Kima, Bendegul Okumusc
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
aFlorida State University, bUniversity of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee, cUniversity of Central Florida
5:15 PM – 5:35 PM Peer-to-peer accommodation vs. hotels: Role of authenticity, brand trust and brand love on consumers’ behavioral intentions.
Joyce Han, Han Chen
University of New Orleans
5:40 PM – 6:00 PM The effectiveness of loyalty points and refunds as service recovery compensation.
Thamsanqa Jongile, Eun Kyong Cindy Choi
University of Mississippi
6:00 PM Dinner on Your Own
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2020
All Times are CST
8:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Registration Boardroom/
Lobby
8:00 AM – 8:45 AM Signature Continental Breakfast Buffet Terrace Room
Concurrent Session 3.1 – RESEARCH Longleaf Room Moderator: Dr. Mark Traynor, Auburn University
9:00 AM – 9:20 AM Big data applications in hotel industry research: A review study.
Semsettin Yuksek, Cihan Cobanoglu, Faizan Ali
University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
9:25 AM – 9:45 AM Job satisfaction and turnover intentions: A longitudinal look from 2007 to now.
Sean Bartha, James Wardb
aUniversity of South Carolina Beaufort, bFlorida Atlantic University
9:50 AM – 10:10 AM Does ‘language type’ in environmental claims affect consumer’s perception and action towards hotels’ environmental initiatives?
Shaniel Bernard, Alecia Douglas
Auburn University
10:15 AM - 10:35 AM Customers’ impulsive buying behavior of hotel conditional upgrade.
Daegeun Dan Kim, Eun Kyong Cindy Choi, Chanmi Hong
University of Mississippi
10:40 AM - 11:00 AM The economic implications of Airbnb.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Tarik Dogru
Florida State University
Concurrent Session 3.2 – PEDAGOGY Camellia Room Moderator: Dr. Han Chen, University of New Orleans
9:00 AM – 9:20 AM PODS Pedagogy: Education 2.0 or is it 3.0?
Andrew Moreoa, Lisa Caina, James Williamsb, Miranda Kitterlin-Lyncha
aFlorida International University, bUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville
9:25 AM – 9:45 AM Yield & revenue management game.
Heather Lewis
Troy University
9:50 AM – 10:10 AM Building wider bridges between campus and industry: Will you take the risk?
Ruth Smith
Bethune-Cookman University
10:15 AM – 10:35 AM Strategies to improve workforce development.
Lisa Caina, Christopher Cainb
aFlorida International University, bUniversity of Nevada Las Vegas
10:40 AM – 11:00 AM PED TALK: Student-centered learning.
Andrea White-McNeila, Kate Price-Howardb
aBethune-Cookman University, bTroy University
Concurrent Session 3.3 – RESEARCH Azalea Room
Moderator: Dr. Yvette Green, University of New Orleans
9:00 AM – 9:20 AM An inside look into the challenges of commercial fishing of spiny lobster and their impact on the restaurant industry.
Kate Price-Howard
Troy University
9:25 AM – 9:45 AM Investigating the impact of tip allocation on organizational behavior in restaurants.
Thamsanqa Jongile, Hyun-Woo Joung
University of Mississippi
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
9:50 AM – 10:10 AM Measuring excellence: Development of an evaluation tool for perceived quality in the restaurant experience.
Su Gibson, Charles Calvert, Keri Olivetti, Anton Abraham
University of South Carolina Beaufort
10:15 AM – 10:35 AM Festival and event research: Using destination research to determine eligibility for grant funding.
Anton Abraham, Charles Calvert, Lori Vargo, Arthur Cartier, Su Gibson, Keri Olvetti
University of South Carolina Beaufort
10:40 AM – 11:00 AM Online learning/training readiness among hospitality and tourism industry professionals.
Muhittin Cavusoglu, Waynne B. James, Cihan Cobanoglu
University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
11:05 AM – 12:20 PM Guest Speaker Terrace Room Mrs. Peggy Berg, CPA, CHA, MSPP
President, Castell Project Inc., Atlanta, GA
Promoting Female Senior Leadership in the Hotel Industry
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM Strolling Lunch Terrace Room
Concurrent Session 4.1 – RESEARCH Longleaf Room Moderator: Dr. Miranda Kitterlin-Lynch
Florida International University
1:45 PM – 2:05 PM An eye-tracking study: How does familiarity (top-down effect) of the intrinsic and extrinsic cue words of locally grown food menu items influence customers’ visual attention differently at hyper-local restaurants?
Yoonah Kim, Alecia Douglas
Auburn University
2:10 PM – 2:30 PM Hotel guests’ attitude and purchase intention towards hotel brand extension.
Daegeun Dan Kim, Hyun-Woo Joung
University of Mississippi
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
2:35 PM – 2:55 PM The effects of rational and emotional appeals of online and offline hotel upselling messages.
Jeongyeon Jennie Ahn, Eun Kyong Cindy Choi, Hyun-Woo Joung
University of Mississippi
Concurrent Session 4.2 – RESEARCH Camellia Room Moderator: Dr. Imran Rahman, Auburn University
1:45 PM – 2:05 PM A pilot investigation into measuring the gap between restaurant industry interests and academic research using natural language processing.
Kanishk Srivastavaa, Andrew Moreoa, Srikanth Beldonaa, Mark Traynorb,
Mark Finlaysona, Miguel Alonso Jr.a
aFlorida International University, bAuburn University
2:10 PM – 2:30 PM Intention to use facial recognition technology by business event attendees.
Olena Ciftci, Katerina Berezina, Inna Soifer
University of Mississippi
2:35 PM – 2:55 PM Evaluation of destination marketing organization (DMO) websites of the State of Florida.
Aysegul Songur, Faizan Ali, Cihan Cobanoglu
University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Concurrent Session 4.3 – RESEARCH Azalea Room Moderator: Dr. Erol Sozen, Auburn University
1:45 PM – 2:05 PM Rage against the machine - exploring the antecedents of customer rage within the lodging industry.
Martin O'Neill, David Martin, Yejia Guo, Tianjian Liu
Auburn University
2:10 PM – 2:30 PM Standing shoulder to shoulder in hospitality education.
Alison Green, Hilmi Atadil, Jill Plumer
University of West Florida
2:35 PM – 2:55 PM Leadership skills with classroom instruction integration in hospitality management higher education.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Annamarie Sissona, Kevin Robertsb
aUniversity of Florida, bKansas State University
3:00 PM – 3:45 PM
Research Workshop Terrace Room Dr. Faizan Ali, Assistant Professor
University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
3:45 PM – 4:15 PM Sparkling Reception Sponsored by Trinchero Family Estates Terrace Lobby
4:15 PM – 5:30 PM Awards Dinner Sponsored by Mr. Kevin Elliott, Sr. Management Consultant at Chick-fil-A, Inc. & Terrace Trinchero Family Estates Room Final Remarks – Dr. Ruth Smith, ICHRIE-SECSA President Bethune-Cookman University
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Research
Section
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Successful Women’s Views on Mentorship and Sponsorship in the Hospitality Industry
Carole B. Sox Columbia College
Sheryl Kline University of Delaware Abstract This research explores best practices of women in hospitality with regard to mentor and sponsor relationships. It investigates the benefits mentoring and sponsorship relationships present for those participating and offers insights for industry managers on how to train and encourage these relationships. Utilizing a modified Delphi technique, 30 women at the Vice President level and above, within the hospitality industry, have been requested to participate in this research.
Introduction/Literature Review In the United States Fortune 500 companies, it has been reported that only 5% of CEO positions, 11% of top earners, and 21.2% of boards of directors are women (Catalyst, 2019). There are various notions as to why this process of equality within the workforce has been slow moving. One concept that has been noted is view and influence of mentorship and sponsorship for women in the workforce.
Within the academic arena, there have been attempts to create a more universal definition of both mentor and sponsor. For example, a mentor has been defined as a “wise and trusted counselor or teacher; mentoring is the guidance process that takes place between a mentor and a protégé, and a mentorship is a mentoring relationship between a mentor and a protégé” (Friday, Friday & Green, 2004, pp. 637). A mentoring relationship has been defined as “a developmental relationship that is embedded within the career context” (Ragin & Kram, 2007, p. 5). A sponsor has been defined as “a person who nominates or supports another person’s (protégé) promotion; sponsoring is the process of a sponsor nominating or supporting a protégé’s promotion; and a sponsorship is a sponsoring relationship between sponsor and a protégé.” (Friday, Friday & Green, 2004, pp. 638).
Women in Hospitality
While the number of women within the hospitality industry in executive positions is increasing, it is still significantly lower than men. The statistical information available raises questions as to why this is the case. Connecting with mentors has been noted as one area of improvement (Castell Project, 2018). While career development has been found to be similar between men and women in hospitality, one significant difference between the groups was the role mentoring played in mens’ and womens’ career development (Brownell, 1994).
Methods
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
The Delphi technique is used for gaining common consent through participation in survey rounds to gather expert input from a selected panel on a specific subject (Yousuf 2007). It offers a method to utilize a group communication process which provides an effective technique to handle multifaceted issues (Stitt-Gohdes and Crews 2004). Thirty Women at the Vice President level and above have been targeted to participate in this process.
Proposed Implications
Through this method this research will explore the views successful women in the hospitality industry have on the influence and role mentorship and sponsorship relationships have on their careers. It is the first step in building a model that defines those factors that impact high performing women’s careers in the hospitality industry.
Partial References
Brownell, J. (1994). Women in hospitality management: general manager’s perceptions of factors related to career development. International Journal Hospitality Management. 13:2 (101-117).
Castell Project. (2018). Women in hospitality industry leadership. Atlanta, GA.
Catalyst (2019). There are fewer women in leadership positions than there men named John. Retrieved from: https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/ .
Friday, E., Friday, S. S., & Green, A. (2004). A reconceptualization of mentoring and sponsoring. Managing Decision. 42:5 (628 – 644).
Ragins, B. R., & Kram, K. E. (Eds.) (2007a). The handbook of mentoring at work: Theory, research, and practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Stitt-Gohdes, W. L., & Crews, T. B. (2004). The Delphi technique: A research strategy for career and technical education. Journal of Career and Technical Education. 20(4).
Yousuf, M. I. (2007). Using expert’s opinions through Delphi technique. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation. 12(4), 1-8.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Ostracism as an Antecedent of Service Employee Engagement: A Second Stage Moderated-Mediation Model
Souji Gopalakrishna Pillai Florida State University
Woody G. Kim Florida State University
Kavitha Haldorai Florida State University
In spite of the fact that the term ostracism goes back to fifth century B.C., it has received scholarly consideration just in the ongoing years (Williams, 2007). Workplace ostracism alludes to an employee’s perception of being disregarded or isolated or sidelined by other employees in the work environment (Ferris et al., 2008). Individuals consider ostracism is milder than bullying but recent studies have shown it does more harm than any type of harassment. Ostracized employees are likely to experience negative emotions and self- perception that further cause them to experience a lack of self-control. Victims of workplace ostracism feel their social connections are weakened and believe they do not belong to the organization anymore. Using Baumeister and Leary’s (1995) belongingness theory, we proposed a second stage moderated-mediation to examine the relationship between workplace ostracism and employee work engagement. First, the mediating role of sense of belonging we tested and secondly, how intrinsic work motivation moderates this mediated relationship was examined. Data was collected from 402 employees from Thailand hotel industry. The findings reveal that workplace ostracism has a negative relationship with employee work engagement and sense of belongingness mediates this relationship. Intrinsic work motivation moderated this mediated relationship. The negative relationship was stronger for employees with high intrinsic motivation. This study would make contribution to existing body of literature by empirically demonstrating the relationship between workplace ostracism and employee work engagement.
References
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497- 529. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., Berry, J. W., & Lian, H. (2008). The development and validation of the Workplace Ostracism Scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1348-1366. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0012743
Williams, K. D. (2007). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425-452. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085641
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
The Slow Food Movement and its Role in Food Tourism in Tennessee
Eda Gokcecik University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Borham Yoon University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Michelle Lynn Childs University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Abstract
The purpose of this investigation is to trace the role of the Slow Food network in developing destination branding in Tennessee. Slow Food is a movement that advocates the preservation of local food cultures and traditions as well as encouraging people to think about where their food comes from. Although the Slow Food network aims to enhance sustainable and local food through promoting local producers and culture which is embedded with the idea of sustainable tourism development, there is little research to explore the role of the Slow Food network for tourism development. Therefore, this study will fulfill this research gap through a systematic review of the literature and conduct semi- structured interviews with stakeholders (e.g. Slow Food Tennessee board members, visitors, and the local producers). The result of the exploratory research will trigger future scholars to focus on the Slow Food network and its unidentified roles (i.e. tourism enhancement, creating attractions for travelers or boosting local product usage). Additionally, this research will benefit tourism industry practitioners in Tennessee by providing implications for promoting a destination with different angles like the Slow Food events and festivals.
Keywords: Slow Food Movement, Travel, Social Movement, Community-based Tourism, Sustainability.
Introduction/Literature Review
Sustainability as the component for various environmental acts had emerged from the Stockholm Conference by United Nations in 1972. Basiago (1995) provided the definition of sustainability, stating that sustainability is related to future preservation. Environment, economy and society are the three aspects of sustainability being emphasized in seminal sustainability studies (Basiago, 1995; Basiago, 1999; Telfer & Wall, 1996). The link between tourism and local food production is embedded with the idea of sustainable tourism development within tourism literature (McKercher, 1993; Telfer & Wall, 1996). In 1989, the Slow Food movement was started in Italy by Carlo Petrini as a social movement against the globalization of food products around Europe (Slow Food International, 2019).
The Slow Food movement has attracted many travelers to activities such as farmers’ markets, farm to table events, Slow Food festivals around the world. The motivations of people attending these kinds of events have been analyzed in different research studies Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
(Williams et al, 2015). The more visitors value the ethical way of living and traveling, the more they act in a responsible way to surroundings. Now, the Slow Food network actively represents an international movement with over 1600 chapters (Slow Food International, 2019) and communities in 160 countries including the United States. Its purposes are namely; i) fighting for three principles: good, clean and fair, ii) creating collaboration within local food producers, local stakeholders and consumers, and iii) promoting local products and cultures. Some of the roles like promoting local cultures are in line with the sustainable tourism development.
Methods
To identify the role of the Slow Food network for tourism development in Tennessee, researchers will utilize a semi-structured interview method. The interviewees will be selected according to the role of the individuals within the community and will continue until data saturation is met. Board members of the Slow Food Tennessee Valley will be the first group to be interviewed. Then, key stakeholders supporting the local production such as local farmers, small business owners and producers will be contacted based on guidance from the Slow Food network in Tennessee. The focus of the interview is to unpack the interviewees’ understanding of sustainable tourism development and its relationship with food related tourism. Eighteen face to face interviews are planned with the stakeholders. NVivo software program will be used as a method for data analysis.
Expected Results and Proposed Implications
The results of this exploratory study will benefit both the researchers, practitioners and local community stakeholders to unpack the potential tourism developing role of the Slow Food network. Also, the researchers will expect to identify potential stakeholders from local and central government for taking role in the development of Slow Food activities related to tourism. Finally, creating new attractions to visitors via promoting the Slow Food events will boost the local economy and promote the destination through different perspectives. Thus, this will ultimately increase the local product usage and purchase overall.
References
Basiago, A.D. (1995). Methods of defining ‘sustainability’, Sustainable Development, 3,109 - 119.
Basiago, A.D. (1999). Economic, social, and environmental sustainability in development theory and urban planning practice, The Environmentalist, 19, 145 - 161.
Kalenjuk, B. (2011). “Food, agri-culture and tourism: Linking local gastronomy and rural tourism: interdisciplinary perspectives”, Turizam, 15(4), 169-173.
Lee, K. H. (2018). Slow food tourism: preferences and behaviors. In Scott, N., Gao, J., and Jao, J. (eds) Visitor Experience Design. CABI, Oxfordshire: 246-256.
Lee, K.H., Scott, N., and Packer, J. (2014). Habitus and food lifestyle: in-destination activity participation of slow food members. Annals of Tourism Research, 48(2014), 207-220. Slow Food International. Retrieved September 29, 2019, from Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
https://www.slowfood.com/about- us/our-history/.
McKercher, B. (1993). The unrecognized threat to tourism: can tourism survive ‘sustainability’? Tourism Management, 14, 131 - 136.
Petrini, C. (2001). Slow food: the case of taste. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Tellfer, D. J. and Wall, G. (1996). Linkages between tourism and food production, Annals of Tourism Research, 23(3) 635 - 653.
Tencati, A. and Zsolnai, L. (2012). Collaborative enterprise and sustainability: the case of slow food. Journal of Business Ethics, 110, 345 - 354.
Williams, L. T., Germov, J., Fuller, S., and Freij, M. (2015). A taste of ethical consumption at a slow food festival, Appetite, 91(2015), 321 - 328.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Bibliometric Analysis of Articles on Smart Tourism in Turkey
Gozde Turktarhan University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee
Cihan Cobanoglu University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee
Abdulkadir Corbaci Adiyaman University
Abstract
The aim of this study is to examine the publications prepared on smart tourism in Turkey and make the stock determination. In this context, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey journal databases and Council of Higher Education-Turkey thesis databases were searched with keywords related to smart tourism applications. The 36 publications reached were included in this study and examined according to some bibliometric parameters. According to the results of the research, smart tourism is most frequently examined in hotels and travel agencies, evaluated from a marketing and competition perspective and conceptually discussed.
Introduction
The word “smart” is a concept that describes the technological, economic and social developments brought about by sensors, big data, open data, new communication paths and information exchange (e.g. Internet of Things, GPS and NFC) technologies (Gretzel et al., 2015). Smart tourism is based on four basic information and communication technologies: Internet of Things, mobile communication, cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology. These technologies link the physical, information, social and commercial infrastructure of tourism. Thus, smart tourism benefits multiple stakeholders operating in destinations (Guo et al., 2014). Smart tourism focuses on productivity, sustainability and enriching experience. This is one of the main differences between smart tourism and e- tourism (Gretzel et al., 2015). Smart tourism provides real-time and personalized tour information based on information and communication technologies (ICT), such as big data, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and artificial intelligence (Lamsfus et al., 2015). According to Washburn et al. (2010), technology is seen as infrastructure rather than individual information systems in smart tourism. It encompasses a variety of intelligent computing technologies that integrate hardware, software, and network technologies to enable people to make smarter decisions about alternatives by providing real-time awareness in the real world. In addition, business processes and business performances can be maximized with technology (Washburn et al., 2010).
In the context of tourism, smart technologies change customer experiences and create different tourism business models. Cloud computing, big data, mobile applications, location- based services, geotag services, virtual reality, augmented reality and social networking services are the leading examples of smart technologies that enhance tourism experiences and services (Wang et al. 2012).The overall objective of the smart tourism destination is to Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
improve the tourism experience, increase the efficiency of resource management, maximize destination competition and increase visitor satisfaction while applying sustainability in destinations (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2013).
Methodology
Qualitative and quantitative analysis of publications in a science is important in terms of determining the change of that science over time. Based on bibliometric studies, it is possible to reveal the changes and development of a science and its characteristics. Bibliometry, which is a method used mostly by librarians and science experts, is increasingly accepted in many areas (Osareh, 1996). The aim of this study is to make a stock determination on smart tourism applications which are known to be important in terms of sustainability and competition in Turkey. This aim may enable to identify the gaps of the smart tourism area which needs to be examined in depth in Turkey. In this context, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey journal databases and Council of Higher Education-Turkey thesis databases were searched with keywords (smart tourism, smart tourist, smart destinations, tourism 4.0, tourism 5.0, virtual reality, augmented reality, internet of things, mobile application, big data, wearable technologies, cloud computing, geotagging, GPS and smart technology) related to smart tourism applications. The 36 publications reached were included in this study and examined according to some bibliometric parameters.
Findings
Firstly, the distribution of the studies published in the field of smart tourism by years is examined. As shown in Figure 1, the first publication was made in 2013 and the number of publications increased over the years.
Figure 1. Distribution of Publications by Years
20
15
10
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Table 1. Descriptive Findings of Smart Tourism Applications
FIELD n % SMART TOURISM APP n % Hotel 7 %19 General 11 %30 Travel agency 7 %19 Augmented reality 9 %25 Destination 6 %16 Mobile application 7 %19 Restaurant 2 %5 Big data 3 %8 Museum 1 %2 Virtual reality 2 %5 Airway 1 %2 IoT 2 %5 Tourism Industry 12 %33 GPS 2 %5 THEORY DESTINATION Competitiveness 14 %38 Istanbul 3 %8 Marketing 7 %19 Antalya 2 %5 Innovation 3 %8 Ankara 1 %2 Economy 1 %2 Edremit 1 %2 Leisure 1 %2 Konya 1 %2
Descriptive findings on the type of publications reviewed, the method used, the analysis used, and the status of multi -auth orship are presented in Table 2. Accordingly, empirical research and qualitative research withcontent analysis are the majority. More than half of the articles are multi-authors. Table 2. Descriptive Findings on the Method Used in the Studies
n % Value-chain 1 %2 PUBLICATION TYPE 3B Modeling 1 %2 Empirical 22 %61 Mann-Whitney U 1 %2 Conceptual 14 %39 Path analysis 1 %2 METHOD NUMBER OF AUTHORS Qualitative 15 %41 1 13 %37 Quantitative 7 %19 2 11 %30 ANALYSIS 3 9 %25 Content analysis 16 %44 4 3 %8 Descriptive 1 %2
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Conclusion and Limitations
It is seen that the studies related to smart tourism have intensified in 2018. It has been determined that smart tourism applications are examined in hotels and travel agencies, but not in museums. In addition, smart tourism applications were examined from a competitive and marketing-oriented perspective, but not from a sustainability perspective. It has been evaluated in general, but the elements of smart tourism have not been specifically examined. Another conclusion reached is that smart tourism applications are examined at a conceptual level, but empirical publications are very few.
Based on all these results, it is suggested that interdisciplinary and multi-author studies should be conducted in different fields such as museums, travel agencies, airlines and destinations from a sustainability perspective. It is suggested that smart tourism should not be examined conceptually, but empirical researches should determine the predecessors and successors.
This research is limited to research in journals indexed in Turkey and Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey journal databases and Council of Higher Education- Turkey. The reason for this limit is determined to stock identification studies in this field in Turkey and to develop recommendations for tourism in Turkey.
References
Buhalis, D. & Amaranggana, A. (2013). Smart tourism destinations, In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2014 (Ed: Z. Xiang & I. Tussyadiah & A. Inversini), New York: Springer International Publishing, 553-564.
Gretzel, U., Sigala, M., Xiang, Z. & Koo, C. (2015). Smart tourism: foundations and developments. Electronic Markets, 25, 179-188.
Guo, Y., Liu, H. & Chai, Y. (2014). The embedding convergence of smart cities and tourism internet of things in China: an advance perspective. Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Research, 2(1), 54-69.
Lamsfus, C., Martin, D., Alzua-Sorzabal, A. & Torres-Manzanera, E. (2015), Smart Tourism Destinations: An Extended Conception of Smart Cities Focusing on Human Mobility. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015, (Ed: Tussyadiah, I. & Inversini, A.) Springer: Vienna, 363-375.
Osareh, F. (1996). Bibliometrics, citation analysis and co- citation analysis: A review of literature. Libri, 46, 149-158.
Wang, D., Park, S. &Fesenmaier, D. (2012), “The Role of Smartphones in Mediating the Tourism Experience”, Journal of Travel Research, 51(4), 371-387.
Washburn, D., Sindhu, U., Balaouras, S., Dines, R.A., Hayes, N.M., & Nelson, L.E. (2010), Helping CIOs Understand “Smart City” Initiatives: Defining the Smart City, Its Drivers, and the Role of the CIO, Cambridge, MA: Forrester Research Inc.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Guests’ Perception of the Movement away from Plastic Straws in Coastal Restaurants
Dr. Kate Price-Howard Troy University
KatiAnn Lawrence Troy University
Abstract Since the 2015 video of a plastic straw wedged in the nostril of a sea turtle, the plastic straw ban has increased in popularity in several states. However, establishing consumer straw preference has yet to be decided. While it seems like a logical step for guests to take and sound environmental stewardship, restaurant patrons seem to actually resist the switch itself. Several restaurateurs were interviewed via phone, email, and in-person to help compile a qualitative set of responses. This study will explore how this movement for “straw alternative methods” has been received by employees, owners, and guests along these coastal areas.
Introduction Straws have been in existence since ancient Sumerian times, were made of precious metals. During the Industrial Revolution, the intended sole use of straws was to avoid transferring illnesses. Since that time, plastic straws have become a part of our everyday lives. They are now made of 100% recycled products but, because of their small cylindrical size, are unable to be processed at recycling plants and are sent to landfills. These thin plastic straws have created their own environmental issues with their inability to be properly recycled. There have been several studies targeting plastic straws and their single-use issues in the last few years (Wagner, 2013; Mosquera, 2013; Moran, 2015), and recently World Wildlife Magazine (2018) reported that plastics have been found in an estimated 90% of all seabirds and in all sea turtle species. One study has researched reduction rates on restaurants who have established a Straws- on-Demand program and only provide straws to those who specifically request them (Marquis, 2018). Paper straws have been the alternative to plastic straws in many establishments that use straws (FRLA, 2019); however, using paper straws can result in disintegration of the straws occurring while restaurant guests are still using them. Several restaurateurs have reported that the higher quality, thus more expensive paper straws seem to hold up longer during a guest experience. While one solution to sustaining marine life by avoiding single-use straws, is to purchase a reusable straw, straw material alternatives such as metal, silicone, or bamboo, pose their own issues. Metal straws might encourage theft among guests (Danovich & Godoy, 2018). As reported by Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, the community who benefited the most from straws, were disabled persons (Babis, 2019). This one issue has led the
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
state of Florida to vote on a five-year moratorium on passing a law to ban plastic straws as a whole. Methodology Owners and managers of restaurants that have intentionally adopted the plastic straw alternatives throughout Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida were interviewed to determine the perceived receptiveness. Research was conducted with in-person interviews, Internet survey, and phone interviews. Surveys were emailed to 80 coastal restaurants throughout Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia. Ten restaurants completed the survey, using one of the methods listed. This study is just the preliminary start of a larger longitudinal study. Proposed Implications While many state and city officials in these and other states strive to pass laws banning plastic straws, these plans raise concerns under ADA compliance and in regard to enforcing these new laws. Staff members are trained to use patrons’ complaints as an opportunity to educate guests of sea life and environmental impacts of using plastic alternatives. However, based upon interviews, employees were unaware of the moratorium due to disability. The primary focus was on other guest feedback. Of the restaurants surveyed, 40% were utilizing the “straw-on-request” method and 30% had switched to use paper or compostable straws.
References
Babis, O. (2019, October 9). The Significant Role Plastic Straws Play in Health and Safety. Retrieved from Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association: https://frla.org/role-plastic- straws-play-in-health-and-safety
Danovich, T., & Godoy, M. (2018, July 11). Why People with Disabilities Want Bans on Plastic Straws to be Flexible. Retrieved from NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/11/627773979/why-people-with- disabilities-want-bans-on-plastic-straws-to-be-more-flexible
Moran, M. E. An environmental and cost comparison between polypropylene plastic drinking straws and a "greener" alternative: An Oberlin case study. Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/
Mosquera, M. R. (2019). Banning Plastic Straws: The Beginning of the Wars Against Plastics. Environmental Law and Earth Journal, 9, 5 – 31. Retrieved from https://lawpublications.barry.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&=&context=ejejj&= &sei- redir=1&referer=https%253A%252F%252Fscholar.google.com%252Fscholar%253Fhl% 253Den%2526as_sdt%253D0%25252C10%2526q%253Dpaper%252Bstraws%252Band %252Brestaurants%2526btnG
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Wagner, T., & Toews, P. (2018). Assessing the Use of Default Choice Modification to Reduce Consumption of Plastic Straws. Multidisciplinary Journal for Waste Resources and Residues, 4, 113 – 121. doi:10.31025/2611-4135/2018.13734
World Wildlife Magazine. (2018, Summer). A small straw’s big environmental impact. World Wildlife Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/a-small-straw-s- big-environmental-impact
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Charts
Straw Distribution Methods Used
Plastic Straws Paper Straws Metal Straws No Straw Straw Upon Request
Figure 1 Straw Distribution Methods
Which age group has complained about plastic straws?
16-24
25-32
33-49
50-72
73 and up
More than 1 age group
Figure 2 Age group with most complaints
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Qualitative Feedback
Restaurant Feedback Provide plastic straws upon request. Haven't switched to an alternative method because of cost 1 and customer preference. Sidelines has a table tent with a picture of a sea turtle at every table that states " Help Save the Environment Straws on Request"
Utilizes paper and metal straws. I understand that the majority of climate change and environmental damage is caused by things like meat eating, airplane travel, etc. However, I see our elimination of plastic straw use as similar to how I cut 6 pack holders apart before throwing them away - it's a small step that I can personally take to hopefully avoid at least one instance of harm to a wild animal or to the environment. // We haven't really had any complaints. Paper 2 straws disintegrate quickly in crushed ice, so we give 2 with each drink on that type of ice. If a guest is particularly upset by a paper straw, we offer them metal as an alternative. // Patron Feedback: Overwhelmingly positive. People regularly comment on how they look and feel and say they appreciate our commitment to not using plastic straws.
uses paper straws. Some complaints from customers. Primarily if the straw disintegrates in their 3 drink before finishing. They do use larger plastic straws for their milkshakes. They also use sip- through lids. Belives these lids are the future and the best alternative to plastic straws.
Uses straw upon request. No complaints from guests. Would like to use any other alternative but 4 foresees using paper straws in the near future.
Doesn't use a straw alternative. Complaints from customers for their lack of using an alternative. Plastic straws are given to customers unless they state they do not want a straw. No specific age 5 group regarding complaints. Will move to paper straws or an alternative when there is an alternative that is better than or measures to the plastic straw. Switched to paper straws. Customer complaints: very few complaints, some of our servers talk 6 about saving sea turtles and the positive environmental impact of using paper straws. // Customer feedback: don't care about the straws. We were one of the first restaurants om the Island 3 years ago to be straws on request. We tried paper, corn, pasta and the tourists HATED all 3. We are now back to plastic straws on request. // 7 customer complaints: People were happy we switched back to plastic straws on request. Customers and employees. // Alternative Method: We recycle the plastic straws, so they don't go in a landfill. We have a bucket in the kitchen for straws and we separate paper, plastic and glass.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Provide plastic straws upon request. Haven't switched to an alternative method because of cost and customer preference. Sidelines has a table tent with a picture of a sea turtle at every table 8 that states " Help Save the Environment Straws on Request" Patrons have been very receptive to the concept. Sidelines has reduced straw usage by 40%.
Haven't switched because: Paper straws are not sturdy enough, pasta straws become gummy, metal straws are too expensive (not feasible for an establishment of our size), and we have a ton of plastic straws in house that we feel we shouldn't waste.//We have used paper straws in the past 9 but switched back due to the fact that they become soggy/brittle and customers complained./I've never had a guest bring up the fact that we use plastic straws before. / Will switch to an alternative: When there is an alternative product that is comparable to plastic straws in functionality and pricing.
Straw on Request. Uses paper straw on request. No plastic straws because harmful for sea life and environment. Customer complaints: Explain the waste and how it is harmful to sea life. 10 //Only complaints are from older clientele. We have a metal straw that’s 50¢ for purchase. Or paper straw.
Straw on Request. Uses paper straw on request. No plastic straws because harmful for sea life 11 and environment. Customer complaints: Explain the waste and how it is harmful to sea life. //Only complaints are from older clientele.
Straw on Request. Uses paper straw on request. No plastic straws because harmful for sea life 12 and environment. Customer complaints: Explain the waste and how it is harmful to sea life. //Only complaints are from older clientele.
Uses straw on request. Reason no other alternative: When reached out to owner, the concern was 13 for children and seniors who bite on straws. Choking hazard.
1st in area to implement paper straws (7 years ago); Received a push back in the beginning (from guests) and had to upgrade quality of the straw. Tried a few different kinds and realized that it 14 was better to budget for a higher quality, even though it was more expensive. More push back from bartenders because of having to explain the reasoning. Serves with straws - does not do an on-demand.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Pack Your Camera: The Serious Leisure of Social Media Travel An Instagram Jetsetter and Leisure Case Study
Sarah Frankel University of Tennessee
Domenique Jones University of Tennessee
Bomi Lee University of Tennessee
Abstract
Instagram influencers’ commodification of tourist destinations is examined within consumer culture and leisure. In this qualitative case study, we explore how does the photographic content that a jet setting influencer posts demonstrate commodification of the travel destination; and in what ways does the content around an image engage the consumer? To investigate these questions, we have identified an Instagram influencer, @Gypsea_lust. Utilizing content analysis and photo elicit methods our research team identified (1) minimalist spirituality; (2) staged authenticity; (3) fluid nomad; and (4) connection to isolation as the themes that demonstrate the commodification of the travel in images. Next, we identified (1) attaining the Gypsea lifestyle; (2) bohemian luxury; (3) follow the Gypsea road as the themes in the content to engage with consumers.
Introduction/Literature Review
Instagram is considered one of the most popular visual social media platforms in the world (Sloan & Quan-Haase, 2017) and continuously exposes consumers to fashion, food, and travel trends (Laeder, 2018). Marketers engage with this unique platform due to its community- building qualities facilitated by social media influencers (SMIs) (Sloan & Quan-Haase, 2017). Specifically, SMIs highlight in their Instagram posts trendy vacation spots and tourist destinations as a way to drive behavioral outcomes such as purchase or revisit intention (Laeder, 2018). Tourism marketers have capitalized on the ability to utilize influencers to promote destination tourism and improve their strategies (Currie, Wesley & Sutherland, 2014).
Consumers are motivated to travel and seek leisure activities away from home; leisure can refer more broadly to traveling and engaging with culture (Veal, 2017). Travel SMIs have the ability to showcase one’s desire to act toward self-gain (Van Nuenen, 2015), which situates their online activities within consumer culture. Consumers and SMIs both focus on the material goods that they purchase and experience to express their values, self, and social status (Slater, 1997). Bridging these two academic paradigms, leisure and consumer culture, informs the questions this case study will explore: (1) how does the photographic content that a jet setting SMI posts demonstrate commodification of the travel destination and (2) in what ways does the content around an image engage the consumer?
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Methods
The researchers’ approach to the qualitative methods started by identifying an influencer upon whom to focus the case study. @Gypsea_Lust is an official Instagram influencer with more than 2.1 million followers. The analysis of small samples of Instagram data, versus large data pools, can provide particularly valuable insights that cannot be obtained from quantitative methodological approaches (Sloan & Quan-Haase, 2017). We purposefully chose images from @Gypsea_Lust’s content through the conceptual lens of consumer culture and series leisure to better understand what she attempts to evoke in consumers through her curated visual content. Simultaneously, the content in the caption under the image, the hashtags used, along with the geotags, construct a narrative crafted by the influencer to produce a response from consumers.
Proposed Implications
Table 1 presents the themes and supporting narratives of the emergent process. By choosing to do a case study on an individual influencer, we were able to examine a unique perspective of serious leisure lifestyle through a travel influencer in the context of consumer culture. It is crucial for destinations to seek out travel influencers who portray a message in line with the destination. Collaborations can be utilized by various influencers and travel destinations, but not every travel influencer is appropriate for every travel destination.
References
Currie, R. R., Wesley, F., and Sutherland, P. (2008). Going where the Joneses go: Understanding how others influence travel decision-making. International Journal of Culture, Tourism, and Hospitality Research, 2(1), 12-24.
Laeder, J. (2018). Social Media and Consumer Culture: Addicted to the Idealized Consumer. Unpublished manuscript, Advanced Writing: Pop Culture Intersections, Santa Clara University.
Slater, D. (1997). Consumer culture and modernity. Oxford, UK: Cambridge, MA: Polity Press; Blackwell.
Sloan, L. and Quan-Haase, A. (Eds.). (2017). The SAGE handbook of social media research methods. Sage
Van Nuenen, T. (2016). Here I am: Authenticity and self-branding on travel blogs. Journal of Tourist Studies, 16(2), 192-212.
Veal, A. J. (2017). Research methods for leisure and tourism. Pearson UK.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
The Effect of Hotel Biophilic Design on Customer Delight and Willingness to Pay Premium: Moderating Effect of Health- Consciousness
Luana Nanu Auburn University
Alecia Douglas Auburn University
Abstract
The hospitality industry is becoming increasingly involved in innovation when it comes to design, turning the hotel into an experience for travelers. Currently, a high percentage of time is spent indoors, and studies show that being away from nature for extended periods is stressful for the human body, therefore a contemporary solution for this is biophilic design, as it brings the benefits of natural elements indoors. Biophilic design is using elements from the natural world into the built environment. The current study looked at the health consciousness as a moderator for willingness to pay (WTP) and delight in the context of biophilic design in hotels. Drawing on the S-O-R model and WTP, the current study will be adding to the new and growing body of knowledge of biophilic design in hotels.
Introduction/Literature Review
The hospitality industry is becoming increasingly involved in innovation when it comes to design, turning the hotel into an experience for travelers. Half of the world’s population lives in urban environments (54%), with an estimated growth to 66% by 2050; humans spend 93% of the time indoors separated from natural elements (Gillis, 2018). Studies show that being away from nature for extended periods is stressful for the human body, therefore a contemporary solution for this is biophilic design, as it brings the benefits of natural elements indoors (Kellert et al., 2008).
Methods
The study will be designed as an online, virtual scenario and will be using a quantitative approach. To ensure higher realism an online virtual manipulation will be used. All the participants will receive questions about their health consciousness, delight, willingness to pay, and demographic questions. The goal of this study is to identify if biophilic design mediated by health consciousness will impact delight and willingness to pay; the impact of biophilic design will affect delight which indirectly will lead to willingness to pay more. This study will be using one scenario with several pictures of public places of a hotel that has implemented biophilic design. The study will be using real hotel photos without disclosing the brand name. To analyze the research model, Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis will be used.
Proposed Implications
This study will have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretical as this is
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 one of the first studies to implement the S-O-R model with WTP in the context of hotels and biophilic design. Practical implications, as the results of this study, will potentially guide hotel managers in setting the right price for health-conscious guests. Overall this study will be adding on to the literature in the new, yet growing body of knowledge of biophilic design in the hospitality industry.
References
Gillis, K. (November 19, 2018). Biophilic design: What is it? Why it matters? And how do we use it? Building Design + Construction. Retrieved from https://www.bdcnetwork.com/blog/biophilic-design-what-it-why-it-matters-and-how-do- we-use-it
Kellert, S.R., Heerwagem J.H., & Mafor, M.L. (2008). Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. John Wiley & Sons.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
An Analysis of Factors for Hotel Selection by Leisure Travelers
Cihan Cobanoglu University of South Florida, Sarasota- Manatee
Seden Dogan Ondokuz Mayis University
Purpose
The travelers pay attention to where to select accommodation when they travel either with leisure or business purposes. Previous researches showed that price, location, service quality, cleanliness, hotel amenities, and free internet access were the most important attributes (Wang, Wang, Peng, & Wang, 2020; Kim & Park, 2017; Kucukusta, 2017; Li, Law, Vu, & Rong, 2013; Liu, Teichert, Rossi, Li, & Hu, 2017; Tosun, Ozdemir, & Cubuk, 2016; Viglia, Furlan, & Ladron-de-Guevara, 2014; Wong & Chi-Yung, 2002). If the hoteliers provide amenities and facilities that meet with travelers’ needs and requests, they will be able to obtain a competitive advantage, higher revenue and most importantly loyal guests. That’s why it is important to determine leisure travelers’ reasons to select one hotel to another. In this direction, the aim of this study to answer the question of which hotel attributes are more important for leisure travelers while they select the hotel to stay. This is the preliminary study for quantitative research.
Design / Methodology / Approach
The study was conducted in two stages. First, a focus group of 23 experts was asked to identify a list of important hotel attributes when selecting a hotel. The experts were individuals who stay in a hotel at least one time in a year for leisure purpose. Following this, a quick online survey with open-ended questions was designed and distributed via Mechanical Turk and 216 responses were received. The participants were asked to write the five most important criteria for selecting a hotel to stay for leisure purposes.
Findings
According to the data obtained from the focus group, respectively the top ten hotel attributes are price, location, hotel amenities, service quality, other guests’ reviews & ratings, number of stars, restaurant & bars in the hotel, cleanliness, safety & security, and high-speed free internet.
Table 1. Top Ten Hotel Attributes (focus group results)
Attribute n 1. Price 17 2. Location 15 3. Hotel amenities 8 4. Service quality 8 5. Other guests’ reviews & ratings 6 6. Size of the hotel – number of star 4
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
7. Free breakfast 4 8. Cleanliness 3 9. Safety & security 3 10. Free internet access 3
According to the data obtained from the online survey top ten hotel attributes are location, price, hotel amenities, other guests’ reviews & ratings, cleanliness, rooms & amenities, restaurants & bars in the hotel, indoor & outdoor pool, free breakfast and service quality. The results supported the previous studies.
Table 2. Top Ten Hotel Attributes (survey results)
Attribute n 1. Location 176 2. Price 155 3. Hotel amenities 88 4. Other guests’ reviews & ratings 71 5. Cleanliness 55 6. Rooms & amenities 36 7. Restaurants & bars in the hotel 36 8. Indoor & outdoor pool 35 9. Free breakfast 34 10. Service quality 31
Research Limitations
The study is limited due to being represented by the 216 leisure travelers. Most probably, business travelers’ answers may differ. The other limitation is that the responses were entirely drawn from an online survey system and this situation limits the generalizability of the findings.
Practical Implications
The findings provide an updated perspective of travelers’ hotel preferences. Other guests’ reviews and ratings which are the 4th important hotel attribute according to the survey results become an important source of information. The travelers read other peoples’ recommendations and opinions about hotels and services before purchase decision (Banerje & Chua, 2019; Berezina, Bilgihan, Cobanoglu, & Okumus, 2016; De Pelsmacker, van Tilburg, & Holthof, 2018; Fernandes & Fernandes, 2018; Gavilan, Avello, & Martinez- Navarro, 2018; Kwok & Xie, 2015; Lee, Hu, & Lu, 2018; Liang, Schuckert, & Law, 2019; Magno, Cassia, & Bruni, 2018; Mariani, Borghi, & Gretzel, 2019; Phillips, Barnes, Zigan, & Schegg, 2017; Tsao, Hsieh, Shih, & Lin, 2015). Additionally, high-speed free wireless internet which became an essential service at hotels was determined as the 11th hotel attribute. Importance of wireless internet was also mentioned in previous studies (Beldona & Cobanoglu, 2007; Bilgihan, 2012; Bilgihan, Smith, Ricci, & Bujisic, 2016; Chiang, Chen, & Hsu, 2019; Cobanoglu, Berezina, Kasavana, & Erdem, 2011; Jung, Kim, & Farrish, 2014; Zagade & Fernandes, 2018). Location, price, cleanliness and service quality remain the most important factors in hotel preference. So, the hoteliers must take into consideration that travelers still pay attention to the value of money, hygiene, and quality of service among
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 others. Another important recommendation might be that hoteliers should pay extra attention to manage and obtain guest reviews as they are becoming one of the top decision making criteria for selecting a hotel accommodation. Guests’ reviews and ratings about their experience give hoteliers an excellent opportunity to understand what triggers guests’ satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and to re-evaluate their strategies accordingly. On the other hand, these reviews and ratings help to increase or decrease the hotel popularity, attract information seekers and keep a specific hotel in people’s consideration set.
References
Banerje, S. & Chua, A. Y. K. (2019). Trust in Online Hotel Reviews across Review Polarity and Hotel Category. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 265-275.
Beldona, S. & Cobanoglu, C. (2007). Importance-Performance Analysis of Guest Technologies in the Lodging Industry. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 48(3), 299-312.
Berezina, K., Bilgihan, A., Cobanoglu, C., & Okumus, F. (2016). Understanding Satisfied and Dissatisfied Hotel Customers: Text Mining of Online Hotel Reviews. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 25(1), 1-24.
Bilgihan, A. (2012). A Study of Accepted Pricing Points For ın‐Room Entertainment Technology Amenities by Guests. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 3(1), 24- 31.
Bilgihan, A., Smith, S., Ricci, P., & Bujisic, M. (2016). Hotel Guest Preferences of In- Room Technology Amenities. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 7(2), 118- 134.Chiang,
C.-F., Chen, W.-Y., & Hsu, C.-Y. (2019). Classifying Technological Innovation Attributes for Hotels: An Application of the Kano Model. Joutnal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 36(7), 796-807.
Cobanoglu, C., Berezina, K., Kasavana, M., & Erdem, M. (2011). The Impact of Technology Amenities on Hotel Guest Overall Satisfaction. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 12(4), 272-288.
De Pelsmacker, P., van Tilburg, S., & Holthof, C. (2018). Digital Marketing Strategies, Online Reviews and Hotel Performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 72, 47-55.
Fernandes, T. & Fernandes, F. (2018). Sharing Dissatisfaction Online: Analyzing the Nature and Predictors of Hotel Guests Negative Reviews. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 27(2), 127-150.
Gavilan, D., Avello, M., & Martinez-Navarro, G. (2018). The Influence of Online Ratings and Reviews on Hotel Booking Consideration. Tourism Management, 66, 53-61.
Jung, S. Y., Kim, J., & Farrish, J. (2014). Room Technology Trends and their Implicaitons for Enhancing Guest Experiences and Revenue. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
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Technology, 5(3), 210-228.
Kim, D. & Park, B.-J. (2017). The Moderating Role of Context in the Effects of Choice Attributes on hotel Choice: A Discrete Choice Experiment. Tourism Management, 63, 439- 451.
Kucukusta, D. (2017). Chinese Travelers’ Preferences for Hotel Amenities. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(7), 1956-1976.
Kwok, L. & Xie, K. L. (2015). Factors Contributing to the Helpfulness of Online Hotel Review
Lee, P.-J., Hu, Y.-H., & Lu, K.-T. (2018). Assessing the Helpfulness of Online Hotel Reviews: A Classification-Based Approach. Telematics and Informatics, 35(2), 436-445.
Li, G., Law, R., Vu, H. Q., & Rong, J. (2013). Discovering the Hotel Selection Preferences of Hong Kong Inbound Travelers using the Choquet Integral. Tourism Management, 36, 321-330.
Liang, S., Schuckert, M., & Law, R. (2019). How to Improve the Stated Helpfulness of Hotel Reviews? A Multilevel Approach. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(2), 953-977.
Liu, Y., Teichert, T., Rossi, M., Li, H., & Hu, F. (2017). Big Data for Big Insights: Investigating Language-Specific Drivers of Hotel Satisfaction with 412,784 User-Generated Reviews. Tourism Management, 59, 554-563.
Magno, F., Cassia, F., & Bruni, A. (2018). “Please Write a (Great) Online Review for My Hotel!” Guests’ Reactions to Solicited Reviews. Jourmal of Vacation Marketing, 24(2), 148-158.
Mariani, M. M., Borghi, M., & Gretzel, U. (2019). Online reviews: Differences by Submission Device. Tourism Management, 70, 295-298.
Phillips, P., Barnes, S., Zigan, K., & Schegg, R. (2017). Understanding the Impact of Online Reviews on Hotel Performance: An Empirical Analysis. Journal of Travel Research, 56(2), 235-249.
Tosun, C., Ozdemir, S., & Cubuk, F. (2016). Usage of Neuro-Tourism Methods in Hotel Preferences of the Consumers. Proceedings of the 2016 WEI International Academic Conference (pp. 19-26), August 1st-3rd, Boston, The USA.
Tsao, W.-C., Hsieh, M.-T., Shih, L.-W., & Lin, T. M. Y. (2015). Compliance with eWOM: The Influence of Hotel Reviews on Booking Intention from the Perspective of Consumer Conformity. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 46, 99-111.
Viglia, G., Furlan, R., & Ladron-de-Guevara, A. (2014). Please,talk about it! When Hotel Popularity Boosts Preferences. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 42, 155-164.
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Wang, L., Wang, X.-K., Peng, J.-J., & Wang, J.-Q. (2020). The Differences in Hotel Selection among Various Types of Travellers: Acomparative Analysis with a Useful Bounded Rationality Behavioural Decision Support Model. Tourism Management, 76, 1-16.
Wong, K. F. K. & Chi-Yung, L. (2002). Predicting Hotel Choice Decisions and Segmenting Hotel Consumers: A Comparative Assessment of a Recent Consumer Based Approach. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 11(1), 17-33.
Zagade, S. & Fernandes, M. (2018). Do Guests Prefer Tech Savvy Rooms? A Perspective from Hotel Guests. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, 2(4), 293-300.
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Is Job Satisfaction the Key to Higher Guest Service Scores? Heather R. Lewis Troy University
Onick O. Lewis Troy University
Alexandria Finch Troy University
Camryn May Troy University
Yunbo Jin Troy University
Introduction
Job satisfaction is a key factor in an employee’s perception of work. A previous study by Davar and RanjuBala (2012) suggests that the level of employee performance is based on the level to which an employee feels satisfied. Research evidence by Rutherford, Boles, and Ambrose (2019) has shown that employee satisfaction is correlated with higher levels of customer satisfaction.
The purpose of this research is to utilize the Job Characteristics Model (JCM) in combination with guest satisfaction scores from hotels to determine if there is a correlation between job satisfaction and guest satisfaction. While research has presented itself in other industries, there is a lack of research linking job satisfaction and guest service scores within the hotel industry.
Specifically, as suggested by Spinelli and Canavos (2000), studies related to customer satisfaction in the hotel industries are common however few studies examine the relationship between employee satisfaction and guest satisfaction. While Perić, Gašić, Stojiljković, & Nešić (2018) focused on the relationship between employee satisfaction and quality of service within the spa tourism sector, they recommended that further research of this nature could be applied to other forms of tourism and hospitality. This research effort will satisfy the research need and also be informative for practitioners.
Literature Review
Research has shown without satisfied employees, organizations see higher turnover rates and lack of commitment to the organization. In 2019, Dhamija, Gupta, and Bag defined job satisfaction as, “feeling of contentment, freedom of thought, distance from stress and confident approach towards job requirements by the employees (p. 872).” In layman’s terms, it is the extent to which an employee likes their job (Tinuoye, Omeluzor, & Akpojotor, 2016). As noted
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by Tinuoye, Omeluzor, and Akpojotor (2016), job satisfaction motivates employees giving them energy to perform well on the job (p. 985). For the purposes of this study, the four factors decided upon for influencing employee satisfaction are environment, pay, fairness, and training.
Studies in the healthcare industry indicate that focusing on employee satisfaction and retention may have a positive impact on patient satisfaction (Collins, Collins, McKinnies, & Jensen, 2008). Similarly, as healthcare industry employees focus on serving patients, hospitality industry workers focus on serving customers. Satisfied employees tend to be more productive, positive and creative than those who are not satisfied (Kong, Jiang, Chan, & Zhou, 2018). They have a higher level of motivation and power to complete tasks and deliver great job performance. They provide “service with a smile”, resulting in guests who are more satisfied (Ažić, 2017). “Staff job satisfaction is significantly linked to guests being more satisfied with the service experience and their return intentions” (Worsfold, et al., 2016).
This study aims to find a quantitative correlation between positive job satisfaction and guest satisfaction in hotels. According to Blanz (2017), JCM predicts work-related outcomes (job satisfaction) which are influenced by five job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback). As such, skill variety refers to the degree to which a job requires a variety of skills and talents. Task identity relates to the degree to that a job requires employees to be involved with the complete work and not just a part of it. Task significance is the degree to which the job contributes to the lives of others. Autonomy refers to the degree to which the job provides substantial independence and freedom to the worker in in determining the procedures to be used in the job. Lastly, feedback is the degree to which the employee is aware of his or her work outcomes.
Methodology
This research study will be completed by using the JCM to develop a job satisfaction survey that will be issued to employees at a convenience sampling of hotels in the southeast. Participating hotels will also provide their current guest satisfaction survey scores that were collected and analyzed by the guest satisfaction survey companies utilized by the hotel brands (e.g. Medallia). To perform the correlational tests, the data will undergo confirmatory analyses to properly determine the statistically significant relationship between the hotel guest service scores and the levels of job satisfaction amongst the hotel employees. Mean scores along with standard deviations will be used to describe the nature of the data collected. A Shapiro-Wilk test will be used to determine the skewness of the distribution of scores. In addition, a simple linear regression will be used to statistically determine the relationship.
References
Ažić, M. L. (2017). The impact of hotel employee satisfaction on hospitability performance. Tourism and Hospitality Management, 23(1), 105–117. doi: 10.20867/thm.23.1.8
Blanz, M. (2017). Employees’ Job Satisfaction: A Test of the Job Characteristics Model Among Social Work Practitioners. Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work, 14(1), 35–50.
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Collins, K. S., Collins, S. K., McKinnies, R., & Jensen, S. (2008). Employee Satisfaction and Employee Retention. The Health Care Manager, 27(3), 245–251. doi: 10.1097/01.hcm.0000318755.24332.4b
Davar, S. C. & RanjuBala. (2012). Relationship between job satisfction & job performance: a meta-analysis. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations. Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 290-305.
Dhamija, P., Gupta, S., & Bag, S. (2019). Measuring of job satisfaction: the use of quality of work life factors. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 26(3), 871–892. doi: 10.1108/bij-06-2018-0155
Kong, H., Jiang, X., Chan, W., & Zhou, X. (2018). Job Satisfaction Research in the Field of Hospitality and Tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(5), 2178–2194.
Perić, G., Gašić, M., Stojiljković, M., & Nešić, I. (2018). The Impact of Employee Satisfaction on the Tourist Satisfaction with the Services of Spa Tourism. Economics of Agriculture / Ekonomika Poljoprivrede, 65(2), 617–632.
Rutherford, Brian N., Boles, James S., and Ambrose, Scott C. (2019). Reconceptualizing the measurement of multidimensional salesperson job satisfaction. Journal of personal selling & sales management. Vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 287-298.
Spinelli, M. A., & Canavos, G. C. (2000). Investigating the Relationhip between Employee Satisfaction and Guest Satisfaction. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 41(6), 29-33.
Tinuoye, G. O. O., Omeluzor, S. U., & Akpojotor, L. O. (2016). Factors influencing job satisfaction of academic librarians in university libraries in Edo and Delta states, Nigeria. The Electronic Library, 34(6), 985–996. doi: 10.1108/el-07-2015-0128
Worsfold, K., Fisher, R., McPhail, R., Francis, M., & Thomas, A. (2016). Satisfaction, value and intention to return in hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(11), 2570–2588. doi: 10.1108/ijchm-04-2015-0195
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Culinary Competencies for the Modern Chef: Updating the Skills Needed for Success in Today's Kitchen Mark Traynor Auburn University
Imran Rahman Auburn University
Erol Sozen Auburn University
David Martin Auburn University
Yejia Guo Auburn University Introduction
The increasing deficit of qualified chefs in foodservice has been well-documented for some time now (McKane, 2017). With a steady growth of 1.2 – 1.6% forecasted for the US foodservice industry over the next five years (IBISWorld, 2019), solving the workforce shortage in this field has never been more critical. Even with rising demand and an increasing number of enrollments in culinary programs, the foodservice industry is continually reporting a deficit of quality foodservice professionals (Wan, Hsu, Wong & Liu, 2017). In particular, culinary graduates prepared to fill leadership roles, such as kitchen supervisors, executive chefs, and culinary directors are lacking (BLS, 2019). Culinary and hospitality academic programs are responsible for developing qualified graduates with the required competencies to succeed as leaders in culinary. Therefore, it is essential that academic programs develop up-to- date programs that meet the current and future needs of the industry. Thus, the primary aim of this study is to identify the core competencies and success factors needed by culinarians to succeed in foodservice leadership roles.
Literature review
A small number of scholars have explored culinary competencies and success factors. Zopiatis (2010) found that technical (culinary-specific) competencies were the most critical amongst the 27 competencies examined for a successful career in culinary. Other researchers found that the ability to work hard, a commitment to quality, and knowledge of food safety were essential keys in the success of Irish head chefs (Allen and Mac Con Iomaire, 2017). However, these studies come with several limitations, including a failure to rank and differentiate competencies based on socio-demographic factors, (age, gender, generation, marital status, income, education, job-classification, type of workplace, qualification, experience, etc.) and psychographic variables (personality, job satisfaction, work-life balance, etc.). Moreover, the culinary and foodservice industries are changing rapidly, and competencies needed by chefs go beyond traditional vocational skills and include leadership, business acumen, interpersonal skills, knowledge regarding industry trends, equipment, and technology. In this regard, many of the studies have already become outdated.
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Methodology
An exploratory sequential mixed-method approach will be used. The first phase (qualitative) will utilize a comprehensive review of existing literature and focus groups with professional chefs, to identify and rank the underlying competencies and success factors needed in today's culinary/foodservice world. The qualitative phase will assist in developing and informing the quantitative phase (Greene et al., 1989). A quantitative instrument will be developed to measure the importance and level of mastery of the identified competencies and success factors using a broader sample of chefs in leadership roles in full-service restaurants in the US. Subsequent t-tests and ANOVAs will be used to investigate differences in ratings based on socio-demographic and psychographic variables of the study sample.
Implications
This research will highlight critical competencies that both current and future culinary students will need to find success in their chosen field. The findings may also help in the refinement of existing culinary programs to more accurately reflect the needs of the industry and provide information that can be used in the recruitment and development of culinary professionals.
Reference
Allen, H., & Mac Con Iomaire, M. (2017). Secrets of a head chef: Exploring factors influencing success in Irish kitchens. Journal of culinary science & technology, 15(3), 187-222.
Bureau of labor Statistics. (2019). Occupational Employment Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes351011.htm#st
Greene, J. C., Caracelli, V. J., & Graham, W. F. (1989). Toward a conceptual framework for mixed-method evaluation designs. Educational evaluation and policy analysis, 11(3), 255-274.
IBISWorld. (2019). Accommodation and Food Services Industry in the US - Market Research Report. Retrieved from https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research- reports/accommodation-food-services-sector/
McKane, D. (2017). Chef shortage: an analysis of the skills drain in the Irish hospitality sector of 2017 (Doctoral dissertation).
Wan, T. H., Hsu, Y. S., Wong, J. Y., & Liu, S. H. (2017). Sustainable international tourist hotels: the role of the executive chef. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(7), 1873-1891.
Zopiatis, A. (2010). Is it art or science? Chef's competencies for success. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 29(3), 459-467
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Perceived Supervisor Support and Hotel Employees’ Emotional Exhaustion: The Role of Job Crafting and Employee Mindfulness
Han Chen University of New Orleans
Yvette Green University of New Orleans
Introduction
Hotel frontline employees are known to have a higher level of role stress and emotional exhaustion due to the long working hours and irregular work shifts (Karatepe & Karatepe, 2009). Emotional exhaustion has been shown to negatively impact employees’ job satisfaction, performance, and employee turnover (Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007; Karatepe & Aleshinloye, 2009). Therefore, it is valuable to investigate factors that can potentially reduce hotel employees’ emotional exhaustion. Existing literature suggests that factors including perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived manager support help reduce hotel frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion (Karatepe, 2015; Karatepe & Kilic, 2015). In addition, researchers indicated that POS can enhance employees’ job crafting, making adjustments to the boundaries and scopes of their jobs proactively (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), which would further reduce employees’ emotional exhaustion (Cheng & Yi, 2018). However, scarce studies have investigated whether perceived supervisor support (PSS), an important social resource for hotel frontline employees, can help increase job crafting and alleviate their emotional exhaustion. Moreover, researchers in the mainstream demonstrated that factors at the individual level such as employee mindfulness would enhance employee job performance and help reduce emotional exhaustion (Reb, Narayanan, Chaturvedi, & Ekkirala, 2017). Hence, it is crucial to understand the role employee mindfulness plays in alleviating hospitality frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion. Building on the Conservation of Resource (COR) theory, the study aims to 1) investigate the relationship between PSS and hospitality employees’ emotional exhaustion; 2) examine the mediating role of job crafting on the relationship between perceived supervisor support (PSS) and emotional exhaustion, and 3) examine the moderating role of employee mindfulness on the above-mentioned relationships. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed (see Figure 1).
Methodology The target population of the current study will consist of around 250 hotel frontline employees across different regions of the U.S. An online survey instrument (using Qualtrics) will be prepared and put to use via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) for data collection. The measurement scales for PSS (6 items), emotional exhaustion (8 items), job crafting (12 items) and employee mindfulness (5 items) are based on previously validated scales and will be Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 modified to fit into this study (Leana et al., 2009; Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Ryan & Brown, 2003; Susskind et al., 2003). All scales will be measured using seven-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Demographic information such as age, educational level, marital status, organizational tenure will be collected. Hierarchical multiple regression and structural equation modelling will be used to test the proposed relationships.
Significance of Study
The study will expand the current knowledge of factors that can reduce hotel frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion. Paying attention to the role of PSS, job crafting and employee mindfulness will help alleviate hospitality frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion. In addition, implications for hospitality HR management in terms of employee hiring and training will also be provided.
Figure 1 Proposed Research Model
Appendix - Hypotheses H1: PSS is negatively associated with hotel employees’ emotional exhaustion. H2: PSS is positively associated with hotel employees’ job crafting. H3: Job crafting is negatively associated with hotel employees’ emotional exhaustion. H4: Job crafting mediates the relationship between PSS and hotel employees’ emotional exhaustion. H5: Employee mindfulness moderates the relationship between PSS and hospitality employees’ emotional exhaustion, with a stronger relationship for employees with higher level of Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 mindfulness. H6: Employee mindfulness moderates the relationship between PSS and job crafting, with a stronger relationship for employees with higher level of mindfulness. H7: Employee mindfulness moderates the relationship between job crafting and emotional exhaustion, with a stronger relationship for employees with higher level of mindfulness.
References
Cheng, J. C., & Yi, O. (2018). Hotel employee job crafting, burnout, and satisfaction: The moderating role of perceived organizational support. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 72, 78-85.
Halbesleben, J. R., & Bowler, W. M. (2007). Emotional exhaustion and job performance: the mediating role of motivation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(1), 93.
Karatepe, O. M. (2015). Do personal resources mediate the effect of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion and job outcomes? International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(1), 4-26.
Karatepe, O. M., & Aleshinloye, K. D. (2009). Emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion among hotel employees in Nigeria. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(3), 349-358.
Karatepe, O. M., & Karatepe, T. (2009). Role stress, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intentions: does organizational tenure in hotels matter?. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 9(1), 1-16.
Karatepe, O. M., & Kilic, H. (2015). Does manager support reduce the effect of work–family conflict on emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions? Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 14(3), 267-289.
Leana, C., Appelbaum, E., & Shevchuk, I. (2009). Work process and quality of care in early childhood education: The role of job crafting. Academy of Management Journal, 52(6), 1169-1192.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of organizational behavior, 2(2), 99-113.
Reb, J., Narayanan, J., Chaturvedi, S., & Ekkirala, S. (2017). The mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship of mindfulness with turnover intentions and job performance. Mindfulness, 8(3), 707-716.
Ryan, R. M., & Brown, K. W. (2003). Why we don't need self-esteem: On fundamental Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
needs, contingent love, and mindfulness. Psychological inquiry, 14(1), 71-76.
Susskind, A. M., Kacmar, K. M., & Borchgrevink, C. P. (2003). Customer service providers' attitudes relating to customer service and customer satisfaction in the customer- server exchange. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), 179.
Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 179-201.
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Analysis of Cruise Online Ratings and Reviews: Cruisers Satisfaction in the Chinese Cruise Market using Latent Dirichlet Allocation
Sijun Liu Auburn University
Alecia Douglas Auburn University
Pankush Kalgotra Auburn University
Abstract
Given the importance of the Chinese cruise market in the tourism industry, this study looked at important attributes of cruiser satisfaction by evaluating online reviews and ratings. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation method was applied to explore meanings among more than 60,000 reviews from two websites, including both Chinese cruisers and international cruisers reviews, a meaningful cultural comparison of important attributes between Chinese cruisers and international cruisers were made. Furthermore, a regression analysis is conducted to examine the effect of satisfaction level between Chinese cruisers and international cruisers traveled from China using Expectation Disconfirmation Theory as the theoretical framework. The findings will empirically validate the Expectation Disconfirmation Theory and will show the differences or similarities between two cultural groups as the indication of different or same expectations hold among two groups. The results can help international cruise companies, local travel agencies, crews onboard, Chinese tourism board, and other major stakeholders to understand the cruising experiences from a cruiser's perspective. Strategically adjust to match up the satisfaction level and improve the overall service performance.
Introduction
In recent years, cruise tourism continues to grow worldwide both by the number of cruise ships and the number of cruise passengers. In 2018, 28.2 million guests cruised globally, which is an increase of 5.6% compared to 2017. In 2019, it is poised to reach new records, with a forecast of 30 million sailing the oceans on FCCA (Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association) and CLIA (Cruise Line International Association) member cruise lines (Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (F-CCA), 2019). Passenger Destination Days (PDD) conveys to potential visits from cruise passengers across the region, is an important index of tourism impact. In 2019, Asia is expected to have a rise in Passenger Destination Days (PDD). There will 13.03 million PDD, which is an increase from 12.96 million in 2018. Contrary to the predicted rise, the total capacity deployed in Asia dropped 5.7%, mainly due to the reduction in short cruise itinerary options ex- mainland China. Moreover, the number of port calls to Asian destinations is expected to fall, attributable to 21% decrease of mainland China port calls and 17% decrease of passenger destination days (Cruise Line International Association, 2019). It is not hard to tell the
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importance of mainland China in Asia and the overall global cruise market.
China has a relatively short cruising history compare to North America and Europe, for around fifteen years. The cruise market in China is still at its developing stage compare to some other countries. The rapid development of the Chinese cruise market over the last decade revealed the potentials and opportunities of the global tourism industry in China. During these years, it attracts international cruise companies around the world, and the Chinese cruise market is mostly supplied by international cruise lines with large ships. China Daily reported in 2017, the Chinese cruise market growth slowed down for the first time since 2006 (Chen, 2019).
In 2018, the significant downturns in the Chinese cruise market hit the major ports, and several international cruise companies made some major adjustments to adapt market development changes, such as modified the itineraries and pulled ships out of China. In 2019, the annual report on China’s cruise industry announced that cruise passengers entering and leaving China was 1,777,140. In total, it dropped 23.74 percent compared to 2017 (CCYIA, 2019). The decreasing number of cruise passengers in the Chinese cruise market needs attention from industry and academia. At this transitional period, identifying the satisfactory of cruisers in the Chinese cruise market is necessary. Analyzing cruisers' perceptions and satisfaction through online reviews can help to understand consumers' behavior and preferences accurately.
This study aims to understand inbound and outbound cruisers cruising experiences in China by identifying keywords from user-generated content through two major tourism websites, cruisecritic.com and ctrip.com. The study will look into online ratings and reviews, which provide good coverage of cruise travelers across different travel regions. From the online reviews, the study will look into highly repeated keywords and themes associated with satisfaction, that one may provide a clear picture for practitioners on what to improve and maintain at the performance level and essential factors to cruisers.
Literature Review
The Cruise Industry in China Today
China possesses vast coastlines, abundant tourism resources, and massive potential for the tourism market. All the features attract attention from international cruise lines, and China has become the focus of the Asian cruise market (Sun, Feng, & Gauri, 2014). Richard Fain, chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., in his interview with Forbes magazine, said that to date, many cruise companies had established regional and local operation offices in China. China is considered as a long-term strategic objective for Asian cruise market development (Flannery, 2014). However, China saw a decline in oceangoing cruise tourism in 2018. It was the first slump since cruise tourism emerged in the Chinese market in 2006. Several international cruise companies made an effort to adjust based on the new situation of the Chinese market. A handful of the ships left China such as Norwegian Cruise Line’s Joy, Sapphire Princess, Majestic Princess and Mariner of the Seas from Royal Cruise line; SkySea cruise made its last cruise in August 2018.
Significant downturns hit major ports like Shanghai and Tianjin. In 2017, ports in
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Shanghai saw 403 vessels dock, a drop of 21.3 percent, and visits fell by 7.5 percent year-on- year. The cruise port in Tianjin, experienced a steeper drop, with oceangoing cruises declining 33.7 percent and cruise passengers cruising from China as home ports dropping by 29.3 percent compared with 2017, reported by China daily (Chen, 2019). The significant decrease of cruise passengers in the Chinese cruise market gives rise to the interest of understanding the experience of cruise passengers in the Chinese cruise market. Investigation of online reviews of cruise tourism in China and compare the online ratings from two websites can provide meaningful implications for the Chinese cruise market.
Chinese cruise market downturn is an indication of developing stage of the cruise industry; cruise line companies, along with local government, should strategically adjust and expand target customers. In order to implement suitable strategies, interpreting cruisers' overall experience and satisfaction factors are critical.
Expectation Disconfirmation Theory
This study is grounded in Expectation Disconfirmation Theory. Expectation Disconfirmation Theory as a theoretical framework, proposes that cruiser satisfaction is determined by match or mismatch between their expectations and the cruise experiences. The technological advancement and maturity of online reviews system allow cruisers to share their own experiences via text and multimedia platforms. Expectation levels of cruisers will have an opposite effect on satisfaction, the higher the expectation, the lower the satisfaction.
Expectation Disconfirmation Theory originated from marketing literature; it is a cognitive theory that seeks to explain post-purchase satisfaction as a function of expectations, perceived performance, and disconfirmation of beliefs (Oliver, 1980). It is specifically designated for customer satisfaction decision, and it has been applied within tourism research to study tourist’s satisfaction (Correia, Kozak, & Ferradeira, 2013; Coghlan, 2012; Chen, Wang, Zhu, & Lian, 2020). In Expectation Disconfirmation Theory, consumers are believed to form expectations of products or services before the purchase. The subsequent purchase of the products or services reveal the actual performance level, the performance level is compared to expectation levels using the choices of “better than expectations”, or “worse than expectations”, labeled as negative or positive disconfirmation, or simply “confirmation of expectations”, if as expected (Oliver, 1980).
Cruisers Satisfaction and Expectation
From 2010 to 2019, in the tourism field, the highly cited papers implemented Expectation Disconfirmation Theory mostly include destination evaluation and behavioral intention (Eusébio & Vieira, 2013), destination image, and satisfaction level from social media (Narangajavana, Fiol, Tena, Artola, & Garcia, 2017). This theory has become the dominant theoretical framework in the assessment of tourism satisfaction.
Among the studies exploring cruiser satisfaction, most focused on the relationship between satisfaction and perceived value, cruisers trust and loyalty, and behavioral intention (Sun, Xu, Lau, & Gauri, 2019). The satisfaction of cruise customers with cruise experience is
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vital because they are more likely to recommend and more easily to be satisfied. Ship environment, interpersonal service, and onboard offerings can play significant roles to cruisers satisfaction (Chua, Lee & Han, 2017). A number of studies on cruisers satisfaction identified some important attributes associated with satisfaction (Castillo-Manzano & López-Valpuesta, 2018; Xie, Kerstetter, & Mattila, 2012; Zhang, Ye, Song, & Liu, 2013; Satta, Parola, Penco, & Persico, 2015), empirical evidence suggested that satisfied tourists tent to repeat purchases and spread by positive word of mouth (Bruwer, 2014; Lobo, 2008).
Expectation refers to the belief that some outcomes will follow an act (Feather, 1990). In tourism studies, expectations are essential because tourism activities are evaluated based on the need and the expected outcomes; tourists usually hold expectations on upcoming service experience at a particular destination. Different expectations exist among different segments of people (Fan & Hsu, 2014). The formation of tourists' expectations is the first step to purchasing decisions. The internet shapes the expectation; social media, along with user-generated content (UGC), allows tourists to transmit their own experiences and influence other people's purchasing behavior. Social media and UGC act as motivators for purchasing intention and can be considered as factors which affect consumers' expectation in the original Expectation Disconfirmation Theory (Narangajavana, Fiol, Tena, Artola, & Garcia, 2017).
Analysis of Satisfaction using User-Generated Content
User-generated content comes from consumers who voluntarily contributed information on the web that appears to be entertaining and helpful to others (Krumm, Davies & Narayanaswami, 2008). It has provided a new way of knowing for tourists throughout purchasing, include evaluating, decision making, and experience sharing (Guo, Barnes, &Jia, 2017). The nature of user-generated content such as online ratings and reviews are more genuine, so that the data tend to be more trustworthy.
An emerging trend in hospitality and tourism research focused on online reviews to understand customer satisfaction (Guo, Barnes, &Jia, 2017). By looking at the literature, online ratings and reviews have been widely discussed in hospitality research from hotel and logging perspective (Ye, Lao, & Gu, 2009; Vermeulen & Seegers, 2009; Sparks & Browning, 2011; Guo, Barnes, &Jia, 2017) to tourism perspective (Yoo & Gretzel, 2008; Ye, Zhang & Law, 2009; Liu & Park, 2015). In cruise travel-related studies, a handful of the researchers also examined online reviews and ratings in qualitative and quantitative approaches (Xie, Kerstetter & Mattila, 2012; Brejla & Gilbert, 2014; Lynn & Kwortnik, 2015; Zhang, Ye & Liu, 2015; Castillo-Manzano & López-Valpuesta, 2018). However, a content analysis approach only selected limited reviews, and quantitative approaches only consider online ratings and pre-determined attributes from the websites; the questionnaire survey method is based on smaller data samples (Xie, Kerstetter & Mattila, 2012; Fan & Hsu, 2014).
In order to fill the aformentioned research gap, this study attempts to combine both textual contents and online ratings to interpret online reviews more adequately. Aspects like key dimensions of cruiser satisfaction, and variation across different groups and different time period can be addressed.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Research problem
Based on the previous literature, follow research questions are initiated:
1. What are the important attributes of cruiser satisfaction identified through online reviews using LDA between two websites? 2. How are the important attributes vary across different time periods?
3. How do Chinese cruisers and international cruisers compare in overall online ratings on satisfaction within the Chinese cruise market? 4. What are the most important aspects influencing cruiser satisfaction based on regression analysis using the large sample?
Methods
Sources for User Generated Content (UGC) analysis
In this study, the sample will be reviewers who left comments on “cruisecritic.com” website who had an experience cruising from China, whereas “Ctrip.com” website for cruisers who had experience cruising from China that is originated from China. Therefore, a comparison of two groups can be made, the perceptions of two cruiser groups can be differentiated. The study will also look at the yearly online ratings and reviews variation from 2006 till 2019 to identify specific trends. It will be valuable to capture the changes in the past and forecast the trends in the future. In addition, the variation might indicate that the expectations change among the years.
The empirical analysis will utilize data collected through the cruise review website, Cruisecritic.com, and Ctrip.com. The users on cruisecritic.com are mainly from outside of China, and the users on ctrip.com are mainly Chinese. Therefore, two websites can provide good coverage of cruise travelers across different regions and represent different cultures. Both websites have 5-star ratings, and the rating system has high volumes of consumer evaluations. Moreover, as a third-party website, cruisecritic.com attempts to obtain genuine reviews by requiring users to register through a valid email address and to log in before posting reviews whereas ctrip.com is the largest online travel agency website in China and users’ phone number is required to register and log in. Therefore, the reviews are more valid and reliable compare to other online sources. In Zhang, Ye, Song & Liu's (2015) study, the cruise critic website was used to generate data, and they also mentioned that the website provides categorized attributes to be rated. Ctrip website functions are similar; ratings on four different categories are required to post a review.
The data will extract from online websites using web scraping. All the data will be analyzed through Python; the analysis will use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), as a generative statistical model.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Data Harvesting: LDA
LDA is a topic model used in the field of machine learning and natural language processing; it will extract topics from large text-based data effectively. A topic model accounts for the probability of topics, and LDA is a common method for topic modeling (Blei, Ng, & Jordan, 2003), it assumes words in the reviews are independent, the joint words with similar meanings to form a topic, which means each review consist of mixture proportions of topics. LDA approach can quickly discover topics from massive text-based data.
Text pre-processing will be implemented by using modules of nature language toolkit (www.nltk.org) in the Python programming environment. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) will be applied to identify major themes from the reviews further. This method has been applied in an online hotel review setting (Guo, Barnes, & Jia, 2017) and other information systems and marketing research (Canini, Shi & Griffiths, 2009; Tirunillai & Tellis, 2014) to obtain meaning from text content.
Below is the LDA model. LDA model excels at analyzing big databases, the model itself does not impose any assumption about the structure of the text or property of the language. In addition, the frequency of the occurrence regarding each theme will be generated, and LDA allows researchers to explore the themes within different customer groups.
After identifying the dimensions, the important attributes will be used to generate empirical models. Regression is a quantitative method widely used to understand how the independent variables are related to dependent variables. In order to investigate the difference between two websites, two models will be constructed to compare the differences and variations among the same or correlated important attributes. Therefore, a more mathematical implication can be concluded in the study.
Figure 1 is the LDA model with plate notation cited from Blei, Ng, and Jordan's study in 2003. This study strengthens the model of LDA.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Table 1 contains information on the cruise ships that depart from China on the cruise critic website.
Table 1
Departure Port Cruise Name Number of reviews Overall Star Rate Shanghai Celebrity Cruises 1686 3.5 (millennium) Princess Cruises Shanghai 1543 3.5 (grand princess) Shanghai Princess Cruises 1005 4 (Sapphire Princess) Silversea Cruises Shanghai 293 3.5 (Silver Spirit) Royal Caribbean International (Spectrum Shanghai of the 22 3 seas)
Royal Caribbean Beijing International (Quantum 457 3 of the seas) Silversea Cruise (Silver Beijing 218 3.5 Muse) Viking ocean cruises Beijing 254 4 (Viking Orion)
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Table 2 contains information on the cruise ships that depart from China on the Ctrip website.
Table 2
Departure Port Cruise Name Number of reviews Overall Star Rate Tianjin Costa Cruises (Serena) 8065 4.5 Costa Cruises Shanghai 1204 4.5 (Venezia) Shanghai Princess Cruises 4677 4.7 (Sapphire Princess) Royal Caribbean International (Spectrum Shanghai of the 1509 4.7 seas) Royal Caribbean Beijing International (Quantum 18093 4.7 of the seas) Qingdao Costa Cruises (Serena) 8063 4.6 Costa Cruises Shenzhen 1204 4.6 (Venezia) Shenzhen Costa Cruises 5288 4.6 (Atlantica) Costa Cruises Guangzhou 109 4.5 (NeoRomantic) Shanghai MSC Cruises 2470 4.5 (Splendida) Dream Cruises Guangzhou 1440 4.6 (World dream) Xiamen Star Cruises (Superstar) 383 4.3 Norwegian Cruises Shanghai 7234 4.6 (Joy) Bohai Crusies (Ferry- Beijing Tai Shan) 118 3.9
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Discussion and Conclusion
The LDA is able to extract latent dimensions of satisfaction from abundant online customer reviews; the meaningful dimensions will reveal some key indicators of satisfaction of cruisers cruising from China. The findings will be more generalizable compare to smaller data samples based on questionnaire surveys. Furthermore, the method will utilize text-based data, which will leverage the rich and rigorous of the study compare to online ratings. From the dimensions extract, the cruise industry will benefit by tailoring some of the services and products to gain cruisers’ satisfaction. As a result, returning cruisers or future cruisers will substantially increase due to a higher satisfaction level.
The findings will have practical implications; thus, international cruise companies, local travel agencies, crews onboard, Chinese tourism board, and other key stakeholders can benefit from this study. Viewing the cruising experiences from a cruiser’s perspective and understand the different identified attributes and expectations between Chinese cruisers and international cruisers can tremendously provide insight into the Chinese cruise market; stakeholders should strategically adjust and match up the satisfaction level to improve the overall service performance. Furthermore, the comparison between Chinese cruisers and international cruisers can have a cross-cultural impact; under the different cultural influences, it reflects cruisers' needs and expectations. The findings will be generalizable to other cultural comparison studies and raise awareness of cultural differences to the broader audience.
As far as the limitations, the models will apply to extract dimensions highly rely on computer intelligence, so does the text pre-process. However, the reliability and ability of the models will improve over time. Second, the analysis will only target on some highly repeated words appearing on the frequency table; some infrequent words might be worth looking and helpful for the Chinese cruise market. Third, reviews amount from both websites are not equal due to the unequal cruisers’ percentage between inbound and outbound cruisers; this might indicate an information gap between the two groups. References
Blei, D. M., Ng, A. Y., & Jordan, M. I. (2003). Latent dirichlet allocation. Journal of machine Learning research, 3(Jan), 993-1022.
Brejla, P., & Gilbert, D. (2014). An exploratory use of web content analysis to understand cruise tourism services. International Journal of Tourism Research, 16(2), 157-168.
Bruwer, J. (2014). Service quality perception and satisfaction: Buying behaviour prediction in an Australian Festivalscape. International Journal of Tourism Research, 16(1), 76-86.
Canini, K., Shi, L., & Griffiths, T. (2009, April). Online inference of topics with latent Dirichlet allocation. In Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (pp. 65-72).
Castillo-Manzano, J. I., & López-Valpuesta, L. (2018). What does cruise passengers’ satisfaction depend on? Does size really matter?. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 116-118. Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Chen, Y., Wang, T., Zhu, S., & Lian, P. (2020). Will you miss me if I am leaving? Unexpected market withdrawal of Norwegian Joy and customer satisfaction. Tourism Management, 76, 103951.
Correia, A., Kozak, M., & Ferradeira, J. (2013). From tourist motivations to tourist satisfaction. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 7(4), 411-424.
Coghlan, A. (2012). Linking natural resource management to tourist satisfaction: a study of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20(1), 41-58.
Chen, Si. (2019, February 11). Cruise tourism declines for the first time. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201902/11/WS5c60b5bfa3106c65c34e88ec.html
Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) 2019 Asia Deployment and Capacity - Cruise Industry Report CLIA, Washington (2019) Retrieved from https://cruising.org/-/media/research-updates/research/2019-asia- deployment-and-capacity---cruise-industry-report.pdf
Eusébio, C., & Vieira, A. L. (2013). Destination attributes' evaluation, satisfaction and behavioural intentions: A structural modelling approach. International Journal of Tourism Research, 15(1), 66-80.
Fan, D. X., & Hsu, C. H. (2014). Potential mainland Chinese cruise travelers’ expectations, motivations, and intentions. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 31(4), 522-535.
Feather, N. T. (1990). Bridging the gap between values and actions: Recent applications of the expectancy-value model. Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior, 2, 151-192.
Flannery, B. (2014). Royal Caribbean Sees Profit, Growth Potential In China's Cruise Industry. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2014/04/22/royal-caribbean- sees-profit-growth-potential-in-chinas-cruise-industry/#3487ec586f06. Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (F-CCA), 2019 Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (F- CCA)
Cruise industry overview – 2019 F-CCA, Pembroke Pines (2019) Retrieved from https://issuu.com/fcca/docs/2019-cruise-industry-overview-and-s .
Guo, Y., Barnes, S. J., & Jia, Q. (2017). Mining meaning from online ratings and reviews: Tourist satisfaction analysis using latent dirichlet allocation. Tourism Management, 59, 467-483.
Krumm, J., Davies, N., & Narayanaswami, C. (2008). User-generated content. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 7(4), 10-11.
Lobo, A. C. (2008). Enhancing luxury cruise liner operators' competitive advantage: a study Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
aimed at improving customer loyalty and future patronage. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 25(1), 1-12.
Lynn, M., & Kwortnik, R. J. (2015). The effects of tipping policies on customer satisfaction: A test from the cruise industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 51, 15- 18.
Liu, Z., & Park, S. (2015). What makes a useful online review? Implication for travel product websites. Tourism Management, 47, 140-151.
Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction decisions. Journal of marketing research, 17(4), 460-469.
Sparks, B. A., & Browning, V. (2011). The impact of online reviews on hotel booking intentions and perception of trust. Tourism management, 32(6), 1310-1323.
Sun, X., Xu, M., Lau, Y. Y., & Gauri, D. K. (2019). Cruisers’ satisfaction with shore experience: An empirical study on a China-Japan itinerary. Ocean & Coastal Management, 181, 104867.
Sun, X., Feng, X., & Gauri, D. K. (2014). The cruise industry in China: Efforts, progress and challenges. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 42, 71-84.
Narangajavana, Y., Fiol, L. J. C., Tena, M. Á. M., Artola, R. M. R., & García, J. S. (2017). The influence of social media in creating expectations. An empirical study for a tourist destination. Annals of Tourism Research, 65, 60-70.
Vermeulen, I. E., & Seegers, D. (2009). Tried and tested: The impact of online hotel reviews on consumer consideration. Tourism management, 30(1), 123-127.
Xie, H. J., Kerstetter, D. L., & Mattila, A. S. (2012). The attributes of a cruise ship that influence the decision making of cruisers and potential cruisers. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(1), 152-159.
Ye, Q., Law, R., & Gu, B. (2009). The impact of online user reviews on hotel room sales. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(1), 180-182.
Ye, Q., Zhang, Z., & Law, R. (2009). Sentiment classification of online reviews to travel destinations by supervised machine learning approaches. Expert systems with applications, 36(3), 6527-6535.
Yoo, K. H., & Gretzel, U. (2008). What motivates consumers to write online travel reviews? Information Technology & Tourism, 10(4), 283-295.
Zhang, Z., Ye, Q., Song, H., & Liu, T. (2015). The structure of customer satisfaction with cruise- line services: An empirical investigation based on online word of mouth. Current Issues in
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Tourism, 18(5), 450-464.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
The Impact of Temporary Visa Availability on US Luxury Resorts
Rebecca Neal University of South Carolina
Marketa Kubickova University of South Carolina
Abstract This study investigates the current situation surrounding H2B visas in the luxury resort setting. A total of 12 interviews were conducted. The results provided saturation on three main themes; the uncertainty of being granted H2B visas, the increased demand for visas, and the additional costs associated with the program. The findings suggest that the H2B program is crucial for staffing during busy seasons.
Introduction
A major challenge in the hospitality industry since 2001 has been the decline in the available labor pool and finding a skilled workforce (Stringham, 2010; Brien, Thomas, & Brown, 2017). When Stringham wrote about this issue the unemployment rate in the US was 9.8 percent; currently, it is 3.5 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019), indicating the labor shortage is even more severe.
This study specifically investigates the current situation surrounding H2B visas in the luxury resort setting. The H2B visa is a temporary, non-immigration visa that allows citizens from other countries to work in the US for a maximum of nine months. Visas must be submitted by a company located in the US and several conditions must be met in order to be approved. First, the company must prove jobs cannot be filled by US workers and the addition of international workers will not alter the pay/working conditions of US workers/US job seekers (Selby et al., 2001). Second, the employer is required to cover all expenses for the visa process including transportation to and from the US (Huennekens, 2017).
Companies can submit petitions for H2B visas ninety days prior to the start of the seasons, specifically January 1st and July 2nd for two distinct nine month seasons that begin April 1st and October 1st. The government provides a maximum of 33,000 visas per season (Selby et al., 2001). In the first five minutes of 2019, there were 96,400 applications for H2B visas with only 33,000 visas available. Table 1 shows additional information, including certified applications denoting the number of applications which have met the required conditions.
Methods
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
This study utilized semi-structured interviews of human resource (HR) managers to provide an in-depth understanding of the H2B program. A total of twelve HR managers were interviewed. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded, member checked, and analyzed for themes. All participants worked in HR at luxury full-service resorts. Additional demographic information is provided in Table 2.
Results
First, a major challenge for participating companies is with the changes and uncertainty of the program when it comes to returning workers. Prior to 2018, an employee that had worked on the H2B visa over three fiscal years was considered a returning worker (USCIS, 2019). Previously, returning workers were not counted toward the H2B cap. However, this process has changed and now returning workers are a part of the H2B cap, effectively lowering the number of available visas. As one participant noted: “Before returning workers did not count against the cap. We have been using the program for 25 years. We never worried about the cap because 80% of workers are returning.” Such change has impacted hotel operations in a negative way. In some resorts, outlets have remained closed or openings were delayed as management did not have enough employees to fill these positions. As one respondent mentioned: “The resort could not open the pool bar until April. We lost a ton of revenue as Spring Break was in March.”
Second, the participants highlighted the increased demand for H2B workers due to the labor shortage. As one respondent stated: “We had to do something, we cannot get enough qualified employees locally to get us through the season”. The number of applications on the first day of availability is noteworthy. For example, on January 1, 2018, 81,600 petitions were filed; however, many hotels have found out that the cap was filled within the first minutes of availability. As one participant noted: “We submitted our application on the first business day of the year and found out we were already too late.”
Third, the respondents mention the cost associated with obtaining H2B visas. One respondent stated, “We did the math. It works out to $1.51 premium per person per hour that we pay.” All participants stated how expensive the program is and agreed it would be more economical to hire domestically; however, there is just not enough qualified seasonal workers available. Similar findings were discussed by Brien, Thomas, and Brown (2017). This study analyzed the role of H2B visas in a luxury resort setting. The findings suggest that the H2B program is crucial for staffing during busy seasons. Without the program, resorts would not be able to open some of their outlets, leading to loss in revenue, wages, and productivity. Additionally, the challenge that many hotels are facing is the cost associated with participating in such a program and the number of available visas.
This study adds to the academic literature on H2B visas. The limitations of this study may be associated with case study approach, limiting the generalizability beyond luxury resort setting. Future research needs to look at other hotel segments as well other destinations. Furthermore, quantitative approach should be applied, determining which aspects of the results may have the largest impact on hotel operation.
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References
Brien, A., Thomas, N. J., & Brown, E. A. (2017). How hotel employee job-identity impacts the hotel industry: The uncomfortable truth. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 31, 235-243. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019). Employment Situation Summary. (USDL-19-1412). Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm Huennekens, P. (2017, October 18). Takeaways from 2017 H-2B Data. Center for Immigration Studies. Retreived from https://cis.org/Huennekens/Takeaways-2017-H2B-Data Selby, E. F., Dixon, D. P., & Hapke, H. M. (2001). A woman's place in the crab processing industry of eastern Carolina. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 8(3), 229-253. Stringam, B. (2010). Timeshare and vacation ownership executives’ analysis of the industry and the future. Journal of Retail & Leisure Property, 9(1), 37-54.
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Table 1: H2B Visa overview 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Number of certified positions 93,689 101,765 119,232 133,985 147,592 % Increase over year (certified positions) 13.8% 8.6% 17.2% 12.4% 10.2% Number of granted visas 68,102 69,684 84,627 83,600 83,774 % Increase over year (granted visa) 18.2% 2.3% 21.4% -1.2% 0.2%
Table 2: Demographic Information of Participating HR Managers
Description Percentage Hotel size (# rooms) 100-300 16.6 301-500 0.0 501-800 41.6 More than 801 41.6 Average daily rate (US$) Less than $300 0.0 $301-$500 50.0 $501-$800 41.6 More than $801 8.3 Number of H2B workers Less than 100 33.3 101-200 25.0 201-300 33.3 More than 301 8.3 Experience with H2B (years) Less than 5 50.0 5-10 25.0 11-15 8.3 More than 15 16.6 Age 25-35 50.0 36-45 16.6 46-55 25.0 56-65 8.3 Gender Female 91.7 Male 8.3 Education High school 8.3 College degree 87.4 Master degree 8.3
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Motivators and Barriers for Baby Boomer Solo Female Travelers
Luana Nanu Auburn University
Shaniel Bernard Auburn University
Imran Rahman Auburn University
Abstract
The trend of solo traveling has been growing for the past year, reaching 18% of the global bookings, in comparison to 7% in 2018 (Solo Travel Statistics and Data 2018-2019, 2019) with an estimated 32 million American women traveling alone (Bloom, 2019). Many media outlets predict that solo female travel is not only for the younger generation but also for women 50 and older (7 Trends in Solo Female Travel, 2019); however socio-cultural changes, as well as spatial and practical barriers, have either facilitated or impeded women’s ability to travel solo (Berryman, 2015). Despite the lucrative spending habits of solo female travelers above the age of 50, there is a lack of research highlighting this population’s travel motivations and barriers for the future (Abbasian, 2019). Although there is an abundance of studies on solo female travelers’ motivations, experiences, millennial group patterns, constraints, and satisfaction levels, they have largely focused on solo travelers’ past experiences without considering their future travel intentions (Jordan & Aitchison, 2008; McNamara & Prideaux; Wilson & Little, 2011).
Furthermore, there is a paucity of research that applied a theoretical framework to assess a specific solo demographic above the age of 50. This study fills this gap in the literature by assessing female baby boomers’ travel motivations and barriers through the lens of cultural modernity theory.
Introduction/Literature Review
The trend of solo traveling has been growing for the past year, reaching 18% of global booking, in comparison to 7% in 2018 (Solo Travel Statistics and Data 2018-2019, 2019) with an estimated 32 million American women traveling alone (Bloom, 2019). Many media outlets predict that solo female travel is not only for the younger generation but also for women 50 and older (7 Trends in Solo Female Travel, 2019); however socio-cultural changes, as well as spatial and practical barriers, have either facilitated or impeded women’s ability to travel solo (Berryman, 2015). Despite the lucrative spending habits of solo female travelers above the age of 50, there is a lack of research highlighting this population’s travel motivations and barriers for the future (Abbasian, 2019). Although there is an abundance of studies on solo female travelers’ motivations, experiences, millennial group patterns, constraints, and satisfaction levels, they have largely focused on solo travelers’ past experiences without considering their future travel intentions (Jordan & Aitchison, 2008; McNamara & Prideaux; Wilson & Little, 2011).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Furthermore, there is a paucity of research that applied a theoretical framework to assess a specific solo demographic above the age of 50. This study fills this gap in the literature by assessing female baby boomers’ travel motivations and barriers through the lens of cultural modernity theory.
The cultural modernity theory argues that cultural development leads to an emancipated worldview that reflects into self-expression values as well as autonomy, including the choice and autonomy of women (Alexander & Weltzer, 2007). Baby boomers are mature individuals who have reached economic stability and have to available time to travel (Starkey & Parsons, 2019). These females are truly emancipated in the sense that they have gone through significant social and economic changes (Chiang & Jogartnan, 2006) that shape their travel decisions. In light of the current gaps in the literature, this study aims to answer the following research questions:
RQ1: What factors motivate baby boomers to travel solo in the future? RQ2: What are the barriers that prevent baby boomers to continue solo travel in the future? RQ3: Are there differences in travel motivations and barriers between young and old baby boomers?
Methods
Participants for this study were recruited from several social media groups that were listed by travelranked.com as the top social networks for women that travel solo. An online version of the survey was sent during September to over 30,000 women-traveling.com subscribers. Of the 1400 responses received, 943 were usable. From this sample, 59 % (557) were from baby boomers. The survey collected data pertaining to participants’ solo travel motivations and barriers, demographic profile as well as their likelihood to continue solo travel in the future. Items measuring travel motivations and barriers were adapted from Chen and Wu (2009) using a 5-point Likert-Type scale from strongly disagree = 1, to strongly agree = 5.
Results/Discussion/Implication
This research investigated factors that motivate or prevent female baby boomers to travel solo in the future. Also, a split was made between the young and old baby boomers to see if there were differences in travel motivations and barriers. The findings suggest that baby boomers will continue to travel solo in the future primarily for cultural awareness reasons. Alternatively, as social stigma towards traveling solo, and family and religious commitments increase (items used to measure social and family barrier), future intentions to travel solo will decrease. Likewise, as perceived risk, safety, healthcare restrictions, and language barriers increase (items used to measure external barriers), future intentions to travel solo will decrease.
There were significant differences between young and old baby boomers' travel motivations and barriers. Younger baby boomers were more motivated to travel for escape and relaxation purposes and were less restricted by their physical ability compared to old baby boomers. Alternatively, older baby boomers were less restricted by time compared to younger baby boomers. Baby boomers have specific factors that motivate or prevent them from traveling in
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
the future, therefore tourism planners can create targeted appeal to their advertising initiatives. This study also sheds light on an unexplored area in the literature through a unique theoretical framework. Future studies should seek to execute qualitative studies on other female generation groups for more depth behind the reasons for traveling solo.
References
7 Trends in Solo Female Travel (August 2, 2019). Context. Retrieved from https://www.contexttravel.com/blog/articles/7-trends-solo- female-travel
Abbasian, S. (2019). Solo travelers to city destinations: an exploratory study in Sweden. International Journal of Tourism Cities, 5(1), 35-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC- 01- 2018-0001
Alexander, A. C., & Welzel, C. (2007, April). Empowering women: four theories tested on four different aspects of gender equality. In Annual meeting of Midwest Political Science Association. Chicago: Palmer House Hotel.
Berryman, G. (2015). Solo Female Travel: Barriers and Benefits. Retrieved from http://www.travel-conference.co.uk/commentries.php?paper=323
Bloom, L.B. (July 26, 2019). 20 Most Dangerous Places for Women Travelers. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2019/07/26/20-most-dangerous- places- for-women-travelers/#6bc0caddc2f4
Chiang, C. Y., & Jogaratnam, G. (2006). Why do women travel solo for purposes of leisure? Journal of Vacation Marketing, 12(1), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356766706059041
Ching-Fu, C., & Wu, C. C. (2009). How motivations, constraints, and demographic factors predict seniors' overseas travel propensity. Asia Pacific Management Review, 14(3).
Jordan, F., & Aitchison, C. (2008). Tourism and the sexualization of the gaze: Solo female tourists' experiences of gendered power, surveillance, and embodiment. Leisure Studies, 27(3), 329-349. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614360802125080
McNamara, K. E., & Prideaux, B. (2010). A typology of solo independent women travelers. International Journal of Tourism Research, 12(3), 253- 264. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.751
Solo Travel Statistics and Data: 2018 – 2019. (October 8, 2019). Solo Traveler. Retrieved from https://solotravelerworld.com/about/solo-travel-statistics-data/
Starkey, S., & Parsons, J. (2019). Inclusive Apparel Design for Baby Boomer Women. Fashion Practice, 11(1), 81-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2019.1565382
Wilson, E., & Little, D. E. (2008). The solo female travel experience: Exploring the ‘geography of women's fear’. Current Issues in Tourism, 11(2), 167-186. https://doi.org/10.2167/cit342.0
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Business Strategies Employed by Sustainable Restaurants
Kristin Martin Columbia College, South Carolina
Carole Sox Columbia College, South Carolina
Abstract
Grounded in Porter’s 5 forces framework, this research will explore effective strategies utilized by nonfranchise, casual dining restaurants to ensure sustainability longer than 5 years. The data collection process will include gathering data and information via semi-structured interviews of owners of nonfranchise, casual dining restaurants in the mid-Atlantic region who sustain their restaurants longer than 5 years. A review of archival records (restaurant websites, newspaper advertisements, social media, and promotional documentation) will ensue. Qualitative Data Analysis software will be used to code the information and allow for the emergence of categorical themes.
Introduction/Literature Review
Parsa, van der Rest, Smith, Parse, and Bulimic (2015) and the National Restaurant Association [NRA] (2017b) revealed that approximately 30% of new U.S. restaurants opened (2000 to 2010) failed. Sustainable restaurants, however, are one of the top economic contributors to the United States economy (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2017; Cha & Borchgrevink, 2014). Exploring the strategies these restaurant owners use to ensure sustainability may increase the success rate of other restaurant owners. Extant literature indicates a gap existing for strategies that nonfranchise, casual dining restaurants use to ensure sustainability.
Porter’s five forces framework has been used to analyze business strategies and includes the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, and the degree of rivalry. The foremost objective of a strategic plan is to establish the best approach to managing competition or the degree of rivalry (Bolisani & Bratianu, 2018). Before the strategic planning process, restaurant owners must evaluate the impact the five forces have on the business (Dobbs, 2014).
Methods
To date, 3 nonfranchise, casual dining mid-Atlantic region restaurant owners have been interviewed, and 15 others have been targeted for interviews. The goal is to complete a minimum of 12 interviews to achieve a saturation point as extant literature indicates 12 interviews are necessary for adequate thematic analysis (Guest, Bunce & Johnson, 2006). Participation will include owners who own and operate one nonfranchise, casual dining
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
restaurant which has been sustainable for 5 years or longer by 2019. Semi-structured interviews will be used to acquire information and secondary data will be analyzed to strengthen data reliability and validity. All data will be combined and input into a Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) software platform called NVivo 12 which will code the information and segregate the data into core themes.
Proposed Implications
Through the lens of Porter’s five forces framework, the research will explore the strategies employed by nonfranchise, casual dining restaurant owners in the mid-Atlantic region to maintain stability and profitability. The research will assist in building a model that; (1) identifies factors impacting effective restaurant operation management and leadership, (2) promotes sustainability, (3) creates a vision for utilizing optimal business strategies, and (4) highlights the mitigation of risk. Once identified, these factors could also impact the performance of management and leadership careers within the hospitality industry.
Partial References
Bolisani, E., & Bratianu C. (2018). Knowledge as a strategic weapon. In E. Bolisani & C. Bratianu (Eds.), Emergent knowledge strategies (Vol. 4, pp. 49-72). doi:10.1007/978-3- 319-60657-6_3
Bureau of Economic Analysis. (2017). National data: Personal consumer expenditures. Retrieved from https://www.bea.gov/national/pdf/NIPAhandbookch5.pdf
Cha, J., & Borchgrevink, C. P. (2014). Service climate in restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, 15, 19-37. doi:10.1080/15256480.2014.872885
Dobbs, M. (2014). Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: A set of industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24, 32-45. doi:10.1108/CR-06-2013-0059
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How Many Interviews Are Enough? An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82. https://doi- org.columbiacollege.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903
National Restaurant Association. (2017b). Restaurant Industry Pocket Factbook. Retrieved from http://www.restaurant.org/Downloads/PDFs/News- Research/Pocket_Factbook_FEB_2017- FINAL.pdf
Parsa, H. G., van der Rest, J. P. I., Smith, S. R.; Parse, R. A., & Bulimic, M. (2015). Why restaurants fail? Part IV: The relationship between restaurant failures and demographics. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 56, 80-90. doi:10.1177/1938965514551959
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Breach of Trust: Privacy Concerns Over Perceived Value
Semsettin Oguz Yuksek University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Faizan Ali University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Abstract
There are multiple historical cases about breach of trust in the data privacy context and the boundaries of consumer rights upon privacy is still a gray area. This study is aiming for to observe what is the immediate change in consumers’ perception of value when there is a breach of trust situation. The data collection process is structured into two steps: (1) A qualitative-quantitative mixed questionnaire designed to collect the existing experience of consumers regarding privacy issues for both groups of the experiment. (2) Conduct an experiment of breaking privacy trust and measuring perceived value. This experiment is conducted by having two groups of people, randomly selected, and one group agrees to share their privacy and experience the damage from broken trust while the others just agree to sharing and experience no negative side effect. In the end, the same questionnaire from above will be collected. After collecting the data, the first step part is analyzing the qualitative parts for themes and sentiments and attach them to the qualitative answers. Next, comparing three groups, namely the existing experience, broken trust and enforced trust, their perceived values are statistically compared.
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Do You Even Lift Traveler? Examining Healthy Traveling
Hilmi A. Atadil University of West Florida
Helena F. Allman University of West Florida
Abstract
The objective of this study is twofold: (1) to identify the underlying push factors of Gen Z’s healthy-traveling motivation, and (2) to evaluate the relationships of the identified factors with GenZ’s travel decision making behaviors.
Introduction
Healthy diet and fitness have become important components of the lifestyle especially among the Generation Z members (GenZ). For instance, a report on global healthy eating trends by Nielsen (2015) indicated that a significant percentage of GenZ members are very interested in paying a premium for healthy food products such as those that are GMO-free. Moreover, health- related innovative technologies (e.g., fitness tracking devices and apps) enhance the motivation of GenZ to follow healthy-living habits in their daily lives. Such growing awareness towards healthy living, supplemented by innovative technologies, might also be forming a motivation for healthy traveling. Attending individual and/or group fitness classes regularly, developing the habit of consuming healthy local food and reaching the daily number of steps goal on a fitness tracking device are examples of items that might not only form the healthy-traveling motivation of GenZ; but, also their travel decisions. However, multiple studies stated that healthy-living travelers and their travel motivation have received very limited research interest and the phenomenon requires further research inquiry (e.g., Hallab, 2006; Kim et al., 2017; Yoo et al., 2015). To the best of authors’ knowledge, the present study is one of the firsts to focus on the travel motivations of GenZ within the context of healthy-living and health-related innovative technologies.
Methods
The data will be collected from a sample of GenZ members who are interested in traveling in the next 12 months via a Qualtrics self-administrated survey. These GenZ members will be students enrolled at a major university located in the Southeast of the United States. A non-probability convenience sampling will be employed to gather the data. The online survey will be formed of (a) demographic information, (b) future travel intentions, and (c) a Healthy- Traveling Scale. More specifically, underlying dimensions such as Fitness needs, Healthy Diet needs, Spiritual needs and Technological needs will be included as push factors motivating GenZ members to participate in healthy traveling within this scale. The major analysis of the study will be consisted of exploratory factor and regression.
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Proposed Implications
Regarding the practical contributions, our findings will enable development of effective destination marketing strategies by considering the healthy-traveling motivations of GenZ. Thus, destination managers will better understand the healthy-traveling needs of GenZ, and will also be able to offer services and products that address these needs. Moreover, theoretically, our findings will contribute to the conceptualization of the healthy-traveling motivation. The developed Healthy-Traveling Scale can be employed by researchers in both hospitality and management fields. The efficacy of the Social Exchange Theory in predicting and explaining the relationship of healthy-traveling motivation and future travel intention will also be tested.
References
Hallab, Z. (2006). Catering to the healthy-living vacationer. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 12(1), 71-91.
Kim, E., Chiang, L., & Tang, L. (2017). Investigating wellness tourists’ motivation, engagement, and loyalty: in search of the missing link. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 34(7), 867- 879.
Nielsen (2015). We are what we eat. Healthy eating trends around the world. Retrieved from https://www.nielsen.com/wp- content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/Nielsen20Global20Health20and20Wellness20Report20- 20January202015-1.pdf
Yoo, I. Y., Lee, T. J., & Lee, C. K. (2015). Effect of health and wellness values on festival visit motivation. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 20(2), 152-170.
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“Sharks in a Pond of Minnows” Professional vs. Non-Professional Hosts in Peer to Peer Accommodations: Text Analysis of User-Generated Reviews on Airbnb
Kyle M. Townsend Georgia State University
So Young Boo Georgia State University
Jailene Gambaro Georgia State University
Abstract
This research focuses on the emergence of the professional Airbnb host as an individual or company that has transformed what was thought of as a non-professional activity into a full or part-time business endeavor. This research has identified the professional host as those with two or more properties and non-professional as those with only one property. The purpose of this research is to determine how a traveler’s experience is affected by what we categorize as a professional Airbnb host vs. the non-professional host and how this professional operates in what is considered a non-professional industry interaction.
Introduction/Literature Review
The current “sharing economy” wave that is disrupting numerous industries has allowed for tenants with partial or entirely vacant spaces to prosper financially through platforms such as Airbnb. Airbnb began in 2008 (Aydin, 2019) as a disruptor to traditional lodging options by providing travelers rooms, entire homes, and the occasional castle as added lodging options. Airbnb boasts an estimated 2 million occupants a night globally. The current attractiveness of Airbnb to travelers is a sense of “authenticity” that traditional lodging options seem to lack. Through Airbnb travelers can experience a more immersive trip via local exposure.
Methods
The research differs from others in that the methodology is focusing on textual review analysis well suited for social marketers, via the Lexiamancer research tool (Biroscak et al., 2017), versus research that focused on review score, occupancy, and nightly rate. The directed information was compiled directly from Airbnb’s website. The current reviews collected are from three day weekends, excluding holiday weekends, in 2017, consisting of a three-night stay of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in the urban sectors of Atlanta and Chicago. The reviews analyzed were limited to October and November with current compilation consisting of 28% professional host and 71% non-professional host. The total number of reviews reviewed: 3,144 — total word count of reviews: 396,144. Through the visualization of trends in the text provided, common concepts and themes can be established between stays, locations, professional, and non- professional hosts. The breakdown of the reviews was via concepts and themes, with the first
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consisting of the tourist experience, frequent concepts in pros vs. non-pros, concepts by star ratings, and lastly by location.
Proposed Implications
This research is intended to be applied as a tool to determine how professionals influence the customer experience in what is designed to be a non-professional environment. The anticipated conclusion is identifying the emergence of these professional hosts and their dominance in the Airbnb environment. The future implications of this research include understanding how to maintain Airbnb’s share in the lodging market or how the traditional lodging industry can reobtain some of their lost market share and vice versa.
References
Aydin, R. (2019, September 9). How 3 guys turned renting air mattresses in their apartment into a $31 billion company, Airbnb. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from https://www.businessinsider.com/how-airbnb-was-founded-a-visual-history-2016-2
Biroscak, B. J., Scott, J. E., Lindenberger, J. H., & Bryant, C. A. (2017). Leximancer software as a research tool for social marketers: Application to a content analysis. Social Marketing Quarterly, 23(3), 223-231.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Message Framing and Food Allergy Communication in the Restaurants
Yee Ming Lee Auburn University
Han Wen University of North Texas
Abstract
Lack of communication between consumers with food allergies and restaurant employees could lead to food allergic reactions. This study investigated the effectiveness of framed messages (gain-framed versus loss-framed) in encouraging food allergy communication and explored factors that influenced customers’ intentions to communicate with restaurant staff about their food allergies. A total of 291 valid survey responses were collected. Approximately 70% of participants had food allergic reactions in restaurants, but less than 15% of them would communicate with restaurant employees before placing food orders. Gain-framed messages were more persuasive than loss-framed messages in encouraging food allergy communication. Attitudes toward the messages, perceived effectiveness of the messages, and severity of food allergies and previous allergic experience influenced customers’ communication intention. The study provides new insights related to communication in food allergies.
Introduction/Literature Review
Dining out is challenging for the 15 million Americans with food allergies (Mayo Clinic, 2019). Restaurant foods caused 30% of the food allergy-related fatalities (Wanich et al., 2008), due to hidden food allergens, cross-contact, lack of training among employees, and lack of miscommunication between restaurant employees and customers with food allergies (Kwon & Lee, 2012). Some customers with food allergies did not request special accommodations due to social embarrassment (Leftwich et al., 2011). Studies are needed to explore strategies to increase customers’ intention to communicate about their food allergies.
Message framing, which states a message can be framed to influences ones’ decision, maybe applied in food allergy research to prompt customers to communicate with restaurant employees about their dietary needs (Miles et al., 2006). A gain-framed message emphasizes on the benefits or desirable outcomes while a loss-framed message focuses on the negative consequences of not adopting a healthy behavior (Rothman & Salovey, 1997). Using message framing theory, this study aimed to: (1) Compare the persuasiveness of gain-framed and loss- framed messages in encouraging food allergy communication; (2) Explore variables that affected consumers’ intentions to communicate their food allergies with restaurant employees.
Methods
The sample of this study was consumers with food allergies (>18 year-old), who have patronized a full service restaurant in the past one month, recruited through Amazon Turk (MTurk.com). Section 1 of the survey instrument gathered data on participants’ demographics.
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Section 2 investigated participants’ perceived risks of dining out (Tonsor, Schroeder, & Pennings, 2009). Section 3 was related to perceived persuasiveness of gain or loss-framed message (Dillard & Peck, 2000), and behavior intention in communicating to restaurant staff after reading the gain-framed or loss-framed food allergy messages on restaurant menus (Table 1).
A pilot test (N=30) was conducted and all constructs were reliable (Cronbach’s alpha >0.9). Persuasion index was calculated as an average of attitude toward the message, perceived effectiveness of the message, and behavioral intention to communicate. Description statistics, independent sample t-test, and hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to analyze the data.
Results and Discussion
A total of 145 participants were randomly assigned to read the gain-framed message and 146 participants read the loss-framed message. Majority of the participants were male (N=184, 63.2%), Caucasian (N=181, 62.2), and with bachelor’s degrees (N=157, 54%). Allergic to one major food allergen was common and close to 50% participants identified their symptoms as mild (N=127) or moderate (N=138).
Approximately 70% participants (N=203) had a food allergic reaction after eating out, but only 11.3% (N=33) would communicate with the restaurants employees about their food allergies. For participants, dining out was somewhat risky (5.34±0.95). Some participants would not reveal their food allergies because they know which food items are safe (N=185, 66%) or could ensure their own safety (N=119, 41%).
Based on independent sample t-test, the persuasion index of the gain-framed message (5.33±0.98) was significantly higher than the persuasion index of the loss-framed message (4.921±.34); p=<.001 (Table 2), which supported the previous literature that showed gain-framed message have a higher persuasion power and worked well for prevention or protection behavior such as food allergic reaction prevention (Gallagher & Updegraff, 2012)
First hierarchical regression model showed type of message was a significant predictor of intention to communication (β=.13, p<0.05). Second model indicated attitudes toward the messages (β=.36, p<0.001) and perceived effectiveness of given messages (β=.30, p<0.001) were significantly associated with intention to communicate (R2= .39; ΔF=56.88, p<.001). The final model showed that attitudes toward the messages (β=.33, p<0.001), perceived effectiveness of given messages (β=.32, p<0.001), severity of one’s food allergies (β=.12, p<0.05) and previous experience having a food allergic reaction after eating out (β=.22, p<0.01) affected customers’ behavioral intention to communicate with restaurant employees about their food allergies (R2= .44; ΔF=2.56, p<.01). Demographics and perceived risk were not significant predictors of intention to communication, which contraindicated previous studies (Updegraff & Rothman, 2013), but supported the fact that relationship between demographics or perceived risk varied depending on the types of health behaviors (Brewer et al., 2007).
Implications
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This study showed that a gain-framed message is more persuasive in encouraging communication between customers and restaurant employees. Restaurants could consider having a gain-framed message displayed at the table, point of order, or on the menu to encourage better food allergy communication. Only some states (i.e., Massachusetts) required the restaurants to display a statement that reminds the customers to communicate about their food allergies, policy makers from other states may consider requiring gain-framed messages in the restaurants. Theoretically, the study proved that gain-framed message have a higher persuasion power on prevention behavior such as food allergies. Attitudes, perceived effectiveness of a message, severity of the food allergies, and past food allergic reactions after eating out accounted for 44.2% of the behavioral intention. Further studies may incorporate other variables to improve intention to communicate in food allergies.
References
Brewer, N. T., Chapman, G. B., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., McCaul, K. D., & Weinstein, N. D. (2007). Meta-analysis of the relationship between risk perception and health behavior: The example of vaccination. Health Psychology, 26, 136-145.
Dillard, J. P., & Peck, E. (2000). Affect and persuasion: Emotional responses to public service announcements. Communication Research, 27, 461-495.
Gallagher, K. M., & Updegraff, J. A. (2012). Health message framing effects on attitudes, intentions, and behavior: A meta-analytic review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 43(1), 101-116.
Kwon, J. and Lee, Y.M. (2012). Exploration of past experiences, attitudes and preventive behaviors of consumers with food allergies about dining out: A focus group study. Food Protection Trends, 32(12), 736-746.
Leftwich, J., Barnett, J., Muncer, K., Shepherd, R., Raats, M. M., Hazel Gowland, M., Lucas, J.S., 2011. The challenges for nut-allergic consumers of eating out. Clinical Experimental Allergy, 41, 243–249.
Mayo Clinic. (2019). Food Allergy. Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases- conditions/food-allergy/symptoms-causes/syc-20355095
Miles, S., Crevel, R., Chryssochoidis, G., Frewer, L. J., Grimshaw, K., Riera, A. G., ... & Mills, C. (2006). Communication needs and food allergy: an analysis of stakeholder views. In Allergy Matters: new Approaches to Allergy Prevention and Management (No. 10, pp. 171-193). Wageningen University Press.
Rothman, A. J., & Salovey, P. (1997). Shaping perceptions to motivate healthy behavior: The role of message framing. Psychology Bulletin, 12(1), 3-19.
Tonsor, G. T., Schroeder, T. C., & Pennings, J. M. (2009). Factors impacting food safety risk perceptions. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 60(3), 625-644.
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Updegraff, J. A., & Rothman, A. J. (2013). Health message framing: Moderators, mediators, and mysteries. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(9), 668-679.
Wanich, N., Weiss, C., Furlong, T.J., Sicherer, S.H., (2008). Food allergic consumer (FAC) experience in restaurants and food establishments. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 121, S182.
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Table 1. Gain-framed and loss-framed food allergy messages
Types Food allergy message Gain- “Communicating about your food allergy with the server is important to prevent framed allergic reaction and to ensure your safety. By communicating with us, you will reduce your risk of having a food allergic reaction.” Loss- “Not communicating your food allergy with the server is one of the reasons that framed leads to an allergic reaction. If you don’t communicate, you may experience a food allergic reaction because we are not aware of your condition.”
Table 2. Comparison of Persuasion Index for Gain-framed and Loss-framed Messages
Variables Gain-framed Loss-framed t
(N=145) (N=146) Attitude toward the messages Useful 5.61±1.29 5.04±1.67 3.28* Good 5.52±1.25 4.80±1.79 3.99*** Pleasant 5.39±1.38 4.65±1.83 3.91*** Wise 5.49±1.22 5.21±1.72 1.59*** Beneficial 5.57±1.28 5.36±1.53 1.27
Perceived effectiveness Persuasiveness 5.39±1.24 5.11±1.65 1.62** Effectiveness 5.34±1.31 5.01±1.79 1.84** Convincingness 5.36±1.26 5.03±1.64 1.94* Credibility 5.24±1.23 5.16±1.70 1.87***
Behavioral intention (During the next restaurant visit…) I intend to communicate my food 4.92±1.35 4.56±1.81 1.94*** allergies I will make an effort to communicate 5.06±1.37 4.62±1.86 2.25*** about my allergies I will take steps to communicate my 5.22±1.34 4.81±1.87 2.16*** food allergies
Overall persuasion index 5.33±0.98 4.921±.34 2.96***
***p< 0.001; **p< 0.01; *p< 0.05.
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Expanding the restaurant value chain through digital delivery; an assessment of the emergence of Third-Party Delivery Aggregators as a significant disruptor in the US restaurant industry
Mark Traynor Auburn University
Shaniel Bernard Auburn University
Andrew Moreo Florida International University
Sorcha O’Neill Auburn University
Introduction
Food delivery services are growing in demand. Fueled by consumers' demand for convenience, variety, and the rapid pace of technological advancements, digitally-enabled food delivery has become the most disruptive force in the foodservice industry today (Carsten et al., 2016). The restaurant value chain has been altered, such that foot traffic has dwindled as customers opt for online delivery instead (Huang, Kohli, and Lal, 2019). In particular, the emergence of third-party delivery aggregators (TPDA), such as Uber Eats, and Postmates, presents foodservice operators with multiple opportunities and challenges. Opportunities range from lower financial and logistical barriers for marketplace entrance, access to new and more extensive geographical markets, to increased sales volumes (Maras, 2019); while challenges include operational issues, profitability, and loss of control of food and service quality (Maras, 2019), counting the added cost to the consumer for using TPDA. Although numerous industry reports highlight the disruptive nature of TPDA on the foodservice industry, there is a glaring gap in academic literature. Concurrently, foodservice operators face an enigma; a significant decision is whether to use in-house delivery or to contract out with TPDA. Therefore, this study aims to address this literature gap by exploring the impact of TPDA on the restaurant value chain from the perspective of foodservice operators. The findings from this study will assist foodservice operators in the decision process regarding selecting the most efficient mode of food delivery.
Methodology
Research questions include; 1) what are the motivations for foodservice operators to use or not use TPDA, and 2) what are the positive and negative impacts of TPDA on the foodservice industry. A sequential exploratory research design will be used to achieve these aims. This research design consists of two distinct phases; qualitative, followed by quantitative. The first phase of the research study (qualitative) will utilize semi-structured interviews with foodservice operators to collect data on the use of TPDA. Twenty-seven foodservice operators that offers three distinct types of services will be interviewed; 1) users of TPDA, 2) users of in-
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 house food delivery systems, and 3) non-users of any food delivery systems. Data will be collected from casual and fast-casual restaurants in rural, suburban, and urban areas. The sub research questions will focus on the following:
1. The motivations for foodservice operators to use TPDA services. 2. The motivations for foodservice operators to not use TPDA services. 3. The positive and negative impacts of using TPDAs. 4. The challenges related to using TPDAs. 5. The desired changes that foodservice operators wish to see with the current situation of TPDA. 6. How the emergence of TPDA has changed how foodservice operators conduct business.
Proposed Implications
As is the intent of exploratory research designs, the first method (qualitative) can help to develop, inform, and refine the second method (quantitative). The findings of the first phase of the study will be used to refine and enhance a quantitative instrument based on constructs of import and a thorough review of literature to gather relevant scales to measure the impact of TPDA on the restaurant value chain from the perspective of foodservice operators across the nation, and potentially across the globe.
References
Carsten, H., Rajko, A., Schumacher, T., Wrulich, M. (2016, Bovember) The changing market for food delivery [Web log post]. Retrieved October 30 2019, from http://mckinsey.com
Huang, J., Kohl, S., Lal, S. (2019). Winning in an era of unprecedented disruption: a perspective on US retail. In McKinsey&Company perspectives on retail and consumer goods (4). Retrieved from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_g uide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html
Maras, E. (2019, March 21). Third-party delivery forces tough decisions for restaurants [Web log post]. Retrieved October 30 2019, from http://fastcasual.com
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Impact of culinary and nutrition course on cooking self-efficacy and dietary behaviors for college students
Borham Yoon, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Kyungyul Jun, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Abstract
This study examined the impact of culinary and nutrition education on cooking attitude, cooking skills and dietary behaviors for college students. A one-group, pre- and post- test design was employed. The results showed that there were significant improvements in favorable attitude toward cooking and cooking skills between pre-and post-test. The study revealed that participants significantly increased consumption of fruits and vegetables after taking the course. The study suggests that the cooking class is effective to enhance college students’ cooking skills and dietary behaviors.
Keywords: Cooking, Healthy eating, Young adults, Fruit, Vegetable, consumption
Introduction
The college years are a period of significant changes in the lifestyles of young adults. College is a time for most people to learn to be independent, and to start making important decisions about dietary habits (Conklin, Cranage, & Lambert, 2005). Dietary habits established during college are likely to be maintained for life and may have long-lasting influences on college students’ future health and health of their future families (Brown et al., 2005). Although college students are the at-risk population associated with unbalanced nutrient consumption and increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity (Girz et al., 2013), there are few studies of effective nutrition education programs promoting healthy eating targeted college students (Levy, & Auld, 2004; Ha & Caine-Bish, 2009).
Several studies also report some barriers that inhibit their adoption of healthier dietary behavior, such as lack of time, money and knowledge about cooking skills, lack of space and kitchen equipment, and access to unhealthy and convenience food (Papadaki et al., 2007; Jones et al., 2014). Moreover, previous studies have demonstrated that community-based cooking programs are a popular strategy to improve participants’ cooking skills and healthy eating behavior (Garcia et al., 2016). The programs aim at developing cooking skills that are highly related to healthier food related practices (Hartmann et al., 2013). However, the previous studies have limited on programs targeted pre-school, school-aged or the community in low-income rather than college students. Moreover, previous studies limit current understanding of its effectiveness in short-term dietary outcomes (Garcia et al., 2016).
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Therefore, this study attempts to examine the impact longitudinally of nutrition and culinary course on college students’ cooking skill, confidence, attitude toward cooking, and eating behavior.
Methods
A one-group, pre- and post-test design was employed to test the effect of culinary and nutrition course on cooking skills and healthy eating behavior among college students. The course consisted of three-hour weekly classes during a twelve-week period with lectures and lab sessions with printed materials (e.g., recipes, lecture notes) and video clips. The participants were recruited through the class (Fundamental of Food Science and Culinary Arts) at a university located in the Southeastern U.S. A total of 120 undergraduate students were participated in the study, and participants earned earn extra credits if they complete the surveys. In order to assess the impact of culinary and nutrition course on confidence, skills and attitudes toward cooking among pre-, post-, and 6-month follow-up test, ANOVA followed by post hoc test will be used. Differences in dietary behavior patterns will be tested using Wilcoxon’s test. Comparisons between participants’ characteristics will be analyzed using the χ2 test.
Proposed Implications The nutrition component of a culinary course appears to improve cooking skill, cooking confidence and food consumption patterns for the college students. In the context of culinary education, the cooking class design is effective to enhance students’ cooking skills and dietary behaviors. This study has the potential to work in concert with and in support of other school- and community-based cooking classes.
References
Brown LB, Dresen RK, Eggett DL. (2005). College students can benefit by participating in a prepaid meal plan. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 105(3), 445- 448.
Conklin, M. T., Cranage, D. A., & Lambert, C. U. (2005). College students' use of point of selection nutrition information. Topics in Clinical Nutrition, 20(2), 97-108.
Engler-Stringer, R. (2010). Food, cooking skills, and health: a literature review, Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research. 71, 141-145.
Garcia, A. L., Reardon, R., McDonald, M., & Vegas-Garcia, E. J. (2016). Community interventions to improve cooking skills and their effects on confidence and eating behaviour. Current Nutrition Reports, 5, 315-322.
Girz, L., Polivy, J., Provencher, V., Wintre, M. G., Pratt, M. W., Pancer, S. M., Birnie- Lefcovitch, S., & Adams, G. R. (2013). The four undergraduate years: Changes in weight, eating attitudes, and depression. Appetite, 69, 145–150.
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Ha, EJ & Caine-Bish, N. (2009). Effect of nutrition intervention using a general nutrition course for promoting fruit and vegetable consumption among college students. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 41, 103-109.
Hartmann, C., Dohle, S., & Siegrist, M. (2013). Importance of cooking skills for balanced food choices. Appetite, 65, 125-131.
Jones, S., Walter, J., Soliah, L., & Phifer, J. T. (2014). Perceived motivators to home food preparation: focus group findings. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 114, 1552–1566.
Levy, J., & Auld, G. (2004). Cooking classes outperform cooking demonstration for colleges sophomores. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 36, 197–203.
Papadaki, A., Hondros, G., Scotta, J. A., & Kapsokefalou, M. (2007). Eating habits of university students living at, or away from home in Greece. Appetite, 49, 169–176.
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Residents’ Perceptions Toward the Effect of Online Sports Betting in Tennessee Kenia Taylor The University of Tennessee
Rachel JC Chen The University of Tennessee
Abstract
Betting on sports via online platforms is a recent phenomenon that is changing the gaming industry. More than thirty-eight million American adults, equating to 15 percent of the U.S. adult population, planned to bet on National Football League (NFL) games during the season, according to a national survey commissioned by the American Gaming Association (AGA, 2019). Tennessee is the only state to have legalized sports gaming online, giving players the opportunity to bet on mobile apps, while the state is still outlawing physical gambling operations. This study aims to investigate the perceptions of Tennessee residents towards online sports betting legislature in a college town.
Introduction/Literature Review
Sixty-three percent of Americans support the appeal for legalized gaming and are planning to work against the Supreme Court’s ban on sports betting (AGA, 2019). Eleven states including Tennessee have implemented online sports betting gaming legislature. Tennessee is the only state to have legalized sports gaming online, giving players the opportunity to bet on mobile apps, while the state is still outlawing physical gambling operations. This study aims to investigate the perceptions of Tennessee residents towards online sports betting legislature in a college town.
Previous studies have investigated an exchange taking place between the residents and casino when introducing new gaming ventures (Tan, Lee, & Kim, 2017). Social exchange theory (SET) investigates the relationships between parties examining reward-cost matrices (Thibaut & Kelley, 2008) such as residents’ perceptions of the social and economic impacts of online sports betting. State law prohibits most gaming activities except for lottery and online sports betting as mandated by the state. Gaming literature strengthens the state’s case presenting negative references by investigating habits, addiction, and losses (Brevers & Noël, 2013). Studies have connected gaming perceptions to participation, positing the development of health, household, and personal problems (Kwan & Mccartney, 2005). The recent transformation to online sports betting presents some concerns, including the levels of continuous engagement vs. discontinuous gaming activities historically in past years (Lopez-Gonzalez, Estévez, & Griffiths, 2017). Similar to traditional gaming activity at a brick-and-mortar casino, the social impact of online gaming may generate significant effects on public health and welfare and add to the prevalence of addictions and other problems directly and indirectly (Blaszczynski & McConaghy, 1989). On the other hand, the economic impact of gaming revenue can be beneficial if proper legislation is passed to regulate licensees. Hence, knowledge and evaluation of cost versus benefits will determine residents’ attitudes toward gaming and their intention to play.
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Methods
This study employed paper surveys to gather data from students at a large institution in the state of Tennessee. These students were intercepted at the university’s student union randomly and were invited to participate in the survey. For the purpose of this study, two qualifying questions were imposed: (1) study participants need to be 18 or over to gamble in the state of Tennessee; (2) the invited participants needed to verify if they were a resident of Tennessee who had lived there for over a period of 183 calendar days. A three-week interval was used to collect 200 questionnaires. Of the returned questionnaires, 167 were usable, yielding a response rate of 83.5 percent. Returned surveys were coded and entered into the SPSS 25 program. Mean values for a variety of responses from male and female groups were compared using the SPSS program. The Mann-Whitney test was used with interval data. Statistically significant group differences are highlighted and discussed
Results/Discussion/Implication
Of the 167 useful responses,76 were males and 91 were females. A five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) was used to assess the overall participants’ reaction relative to the impacts of legalized online sports betting in Tennessee. “I support legal online sports betting” (overall mean = 3.59; male mean = 3.89; female mean = 3.33; p < 0.001), “I am happy online sports betting is legalized in Tennessee” (overall mean = 3.23; male mean = 3.53; female mean = 2.98; p < 0.0001), “I love to bet on sports” (overall mean = 2.14; male mean = 2.59; female = 1.77; p < 0.001), and “I intend to bet on sports when it is implemented” (mean = 2.08; male mean = 2.57; female mean = 1.67; p < 0.001) were rated by all participants. The following listed statements also showed statistically significant differences between males and females, including “Online sport betting gaming will help the city grow in the right direction” (overall mean = 2.56; male mean = 2.84; female mean = 2.32; p < 0.002), “I have bet on sports within the last year” (overall mean = 1.83; male mean = 2.43; female mean = 1.43; p < 0.001), “Gaming spending was part of my annual household spending in the past year” (overall mean = 1.57; male mean = 1.88; female = 1.32; p < 0.001), “I travel to other states to participate in sports betting” (mean = 1.29; male mean = 1.43; female mean = 1.17; p < 0.007), and “I feel Tennessee should have a casino” (overall mean = 3.33; male mean = 3.64 ; female mean = 3.07; p < 0.009).
The overall findings of this study echoed Tennessee Governor Lee’s comment on “lack of interest and support from residents toward the legalized on-line sports betting.” The results of this study indicate that Tennessee students are not looking forward to the introduction of online sports betting. Some findings of this study concluded that more males favor changes in legislation allowing online sports betting. Compared with female students, male students were more likely to be supportive of and happy with the new legislation, considering that they may have been involved with betting on sports and are looking forward to betting on sports once allowed. Understanding these factors can be beneficial for government officials in facilitating the regulation process. Online gaming companies can also use this study to gather marketing information about demographics in Tennessee to tailor their promotions.
References
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American Gaming Association. (2019). American Gaming Association’s Top Research on Sports Betting. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://www.americangaming.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/American-Gaming-Associations- Top-Research-on-Sports-Betting.pdf
Blaszczynski, A., & McConaghy, N. (1989). Anxiety and/or depression in the pathogenesis of addictive gambling. International Journal of the Addictions, 24(4), 337-350.
Brevers, D., & Noël, X. (2013). Pathological gambling and the loss of willpower: a neurocognitive perspective. Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology, 3(1), 21592.
Canale, N., Vieno, A., Pastore, M., Ghisi, M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2016). Validation of the 8-item attitudes towards gambling scale (ATGS-8) in a British population survey. Addictive behaviors, 54, 70-74.
Fiedor, D., Král, O., Frajer, J., Šerý, M., & Szczyrba, Z. (2018). What do Residents Consider to be Gambling and What are Their Attitudes Towards it? Evidence from the Czech Republic. Journal of gambling studies, 1-14.
Kwan, A. V. C., & Mccartney, G. (2005). Mapping resident perceptions of gaming impact. Journal of Travel Research, 44(2), 177-187.
Lopez-Gonzalez, H., Estévez, A., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). Marketing and advertising online sports betting: A problem gambling perspective. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(3), 256-272.
Tan, A. L., Lee, T. J., & Joseph Kim, J. (2017). Resident perceptions of casinos in a newly developed casino destination. International Journal of Tourism Sciences, 17(1), 15-31.
Thibaut, J., & Kelley, H. (2008). Social exchange theory. A first look at communication theory, 196-205.
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Travel-related Online Communities Research in the Field of Hospitality and Tourism
Yuan Zhou Florida State University
Cihan Cobanoglu University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Woody G. Kim Florida State University
Bendegul Okumus University of Central Florida
Introduction
Travel-related online community is a social media platform where people with similar travel interests can develop social ties, obtain and provide travel-related information, and make travel decisions and transactions (Wu et al. 2017). Recognizing its crucial electronic word of mouth (eWOM) effects and significant consumer decision-marketing impacts, e-marketers consider travel-related online community as a great customer relationship management (CRM) tool that enables tourism businesses to attract new customers and maintain a long-term relationship with their existing consumers. However, due to its virtual features and low switching costs, online community members can frequently join and leave an online community, and online community marketers are struggling to find efficient methods to communicate, attract, and maintain the relationships with their target customers (iResearch, 2018).
Over the past decade, academic scholars put great efforts on exploring a diverse range of issues related to travel-related online communities (Ukpabi et al., 2017). With the increasing number of publications in this area, reviewing the existing literature to shed light for future research is necessary. Therefore, the current study aims to conduct a systematic review of literature related to travel-related online communities in hospitality and tourism by identifying the key concepts and variables that have been studied, in order to provide suggestions for future studies and practical implications for management in the hospitality and tourism industry.
Methods
A systematic review was applied on travel-related online communities in hospitality and tourism literature to ensure it meets rigorous, transparent and reproducible manner (Okoli and Schabram, 2010; Kim et al., 2018). The data collection process went through three stages: 1) the first stage was a keyword search for peer-reviewed journals in hospitality and tourism field in two databases: Scopus and Web of Science; 2) the second stage was an advanced keyword search via
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manual search in Google Scholar; and 3) the third stage was a manual search of the reference lists within the existing articles.
Next, the article titles and abstracts were double-checked by two authors separately to finalize the sample size. Articles failed to meet the criteria were discussed then included/deleted; which leaves 72 final articles for data analysis. Then, based on the suggestions of prior researchers (Marasco et al., 2018), data were analyzed to present comprehensive understanding of the current study in this topic, such as publication per year, publication per journal, research approach and methodology, level of analysis and specific themes addressed, etc.
Results/Discussion/Implication
This is a research in progress. The results of the research will be presented at the conference. The results of the study will provide a comprehensive literature review of travel- related online communities in hospitality and tourism field, such as which determinants and factors researchers have studies and the outcomes they investigated. In addition, this study will provide useful suggestions for future studies and practical implementations for management in the hospitality and tourism sector.
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Peer-to-peer accommodation vs. Hotels: Role of authenticity, brand trust and brand love on consumers’ behavioral intentions
Joyce Han University of New Orleans
Han Chen University of New Orleans
Introduction
Advancements in technology and changes in travel behavior led to the rise of sharing economy. Massive accommodation market has become possible when Airbnb launched its platform in 2008 allowing Peer-to-Peer (P2P) renting (Yale, 2018). Along with Homeaway and VRBO’s similar models, Airbnb has paved the way for homeowners to easily enter the business of hosting (Ting, 2019). In the midst of P2P accommodation growth, brands such as Sonder, Stay Alfred, and Lyric are also providing different properties of apartments or entire homes as accommodations through platforms such as Airbnb. Compared to individual hosts who independently own and manage the apartments, corporate-based hosts lease in commercial or residential buildings, stock up with comfy furnishings, and manage the properties themselves (Cleaver, 2019; Putzier, 2019). Meanwhile, hotels are estimating the impact of this “disruptive innovation” as consumers use P2P accommodation as a substitute generally for hotels (Guttentag & Smith, 2017).
Authenticity plays a determining role for tourists in choosing where to stay (Lalicic & Weismayer, 2017). Previous findings confirmed that higher consumers’ perception of brand authenticity resulted in higher brand trust (Hernandez-Fernandez & Lewis, 2017). Researchers also found that trust positively influences both hotel and Airbnb repurchase intentions (Liang et al., 2018; Tatar & Eren-Erdoğmuş, 2016). Components of authenticity was also found to be highly associated with brand love, resulting in brand loyalty which encourages repeat repurchasing behavior (Mody & Hanks, 2019). However, scarce research examined the multiple dimensions of authenticity and how it is related to consumers’ brand trust and brand love. Not to mention the majority of the studies only examined P2P accommodation in general and have yet to investigate how different P2P company host is from branded hotels. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the role of different dimensions of authenticity, brand trust, and brand love in consumers’ intention to repurchase and revisit a P2P company host and investigate whether the same relationships exist for hotel brands.
Methods
The study will use Airbnb as the selected P2P platform. The research will employ a sample of U.S. consumers who have traveled in the past 12 months and have stayed at an Airbnb or branded hotels before. A self-report online survey will be posted on Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk) for data collection. Only participants whose most recent experience with Airbnb has been with a company host will be allowed to participate. Sample size for both Airbnb and hotels will be 200. The measurement scales for all constructs are based on previously validated scales
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 and will be modified to fit into this study (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Delgado-Ballester et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2009; Mody et al., 2019). All scales will be measured using seven-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Multiple regression will be used to test the proposed relationships.
Significance of Study
The study will fill the gap in the existing literature of P2P accommodation. The results of this study will provide practical implications to both P2P company hosts and chain operated hotels.
Figure 1 Research Model
References
Carroll, B. A., & Ahuvia, A. C. (2006). Some antecedents and outcomes of brand love. Marketing Letters, 17(2), 79-89.
Cleaver, J. (2019, July 15). It's not a hotel. It's not Airbnb. Meet the short-term rental startups setting up shop in Chicago. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/real- estate/ct- re-brand-hotels-0721-20190715-kngbfvi7eba6jd5qfxid3y7az4-story.html
Delgado-Ballester, E., Munuera-Aleman, J. L., & Yague-Guillen, M. J. (2003). Development and validation of a brand trust scale. International Journal of Market Research, 45(1), 35-54.
Guttentag, D. A., & Smith, S. L. (2017). Assessing Airbnb as a disruptive innovation relative to
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hotels: Substitution and comparative performance expectations. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 64, 1-10.
Hernandez-Fernandez, A., & Lewis, M. C. (2019). Brand authenticity leads to perceived value and brand trust. European Journal of Management and Business Economics.
Lalicic, L., & Weismayer, C. (2017). The role of authenticity in Airbnb experiences. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2017 (pp. 781-794). Springer, Cham.
Liang, L. J., Choi, H. C., & Joppe, M. (2018). Exploring the relationship between satisfaction, trust and switching intention, repurchase intention in the context of Airbnb. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 69, 41-48.
Mody, M., & Hanks, L. (2019). Consumption authenticity in the accommodations industry: the keys to brand love and brand loyalty for hotels and airbnb. Journal of Travel Research, 0047287519826233.
Putzier, K. (2019, May 7). Airbnb, Marriott Battle Upstarts for Short-Term Rental Market. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-marriott-battle-upstarts-for-short- term- rental-market-11557234000
Tatar, Ş. B., & Eren-Erdoğmuş, İ. (2016). The effect of social media marketing on brand trust and brand loyalty for hotels. Information Technology & Tourism, 16(3), 249-263.
Ting, D., & . (2019, April 18). Airbnb Leads New $160 Million Funding for Short-Term Rental Brand Lyric. Retrieved from https://skift.com/2019/04/17/airbnb-leads-new-160-million- funding-for-short-term-rental-brand-lyric/
Yale, A. J. (2018, October 17). 10 Years After Airbnb, Real Estate Developers See The Money In Home-sharing. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/alyyale/2018/10/17/multi- family-developers-are- leveraging-the-short-term-rental-fad-heres-how/#7e7
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Big Data Applications in Hotel Industry Research: A Review Study
Semsettin Oguz Yuksek University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Cihan Cobanoglu University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Faizan Ali University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Introduction
As the internet technology became a crucial part of daily life and changed the behavior of consumers, the value of data and data analytics have also increased for hospitality industry professionals and researchers (Li & Law, 2020). According to Gretzel & Yoo (2008), %80 of the consumers are utilizing the reviews on the internet for purchases of services and products. Another change in behavior has happened when the social media on internet emerged and became a part of the daily life. There is an abundance of user generated data on the social media outlets regarding destinations, travels and hospitality industry (Teare, Bowen, & Baloglu, 2015). Hence, the importance of utilizing data sources in a framework that is efficient and insightful have increased, leading researchers and the professionals into trying out new tools that are already being utilized in other industries.
Big data is one of the latest technology buzzwords in the hospitality industry. By definition, it is described using four dimensions: scale of data, the speed of data creation, reliability of data and type of data (Federer, 2016). With the increased quantity of different data sources that can be classified as big data, it has become crucial for companies to utilize the benefits of big data applications to stay competitive as well as these applications became a new data source in the research field.
The aim of this study is to analyze recent examples of big data applications in hospitality industry research. By reviewing the existing literature, the importance and benefits of big data applications are questioned and the gaps in the literature will be highlighted for further research. Big data is a new approach to how data is consumed, and implied possibilities are promising. This review study answers the question of what the recent applications and developments with the use of big data are and how it should be utilized in the future.
Methodology
Given the latest advancements in tourism and hospitality industry, the technological advancements and specifically big data applications gives birth to extant and meaningful studies that are becoming useful via future contributions that they possess, and as such, extant studies play an important role on showing recent theoretical developments and were used for the given study. SCOPUS database is used as the source of articles. It is described as” Scopus is a source-
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neutral abstract and citation database curated by independent subject matter experts. It places powerful discovery and analytics tools in the hands of researchers, librarians, institutional research managers and funders.” by Elsevier, a publishing and analytics company who owns the database and curates.
For the purpose of applying filtration and removing the unfit studies, given criteria are as follows:
The initial keyword set for the database query is “big data application” with the added content filters “hospitality” and “hotel”. By the nature of extant studies, studies that are published between 2017 and 2020.
Sourced from: SCOPUS database (2019)
Figure 1: Papers per year with keywords
Fig. 1 showcases SCOPUS database on quantification of papers published to the upcoming date of 2020. Given figure illustrates how big data became a hot topic and to author’s knowledge, received and kept on receiving global research attention. For the purpose of given study, metadata of total of 38 papers is gathered through SCOPUS database including the abstracts and soft copies are downloaded.
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Sourced from: SCOPUS database (2019)
Figure 2: Citations of papers per year with keywords
Fig. 2 showcases SCOPUS database on citation counts of papers published to the upcoming date of 2020. To support, citation counts have exponentially increased with the influx of published articles on the topic.
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Sourced from: SCOPUS database (2019)
Figure 3: Top 10 countries with keywords
Fig. 3 showcases SCOPUS database on the countries for the papers published to the upcoming date of 2020. Top 10 countries to produce studies on the topic are United States (5), Taiwan (4), Italy (3), Malaysia (3), South Korea (3), United Kingdom (3), Australia (2), Canada (2), China (2), Portugal (2).
Findings
As an analysis of content, Fig. 4 showcases the most frequent words in the titles of papers in SCOPUS database published to the upcoming date of 2020. Apart from the words that are included in the keywords used to filter papers, most frequent words are; analysis (7), access (6), tourism (6), management (4), analytics (4), sentiment (3) and online (3).
Sourced from: SCOPUS database (2019)
Figure 4: Word cloud from the titles of papers
Fig. 5 showcases the most frequent words in the keywords that are provided by authors of papers in SCOPUS database published to the upcoming date of 2020. Apart from the words that are
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included in the keywords used to filter papers, most frequent words are; analysis (10), social (7), tourism (6), online (6), analytics (5), knowledge (5) and management (5).
Sourced from: SCOPUS database (2019)
Figure 5: Word cloud from the keywords provided by authors of papers
Further analysis into content is conducted by coding the abstracts of 38 papers for their research questions and methodology with the goal of identifying similarities and differences.
Themes
Upon the reviewing the papers, there are common themes in the statements that papers made. One of the striking themes was the trend of emerging data sources as social media and user- generated content are gaining momentum as preference of consumers before making decisions as well as the preferred source of secondary data in research (Li & Law, 2019). Another theme was that there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of big data and its applications in the industry and the academia, mostly due to the definition of big data wasn’t clearly understood before applying it onto the field. That brings another theme into the mix that there is still an untapped potential in the utilization of different big data sources in most of the subsets if hospitality and tourism. This becomes more important considering the smaller businesses lack the financial and human resources that could be utilized by working on big data
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would be struggling to compete with corporates that can allocate necessary resources to have competitive edge. By simplifying the concept of big data and its applications, providing an accessible knowledge base for everyone, further development of the market can be established in a more sustainable way.
During the review, the methods that are frequently used in the papers reviewed are: text analysis, semantic analysis, machine learning, exploratory analysis, literature review. Having methods that are commonly utilized in the literature implies that the methods are being studied well up to a certain point and collective knowledge of using these methods is gaining momentum. On the other hand, it is highlighting the implication of lack of comprehensive understanding of big data in the first place by not showing variation in terms of pure utilization of big data applications in the field.
The main areas of applications of big data in the papers reviewed are: revenue management, understanding consumer behavior, brand management, forecasting trends. These different applications cover a noticeable majority of managerial decision support systems and showcases the high potential for utilization of big data in the decision-making process. As more businesses and researchers grasp the understanding of the value of big data, the environment which businesses and researches compete will be more competitive and efficient usage of big data applications may provide the businesses and the researches competitive edge by providing novel applications and unique qualities in what they do.
There is a lack of established understanding of existing big data sources for hospitality and hotel industry. Therefore, further research should evaluate and elaborate on collective set of available data sources. Even though the research pipeline using big data applications is showcasing a trend of standardization, there is a lack of integration with the industry. Therefore, researchers should also focus on evaluating and documenting the ideas that could transform the industry into a data-generating powerhouse by establishing a knowledge base on how big data is generated and optimized for supporting the decision-making systems in the management level. Even with this smaller subset of big data research, there are multiple review papers published in the last 4 years. This suggests that researchers are iterating upon the collective literature of big data applications in hospitality and hotel industry frequently. Review papers reviewed in this study have unique ways in evaluating the literature but an exploratory one without unique ways would be a landmark study in the area
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conventional and big data sources. Tourism Management, 68, 101-115. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2018.02.020
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Ibrahim, Z., Johar, M. G. M., Yahaya, C. K. N. H. C. K., & Rahman, N. R. A. (2019). The characteristics of big data in successful of software development life cycle for mobile application. International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering, 8(2 Special Issue 9), 848-852. doi:10.35940/ijrte.B1175.0982S919
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Padma, P., & Ahn, J. (2020). Guest satisfaction & dissatisfaction in luxury hotels: An application of big data. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 84 doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.102318
Park, D., Kim, W. G., & Choi, S. (2019). Application of social media analytics in tourism crisis communication. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(15), 1810-1824. doi:10.1080/13683500.2018.1504900
Park, E. (2019). The role of satisfaction on customer reuse to airline services: An application of big data approaches. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 47, 370-374. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.01.004
Saito, T., Takahashi, A., Koide, N., & Ichifuji, Y. (2019). Application of online booking data to hotel revenue management. International Journal of Information Management, 46, 37- 53. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.11.003
Shang, M., & Shang, J. (2017). Cloud platform big data analysis of fertilizer application behavior of large scale farmers. Boletin Tecnico/Technical Bulletin, 55(4), 41-47. Retrieved from www.scopus.com
Shayaa, S., Jaafar, N. I., Bahri, S., Sulaiman, A., Seuk Wai, P., Wai Chung, Y., . . . Al-Garadi, M. A. (2018). Sentiment analysis of big data: Methods, applications, and open challenges. IEEE Access, 6, 37807-37827. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2851311
Teare, R., Bowen, J., & Baloglu, S. (2015). What is the current and future impact of social media on hospitality and tourism?, 222-223.
Villamediana-Pedrosa, J. D., Vila-Lopez, N., & Küster-Boluda, I. (2019). Secrets to design an effective message on facebook: An application to a touristic destination based on big data analysis. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(15), 1841-1861. doi:10.1080/13683500.2018.1554625
Wang, Y. (2017). A method study on the value chain optimisation of tourism industry based on big data. International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 7(2), 159-166. doi:10.1504/IJAMC.2017.085931
Wright, L. T., Robin, R., Stone, M., & Aravopoulou, D. E. (2019). Adoption of big data technology for innovation in B2B marketing. Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, doi:10.1080/1051712X.2019.1611082
Xu, F., Nash, N., & Whitmarsh, L. (2019). Big data or small data? A methodological review of sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, doi:10.1080/09669582.2019.1631318
Zhan, M., & Widén, G. (2018). Public libraries: Roles in big data. Electronic Library, 36(1), 133-145. doi:10.1108/EL-06-2016-0134
Zhang, J., Ren, M., Xiao, X., & Zhang, J. (2017). Providing consumers with a representative subset from online reviews. Online Information Review, 41(6), 877-899. doi:10.1108/OIR- 05-2016-0125
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Appendices
Appendix A: Word Frequencies for Keywords Provided by Authors of Papers
data 26 tourist 1 oriented 1 dynamic 1 big 22 topic 1 optimal 1 dissatisfaction 1 analysis 10 to 1 opinionated 1 disruptive 1 social 7 things 1 opinion 1 dirichlet 1 tourism 6 text 1 of 1 dimensions 1 online 6 taiwan 1 networks 1 digital 1 management 5 systems 1 museum 1 dictionaries 1 knowledge 5 system 1 models 1 development 1 analytics 5 synthesis 1 mobility 1 density 1 media 4 sustainable 1 methods 1 demand 1 hospitality 4 sustainability 1 market 1 decision 1 technology 3 surveys 1 mapping 1 cycle 1 service 3 studies 1 manufacturing 1 customers 1 sentiment 3 strategy 1 making 1 country 1 machine 3 strategies 1 luxury 1 computing 1 learning 3 storage 1 long 1 components 1 ict 3 stakeholder 1 logic 1 communication 1 hotel 3 squares 1 local 1 combination 1 brand 3 software 1 life 1 co 1 and 3 small 1 libraries 1 cloud 1 tickets 2 short 1 least 1 classification 1 smart 2 sharing 1 leadership 1 citation 1 satisfaction 2 services 1 latent 1 choice 1 review 2 sensor 1 lasso 1 catreg 1 revenue 2 semantic 1 kenya 1 capacity 1 research 2 sem 1 iot 1 businesses 1 pricing 2 sector 1 interoperability 1 bridge 1 platforms 2 seasonality 1 internet 1 boosting 1 network 2 search 1 interconnectivity 1 booking 1 modelling 2 score 1 intention 1 behaviour 1 mining 2 scaling 1 intensity 1 behaviors 1 marketing 2 roles 1 innovation 1 behavior 1 literature 2 reuse 1 information 1 beacon 1 forecasting 2 regression 1 influencer 1 barriers 1 forecast 2 recommender 1 in 1 banking 1 evaluation 2 rating 1 importance 1 automated 1 crisis 2 quality 1 hotels 1 architecture 1 content 2 purchase 1 goal 1 applications 1 application 2 public 1 game 1 airline 1 allocation 2 professional 1 fuzzy 1 acquisition 1 adoption 2 principal 1 flight 1 accuracy 1 with 1 prediction 1 five 1 willingness 1 practices 1 filtering 1 web 1 post 1 facebook 1 vs 1 pls 1 europe 1 visualization 1 perspective 1 ethnic 1 value 1 personality 1 equation 1 twitter 1 pay 1 engine 1 trends 1 partial 1 engagement 1 traits 1 overbooking 1 ecosystem 1
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Appendix B: Word Frequencies for Paper Titles
Of 24 satisfaction 2 Data 18 revenue 2 In 16 research 2 Big 15 perspective 2 application 11 models 2 To 9 marketing 2 And 8 knowledge 2 analysis 7 Its 2 An 7 importance 2 A 7 hotels 2 tourism 6 google 2 The 6 design 2 On 4 cancellation 2 management 4 brand 2 hotel 4 booking 2 hospitality 4 behavior 2 For 4 based 2 analytics 4 B 2 With 3 approaches 2 sentiment 3 airline 2 online 3 adoption 2 using 2 visual 1 trends 2 visitors 1 things 2 view 1 Text 2 understanding 1 smart 2
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions in Private Clubs: Comparing 2007 to 2020
Sean Barth University of South Carolina Beaufort
James Ward Florida Atlantic University
Abstract
The private club industry has undergone many changes in the last decade. The purpose of this research is to assess and understand if the satisfaction of line level employees has changed from 2007 to now. The unique opportunity exists to go back into the same clubs surveyed in 2007 to see if there are changes in the level of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational justice, and turnover intentions. Further studies could look at the correlation of these scores and outside factors such as the management structure of those clubs in different time periods to see what relationships exist.
Introduction
The model for country clubs have been changing. Whereas the predominate clients of yesterday were older, married, and without children, todays landscape is very different. As the number of golfers and rounds played are decreasing, clubs are trying to adapt to a changing consumer base by offering relaxed dress codes, on-site day care, and the inclusion of same-sex partners as full partners in an effort to increase membership (Russell, 2015). Some clubs are proactively making changes such as lowering initiation fees and improving fitness facilities while adding more family programs in an effort to increase the overall membership experience (Russell, 2015).
Today, there are 15,014 public and private golf clubs in the United States (Dethier, 2018).A country club is defined by the Club Managers Association of America (CMAA) as, “a club that has a clubhouse and enough acreage for a golf course” (Purdue, 1997). There are nearly 6,200 country and golf clubs in the United States, which comprise nearly half of CMAA’s membership base (Jeffrey, 2018) (Club Management Association of America, 2019).
Methods
This study is a continuation of a project started in 2007. At that time researchers tested a model linking job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational justice, and turnover intentions. The study found that the only statistically significant link was between organizational justice and job satisfaction (Barth & Blum, 2008). In essence, the fairer employees think the procedures and outcomes are, the more satisfied they will be in their positions. We look to collect new data from the same clubs represented in the study from the southeastern United States and compare it with findings from the original study from 2007. We will measure all four constructs and test the model again and compare the data to the results found in 2007.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Proposed Implications
We believe that understanding the changes in the four constructs’ scores coupled with historical qualitative data on management structure, the labor climate, membership demographics, etc. could be applied to current clubs to better understand the positive or negative job satisfaction values.
References
Barth, S., & Blum, S. C. (2008). How Satisfied are Your Golf Club Employees and Managers? VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller E.K.
Club Management Association of America. (2019, October 10). ABOUT CMAA. Club Management Association of America. https://www.cmaa.org
Dethier, D. (2018, May 1). 15 numbers you need to know about the U.S. golf economy. Golf.com. https://www.golf.com/tour-news/2018/05/01/15-numbers-you-need-know- about-us-golf-economy
Jeffrey, J. (2018, May 25). Golf's challenges have country clubs in the rough — here's how courses are faring in the U.S.. Silicon Valley Business Journal. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/05/25/richest-country-golf-clubs-in- america.html
Gustafson, C. M. (2002). Employee Turnover: a study of private clubs in the USA. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 14(3), 106-113.
Perdue, J. (1997). Contemporary Club Management (2nd ed.). Educational Institute of the American Hotel& Lodging Association.
Russell, J. (2015, March 23). Money-losing country clubs adapt to changing times. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/30/country-clubs-adapt/70677932/
St. Georges Golf. (2019, October 20). How Country Clubs Work: What You Should Know Before Joining One. St. Georges Golf and Country Club. https://www.stgeorgesgolf.com/Blog/April_2018/how-country-clubs-work.aspx
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Does ‘language type’ in environmental claims affect consumer’s perception and action towards hotels’ environmental claims?
Shaniel Bernard Auburn University
Alecia Douglas Auburn University
Abstract
Extant theory suggests that consumers are unable to detect actual changes in an organization’s environmental practices from their environmental claims. Using the cognitive linguistics framework, this study shows that consumers can uncover deception tendencies by analyzing the linguistic properties of claims. Although ‘environmental claims’ have received considerable attention in literature over the years, there is a lack of research on how consumers construe subtle, often subliminal messages from hotels environmental claims. Therefore, this study examined the conditional indirect effect of language type in environmental claims on book and stay intentions through two mediating variables. Also, the moderating role of message involvement and environmental concern was examined. The findings highlight the conditional effect of language type in environmental claims to produce optimal results in hotels and suggest a combined framework to reduce awareness-behavior gap. The practical and theoretical implications are discussed in detail.
Introduction/Literature Review
Hoteliers are becoming more aware of how their daily practices impacts the environment (Webster, 2000). Unlike other service sectors, hotels’ environmental message is either perceived as self-serving or self-sacrificing (Li, Wang, & Yu, 2015). Since consumers interpret an organization’s claims based on available information; their judgements rest not only on their ability to process the information available, but also on their motivation to interpret the organization’s claims appropriately (Bazerman & Moore, 2013).
Although ‘environmental claims’ have received considerable attention in literature over the years, there is a lack of research on how consumers construe subtle, often subliminal messages from hotels environmental claims. Prior studies have called attention to the linguistic structure of firms’ claims and the interpretive work of stakeholders in making sense of a firm’s environmental performance (Crilly, Hansen, & Zollo, 2016). Two specific categories of language are crucial from this perspective: inclusive language and exclusive language. By gluing together detached elements of content, inclusive and exclusive language are a good proxy of the depth of thinking of the individual (Tauscik & Pennebaker, 2010). Due to language type’s effectiveness in capturing the cognition of top managers, their effect has already been studied in the extent to which companies practice what they preach. For example, exclusive language has been juxtaposed to implementers and inclusive language to decouplers (Crilly et al., 2016).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Coherently, we hypothesized that from a consumer perspective, an exclusive language stimulus will feature a higher effect on the outcome variable, compared to inclusive language. Specifically, we examined the conditional indirect effect of the language type (LT) (X) on book and stay intention (BI) (Y) through perceived hotel environmental performance (PEP) (M1) and perceived greenwashing (PGW) (M2). Also, the direct effect of consumers’ message involvement (MI) (W1) and level of environmental concern (EC) (W2) on BI (see Figure 1). With the demand for and popularity of several environmental initiatives in the hotels, the findings will provide significant insights to marketers and hotel managers about whether, when and how consumers perceive and react to their environmental actions.
Methods
This study used a between subjects quasi experimental design on a sample of 277 participants from Amazon MTurk to test this model. Due to the moderation-mediation effects, model estimation was undertaken with ordinary least squares regression-based path analysis as implemented by PROCESS macro for SPSS, Model 28 (Hayes, 2017). This technique not only tested the indirect effects using a percentile bootstrap estimation approach with 10000 samples (Shrout & Bolger, 2002) it also probes the moderation of an indirect effect by estimating the conditional effects (Hayes, 2012).
Results/Discussion/Implication
Evidence of moderation of the indirect effect by MI was found in a statistically significant interaction between LT on PEP (β =.4167, SE = .1676, p<.05) and PGW (β =.-6410, SE = .2169, p<.01). Given that the “first stage” of the mediation model (X →M) was moderated, this meant so too was the indirect effect of X on Y through M and W, thus the need to probe interactions by estimating the conditional effects (Hayes, 2012). The conditional effect of LT through PEP on BI increased as MI and EC increased (β=.1124, SE = .0562, p<.05), but not so through PGW on BI (β=-.0492, SE = .0543, p=.3659).
The findings highlight the conditional effect of LT in environmental claims to produce optimal results in hotels and suggest a combined framework to reduce awareness- behavior gap. Hoteliers should seek to use an exclusive language type in their claims, incite customer involvement and target consumers with high levels of environmental concern to benefit from their booking intentions. This study also expanded the cognitive linguistics theory to a hospitality context and extended the information asymmetry theory to show that asymmetry also occurs when environmental claim uses inclusive language type.
References
Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. A. (2013). Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. Wiley. New York.
Crilly, D., Hansen, M., & Zollo, M. (2016). The grammar of decoupling: A cognitive-linguistic perspective on firms’ sustainability claims and stakeholders’ interpretation. Academy of Management Journal, 59(2), 705–729.
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Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Publications.
Li, X., Wang, Y., & Yu, Y. (2015). Present and future hotel website marketing activities: Change propensity analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 47, 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2015.02.007.
Shrout, P. E., & Bolger, N. (2002). Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: new procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods, 7(4), 422
Tausczik, Y. R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2010). The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized text analysis methods. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29(1), 24- 54.
Webster, K. (2000). Environmental management in the hospitality industry: a guide for students and managers. Retrieved from http://books.google.com
Figure 1: conceptual diagram
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Customers’ Impulsive Buying Behavior of Hotel Conditional Upgrade Daegeun (Dan) Kin The University of Mississippi
Eun-Kyong (Cindy) Choi The University of Mississippi
Chanmi Hong The University of Mississippi
Abstract
Conditional upgrade, a new upselling technique in the hotel industry, has been widely used among hotels to generate more profit. Purchasing conditional upgrades can be considered an impulsive buying behavior because hotel guests make unplanned purchases following the cue of the conditional upgrades. Despite the popularity and potential benefits that conditional upgrades bring, there has been no research conducted on the topic in the consumers’ perspective based on impulsive buying behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify hotel guests’ impulsive buying behavior of conditional upgrades based on the stimulus-organism- response (S-O-R) model using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of this study from 322 samples suggest that hotels should provide discounted prices and limited-time offers for conditional upgrades in order to increase their guests’ impulsive purchase intention by making them feel positive and good about their purchase.
Introduction/Literature Review
Upselling refers to an effort of the retailers to upgrade an existing purchase that a customer has already made to a better product (Dawson & Kim, 2009). Recently in the hotel industry, conditional upgrade has been introduced and is widely used among hotels (Cui, Duenyas, & Sahin, 2018). This conditional upgrade is a limited-time offer presented at the point when reservations are made online, and by choosing to take the offer, guests are agreeing to be on a standby for an upgrade at a discounted price (Cui et al., 2018). When guests check-in, they will know whether the upgrade has been offered or not depending on the availability. If the upgrade is awarded, the guests will pay the agreed amount and if not, no extra charge will be made, and the guests will keep their original booking. Conditional upgrade is considered as an impulsive buying behavior because it is a type of upselling technique targeting hotel guests to impulsively purchase upgraded products which is not planned ahead (Sundstrom, Hjelm- Lidholm, & Radon, 2019).
Despite its popularity and the benefits of conditional upgrade, there has been no research conducted on the topic in the perspective of consumer behavior in regard to their impulsive buying behavior. Previous studies on consumers’ impulsive buying behavior have utilized the S- O-R model in which stimulating cues from an environment (stimulus), triggers an individual’s internal evaluation (organism), and consequently cause positive or negative behaviors of consumers toward the stimuli (response) (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify hotel guests’ impulsive buying behavior of conditional upgrades and investigate environmental stimuli and personal factors influencing their behavior. Figure 1 shows the proposed model with the hypotheses.
Figure 1. Propose model
Methods
A self-administered questionnaire including survey items based on previous studies was developed and distributed using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The target sample for this study was hotel guests who were above 18, living in the United States, and have experience in making an online reservation through a hotel’s official website in the past 24 months. 322 samples were used for data analysis by following Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) two step approach: 1) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to verify a measurement model and 2) SEM to test the hypotheses.
Results/Discussion/Implication
2 The results of the goodness-of-fit indices supported that the model was acceptable: χ (89) = 175.61, p < .001, χ2/df = 1.97, CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .06 (90% CI: .04-.07), and SRMR = .04. Composite reliability coefficients were used to measure internal consistency ranging from .72 to .94 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Convergent validity was ensured by examining the average variance extracted (AVE) and all of the AVEs have exceeded the recommended threshold ranging from .51 to .81 (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). In addition, square root of the AVEs for each construct was larger than the inter-construct correlations
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
which indicated the ensured discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The model was validated to conduct SEM to test the proposed model. The goodness-of- 2 fit indices for the model indicated that the structural model fits the data well: χ (92) = 207.20, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.25, CFI = .96, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .06 (90% CI: .05-.07), and SRMR = .05. Hypotheses 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 9 were supported and Figure 2 shows the overall results of the proposed model with the standardized path coefficients.
2 2 Note: χ (92) = 207.20, p < .001, χ /df = 2.25, CFI = .96, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .06 (90% CI: .05- .07), SRMR = .05. **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Figure 2. Results of the structural equation model.
The study findings indicated that price discount and limited-time scarcity both had a significant impact on positive affect. This means that when conditional upgrades are offered for a limited-time at a discounted price, hotel guests are more likely to feel good and excited about the conditional upgrades. Also, positive affect has been identified as a key predictor of hotel guests’ impulsive buying behavior which indicates that the guests are more likely to buy the upgrades on an impulse if they have a positive feeling toward the upgrade offers. Additionally, when conditional upgrades are offered at a discounted price, normative evaluation occurs which, in turn, makes hotel guests feel excited about the conditional upgrade, leading them to make an impulsive purchase. This indicates that price discount triggers hotel guests to justify their impulsive buying behavior and feel good about their purchases. As hotel guests are able to receive unexpected savings from the discounted prices, they are more likely to feel positive about the conditional upgrades and eventually purchase the upgrades on an impulse (Chen &
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Yao, 2018). Furthermore, the results indicated that hotel guests with high impulsive buying tendency are more likely to buy conditional upgrades at an impulse.
Based on these findings, it is recommended that hotels provide discounted prices and limited-time offers for conditional upgrades in order to increase their guests’ impulsive purchase intention of the upgrades. This, in turn, will bring opportunities for hotels to generate more profit by upgrading the existing bookings with upper-tier rooms that would have perished otherwise.
References
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103(3), 411-423.
Chen, C., & Yao, J. (2018). What drives impulse buying behaviors in a mobile auction? The perspective of the Stimulus-Organism-Response model. Telematics and Informatics, 35, 1249-1262.
Cui, Y., Duenyas, I., & Sahin, O. (2018). Pricing of conditional upgrades in the presence of strategic consumers. Management Science, 64(7), 3208-3226.
Dawson, S., & Kim, M. (2009). External and internal trigger cues of impulse buying online. Direct Marketing: An International Journal, 3(1), 20-34.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50.
Mehrabian, A., & Russell, J. A. (1974). An approach to environmental psychology. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
Sundstrom, M., Hjelm-Lidholm, S., & Radon, A. (2019). Clicking the boredom away – Exploring impulse fashion buying behavior online. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 47,
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
The Economic Implications of Airbnb
Tarik Dogru Florida State University
Hotels provide substantial financial, economic, and social benefits to the communities. These benefits include but not limited to generating additional tax revenues for cities and local governments and create new jobs and hence surge in per capita income. Employment in the hotel sector leads to additional impacts on other hospitality and tourism industries, such as restaurants, bars, and other area attractions (e.g., museums) as well as local artisans and crafts. Additional jobs increase the level of household income and spending due to linkages these industries have with each other. Job and income creation, because of resulting increased levels of income and production, is usually called the multiplier effect.
While the economic impact of the hotel industry is well recognized, the economic and social impacts of alternative accommodations (i.e., Airbnb) are yet to be determined. Airbnb might adversely affect the hotel industry and the industry’s contribution to the economy. Analyzing the effects of Airbnb on hotel revenues, several studies found evidence showing that Airbnb adversely affect hotel revenues. Also, the increasing number of Airbnb listings might have undesirable effects on the residential housing prices and rent. House-owners might simply turn their properties into Airbnb if they believe they could make more money.
However, the potential adverse impacts of the Airbnb do not necessarily suggest that Airbnb will disrupt the overall economy or local economies. In other words, despite the potential adverse effects of the sharing economy platforms, such as Airbnb on traditional business platforms, sharing economy could have positive economic and social benefits the communities and tourism industry through generating new jobs and new sources of income. In general, tourism is a significant driver of economic growth due to increase in tourists’ spending in local communities.
The potential economic benefits include but not limited to generating additional tax revenues for cities and local governments, especially to neighborhoods traditionally not visited, additional income for hosts and hence surge in per capita income, and amenities and services for locals, domestic, and international visitors. Increase in visitor spending leads to additional impacts on other hospitality and tourism industries, such as increase in employment in restaurants, bars, and other area attractions as well as local artisans and crafts. Additional employments increase the level of household income and spending in the community due to linkages these industries have with each other. However, studies analyzing the impact of Airbnb on employment are limited. Consequently, the jury is still out on whether and to what extent Airbnb impacts the employment in hospitality industry and its subsectors.
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The purpose of this study is to (1) examine the extent to which Airbnb affects hotel revenues; (2) to examine the effects of Airbnb on employment in the hospitality and tourism industry; (3) to analyze the extent to which Airbnb affects the real estate market; and (4) to investigate the factors affecting Airbnb prices and demand.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
An Inside look into a Fisherman’s Perspective on Commercial Fishing of Spiny Lobster and its Vitality in the China Markets
Kate Price-Howard Troy University
Abstract
The Caribbean spiny lobster, Paniulirus argus, is an important commercial and recreational species prevalent in the Florida Keys. On one hand, it is the center of a commercial business and prime means of income for approximately 1,600 families or close to five percent of the county's population (FKCFA, 2018). On the other, the spiny lobster is the object of the most intensive recreational (not commercial) fishing of any lobster species (Sharp, Bertelsen, & Leeworthy, 2005), showing a worth of $7 billion per year (NOAA Office of Science and Technology, 2018). The fishing industry is the second largest economic generator for the county next to tourism, bringing in approximately $900 million per year, with lobster fishing making up one-third of the industry. These industries include dock fees, fuel sales, and boat and engine repair (Goodhue, 2018). As reported by the Florida Keys Commercial Fishing Association, Stock Island (Key West) alone lands 7 million pounds of lobster with a dockside value of $24 million — that's five percent of Florida's total landings and 13 percent of total value (FKCFA, 2018). Key West was rated the number 12 most valued port in the United States among commercial fishery landings in 2016, reporting 16 million pounds equaling $67 million, up $3 million from ten years previous (NOAA Office of Science and Technology, 2018). The purpose of this study is to examine the reported trends, identify industry occurrences and challenges, and determine helpful management implications in order to prevent or sustain the vitality of the Caribbean spiny lobster in the Florida Keys.
Introduction
In the last several years, there have been a number of devastating occurrences that have challenged the vitality of the industry, the most prominent being Hurricane Irma. On September 10, 2017, one of the most disastrous hurricanes of all time, wreaked havoc through the islands of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Florida, specifically the Florida Keys. This storm came on shore as a category 4, and greatly impacted not only tourism as a whole, but the livelihood of many fisherman because it was so early into the commercial fishing season (of spiny lobster). Commercial fisherman reported typical damages to the commercial fishing sector, including revenues losses and structural damages to processor and dealer facilities, loss of product, damages to commercial fishing vessels, and lost gear (NOAA Fisheries, 2018).
Another challenge for the lobster fishermen is the tariffs being put on U.S. Imports by the Chinese government (Goodhue, 2018). To better understand this issue as a challenge, it should be known that 90% of all spiny lobster are processed and shipped to China. The market fluctuates on the amount paid to the fisherman based upon the needs and demands of the Chinese. The average for several years has been $8-$8.50 per pound. Before these recent tariffs, China was already paying a 17 percent value-added tax on U.S. seafood. Now it is
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 paying a combination of both (Goodhue, 2019). The fear of the U.S.-China trade hostilities can have devastating effects on Monroe County fisherman, as the Chinese may look into shopping other countries for their live lobster due to the additional costs and fees associated with buying from the United States (Goodhue, 2019).
The restaurant industry is volatile, especially in the case of its seafood suppliers. This is far more prominent of an issue and topic along the coastal areas and this study will look at Florida in particular. With so many restaurants providing our tourists and locals alike with fresh Florida seafood, a deeper look into the sustainability and vitality of the commercial fishing industry is necessary to protect this precious and unique commodity.
Methods
In this study, data were analyzed from one prominent lobster fisherman of thirty plus years, who primarily fishes off the coast of Marathon, FL. Marathon is comprised of several islands located in the lower-middle Florida Keys in Monroe County. His data of fishing trends and landings prior to Irma (a two-year period) compared to after the storm, including the following two years, yields some interesting findings. His reported data were compared to the Florida Fish and Wildlife reported figures for the county as a whole.
Results/Discussions/Implications
What would be assumed to be a devastating year financially was, on the contrary, reported to be lucrative, given the market prices, losses, and perseverance. Since the devastation of Hurricane Irma, this particular fisherman has now started each season with several traps in reserve during hurricane season and is better prepared to add inventory if disaster occurs again. All of his start lines and end lines are marked with GPS coordinates and he stores wood supplies on site prior to storm. Several lessons were learned during this particular storm, but the lobster industry is very volatile; including the number of days with inclement weather, the state of exchange with the Chinese (including the coronavirus epidemic), and the competition in the same waters. While this study specifically analyzed the species of the Caribbean spiny lobster, many more in-depth studies are recommended to help protect these volatile industries.
References:
Florida Keys Commercial Fishing Association (FKCFA, 2018). http://fkcfa.org/our-association/
Goodhue, D. (2018). Where did all the lobsters and stone crabs go? How the fishing industry is bouncing back. The Miami Herald. Retrieved from https://www.flkeysnews.com/news/local/article221913285.html.
Goodhue, D. (2019). China bought lots of Florida lobster despite tariffs. Keys fishermen paid the price. The Miami Herald. Retrieved from
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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-keys/article228822799.html
NOAA Office of Science and Technology. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/commercial-fisheries/commercial-landings/other- specialized-programs/total-commercial-fishery-landings-at-major-u-s-ports- summarized-by-year-and- ranked-by-dollar-value/index
Sharp, W., Bertelsen, R., & Leeworthy, V. (2005). Long‐term trends in the recreational lobster fishery of Florida, United States: Landings, effort, and implications for management. DOI:10.1080/00288330.2005.9517349
Schittone, J. (2001). Tourism vs. commercial fishers: development and changing use of Key West and Stock Island, Florida. Ocean & Coastal Management. Vol. 44 (Issues 1-2), pp. 15-37. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0964-5691(00)00078-8
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Investigating the Impact of Tip Allocation on Organizational Behavior in Restaurants
Hyun-Woo (David) Joung The University of Mississippi
Thamsanqa Jongile The University of Mississippi Introduction
Gratuity is common in the hospitality industry (McAdams, & von Massow, 2016, & Azar, 2011). Despite its significant influence on employee income (Seiter, 2010), tipping is rarely enforced nor regulated in many restaurants (Lynn, & McCall, 2016). As a result, there is no standard guideline pertaining to the practice (Margalioth, et al., 2010). Extant hospitality studies often focus on the psychological influences behind tipping. As such little is known about the tip after it leaves the hands of a customer. This is problematic because the ownership, and distribution of a tip are a source of conflict (Gow, & Frazier, 2015).
Extant hospitality studies identify the pooled, and the independent gratuity structures as the most common tip allocation systems used in restaurants (Gow, & Frazer, 2015; Namasivayam & Upneja, 2007; Roe, 2012). The latter entails food servers solely deciding how tips would be shared in a process known as “tipping out”, while the former entails all gratuities being pooled together and shared among staff members based on a predetermined formula (Roe, 2012).
This study uses four main research questions to investigate the impact of these gratuity structures on organizational behavior in restaurants. Firstly, does gratuity structure (pooled vs independent) influence a server’s measure of distributive justice (DJ)? Second, does gratuity structure have an impact on a server’s customer orientation (CO)? Third, does gratuity structure influence a server’s measure of organizational identification (OI)? And finally, how do these aforementioned constructs influence the display of OCB? Figure 1 displays the proposed hypothesized model.
Literature review
According to the social exchange theory (Adams, 1963), employees often compare their input-output ratio with that of their colleagues to determine their assessment of DJ (Shapoval, 2019). Because of tips are shared in unequal portions, we expect this to impact a server’s measure of DJ.
Extant studies reveal that employees with higher levels of OI show a better likelihood of engaging in OCB (Bladder, & Tyler, 2009; Schuh et al., 2016). This is because they do not separate their self-interest from organizational interest. However, we expect OI to be impacted by gratuity structure because tips make up a significant portion of a server’s pay (Seiter, 2010), and income is listed as factor that influences identification (Chan et al., 2018).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Employees with a high measure of CO often display OCB (Stock & Hoyer, 2005). Motivation, and decision-making authority are necessary traits for the display of CO (Hennig- Thurau, 2004). However, gratuity structures may not allow all employees this flexibility. As such we expect CO to impacted by gratuity structure.
Methodology
The study administered a survey to 493 participants who were actively employed in restaurants. The survey included questions about OCB which were adopted from Podsakoff and Mackenzie (1994), the DJ scale adopted from Moorman (1991), the CO scale by Brown et al., (2002), and Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) OI scale.
Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis
The overall goodness-of-fit indices in the current study suggested the four-factor model fit the data well, χ2(113) = 262.858, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.326, CFI = .969, TLI = .962, RMSEA = .052 (90 % CI: .044-.060), SRMR = .042. Factor loadings indicated all indicators were strongly related to the purported latent variables (range of .684-.881). To ensure discriminant validity, AVEs were compared with the squared multiple correlation coefficients between any pairs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
Results of Structural Equation Modeling Structural model
Once validating the measurement model, SEM was conducted to test the proposed model. Overall goodness-of-fit indices of the structural model was satisfactory with χ2(127) = 283.014, p< .001, χ2/df = 2.228, CFI = .968, TLI = .961, RMSEA = .050 (90 % CI: .042- .058), SRMR =.041. Figure 2 displays the proposed model with the standardized path coefficients.
Hypothesis test
Gratuity structure did not significantly influence employee’s organizational identification (β = .021, p > .05); however, gratuity structure had a significant impact on DJ (β = .159, p <.001) and CO (β = .086, p < .05), meaning employees in the independent gratuity system showed more positive attitude toward DJ and CO. Furthermore, H2a (i.e., DJ → OI) was supported with the estimate of .529 (p < .001); however, H2b (i.e., DJ → CO) was not supported with the estimate of .028 (p > .05). The findings also revealed employees with strong OI showed more CO (i.e., H3) with an estimate of .534 (p < .001). Lastly, how employee’s OI (i.e., H4a), CO (i.e., H4b), and DJ (H4c) affect organizational citizenship behavior was investigated, and the results found all hypotheses were supported with the estimates of .242 (p < .001), .458 (p < .001), and .105 (p < .05), respectively. That is, employees who are more attached to the organization, show more customer-oriented behavior, and feel fair with the reward system and are, as a result, more willing to go above and beyond in the organization.
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Discussion and Conclusions
The results stipulate that the organizational behavior is influenced by gratuity structure. Based on the results, servers in independent gratuity restaurants display higher levels of CO and DJ compared to those of pooled environments. In addition, employees with CO are more likely to engage in OCB (Brown et al., 2002). Employees with higher levels of OI are more likely to display OCB (van Dick et al., 2006). The study stipulates that DJ positively influence OCB. Despite the absence of a direct relationship, gratuity structure influences DJ, and this in turn, impacts OI. Although gratuity structure does not directly influence customer-oriented behavior, an indirect relationship via the OI construct is identified.
Practical implications
Managers must utilize the independent gratuity as this allows employees more control over the tip-sharing process. Pooled gratuity restaurants must consult with employees in order to design a formula that is understood and favored by tip recipients. Restaurants must enforce participation-based allocation as this will be more effective in encouraging the display positive organizational behavior.
References
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267-299.
Azar, O. (2011). Business Strategy and the Social Norm of Tipping. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(3), 515–525.
Blader, S. L., & Tyler, T. R. (2009). Testing and extending the group engagement model. Journal of Applied Psychology 94(2), 445–464.
Brown, T. J., Mowen, J. C., Donavan, T., & Licata, J. W. (2002). The customer orientation of service workers: Personality trait effects on self- and supervisor performance ratings. Journal of Marketing Research, 39(1), 110-119.
Chen, C. T., Hu, H., & King, B. (2018). Shaping the organizational citizenship behavior or workplace deviance: Key determining factors in the hospitality workforce. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 35, 1-8.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50.
Gow, A. &. (2015). Who owns tips? Hospitality workers and the distribution of customer gratuities. Australian Journal of Labour Law, 28 (2), 89-112.
Hennig-Thurau, T. 2004. Customer orientation of service employees: Its impact on customer
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satisfaction, commitment, and retention. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 15: 460–478.
Lynn, M., & McCall, M. (2009). Techniques for increasing servers’ tips: How generalizable are they? Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 50, 198-208.
Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 103–123.
Margalioth, Y., Saporiti, A., & Coloma, G. (2010). The social norm of tipping, its correlation with inequality, and differences in tax treatment across countries. Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 11(2), 1565-1509.
Moorman, R. H. (1991). Relationship Between Organizational Justice and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: Do Fairness Perceptions Influence Employee Citizenship? Journal of Applied Psychology 1991, 76(6), 845-855.
Namasivayam, K., & Upneja, A. (2007). Employee preferences for tipping systems. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 10(2), 93-107.
Podsakoff, P. M., & MacKenzie S. B. (1994). Organizational citizenship behaviors and sales unit effectiveness. Journal of Marketing Research, 31, 351-63.
Roe, S. (2012). Restaurant Service Employees Organizational Commitment: Shared Gratuity versus Independent Gratuity Environments. Las Vegas: UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones.
Schuh, S. C., Van Quaquebeke, N., Göritz, A. S., Xin, K. R., De Cremer, D., & Van Dick, R. (2016). Mixed feelings, mixed blessing? How ambivalence in organizational identification relates to employees’ regulatory focus and citizenship behaviors. Human Relations, 69(12), 2224-2249.
Seiter, J. S. (2010). The effect of generalized compliments, sex of server, and size of dining party on tipping behavior in restaurants. Journal of applied social psychology, 1-12
Shapoval, V. (2019). Organizational injustice and emotional labor of hotel front-line employees. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 78, 112–121.
Stock, R. M., & Hoyer, W. D. (2005). An attitude–behavior model of salespeople’s customer orientation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 33(4), 536–52. van Dick, R., Grojean, M. W., Christ, O., & Wieseke, J. (2006). Identity and the extra mile: Relationships between organizational identification and organizational citizenship behaviour. British Journal of Management, 17, 283–301.
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Figure 1. Proposed research model with hypotheses.
Figure 2. Results of structural equation modeling.
Note: Fit indices: χ2(127) = 283.014, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.228, CFI = .968, TLI = .961, RMSEA = .050 (90 % CI: .042-.058), SRMR = .041. Straight line = significant, dashed line = not significant. *p < .05, ***p < .001
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Measuring Excellence: Development of an Evaluation Tool for Perceived Quality in the Restaurant Experience
Su Gibson University of South Carolina Beaufort
Charles Calvert University of South Carolina Beaufort
Keri Olivetti University of South Carolina Beaufort
Anton Abraham University of South Carolina Beaufort
Introduction
Operating procedures and standards are typically in place in hospitality settings to ensure consistency in service provided to customers. In quality-focused companies, these standards are regularly used to measure employee performance and provide feedback to staff members and management.
Some of these standards are more operational in nature. However, most are usually related to goals set by the organization for customer satisfaction and the type of experience they are trying to produce. Research on quality management in hospitality settings is limited, with many small businesses creating their own service standards and/or using guidelines offered by private consulting companies, travel-oriented consumer publications and membership clubs such as AAA and Forbes Travel Guide. Research Objectives
The purpose of this research is to refine commonly used standards and best practices to closely align with customer perceptions of quality and satisfaction in a casual restaurant experience and provide industry with a useful tool to measure the service experience. Methods
A 58-question reporting tool for secret shopping was developed in partnership with a restaurant group consisting of 17 locations of varied types in Coastal South Carolina. It was used by trained secret shoppers from an undergraduate hospitality quality management course to evaluate the experience on multiple visits to each of the restaurants for four rounds of visits. A total of 161 reports were completed from January 2018 to November 2019. The reporting tool was adjusted before each round based on restaurant management feedback regarding the usefulness of each standard for their operations and training programs.
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Phase II
Once the participating restaurant managers within the group are satisfied with the questions included, the reporting tool will be evaluated to ensure alignment with customers’ true perceptions of quality y of their experience and overall satisfaction. A short, three-question survey will be provided to customers in the restaurants in the same periods when secret shoppers will be evaluating their experience using the tool. The three questions provided to the customers will be:
On a scale of 1-10…
1. How satisfied are you with your experience today? 2. How likely are you to recommend this restaurant to others based on your experience today? 3. How likely would you be to choose this restaurant over others the next time you dine out?
There will be a space provided for additional comments if the respondents wish to elaborate on their answers.
The results of these surveys will be compared to overall scores produced by the secret shoppers using the reporting tool. This comparison will be used to further refine the tool to include any missed customer-centric service standards or weight the standards per what’s most important to customers in terms of satisfaction, likeliness to return and customer referrals.
References
AAA Publishing. (2019). Restaurant Approval Requirements & Diamond Rating Guidelines. Retrieved November 27, 2019, from https://aaa.biz/approved/assets/diamond_rating_guidelines_restaurant.pdf
Brant, A. (2016, March 2). The Best Luxury Services Are Customized, Not Standardized. Harvard Business Review. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.
Kester, J. (2018, February 19). What Makes a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star? Retrieved from https://stories.forbestravelguide.com/what-makes-a-forbes-travel-guide-five- star.
Farouk Saleh & Chris Ryan (1991) Analysing Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry Using the SERVQUAL Model, The Service Industries Journal, 11:3, 324-345, DOI: 10.1080/02642069100000049.
Gupta, S., McLaughlin, E., & Gomez, M. (2007, August). Guest Satisfaction and
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Restaurant Performance. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly.
Hung-Che Wu & Zurinawati Mohi (2015) Assessment of Service Quality in the Fast- Food Restaurant. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 18:4, 358-388,
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V., & Berry, L. L. (1994). Alternative Scales for Measuring Service Quality: A Comparative Assessment Based on Psychometric and Diagnostic Criteria. Journal of Retailing, 70:3, 201-230.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V., & Berry, L. L. (1988, Spring). SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal of Retailing, 64:1, 12-40.
Philemon Oyewole (1999) Multi-Attribute Dimensions of Service Quality in the Fast Food Restaurant Industry. Journal of Restaurant & Foodservice Marketing, 3:3-4, 65-91
Qin, H., & Prybutok, V. R. (2008). Determinants of customer-perceived service quality in fast- food restaurants and their relationship to customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The Quality Management Journal, 15(2), 35-50.
Zeithaml, V. A., Parasuraman, A., & Berry, L. L. (1990). Delivering quality service: Balancing customer perceptions and expectations. New York: Free Press.
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Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Festival and Event Research: Using Destination Research to Determine Eligibility for Grant Funding
Anton Abraham University of South Carolina Beaufort
Charles Calvert University of South Carolina Beaufort
Lori Vargo University of South Carolina Beaufort
Arthur Cartier University of South Carolina Beaufort
Su Gibson University of South Carolina Beaufort
Keri Olivetti University of South Carolina Beaufort
Background:
Tourism destinations across the country collect accommodations on room nights called Accommodation Taxes (A-TAX). Many states and municipalities set aside a portion of these taxes for tourism grants. “A-TAX is dubbed the “tourist tax” because it’s added onto any hotel room rental on the island, so a majority of the $4.3 million comes from visitors.” (Island Packet, 2018).
Statement of Problem and Purpose:
The town of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina allows groups producing festivals to apply for the tourism grant. However, the event must be shown to attract or serve tourists. According to Norman (2007, 2016), tourists have been classified as traveling over 50 or 100 miles, and sometimes including an overnight stay. For this study, the authors classified tourists as festival attendees living over 50 miles from the destination.
The purpose of this research is to confirm tourist attendance at the Hilton Head Island Oyster Festival in order to support the tourism grant.
Objectives
1. To collect data on the number of tourists in attendance at the Hilton Head Island Oyster Festival; 2. To determine the cities of origin of these tourists; 3. To give undergraduate students an opportunity to conduct destination tourism research
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Summary of Methods
Data for this study was collected at the Hilton Head Island Oyster Festival on November 9,2019. Students, Staff and Faculty asked participants to fill out a 29 Item questionnaire. A total of 364 attendees responded. For this survey, 109 being were considered tourists since they lived over 50 miles away from the festival.
Results and Implications
The investigators have consistently collected data at this event since 2009. Data analysis is comparing prior festivals to the 2019 festival is in process and will be ready for presentation at the conference. The results of this study will be used to determine the extent to which tourists attend the Hilton Head Island Oyster Festival. The results will also be used by the festival organizer to support the application for A-Tax funds to the city.
References
Kokal, K.(2018, December 21). Hilton Head chamber gets $535K of tax money in extra grant. Here’s who didn’t get a dime. Island Packet https://www.islandpacket.com/news/politics- government/article223360390.html
Norman, Dr. William C., "Who is a tourist? A Comparison of Straight Line and Driving Distances. (2016). Travel and Tourism Research Association: Advancing Tourism Research Globally. 19. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ttra/2007/Illustrated_Papers/19
Norman, W.C., (2007) Who is a Tourist? A Comparison of Straight Line and Driving Distances. Poster Presentation TTRA International Conference 2007, Las Vegas, Nevada. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1381&context=ttra
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Online Learning/Training Readiness Among Hospitality and Tourism Industry Professionals
Muhittin Cavusoglu University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Waynne B. James University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Cihan Cobanoglu University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Abstract
Not only educational institutions, but also corporations have tended to provide courses or train their employees or professionals via online or the Internet (Bernard et al., 2004; Simmons, 2002; Stephenson, 2003). Moreover, e-learning has been rapidly growing in the workplace in recent years (Cheng et al., 2014; Jones, 2016).
Like many other industries, hospitality organizations also shift training programs to web- based or online training. Hu, Nelson, Braunlich, and Hsiehaf (2004) found hospitality organizations can strategically benefit from web-based training in both convenience and expense. Harris and Cannon (1995) and Zainal (2005) suggested traditional training approaches have not been welcomed in the hospitality and tourism industry. Web based training decreases the training cost (Dodson, Kitburi, & Berge, 2015; Driscoll, 2002; Horton, 2000; Miranda, 1999; Sarmento, 2010); improves the return on investment, delivers just-in-time training (Driscoll, 2002); and reduces time and resources required for delivery and the updating of online materials (Collins & Cobanoglu, 2008). Therefore, WBT has proven more effective than traditional training and enables considerable savings on manpower. As a result of these advantages, companies widely use web-based training (Tseng & Kuo, 2013). For some companies, the savings on the training budget increases to 75% by switching from classroom to WBT (Cole-Gomolski, 1999). Moreover, according to McCue (2014), the online training market share ($107 billion) was more than one-third of the overall global market for training expenditures ($306.9 billion) in 2013 (Bayer, 2016). Also, it is expected the global e-learning market will grow and exceed $241 billion by 2022 (Global Industry Analysts, 2016).
Efendioglu and Murray (2007) asserted that companies trying to adapt e-training have major challenges derived from e-training readiness. They also defined e-training in the workplace as “the degree to which the trainee has initiative, can accept independence, and has persistence” (Efendioglu & Murray, 2007, p. 11). In addition, they mentioned e-training participants should have some specific characteristics such as capable of self-directed learning, willingness to change, desire to learn, taking initiative for their learning, managing time, and some learning skills. Although many aspects of online training such as satisfaction with online training (Artino, 2008), motivation (Pauschenwein & Sfiri, 2010; Simmering, Posey, & Piccoli, 2009), computer self- efficacy (Simmering et al., 2009), and gaming (De Freitas & Griffiths, 2007) have been
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 researched, there is a gap in the research for the readiness of employees or professionals for the online training.
The purpose of this quantitative study was to measure online learning readiness among hospitality and tourism industry professionals. After examining the reliability and validity indices of the modified Online Learning Readiness Scale (OLRS), it was used in the context of hospitality and tourism for the measurement of online learning/training readiness. Data were obtained via online anonymous links which included the demographic and descriptive questions and the OLRS through Qualtrics. A total of 252 usable responses from hospitality and tourism industry professionals were collected for statistical analysis. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the modified OLRS was confirmed as a valid and reliable instrument. This study contributes to the knowledge of online learning readiness among hospitality and tourism industry professionals. This study can stimulate more research on the impact of online learning readiness in the industrial practices in the hospitality and tourism field.
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An Eye-Tracking Study: How Does Familiarity (Top-Down Effect) of the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Cue Words of Locally-Grown Food Menu Items Influence Customers’ Visual Attention Differently at Hyper- Local Restaurant?
Yoonah Kim Auburn University
Alecia C. Douglas Auburn University
Introduction/Literature Review
In recent years, consumer interest in locally grown food has increased rapidly as the “locavore” movement continues in the USA (Duncan, 2018). Approximately 82 million respondents stated that they purchased locally grown food as of Spring 2015 (Duncan, 2018). Responding to this movement, the restaurant industry is also incorporating local foods in their menu and receiving benefit from this (Duncan, 2018). Moreover, hyper-local food sourcing has been a top trend since 2012, and it is still recognized as one of the top ten trends by National Restaurant Association’s culinary forecast in 2019 (NRA, 2019). Hyper-local food means “foods sourced from the restaurant’s own properties” (Knudson, 2014; De Chabert-Rios & Deale, p.2, 2018). From previous research, customers’ positive perceptions of and purchase intentions for locally grown foods were influenced by the intrinsic cue of freshness (Bruhn et al., 1992; Feagan et al., 2004) and extrinsic cues of health benefits (Aprile et al., 2016; Eičaitė and Dabkienė, 2015; Onozaka et al., 2010) and region of origin (Brown, 2003; Chambers et al., 2007; Eastwood et al., 1987). However, these cues were not utilized in descriptions of the menu items of hyper- local restaurants to verify further relationships.
Therefore, this research aims to measure visual attention of customers by using the eye-tracking method to verify how familiarity (top-down effect) with intrinsic and extrinsic cue words (i.e., the word fresh, health and local) of locally grown food menu items influences customers’ visual attention differently at hyper-local restaurants. The following hypotheses are proposed: the group with higher familiarity with the word fresh (intrinsic cue) pay less visual attention to the word; the group with higher familiarity with the word health (extrinsic cue) pay less visual attention to the word; and the group with higher familiarity with the word local (extrinsic cue) pay less visual attention to the word.
Methods
Two convenience sample groups including group A (22 working individuals who make purchase decisions in his/her household) and group B (22 working individuals who make purchase decisions in his/her household and have interests in locally grown foods) will be recruited for this research. The mobile eye tracker (Tobii Pro Glasses 2) will be used to collect the number of fixations and fixation durations (in seconds) on the Areas of Interest (AOI). AOI in this research includes the words fresh (intrinsic cue word), health and local (extrinsic cue
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words). The inferential statistics, t-test and linear regression analysis will be used to test the hypotheses.
Proposed Implications
The anticipated findings will make an academic contribution by confirming that familiarity (top-down effect) with the intrinsic and extrinsic cue words of locally grown food menu items influence customers’ visual attention differently at hyper-local restaurants. Based on the anticipated findings, the restaurant managers at the restaurant serving locally grown foods in their menu should consider including intrinsic and extrinsic cue words in their menu items. This can help in communicating and educating on the benefits (e.g., freshness and health) of locally grown foods to their future customers.
References
Aprile, M. C., Caputo, V., & Nayga Jr, R. M. (2016). Consumers’ Preferences and Attitudes toward Local Food Products. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 22(1), 19-42.
Brown, C. (2003). Consumers' preferences for locally produced food: A study in southeast Missouri. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, 18(04), 213-224.
Bruhn, C., Vossen, P., Chapman, E., & Vaupel, S. (1992). Consumer attitudes toward locally grown produce. California Agriculture, 46(4), 13-16.
Chambers, S., Lobb, A., Butler, L., Harvey, K., & Traill, W. B. (2007). Local, national and imported foods: a qualitative study. Appetite, 49(1), 208-213.
De Chabert-Rios, J., & Deale, C. S. (2018). Taking the local food movement one step further: An exploratory case study of hyper-local restaurants. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(3), 388- 399.doi: 10.1177/1467358416666137
Duncan, E. (2018). Topic: Local Foods. Retrieved October 23, 2019, from https://www.statista.com/topics/2123/local-foods-statistics- and-facts/
Eastwood, D. B., Brooker, J. R., & Orr, R. H. (1987). Consumer preferences for local versus out- of-state grown selected fresh produce: The case of Knoxville, Tennessee. Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, 19(2), 183-194.
Eičaitė, O., & Dabkienė, V. (2015). Local food: Lithuanian consumers’ perceptions and attitudes. Scientific Papers Series Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and Rural Development, 65-70.
Feagan, R., Morris, D., & Krug, K. (2004). Niagara region farmers' markets: Local food systems and sustainability considerations. Local Environment, 9(3), 235-254.
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Knudson, J. (2014). Taking local to the next level: Hyper-local sourcing brings food production in-house. QSR. Retrieved February 24, 2019 from http://www.qsrmagazine.com/sustainability/taking-local-next-level
National Restaurant Association (NRA). (2019). What's Hot Culinary Forecast. Retrieved October 23, 2019 from https://restaurant.org/Research/Reports/foodtrends
Onozaka, Y., Nurse, G., & McFadden, D. T. (2010). Local food consumers: How motivations and perceptions translate to buying behavior. Choices, 25(1), 1-6.
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Hotel Guests’ Attitude and Purchase Intention towards Hotel Brand Extension
Daegeun (Dan) Kim The University of Mississippi
Hyun-Woo Joung The University of Mississippi
Abstract
Brand extension is widely used among firms and hotels in the hospitality industry to launch new products using their parent brand name. It is important for the practitioners to understand which factors influence consumers’ attitude towards the brand extension for the brand extension to be successful. Therefore, this study investigates hotel guests’ attitude and their purchase intention towards brand extension which is home-sharing service and factors that have a positive effect on the attitude. The findings of this study will provide suggestions to hotels on how guests perceive brand extension on home-sharing service and which factor affecting their attitude towards the extension which will eventually lead to purchasing. Additionally, this study is the first study on brand extension of home-sharing service which will contribute to the literature.
Introduction/Literature Review
Companies launch new products under their name as an extension of their brand which brings various advantages (Grime, Diamantopoulos, & Smith, 2002). In the hotel industry, hotel brands have introduced home-sharing as an effort of their brand extension to compete with existing brands. Previous studies have identified that the most important determinant of brand extension is attitude towards the extension (Shokri & Alavi, 2018), and various factors having an effect on the attitude have been identified (Song, Zhang, & Zhang, 2013; Volckner & Sattler, 2006; Volckner, Sattler, Hennig-Thurau, & Ringle, 2010). Eventually, the attitude towards the brand extension will lead to purchase intention of the extended brand product (Rileya, Pinab, & Bravo, 2015).
In order to position hotel brand’s extension in the home-sharing market, it is important to understand hotel guests’ attitude and perception towards brand extension and their purchase intention. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify hotel guests’ attitude towards brand extension of a hotel brand’s home-sharing and which factors positively affect such attitude which leads to their purchase intention. Figure 1 depicts the proposed model with the hypotheses.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Figure 1. Proposed model
Methods
A self-administered questionnaire will be distributed using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The target sample for this study would be hotel guests who are above 18, living in the United States, and have experience in staying at a chain hotel. The questionnaire items include perceived fit (Marin, De Maya, & Rubio, 2018) and tie (Shokri & Alavi, 2018), parent brand conviction, image (Volckner et al., 2010), and quality (Sichtmann & Diamantopoulos, 2013), attitude towards extension (Song et al., 2013), and purchase intention (Taylor & Bearden, 2002). Data analysis will follow Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) two step approach: 1) confirmatory factor analysis to verify a measurement model and 2) structural equation modeling to test hypotheses.
Proposed Implications
The findings of this study will provide insights for hotel practitioners on how hotel guests perceive brand extension on hotel home-sharing service and factors affecting such attitude which leads to their purchase intention. Additionally, this study will contribute to the literature of brand extension in the hospitality academia since it is the first study to be conducted on brand extension of hotel home-sharing.
References
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103(3), 411- 423.
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Grime, I., Diamantopoulos, A., & Smith, G. (2002). Consumer evaluations of extensions and their effects on the core brand. European Journal of Marketing, 36, 1415-1438.
Marin, L., De Maya, S. R., & Rubio, A. (2018). The role of identification in consumers’ evaluations of brand extensions. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2582.
Rileya, F., Pinab, J., & Bravo, R. (2015). The role of perceived value in vertical brand extensions of luxury and premium brands. Journal of Marketing Management, 31, 881- 913.
Shokri, M., & Alavi, A. (2018). The relationship between consumer-brand identification and brand extension. Journal of Relationship Marketing, 18(2), 124-145.
Sichtmann, C. & Diamantopoulos, A. (2013). The impact of perceived brand globalness, brand origin image, and brand origin–extension fit on brand extension success. Journal of the Academy of Marketing, 41, 567-585.
Song, P., Zhang, C., & Zhang, P. (2013). Online information product design: The influence of product integration on brand extension. Decision Support Systems, 54(2), 826-837.
Taylor, V. A., & Bearden, W. O. (2002). The effects of price on brand extension evaluations: The moderating role of extension similarity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30(2), 131-140.
Volckner, F., & Sattler, H. (2006). Drivers of brand extension success. Journal of Marketing, 70, 18-34.
Volckner, F., Sattler, H., Hennig-Thurau, T., & Ringle, C. M. (2010). The role of parent brand quality for service brand extension success. Journal of Service Research, 13(4), 379-396.
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The Effects of Rational and Emotional Appeals of Hotel Upselling Messages on Customer Attitude and Purchase Intention
Jeongyeon (Jennie) Ahn University of Mississippi
Eun-Kyong (Cindy) Choi University of Mississippi
Hyun-Woo Joung University of Mississippi
Abstract
Despite being a popular selling technique used widely in the hotel industry, upselling is still a largely underexplored research topic. With the online travel market growing, hotels have increasingly implemented upselling online as well. Therefore, this study investigates the effectiveness of rational and emotional appeals in online and offline upselling on customers’ attitude and purchase intention. A 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design was employed in the study. The results suggest that, in offline upselling, rational appeal is effective for increasing customers’ attitude and purchase intention; whereas, in online upselling, emotional appeal is effective for improving the attitude but none of the appeals is effective in increasing the purchase intention.
Introduction/Literature Review
Upselling is a suggestive selling technique commonly used in the hotel industry by reservation and front desk agents as a way to increase sales, maximize profit, and build stronger customer relationships (Bolton, Lemon, & Verhoef, 2004; Pizam & Holcomb, 2010; Vercellis, 2011). As the online travel market grows, many hotels have implemented the technique online to accommodate online customers (Dawson & Kim, 2009). Surprisingly, despite such popularity in the industry and the benefits, very little research has been conducted regarding upselling in the hotel context.
In addition, even though previous findings have reported that different types of advertising appeals (i.e., rational and emotional) affect customers’ attitude and purchase intentions (Grigaliunaite & Pileliene, 2016; Lwin & Phau, 2013), they have been inconsistent in explaining which appeal is more effective for service products (e.g., hotels and restaurants) (Zhang, Sun, Liu, & Knight, 2014). For hotel managers to effectively utilize upselling, it is essential to understand how rational and emotional appeals work in online and offline upselling in the hotel industry. Therefore, the present study aims to compare the effectiveness of rational and emotional appeals of online and offline hotel upgrade messages for improving customers’ attitude and purchase intention.
Methods
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The study employed a full-factorial 2 (rational appeal: rational vs. non-rational) × 2 (emotional appeal: emotional vs. non-emotional) × 2 (message delivery type: online vs. offline) between-subjects design with eight scenarios in total. Respondents were asked to imagine planning a family vacation for the weekend and making a room reservation through a hotel’s official website. A questionnaire was developed to go with the scenarios and randomly distributed through Amazon Mechanical Turk with a compensation of $0.40 per person. A total of 578 responses were used for data analysis.
Results/Discussion/Implication
Overall, the manipulations were successful, and the measurement validity and reliability of the independent variables were ensured. The overall sample in each group also showed a fairly equivalent set of individuals in terms of their demographic profile. To analyze the data, three- way ANOVAs were conducted on the respondents’ attitude and purchase intention toward the upgrade messages.
First, the results regarding the attitude indicated significant main effects of rational and emotional messages and a significant two-way (rational × emotional) interaction effect. However, neither the remaining main effect nor the two-way and three-way interaction effects were significant. As message delivery type (online vs. offline) did not serve as the main effect nor moderate the other main and two-way interaction effects, the three-way ANOVA model was decomposed and two separate two-way ANOVAs between rational and emotional messages were conducted for offline and online conditions (see Figure 1). In the offline condition, the main effect of rational message (F(1, 291) = 10.562, p < .01) and the interaction effect of rational and emotional messages (F(1, 291) = 11.081, p < .01) were significant. Conversely, in the online condition, the main effect of emotional message (F(1,279) = 4.857, p < .05) and the interaction effect of rational and emotional messages (F(1, 279) = 4.099, p < .05) were significant.
Second, the results of a three-way ANOVA on the purchase intention revealed that the main effect of rational message and the two-way (rational × emotional) interaction effect were significant, whereas none of the other main effects (i.e., emotional message and online), other two-way or three-way interaction effects were significant. Additionally, message delivery type did not have any significant effect on the purchase intention nor moderate the other main two- way interaction effects; therefore, separate two-way ANOVAs were performed between rational and emotional messages for offline and online settings (see Figure 2). In the offline setting, the main effect of rational message (F(1, 291) = 6.052, p < .05) and the interaction effect of rational and emotional messages (F(1, 291) = 4.871, p < .05) were both significant. However, in the online setting, none of the main effects or the interaction effect was significant.
The present study’s findings suggest that for offline upselling, showing only the rational message would be the most effective; whereas, for online upselling, presenting only the
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 emotional message would be the most effective in improving customer attitude which is consistent with the previous finding that emotional appeals are more effective in online upselling for hospitality services (Lwin, Phau, Huang, & Lim, 2014). On the other hand, for improving customers’ purchase intentions, rational appeal is the only effective message appeal in offline upselling and neither rational nor emotional appeal is effective in online upselling.
Based on these findings, the study recommends that utilizing emotional appeals when upselling a room from their websites. Providing pictures and advertising hedonic values of the rooms with emotional phrases such as beautiful views, decorations, and atmosphere would be beneficial to capture the attention of customers and positively influence their attitude, thereby increasing their purchase intention as well. Conversely, it would be more beneficial to utilize rational appeals describing utilitarian benefits such as functionality, practicality, performance, and quality when upselling is taking place at the hotel. Focusing on attributes such as the economy of the room, amenities, and extra space would help increase the customers’ attitude and purchase intention.
References
Bolton, R., Lemon, K., & Verhoef, P. (2004). The theoretical underpinnings of customer asset management: A framework and propositions for future research., Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 32(3), 271-292.
Dawson, S., & Kim, M. (2009). External and internal trigger cues of impulse buying online. Direct Marketing: An International Journal, 3(1), 20-34.
Grigaliunaite, V., & Pileliene, L. (2016). Emotional or rational? The determination of the influence of advertising appeal on advertising effectiveness. Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, 63(3), 391-414.
Lwin, M., & Phau, I. (2013). Effective advertising appeals for websites of small boutique hotels. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 7(1), 18-32.
Lwin, M., Phau, I., Huang, Y. A., & Lim, A. (2014). Examining the moderating role of rational- versus emotional-focused websites: The case of boutique hotels. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 20(2), 95-109.
Pizam, A., & Holcomb, J. (2010). International dictionary of hospitality management. New York, NY: Routledge.
Vercellis, C. (2011). Business intelligence: Data mining and optimization for decision making. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Zhang, H., Sun, J., Liu, F., & Knight, J. G. (2014). Be rational or be emotional: Advertising appeals, service types and consumer responses. European Journal of Marketing, 48(11/12), 2105-2126.
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Figures
Figure 1. Impacts of rational and emotional messages on customers’ attitude: Offline vs. online
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Figure 2. Impacts of rational and emotional messages on customers’ purchase intention: Offline vs. online
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A Pilot Investigation into Measuring the Gap between Restaurant Industry Interests and Academic Research using Natural Language Processing
Kanishk Srivastava Florida International University
Andrew Moreo Florida International University
Srikanth Beldona Florida International University/University of Delaware
Mark Traynor Auburn University
Mark Finlayson Florida International University
Miguel Alonso Jr. Florida International University
Introduction
There is a vast gap between the interests of the restaurant industry and the research performed in academia (Arendt et al., 2012; Baum, 2019; Elnasr, Sobaih & Jones, 2015; King, Funk, & Wilkins, 2011). This gap has resulted in an especially ineffective relationship, where the findings from academic research rarely translate to or are used in practice. This situation leaves the restaurant industry without practical solutions to some of their most pressing problems and leaves academics isolated in their ivory tower, working on irrelevant issues and asking irrelevant questions. The first step in bridging this gap and increasing the effectiveness of Hospitality research for the industry is to understand the nature of the disconnect. Prior work investigating this problem has suffered from numerous shortcomings: first, it is mostly qualitative; second, it relies on data that is out of date, sorely lagging the state of the industry; and third, it suffers from the biases introduced by specific investigators’ goals and interests. In this work in progress, latest methods from natural language processing (NLP), a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) focused on automatic, machine understanding of human language are being applied to measure the gap between the restaurant industry and academic restaurant research precisely, in real-time, and objectively. Methodology To establish a baseline characterization of the gap, powerful NLP concepts like Key- phrase Analysis, Topic Modelling, Word Embeddings, and Similarity Assessment will be used. Additionally, how the discussion topics vary over time, in both industry and academia will be
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 analyzed. Furthermore, topics that are trending in a particular time frame will be assessed and tracked. Data analysis involves five key steps:
1. Extracting data from two sources in order to gauge industry and academic research trends; 2. five years (2011-2015) of records (1,700+) of US foodservice news pertinent from the National Restaurant Association’s SmartBrief email archive, and (ii) five years (2011- 2015) of peer-reviewed foodservice research publications from high ranking academic journals. 3. Cleaning and preprocessing the raw data to extract relevant meaningful data. 4. Data Stemming and Lemmatization to convert word forms to their stem form and linguistically valid lemmas. 5. Conversion of text into word count vectors to reflect the importance of a word to a document in the collected corpus. 6. Applying Topic Modelling on data to gather a sense of topics covered by these articles, and thus, enhance understanding of the issues being discussed in a broader perspective.
Implications Proven NLP techniques will be applied to measure the industry-academia gap, pointing the way for future research directions both in hospitality and tourism, and also potentially leading to new AI techniques for concept detection and tracking. This novel application of computer science to the problems of tourism and hospitality will form a foundation on which the research team can build a dramatically more effective research program.
References Arendt, S. W., Roberts, K. R., Strohbehn, C., Ellis, J., Paez, P., & Meyer, J. (2012). Use of qualitative research in foodservice organizations: A review of challenges, strategies, and applications. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 24(6), 820–837. Baum, T. (2019). Bridging the Gap: Making Research ‘Useful’ in Food, Tourism, Hospitality and Events—The Role of Research Impact. In S. Beeton & A. Morrison. The Study of Food, Tourism, Hospitality and Events (pp. 157–166). Singapore: Springer. Elnasr Sobaih, A., & Jones, E. (2015). Bridging the hospitality and tourism university–industry research gap in developing countries: The case of Egypt. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 15(3), 161–177. King, C., Funk, D. C., & Wilkins, H. (2011). Bridging the gap: An examination of the relative alignment of hospitality research and industry priorities. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(1), 157–166.
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Intention to Use Facial Recognition Technology by Business Event Attendees
Olena Ciftci University of Mississippi
Katerina Berezina University of Mississippi
Inna Soifer University of Mississippi
Introduction
Using facial recognition technology at business events may have several advantages for the events’ organizers, such as decreasing of check-in time, reducing cost (Event Manager Blog, 2018), and increasing security at venues (Krueger, 2019). Besides, deployment of facial recognition technology, in combination with other technologies, presents an opportunity to personalize the activities and services for the business event attendees (Event Manager Blog, 2018; Krueger, 2019; PCMA, 2019). However, the attendees may not utilize facial recognition because of their privacy protection concerns (Chellappa, & Sin, 2005; Wickes, 2018). Despite practical importance, no empirical research has investigated the adoption of facial recognition technology at events. Thus, this study aims to explore the privacy-personalization paradox in the context of facial recognition technology adoption by business event attendees. This study is designed to achieve its goal by investigating antecedents that drive user intention to use this technology.
Theoretical framework
This study used the constructs of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and technology adoption intention from the unified theory of adoption and use of technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al., 2003) as the base for the theoretical model. Morosan (2016) found a significant effect of perceived performance expectancy and effort expectancy on the intention to use biometrical e-gates at airports.
Also, studies on customer intention to use biometric technologies proved the indirect and direct effects of perceived privacy concerns (Breward et al., 2017; Morosan, 2012, 2016; Pai et al., 2018) and trust in the system (Lancelot Miltgen et al., 2013; Pai et al., 2018) on customer intention to use this technology. Further, Chellappa and Sin (2005) and Guo, Zhang, and Sun (2016) found an indirect effect of perceived personalization and privacy concerns on the intention to use the technology through the mediation of trust in the technology in the context of online and healthcare mobile services. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first research that explores the personalization and privacy concerns of antecedents of intention to use facial recognition technology by attendees of business events.
Methods
The population of this study was adults 18 years old and older who resided in the US and
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had attended a business event within the last 12 months. The self-administrated questionnaire was distributed via MTurk. A total of 308 usable responses were used for further analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the measurement model, and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was conducted to test the hypothesized relationships.
Conclusions
The results of the research will be presented at the conference. This study contributes to the body of academic knowledge by introducing a new model of customer adoption of facial recognition by business event attendees. Moreover, meeting and event planners may benefit from the suggestions on using facial recognition at business events to enhance customers’ experience, provide personalized services, and overcome privacy concerns while promoting the adoption of the new technology.
References
Breward, M., Hassanein, K., & Head, M. (2017). Understanding consumers’ attitudes toward controversial information technologies: A contextualization approach. Information Systems Research, 28(4), 760-774.
Chellappa, R. K., & Sin, R. G. (2005). Personalization versus privacy: An empirical examination of the online consumer’s dilemma. Information technology and management, 6(2-3), 181- 202.
Event Manager Blog (2018, June 4). How facial recognition can speed up check-in times [Case study]. Retrieved on November 3, 2019, from https://www.eventmanagerblog.com/facial- recognition-check-in
Guo, X., Zhang, X., & Sun, Y. (2016). The privacy–personalization paradox in Health services acceptance of different age groups. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 16, 55-65.
Krueger, B. (2019, June 10). Facial recognition and events. Endless Events. Retrieved on November 3, 2019 from https://helloendless.com/facial-recognition-and-events/
Lancelot Miltgen, C., Popovic, A., & Oliveira, T. (2013). Determinants of end-user acceptance of biometrics: Integrating the "big 3" of technology acceptance with privacy context. Decision Support Systems, 56, 103-114.
Morosan, C. (2016). An empirical examination of US travelers’ intentions to use biometric e- gates in airports. Journal of Air Transport Management, 55, 120-128.
Pai, C. K., Wang, T. W., Chen, S. H., & Cai, K. Y. (2018). Empirical study on Chinese tourists’ perceived trust and intention to use biometric technology. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 23(9), 880-895.
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PCMA (2019, January 8). What’s trending in business event technology? Retrieved on November 3, 2019, from https://www.pcma.org/what-trending-business-event- technology/
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003). User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425-478.
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Evaluation of Official Destination Website (ODW) of the State of Florida
Aysegul Songur University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Faizan Ali University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Cihan Cobanoglu University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee
Introduction
Florida, admitted as the 27th state in 1845 is a constituent state of the United States of America and is also known as The Sunshine State extending southwards towards the Tropic of Cancer and is the southernmost state in the continental US. Florida is heavily focused on tourism given its natural beauty, world famous beaches, national state parks and some of the world`s best known theme parks; including Disney World, Universal Studios, SeaWorld and Volcano Bay, to name a few. A record number of 126.1 million out-of-state visitors came to Florida, plus an estimated 10.8 million overseas visitors and 3.5 million Canadians in 2018 (WLRN, 2019). As a state, Florida is considered as the Mecca of hospitality and tourism. In order to satisfy the increasing number of tourists and visitors, the State of Florida keeps investing in user-friendly marketing communication tools to market Florida as a major destination with a various set of tourism and travel product offerings appealing to travelers from different walks of life. The state of Florida`s official tourism marketing corporation, also known as the Official Destination Website (ODW); VISIT FLORIDA serves as Florida`s official source for travel planning to visitors across the globe. The goal of this study is to evaluate VISIT FLORIDA from the user perspective. To realize this goal, this study will develop an “Official Destination Website evaluation scale”, to measure the ODW on the basis of five critical success factors: quality of information, ease of use, design and interactivity, identity and trust building components and online booking; with the purpose of measuring the performance of the website from the customer perspective. The evaluation results will provide a useful conceptual reference and validated measures for evaluating the websites as marketing communication channels and relationship management tools, promoting Florida to a wide array of visitors.
Literature Review
In today`s world where the World Wide Web has become a major information source and marketing communication channel thanks to fast-developing Information Communication Technologies, online tourism marketing replaced offline forms of marketing which used to be paper-based to a great extent. This definitely stands as a major shift for the tourism industry resulting in an increasing number of consumers worldwide who are not dependent on travel agencies anymore to look for information and inspiration for their next holiday (Wagner & Buhalis, 2013).
For most tourists, doing online destination search and reading travel guides on the Internet is part
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of the preparation process long before they arrive at their planned destinations (Wu, 2018). Therefore, tourism destinations worldwide, gradually have become a major point of attention with a role in shaping the decision-making process of today`s tourism consumers relying on digital information and communication tools. The evolution of web technology enables websites not only to serve as an information searching tool, but also as an information sharing and communication platform (Sigala, 2011). The marketing and branding of destinations, particularly cities, have become prevalent study topics since the 1990s; mainly as a result of the convergence of three macro processes; the growing urbanization, technological revolution and globalization of the economy and communications` globalization (Gasco-Hernandez & Torres-Coronas, 2009).
Marketing tourism involves destination organizations coordinating with multiple local sectors and balancing the interests of stakeholders along with the sustainability of local resources (Buhalis, 2000). While the development of a tourism destination is a complex process, the Internet provides a convenient communication platform for the supply and demand side of tourism destinations to communicate and exchange information (Zhang,et al, 2012). Destination Marketing Organizations or Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) are the organizations responsible for the marketing of destinations. According to Buhalis & Amaranggana (2010), DMO websites are defined as official tourism websites or destination websites, which are created by DMOs to solely promote and represent destinations. Destination Management Organizations (DMO) worldwide are increasingly investing into their online presence and adopt destination management systems (DMS) to assist destinations with technological functions (Wagner & Buhalis, 2013). For many travelers, DMO websites have become a preferred source of travel information (Li & Wang, 2010) and they also serve as communication channels and a relationship management tool, by integrating visitors` interactions via blogs and social media (Luna-Navarez & Hyman, 2012). Tourism websites also serve as a valuable marketing tool for marketing tourism and the specific destination (Zuliani, 2013).
Methodology
This paper will be an attempt to evaluate the state of Florida`s official tourism marketing corporation, also known as the Official Destination Website (ODW); VISIT FLORIDA (www.visitfloria.com); through user judgment approach. By developing an “Official Destination Website evaluation scale”, each website will be measured on the basis of five critical success factors: quality of information, ease of use, design and interactivity, identity and trust building components and online booking; with the goal of measuring the performance of the websites from the customer perspective. Reliability and validity tests will be applied for determining the usefulness of the instrument. This will be a unique attempt in terms of evaluating the Official Destination Website of Florida from the user perspective. The evaluation results will provide a useful conceptual reference and validated measures for evaluating the website as a marketing communication channel and relationship management tool, promoting Florida to a wide array of visitors. In addition, based on the evaluation results, both the theoretical and practical implications for future improvements and the use of ODWs for destination marketing will be discussed in this paper.
References
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Buhalis, D. (2000). Marketing the competitive destination of the future. Tourism Management, 21 (1), 97-116.
Buhalis, D. (2013). Smart tourism destinations. In Xiang, S. & Tussyadiah (Eds.), Information and communication technologies in tourism 2014 (pp. 553-564). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Gasco-Hernandez, M. & Torres-Coronas, T. (Eds.). (2009). Information communication technologies and city marketing: Digital opportunities for cities around the world. Hershey: Information Science Reference.
Li, X & Wang, Y. (2010). Evaluating the effectiveness of destination marketing organisations` websites: Evidence from China. International Journal of Tourism Research, 12 (5), 536- 549.
Luna-Navarez, C & Hyman, R. (2012). Common practices in destination website design. Journal of Destination Marketing and Management 1 (1): 94-106.
Wagner, R. & B. Dimitrios (2013). E-destinations: Global best practice in tourism technologies and applications. In L. Cantoni & Z. Xiang (Eds.), Information and communication technologies in tourism (pp. 119-130).
Wu, G. (2018). Official websites as a tourism marketing medium: A contrastive analysis from the perspective of appraisal theory. Journal of Destination Marketing Management 10, 164- 171.
Zhang, L. Y., Li, N. & Liu, M. (2012). On the basic concept of smarter tourism and its theoretical system. Tourism Tribune, 5, 66-73.
Zuliani, A. (2013). A journey to Portugal: The official tourist promotion of Turismo de Portugal. In E. Manca & F. Bianchi (Eds.). Tourism and tourist promotion around the world: A linguistic and socio-cultural perspective (pp. 61-80). https://www.wlrn.org/post/record- 1261-million-tourists-florida-2018
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Rage Against the Machine - Exploring the Antecedents of Customer Rage Within the Lodging Industry
Martin O'Neill Auburn University
David Martin Auburn University
Yejia Guo Auburn University
Tianjian Liu Auburn University
Introduction
According to Customer Care Measurement & Consulting (2017), over 33 billion dollars are lost every year due to problems associated with customer rage. Additionally, CCMC also found that over half of those surveyed (56%) indicated that they had become enraged following a service failure. While customer rage has received attention from both industry and academia, prior studies have focused service recover efforts (Michel, Bowen, & Johnston, 2009; Reynolds & Harris, 2005; Van Vaerenbergh & Orsingher, 2016) and customer behaviors caused by customer rage. (Ferguson & Johnston, 2011; McColl-Kennedy, Patterson, Smith, & Brady, 2009).
However, there is a lack of research related to the specific causes of customer rage and, thus, how industry professionals may avoid this extreme customer emotion in the first place. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the most common causes of customer rage and how these failures drive customer misbehavior in the lodging industry. Specifically, this study aims to (1) identify causes that induce the customer to move past dissatisfaction and into the emotional state of customer rage and (2) cultivate and examine a more widely employed scale to measure customer rage that can be applied across multiple segments of the hospitality industry.
Literature Review
Customer rage, best defined as a form of customer misbehavior, is taken to denote “behavior within the exchange setting that deliberately violates the generally accepted norms of conduct in such situations” (Reynolds and Harris, 2009). While anger in customers has repeatedly been shown “to result in a variety of non-confrontational behaviors (exit, negative word of mouth, etc.); extreme anger or rage can result in damage to an organization’s physicalproperty, and/or emotional and physical harm to persons, including frontline employees, other customers” and potentially the raging complainants themselves (McColl-Kennedy, Patterson, Smith and Brady, 2009, p. 222). While such incidents of rage abound, the causes (Daunt and Harris, 2011), consequences (Gregoire, Tripp and Legoux, 2009), and responses to
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rage (Reynolds and Harris, 2006) continue to baffle many in the hospitality profession. It is imperative that today’s hospitality professional has a clear and informed understanding of the potential triggers and/or antecedents of customer rage. Practitioners may then be better prepared to respond in a timely enough manner to diffuse the amplified service failing or avoid them altogether by fool proofing the delivery and recovery mechanism. The current study seeks to identify the most common triggers of customer rage and likely associated misbehaviors in a lodging setting.
Methodology
This study will use a mixed research methods design that combines both qualitative and quantitative methods. Our research will perform in-depth personal interviews with customers who have encountered rage in hotel facilities in the last 6 months to fulfill our first study aim on customer rage causes and inducements in a service failure context. Following this, the results will be used to generate items to be used to develop a scale to measure customer range quantitatively which will be pilot tested and then applied in a broader context.
References
CMCC. (2017). National Customer Rage Study - Customer Care Measurement & Consulting. Retrieved from https://www.customercaremc.com/insights/2017-us-customer-rage- study/.
Daunt, K. L., & Harris, L. C. (2011). Customers acting badly: Evidence from the hospitality industry. Journal of Business Research, 64(10), 1034–1042. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2010.10.010
Ferguson, J. L., & Johnston, W. J. (2011). Customer response to dissatisfaction: A synthesis of literature and conceptual framework. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(1), 118–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2010.05.002
Grégoire, Y., Tripp, T. M., & Legoux, R. (2009). When customer love turns into lasting hate: The effects of relationship strength and time on customer revenge and avoidance. Journal of Marketing, 73(6), 18–32. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.73.6.18
McColl-Kennedy, J. R., Patterson, P. G., Smith, A. K., & Brady, M. K. (2009). Customer Rage Episodes: Emotions, Expressions, and Behaviors. Journal of Retailing, 85(2), 222–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2009.04.002
Michel, S., Bowen, D., & Johnston, R. (2009). Why service recovery fails: Tensions among customer, employee, and process perspectives. Journal of Service Management, 20(3), 253– 273. https://doi.org/10.1108/09564230910964381
Reynolds, K. L., & Harris, L. C. (2005). When service failure is not service failure: An exploration of the forms and motives of “illegitimate” customer complaining. Journal of
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Services Marketing, 19(5), 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1108/08876040510609934
Reynolds, K. L., & Harris, L. C. (2006). Deviant customer behavior: An exploration of frontline employee tactics. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 14(2), 95–111. https://doi.org/10.2753/MTP1069-6679140201
Reynolds, K. L., & Harris, L. C. (2009). Dysfunctional Customer Behavior Severity: An Empirical Examination. Journal of Retailing, 85(3), 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2009.05.005
Van Vaerenbergh, Y., & Orsingher, C. (2016). Service recovery: An integrative framework and research agenda. Academy of Management Perspectives, 30(3), 328–346. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2014.0143
Rosenberg, Morris (1965), Society and the Adolescent Self-Image, Princeton, NJ: Princeton. University Press.
Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D., & Oconnor, C. (1987). Emotion knowledge: Further. exploration of a prototype approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(6), 1061–1086.
Surachartkumtonkun, J., Patterson, P. G., & Mccoll-Kennedy, J. R. (2013). Customer Rage. Back-Story: Linking Needs-Based Cognitive Appraisal to Service Failure Type. Journal of Retailing, 89(1), 72–87.
Surachartkumtonkun, J., Mccoll-Kennedy, J. R., & Patterson, P. G. (2015). Unpacking Customer Rage Elicitation. Journal of Service Research, 18(2), 177–192.
White, Robert W. (1959), “Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence,” Psychological Review, 66, 297–333.
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Standing Shoulder to Shoulder in Hospitality Education
Alison J. Green University of West Florida
Hilmi A. Atadil University of West Florida
Jill Plumer University of West Florida
Abstract
The objective of this study is to identify the common themes and concepts within the High Impact Practices experience descriptions of students and industry instructors.
Introduction
Studies in hospitality education explore and provide suggestions for effective teaching through the use of a variety of instructional methods inside and outside the four walls of the classroom (e.g., Dunning, 2019; Patiar, Kensbock, & Cox, 2017; Green & Sammons, 2014). However, there are several significant gaps and interesting differences on perceptions about hospitality education between educators and employers (Cho, Erdem, & Johanson, 2006). The current expectation of the hospitality industry is to hire students with critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence, and real-world education (Lashley, 2018). High Impact Practices (HIPs), emerging in the area of business education, are teaching and learning practices with the goal of graduating such students. According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities (2019), some of the examples of HIPs are first-year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, internships, capstone courses and projects. More specifically, a capstone course where there is not only the course instructor; but, also an industry professional lecturing in multiple class meetings could also be a HIP. The impact comes from the experience, in which it is based on solid instructional design within the course and accomplished over time. The present study proposes to lessen the perceptional gap between educators and industry professionals by immersing the hospitality student HIPs that have the underpinnings of experiential and active learning.
Methods
The study sample is formed of (1) hospitality students in an undergraduate Bachelor’s program, situated in an AASCB accredited College of Business, and (2) industry professionals from the hospitality and tourism industry. Regarding the undergraduate bachelor’s program, there are 3 courses participating in the HIP, named Shoulder to Shoulder, HIP to HIP teaching model. The instructor of record works with an industry professional to design and create a 16- week course. The industry professional has to meet certain criteria, before being allowed to participate in this HIP: (a) working in the appropriate industry for 10 or more years, increasing
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 responsibilities during that time, (b) able to commit to delivering 2-4 full lectures throughout the semester, (c) embrace active learning teaching techniques in a lecture, an (d) expose students to a live case study from the industry. At the completion of the courses, students and industry professionals will be interviewed regarding their High Impact Practices experiences. The number of the participants will be between 12 and 15. The authors will conduct two interviews per participant to enhance the trustworthiness of the obtained data.
Proposed Implications
Regarding the practical contributions, the study findings will shed light on teaching practices to produce students who can apply critical thinking, emotional intelligence and communication skills to the work environment. The employed Shoulder to Shoulder, HIP to HIP teaching model can be applied by hospitality educators. Furthermore, theoretically, the identified concepts and themes related to the HIP will enable generation of a survey scale appropriate for exploratory factor analysis.
References
Association of American Colleges and Universities (2019). High-Impact Practices. Retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/resources/high-impact-practices
Cho, S., Erdem, M., & Johanson, M. (2006). Hospitality graduate education: A view from three different stakeholder perspectives. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education 18, (4) 45-55.
Dunning, J. M. (2019). Professional superheroes: Are changes in higher education stretching hospitality management academics' professionalism to the limit?. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, 25, 100200.
Green, A. J., & Sammons, G. E. (2014). Student learning styles: Assessing active learning in the hospitality learners’ model. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 26(1), 29-38.
Lashley, C. (2018). What to do about how to do: Reflections on the future direction of hospitality education and research. Research in Hospitality Management, 8(2), 79-84.
Patiar, A., Ma, E., Kensbock, S., & Cox, R. (2017). Students' perceptions of quality and satisfaction with virtual field trips of hotels. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 31, 134-141.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Leadership Skills with Classroom Instruction Integration in Hospitality Management Higher Education
Annamarie Sisson University of Florida
Kevin Roberts Kansas State University
Abstract
Hospitality management educators and industry professionals are being impacted by the significant increase in leadership skills of managers and supervisors. Teaching leadership is lacking in classroom instruction and to address this concern, faculty, students, and industry professionals should attempt to work together to meet ever-changing industry requirements and expectations. For students to achieve management positions, they should possess the necessary skills needed for the industry. Due to the early stages of leadership education within hospitality management, research to clarify the most prominent leadership style among faculty who successfully implement leadership pedagogy in the classroom will be beneficial for hospitality management educators, as well as administrators who are responsible for instructional change and development.
The purpose of this exploratory study is to correlate the style of leadership a faculty member possesses with the methods in which they integrate and teach leadership in the classroom. The significance of the leadership style may inform an understanding of how educational leaders influence leadership skills and competency integration in classroom instruction. Leadership characteristics should be portrayed within higher education to produce quality students who possess the leadership capacity for industry. Results from the study of hospitality management faculty can shed light on leadership integration to meet industry recommendations of skills needed for students entering industry careers.
Introduction/Literature Review
Today, the prominence of leadership qualities of managers in the industry cannot be overstated (Zhong, Couch, & Blum, 2013). Developing leaders is imperative to reflect the competitive nature of the tourism and hospitality industries (Perman & Mikinac, 2014). Previous researchers have contended that hospitality management (HM) faculty must integrate more leadership concepts into courses to ensure career readiness of students (Gursoy & Swanger, 2004, 2005; Zhong et al., 2013). Thus, the purpose of this study is to correlate a faculty member’s leadership style with the methods in which they integrate leadership in the classroom. Specific research questions include: (1) is self-reported method of leadership integration within HM courses different based on the educator’s leadership style? (2) why do HM faculty integrate leadership in classroom instruction? (3) how important do faculty perceive leadership is related to their class pedagogy? and (4) how do HM faculty identify and integrate leadership
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 components into their classroom?
Methods
Qualitative Study
Four focus groups will explore methods hospitality faculty use to integrate leadership into instruction. A convenience sample of 20 hospitality educators whose program identifies leadership outcomes and competencies will be included. Questions will be developed based on previous literature. Data will be used to inform questionnaire development. Focus group data will be recorded, transcribed, and themed using Dedoose (v. 7).
Quantitative Study
The quantitative study will examine the relationship between leadership styles, measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 2004), self-reported methods of leadership integration, and demographics using an online survey.
A sample size of 271 educators is needed to achieve a 95% confidence interval. Thus, the 917 affiliated with a hospitality program through the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education membership database will be included in the sample population. Institutional Review Board approval will be obtained before research is conducted. Analysis of variance and chi-square statistics tests will be used to analyze quantitative data through SPSS.
Proposed Implications
Educational leadership style may inform an understanding of how leadership skills are integrated in classroom instruction. Leadership skills development can aid in integration of leadership in a classroom setting. Results can shed light on leadership integration to meet industry recommendations of skills needed for students entering industry careers.
References
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. (2004). Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden.
Gursoy, D., & Swanger, N. (2004). An industry-driven model of hospitality curriculum for programs housed in accredited colleges of business. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 16(4), 8.
Gursoy, D., & Swanger, N. (2005). An industry-driven model of hospitality curriculum for programs housed in accredited colleges of business: Part II. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education, 17(2), 46–56. doi:10.1080/10963758.2005.10696824
Perman, L., & Mikinac, K. (2014). Effectiveness of education processes in tourism and hospitality in the Republic of Croatia. In Tourism and Hospitality Industry 2014 – Trends
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 in Tourism and Hospitality Management.
Zhong, Y., Couch, S., & Blum, S. C. (2013). The role of hospitality education in women's career advancement: Responses from students, educators, and industry recruiters. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 13, 282-304.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Where are you on the Foodie Spectrum?
Lionel Thomas Saint Leo University
Berkita Bradford Virginia State University
Dene Williamson Saint Leo University
Abstract
This exploratory study uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques to uncover what comes to mind when individual’s think of the term Foodies - and the characteristics that make up a Foodie. This study finds that the term Foodie makes respondents think of someone who likes to eat, is adventurous when it comes to food, and is a connoisseur of food. Enhancing cooking with gadgets, ingredients, and recipes; an emotional tie, adventurousness, social media, and capturing experiences are key factors in describing a Foodie.
Literature Review The term Foodie was originally coined by New York writer Gail Green in the early 1980’s- but popularized in 1984 by Ann Barr and Paul Levy of England’s Harper’s and Queen in their publication: The Official Foodie Handbook (Livingstone, 2019). Foodies have been found to be more likely to eat in groups; read about food online; and get information from websites, blogs and apps (Maxwell, 2012). Foodies have also birthed a phenomenon called food photography - which crosses multiple social platforms, including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram; wherein individuals share their relationships with food (Wilkinson, 2016). Food is one of the most shared attributes on social media (Law, Buhalis, & Cobanoglu, 2014). Online communities and foodies have become an important niche market. Essentially, any customer can be considered an influential reviewer whose comments and experiences may be viewed around the world (Maxwell, 2012). Given the some of the behaviors associated with being labeled a Foodie, this study aims to capture what individual’s think of foodies and what characteristics best describe a Foodie.
Methods This study uses a convenient sample as a means to conduct a pilot study for a new instrument. This study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods in hopes of capturing how Foodies are perceived and the key components that make up a Foodie. For the purposes of this study, respondents were asked “What comes to mind when you hear the term Foodie?” Responses were coded, organized, smoothed, and quantified (explained more in results).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Respondents were also asked to rate 27 statements designed to determine which Foodie behaviors one might possess on a 5-point Likert Scale (1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree). An exploratory factor analysis was conducted resulting in five factors. Descriptive statistics were also run. A total of 170 individuals completed this online survey that was distributed to a combination of students and interested others via anonymous link.
Results and Conclusions Demographics The respondents of this survey were 76.5% (130) Female and 22.9% Male (40). The ages ranged from 19 – 58 (36 missing) with 55% (74) Post-Millennials, 21.5% Millennials (29), 20% (27) members of Generation X, and 3.5% (5) Baby Boomers. Approximately 55.4% (93) were African American, 27.4% (46) respondents were Caucasian, 15.5% (26) were Hispanic, and 1.8% (3) were classified as other. Approximately 40.5% (68) were currently in college, 26.8% (45) has a post graduate degree, 15.3% (26) were college graduates, 10.7% (18) had high school diplomas, and 6.5% (11) completed an Associate’s Degree. Approximately 61.2% (104) of the respondents were self-proclaimed Foodies rating themselves at least a 7 on a scale from 1 to 10.
What comes to mind when you hear the term Foodie? One hundred seventy individuals participated in the qualitative portion of this study. After receiving the responses, the information was coded while maintaining data authenticity. To maintain data integrity and remove the doubt of bias, qualitative responses were coded by five neutral researchers that were all given the same instructions in regards to the coding process. SPSS was used to organize words by frequency and representative percentage of words based on total words responded. This is all based on the classifications after data smoothing which is a standardization procedure used to eliminate the misspelling or pluralizing of words impacting the frequency total for a response (Krippendorf, 1980; Woelfel, 1990). After this standardization, the software is able calculate the frequency for each term while also giving the percentage of total words.
Respondents believe that the term Foodie means someone who “likes to eat,” is “adventurous” when it comes to food, has a “strong interest” in food, and the “experiences” associated with food. Respondents made comments such as “A person who loves great food!”; “eats out a lot”; and “food lover” to solicit the term “likes to eat.” Phrases such as “Different cultures of food/ variety of food”; “Enjoys eating new foods and trying new places”; and “eating out and trying new dishes” was translated to “adventurous.” Statements such as “Interest in food preparation and presentation”; “Interested in food, new foods, creative meals, planning”; and “Someone who has a serious interest in food and the culture surrounding it” yielded the “strong interest” label. The term “experience” was surmised form the statements “A person that has a genuine love for food and the experience of eating.”; “Experience in every culture with food.”; and “Love to try different foods. Blogging and posting food.” Chart 1 shows a complete list of the terms, their frequency, percentage of total words, and the actual comments that yielded the terms.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Factor Analysis Researchers conducted an initial exploratory factor analysis, using the varimax rotation method on responses to the 27 statements questions related to the feelings and behaviors of foodies are extracted from literature. Participants were asked to rate the statements on a 5-point Likert scale (1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree). The original model including all of the questions explained 58.955 percent of the variance in the model. Based on results of this initial exploratory factor analysis, researchers removed 4 questions: 1) I love to eat food but not cooking; 2) I eat food mainly for survival purposes; 3) If food is not well presented, my opinion of it changes; and 4) I have dietary restrictions that limit my food choices. A confirmatory factor analysis was again run using the varimax rotation method. Based on achieving Eigen values greater than 1, researchers derived 5 factors which accounted for 64.137% of the variance in responses to the 23 considered questions. The Kaiser-Olkin Measure (KMO) value is .876 (p=.000) which is above the required .6 threshold meaning the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity is significant. Figure 1. Shows the resulting factors and factor loadings. Based on this factor analysis, it can be surmised that the components of a Foodie are as follows: 1) enhance cooking, 2) emotional tie, 3) adventurous, 4) social media, and 5) experience. Factor 1: the enhance cooking factor is composed of statements relate to seeking new recipes, gadgets, and ingredients to cook with. Factor 2: the emotional tie factor focuses on food being a key part of an individual’s identity, memories, and entertainment; as well as, considering themselves a foodie and receiving great joy from food. Factor 3: the adventurous factor the idea of traveling and seeking new opportunities to try new and exotic foods and planning activities around food. Factor 4: the social media factor encompasses the idea of sharing food encounters such as cooking videos, pictures of food, and telling stories about dining: namely on social media. Factor 5 captures experiences. The idea of being in environments that celebrate food and creating memories related to food.
References
Krippendorf, K. (1980). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Progress on information and communication technologies in hospitality and tourism, 26(5), 727-750.
Livingstone, J. (2019, March 18, 2019). What Was the Foodie? The New Republic. Maxwell, P. (2012). Eating Up Social: A Maxwell Roundtable Discussion on Foodies. In Engagement.
Wilkinson, P. F. (2016). Foodies and food tourism. Annals of Leisure Research, 19(1), 139-141. doi:10.1080/11745398.2015.1072729
Woelfel, J. (1990). Galileo Catpac: User Manual and Tutorial (Version 3.0). Amherst NY: The Galileo Company.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Pedagogy
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Addressing the project management discipline gap in hospitality management curriculum
Timothy Flohr University of Memphis
Project management is an essential skill in the hospitality industry and it is only becoming more important (Tereso, Ribeiro, Fernandes, & Ferreira, 2018). Status and Scope of Project Management in the Hospitality Industry (Rengel, Babb & Flohr), recently published in International Hospitality Review, details the growing need for project management training for both managers within the hospitality industry. Tim Flohr, Program Manager at The University of Memphis’ Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality and Resort Management, is currently co-authoring the first project management textbook specifically designed for the hospitality industry - Project Management for the Hospitality Industry, which will be released in fall 2020. Bridging the gap between academia and industry is achievable by experiential learning or providing students with curriculum that gives them hands-on access to real-world industry research projects that attempt to solve real- world industry issues (Steed & Schwer, 2013). To that end, the textbook will offer a full suite of instructor resources that are designed to enrich teaching and learning specifically in the area of project management within the hospitality industry. In this Pedagogy Track presentation at SECSA, participants will receive a detailed overview of the upcoming textbook and how they can leverage the both the material and the supplemental resources to increase student’s knowledge and skill set within this highly-coveted discipline. As part of the project management curriculum, participants will also learn how to guide students through the free test prep materials that they receive for the IPMA- (International Project Management Association) Level D® Project Management Certification. This internationally-recognized, competency-based certification will provide their students with a distinct competitive advantage as they begin their careers.
References: Rengel Jara, E., Babb, J. and Flohr, T. (2019), "Status and scope of project management in the hospitality industry", International Hospitality Review, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 142- 149. https://doi.org/10.1108/IHR-09-2019-0016 Tereso, A., Ribeiro, P., Fernandes, G., Loureiro, I. and Ferreira, M. (2019), “Project management practices in private organizations”, Project Management Journal, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 6-22, available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972818810966 Steed, E. and Schwer, K. (2003), “Executive committee skills and completing the learning cycle in hospitality education”, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 43-50, doi: 10.1080/10963758.2003.10696759
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Rethinking the use of industry resources
Miranda Kitterlin-Lynch Florida International University
Carl Winston San Diego State University
Despite knowing the value of industry-academic collaboration, actually closing the academic-industry gap remains a challenge in hospitality education. Bringing industry representatives into the classroom is an impactful means to work towards this goal (McCleary &
Weaver, 2009). This workshop will address effective and innovative uses of industry resources in the classroom, but will go beyond the simple “guest speaker” model. For example, there may be opportunity and value in other ways can we make use of our industry partners (i.e. field trips, job shadows, resume workshops, observers during simulations and presentations, etc.). The workshop agenda will center on sharing and discussing the use of industry resources at various institutions. It is expected that participants will leave the roundtable discussion with practical ideas to apply in the classroom with regards to the use of industry resources in the classroom and beyond.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Strategies and lessons from a unique approach to experience learning
Dominique Jones University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Michelle Childs University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Students who participated in experience learning activities report being 2.4 times more likely to being engaged on their job post-graduation (Gallup, Inc. & Purdue University, 2014). As a unique approach to implementing experiential learning, the Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management department at the University of Tennessee implements an innovative program that provides students the opportunity to engage in executing professional hard and soft skills in real time. Students are led by an industry professional with comprehensive business experience and engage in a 2-year fellowship program (6-8 hours per week) and run a profitable business, engaging in product development approaches from conception and design to marketing and branding. Through this unique and innovative experience learning initiative, students gain a 360- degree knowledge and hands-on experience of the service business process through participation in this experience learning fellowship. Based on this unique approach to experience learning, the interactive workshop session will share how experience learning integration and development benefits learning and future job market desirability for students within today’s competitive job landscape. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and pose ideas for adaptation in different contexts. Handouts will provide key takeaways for this application in different programs. Takeaways include:
• Experience learning involves both projects and activities outside the classroom which allow students to participate in real-world experiences and gain integral knowledge toward their future career • Small-scale experience learning projects can include analyzing public second-hand company data or in-person observations in order to cultivate practical suggestions • Large-scale experience learning projects can range from working directly with a company headquarters to utilize company-specific data and present in person to employees to opportunities assigned by the company which need innovation • Two-year fellowship programs in a departmental institute can allow students a 360- degree approach to business from conception to marketing to end product/services and allow students to apply textbook information to real-word scenarios
References Gallup, Inc. and Purdue University. (2014). Great Jobs Great Lives: The 2014 Gallup-Purdue Index Report.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Play Your Cards Right with Market Segmentation!
Annamarie Sisson University of Florida
Using playing cards, students are given cards at random that represent consumer’s age, gender and income. After identifying how market segments can be categorized and allowing students to exchange two of their target markets (cards) in a random draw, students must design an event to match their chosen market. This classroom instructional game can easily be adapted to a hotel or food and beverage market segmentation game by asking student groups to design a lodging room or four-item food and beverage menu. The purpose of the game is to help students develop a clear understanding of where their business comes from and how they can optimize their event profit by classifying consumer groups.
Participants will be engaged in a full execution of the game during the session.
Participants will be given a handout on dividing student groups and detailed instructions on how to play the game followed by discussion questions to generate dialogue with the students.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Experiential Avatar Based Reality
Lionel Thomas Jr., Saint Leo University
John Lax Saint Leo University
Emily Kochanski Saint Leo University Background: Virtual environment learning by way of the use of Avatars is a training technique used in both academic and practitioner environments (Asadi & Hemadi, 2018). These experiences provide trainees invaluable practice developing “soft skills (Lax, 2019).” Selingo (2017) posits that interpersonal and communication skills were among the most important to employers looking at new graduates (Selingo, 2017). Mursion simulations are applicable to any situation requiring intense interpersonal interactions. According to Mursion, Inc. (2017) the approach has demonstrated a positive impact in areas such as leadership development, sales enablement, customer service, and diversity and inclusion across industries. Mursion provides an environment authentic interactions simultaneously engage the emotional and cognitive faculties for learning that transforms the learner while offering a scalable and cost-effective solution for organizations (Mursion, 2017). Application When using Mursion’s virtual reality simulation software, there are three major components needed to ensure a successful session (once you ensure the technological capabilities are in place): scenario prep, student prep, and Mursion specialist prep. For the event project management class this semester, Mursion was used to help students experience two important parts of the event planning process: the initial client meeting and the event proposal. In order to properly execute the initial client meeting, the instructor must complete a scenario sheet which is a key piece of communication between the instructor and the Mursion specialist - a trained improvisation actor the software presents as an Avatar. This sheet requires the instructor to properly set the stage for the specialist. The document asks for the instructor to describe the preparation of the students for the encounter, outline 3 to 5 objectives, break down the objectives to determine what would show successful completion of the objectives and how the specialists should respond. In contrast, the instructor provides a description of what not successfully meeting the objective looks like and how the avatar should respond. This document also asks what type of environment setting the experience should take place in, the background of the avatar, and any other information the specialist should use as a basis for their “character.” The students (4 groups of 2) were asked to plan an event (event concept). The event concept included the type of event, purpose, target market, time of year, location, number of attendees, and proposed activities for the event. Once the groups married their event concepts, the 4 event concepts were sent to the Mursion specialist. At this point, the specialist was provided the opportunity to represent the client in each scenario. For instance, the bride for the wedding; the best friend of a socialite planning a destination party; a representative from Admissions inserting themselves into a week-long basketball camp; and an executive assistant responsible for an app launch party. This initial client meeting experience allowed for the
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 students to learn how to prepare for this interaction; the types of questions to ask and be ready to address; how to conduct themselves; and how to develop the scope of the event amongst other things. After this experience, an industry professional watched the videos of the client meetings and taught the students how to properly prepare project proposals. Students were able to contact the Mursion specialist (as the client) with questions for clarification. The process previously described for the client meeting was repeated for project proposals (communication between instructor and Mursion specialist). Take-aways The Mursion experience provides an active learning tool component for students to develop Power Skills (communication, problem solving, creativity, etc.).
Students will have the opportunity to have Real World Experience in a Controlled Environment.
The Mursion experience provides for a renewal or increase in confidence for student participants.
The avatar technology and pedagogy allow faculty in multiple disciplines to implement a cost-effective and innovative classroom tool.
Avatars promote customizable experiential education that can be executed in the classroom rather than requiring far more time consuming and costly fieldwork.
Due to the ease of customization using individualized scripts, avatar characters and scenario instructors can apply the pedagogy to any discipline or class.
Instructors need not abandon their favorite class exercises or topics as the avatar technology can easily be adapted to existing projects, exercise and syllabi.
Students may be initially intimidated but our student feedback and debriefings have shown very positive attitudes and high course ratings.
References Asadi, A., & Hemadi, R. (2018, 29-30 Nov. 2018). Augmented Reality Game Creator for on-site Job Training. Paper presented at the 2018 2nd National and 1st International Digital Games Research Conference: Trends, Technologies, and Applications (DGRC). Lax, J. R. (2019). The Application of Experiential Avatar-based Sales and Service Training in International Business Curriculums: A Practical Guide for Instructors. In M. A. Gonzalez-Perez, K. Lynden, & V. Taras (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Learning and Teaching International Business and Management (pp. 667-694). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Mursion, I. (2017, May 2017). [Harnessing the Power of Virtual Reality Simulations to Develop Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace ]. Selingo, J. (2017). The Future of Work: How Colleges Can Prepare Students for the Jobs Ahead. The Chronicle of Higher Education(April 14, 2017).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Education 2.0 or is it 3.0?
Andrew Moreo Florida International University
Lisa Cain Florida International University
Miranda Kitterlin-Lynch Florida International University
James Williams University of Tennessee, Knoxville
In order to eradicate and augment the discrepancies between the way in which classes
have always been delivered and the new face, composition, and needs of the university student,
this workshop will propose the benefits and implementation of a POD (program on demand). A
POD takes a traditional, 3-credit, 40-hour class (e.g. organizational behavior, restaurant
management) and deconstructs it into multiple, 1-credit, 15-hour classes. This not only aids with
the issue of a limited attention span, but facilitates a more hands-on, authentic, active, engaged
learning environment. It allows the instructors to deliver the information in bite-sized segments that are more intensive, but easier to mentally digest. PODs also facilitate creative and personalized learning opportunities for the students, as the content is delivered across the various learning modalities (audio, visual, and kinesthetic).
Participant takeaways will include the understanding of a POD and the new composition of students in hospitality, thus enabling them to implement similar programs at their own universities. There may also be an opportunity to improve upon the presented POD framework, and/or discover other such pedagogical activities occurring in the institutions of the workshop participants.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Yield and Revenue Management Heather R. Lewis Troy University
Introduction The hospitality industry is much different than others in that our product is perishable, our services intangible, and the production and consumption of our product is inseparable. A strong knowledge of these three concepts is the building blocks to understanding and utilizing yield and revenue management within the hospitality industry. Yield and revenue management tend to be two of the more complicated topics for students to grasp. What is the difference? How do we teach it to our students? How can we make it easier for them to understand these concepts? Revenue management focuses on predicting consumer behavior by forecasting demand while utilizing yield management to maximize revenues. Yield management is used to maximize revenues by controlling inventory. Yield and Revenue Management Game Relating our product offerings to a gallon of milk seems to help them understand the concept of perishability, but how do we get students to best understand when and if it is necessary to raise or lower rates, close off inventory, or put minimum length of stays in place? Playing the Yield Management Game is a useful tool to turn your classroom into a competition that teaches students the value of yield management. Adequate yield and revenue management techniques should be presented to your students prior to them playing this game. In teams or individually, students become hotel guest service agents taking reservations for their establishment with the goal of making the most revenue for the property. Given the list of reservations coming into the call center, students must strategically take the reservations that will make the hotel the most money. In the real world, we can’t pick and choose which reservations we take, but for this exercise it is all about strategy and critical thinking. The student(s) who are able to make the most amount of money for their hotel is ultimately deemed the winner. The take-away to be offered with this pedagogy presentation is a copy of the yield management game board and instructions to use in their related courses.
Game Instructions Begin by handing out a game board to each individual or team participating. This will serve as their property management system (PMS) for purposes of this activity. Prior to them filling out the rates, cancellation restrictions, and minimum night stipulations, you should read the participants the following scenario so they can begin making critical thinking decisions for their imaginary hotel property: Your hotel is a quick 5-minute drive from your university and would be considered a midscale to upper midscale property (e.g. Hampton Inn, Best Western Plus, Comfort Inn & Suites). It was recently renovated and has a fitness center, indoor pool, and serves a complimentary breakfast to guests each morning. You are in the process of planning the rates and stipulations for reservations at your property for the upcoming football season. It is currently March 2020 and the university just released the football schedule. On the following dates, there will be a home football game: October 10th and 17th. Additionally, it should be known that you are a busy hotel with a considerable amount of business travel and some leisure travel for this time of year.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 That information known, please decide on what rates you plan to offer your guests for these days and any other restrictions regarding reservations and cancellations you see fit. You are free to make decisions as you see fit to make the most profit for your organization, but you cannot change your rates or reservation/cancellation policies once the calls begin. You are permitted to override your policies for individual reservations, but you must make note of these decisions. Keep in mind you are competing against all of the other hotels (students) as you make your decisions. Once students have taken a few minutes to write their rates and restrictions onto their PMS game board, the instructor should begin calling with reservations for them to decide if their property will be able to take their reservations. Students should indicate the name or call number of the reservation and applicable rate that matches each reservation in the appropriate box for the nights they are staying at your hotel. This will allow students to track and total their revenues at the conclusion of the game.
CALL #1: Mr. Smith called requesting a room for 2 nights beginning on Thursday, Oct. 8th. He requested a king room. He mentioned that he was a AAA member and requested a discount. CALL #2: Ms. Adams called requesting a 2-queen room for Friday, October 16th. CALL #3: Ms. Needlepoint called requesting a king room arriving Sunday, October 11th for five nights. Ms. Needlepoint works for a company that currently has a negotiated rate with your hotel and you must honor this rate for her if you accept her reservation. CALL #4: Mr. Bennett is a hotel regular and called asking for a king suite room for one night on Saturday, October 10th. CALL #5: Mr. Morris called needing a room for 3 nights beginning on Wednesday, October 14th. He didn’t mind what room type he received but he was hesitant about rates. Do you decide to offer a discount to obtain his business or turn him away? CALL #6: Ms. Cantor called requesting a 2-queen room for one night, Friday, October 16th. She requested the AARP discount. CALL #7: Ms. Butterworth called requesting a 2-queen room for two nights, beginning Thursday, October 15th. She requested the AAA discount. CALL #8: Mr. Stevens called requesting a king suite for two nights, beginning on Friday, October 9th. CALL #9: Mr. Kelley called requesting a king room for four nights, beginning Monday, October 12th. CALL #10: Ms. Lincoln called requesting a 2-queen room for three nights beginning Sunday, October 11th. She is a regular that stays at your hotel on a corporate discounted rate. CALL #11: Mr. Brown called requesting any room type available for two nights beginning Thursday, October 15th. Even though he wasn’t specific about room type, he did request a AAA discount. CALL #12: Mr. Tuttle called requesting a king room for Saturday, October 17th for just one night. MAINTENANCE ISSUE: A guest staying in a 2-queen room checking out on Wednesday, October 14th caused the toilet to overflow flooding the room. This room will need to be put out of service, preventing it to be sold for the night. How much revenue does this issue cost you? Do you charge the guest checking out for the issue? CALL #13: Ms. Edgell called requesting a 2-queen room for three nights beginning Thursday, October 8th.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 CALL #14: Ms. Cantor called on Thursday, October 15th requesting to cancel her reservation she has for October 16th. Do you allow her to cancel his reservation? CALL #15: Mr. Bennett called to cancel his reservation at 8am on the day of arrival. Do you allow him to cancel his reservation?
After all of the calls have been made and students have made their decisions about how to handle the reservations, have them total the amount of money they would be making per night on reservations and then calculate the overall revenue total. The student or group with the most amount of revenue from all of their revenue management decisions will be the winner(s).
Reflection and Discussion As an instructor, this is a great opportunity for you to discuss the importance of decision making, tracking discounts and rate codes, as well as adequately managing inventory. Go back and review the calls that had italicized questions and have further discussion on how they handled those situations. Reflect on the students’ decision-making processes. Discuss how they decided on the rates they chose for their rooms on each day. Have similar discussion regarding the policies they decided to implement. Additionally, ask the students if they would have set their rates or policies differently if they could go back and change things. If they would change them, what would they do differently and why? Use this opportunity to teach them how to improve their revenue and yield management skills for when they become practitioners.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Building wider bridges between campus and industry: Will you take the risk?
Ruth A. Smith Bethune-Cookman University
Abstract The hands-on, diverse, and evolving nature of the hospitality and tourism industry calls for more practical pedagogical approaches in hospitality education. The purpose of this presentation is to share an experiential learning approach called the PAB Experiential Learning (PAB-EL) model, which was used in an event management class. By increasing experiential learning opportunities within the academic hospitality curriculum, students gain real-world experience and exposure woven into theoretical knowledge, which collectively prepares them for entry-level management positions within the industry upon graduation.
Introduction Students who engage in experiential learning activities while pursuing their undergraduate degrees in hospitality management will experience positive outcomes in their academic performance, overall growth, professional development, ability to transfer learning, and post- graduation employment (Sisson & Adams, 2013; Smith & Schoffstall, 2019; Schoffstall, Brown, & Arendt 2017). The classroom is the foundational platform for students’ learning, while experiential activities play a crucial role in the continuing and future development of the existing workforce. As such, experiential learning that integrates hospitality industry activities is a strong validator for the application of real-world industry experiences.
Literature Review Lee (2008) stated that experiential learning is an umbrella term that refers to various programs and systems which provide students with work-based applied learning opportunities. Such opportunities are not limited to work-based activities within the physical parameters of the institution, but involve hospitality organizations such as hotels, restaurants, cruise ships, conference centers, tourist information centers, clubs, theme parks, and more. Martin, Rees, and Edwards (2011) stated, a good application of experiential work-integrated learning happens when it is intertwined through the full agenda of a program of study as a measured activity, looping the theoretical knowledge and learning outcomes with an understanding of professional practice and expectations. Cooper, Bottomley, and Gordon (2004) declared that industry-based experiential learning tasks provide students opportunities for more profound levels of learning and application of classroom learning. For hospitality students to develop the robust job competencies vital for the industry, a blend of hands-on tasks combined with related knowledge, attitudes, and skills must relate to performance and measured against specific standards (Sisson and Adams, 2013). Moreover, the effectiveness and success of experiential learning are dependent on continuous support and supervision of students, knowing the requirements of industry stakeholders, ensuring consistencies in teaching methods and pedagogies, and managing the risks involved in the activities (Martin, Rees, and Edwards, 2011).
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Presentation Content The format of the presentation will be moderately interactive. I will share: a. A brief overview of the concept of experiential learning in hospitality management. b. Models of experiential learning used in food and beverage management, food planning and preparation, and professional development. c. Instructions on how to use the PAB-EL model Conclusion By increasing experiential learning opportunities within the academic hospitality curriculum, students gain real experience and exposure woven into theoretical knowledge, which collectively prepares them for entry-level management positions within the industry upon graduation.
References
Cooper, S. Y., Bottomley, C., & Gordon, J. (2004). Stepping out of the classroom and up the ladder of learning: An experimental learning approach to entrepreneurship education. Industry and Higher Education, 18(1), 11-22. Lee, S. A. (2008). Increasing student learning: A comparison of students' perceptions of learning in the classroom environment and their industry-based experimental learning assignments. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 7, 37-54. Martin, A. J., Rees, M., & Edwards, M. (2011). Work integrated learning: A template for good practice. Wellington, New Zealand: Ako Aotearoa Schoffstall, D. G., Brown, E. A., & Arendt, S. W. (2017). Hospitality and tourism student and alumni perspectives: promotion expectations, academic and experience adjustments, and career growth. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 17(3), 189-207. Doi: 10.1080/15313220.2017.1350619 Sisson, L. G., & Adams, A. R. (2013). Essential hospitality management competencies: The importance of soft skills. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism, 25(3), 131-145. Smith, Ruth & Schoffstall, Donald. (2020). Employment impact on hospitality and tourism students’ academic journey: the HBCU students’ perspective. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism. 1-16. 10.1080/15313220.2019.1706696.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1
PAB-EL Model
What is the PAB-EL Model? The PAB-EL Model is a direct, real-time, high-risk learning approach which allows students to work in various management positions as they plan, organize, manage, and execute an event at an off-site venue. Students work alongside venue and department managers and are the key decision makers for significant aspects of the event. The PAB-EL Model is not only applicable to event management classes, but can be used in other courses including Hospitality Human Resources Management, Hospitality Marketing, Food and Beverage Management, Entrepreneurship, and more. In fall 2019, the PAB-EL Model was used in a senior event management class of fifteen students, in which students successfully planned, organized, managed, and executed the Pineapple Anchor Ball at the Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 The PAB-EL Model
How to Use the PAB-EL Model 1. Decide on an event or major project that you would like your students to plan, organize, and execute. This could be any genres such as seminars, conferences, parties, weddings, fundraisers, reunions, fairs, galas, workshops, wedding receptions, celebration parties, festival gatherings, networking events, product launches, meetings, society balls, sports events, charitable auctions, graduation ceremonies, and more. 2. Negotiate with a venue manager to allow students to plan and execute an event at their site. Examples of venues: hotel, resort, stadium, park, banquet halls, arenas, amphitheaters, auditoriums/theaters, convention centers, performing arts centers, stadiums and special event facilities. 3. Negotiate with the venue manager to allow your students to work in different management positions based on knowledge domains and functional units. 4. Meet with managers at the site and discuss the purpose, goals, and objectives of the activity, ensuring full alignment with the curriculum. 5. Depending on the number of students, the management positions may be merged
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 (for smaller classes) or expanded for larger classes. 6. Assign each student a management position (see below), as applicable to the scope of the event. Provide full job description for each position.
General Manager Administration Manager 1 (Finance, Information, Systems) Administration Manager 2 (Human Resources, Stakeholders) Administration Manager 3 (Procurement, Time) Kitchen Manager Banquet Manager Entertainment Manager Technical and Production Manager Program and Content Manager Environment and Theme Manager Marketing Manager 1 (Marketing Plan, Promotions) Marketing Manager 2 (Merchandise, Materials) Marketing Manager3 (Public Relations, Sales, Sponsorship) Operations Manager 1 (Attendees, Communication, Infrastructure, Logistics) Operations Manager 2 (Logistics, Participants, Site Management) Risk Manager
7. Partner each student with the matching manager at the venue. In many instances, the venue manager/s manage/s multiple domains and functional units, so several students will partner with one manager. 8. Have daily/weekly meetings with students to engage in planning sessions, develop action plans, and follow up with action plans. 9. Have students meet with their venue and co-department managers weekly. Document their plans and progress. 10. Include the following elements in your assessment and evaluation schedule. • Weekly management planning sessions • Weekly one-on-one briefings • Weekly management meetings at venue sites • Gantt Chart • Weekly chronicles of event planning • Event execution • Event evaluation • Digital Portfolio • Presentation 11. Have guests, vendors, and venue managers complete evaluation forms/surveys 12. Evaluate the event 13. Evaluate students’ performance 14. Debrief Benefits to the Students • First-hand experiences with discussing, analyzing and making recommendations and critical decisions
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 • Opportunity to apply classroom theory to external events • Real-time and direct input from managers • Increased risk-taking skills • Ongoing collaboration with venue and department managers • Empowerment to make critical decisions for well recognized events • Experience with handling budgets for corporate fundraising events • A collaborative learning environment where all views are respected • Students are the drivers and key decision-makers • Live showcasing of students’ talents • Internship and job offer during the event • Improves critical thinking • Multi-disciplinary learning platform • Opportunity to impress all stakeholders • Enriched engagement • Lifelong learning Application to Other Courses • Human Resources Management - Strategically develop a full HR Department • Hospitality Marketing - New Product/Business Launch (e.g. Airbnb) • Food & Beverage Management - New Product/Business Launch (e.g. Food Truck Business
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 Strategies to improve workforce development
Lisa Cain Florida International University
Christopher Cain University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Attracting qualified labor in the hospitality and tourism industry is becoming increasingly challenging, especially since the unemployment rate is at its lowest level in decades (3.7%). To compound the issue of labor shortage, the hospitality and tourism industry is in need of the specialization of employees with the proliferation of the Internet of Things and customers’ expectations of hyper-personalization. Future trends may see more partnerships between industry, professional organizations, and higher education to use more credentialing outside of the undergraduate and graduate education models that currently exist. This discussion forum will focus on how the industry, professional organizations, and higher education may work together and what types of new programs and credentialing may help to respond to the need of an evolving workforce in the hospitality industry. Participant takeaways will include: • The identification of the best professional organizations and associations with which to pair, • Exploration of existing partnerships between higher education and industry, • Illustration of how to monetize and leverage these partnerships. Opportunity to highlight other ways in which the industry, professional organizations, and higher education may work together to create more qualified applicants and employees for the hospitality and tourism industry.
Innovations in SECSA Hospitality and Tourism Research Volume 5, No. 1 PED TALK: Student-centered Learning
Andrea White-McNeil Bethune-Cookman University
Kate Price-Howard Troy University
At the turn of the 21st century, there emerged a ‘new’ academic construct termed the Learning Paradigm. According to Tagg (2003), under the new Learning Paradigm, the purpose of the institution is to allow students to learn by discovery through the provision of spaces and atmospheres which encourage that discovery. This new paradigm resulted in what O’Bainion (2009) labelled a revolution in the academic realm as institutions began to overhaul their architecture, changing missions, policies, programs, and practices to ensure student-centered teaching and learning. The role of faculty changes from that of instructor to facilitator and students take more responsibility in their learning, resulting in more student engagement. Student engagement, as expressed by Kraus & Coates (2008), reflects the extent to which students actively participate in educational activities that are directly linked to learning outcomes. As we explore pedagogy in this the 5th ICHRIE- SECSA Conference, this round table discussion is intended to explore the ways in which we have adopted the learning paradigm. Do we see it in our mission, policies and practice? There are a variety of student-centered learning tools including, but not limited to, learning communities, service learning, experiential learning, contextualized learning and individualized learning. Do they result in student-engagement? What does that look like for you? The objective of the discussion is for all of us to share experiences with student-centered learning strategies and student-engagement tactics that have worked with our programs. Participants will then take away strategies that have worked elsewhere and may be applicable to their own settings.
References Krause, K. & Coates, H. (2008). Students’ engagement in first-year university. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(5), 493-505. O'Banion, T. (2009). Focus on Learning: The Core Mission of Higher Education. Tagg, J. (2003). The Learning Paradigm College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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