Tourism and Hospitality Research

The present study was carried out to investigate the relationship between value recovery and customer satisfaction in restaurant settings of Pakistan through three justice components, ie distributive, interactional, and procedural justice. Primary data was gathered through a five-point likert scale questionnaire from 200 customers of different casual dining restaurants located in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. Correlation and regression analysis was carried out to check the effect of value recovery on customer satisfaction. Study findings suggest that value recovery through its three dimensions, namely, procedural, interactional and distributive justice significantly and positively effect customer satisfaction in the restaurant setting. Implications for casual dining restaurant managers are to provide training to restaurant serving staff with regard to customer dealing, customer complain handling, and the ways in which service failure could be avoided. Furthermore, restaurant serving staff should be given adequate remunerations for increasing their work motivation.

Cruise tourism is growing faster than any other sector of the tourism industry, producing different impacts on destinations. From the social and economic viewpoint, the interactions between the different actors of the exchange process – cruise passengers, crew, residents, and producers of the tourism products – can bring both positive and negative consequences. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the local population perceives the impacts of cruise tourism and which factors do affect the relationship between impacts and perceptions’ formation. The research involves primary data collection in Cartagena de Indias during the peak of the cruise season in the last trimester of 2009. The number and quality of the 1,004 questionnaires collected allowed us to perform a quantitative analysis of the hosts’ perceptions and attitudes. A cluster analysis demonstrated the existence of four different groups, within which members have common features and similar perceptions and attitudes. In general, it has revealed a positive recognition of the economic impacts of tourism. Also, social and cultural impacts are recognised to be positive, but at a lower degree. In terms of future tourism polices, the different groups identified in the cluster analysis exert different positions.

Accurate forecast of inbound tourism demand is vital for the tourism industry as well as government economic policy and decision making. This article sought to identify the factors which influence the demand for China’s tourism with the aid of econometric models and to generate forecasts of international tourist arrivals to China from five major long-haul source markets. Using the general-to-specific modelling approach, the demand for tourism in China by the residents of Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America is modelled and forecasted. The empirical results indicate that the ‘word of mouth effect’, income levels in the origin country, the costs of tourism in both China and competing destinations are the crucial factors that determine the demand for China’s tourism by residents of the five origin countries. The forecasts show sluggish growth in tourist arrivals for most of the Western source markets. Findings hold implications for policy formulations.

While the Internet is having a profound effect on the economies of the developed world, there is less evidence of its impact on developing economies. There is a lack of empirical evidence in terms of what the managers of independent Egyptian hotels are actually thinking and more importantly doing in response of the diffusion of the Internet. This study examines managers’ perceptions of the impact of the Internet on key marketing activities: changes in the conceptualisation of the marketing activity, changes in market definition and value creation. Findings suggest that the impact of the Internet will urge hotels to redefine markets, improve marketing activities and value creation. Although these changes are more dramatic with large hotels, the majority of hotels still use the Internet for informational purposes but they are optimistic regarding the way in which hotels will be marketed via the Internet in the future.

The paper deals with the boutique hotel phenomenon, discussing definitions and overall trends as well as circumstances in Singapore where there has been heightened commercial activity in recent years. Circumstances in Singapore, although distinctive, yield insights into the qualities of boutique hotels in general and their development in the South East Asian region. Heritage is seen to make an important contribution to the city state’s boutique hotels, many of which are the result of the adaptive reuse of old buildings, but is increasingly being combined with modern design in endeavours to cultivate an ambience of hip heritage. The future prospects of boutique hotels with a heritage component thus partly depends on the protection of built heritage, suggesting an alignment of commercial and conservation interests.