Tourism and Hospitality Research

Travel and tourism-related products and services are highly compatible with the internet with the result that travel and tourism is one of the highest revenue-generating sectors of the internet. The rapid growth of the internet is having an impact on the distribution of travel services and has heightened speculation about the potential for disintermediation of the travel agent. This research investigates the impact of the internet on the distribution of travel services and the extent to which it has influenced travel agencies by focusing on Taiwan, a technologically advanced country and one which has witnessed rapid growth of the internet. Employing a combination of a quantitative questionnaire administered to 438 travel agencies and personal in-depth interviews, the research found that travel agencies in Taiwan generally regard the internet as an effective tool for their business. Most agencies have adopted the internet in their daily operations and some have provided e-commerce services on the internet. Although travel agencies are affected by e-commerce services, the effect is not found to be significant. Equally, no significant difference was apparent between company size and classification in terms of the effect of ecommerce travel services on travel agents. Travel agencies agreed that commission cutting by suppliers was a threat but disagreed that disintermediation would occur, although booking offices were seen to be at risk. The research identified two principal future roles for travel agents: first, the need for them to reposition themselves as travel consultants and secondly, the need for them to become more technologically orientated. Finally, seven key strategies were suggested for Taiwan's travel agencies to ensure survival.

This research study is part of a comprehensive Delphi study conducted by the faculty of The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University. The purpose of the research was to enable expert panellists to project the likelihood of specific events in the future of the lodging industry. This paper presents a summary of the key prognostications of a select panel of experts relative to the impact of information technology on the management of operations in the lodging sector in years 2007 and 2027. In general, panellists agreed future IT applications are likely to rely on a wireless infrastructure that provides cost savings through improved efficiencies and effectiveness. As online purchasing, cashless payments, handheld devices and remote monitoring algorithms become more commonplace, the industry will be better able to exceed guest expectations through enhanced customer relationship management, comprehensive application software and streamlined property management systems.

It is assumed in tourism demand forecasting that the disaggregation of data is useful in terms of country of origin and also in terms of purpose of travel (Smith and Toms, 1967; Blackwell, 1970; Martin and Witt, 1989a). The primary disaggregation by country is useful for determining regional forecast flows and the disaggregation by purpose of visit has been considered potentially useful for increasing forecasting accuracy given the flows have different characteristics (Turner, Kulendran and Pergat, 1995; Morley and Sutikno, 1991). It is also possible to disaggregate on the basis of age and gender. It has been assumed (because no research has disaggregated by age and gender) in previous research that the gender and age composition of flows is a reflection of the total population and therefore exhibits the same time-series characteristics. This may not be the case, however.

This study uses data for tourist arrivals into Korea to test the assumptions that further disaggregation of data on the basis of gender and age is not needed, and to further examine whether disaggregation by purpose of visit is worthwhile, when the purpose is to forecast total country arrivals. Quarterly data from 1994 to 2003 are used with the estimation period 1994–2001 and the post-estimation period 2002–2003. The conclusion from the study is that total arrivals forecasting is not more accurate when the data used is the sum of forecast disaggregated series, as opposed to direct forecasts of total arrivals.

Tourist hotel resorts have been considered as indispensable elements in the major tourism industry component of accommodation for several decades. Tourist hotel resorts are sought after by various segments of domestic and overseas tourists all over the world for various holiday purposes. There have been several focused tourism research contributions over the last two decades about their location, life-cycle stages, service quality and management. Few researchers, however, have focused their research on the resort hotel guests' resort selection preferences, satisfaction by resort service, opinion on resort holiday and preference for quality of resort guest activities.

This paper tries to fill this vacuum in the resort tourism literature by exploring the visitors' views on resort selection, satisfaction, opinion and preferences. The research attempted to profile 776 visitors holidaying in resorts in selected resorts of Australia through a well-structured, four-page questionnaire divided into five parts containing 18 questions focusing on their reasons for resort selection, resort satisfaction, resort opinion and resort preferences under subtitles. The research also focused on their gender, age, level of education, occupation, life-cycle category, residency, nationality, postcode, years of patronisation, intimate selection choices and willingness to recommend their experiences.

An attempt was made to profile the resort visitors through a cluster analysis in order to understand the underlying dimensions on the basis of the above-mentioned factors, segmenting them into identifiable groups. Four discernable clusters of resort visitors and their distinguishing characteristics were identified on the basis of their demographics. Further, through a one-way ANOVA analysis the clusters are compared with each other for further understanding and clarity. The results shows that the gender factor does not have much influence whereas life-cycle, education and age have considerable influence in segmenting the resort clientele. The four clusters were correlated with the selection, satisfaction, opinions and preferences. The results will be discussed in terms of future resort developments, themes, generating resort activities focusing on young families and service quality.

This paper compares the socio-demographic characteristics and motivations of tourists from Alberta who visit casinos while travelling, with Albertans who patronise local casinos; and tourists from Alberta for whom a casino visit was a major trip activity versus those for whom it was a minor activity. Data were collected from 900 residents of Alberta's two major metropolitan areas who had visited a casino in the previous 12 months. Findings demonstrate that tourist patrons are more likely to be female, to have a university education and to have management or professional occupations. They are also more likely to be motivated by social or communal goals and less likely to be motivated by risk seeking than local patrons. Those tourists for whom casino gaming is a major trip activity are more strongly motivated by risk-taking and the wish to escape their regular lives than are tourists for whom gaming is a minor trip activity. Differences also exist in terms of several key travel profile dimensions.

The case describes the experiences of the General Manager of a luxury resort hotel on the Thai island of Phuket in the days immediately following the Indian Ocean tsunami at the end of 2004. Although the property escaped physical damage and there were no fatalities among residents and staff, the management had to deal with an unprecedented crisis caused by disruption to the tourism industry in the destination as a whole and a dramatic fall in arrivals. Recovery efforts are outlined and reference is made to longer-term impacts on business and the challenges of restoring confidence and returning to normality. Issues arising from the case are suggested in a final list of questions for discussion.