Tourism and Travel Commons^™

Examining Key Drivers Of Customer Delight In A Hotel Experience: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Edwin Torres, Xiaoxiao Fu, Xinran Lehto

Edwin Torres

Welcoming all guests is the calling shared by those who work in the hotel industry. Everyday hoteliers strive to provide a service of excellence to all of those who visit. This can be somewhat of a complex endeavor, as hotels receive guests from different nationalities and cultures. Previous research in the area of customer delight has revealed some of the factors that define and drive the customer delight experience. Despite the emerging literature on the subject, the question remains: are guest from different cultures likely to be delighted by different things? In the present study, the researchers conducted extensive semi-structured …

Are There Gender Differences In What Drives Customer Delight?, Edwin Torres, Xiaoxiao Fu, Xinran Lehto

Edwin Torres

Purpose– This paper aims to understand how male and female hotel guests become delighted customers. It aims to present the similarities and differences along with respective implications for theory and application.

Design/methodology/approach– During a period of three months, tourists were interviewed at an upscale Florida hotel. A total of 208 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The script for the interviews was based on an interview protocol used by Crotts et al. Adapted from a previous customer delight study (Torres and Kline), a codebook was developed to determine the salient themes that emerged during the interview process. Interviews were coded independently by …

One Experience And Multiple Reviews: The Case Of Upscale U.S. Hotels, Edwin Torres, Howard Adler, Xinran Lehto, Carl Behnke, Li Miao

Edwin Torres

Purpose– The present study aimed to understand the relationships between the various kinds of feedback received by hospitality operators. Information from guests, experts, and internal sources are often received, valued, and processed in various ways. The researchers sought to further explore the usage of such feedback and implications for theory and practice. Design/methodology/approach– A survey was sent to hotel general managers of four‐ and five‐diamond properties around the USA using the listing of the American Automobile Association (AAA). A total of 140 responses were received. The researchers utilized correlations and canonical correlation analysis to help understand the relationships among the …

The Influence Of Others On The Vacation Experience: An Ethnographic Study Of Psychographics, Decision Making, And Group Dynamics Among Young Travelers, Edwin Torres

Edwin Torres

The vacation experience is often enjoyed in the company of others. Whereas scholars have focused on the consumer behaviors of mature travelers, young travelers have received less attention. The present study explores customer-to-customer interactions among young travelers (in their 20s and 30s) within a European tour-group setting. Furthermore, it attempts to understand the influence such travelers have on one another. The decision-making patterns, role of the tour guide, group dynamics, and psychographic preferences are studied from an ethnographic approach. Results indicate that the young travel segment is not as homogeneous as previously conceived. Notable differences in activities, interests, and opinions …

Stars, Diamonds, And Other Shiny Things: The Use Of Expert And Consumer Feedback In The Hotel Industry, Edwin Torres, Howard Adler, Carl Behnke

Edwin Torres

Over the past few years, researchers have studied the topic of online consumer feedback. Most of these studies focus on consumer decision making, and managing a hotel's image.Consequently, more research could explore consumer-generated feedback from the viewpoint of hotel operations and service quality improvement. The present research explored the ways in which hotel General Managers use feedback from consumers (namely online), experts, and internal sources to improve service quality. A combination of a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews were utilized. The study targeted General Managers of upscale hotels.Quantitative data was analyzed using multiple and simple regression analysis, correlations, and ANOVA. …

Circumstantial Impact Of Contact On Social Distance, Semih S. Yilmaz, Asli D.A. Tasci

Dr. Asli Tasci

Despite its century long existence, social distance is still a rare area of investigation in the tourism and hospitality context. In particular, there is a lack of attention on the empirical investigations about the relationship between contact and social distance in host–guest relations in a tourism setting. Hence, the purpose of this study is to determine whether there is such a relationship between social distance and different contact factors (previous visits and close friendships). An on-site survey on tourists and locals at a popular tourist destination, Mugla, in Turkey revealed partial support for these relationships under certain circumstances. Implications and …

The Return On Investment For Undergraduate Degrees In Hospitality And Tourism Management, Asli D. Tasci, Abraham Pizam, Robertico Croes, Po-Ju Chen

Dr. Asli Tasci

Increasing concerns regarding the value of higher education in the USA have motivated several organizations to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for college education by employing diverse methodologies. This study evaluates these methodologies by using data from a survey of alumni of Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida. The results reveal that the highly publicized low ROI for college education might be inaccurate, confusing and misleading for several reasons, among which is the assumption of zero income while studying, causing debt to be the total of a student’s expenses. Data reveal that Rosen College …

A World Ranking Of The Top 100 Hospitality And Tourism Programs, Denver Severt, Dana Tesone, Tim Bottorff, Monica Carpenter

Tim Bottorff

The article provides an analysis of scholarly contributions to 11 hospitality and tourism refereed journals for the years 2002 to 2006. It presents the top 100 programs as ranked by instances of publications across 11 journals for a recent 5-year period. For the 5-year period, results indicate The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in the top position based on sums of instances, authors, and articles. Second, the researchers updated, modified, and extended a previous study published by the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research for similar information for the years 1992 to 2001. Following the update, an additional 15-year aggregate snapshot …

The Model Of Network Carriers' Strategic Decision Making With Low-Cost Carrier Entry, Tamilla Curtis, Dawna Rhoades

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

"After deregulation in the United States in 1978, airlines faced intense competition on previously regulated routes. The proponents of deregulation stated that equilibrium in the industry would be achieved by providing lower fares and improved service (Daraban and Fournier, 2008). While this became true to some extent, the airline network in the U.S. was dominated by the hub-and-spoke system and concentrated in the hands of few large airlines. The emergence of the Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) model, which originated in the U.S. through Southwest Airlines in the early 1970s, became an instrument to drive the airlines towards a competitive equilibrium. The …

The Model Of Network Carriers' Strategic Decision Making With Low-Cost Carrier Entry, Tamilla Curtis, Dawna Rhoades

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

No abstract provided.

Inhibitors To Host Community Participation In Sustainable Tourism Development In Developing Countries, Akhmad Saufi, Danny O'Brien, Hugh Wilkins

Danny O'Brien

The involvement of host communities (or destination residents), particularly in developing countries, is critical to the success of tourism development and to the creation of a “Just Destination”. This paper investigates host community perceptions about obstacles to their participation in tourism development in Lombok, Indonesia, providing new insights into institutional influences on tourism opportunities and issues. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques targeted separate groups of destination residents who live in a developed tourism destination, a less developed tourism destination, a remote rural village far away from tourism destinations, as well as a group of university students. Data were collected through …

Benchmarking’ The Benchmarks: How Do Risk-Adjusted Returns Of Australian Mutual Funds And Indexes Measure Up?, Bruce Costa, Keith Jakob, Scott Niblock, Elisabeth Sinnewe

Dr Elisabeth Sinnewe

The primary aim of this study is to investigate whether equity fund managers are selecting appropriate self-nominated benchmark indexes for their funds. Specifically, we examine the performance of active Australian equity mutual funds and whether they demonstrate similar return performance and risk characteristics to their nominated benchmark indexes (for example, ASX 200 or ASX 300) from 2008 to 2012. Our findings suggest that active Australian equity fund managers do not outperform their self-specified capitalization indexes after risk and management fees and transaction costs. Further, managers appear to select stocks that are representative of investment characteristics associated with broad-based capitalization indexes. …