United States

Distribution is a critical element of tourism marketing and management. While luxury travel is the fastest-growing segment of the tourism industry, almost all prior studies on tourism distribution channels (TDCs) have concentrated on the high-volume, low-price travel market. Therefore, this study seeks to fill this research gap by focusing on the characteristics of TDCs in the low-volume, high-end market from the perspective of outbound tour operators (OTOs).

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted between December 2018 and September 2019. Respondents (n=23) were experienced specialists at the senior management level of luxury OTOs from various countries around the world. Interview questions are based on previous research and the lead author’s previous experience as a practitioner in the tourism industry.

Our analysis shows that luxury OTOs primarily approach travelers directly instead of through other intermediaries in order to be able to offer a seamless, safe, and extraordinary trip experience. Particularly word of mouth and referrals play an essential role. At destinations, most luxury OTOs attempt to shorten the TDC length by directly approaching service providers or DMCs to ensure arrangement flexibility, accuracy, and efficient communication with suppliers. The factors influencing luxury OTOs’ channel behaviors include accessibility, familiarity with the destination, communication convenience, and cost savings.

Because of the unique personalized needs of luxury travelers, luxury OTOs are disintermediating traditional travel agents, wholesalers, and inbound operators. Previous studies have analyzed the concept of disintermediation from the perspective of destination suppliers and the influence of the internet. In contrast, our findings indicate that disintermediation is a result of luxury OTOs’ response to the exclusive needs of upscale travelers. Consequently, luxury service providers should build direct and close relationships with OTOs and offer flexible and customized services to both OTOs and travelers.

TOUR 2021

Disintermediation in tourism distribution channels: The case of outbound tour operators in the luxury travel market

luxury travel market

outbound tour operators

disintermediation

tourism distribution channels

Dear Delegates, 

On behalf of the organizing committee at UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management and Elsevier, I have the greatest pleasure to welcome you to the **6th World Research Summit for Tourism and Hospitality: Resilience, Adaptability, and Innovation.** 

Though we cannot host you this year owing to Covid-19 at our beautiful resort-like campus in Orlando, Florida, we believe this virtual and live-streamed conference will provide an interactive, dynamic, and shared international platform for global academics and practitioners to discuss how to enhance research applications and knowledge management through resilience, adaptability, digital intelligence, innovation, and smart knowledge in bringing our industry and research back to normal. This summit particularly offers unique opportunities to unfold and embrace various repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic with various stakeholders, including academic researchers, industry professionals, and government officials, through dialogues on how to better utilize research outputs for the benefits of the industry, in a resilient, intelligent and innovative way. 

I hope you will agree that we have put together a wonderful program including keynote speeches, panel discussions, concurrent presentations, poster sessions, and best paper recognition and award ceremony. We hope you will take advantage of these activities and engage yourself with great learning and sharing opportunities during the two days of the Summit. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to our discussions! 

Sincerely, 
Dr. Youcheng Wang 
Dean and Preeminent Chair Professor

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This conference provides an interactive, dynamic, and shared international platform for global academics and practitioners to discuss how to enhance research applications and knowledge management through resilience, adaptability, digital intelligence, innovation, and smart knowledge in bringing our industry and research back to normal. This summit particularly offers unique opportunities to unfold and embrace various repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic with various stakeholders, including academic researchers, industry professionals, and government officials, through dialogues on how to better utilize research outputs for the benefits of the industry, in a resilient, intelligent and innovative way.

technical paper

The concept of customer delight (CD) has gained considerable attention from researchers since Oliver, Rust, and Varki (1997) offered the foundational literature over two decades ago. It is crucial to understand the antecedents of CD. The extant CD literature primarily focuses on three main antecedents of customer delight.: [1] customer-related (e.g., joy, fun, hedonic), [2] employee-related (e.g., engagement, expertise, problem resolution), and [3] contextual-related (e.g., non-employee service quality, novelty) (Barnes & Krallman, 2019). The interpersonal role of the employee is particularly vital to lead CD in the hospitality industry because of psychological benefits influencing customers’ attitudes and behaviors (Mattila & Enz, 2002). For example, empathic employees are more likely to better understand customer needs and feelings, and employees’ adaptive behavior can provide better personalized service. Yet, to date, little research has examined employee empathy (EE) and employee’s adaptive behavior (EAB) as antecedents of CD. Thus, the primary goal of this study is to deepen the knowledge of antecedents of CD. The purposes of this study are two-fold: (1) to examine the impact of EE and EAB on CD and (2) to identify how CD influences customer willingness to return (CWR). The data were collected via a web-based survey of hotel guests in the United States. The proposed CD model was tested using standard partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings of this study indicate that there is a significant relationship between EE and CD and between EAB and CD. Result. Findings also show that CD influences CWR. As one of few empirical studies investigating the relationships among EE, EAB, CD, and CWR, findings from our research can provide a better understanding of CD within the hospitality literature. The results can also provide insights for practitioners to implement the concept of CD into their customer engagement strategies.

Exploring antecedents of customer delight in a hospitality setting: Employee empathy and adaptive behavior

This study investigated the Asian countries’ tourism video advertisements uploaded in YouTube since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic is predicted to change travel preferences, focusing more on safety and luxury, and less on mass tourism. The characteristics identified in this shift of preference has been outlined in the Hierarchy of Luxury Travel Needs framework (Amadeus, 2016). Using this framework, content analysis was conducted to examine 122 videos uploaded from January to December 2020. Nvivo 12 was used to analyze the data through thematic coding. To ensure validity, seven rounds of analysis was conducted independently by each researcher and was triangulated by coding comparison. The findings revealed that no country was able to feature all the components of luxury travel. Moreover, exclusivity is the most featured luxury travel component while product and service quality are the least featured. The study will be able to provide insight to the current priorities of tourism advertisements on a macro level and contributes to the limited literature on online tourism marketing amidst the pandemic. Thus, this study can aid the tourists in future travel decisions, while the national tourism administrators can use the data to evaluate their current promotional videos, and to plan and develop future advertisements.

A content analysis of Asian countries' tourism advertisements in YouTube: A luxury travel perspective

The study proposes a new research agenda for the management of tourist destinations in response to significant changes caused by over-tourism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other negative impacts of tourism development. Although the literature traditionally describes the main purpose of destination marketing and management as increasing visitation and providing economic benefits to tourist destinations related to income, tax revenues, employment opportunities, investments, etc. At the same time, the social, health, and psychological impacts of tourism on local communities did not receive enough empirical attention in the previous literature. This study aims at exploring the effects of tourism development on the quality of life, health, and well-being of residents' communities in different tourist destinations. The applied mixed-method methodology includes cross-sectional, time-series, and panel data analysis. The results demonstrate that the level of tourism provides different positive and negative effects on residents’ health and well-being in the long and in the short term. The study contributes to knowledge and practice by shifting the emphasis of destination management from increasing tourists’ visitation to improving residents’ health and well-being, demonstrating the advantage of long-term tourism impacts over short-term effects, and providing recommendations for destination marketing and management organizations.

Health and well-being impacts of tourism

The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021 has led to a global re-assessment of most of the key paradigms which governed the growth of tourism and global tourism operations applying to all industry sectors between 1970-2019.

Between 1970 when the 747 jumbo jet came into service until early 2020 when the pandemic was widely recognized, tourism experienced significant growth as an industry. This growth came to a shuddering halt from March 2020 when government regulations in most global jurisdictions set severe limits to tourism movement and tourism, hospitality and event activity. Border closures, lockouts, social distancing regulations and quarantine restrictions were among the policy tools implemented by governments to restrict tourism both international and domestic tourism.

Some of the key Pre-COVID paradigms which have been overturned as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic include:

1. There is an inalienable human right to travel with minimal restrictions.

2. Market forces and market perceptions determine travel and destination demand.

3. Tourism business could successfully operate on the basis of high volume and low yield.

4. Tourism is regarded by government as an essential industry.

5. Governments are committed to the facilitation and support of tourism

6. Tourism was in a path of continuous growth and increasing democratization and reduced costs for consumers and suppliers.

The impact of COVID-19 has encompassed every sector of the global tourism industry with airlines, cruising, land transport, events, accommodation, travel retailers and destination management and marketing all severely affected. It has emerged as the greatest threat to the overall viability of the global tourism industry since World War II and the industry's greatest crisis.

For tourism to recover in the post COVD-19 period a new set of paradigms need to be developed. This paper will address them.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on shifting paradigms in global tourism

We examine the impact of Twitter sentiments about individual firms on the volatility of US tourism stocks under different regimes of uncertainty. To this end, linear and nonlinear impulse response functions based on local projection methods are estimated. We find a significant positive impact of the volume of tweets on stock volatility in the short run. The increase in tourism stocks’ volatility in response to Twitter messages is higher during COVID19 pandemic i.e., a high uncertainty regime. It suggests that retail investors pay more attention to Twitter in times of heightened risk aversion. A novel analysis of asymmetry finds that positive tweets have a stronger impact on the volatility of stocks than negative tweets. This asymmetric pattern of response supports the idea that positive information on Twitter about particular tourism companies has a clear incentive effect on retail investors, encouraging them to invest in tourism firms and, hence, generating increased stock volatility.

Regime specific impact of Twitter sentiments on volatility of tourism firms

Purpose

Consumers’ interest in cooking through YouTube has increased recently. However, little empirical research has been conducted on consumers’ interest in learning cooking through YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study, therefore, examines consumers’ relationship between food related personality traits, motivation, and satisfaction as it is assumed that motivation of learning cooking through YouTube mediate the effect of satisfaction and moderate the food-related personality traits.



Methodology

Using the data from a sample of consumers in Dhaka City (Bangladesh) who used YouTube for learning cooking during the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors examined the objective of the research with the hypothesized model. The online survey was conducted in May 2021. Respondents rated their views using five-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly agreed”). The Structural Equation Modeling Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) analysis were conducted with a sample of 202 responses to check the proposed hypothesis.



Findings

The results indicate that food-related personality traits indeed have a positive impact on respondent’s motivation and motivation mediate the relationship between food-related personality traits and satisfaction for using YouTube. In addition, the results supported the hypothesis that food related personality traits have a direct positive effect on satisfaction for learning cooking amid COVID-19.



Originality/Value

The research is novel as it explores consumers’ views about learning cooking through YouTube amid COVID-19 that has not been received much attention earlier. The findings indicate that the hypothesized model can explain consumers’ motivation of learning cooking through YouTube is well accommodated. Educators and communicators (e.g., marketers) may have the opportunities to satisfy the widespread interest of the consumers in cooking homemade foods through learning cooking from YouTube.




Paper Type:Research paper

Consumers’ motivation in learning cooking through YouTube amid covid-19: Bangladesh perspective



Lack of consumers' agricultural literacy and awareness of agritourism operations and underestimating the importance of agricultural heritage preservation against many current and future threats is one of the concerns highlighted in the statewide plan for Agritourism development in Florida. This study is centered on agritourism brand awareness and investigating the pro-conservation behavior of agritourism stakeholders in the State of Florida. Four groups of stakeholders were the participants, including Florida farmers who adopted agritourism (providers), students at the University of Florida as actual and potential visitors (consumers), and Florida extension agents who worked with adopters (developers or heritage holders). Furthermore, academic researchers in three fields of tourism, rural studies, and ecology (focused on the cultural ecosystem services studies) who had published at least one article related to agritourism in the leading peer-reviewed journals were invited to participate as knowledge holders.Pro-conservation behavior was operationalized using the willingness to pay (WTP) concept, which was framed in the contingent valuation technique and grounded in the Integrated Leisure Constraints Model (ILCM). The concept of consumers' pro-conservation behaviors toward agricultural heritage was discussed. The identified significant factors on stakeholders' pro-conservation behavior offer a practical tool for providers, developers, and policymakers in Florida.Brand awareness results showed that the Agritourism brand has all the preferred criteria of a memorable and relevant brand for all four stakeholders, followed by Farm Visit. One critical finding based on the qualitative analysis was that agritourism in Florida needs to be re-branded separately for each stakeholder group.This study has implications for developers and practitioners in the agritourism industry to promote visitor participation.The implications addressing the characteristics of stakeholders' preferences (e.g., brand name and agricultural settings) shed light on segmenting the target groups efficiently and advertising the agritourism services more effectively.

Branding and pro-conservation behavior toward agritourism in Florida, integrative leisure constraints model

Introduction:With the increased legalization in recreational cannabis, many adults choose to travel to areas where cannabis is legal. Considering the fast-changing cannabis legalization and as the ‘explosive’ growth of cannabis use, it is important to gain a better understanding of factors influencing resident perceptions of cannabis tourism as a special-interest sector and to explore whether/how such perceptions among user and non-user differ.

Methods:A quantitative survey focusing on cannabis tourism support, tourism image of the state, and positive and negative impacts of cannabis tourism was distributed to Oregon residents (n=729).

Results:Results indicate that residents perceived cannabis legalization and the related tourism activities positively. Significant differences in perceptions of positive, negative impacts, and support were found between cannabis users and non-users. The study also shows that Oregon cannabis users were more likely to support cannabis legalization and tourism than non-users when positive impact perception was relatively low. Nevertheless, non-users were found to be more likely to support cannabis tourism than users if more positive impact was perceived. Therefore, it can be concluded that perceived negative impact has more influence on support for cannabis tourism among nonusers than users.

Discussion: This study contributes to the limited body of knowledge on cannabis legalization and cannabis tourism literature. Results highlight the need for government agencies and destination management organizations to continue researching the impacts of cannabis from both positive and negative perspectives for their policy- and regulation-making process. Opportunities for new tourism development with niche markets are highlighted while pointing out the importance of shaping new policies in line with resident needs and support.

Oregon resident perceptions of cannabis tourism based on cannabis use

People with disability were an alternative source of labour that could ease the manpower shortage. However, more than half were unemployed with companies accused of being unreceptive. The presented study explored the possibilities of inclusive hiring in Singapore hotels, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour framework. This study aimed to understand the perception of hotel professionals in Singapore towards working with people with disability, explore the underlying reasons for their receptivity, and identify possibilities of hiring in the hotel industry. While preceding research had addressed the perception towards inclusive hiring, there was no significant study devoted to the hotel industry in Singapore.

Data was collected through in-depth online interviews with hotel professionals. Thematic analysis was conducted on the information gathered to identify patterns and form meaningful qualitative findings. The main themes identified were the working opportunities, job performance, and job accommodation of people with disability. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was adapted into the local hotel context. The perception of hotel professionals towards the work ethics and work capabilities of Professionals with Disabilities (PWDs) was understood. The underlying reasons for the receptiveness of PWDs revolved around its impact on the external outlook and internal performances of the hotel. The financial implications and learning opportunities were also identified as key factors. The possibilities of hiring PWDs were identified to be largely dependent on several components: employment opportunities; type of job positions; sources of recruitment; external support; and the organisation culture and policies. The hotel professionals had provided interesting information about the career progression for PWDs.

The research would be able to contribute to several organisations involved in supporting PWDs, such as the local government, NPOs, both disability and public schools, as well as academia.

An exploratory study of hotel professionals in Singapore towards inclusive hiring using theory of planned behaviour framework

Tourists’ safety and security has been studied from a wide range of perspectives. Nevertheless, evidence on the actual safety and security threats encountered by tourists at natural parks have rarely gained attention in the mainstream safety and security literature. Moreover, the behaviours and strategies tourists adopt in their bid to overcome these threats have remained elusive in the tourism literature. For these reasons, the Protection Motivation Theory through a descriptive case study approach was adopted, involving 315 local and foreign visitors were selected through convenience sampling technique for the study. Findings revealed four main dimensions of adaptive behaviours by tourists in their encounter with threats at the park. These included; “personal physical measures”, “call for assistance”, “follow instructions” and “personal vigilance”. Personal vigilance which included “prayer” emerged as the predominant strategy adopted by tourists when they encountered threats at the park. These adaptive behaviours resulted from various threats, notable among them included: “slips and falls”, “insect bites”, “misbehaviour of other visitors”, as well as “physical stress and fatigue”. Again, the kind of behaviour adopted by tourists significantly related to their educational level and/or continent of origin. It is the intention of the study to use the results emanating toprompt management to modify and implement measures geared towards reducing potential hazards at the park. That apart, it is expected to improve tourists’ knowledge on the necessary precautionary measures to adopt before visiting national parks, especially in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic

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