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The chapter is about the revamping of the hospitality and hotel industry in the South East Asian Region after the COVID-19 pandemic. The hotel industry contributes largely to the GDP of the economy. Therefore, the success of this industry is mandatory for the development of a country. The reconstruction of this sector depends upon the advanced techniques and practices to boost up this sector after crisis. Therefore, to implement such practices highly depends upon the highly educated and aware managers. This chapter focuses on how crisis management plan revamps this industry after the greatest destruction.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the most ‘over governed’ tourism crisis since World War II. Unlike disruptions prior to 2020, it challenged many long-held paradigms about global tourism including fundamental issues like the right to travel. Therefore, it qualified fully as a ‘wicked problem’ defined by Rittel and Webber (1973) and Head (2022). The extent of government-imposed regulation was central to the management of and response to COVID-19. All tiers of government-mandated measures, including border closures, area lockdowns, quarantine regimes, social distancing, pressure to accept vaccinations, masks and testing requirements applied in most countries and regional territorial jurisdictions throughout 2020 and 2021. In some cases, notably in China, restrictions remained until early 2023. Tourism’s recovery from crises involves rebuilding consumer and stakeholder confidence and focussing on marketing positive perceptions of destinations and enterprises. However, during the COVID-19 crisis, marketing and promotion of tourism recovery were hampered by a regulatory environment restricting tourism activity across sectors. As a ‘wicked problem’ for global tourism, COVID-19 incorporates many of Head’s (2022) seven policy strategies to deal with Rittel and Webber’s (1973) ten elements of wicked problems including authoritative imposition, micro-management and science (health) based technocracy. The Australian response to COVID-19 was significantly complicated by the fact nine governments (one Federal, six states and two territories) frequently had differing policy and regulatory approaches to COVID-19. These affected international and domestic travel to, from and within Australia. Australia’s fragmented, federalist governance of a health-based crisis exacerbated the restrictions imposed on both domestic and international travel.

Purpose – In business environment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly an important issue for every stakeholder. Organizations are being reputable through CSR activities. The aim of this chapter is to examine the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation, and determine the role of CSR activities in corporate reputation building process.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive literature research is conducted in order to develop the theoretical framework that supports the positive role of CSR activities on corporate reputation.Findings – As CSR activities affect the consequences that have a positive impact on corporate reputation, findings show that CSR enables firms to improve reputation with a broad range of stakeholders including employees (internal customers), customers (external customers), suppliers, competitors, bankers, and investors.Research limitations/Implications – However this research is a theoretical study, for further studies an empirical research model may be developed for investigating the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. These dimensions should be measured and the hypothesis about the positive relationship between CSR and corporate reputation may be statistically tested.Practical implications – This theoretical study may be useful for the board of directors and managers since they should become aware of the importance of one of the growing areas of corporate reputation and CSR. They are also increasingly being encouraged to engage CSR activities into their organization's vision, identity, brand, and reputation. Based on societal expectations of stakeholders, organizations should develop and improve their CSR programs and reflect these developments to their reputation mechanisms.Originality/Value of the paper – This study is valuable to understand the corporate reputation practices that enhance and demonstrate the value of reputable organizations. It is also attractive to compare other dimensions of corporate reputation such as emotional appeal, workplace environment, and corporate reputation with CSR.

An accurate tourism forecast is critical to destination countries as a foundation for tourism-related decision making and efficient tourism planning. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Taiwan's inbound tourism was affected by the September 21st Earthquake in 1999 and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, one of the mega earthquakes in the 20th century and most catastrophic health hazard in the past hundred years in Taiwan, respectively. According to the empirical findings, Taiwan's inbound tourism was brutally devastated by the two calamities, particularly during the SARS outbreak. The inbound tourism was more heavily influenced by the SARS epidemic and recovered from the SARS shadow was greater compared with the recovery after the September 21st Earthquake.