Advances in Hospitality and Leisure: Volume 7

The purpose of this research project was to identify success factors in the careers of top women in the hospitality industry. We started out by interviewing five women who are currently working in a high management position in the hospitality industry, about their experiences on their way to the top. For the purpose of comparison we later on decided to apply theoretical sampling and include women from other industries, and subsequently men from inside and outside the hospitality industry. Grounded Theory analysis revealed six factors that influenced all their rising careers: internal drive, ambition, social skills, competencies, personality, and external factors. Although the factors were of varying importance at different stages of their professional life cycle, “internal drive” and “ambition” were found to be most important throughout the progressing careers. Some differences between the groups studied are described and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Because technology innovation has changed the way people do business significantly, adopting information technology (IT) for strategic planning has become a vital issue for today's business management. However, most studies seemed to focus more on technology than on information in IT. Unfortunately, the way technology alters the business model is not as much as the way information changes an organization's managerial concept. The impact is beyond marketing issues and is very important to an organization's managerial philosophy. This study adopts a strategy concept called the co-alignment principle (Olsen, West, & Tse, 1998), to investigate how an information system (IS) could be designed to enhance and process the information flows involved in the processes of strategy formulation and implementation. It places IT implementation issues directly at the heart of strategic management for research. Using qualitative research approach with a single case-study method employed, 11 recommendations and 10 propositions were obtained to address and handle the newly discovered 7 key issues for strategy formulation and implementation. The study also exemplified that when these issues are being handled by an IS properly designed, a coordination strategic IT framework that goes beyond the thinking of cost saving and productivity increase is achieved as well.

Using Chiang Mai Night Safari, Thailand as a case, this research is to understand the relationship between service quality, place attachment, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty. A two-stage sampling approach is used while proportionate stratified sampling is applied to determine the strata sample size. A convenient sampling approach selects the participants within each stratum that involves choosing every element after a random start. Four hundred of 450 questionnaires are usable and analyzed the study. The result suggests an effective intermediary between service quality and tourist satisfaction. This study also adds managerial implications concerning service/product differentiation and competitive advantage over competitors. Meanwhile, future studies on destination personality uniqueness of destination emotions are suggested.

This chapter examines aspects of working backpackers in Cairns in Far North Queensland, Australia. Using the push pull model, the study examines both the destination supply and demand sides of the working holiday making backpacker market to determine the degree to which the two are aligned. A qualitative approach, utilizing interviews with hostel managers and focus groups with backpackers, revealed that the working holiday backpacker market to Australia has changed in recent years as the “push” or motivating factors of backpackers have shifted. At the same time the attributes or “pull” factors of Cairns as a destination have not changed sufficiently to meet these changes. The study found that destination communication, product, and services contributed most significantly to the gap between the push and pull elements of the model and recent events appeared to have further exposed these gaps. Strategies to address these issues were explored and the implications for other regional destinations were discussed in light of these gaps. The study also identifies areas for further research including using the results to provide the basis for quantitative studies into the “push” and “pull” factors identified in the research and measuring the impact of the identified gaps on other outlying regional destinations.

This chapter introduces a conceptual framework which links consumers' demographic characteristics with their attitudes toward major shopping area attributes (the push/pull factors), as well as their motivations toward cross-border shopping. It is built on the extant literature of outshopping, cross-border shopping, and consumer switching behavior. It has been tested with data collected from 485 Hong Kong residents. A nonparametric approach will be used to analyze the data. Findings of this study show that “age” and “education” characteristics are good indicators for most of the macrofactors (shopping area attributes). As for microfactors (motivational factors), “age” and “gender” are the best indicators. Results of this study also confirm previous findings that demographic characteristics of consumers affect their cross-border shopping behavior. Low prices on products and good services are the most important pull-factor attracting cross-border shopping. It further reveals that a higher percentage of cross-border shoppers are from lower income families, having only secondary education level, and in the age category of 30–49. Implications for retailers, governments, and tourism-related institutions are discussed.

This research aims to shed light on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) of different generations of hospitality workers in relation to their psychological contract. The psychological contract, which describes employees' implicit expectations of their employer, is related to a range of work-related outcomes such as commitment, turnover intention and OCB. Yet, virtually no studies have explored the psychological contract or OCB in a hospitality setting. These topics were approached from a generational context as a new generation of employees is entering the workplace with a reportedly different approach to work. Data were collected through face-to-face surveys on site from a sample (N=111) in 7 hotels of an international hotel chain. Findings provide evidence of generational differences in the content of the psychological contract, as well as the process through which the psychological contract impacts OCB. In particular, findings indicate that hospitality managers will increasingly have to consider motivating their staff through satisfaction of intrinsic needs for development, job content, and a pleasant working atmosphere. This was found to be particularly true for Generation Y, the youngest generation of workers.

A sample of 234 U.S. travelers was surveyed at various U.S. airports. A survey instrument was used to measure their perceptions of Mississippi as a vacation destination, their intentions to visit and to reveal their socio-demographic characteristics including their place of residence. The factor analysis of 14 tourist-oriented attributes related to participants' perceptions of Mississippi as a tourist destination revealed three factors: “Cultural and Natural Experience,” “Scenery and Environment,” and “Entertainment.” The environmental factor revealed a significant difference between groups; participants residing in the Western region were not strongly attracted by Mississippi's environmental factor. On the contrary, participants residing in the Southern region perceived strongly Mississippi's entertainment components, especially casinos. In term of intentions to visit, 73% of participants from the Southern region indicated that they would somewhat unlikely or very unlikely visit Mississippi compared to 71% of participants from the Western region who indicated a desire to visit the mentioned destination. This study offers substantial theoretical and practical implications about geographical and cultural distances and their effects on a destination's tourist image.

Tourism motivation is a prerequisite in understanding tourist behavior. Push and pull factors have provided a simple framework for comprehending tourism motivation in various contexts. Nevertheless, many of the propositions related to the push–pull framework have rarely been empirically examined. One of these suggests that pull factors both respond to and reinforce push factors. The current study, consequently, examines this twofold proposition empirically through partial least-squares path modeling. The findings indicate that push factors influence the tourism-demand variable (length of vacation) via pull factors and vice versa. Further, the findings indicate that the total effects of push and pull factors on the tourism-demand variable of the study are nearly equal. Theoretical and practical implications are also provided.

Using the Chiayi International Band Festival (CIBF) as an example, this study attempts to examine the relationships between visitor involvement, visitor satisfaction, place attachment, and visitor loyalty. A survey was carried out from December 25, 2010, to January 3, 2011, and was able to obtain 400 valid responses. The study initially theorizes, based on literature review, that satisfaction contributes greatly to place attachment and loyalty, and visitor involvement is just an antecedent of satisfaction. However, the result indicates that visitor involvement is in fact a strong contributing factor of visitor loyalty. Furthermore, the study proposes that the casual relationship between visitor involvement and visitor satisfaction is indirect. The originally proposed model is then revised accordingly.

On April 2, 2009, participants of 150 countries at the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development adopted the Bonn Declaration. The declaration reinforces the concept that sustainable development can only be achieved through education and lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2009). The role of educators is to prepare young people to manage the sustainability challenges and to spur them into creating new, entrepreneurial responses for people and communities around the planet. The dual objective of this research is to gauge the extent to which educational institutes is integrating sustainability in tourism and hospitality curriculums and to analyze the effect of cultural diversity on attitudes toward sustainability.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) creates long-term shareholder value through managing risks from economic, environmental, and social developments. Among institutional owners, pension funds have a long-term investment horizon and can influence a firm's strategy. They promote CSR activities in the long run. Mutual funds and investment banks tend to have more of a short-term investment horizon. They are not strong supporters of CSR activities. Our results support the previous time horizon hypotheses. Although pension funds prefer CSR firms in the hotel and casino industry, mutual funds and brokerage firms had no interest in CSR firms. Pension fund and mutual fund ownership is negatively related to CSR firms in the restaurant industry. Brokerage firms are indifferent to CSR firms.