Advances in Hospitality and Leisure: Volume 1

Efforts aimed at evaluating quality in leisure, tourism and hospitality have concentrated predominantly on measuring perceived service quality using the SERVQUAL scale, either in its original form or with modifications. While these studies are of great theoretical and practical value, the focus on measuring consumer satisfaction may limit the potential scope of the quality-measurement process. This is particularly true in assessing the quality of complex services such as those found in the leisure, tourism and hospitality sectors, which may require the application of a range of measures that will collectively contribute to the identification of quality levels. This article critically evaluates the potentialities and limitations of the SERVQUAL scale in measuring quality in leisure, tourism and hospitality. It concludes that the SERVQUAL scale is a necessary but insufficient measure of quality within these sectors and specifies implications for future research.

This article presents findings of a Delphi study that predicts events most likely to impact marketing to consumers in lodging, food service and clubs segments for year 2007. Two rounds of questionnaires were mailed to panels of industry experts within each sector, with an overall response rate of 42%. Findings suggest that the two overarching marketing trends will be convenience as a driver of consumer choice and marketing to an aging population.

This study examined constraints to participation in the arts by three sub-populations of older Americans: the young old (60–69), the old (70–79) and the oldest old (80+). Health, poor performance quality and lack of companions were identified as constraints more frequently by the oldest old than by the younger respondents. The oldest old were five times more likely to be constrained by health than the young old and twice as likely as the old. The oldest old were over two times more likely to be constrained by performance quality and lack of companionship than the young old.

This research paper provides an in-depth look at the concepts of burnout, plateau, and derailment for managers. It has become increasingly important to be able to spot these types of impediments to success for management of hospitality organizations before they happen. Differentiations are made between the three concepts as well as the subtle characteristics that may bind them together or cause one to lead to another in a manager’s career. Key insights are provided so that organizations can proactively approach burnout, plateau, and derailment.

The current study investigates odd-even psychological pricing with the aid of a Price endings and Consumer Behavior (PCBM) Model for the hospitality industry. The PCBM proposes that a reciprocal relationship exists between hospitality marketers and consumers with reference to 00 and 99 price ending practices. Theoretical support for the posited model is provided by signaling theory, a persuasion knowledge model (PKM), and learning by analogy from marketing and psychology literatures. Results indicate that consumers use intuition and knowledge gained from interacting in the retail marketplace to respond to the intentions of hospitality marketers’ odd-even psychological pricing strategy. After repeated exposures to odd-even pricing, consumers learn to accept the 00 and 99 pricing endings as extrinsic cues for quality and value and as pricing norms of the hospitality industry.

There are more than 40 million Americans with disabilities. If U.S. hospitality and leisure professionals are keen to attract customers with disabilities, then the particular services in line with the needs of those individuals have to be addressed, given the lack of clear actions toward the service delivery to individuals with disabilities. This study attempts to discover the issues pertaining to the perceptions of the services and facilities offered to visitors with disabilities. A total of three thousand questionnaires are distributed to visitors with disabilities. Cross-tabulations, chi-square, and ANOVA are deployed to determine the differences among visitors with different disabilities. Promotion strategies, suggestions regarding accessibility issues, and the benefits associated with a visit to various destinations are also presented.

Competition had traditionally been highly intense in the airline sector, forcing airlines to continually foster collaborative practices. Although Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) had always been the backbone of any airline collaborative practice, research investigating the role of ICT in supporting collaboration had been solely concentrated on Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and their impact on marketing practices. In this vein, the importance of GDS to support streamlined supply chains in the airline sector has been neglected. This paper aims to show how the functionality and core competences of GDS are exploited to facilitate collaborative supply chain management and enhance airlines’ competitiveness.

The study of leisure consumption often involves estimating physical figures such as visits, attendance, and expenditures. However, the accuracy and reliability of such estimates are not adequately determined. It is evident that the misleading statistics arising from random variation may result into management mishaps. To address such a deficiency, this research first proposes that the information of the accuracy of estimation should be available. This study then presents appropriate ways of determining reliability and illustrates misconceptions of reliability measurement.

This research focuses on Norwegian tourists’ destination satisfaction as influenced by the process of buying behaviour, which further affects tourists’ behavioural intention by evaluating determinants and consequences of satisfaction. The data have been collected from Norwegian tourists travelling to European destinations. The findings show that the experience of the service/organisation of the journey explained about 50% of the variance in overall tourist satisfaction with the destination. Further, the results reveal that tourists are inclined to be rational while choosing activities that satisfy their inner motives. However, the relationships among tourist motivation, satisfaction, and behavioural intention are not as strong as expected.

This paper analyses expansion strategies of international hotel operators in Eastern Central Europe (ECE) in relation to the changes in tourism supply and demand in ECE. Potential market sectors for the ECE region are explored, with the most promising for Eastern Central Europe being an emphasis on green or nature tourism, cultural tourism, the tourist business market and, finally the rejuvenation of the traditional spas and medicinal tourism of the region. Two groups of International hotel companies are identified. The majority group who are pursuing a follow-the-customer approach for the international business client in Prague, Budapest or Warsaw, and the smaller group who have expressed interest in supplying the budget and mid markets in secondary and tertiary locations.

This research initiates an exploratory research assessing the general attitudes of hoteliers from independently owned properties toward environmental management issues and determines the facilitators motivating them to introduce environmental management policies as well as the inhibitors hindering the adoption. This study distributes the questionnaires via email to 250 medium-sized hotels, from the rating of three to five stars, in Germany. As a result, 41 useful questionnaires are obtained and analysed. The findings suggest that the communication of new environmental initiatives between hoteliers and environmental organizations is not so effective. In general, the respondents agree that environmental policy is necessary and they view that sound environmental management systems would have a positive effect on customers’ perception of the hotel.

The relationship between brands and consumers is seen as an important element of strategic brand management. Past studies have examined different aspects of branding (e.g. brand equity, brand personality, brand image, brand loyalty), but there has been limited research investigating the quality of the relationship between consumers and brands. The present study aimed to examine various dimensions of the brand relationship quality from the European consumer’s point of view in the context of restaurant brands using Fournier’s (1994) short version of the brand relationship quality (BRQ) scale. The findings provided strong support for the validity of the brand relationship concept. Of the seven dimensions tested, four were found to be valid and reliable. The study produced a scale to measure the relationship between consumers and restaurant brands.

Relative to other industries, hospitality organizations tend to be labor intensive, employing large numbers of individuals in hotels, resorts, restaurants, and other related enterprises. There has been long-standing debate between the rights of worker personal privacy and the need for employers to know information concerning prospective and current employees. This article presents an evolution of employment relationships in the hospitality industry to demonstrate the complex nature of employment from legal, moral, and ethical perspectives that exists at the current time. It provides discussion of the balance between the rights of individuals and employers’ “need to know” private information to draw conclusions and suggestions for practicing hospitality human resource managers.

Numerous studies have investigated the customer’s expectations and satisfaction. Due to the prevalence of e-commerce, this study attempts to take a further look at how the design of webpages could influence consumers’ expectations and satisfaction. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are utilized. The customers of TGI Friday’s are selected for empirical validation. The findings show that there was a gap between what consumers actually perceived in the restaurant and the information presented on the website. Marketing implications for restaurateurs along with suggestions for future research are provided in the conclusion section.

The aim of this study is to understand the diverse ways in which gastronomy and heritage are related and how this specifically applies to tourism in the city of Tainan, Taiwan and their traditional snack food. Interviews conducted with local food commodity experts in Taiwan generated in-depth insights into distinctive cultural traditions and particular historical circumstances well beyond the immediate producers and consumers. Four issues emerged from these interviews: the concept of what constitutes traditional food, modifications in the method of food production, the role of traditional food within society, and historical inheritance through mass media promotion. The drive toward innovation, when opposed by the force of tradition, can indirectly sustain the configuration of cultural heritage which can be expressed through food as the art of gastronomy.

The negative impact of unexpected events, such as terrorism and natural disaster, on national and regional economies has been widely recognized, but seldom quantified immediately after the shock. The objective of this paper is to present an alternative quantitative method to forecast immediate short term impacts given an unprecedented negative shock to a regional economy, including tourism related sectors. The result of application to the September 11 attack over New York City shows promising validity of using a deterministic model of an input-output/social accounting matrix, which depicts the annual flow of and interdependency of industrial sectors in the economy. This implies applicability of the method to forecast immediate impacts of negative events, while further required refinements are suggested.