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The market for luxury products and services plays a significant role in the world economy. The luxury hotel market is a crucial segment within the global market for luxury products and services. Luxury hospitality recorded a 5% growth rate along with demand for luxury cruises recording the growth of 7%, the highest among all luxury segments. The remarkable performance of luxury products and services over a period is attributed to the laudable marketing communication strategies of luxury marketers. In this research, we aimed to analyse how a multi-brand hospitality firm differentiates its luxury brand with other luxury brands in the portfolio, using textual messages aimed to communicate the uniqueness of the brands in its official websites. The case study method and content analysis are adapted to achieve the research objective. The study results show that different luxury brands under the brand portfolio of Marriott International can communicate the differences through the textual contents. Most of the differentiation relies on brand-specific features, traditions, services, location of the hotel and metadata on the Internet, followed by branded differentiators. It may be concluded that Marriott has been successful to an extent in using text contents in the website to differentiate its luxury brands.

This chapter provides insights into young peoples’ perceptions of intercultural relationships. Intercultural relationships consist of partners with different racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds. Increasing migration rates, multicultural societies and supportive societal attitudes have created more opportunities for intercultural relationships to form. These factors have contributed to the growing rates of intercultural couples in Australia. It is important to note that some intercultural partners face social barriers that are less common among non-intercultural partners. Young people are of particular interest since intercultural relationship rates are higher in younger generations and education settings are becoming more multicultural. Nonetheless, the complexities of contemporary intercultural relationships and how they may render young people vulnerable has been often overlooked. This chapter is based on a case study that responds to an overarching question: How do young people perceive intercultural relationships? The study involved semi-structured interviews with eight participants between 20 and 26 years of age. The participants had diverse backgrounds and lived in Melbourne. The findings reveal perceptions of significance and acceptance of intercultural relationships. Also revealed are perceptions of social factors that perpetuate vulnerability relating to intercultural relationships in terms of stereotyping, racism and people’s reactions more generally.

This case exposes students to contingent liabilities, a complex topic they must grapple with in practice, via introduction of the problem of accounting for vacation pay earned but untaken. The case has been tested with both undergraduates and graduates. It is appropriate for students in an intermediate accounting course and can be completed either individually or in small groups. Grappling with issues related to contingent liabilities makes students appreciate the difficulties these present. The case allows students to consider the impact of a policy change on budgeting, firm financials, financial ratios, and the potential reaction from investors and employees. This case forces students to critically think about a little discussed business problem – contingent liabilities. Understanding the variability of a contingent liability and the firm’s handling of it constitutes the primary educational value of the case. Critical thinking and application skills are enhanced by considering the impact of both the existing contingent liability and steps necessary to eliminate it. Firms switching to unlimited vacation policies have been widely discussed in the press of late (Chen, 2020; Fontana, 2017; Henley, 2018; Jackson, 2018).

Widespread news coverage, politicised debate and social media commentary have given prominence to COVID-19 as an unparalleled threat to global health and mortality, intensifying panic and insecurity worldwide. In response, the endorsement and amplification of false claims about the pandemic has proliferated, in many cases, by public figures in the online ‘wellness’ realm. Using COVID-19 as a case study, this chapter interrogates observed connections between digital wellness cultures and informational disorders in times of crisis. The authors discuss the bourgeois liberal-individualist ideals that increasingly underpin much of this communication, exemplified through the co-option of social justice rhetoric and narratives of the ‘persecuted hero’. The authors also recognise the growing number of wellness influencers openly resisting pandemic-related mis/disinformation, and note the forms of anti-individualist, mutual care demonstrated in these ‘debunking’ efforts. The authors argue that these practices reflect a form of networked solidarity – enacted alongside a discursive distancing from individualist modes of thinking – that can be understood by applying a social ecological framework for understanding ‘resilience’.