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This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

This study investigated how customer orientation and relationships influenced relational benefits via employees' attitudes toward travel agencies and partnership management.

Survey questionnaires were mailed to experts of travel agencies in Taiwan. The hypothesis of this study was tested and used a research model characterized by the SEM-PLS approach.

The findings of this study indicate that the travel service involves a wide range of firms, regardless of internal or external partner management, and to develop the Muslim tourism market sustainability.

From a theoretical perspective, it was found that customer orientation of travel agencies and relationship selling among travel agencies affects partnership management of travel agencies and their employees' attitudes, which were positively associated with the relational benefit of travel agencies.

Travel agencies must maintain continuous collaborative relationships to ensure the sustainable development of the Muslim tourism market.

This study provides a meaningful model for investigating the trend and tourism products of the Muslim tourism market regarding collaboration between travel agencies and partners.

The purpose of this study is to explore the risk factors that employers consider when assessing an employee’s business travel (BT) assignment and the risk treatment, crisis response and recovery strategies they use to discharge their BT duty of care.

An exploratory approach is taken with in-depth interviews of 21 executives, travel managers and insurance brokers involved with the management of BT in four international hotel groups. In all, 12 follow-up interviews were conducted to assess the possible COVID-19 impact on BT risk management processes.

Employers assess BT assignments considering the travel’s characteristics, including the destination’s risk profile against seven types of risks (health, political, transport, natural, crime, technology and kidnap), length of stay, travel mode and activities undertaken in the destination as well as the traveler’s profile which includes diversity and travel experience. Accordingly, they develop a range of duty of care strategies for BT risk treatment, crisis response and recovery.

BT practitioners can use the proposed framework to develop risk assessment methodologies based on more accurate destination and traveler profiles and pursue targeted risk treatment strategies and insurance policies. The proposed duty of care approach can be used as a blueprint for organizations to design and manage BT policies.

BT risk is an under-researched area. The extant research looks predominantly at travel risks and their assessment taking the traveler’s perspective. This study looks at business travel risk and explores it from an employer’s risk management perspective offering a BT risk assessment framework and a BT duty of care plan.

This paper aims to focus on a global consulting company and examine how it struggled to establish an effective environmental management control system for carbon emissions for its employees’ air travel. The organisation was motivated to reduce its carbon emissions both to comply with regulation and to enhance or maintain corporate reputation.

The paper takes a case study approach, examining internal and external documents as well as conducting interviews with senior staff.

The case study investigates how Beta’s management implemented a system to reduce carbon emissions. The organisation focused on air travel, but the study finds that employee travel preferences did not radically change. Rather than reduction in carbon emissions, as planned by head office, air travel carbon emissions actually increased during the period, and, as a consequence, the reported reduction targets were significantly adjusted downwards to meet the new realities.

The study has implications for both policy and practice for organisations seeking to improve their sustainability performance.

The study responds to calls in the literature to undertake research to identify how management practices might reduce negative sustainability impacts, as there is little evidence of what management practices and accounting tools are being adopted, particularly in relation to carbon emissions from air travel. The paper adds to the creation of new accounting, giving visibility to carbon emission management through case study analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness regarding the implementation of a quality management system in the travel agency sector by identifying similarities and differences in the perception of the ISO 9001 certification by travel agencies in China and Hong Kong as well as to provide potential recommendations to Kenya and to other countries developing tourism industries.

The comparative study approach is used to compare perceptions of the ISO 9001 certification by travel agencies in China and Hong Kong.

Travel agencies in Kenya, China, and Hong Kong promote the benefits but address the shortcomings and challenges of implementing the ISO 9001 certification simultaneously. This certification certainly benefited travel agencies in terms of marketing, but sustaining these effects remains a challenge.

The comparative approach, while important, cannot be considered a “scientific” approach at present. The current research compared the findings of two studies; however, these works are limited in that they use different data collection methodologies. Consequently, the results may vary.

More similarities than differences were determined in the terms of costs among travel agencies in China and Hong Kong. Various differences were identified with respect to the perceived benefits from the ISO 9001 certification. This finding can be regarded as both a challenge and an opportunity.

Increasing operational costs and narrowing profit margins are forcing many Hong Kong travel agencies out of business. Studies have demonstrated the strategic importance of revenue management (RM) implementation for travel agencies that wish to remain competitive. Hong Kong travel agencies should learn from these examples and modify their existing practices. As travel agencies have many of the characteristics of traditional and non-traditional RM industries, they should be able to adopt the RM operational strategies that have been successful in other industries. This study’s methodology is qualitative; in-depth interviews are conducted with 10 industrial professionals. The results provide valuable insights into RM implementation in Hong Kong travel agencies. The implementation strategies discussed here include the use of perishable inventories, predictable demand, segmentation, reservations made in advance, limited capacity and appropriate cost and pricing structures, all of which aid in profit optimisation. The results indicate that RM can improve travel agencies’ competitive stance and enhance profit maximisation. RM practitioners need to fully understand the concept and techniques and have the determination to develop and promote the system among personnel at every level of the travel agency.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is a potential tool for tourism marketers to maintain the attractiveness of their destinations and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the effectiveness of VR technology in motivating potential tourists' visit intention under lockdown conditions remains unknown. An integrated model based on the experience economy framework and mood management theory was, therefore, used to explain how tourists' VR experiences affect their mood management processes and subsequent behaviors. This research also examined how perceived travel risk influenced the relationship between mood management processes and future decisions.

This study used a cross-sectional design based on a sample collected from a Chinese survey company, Sojump. The author surveyed 285 respondents who had experienced VR tourism activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research model was tested using partial least squares–structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrated that the four dimensions of VR experiences differently affected mood management processes, while perceived travel risk differently moderated the influence of mood management processes on visit intention and VR stickiness. This provides insights for tourism marketers to adapt to the current tourism environment and develop recovery strategies.

In response to gaps in the literature, this research examined the effectiveness of VR technology in driving tourists' visit intention during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing insights for tourism marketers to successfully implement VR tourism and plan timely recovery strategies.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the field of hospitality management and a guide to the major books, databases, web sites, and other resources that comprise a quality hospitality management reference collection.

Following a short introduction and overview, key sources and annotations are presented in categories that will help reference and collection librarians to better understand and serve hospitality management students. The sources were identified through the author's experience, library research guides and web sites, bibliographies, and other standard sources.

Hospitality management is growing and maturing as an academic discipline, aided by the fact that the field offers good job prospects. The key sources pertaining to hospitality management are scattered among several different industry sectors, including food and beverage, lodging, meetings and special events, travel and tourism, and theme parks and attractions.

This paper is the first to systematically identify key reference works for the field of hospitality management. It will be useful for librarians who work with business, culinary arts, hospitality management, or related fields.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to explore the current usage of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation in travel agencies (TA) and tourist information centres (TIC), and to provide insights about the future deployment of those technologies in the operations of travel agencies and tourist information centres

Design/methodology/approach: The chapter makes a review of travel agencies’ operations in the context of tourist consumer behaviour and then explores the current technologies utilized by TAs and TICs. There are forecasts about the future development of technologies in the TAs, discussing emerging issues and challenges, and final implications with concluding thoughts.

Findings: TA and TIC have incorporated a lot of automated technologies in their operations by numerous software applications; AI is still to proliferate and further excel, and the whole customer interaction tends to take place almost entirely in the digital space.

Research implications: TAs will continue to develop B2C or B2B software to increase their distribution efficiency and footprint through powerful computing capabilities, user-friendly systems, transparency, low fault rate, ease of search and real-time confirmation; virtual and augmented realities will become a standard. Back office tedious tasks and processes will be eliminated by the right software, which will further reduce the paper flow, increase cost-effectiveness and leverage the human involvement in the ordinary procedures of filing, reporting, administering, and analysing data

Social implications: The advance of technologies has certainly empowered the end customers, making them not only informed, but also more engaged. Consequently, the future technological development in TAs operation will focus on higher personalization, but at the expense of higher standardization of technologies.

Originality/value: TAs have certainly embraced technology integration as the only pathway to remain competitive and viable. The future development of RAISA in TAs seem to progress to full automation and AI integration where appropriate. The most challenging obstacles connected with technology introduction in TAs seem to be legal regulations, personal data protection, security issues and technical compatibility, but also moral issues like ethics and cultural understanding.