Business Commons^™

Influences On Destination Loyalty, Asli D.A. Tasci, Abdullah Uslu, Dimitrios Stylidis, Kyle Maurice Woosnam

Rosen Research Review

Dr. Asli D.A. Tasci from UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management and fellow researchers have undertaken research in the popular tourist destination of Antalya, Turkey to investigate destination loyalty. The study explores whether place-oriented or people-oriented factors have a larger influence on tourists' likelihood to revisit the same destinations, while also considering the differences between domestic and international tourists. The findings from this research will support tourism managers' understanding of how to drive repeat visits in a market with overwhelming competition.

Theme Park Knowledge Hub Of The Future, Carissa Baker

Rosen Research Review

The global attractions industry has grown in size and innovation in the last few decades. Encompassing theme parks and waterparks as well as cultural and natural attractions, this segment has diverse career opportunities and constant potential for growth in mature and emerging markets. Theme parks alone garnered a billion visitors in 2019. Post-pandemic, the industry bounced back quicker than expected, with most operators seeing increased attendance and revenue. The attractions industry continues to develop new concepts which provide amazing experiences for guests around the world. However, retirement during the pandemic, coupled with the industry's rapid expansion, created a greater need …

Towards More Authentic Heritage Destination Experiences, Xiaoxiao Fu, Xiaoli Yi, Vera Shanshan Lin, Honggen Xiao

Rosen Research Review

Heritage destinations have a significant responsibility to visitors. In countries like China, where heritage plays a significant role in a person's identity, such destinations offer visitors an opportunity to develop a deeper sense of self. For this reason, they need to be authentic, but so do the visitors. UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management researcher Dr. Xiaoxiao Fu joined a team of experts based in China to identify how the perceived authenticity of two of China's most revered heritage sites affects visitors' personal sense of authenticity, their wellbeing, and how memorable they found their visits.

Providing A Clear Foundation For Smart Destinations, Youcheng Wang, Alan Fyall, Ekaterina Sorokina, Peter Lugosi

Rosen Research Review

Smart destinations are a nascent and growing category in destination marketing but suffer from a lack of clarity. What is a 'smart destination'? UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management's Dr. Youcheng Wang and Dr. Alan Fyall led an international team of hospitality management specialists tasked with providing a clear foundation for smart destination researchers and practitioners. Their study, published in the Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, provides significant insight and stokes the fire beneath destination marketing organizations.

Just Looking: Tourist Gaze And The Theme Park Experience, Wei Wei, Yanyan Zheng, Nathaniel Line, Lu Zhang

Rosen Research Review

What makes a memorable theme park experience? New research led by UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management's Assistant Professor Wei Wei looks at how visitor experience is influenced by the 'tourist gaze'—the consumption of visual experiences, as well as other services, in a tourism destination. With important implications for theme park operators and managers, the study focuses on visitors' visual interactions with fellow visitors and finds they have a significant impact on visitors' emotions and the quality of their overall experience.

Theme Park Visitors Prefer Human-Like Robots In Customer Service Interactions, Ady Milman, Asli D.A. Tasci

Rosen Research Review

Service robots are becoming increasingly popular in many industries and social settings, including education, childcare, elderly therapy centers, and even theme parks. Tourism and hospitality industries are adopting robots enthusiastically and are being closely studied to observe guest engagement and reaction to robotic services. Service robots are becoming increasingly popular in many industries and social settings, including education, childcare, elderly therapy centers, and even theme parks. Tourism and hospitality industries are adopting robots enthusiastically and are being closely studied to observe guest engagement and reaction to robotic services. UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management researchers, Dr. Ady Milman and Dr. …

Virtual Reality Images As A Tool In Hotel Promotions: Is It Effective And Worth Investment?, Lisa Slevitch, Tilanka Chandrasekera, Luis Mejia Puig

ICHRIE Research Reports

This report examines how traditional photos compare to two different types of virtual reality (VR) images (static and 360°) when used as promotional tools for hotels. An experimental study by Slevitch et al.(2022), which utilized multiple types of measures, served as the foundation for the recommendations. The results showed that static VR images performed the same way as traditional photos, however the 360° VR images had a more positive impact on participants’ emotional responses and were more engaging than other images. This suggests that 360° VR images are better for hotel promotions, especially when initial impressions, such as interest and …

Advancing Health And Well-Being In Hospitality: Employers Respond To New Workforce Expectations, Deborah Popely, Leigh Uhlir

Kendall College Research

Kendall College at National Louis University conducted research between Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 on the status of health and well-being initiatives in hospitality. The research involved in-depth surveys with 27 hotels and 18 restaurants, for a total sample of 45 hospitality businesses located primarily in the Chicago region. In addition, working collaboratively with the national food service research firm, Datassential, a sample of 401 food service providers from across the U.S. was collected. The findings confirmed that poor working conditions have helped drive turnover and that current and prospective employees are seeking healthy, safe and inclusive work environments with …

An Indispensable Spice In Multicultural Hatay Cuisine: Sumac, Ibrahim Cekic

Journal of Mediterranean Tourism Research

Hatay is an ancient city that has hosted dozens of civilizations in the history. Today, this city, which includes different ethnic groups, has a rich culinary culture shaped by cultural interactions. Spices are among the basic components of this cuisine. Locust powder, nutmeg, mahaleb, fennel, dried basil, cajun, Samandag’s red chili powder, zahtar, and sumac are among the most used spices in Hatay cuisine. This study was carried out to determine the traditional consumption patterns and uses of sumac, which is one of the spices identified with the gastronomic identity of Hatay. In this context, a semi-structured interview form consisting …

Stakeholder-Based Problems In The Local Benefit Chain Of Tourism: A Study In Adıyaman, Elif Arica

Journal of Mediterranean Tourism Research

The geographical movement of large human societies is the phenomenal phenomenon of our time. This mobility is also a social event, and the cause-effect relationship has an impact area extending from the individual to the general. Similarly, tourism as a system is complex. Each element constituting this system operates on the axis of different purposes and processes and affects the tourism system. Based on this starting point, this study aims to examine tourism development problems in Adıyaman. In the research, data were collected from eight (8) tourism stakeholders between 05.01.2022 and 15.02.2022 by semi-structured interview method. The data were analyzed …

Bibliometric Analysis Of Academic Publications On Tourism And Humor, Omur N. Timurcanday Ozmen, Songul Gokhan

Journal of Mediterranean Tourism Research

The aim of this study is to examine academic publications related to tourism and humor by using bibliometric analysis method. Research data were collected using the Elsevier Scopus bibliometric database. In this context, 90 data, including articles, papers and book chapters at international level, were found in the search carried out on Scopus. Maxqda 2022 package program was used to analyze and visualize the obtained data. As a result, it was observed that publications on tourism and humor were relatively few between 1989 and 2007, and an increase in the number of publications between 2019-2022. The majority of publications are …

Space Tourism As A New Experience: A Research On Gen-Z, Osman S. Sesliokuyucu, Ruveyda Koc, Ahmet Ozturk

Journal of Mediterranean Tourism Research

Space tourism will start to attract more attention in terms of the fact that tourist areas in the world are becoming more ordinary day by day, and in this process, it offers a new experience area to users of Gen-Z. In this context, the existing literature needs to reveal the perspective and intention to use Gen-Z, a newly developing field in parallel with the developments that constitute an important potential user group in this process. This study aims to reveal the factors that affect the intentions of Gen-Z tourists to avoid space tourism within the framework of the push-pull-mooring (PPM) …

Examination Of Domestic Tourists’ Awareness And Attitude Towards Halal Food According To Demographic Variable: The Gaziantep Example, Adem Ademoglu

Journal of Mediterranean Tourism Research

Religion and belief which are among the intangible cultural elements play an essential role in shaping consumer behavior. Among these behaviors, individuals’ increasing religious sensitivity within the context of eating and drinking in particular necessitates the food they consume to be in concordance with religious values. From this point of view, it is envisioned that individuals’ demographic characteristics will cause differences in food consumption demands in accordance with their religiousness values. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of demographic variables in the awareness towards halal food consumption and attitude towards halal food. Moreover, another purpose of …

Destinations’ Recovery Marketing Campaigns In Response To Pandemics, Eli Avraham

ITSA 2022 Gran Canaria - 9th Biennial Conference: Corporate Entrepreneurship and Global Tourism Strategies After Covid 19

The Covid-19 pandemic has altered the paradigm of risk and recovery management but it is just one of many pandemics to have impacted destinations during the last two decades. This study examine how destination officials combated the image crises that followed SARS-2003, H1N1 Swine flu 2009-10, Zika 2016-17 and Covid-19. The literature dealing with combating pandemics has focused on the actual management of either a specific pandemic or regional aspects of a pandemic and less on the recovery marketing and image repair aspect. As a result, tourism academic literature has a shortage of image repair theoretical frameworks addressing multi-case health-related …

Guest Attitudes In The Covid Era: Does Socioeconomic Status Impact The Acceptance Of Hotels' Green Practices?, Faranak Memarzadeh, Priya Raman

ITSA 2022 Gran Canaria - 9th Biennial Conference: Corporate Entrepreneurship and Global Tourism Strategies After Covid 19

As the hotel industry is one of the sectors that is heavily affected by the pandemic, it is critical to discover which characteristics of guests’ priorities have transformed due to COVID-19, including guests' mindset about hotels’ green practices.

To offer the most effective sustainable service in the pandemic era, hoteliers need a clear perception of guests’ viewpoints on hotels’ green practices. Besides the guests’ demographic information, which helps in understanding their opinion about green service in the COVID-19 time, their socioeconomic status could predict the layout of their mindset and perceptions of the service in this specific period of time.

Technological Applications In Small Accommodation Businesses, Codruta Adina Baltescu

ITSA 2022 Gran Canaria - 9th Biennial Conference: Corporate Entrepreneurship and Global Tourism Strategies After Covid 19

The technological evolution in economic activities determines rapid changes and the need for permanent adaptation. In tourism and, especially in the field of hospitality, these transformations have essential influences on the organizational aspects, managerial decisions and, finally, on the companies' competitiveness. The study aims to assess the current state of use of technological applications in the small accommodation businesses, as well as the perceived advantages and barriers in managers’ views. This study presents the results of a qualitative research conducted on a sample of 20 managers of small hospitality businesses in Brasov County, Romania. The findings point out that the …

Third-Party Responsible Gambling Accreditation Programs Are Related To Short-Term Improvements At Casinos But No Ongoing Gains: Evidence From Rg Check, Kahlil S. Philander

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This study examines how casino operators’ responsible gambling program performance changes after entering a third-party assurance program. Using de-identified responsible gambling accreditation data from the 75 casinos employing the “RG Check” program from 2012 to April 2019, this study finds that casino scores improved in the first reaccreditation period (p < .001, d = 0.92), but failed to improve in the second reaccreditation (p < .78, d = 0.38). Much of the first reaccreditation changes appear to be a result of one-time improvement in the scores of lower performing venues. There also appears to be inconsistent improvements in tactical areas of RG …

Problem Gambling And Cognitive Distortions Among Macao Vip Hosts: A Brief Report, Tiange Xu, Brett Abarbanel, Mehmet Erdem, Bo J. Bernhard, Shane W. Kraus

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This report investigates the understudied group of VIP Hosts in Macao casinos, who cater to high rollers and may be more vulnerable to problem gambling due to their exposure to heavy betting. To comprehensively profile their gambling behaviors and cognitions, we conducted an anonymous online survey using the Chinese Version of South Oaks Gambling Screen (C-SOGS) and the Gambling Fallacies Measure (GFM). Given the difficulty of accessing this population, we employed the snowball sampling technique to recruit eligible participants. Our analysis included data from 41 participants, and the findings revealed high levels of gambling-related cognitive distortions among VIP Hosts. In …

An Attribution Account Of The Effects Of Leaders’ Gender And Abusive Supervision On Employee Insubordination, Dongwon Yun, Cass Shum

Hospitality Faculty Research

Purpose: Drawing on attribution theory, this research examines how and when abusive supervision affects insubordination, focusing on employees’ attribution bias related to leader gender.

Methodology: Two mixed-method studies were used to test the proposed research framework. Study 1 adopted a 2 (abusive supervision: low vs. high) by 2 (leader gender: male vs. female) by employee gender-leadership bias quasi-experiment. A sample of 173 U.S. F&B employees completed Study 1. In Study 2, 116 hospitality employees responded to two-wave time-lagged surveys. They answered questions on abusive supervision and gender-leadership bias in Survey 1. Two weeks later, they reported negative external attribution (embodied …

2023 School Of Culinary Arts & Food Technology Newsletter - Summer Edition 2023, James Murphy

Other resources

The School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology, TU Dublin, Summer Edition Newsletter captured the many events, sustainability, research, awards, significant contributions and special civic and community activities which the students and staff members of the school have successfully completed up to the Summer period of 2023. The successful completion of these activities would not be possible without the active and on-going support of the 'INSPIRED' friends of Culinary Arts and our 'Transforming Tommorrow' partners (school supporters) plus our school's industry association supporters. If you would like to support our school and the next Generation of Food, Culinary and Horticulture …

Payments Transaction Data From Online Casino Players And Online Sports Bettors, Kasra Ghaharian, Piyush Puranik, Brett Abarbanel, Kazem Taghva, Shane W. Kraus, Ashok Singh, Alan Feldman, Bo Bernhard

International Gaming Institute Faculty Research

Raw datasets were sourced from a U.S. based provider of digital gambling payments systems, who has demanded to remain anonymous. The raw datasets cover a time period of 6-years (2015-2021), representing over 300,000 customers and approximately 90 million transaction records. One of these raw datasets is a transaction log file representing customer payment transaction data across a variety of gambling merchants (e.g., online casinos, sportsbooks, and lottery providers). With this article we describe the transaction log file and provide two filtered subsets of the data. The subsets contain 1-year of customer payments transaction records for two gambling merchants: (1) a …

The Interaction Of Loyalty Status And Need For Status On Rewards Donations Through Perceived Social Exclusion, Clancy Slay

Honors Theses

Rewards programs are commonplace with companies seeking a competitive advantage and creating consumer loyalty. A newer development in rewards programs allows consumers to donate points rather than personally receiving these benefits. With more than $48 billion moving through these programs annually, understanding how to encourage consumers to donate rewards points has tremendous implications for reallocating funds to support worthy causes (Dorotic et al., 2017). Research on consumer donations within rewards programs is virtually absent, and many unique factors to these programs suggest prior findings on charitable giving may not generalize. One of these factors is the prevalence of hierarchical or …

Esg In Lodging And Hospitality, Emily Cassanmagnago, Jonathon Day

Tourism Insights

Hospitality and tourism businesses are responding to new expectations and changing the way they report their sustainability-related activities. In recent years, more and more businesses are adopting reporting formats that address the ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance - to perform these activities.

In this report, we’ll explain what ESG covers, why businesses are adopting it, and how it differs from other forms of reporting on corporate responsibility.

Covid-19 In Casinos: Analysis Of Covid-19 Contamination And Spread With Economic Impact Assessment, Anastasia (Stasi) D. Baran, Jason D. Fiege

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous disruption for casinos, with the virus causing various lengths of shutdowns, capacity restrictions, and social distancing strategies such as machine removals or section closures. Although most of the world has now eased off these measures, it is important to review lessons learned to understand, and better prepare for similar circumstances in the future. We present Monte Carlo slot floor simulation software customized to simulate players spreading COVID-19 on the slot floor. We simulate the amount of touch surface contamination; the number of potential surface contact exposure events per day, and a proximity exposures statistic …

The Critical But Overlooked Player Protection Tool: Self Care For Customer Facing Staff, Stacy Shaw, Jay Robinson

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

BACKGROUND

Like many things, the need for self-care for staff came to light because of the pandemic. Every day, Oregon Lottery staff would go out and deal with angry, frightened, confused, frustrated, and sometimes aggressive players and retailers. People struggling with all kinds of stress, acting out and exhibiting behaviors that might normally suggest the need for an RG conversation. We started to hear that the staff was feeling overwhelmed, burned out, powerless, unheard, unappreciated, unable to connect. We were asking them to promote RG during this difficult time - but we had not given them the tools they needed …

The Las Vegas Loyalty Battle Is Over. What’S Next?, Oliver Lovat

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

The strategic mission by Las Vegas casino operators to capture customer loyalty over the past decade has been a success. In 2021, 57% of visitors were generally loyal to a particular resort, compared to 32% in 2011. Only 7% of visitors were not a member of any rewards program in 2021, compared to 16% in 2011.

This has consequences for new market entrants who face a greater challenge to capture customers in a more mature, consolodated and strategic business environment.

Moreover, the drivers of loyalty remain different within the various customer segments, with the new generation of visitors responding less …

Payments Data In Gambling Research, Kasra Ghaharian, Mana Azizsoltani

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

A considerable body of gambling-related research has leveraged gamblers' behavioral tracking data to address a broad set of research questions. These data have typically comprised of gamblers' betting-related behaviors including, for example, the frequency and volume of betting. The analysis of gamblers' payment-related behavioral data is far less common, but provides a fruitful avenue gambling-related research.

In this presentation we discuss a selection of potential research opportunities that payments transaction data presents. We supplement this discussion with specific analyses that have been performed by our research group. We also discuss knowledge gaps and areas for future research.

The Locals Casino As A Social Network – Can An Interconnected Community Of Players Detect Differences In Hold?, Jason D. Fiege, Anastasia (Stasi) D. Baran

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

It is difficult for individual players to detect differences in theoretical hold between slot machines without playing an unrealistically large number of games. This difficulty occurs because the fractional loss incurred by a player converges only slowly to the theoretical hold in the presence of volatility designed into slot pay tables. Nevertheless, many operators believe that players can detect changes in hold or differences compared to competition, especially in a locals casino market, and therefore resist increasing holds. Instead of investigating whether individual players can detect differences in hold, we ask whether a population of casino regulars who share …

The House Doesn't Always Win, Jennifer Owen

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

In June 2015, fourteen South Korean casino executives were arrested on charges of soliciting Chinese players to gamble in their casinos. This single event foreshadowed a seismic change in the Australian casino market that few would have anticipated. The events which unfolded led to the two largest casino operators in Australia being found unsuitable to operate their casinos, and unable to hold their licenses. Collectively, these two casino groups reported revenues of $5.0bn in 2019, accounting for 92% of the total Australian casino market.

Both are now operating under various forms of special supervision until it can be demonstrated that …

Analysis Of The Changing Behaviours Of Chinese Genz Towards Casino Tourism: Implications To The Asian Markets, Linqian Huang

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

While the Chinese GenX spend largely in gambling activities during their visits to the destinations which are famous for their casino tourism industry, the GenY have shown less enthusiasm to be the high rollers. Regarding the Chinese GenZ, their spending behaviours in casino tourism will continue to exhibit changes and differences comparing to the GenX and GenY, especially for the non-gaming expenditure. Considering the potential purchasing power of GenZ, it is important for integrated resorts operators to understand the changing consumption behaviour of this new generation. For this, online questionnaire survey and analysis of narratives are employed to explore …