Editorial

Citation

Okumus, F. (2012), "Editorial", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 24 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2012.04124caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Volume 24, Issue 3

This issue includes six full articles and two book reviews. The first article by Xuan Lorna Wang examines hotel key accounts’ perceptions towards revenue management practices and its impact on key account relationship development. The author collected data through in-depth interviews with account managers from an international hotel company and its key accounts from nine international companies across three main market segments: airlines, corporate and leisure. The findings show that revenue management practices have reduced relationship stability and the trust between hotels and their key accounts due to a number of reasons. These include opportunistic behavior such as unexpected contract rate increases and/or blocked room availabilities during high-demand days; imposed contractual restrictions; and undisclosed cheaper rates being available via other distribution channels from the same hotel. In the second article, Taegoo (Terry) Kim, Joanne Jung-Eun Yoo and Gyehee Lee explore the structural relationships among perceived justice, service recovery satisfaction, post-recovery customer relationships, and post-recovery customer partnerships. The self-administered survey was distributed to restaurant customers who had experienced service recovery in the previous six months. The study findings advance the understanding of the beneficial effects of effective service recovery on long-term relationships and on partnership building with the customers.

The third article authored by Insin Kim, Sang Mi Jeon and Sunghyup Sean Hyun examines the structural relationships between chain restaurant patrons’ brand attitude, utilitarian value, hedonic value, well-being perception, and behavioral intentions with the moderating role of involvement. The authors collected data from 433 chain restaurant patrons. Study results indicated that brand attitude and hedonic value bear a positive impact on patrons’ well-being perception. In the following article, Girish Prayag, Martin Landré and Chris Ryan assess the evolution of restaurant locations in the city of Hamilton over a 12-year period (1996 to 2008) using GIS techniques. A database of restaurants was compiled using the NZ yellow pages and contained 981 entries that consisted mainly of location addresses and types of cuisine. The findings allow identification of land use patterns in Hamilton city and potential areas where new restaurants could be developed.

Song Kim and Xinran Lehto analyze disabled travelers’ complaints reported through online customer complaint web sites. A total of 316 customer complaints were collected and analyzed utilizing a modified procedure of the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). Critical incidents of disabled travelers were classified into three dimensions of service failures including service delivery failure, unfulfilled special requests, and unsolicited employee conduct. The findings of this study could represent a valuable step toward assessing the current status of service failure provided by hospitality and tourism industry, and thus provide useful insights for practitioners to more effectively serve this market segment.

Cathy H.C. Hsu, Zhaoping Liu and Songshan Huang examine how the patterns and effects of managerial ties differ among state-owned, domestic-private, and foreign firms. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 15 top executives of economy hotel chains headquartered in five cities in China. The findings indicate that managers in firms of different ownership types use different network tie combinations and differ in the extent to which they can benefit from managerial ties. The study contributes to both entrepreneurship and social network theories by summarizing different patterns of managerial ties and exploring the rationales for the variance.

This issue also includes two book reviews. The first one is written by Geoffrey Wall on Tourism Research: A 20-20 Vision. This text was edited by Douglas G. Pearce and Richard W. Butler. The second book review is written by Serena Volo on Official Tourism Websites: A Discourse Analysis Perspective. The text was written by Richard W. Hallett, Judith Kaplan-Weinger.

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

Fevzi OkumusEditor-in Chief