Editorial

Citation

Teare, R. (2008), "Editorial", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2008.04120aaa.001

Editorial

This issue marks the 20th anniversary of IJCHM’s launch and as the journal’s founding editor, it has been a special privilege to help nurture IJCHM for so long and to see the journal mature and flourish. To give you some indication of IJCHM’s popularity, a staggering 453,801 IJCHM articles were downloaded from the Emerald database during 2007 and IJCHM is now ranked by academics as a tier one journal in the hospitality management field.

In 2008, IJCHM will participate in the launch of a new Emerald journal entitled Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes and I shall lead this new initiative as the journal’s managing editor. It is then with great pleasure that I introduce my successor as editor of IJCHM, Dr Fevzi Okumus. Fevzi is based at the Rosen College, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA. He is originally from Turkey and he studied and taught in the UK prior to continuing his academic career in the USA. Fevzi’s international outlook, enthusiasm and experience mean that he is well qualified to take IJCHM forward as the premier journal of its type, and I wish him every success in the future.

I should like to take this opportunity to thank Emerald and its staff and especially the managing editors and publishers that I have worked with over the years. If not for their hard work and excellent support, I could not have continued as editor for so long! I should also like to thank the editorial advisory board members – past and present – for their invaluable contribution and our many loyal authors for helping to ensure IJCHM’s sustained success over the years. Last but not least, my sincere thanks to you – our readership around the world.

This issue features articles on national culture and social responsibility, food technology, training and human resource issues, and spa operations.

In the opening article, Baker Ayoun and Patrick Moreo pose the question: does national culture affect hotel managers’ approach to business strategy? They surveyed senior managers in four countries (USA, Thailand, Malaysia and Turkey) and found subtle differences of approach that may be linked to cultural differences. Vivienne Wildes examines the role that leaders could play in influencing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of the organisations that they serve. In exploring the potential impact of CSR, the author outlines some of the creative and innovative ways in which businesses can sustain a positive contribution to their societal setting. Given the problems associated with alcohol abuse and in particular, the phenomenon of “binge drinking” John Pratten and Christopher Lovatt investigate the prospective role of a professional association in tackling this societal problem. They argue the case for the establishment of a compulsory professional body for all those who hold a licence to retail alcohol in the UK.

Svetlana Rodgers reviews industry reports on cooking equipment and preparation techniques and concludes that innovation in food preparation requires multi-disciplinary inputs from engineering and food sciences if the process of innovation is to be truly effective.

In the first of two articles dealing with training and human resource issues, Sheryl Kline and Kimberly Harris set out to investigate the reasons why hoteliers rarely anticipate a return on investment from training. They used one-on-one interviews with training executives in American hotels to explore the ways in which their respective budgets are established and justified. The study that in general, approaches to tracking corporate expenditure on training are under-used. Anne Crick uses survey data from three Caribbean destinations, with 110 respondents (including hotel employees, managers, owners, policy and trade union officials) to determine the current human resource challenges and compares operational practices with those used in the agricultural sector.

Melih Madanoglu and Shrie Brezina illustrate the ways in which spa operations contribute to resort revenue. They show that a well-run spa operation has the propensity to generate additional revenue equivalent to approximately 20 percent of room revenue, though spa operations use considerably less space than resort/hotel rooms.

The Research in Brief section features two articles. Hilary Murphy investigates the ways and the extent to which small and medium-sized hotels use search engine marketing (SEM) techniques to enhance customer visibility and accessibility to their businesses. Interviews revealed that all the hotels sampled had websites but that they were not actively using SEM techniques. The implications are that SMEs risk being marginalized and losing contact with their customers if SEM is not used or under-utilised. Amarjit Gill examines the role of trust in employee-manager relationships with specific reference to employee job satisfaction and dedication. The author explored the linkages by interview and found that higher degrees of trust in a hospitality manager equate with greater job satisfaction and dedication.

Richard Teare