Editorial

Citation

Okumus, F. (2013), "Editorial", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 25 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-06-2013-0260

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Volume 25, Issue 7

The seventh issue of IJCHM in 2013 contains eight research articles. In the first article, Dev Jani and Heesup Han examine whether the Big Five Factors (BFF) of personality facilitate a social comparison of hotel guests and explain the emotional responses, and whether ultimately social comparison and consumption emotions mediate the influence of personality on hotel guests’ levels of satisfaction. The study findings indicate that the BFF of personality explain significant variations in consumption emotions and social comparisons of hotel guests. Apart from consumption emotions, social comparison appears to influence hotel guests’ satisfaction significantly. In the second article, Yao-Fen Wang states that career competency model is a multifaceted construct comprising four competency dimensions that influence the career success of food and beverage (F&B) department employees in international tourist hotels. In particular, the competencies related to “career adjustment and control” competency dimension are the most influential competency for career success. Hospitality programs can offer a “hospitality career and employability” course or seminars that present modules such as career recognition, career planning, self-management, job-seeking and mobility techniques, problem solving skills, ethics and safety in the workplace, workplace attitude, teamwork, and communication and networking skills.

In the third article, Eric S.W. Chan investigates the gap between hotel manager and customer perceptions of the relative importance of green marketing-related activities. Since few studies to date have investigated green hotel marketing, the study findings can be viewed as a preliminary step towards greater understanding of green hotel marketing-related activities. In the fourth article, Manuel Rivera and Amir Shani explore the attitudes of decision makers in restaurants in Puerto-Rico toward vegetarian food. According to the study findings, the participants recognize the value of vegetarian food for their restaurants. However, they are still unaware or uninformed about many issues related to vegetarianism and vegetarian customers. This study raises some concerns as to the attentiveness of restaurants to the needs of vegetarians.

In the fifth article, Yoon Koh, Seoki Lee, Sudipta Basu, and Wesley S. Roehl empirically examine ten factors of involuntary cross-listing of US restaurant companies on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The study found three determinants which are large size, favorable economic condition in Germany and positive industry growth opportunities. This study advances our understanding of involuntary cross-listings, which previously received little attention. In the next article, Kaung-Hwa Chen, Feng-Hsiang Chang, and Chihkang Wu (Kenny) analyze customer service factors for wellness tourism from both service providers and customer perspectives, while determining whether gender and age factors affect older tourist opinions of customer service. This study identifies eight crucial customer service factors, from high to low, including personnel services, environments, healthy diet, relaxation, health promotion treatments, experience of unique tourism resources, social activities, and mental learning. The results imply allocation and management of input resources as the service factors that are used for determining the preferences of older consumers in wellness tourism.

Hanqin Zhang Qiu, Jingxue (Jessica) Yuan, Ben Haobin Ye, and Kam Hung investigate the influencing factors of wine tourism development in China. This study reveals several facilitating and detrimental pertaining to China’s wine tourism development on the three themes: people, promotion, and place. The paper offers several suggestions for the development of wine tourism in China, such as food and wine pairing that combines wine with local (Chinese) cuisine at the wineries, positioning, and genuine government support. In the final article, Tianshu Zheng, John Farrish, Ming-Lun Lee, and Hui Yu examine how the recent recession affected Iowa’s gaming industry by analyzing gaming volumes before and through the recession. Study results show that:

• slot coin-in was not affected by the recession;

• table drop was slightly affected, but started to recover in late 2010; and

• monthly admission was not affected by the recession, and showed a significant increase after the recession.

Overall, Iowa’s gaming volume was not significantly affected by the recent recession and the gaming industry in Iowa is still recession-proof.

We hope that our readers find all eight articles published in this issue timely, relevant and useful.

Fevzi Okumus
Editor-in-Chief