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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) shape the economic landscape of many countries, acting as the foundation of entrepreneurship, on the one hand, and functioning as a highly sensitive organism requiring special treatment, on the other. The resurgence of the interest in SMEs dates back to about 50 years ago, triggered by an observation of a substantial growth in the number of employees of SMEs operating in highly developed countries and of the resulting increasing role of such enterprises in generating national income. Earlier, it was commonly believed that the significance of SMEs was marginal in the economic reality, especially compared to large enterprises, often considered almost the only driving force behind the economic growth and development of a given country.

Although nowadays SMEs play an important part in both economic and social spheres, they tend to be defined in various ways. The applied criteria are of a quantitative and qualitative nature. Hence, the first part of this chapter offers a description of SMEs presented in these two perspectives. This is followed by a set of statistical data illustrating the significance of SMEs in the global and European economy. This background provides a means to define the food & beverage sector in the context of manufacturing, trade and services and to describe its present condition on the European market. A special emphasis is placed on the situation in six countries that took part in the studies: Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Croatia, Poland and Russia.

The growth of luxury tourism has been brought to a grinding halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting most parts of the world since early 2020. Although the time for recovery of hospitality and tourism industries is still unclear, experience from the SARS outbreak in 2003 showed that the bounce back from consumers could be fast. The group of most affluent consumers, mostly known as HNWIs (high net worth individuals), will resume their original consumption behaviour much sooner than the rest of the market; these affluent consumers are the main target market of luxury hospitality and tourism industries.

This chapter presents different types of luxury tourism, luxury lifestyle, luxury tourists' decision-making and luxury hospitality products. The luxury food and beverage business in Singapore is presented to illustrate the commercial environment during the pandemic.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a cloud system that saves energy by being involved in the decision-making process of machines. By this means, machines create an environment of direct interaction without the need for explicit instructions. In this chapter, answers have been sought to the questions of what kind of research has been done on IoT-based technological devices, and how IoT-based technologies are effective in sustainable food production. The systematic literature review examined the scientific research on IoT and Food in the range of 2010–2022 in Scopus. The general framework of the research has been carried out in the context of 6Ws (who, when, where, what, why, and how), which is one of the systematic literature reviews. The results obtained have been analyzed and interpreted in the MAXQDA 2020 qualitative data analysis program. In the findings obtained, it has been determined that IoT and food have gained importance worldwide, especially in England, India, and China. Furthermore, it has been determined that most of the studies on IoT are based on case studies, and all the articles examined are collected in three main focus points. Subcodes have been created under the main codes ‘Food Supply Chain, Smart and Sustainable Agriculture ve Waste Management’, and problem points have been tried to be customized.

This chapter discusses techniques for scheduling and organizing staff to meet guest demands and financial obligations. Key building blocks relevant to labor management are explained, such as productivity, fixed and variable labor hours, and the development of realistic performance standards to help organizations optimize productivity. As a next step, this chapter illuminates the importance of providing management labor standards and staffing models, which are key management tools. Lodging and food and beverage labor strategies are presented. Finally, effective planning of labor scheduling is also discussed.

Food-borne illnesses are common worries for tourists. In-flight food safety issues reflect the interrelated factors arising from an expanding airline industry, with its increased passenger loads, extended flight times, and multiple service activities. Adapting to these new challenges, and especially the global spread of food-borne diseases, requires an understanding of the cabin crew role as food handlers and the risks associated with this task. This chapter outlines the key factors that determine the safe delivery of in-flight food services, highlights the benefits of best practice to airline operators, passengers, and tourism boards, and addresses the policy implications for airline regulators and national health authorities.

This chapter aims to determine the marketing practices of kid-friendly hotels in Turkey by utilizing descriptive analysis. A total of 77 kid-friendly hotels operating in Turkey were surveyed through the examination of their websites. This chapter adopts a descriptive approach in defining marketing practices of kid-friendly hotels. The findings showed that various facilities and services are offered in kid-friendly hotels under the categories of “room options for children,” “food and beverage options for children,” “activities for children,” “price options,” and “children’s health and safety.” Although the results cannot be generalized beyond the scope of the study, this chapter revealed the current status of marketing to children in kid-friendly hotels operating in Turkey. Marketing implications are provided for practitioners and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

The health emergency resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a public health crisis with serious effects on all social dimensions. This chapter has estimated the effects that this pandemic could potentially have on tourism activities in Ecuador. The scenario methodology was the method of choice since it allows analyzing the environment and comparing different internal and external factors, placing them in a future context for the tourism sector. The data were obtained using the following: (1) UNWTO estimates anticipate that the pandemic will cause a decrease in tourist arrivals and income between −50% and −78% across the world; and (2) a simulation of the pandemic's possible impacts on employment, production and taxes that would cause drops of 50%, 70% and 78% in the demand for accommodation and food and beverage services that represent economic activities that are directly related to tourism.

The results confirm that in scenario 1, losses will amount to 1.327 million US dollars; in scenario 2, to 1.600 million USD; while for scenario 3, the country will stop receiving more than 1.700 million USD. Eight sectors of the economy will suffer 95% of the impact on job loss: the food and beverage service stands out from the rest, since 77 out of 10 jobs lost will come from those types of activities. The two other sectors that would suffer significant impacts would be trade and accommodation activities, which account for 8% and 5%, respectively, of the total number of jobs lost.

Along with the changing needs and expectations of tourists, their demands for special interest tourism types have also increased. In this context, tea tourism is accepted as one of the notable tourism types in recent years. For this reason, it is important to examine the behavior of tourists participating in tea tourism and to provide services accordingly. However, studies on the experiences of tourists participating in tea tourism are still insufficient. The purpose of this study is to determine the memorable experience components of tourists participating in tea tourism. In this context, data were collected using semistructured interviews, participant observation, and online tourist comments. According to the findings, the memorable experience components of tourists participating in tea tourism activities are divided into four themes. These themes are: information about tea, tea-related environments, the taste of tea, and interaction. At the conclusion part of the study, some suggestions were made to the marketers, managers, and operators related to tea tourism according to the determined themes.

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of social suffering among a non-random sample of Canadian women working in socially and economically marginalized “frontline” service occupations. Participants identified a number of health concerns that they link to the everyday suffering they endure – i.e. feeling inadequate, incompetent, lonely, self-conscious, disenfranchised or dissatisfied. The complex etiology of these women's suffering bars many from finding appropriate health care. As a result, there are health disparities among our vulnerable populations. While they often articulated a desire for alternative/complementary care, the Canadian health care system does not currently fund these services and many of the women are unable to afford the out-of-pocket costs.

Despite the increasing number of small and medium enterprises pursuing international opportunities and penetrating global markets, international entrepreneurship literature has paid limited attention to emerging markets and entrepreneur-specific factors that influence internationalisation. Traditional internationalisation theories and international entrepreneurship theories consider organisation as the unit of analysis and lack sensitivity to the context, which influences ventures’ foreign market decisions. Moreover, only a handful of studies related to internationalisation in emerging markets are available. To address this gap, this chapter explores barriers and drivers for SMEs’ internationalisation in Sri Lanka, an emerging market. Semi-structured interviews with forty Sri Lankan youth entrepreneurs suggest structural barriers consisting of access to capital, legal restrictions and lack of legal, institutional and government support were prominent. These barriers suggest a need for policy changes in the entrepreneurial environment, finance, entrepreneurial culture and skill development, technology, research and development and regional balance. The findings also indicate that information communication technology is a driver for internationalisation.