Volume 8, Number 2, 2013
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Research Papers:
PERSPECTIVES
AND PRACTICES OF CSR IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: ANALYZING A CASE
STUDY
Patricia Martinez &
Ignacio Rodriguez del Bosque
This paper aims to offer a preliminary case
study of CSR issues being
addressed in the hospitality sector in order to disseminate best practice.
By employing a qualitative research findings reveal that Melia Hotels
International has its own approach to CSR by incorporating a new cultural
dimension to this notion. Moreover, findings illustrate how MHI define its
CSR policy according to the stakeholder approach, being the main
beneficiaries from these activities consumers and local communities. This
study also provides evidence that strength of CSR commitment varies by
topic, and that value creation for MHI can be uncertain since many CSR
initiatives do not cause a reduction in costs.
Managing Conflicting Attitudes: National Parks in Iceland
and Japan
Harald Schaller, Haukur Ingi
Jonasson & Tetsuya Aikoh
For many protected areas, the inclusion of interested
parties in decision-making processes has become both more important and
common. The range of interests can lead to a variety of conflicts. Given
the diversity of stakeholders, effective conflict management requires an
integrated communicative approach that addresses this range interests. Yet
the question remains: Are techniques developed for a specific case, and in
one particular culture, applicable to other cases? To explore this
question we compared the attitudes of stakeholders in
EXPLORING TOURISTS’ ‘PUSH AND PULL’
MOTIVATIONS TO VISIT MAURITIUS AS A HOLIDAY DESTINATION
Hemant Kassean Senior Lecturer
& Rhaalib
Gassita
This study examines the motivational push and pull
factors that affect tourists’ decision in their choice of a holiday
destination. 200 questionnaires were completed using a face to face
interview among specific groups of travellers to Mauritius (English,
French, German, Italian and South African tourists) at various points on
the island. The findings show that rest and relaxation are the most
compelling push motivation forces followed by nostalgia, escape, novelty,
social interaction. The key pull based motives were found to be climate
and weather, landscape and scenery, flora and fauna, beaches, the exotic
atmosphere, the Mauritian hospitality and authentic Mauritian culture.
Push and pull factors between first time visitors and repeat visitors are
discussed.This study contributes to our overall understanding of why
holiday makers take travel decisions for long haul destinations like
Mauritius and can therefore help destination marketers develop better
marketing programmes to meet the specific needs.
INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS’ ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS
HOTELS IN ACCRA
Ishmael Mensah & Rebecca
Dei Mensah
The available literature suggests that there has
been a rise in green consumerism, not only among general consumers but
tourists. This has provided the impetus for the ‘greening’ of hotels as
hotel guests have indicated their preference for hotels that ‘take care of
the environment’. Ironically,
the environmental impacts of hotels especially with regards to the
consumption of energy and water are more likely to be exacerbated by their
guests. In spite of this, most studies on environmental management in
hotels have centred on programmes and initiatives undertaken by management
with little focus on the attitudes and behaviour of guests. This study
sought to assess international tourists’ environmental attitude towards
hotels in Accra and the implications for environmental management by
hotels. A sample of 343 international tourists was surveyed at major
tourist attraction sites in Accra. The results of the study indicate that
a majority of respondents generally held the view that hotels do not
destroy the environment but contribute to the global environmental
problems. Most of them (83%) were therefore willing to pay more to stay in
a hotel with a responsible environmental attitude. There was also a
significant positive relationship between some socio-demographic
characteristics of tourist such age and sex and their environmental
behaviour. The results of this study have implications for environmental
education of guests and the marketing of hotels.
The Role
of Tourism in Sustainable Development Strategies
Francesc Romagosa, Gerda K. Priestley & Joan Carles Llurdes
In recent years, sustainability has become a
fundamental component of all planning processes, while, on the other hand,
tourism is seldom seen as a key or priority sector in overall planning. In
this article, diverse approaches to sustainable planning that include
tourism are examined in order to provide a conceptual framework and some
points of reference to contextualize the posterior analysis of a recent
planning process undertaken in Catalonia, Spain. The discourse focuses on
the proposals, the difficulties encountered in establishing objectives and
indicators, leading finally to an evaluation of the suitability and
foreseeable effectiveness of the measures approved.
TOURISM
IMPACTS and SUPPORT FOR TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF PAMUKKALE IN
TURKEY
Serkan Bertan,
Ercan Sirakaya-Turk & Volkan
Altintas
This
study examines the relationship between residents’
perceived tourism impacts
and their support for tourism development. The study was conducted on
local residents of Pamukkale, an ancient resort town in the Aegean region
of Turkey that is renowned for its thermal tourism resources in the
world. To examine the
relationship between variables,
tourism impact domains were regressed
against the support for tourism. The findings revealed positive
relationship between tourism impacts and residents’ support for tourism
development.
INFLUENCE OF CERTAIN VARIABLES ON
ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT: A CASE STUDY IN THE hotel sector OF
CORDOBA
Francisco Gonzalez Santa Cruz, Sandra Maria Sanchez Canizares & Tomas
Lopez-Guzman
The hotel industry is characterised by close and
direct contact between the employee and the customer. For this reason, one
of the most effective ways to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty is
to ensure that employees who provide the service feel committed to the
organisation where they work. By doing so, hotel businesses can gain a
sustainable competitive advantage and improve organisational performance.
Based on these premises, this article aims to determine the relationships
between certain variables associated with the job and the organisational
commitment of the individual. The hypotheses tests reveal a strong
relationship between stable and permanent employment and higher levels of
organisational commitment among hotel employees.
ARE STUDENTS
AND TEACHERS READY FOR BOLOGNA? A PEDAGOGICAL PROJECT IN A TOURISM
COURSE
Ana
Ramos, George
Ramos, Alexandra
Cruchinho, Fernanda Delgado, Paula
Pereira, Paula
Sapeta & Paulo
Afonso
The implementation of the Bologna process in higher
education leads to rethinking the teaching-learning assumptions. Higher
education today is focused on curricula, teaching-learning processes,
subjects and course programmes attending to European credits system,
teachers’ qualification and training, academic success and scholar
results, performance standards, assessment of institutions, assessment of
skills (and not merely knowledge).In 2010 a project (Construction of
Learning | ConstAp) was developed in the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo
Branco, Portugal. The main goal was to motivate the adoption of changes
concerning classroom methodologies and students’ autonomous workload
guidance in the scope of the Bologna process implementation.This paper
presents a proposal of pedagogical intervention to deal with the mentioned
objectives, a project applied in a specific tourism course. The paper
presents the first results collected regarding the project’s
implementation and seeks to impart a methodology that can be applied to
similar courses.
DETERMINING THE TOURISM
DEVELOPMENTAL DYNAMICS OF THE GREEK REGIONS, BY USING TALC
THEORY
Serafeim Polyzos, Tsiotas
Dimitrios & Alexios Kantlis
This paper utilizes the theoretical framework of
the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model and applies an empirical analysis
on the data for the period 1980- 2009. The TALC multi-stage process is
simulated to a logistic curve and thus it obtains a characteristic growth
coefficient r(t) expressing its time duration. This study considers three
versions for the logistic growth coefficient and presents the spatial
distribution of each coefficient on the Greek interregional map. This
approach allows to distinguish the regions that they have reached their
tourism developmental capabilities faster than the others and to
distinguish these that are still capable for further
development.
The overall treatment provides the developmental
potentials of each Greek prefecture and elects some interesting issues for
the tourism policy making in Greece.
A note on the
mechanisms to obtain sustainable ecotourism through price management
Juan Gabriel Brida, Nicolas Garrido, Francesco Mureddu & Juan Sebastian
Pereyra
This note studies a market signal mechanism for
assessing the short and long term tradeoff offered by the existence of
natural resources in a tourism destination. We develop a theoretical model
in which the destination price index is the tool for obtaining the
sustainability of tourist areas. We assume that the stock of natural
resources accumulates due to the regenerative natural capacity, but, at
the same time, it is negatively affected by the number of tourists. When
the demand price elasticity is higher than one, we show that there is a
tradeoff between the use of the natural resources and the development of
the tourism sector. In this scenario, we analyze how the optimal price
changes as the parameters of the model vary.
THE EFFECTS OF SUPPLY
CHAIN MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS ON THE PERFORMANCES OF ACCOMMODATION
ESTABLISHMENT OPERATING IN TOURISM INDUSTRY
Kamil Yagc? &
Gurkan Akdag
The fierce global competition in the 21st century
is focused on supply chains rather than on individual companies. From a
macro perspective, supply chain is a network of enterprises which are
engaged in different functions ranging from the supply of the raw
materials through the production and delivery of the end-product to the
target customers. In this study, an investigation on large scale
accommodation enterprises has been conducted that aims to find out the
impact of supply chain practices on business performance.
the
Pro Loco Italian volunteers involved in the promotion of tourist
events
Alessandra Fermani, Mina Sehdev & Olena Motuzenko
The purpose
of this study was describing
who are the volunteers involved in the Pro Loco association; analysing how
the sense of identification is strong in the participants; identifying the
functions of motivations and the sense of self-efficacy and collective
efficacy in the participants. Participants were 222 Italian
volunteers. The 49% of
them were members of the Pro Loco for more than 6 years. They
show a strong identification with the group. The main reasons for their
involvement and commitment in Pro Loco are community function and
understanding function; on the other hand the career function is not a
linked motivation. Volunteers show good levels of self-efficacy and
collective efficacy and a positive association between function,
identification and sense of self-efficacy and collective efficacy.
Regressions show that the motivation to community function and
understanding function are predictors of identification and sense of
self-efficacy and collective efficacy.
Impact
of green marketing on perceived image and behavioural intentions of
consumers: Empirical evidence from restaurant practices
Arup Kumar Baksi & Bivraj Bhusan
Parida
The detrimental effects of global environmental
turbulence have influenced consumers’ preferences towards consuming
eco-safe products/services, more popularly nomenclated as ‘green
products/services’. Industries have also identified this shift and are not
only redesigning their products/offers but also projecting themselves as
‘green firms’. This study empirically attempts to investigate the possible
causal impact of green marketing initiatives on the perceived image of
restaurants and its subsequent influence on the behavioural intentions of
the consumers. Four tourist destinations in West Bengal, India, were
identified for the study and eight restaurants were surveyed. Appropriate
statistical procedures and structural equation modeling were applied. The
results revealed a significant correlation between the variables under
study with perceived consumer effectiveness playing a critical role in
segmenting consumers on the basis of their affinity to greenness as an
element to perceive restaurant image. The study has future scopes where
demographical effects and price-sensitivity may be tested.
EXAMINING THE
IMAGE OF A TOURISM DESTINATION: EVIDENCE FROM CRETE
Panagiotis
Kassianidis
The empirical work reported here was aimed at
investigating Crete’s fundamental attraction elements; six factors related
to Crete’s image were identified and examined in terms of their
significance in predicting and explaining its overall image. While
analysing the factors, ‘seaside activities’ was determined to be the most
significant factor in identifying Crete’s overall destination image.
Through relevant factor analysis and subsequent multiple regression
analysis, it was established that highly rated destination image
dimensions may be among the most important ones influencing the
destination’s overall tourism image. Management implications are discussed
and recommended.
FACTORS AFFECTING
MUSEUM VISITORS’ SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF GREEK MUSEUMS
Mavragani Eleni & Lymperopoulos Constantine
Greek museums, in the new era of economic
recession, face the agony of surviving and at the same time chase the
challenges for sustainable development. The scope of this survey is to
define the groups of tourists who visited Greek public museums and their
evaluations of the museums’ services. The cluster analysis, forms
different groups of tourists, and the principal component analysis reveals the
factors that represent museum’s quality characteristics. The analysis of variance follows, to correlate the
already defined clusters per factors and to answer the research questions.
The quantitative research reveals that, there are three different groups
of tourists, and confirms that visitors behave according to the group they
belong. Therefore, in formulating a strategy to attract and satisfy the
cultural tourists, the improvement in the provision of educational
services and the better
training of the personnel are needed, since most
problems are noticed on these aspects.
Research Case Studies:
ATTITUDES
OF LOCAL RESIDENTS TOWARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISM IN A DEVELOPING
SOCIETY: THE CASE OF TORQABEH, IRAN
Siamak
Seyfi, Adel H.Nikjoo, Omid Rezaei & Abolfazl
Siyamian
The
purpose of this paper is to explore the attitude and perception of local
residents toward tourism impacts and development in Torqabeh,
one
of the most popular tourism
resort located in northeast of Iran. Two hundred and fifty households were
randomly chosen as a sample of study and data
were collected and analyzed with quantitative methods. The
results of analysis revealed that local residents generally
expressed a positive attitude toward tourism development in Torqabeh.
There was evidence that Tourism-related job, community involvement in
making decisions about tourism development, community attachment and
length of residence are significant determinants of perceived
tourism impacts and development. Furthermore, the study reinforces the
need for inclusion of local people during future preliminary process of
tourism planning in area.
THE
EFFECTS OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT TOWARDS LIVELIHOOD SUSTAINABILITY OF THE
ORANG ASLI AT THE KG.SG. RUIL, CAMERON HIGHLANDS
N.H.M. Salleh, R. Othman, S.H.M.
Idris, A.H. Jaafar & D.P. Selvaratnam
The main objective of this study is to measure the
level of livelihood sustainability of indigenous people at Kg. Sg. Ruil
located at a tourist destination of
SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF
TOURISM: AN APPLICATION OF NEW ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY IN SELECTED
COUNTRIES
Saeed
Rasekhi & Sepideh
Hosseini
Assessing the spatial structure of
tourism in selected countries during the period 1995-2010 is the main
purpose of current paper. To reach this, through applying new economic
geography, some spatial factors affecting on tourism agglomeration have
been evaluated using panel data. The results of model estimation indicated
that the economies of scale and the tourism cost are the most important
factors in determining tourism agglomeration in selected countries. In
addition, growth and development level of countries increase the tourism
agglomeration in these countries. Also, based on this study results,
maintain credibility in satisfaction of tourists increase the tourism
agglomeration. Overall, the results of this study indicate the
confirmation of new economic geography factors in determining tourism
agglomeration, while previous studies are just considered the economic
factors affecting on tourism agglomeration.
Research Notes:
PRELIMINARY
INSIGHTS ON BRITISH TRAVELLERS’ ACCOUNTS OF SICILIAN ORANGES
Eugenio Cianflone,
Giuseppa Di Bella & Giacomo Dugo
EC-labelled products,
identified by PDO, PGI and TSG tags, are linked to a geographical area and to specific
growing/manufacturing methods that guarantee quality and sustain local
traditions. These features can promote local products by raising tourists’
interest not only in local food but also in the place of origin of the
same and in its history. This note wants to report ongoing research on a facet of cultural tourism that has
not so far been studied: British Grand Tourists’ accounts of local quality
products. The selected item was the PGI Sicilian orange, whereas the
literary evidence was taken from Brydone’s travelogue and from Dennis’
travel book. The result is a description of a PGI product where
specialists from Food Science and English Studies work in team to offer a
model to be used in cultural tourism.
AN OPTIMAL HUB SELECTION
ALGORITHM IN MARITIME TRANSPORT SYSTEMS BASED ON THE HUB AND SPOKE
MODEL
Konstantinos Chainas
This report presents a heuristic
algorithm for the optimal hub selection in a maritime transport system
which is based on the hub and spoke model. This model has been
successfully tested in other maritime systems such as
the
Book
Review:
Tourism and Sustainable Development: Reconsidering a
Concept of Vague Policies
Vikneswaran Nair