This paper aims to understand the relationship between work orientation (job, career, and calling), and intention to stay (ITS) among tourist guides (TGs). Based on an online survey of 153 TGs in ...Sabah, this study performed partial least square structural equation modelling using SmartPLS 4.0 analysis to test the hypotheses. Findings indicate that job and career were positively related to ITS. Furthermore, calling mediated the relationship between job and career with ITS. Theoretically, this study provides an integrative view of the influence of work orientation on ITS by accounting for their interactive effects. Practically, this study is beneficial to show tourism policymakers how to secure valuable TGs employment. Additionally, the study provides the basis for tour operators to design effective human resource strategies to increase the motivation of professional TGs.
The tourism market is characterized by a high level of competition. Hence, the entities providing tourism services and creating their offers in tourist destinations take actions aimed at satisfying ...the consumers’ (tourists’) needs. These activities are realized by achieving the appropriate level of marketing orientation. In terms of behaviour, marketing orientation is based on the implementation of a marketing concept focusing on customers’ needs and also on the achieved economic results. In cultural terms, marketing orientation should be understood as a type of business culture. The study is of theoretical, empirical and conceptual nature. The theoretical part presents the following issues: genesis and essence of marketing orientation and methods of its measurement, the concept and the scope of the tourism market, along with the implementation of marketing orientation issues necessary to assess the functioning of entities on this market. The concept of a system of connections of a selected type of tourist market entity with other entities in terms of shaping marketing orientation was presented. An example of the research on the level of marketing orientation on the tour operator market in selected European countries was presented in the empirical part. Tour operator market entities in Poland are characterized by a slightly higher average marketing orientation than entities from other European countries. Tour operators operating on the Polish market are also more diversified in terms of the level of marketing orientation than entities from other surveyed European countries. The main aim of the study is to adapt the theoretical and methodological issues related to the assessment of the level of marketing orientation to the entities operating on the tourism market. The specific aim is to analyze the level of marketing orientation of the entities on the tour operator market. The following research methods were used: a critical analysis of the literature on the subject, methods of logical operations; observation, quantitative methods, and diagnostic survey based on a standard questionnaire.
This paper examines the influence of tourism intermediaries on innovation in SMEs in the hotel industry from the perspective of the global value chain approach. The paper contributes towards ...characterizing the changing patterns of governance in the tourism global value chains. In addition, it provides useful information about SMEs' innovation for tourism destination managers. The dataset for this study comes from a survey of hotel SMEs in Spain. The results indicate that dependence on tour operators leads to lower levels of marketing innovation, while dependence on on-line travel agencies stimulates it. Dependence on traditional travel agencies is observed to be associated with less product innovation. Overall, dependence on tourism intermediaries implies lower autonomy in a hotel's determination of rates and margins, but can favour innovation by means of stimulating the introduction of information and communication technologies and quality standards.
A lot of lessons are learned post COVID-19 pandemic, including in the tourism business. Prior to the pandemic, tour operators had difficulties in competing with online travel agents (OTA) in terms of ...product sales and marketing. This article aims to understand the perception of digital marketing usage among tour operators and explore the factors influencing the adoption or rejection to it by using an integrated framework model which was grounded on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The factors identified which effect the usage of digital marketing technology were perceived ease of use, personal innovativeness, and facilitating condition, toward use behaviour. These factors were moderated by behaviour intention. The model was tested with 77 tour operator companies that are members of a travel agency association in Indonesia using PLS- SEM. The results show that tour operators’ facilitating condition and behaviour intention influence use behaviour directly. On the other hand, perceive ease of use, personal innovativeness, and facilitating condition directly influence behaviour intention. Personal innovativeness influences use behaviour mediated by behaviour intention. This study contributes to the understanding of tour operators where they need to focus on improving the ease of use and encouraging a positive intention among users.
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to the Italian tourism system. The research question is: do relationships among tourist enterprises affect the ...organizational asset of the Italian travel system? The research takes as unit of analysis the Italian travel agencies and tour operators system and represents quite a significant disclosure for organizational theses because it offers a different view over the structure and governance of a hospitality intermediaries' network. SNA is helpful indetecting genuine proficiency and therefore in foreseeing possible losses determined by poor or inefficient configurations. Furthermore, it will help delineate new roles within the organizational networks and evaluate the relation between formal and informal organizational structures. This paper provides a structural analysis of the Italian travel agencies network and highlights its self-organization characteristics (typical of a complex system) that lead to the development of informal communities. The methods of network science proved useful and effective and, together with more traditional approaches and a qualitative knowledge of the system, can provide a deeper and more extensive understanding of the system.
•The issues associated with adoption of Blockchain Technology (BCT) are reviewed.•BCT is conceptualized as a value catalyst in the hospitality/tourism industries.•A hybrid methodology is proposed to ...investigate the criticality of factors, their hierarchical model and cause and effect relationships.•First study to investigate both barriers and enablers of block chain technology in tourism and hospitality industry.•First study to provide results from two economies.
The tourism and hospitality sector's inequitable environment demands an unassailable and disruptive technology that optimizes its operational efficiencies. Thus, this paper aims to explore the nature of blockchain technology under varying conditions for consumer benefits. Academic and press articles followed by interviews from industry experts were used to explore the nature of blockchain technology (BCT) for the hospitality and tourism sector (HTS). A hybrid research methodology is proposed to investigate the criticality of factors, their hierarchical model, and cause & effect relationships. 35 Employees from two geographies, namely India (N=17) and Netherlands (N=18) in hospitality and tourism firms, were interviewed. In the next step, the expert opinions were collected using the Analytic hierarchy process - Interpretive Structural Modeling- Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (AHP-ISM-DEMATEL) technique. A forward-looking approach was adopted by considering the implications of barriers and drivers on the adoption of BCT and thereby benefiting HTS. The results suggest that ‘low cost’ and ‘risk management’ are the key drivers with driving power of 1 and 10 in Indian and the Netherlands, respectively. They are placed at I and VI hierarchy levels and fall under the cause effect group. ‘Lack of Government Regulation/ Policy’ and ‘Market Uncertainty’ are the critical barriers with driving power 9 and 10 in the Indian and Netherlands context, respectively. They are placed at V and III hierarchy levels and fall under the cause effect group.
Eco-initiatives from tourism employees can contribute to the green sustainability of tour companies as well as destinations. Nonetheless, mechanisms underlying employee green creativity in the ...tourism industry have been less explored. Our study aims to examine if environmentally-specific servant leadership can foster green creativity among tourism employees via dual mediation paths of green crafting and green role identity. A two-wave survey process was implemented to garner data from employees and their managers from tour operators based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Results revealed the effect of environmentally-specific servant leadership on employee green creativity through green role identity, green-related resource and challenge seeking behaviors, but not through green task demand reducing behavior. The direct effect of green role identity and its interaction effect with environmentally-specific servant leadership were found significant for green-related resource and challenge seeking behaviors, but not for green task demand reducing behavior. This study advances our understanding of mechanisms underlying employee green creativity especially in the tourism context as well as extends research on the leadership-creativity nexus.
•Resource-based strategies in the Chilean wine industry.•System Dynamics modeling with in-depth semistructured interviews.•Tour operators and services are critical drivers in increasing tourism ...adoption.•Product attractiveness has a stronger influence on tourism adoption in the long term.
The aim of this paper is to identify the key drivers of wine tourism adoption in Chile and their feedback loop structures through an extensive literature review supplemented by in-depth semistructured interviews of Chilean wine managers. We develop a model to quantitatively assess the impacts of these drivers on wine tourism adoption over time. We use a system dynamics modeling approach to simulate the effectiveness of wine adoption drivers based on data from 69 Chilean wine firms. To different degrees, five drivers affect wine tourists: word-of-mouth recommendations, product attractiveness, tourism services, information available on the internet, and tour operators’ recommendations. Tour operators and tourism services are critical drivers in increasing the number of wine tourists, but product attractiveness has a stronger influence over the long term.
This paper investigates the potential gap in Tour Operators (TOs) assessments of tourists' preferences for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in tourism. It utilizes discrete choice experiments to ...assess both tourists and TOs preferences. Results show that TOs understand tourists' average preferences for CSR policies but fail to predict the heterogeneity of preferences. Three market segments were found, with different preferences, socio‐economic backgrounds, spending levels, and source regions. The results can help explain the lag of tourism companies in undertaking some of the CSR policies that might be of interest to tourists, and might assist the development of more sustainable tourism.
Efficient transferring information and knowledge play a fundamental strategic role in a tourism system. This is especially important in critical times where efficient collaboration practices and a ...fluid flow of ideas is essential for the performance and the growth of the entire tourism industry. Here we use the methods of network science for increasing our awareness of the different collaborative structures and the potential information and knowledge flows across them. Intermediaries play a fundamental strategic role for the whole tourism domain and the good functioning this system is crucial for the social and economic development of tourism activities. The paper builds on previous research on the subject and takes as unit of analysis the Italian travel agencies and tour operators. Numerical simulations allow to build scenarios that improve the understanding of the Italian tourism intermediaries knowledge network and can be used to devise policies that tend to a more efficient and innovative functioning of the sector. The findings show how even limited structural changes in the system sensibly improve its efficiency and the capability to exchange information and knowledge.
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