About
42
Publications
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485
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Additional affiliations
August 2008 - August 2016
Publications
Publications (42)
While user-generated contents (UGC) are recognized as increasingly important to destination marketing, many DMOs are uncertain how to strategically manage them to their best advantage, largely due to their lack of understanding of mechanisms underlying the UGC effects. By integrating multiple theories of travel decision-making and UGC distribution,...
Purpose
To sufficiently fulfill the travel potential of people with mobility impairments (PwMIs), this study aims to propose a valuable supplement to facility/service accommodation by hospitality/tourism businesses by identifying and purposefully cultivating the superior motivation types for empowering PwMI’s travel pursuits despite challenges. To...
In response to the existing concern among hospitality practitioners about attracting and retaining the millenial/post-millenial labor market, the current paper proposes a promising research agenda of character-strength deployment in the hospitality industry. The proposed research agenda informs the hospitality practitioners the potential of charact...
This study contributes by examining a foundational question of tourism subject- the potential of tourism in promoting not only individual short-term hedonic pleasure, but also long-term eudaimonic wellbeing- through the lens of character-strength employment. Adopting experimental design and a mix of quantitative and qualitative data analyses, it su...
The decades of research on travel motivation have exploited what are the motivations to be satisfied through travel pursuits (i.e., travel for pleasure, learning, or social networking, etc.) (Hsu and Huang 2008; Pearce and Packer 2013). Yet there are limited explorations of the underlying forces driving those motivations (Gnoth 1997; Cohen, Prayag,...
Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) currently face the challenge of how to sufficiently employ the valuable tool of social media marketing. There is a pressing need is to identify the optimal mix of online channels for DMOs to best communicate to their prospective visitors; moreover, a major challenge encountered is a lack of the direct and...
In response to the pressing need to psychologically empower people with mobility challenges (PwMC) to travel, this study proposes the facilitation of self-determined travel motivations as a promising approach. The variation of self-determined travel facilitation across different challenge levels is examined through a quasi-experimental design and a...
Purpose
Advances in technology and in subsequent guest-related amenities have the potential to improve the guest experience and also increase both guestroom revenues and ancillary room revenues. Innovative technologies will be one of the prime differentiators of hotel companies in the twenty-first century. However, it is important for hoteliers to...
Applying arguments from leader-member exchange (LMX) and social comparison theory, we explore a three-way interaction between LMX quality, LMX differentiation (variance in LMX across workgroups), and LMX dissimilarity (within workgroup individual-level differences in LMX) to predict individual performance. The three-way interaction predicted three...
The hospitality industry is dependent on a professional staff to exceed guests’ expectations. Existing research has focused primarily on the various attributes necessary for success in the hospitality industry. The primary focus of this research was professionalism and hospitality students’ self-perception of their professional attributes. Data col...
The lodging industry continues to be a fast-growing portion of the American business landscape. Simultaneously, colleges are expanding their hospitality management offerings, while remaining variable in their levels of lodging-specific coursework. The growth of the industry has led to higher competency needs/requirements among lodging recruiters. I...
Hotel and Restaurant Entry-Level Job Competencies: Comparisons of
Management and Worker Perceptions
Abstract
This article presents the findings of a central Florida study of lodging and restaurant managers as well as entrylevel
workers who were graduates of hospitality management programs. It provides a theoretical construct as a
basis of the metho...
The article presents the findings of a recent longitudinal study that compares student perception of instruction scores between online and regular classes. Participants in the study were campus-based traditional undergraduate students enrolled at a large public U.S. university. The findings suggest that student perceptions of course participation a...
The vacation ownership (timeshare) industry is the fastest growing segment in the hospitality industry. With this growth is the need to attain qualified managers and hospitality programs must ascertain the skills that are necessary to meet the demands of this market. The purpose of this study was to discover if there were any significant difference...
This article reports the findings of a study conducted in the central Florida metropolitan statistical area (MSA) to determine practising managers' perceptions of expected entry-level hospitality worker competencies. Preliminary phases of the study yielded the construction of an instrument used to determine the importance of certain knowledge, skil...
This article presents the findings of a central Florida study of hospitality and tourism management practitioners. It reports the findings of practitioner perceptions of desired knowledge, skills, and attitudes. It further demonstrates the overall impressions of practitioners concerning levels of preparation for entry-level positions in the industr...
The article presents the findings of an empirical study that identified self-reported motivational priorities among foodservice workers and management students over a period of five years. The authors present evidence that motivational priorities differ between younger and more mature individuals. Theoretical constructs from the disciplines of orga...
The referral-seeking behavior of travelers at a given destination is undergoing greater scrutiny as businesses compete in increasingly competitive marketplaces. The phenomenon of at-destination venue search activity and decision processes utilized by visitors is predominantly an academic unknown. This study investigated a subset of the sources freq...
Visitors to a destination have varying motives, interests, and means in selecting specific venues for overnight accommodations and dining experiences as well as recreational and entertainment experiences. Information acquisition leading to critical venue decisions can be made at any or all journey pointspretrip, in-transit, and at-destination. Supp...
Relative to other industries, hospitality organizations tend to be labor intensive, employing large numbers of individuals in hotels, resorts, restaurants, and other related enterprises. There has been long-standing debate between the rights of worker personal privacy and the need for employers to know information concerning prospective and current...
This article posits a model for alternative PhD programs in hospitality management in response to the growing demand for educators trained in both instructional methodology and scholarly research processes. The authors suggest that a number of current adjunct instructors possess an interest in becoming full-time educators. However, many of these in...
The major objective of this study was to explore the reasons behind hourly employee turnover in the hotel industry. Data was collected from 230 hourly employees in ten small and medium-size hotels located in the Southeast U.S. The results empirically confirmed that hourly employees' retention was predicted by self-fulfillment and working conditions...
This paper presents an overview of the incentive travel industry with a focus on how it is related to recreation and motivation. Incentive travel uses unique fantasy travel and recreation experiences as rewards for employees who excel in productivity and sales. Incentive travel planners are involved in the complete process of employee motivation, a...
ABSTRACT This study compared lodging managers' job competency expectations for newly hired employees in possession of four-year (baccalaureate) degrees from a college or university. Lodging managers mentally separated new hires into two distinct categories when rating the importance of specific job competencies: 1) new hires in possession of a hosp...
Projects
Project (1)
The public awareness and passion about wellbeing has been growing fast in the recent years, yet the exploration on transformative products/services for individual wellbeing enhancement is still in its infancy in the tourism/hospitality field. The current proposed project thereby intends to explore the integration of cutting-edge psychological interventions into tourism/hospitality product/service design to fill the above gap in research and industrial practices. It is planned as a multi-faceted project, with primarily data collection completed as well as further collections and grant applications in process.
