Becky Liu-Lastres

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis | IUPUI · Department of Tourism, Conventions and Event Management

The hotel industry is vulnerable to various external crises, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Social media is one of the primary platforms for hotel crisis communication. Accordingly, this study adopted the perspective of message appeal and tried to develop effective hotel crisis communication messages. An online experiment was conducted where...

Purpose This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the Great Resignation in the hospitality and tourism industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this paper reviews the causes and effects of the Great Resignation, addresses the labor shortage in this industry and proposes strategies that can help manage the challenges....

Crisis communication is an essential component of crisis management in hospitality and tourism. Yet few studies have offered a clear impression of the state of knowledge in this area. As one of the early conceptual attempts, this study aims to contribute to the existing knowledge by analyzing, comparing and synthesizing the literature in crisis com...

Purpose Tourist confidence plays an important role in people’s decision-making, including decisions related to consuming tourism products. However, little research has explored this concept in depth to provide proper guidance on its operation and measurement. This paper aims to explore the concept of tourist confidence, develop and test a measureme...

Internal crisis communication is a critical yet understudied component in crisis management in tourism and hospitality management. Guided by the language expectancy theory, this study tested the effects of message frequency and transparency on internal crisis communication outcomes among tourism employees. This study adopted a mixed-methods approac...

Cruise lines are adopting onboard quarantine as part of emergency response measures to the global pandemic. However, little is known about the social support embedded in the social-mediated communication process to assist passengers in coping and building resilience. Guided by the conservation of resource theory, this study adopted the netnography...

Purpose This paper aims to offer viewpoints on the emergence of Quiet Quitting. Particularly, this paper reviews the reasons behind the phenomenon and analyzes its potential influences on the hospitality workforce. This study also proposes theory-driven solutions addressing this issue. Design/Methodology/Approach This paper is based on the releva...

Social media is an important crisis communication channel, which can shape the public's risk perception and subsequently affect their attitudes, decisions, and behaviors. The significance of social-mediated crisis communication is further highlighted in times of a global pandemic, given people's increasing informational needs and reliance on social...

The COVID-19 pandemic affected many industries, including the organisation of community events. One of the main consequences of the pandemic has been ongoing uncertainty. Defining and managing uncertainty is complex and has been explored from different angles; however, little has been written from the perspective of event and festival organisations...

While the event, tourism, and hospitality industry is constantly evolving, COViD-19 vastly shifted the roles, responsibilities, and jobs for event professionals, which caused event management educators to reevaluate their curriculum and course offerings. this study investigated the potential changes cOViD-19 has had on event professionals' skill se...

Communication is an essential component of crisis management strategies in hospitality and tourism. This study aimed to build on the integrated internal crisis communication framework. This study employed qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. Following a preliminary qualitative study, a conceptual model was developed and tested with...

The COVID-19 pandemic severely hit the hospitality industry and caused employees concerns over health, finance, and well-being. These challenges may trigger their decisions to leave the profession, leading to major talent crises in the industry. Guided by the transactional model of stress and coping and the career construction theory, this study ex...

The purpose of this study was to provide empirical insights into event professionals' approaches to risk and crisis management and resilience. This study was guided by an integrated model developed based on the 4R Tourism Crisis Management Model and the Organizational Resilience Framework. A qualitative research method was used, where two studies c...

Purpose Diasporas represent a unique yet often overlooked stakeholder in tourism crisis management. Their strong bonds with their homeland often result in continued engagement with an extended community, which is valuable to their homeland during unsettling times. This study aims to examine the engagement of the Indonesian diaspora in the USA to re...

With the growing popularity and versatility of mobile applications, this study examined consumers' usage of multi-functional social media content apps and the influence of user-generated travel posts on their travel decision-making. Using the case of Chinese millennial travelers and Weibo and Xiaohongshu as representative apps, semi-structured inte...

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the global tourism industry. This study explores why some Chinese residents travel during the pandemic. A mixed-methods research design was adopted, guided by the health belief model and relevant literature. Through 21 interviews with Chinese tourists who took an overnight leisure trip in May 2020, and a nationa...

Residents' involvement is essential for destinations' post-disaster revival. Religion, as an ingrained value and ritual system, significantly affects residents' involvement in disaster tourism. Based on a case of Aceh, Indonesia, this study adopted a practice-based approach and investigated how religion conditions the practice of residents' involve...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine consumers' dining behaviors and explore their decision-making process when dining out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach Based on the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and the related literature, a conceptual model was developed and tested. This study conducted an online...

With the long-lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critically important that restaurateurs understand predictors of consumers' dining behaviors to better foster strategies to recover their revenue during the re-opening stage. Based on the safety signal framework and the Protection Motivation Theory, this study developed and tested a mode...

In recent years, the need for advanced precautions for mitigating the risks imposed by events, which involve high volumes of people in shared spaces, has multiplied. The occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic has further altered event practices, spaces, and event attendees’ mindsets in large-scale events. Proper crowd management not only seeks to prevent...

One recent application of technology In the foodservice industry involves robotic services in restaurants, mainly because it reduces labor costs and increases efficiencies. Driven by the value co-creation framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of robot service on restaurant customer experiences and satisfaction. The sample i...

The purpose of this research note was to examine managers’ perspectives on employee wellbeing in the foodservice industry. Particularly, this study conducted 14 semi-structured individual interviews with upper-level managers of various organizations within the foodservice industry. Thematic analyses were employed to analyze the data. The overall fi...

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of psychological capital on workplace outcomes of ethnic minority employees in the foodservice industry. Guided by the social exchange theory and the equity theory, this study developed and tested a survey instrument and collected 407 valid responses through an online survey. Results of the struc...

Ethnic minority workers play an essential role in the hospitality workforce, especially in the foodservice industry. Nevertheless, very few studies have focused on this population and explored their needs and work motivations in-depth. Guided by the self-determination theory, the purpose of this study was to examine how ethnic minority foodservice...

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the tourism industry. A successful recovery from the pandemic requires a clear understanding of the 'new normal', including tourists' perceived risks, safety perceptions, attitudes, and willingness to travel. Guided by the Risk Perception Attitude (RPA) Framework, this study investiga...

Destinations are vulnerable to natural disasters, which can result in damage to infrastructure and built facilities, negative destination images, and a difficult time of recovery. Recently, a growing number of destinations have incorporated tourism development in their disaster relief efforts and used post-disaster tourism as a strategy to enhance...

Women constitute a significant portion of the total business travel market in the U.S. This study aimed to explore travel risk and safety issues among women in higher education who regularly travel for work. Three focus groups were conducted with female faculty and staff at a major public university in the U.S. Results of an inductive-deductive ana...

The purpose of this study was to explore the host–guest interaction in tourism crisis communication. Guided by a practice-based approach, our study used the recent event of the 2018 Florida Red Tide as the context. It explored both visitors’ and residents’ information-acquiring and sharing practices in crisis communication. A total of 969 potential...

Florida’s Red Tide outbreak, a major environmental disturbance in 2018, not only garnered nationwide attention but also affected both in-state and out-of-state visitors. Guided by the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF), this study examined the relationships between media exposure, risk perception, and visitors’ behavioral responses. Data...

Public-private partnerships are essential to effective disaster response and recovery. Given their scare resources, it is neither efficient nor practical for governing bodies to bear the sole responsibility for maintaining an ever-ready disaster response infrastructure and workforce. While it is necessary and admirable for governments to improve their...

Ensuring travellers' health and well-being is an important issue in tourism management and public health. By applying and testing the Protection Motivation Theory(PMT),this study serves as one of the early attempts in tourism to explore travellers' self-protective behavior against health risks. This study conducted semi-structured interviews and an...

Organizational learning is an important function of tourism crisis management. By examining and evaluating hotels’ responses to the 2010 bed bug crisis on social media, the purpose of this study was to provide insights into how to establish effective crisis responses. Situational crisis communication theory was used as the theoretical framework and...

Purpose – Beijing is becoming one of the top global destinations but the number of international tourists to the city has been declining recently. By analyzing inbound tourists experience in Beijing and identifying the relationship between the destination attributes and satisfaction, the purpose of this paper is to provide important insights into c...

Via real life cases studies it contextualises the relevant theories on tourism, marketing and communication, and unpacks examples of best practice to illustrate how carefully managed response strategies can ensure the future survival of an organisation.

Safety and security are important elements in tourism and have been studied over the past few decades. China plays an important role in the global tourism industry as the leading source market in the world. However, no studies thus far have comprehensively reviewed and compared tourism safety and security research published both within and outside...

Industry convergence is a popular term that has been widely referenced in the context of rural tourism development in China. All levels of government (local, regional, national) in China have repeatedly addressed the significance of industry convergence in their tourism plans and related policies. Despite its popularity, limited studies at present...

The main purpose of this study was to test cruise line customers’ responses to risk and crisis communication messages addressing health-related incidents on cruise ships. This study used norovirus infections as the context and the Risk Perception Attitude framework as the conceptual foundation. An experiment was conducted to test how communication...

This study utilized content analysis to identify and analyze the types of risk mentioned in the news media's tweets. The findings broadened previous conceptualizations of travel risk related to politics and highlighted the significance of geopolitics as a potential source of harm for destinations. Approximately two-in-three tweets mentioned foreign...

Recent international events such as Brussels bombing and the terrorist attacks in Paris have stressed the importance of issues related to terrorism, personal safety, and instability on tourism. Jordan, as a major tourism destination in the Middle East, is relatively safe. However, its tourism industry has been negatively impacted by the political i...

Recent international events such as Brussels bombing and the terrorist attacks in Paris have stressed the importance of issues related to terrorism, personal safety, and instability on tourism. Jordan, as a major tourism destination in the Middle East, is relatively safe. However, its tourism industry has been negatively impacted by the political i...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide greater insights into the-state-of-the-art in crisis management and aid in better response to health-related crises, with a specific focus on the hotel industry. This study extends the tourism crisis management model to include social media, concerning the role of monitoring and responding. Design/...

In New York City (NYC), one of the world's top tourism destinations, bed bugs have reemerged as a challenge to the hospitality industry regardless of a hotel's star rating, location, ranking, or other. Given this growing tourism and hospitality management problem, the purpose of this study was to understand how the NYC bed bug crisis was framed on...

Online travel communities have reshaped travel behaviours and decision-makings of people around the world. Noticeably, local residents, who are perceived as reliable and authentic information providers, largely contribute to these online travel communities by offering help. This study developed and tested a conceptual framework, which was built upo...

Ensuring a safe destination is an essential factor in travelers’ decision-making, as well as a destination’s success. Recent crises have threatened perceptions of safety related to tourism. Under such circumstances, negative destination images might be produced and destination choices might be altered. Thus, understanding the effect of risk percept...

This paper presents the results from an exploratory study of food and tourism experiences in the online image-share community Flickr.com™. The purpose of this research was to provide a description of Flickr food group members' behaviour of taking pictures of food, as well as to better understand the role of food pictures in their travel experiences...