Search results

This paper aims to examine the factors that measure different satisfaction levels between the Asian and Western travellers during their stay in hotels in Malaysia. The paper also seeks to analyse the importance of the tangible and intangible factors in the hotel industry.

The research questions are utilised to measure the differences between Asian and Western perception of hotel attributes. A questionnaire with five‐point Likert scale is applied to measure customer satisfaction. Data is analysed using SPSS software by employing factor analysis, multiple regression, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Results indicate that there are significant differences between Asian and Western evaluations of hotel quality, with clear indication that satisfaction levels Malaysian hotels were higher among Western travellers than the Asian travellers. Both Asian and Western travellers perceive hospitality as an influential factor in determining the overall satisfaction level.

The limitation of the study is that the sample is taken only from travellers who are leaving Malaysia by plane. Future research can be carried out on the travellers arriving at and depart from Malaysia using different mode of transportations.

For practitioners, it is worth noting that Asian travellers are exclusively concerned with the value for money services, while Western travellers regard security and safety, and food and beverage as important factors for them to stay in the hotels or revisit the country.

Malaysia is an emerging market for tourism industry and the information obtained from the travellers can be utilised to enhance a much more efficient marketing strategy in the hotel industry. This paper contains material relevant to education as well as to the tourism industry, and implementable solutions are sufficiently well suggested.

This study aims to explore the meanings of solo travel for Asian women, focussing on how Asian women construct and negotiate their identities in the heteronormalised, gendered and Western-centric tourism space.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 35 Asian solo female travellers from ten Asian countries/societies and analysed using constructivist grounded theory. The interpretation was guided by a critical stance and intersectionality lens.

The findings show that solo travel provides a means for self-discovery but the path was different for Asian women, for whom the self is constructed by challenging the social expectations of Asian women. Western-centric discourse was identified in the participants’ interactions with other (Western) travellers and tourism service providers, as well as in the ways these Asian women perceive themselves in relation to Western travellers. In addition to gendered constraints and risks, the findings also reveal the positive meaning of being Asian women in the gendered tourism space.

By labelling Asian women, the study risks adopting an essentialised view and overlooking the differences within the group. However, this strategic essentialism is necessary to draw attention to the inequalities that persist in contemporary tourism spaces and practices.

This study investigated Asian solo female travellers, an emerging but under-researched segment. It provides a critical examination of the intersectional effect of gender and race on identity construction for Asian solo female travellers. This study shows the need for a more inclusive tourism space.

Given the rapidly changing profile of travellers, in terms of their nationality, this study investigates Asian and Western travellers’ perceptions about the service quality of Hong Kong hotels. Using a principal component factor analysis with a VARIMAX rotation technique, this study identifies seven hotel factors out of 33 hotel attributes and determines the levels of satisfaction among Asian and Western travellers. The seven hotel factors derived from factor analysis are: staff service quality, room quality, general amenities, business services, value, security, and IDD facilities. The results from the regression analysis suggest that Asian travellers’ overall satisfaction is primarily derived from the value factor, whereas their Western counterparts are influenced by the room quality factor. This study is strategically and managerially important to the Hong Kong hotel industry. Using the results of the study, hoteliers can focus their efforts to provide quality service and facilities that their Asian and Western customers perceive as being important and as having high value.

The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the various articles in this theme issue and identify the key services management principles that merit re-thinking in the face of the growing and enduring trend of Asian travellers.

As a conclusion, this paper reviews the findings of the articles in this theme issue collection and synthesizes them thematically as well as strategically for both scholars and practitioners of services management and marketing.

There are five key assumptions that need re-thinking if services management organizations are to adequately meet the challenges of a more demographically diverse wave of travellers led by Asian visitors. Briefly, service organizations need to re-think: how they identify significant shifts in customer profile, the limits of their current service systems, decisions on service integration versus separation, how to transcend the traditional 5 Ps of services and, not least, how to prioritize humanism over efficiency in terms of service manpower training and development.

Though not exhaustive, the service management issues summarized and highlighted by this paper (and comprising this theme issue of WHATT) should serve to amplify the need to address the significant and enduring changes brought by the new wave of Asian travellers now enveloping services organizations throughout the world.

The paper serves to identify several areas for service organizations to review and re-think which includes, among others, service interactions between front line service providers and customers, the evolving needs of visitors from Asia, how Asian customers perceive concepts of courtesy and politeness, as well as the use of language and culture in shaping and interpreting socio-cultural interactions in a service setting.

This paper aims to explore the rationale for the theme issue question “Services management and the growing number of Asian travellers – what needs re-thinking?” and profile the theme issue.

This paper explains the approach taken to investigate and respond to aspects of the theme issue question and the specific contribution of each article in the theme issue collection.

This paper identifies a number of action points arising from the theme issue which are discussed in the final article: Conclusion: What needs re-thinking in services management in the dawning age of Asian travellers?

There are very few articles that address the implications of rapidly growing outbound Asian travel for services management; so, this theme issue provides a significant step forward, with implications for both academics and practitioners.

This study aims to unpack the notion of travelling mobilities from the perspectives of an Asian solo traveller using the context of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.

An autoethnography was used for this research, analysing reflective notes drafted on hand-written journals over the duration of six days over three host cities of the sporting event.

Asian solo men appear to be treated very differently from their Western counterparts and solo female tourists. In addition, engaging with a sport that is highly Western-centric exposes the liminal spaces of in-between. Being of Asian appearance and conversant in Japanese further blurred the travelling mobilities of being an unlikely sports fan, an impromptu translator, a presumed local resident and an unconventional wanderer.

These limitations notwithstanding, the research has contributed to the paucity of knowledge surrounding Asian solo male tourists and some aspects of their corresponding travelling mobilities. Such nuanced understanding then inform tourism and hospitality knowledge and practice of offering relevant experiences to such a market.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) theme issue “Services management and the growing number of Asian travellers: what needs re-thinking?” with reference to the experiences of the theme editor and the theme issue outcomes from countries within and beyond Asia.

The paper uses structured questions to enable the theme editor to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question, the starting point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process.

This paper reports on research and discussions between academics and practitioners about an issue faced by many countries with established hospitality, tourism and travel industries. Specifically, what are the adjustments needed to mirror the radically changing demographic landscape of inbound tourism – now characterized by more affluent and mobile Asian visitors?

This paper builds on the outcomes of an international conference on “Managing and Delivering Services in the Asian Century”, and offers a response to the changes needed to better serve Asian travellers.

It provides guidelines for destinations, hospitality organizations and travel operators that have traditionally relied on European and American source markets to help them re-think their service delivery process, management and operations.

This study aims to understand how female executive travellers should be characterized by inter-winning socio-economic segmentation and leisure travel motivation.

This study identifies push factors as a motivation for leisure travel among female executives in India. Quantitative research methodology was applied based on 892 online responses to a questionnaire. Principal component analysis was applied to identify the underlying dimensions of push motivational items.

The findings disclose five-factor dimensions of self-esteem; knowledge- and novelty-seeking; stimulus; escape; and self-recognition. Among the five identified dimensions, stimulus was the most important factor for motivating female executives to travel for leisure, followed by knowledge and novelty-seeking.

This study was conducted on 1,100 female executive travellers, meaning the results are only valid for this cultural context. All data was collected through a referral chain network survey among female executives via Google survey forms. While segmenting types of travellers amongst females, usage of push motivation framework as a variable remains pervasive in tourism research.

Although literature on female travel motivation is abundant, however, to the authors’ knowledge, empirical studies that focus on female executives leisure travel motivations are still rare. These findings are, therefore, valuable for illuminating tourism stakeholders to cater this potential segment more customisedly.

This paper aims to understand how guests’ trip purpose and hotel star rating influence the effects of the value for money perceived at hotels and service quality on guest satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) recommendation.

Using TripAdvisor, 25 Singaporean hotels were randomly selected for the study, which yielded hotel reviews from 2,040 respondents. Hierarchical and logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the relationships proposed in the study.

Results indicate significant differences between leisure and business guests’ perception of value for money and service quality at hotels with various star ratings. While perceived value for money and service quality were found as significant predictors for both leisure and business guests’ satisfaction and WOM, the effects were moderated by the hotel star rating. Despite the significant effect of hotel star rating on guest satisfaction, the study found no significant relationships between hotel star rating and WOM for leisure and business guests.

The findings suggest that managers in the hotel industry should understand the purpose of guests’ trip and offer services based on their expectations. As the star rating of a hotel creates certain expectations for both leisure and business guests, providing an appropriate level of services and assuring value for money in accordance with the hotel rating contributes to guest satisfaction and WOM recommendation.

This study contributes to the hospitality literature by investigating how hotel star rating moderates the relationship of value for money and service quality on leisure and business guests’ satisfaction and WOM recommendation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on pertussis immunisations among the Asian population.

A systematic review was carried out using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. The review performed searches using the keywords: immun*, vaccine* AND whooping cough or Bordetella pertussis OR B pertussis AND Asia*. The search was conducted on four electronic databases, namely, Medline, CINAHL, Embase and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

In total, 13 studies of relevance were included in the review after screening 206 articles. The studies were categorised into three literature sections which were: epidemiology of pertussis, vaccine effectiveness studies in Asia and strategies aimed to increase uptake of immunisations against pertussis.

Due to financial constraints, the authors only had access to articles published in the English language and full text articles which may limit the generalisability of the review.

The review is useful in providing insight into the general trends of pertussis immunisations among Asians and in aiding future research in this area.