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The environmental impact of excessive use of natural resources such as energy and water in the tourism industry has increased significantly. Thus, it is crucial to investigate the notion of frugality in this industry. Particularly, this study aims to examine the effect of green marketing strategies (eco-labelling and environmental advertising) and hotel guests’ green attitude towards frugality in the context of the Malaysian hotel industry. Furthermore, the mediating effect of green attitude is also examined.

Stimulus-organism-response theory was used to develop the research framework. The data were collected via a self-administered survey questionnaire, which yielded 150 complete and usable responses. A partial least square-structural equation modelling approach was used to validate the proposed model.

The results of this study revealed that environmental advertising and eco-labelling, directly and indirectly, affect frugality. Moreover, the link between green attitude and frugality also was supported. Furthermore, data supported the mediating effect of green attitude in the relationship between green marketing strategies and frugality.

The findings from this study can benefit hoteliers who are targeting frugal and environmentally conscious consumers. Moreover, the hoteliers will be able to understand the drivers of frugality in the tourism industry. It can assist them to formulate better marketing strategies in attracting and retaining frugal consumers.

The findings from this study offer a number of important social implications for society, the local government and the city and tourism council. Particularly, understanding the strategies towards frugality can pave the way towards the formation of a “less consumption” community. Moreover, it will serve as the guideline for designing the green and sustainability campaign for the nation.

This study is among the pioneers to investigate the issue pertaining to frugality in the tourism industry context. This study examines new linkages such as the indirect effect of green marketing strategies towards frugality. Moreover, the mediating effect of green attitude in the relationship between green marketing strategies (eco-labelling and environmental advertising) and frugality is comparatively a new link.

Hotel labour costs in Malaysia are increasing. This paper aims to explore Langkawi hotel managers’ perceptions about reducing labour costs using various information and communication technology (ICT) innovations.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers from 19 budget and boutique resorts on Langkawi Island, Malaysia. Qualitative data were recorded, transcribed and content analysed using latent coding.

All hotel managers reported using some form of ICT. The purpose for ICT adoption found was to increase productivity and efficiency. A hotel’s customer mix, the need of the organization and the technology budget available influenced the outcome of technological innovation. Langkawi hotels had successfully implemented Property Management Systems (PMSs), but self-check-in/out kiosks were not seen as important as they do not meet their customers’ service expectations.

This study identifies some factors influencing uptake by hotels of technological innovations. This initial qualitative exploration of the technology adoption feasibility in Langkawi suggests that implementation to reduce labour cost is more likely for employee-operated devices rather than customer-operated devices.

This study contributes to the human resource (HR) management literature by providing insight into the reasons hotel managers introduce technology in a developing country context. Results suggests that hotels face challenges in reducing labour costs through technology. These insights may serve to guide policymakers and hotel managers in other developing countries that are planning to use technology to solve their HR issues. Luxury hotels can consider adopting ICT for back-of-the-house operations such as using a HR information system within the HR department and PMS for the hotel overall operation.

These findings can increase the Malaysians awareness of ICT importance, especially in the hotel industry.

The Malaysian national minimum wage order policy was introduced in 2012. This policy has resulted in increased labour costs and suggests a need to adopt ICT. This paper is the first to examine the viewpoints of hotel practitioners as to the viability of this strategy. Whilst many studies on the adoption of ICT in the hotel industry focus on its impact on productivity and firm’s performance using quantitative methods, this study used qualitative methods to explore hotel managers’ perceptions on its feasibility to reduce dependence on labour.

The purpose of this paper is to use SERVQUAL to measure Generation Y’s (Gen Y) perceived service quality and its effects on their satisfaction toward the Malaysian hotel industry.

The required data were collected through questionnaire, distributed to 200 respondents in four areas of Klang Valley. The collected data were put through multiple regression to identify the effect of SERVQUAL dimensions on service quality.

The results reveal that all the elements of SERVQUAL, except tangibility, had a significant and positive relationship with customer satisfaction.

It is a niche area research which is done on a small population in a specified geographical area within Malaysia, though its research implications are significant and add significantly to the tourism literature with respect to Gen Y.

This research holds importance in the growing service tourism and hoteling industry in Malaysia, where Gen Y holds a key economic position and is predicted to grow even further in the near future.

It is a niche area research done on very specific consumers in Malaysia. It, therefore, adds to the emerging field of tourism in relation to Gen Y.

In the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, organizations now are expected to serve customers who are highly conscious of safety and sanitation. Among others, the hospitality industry is significantly and negatively influenced by this pandemic. Given the unique characteristics of services, using advanced technology is not enough to create a memorable experience without physical interaction between service providers and customers. Thus, this study aims to define the “new normal” for service customers and to explore the “new service design” for the hotel industry.

As most of the Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on the tourism industry, this study focuses on one of the emerging tourism destinations in this region, Malaysia. The data is collected through in-depth interviews with 17 potential national and international tourists.

The results suggest that considering the “new normal” for customers, there is an immediate need for the hotel industry to revamp their service design by mainly practicing disinfection and sanitation activities, re-designing overall infrastructure and introducing promotional offers.

This study is novel in its kind as it provides useful guidelines for both practitioners and academicians/researchers. Under this crucial time, very few research is conducted specifically focusing on the hotel industry and tourists’ behaviors amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will provide in-depth knowledge about tourists’ expectations from the hotel services, especially in their own voices.

Using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria, the purpose of this study is to compare perceptions of Malaysian hotel quality managers (HQMs) and employees on leadership and workforce practices.

A mixed methods approach was used. Questionnaires were distributed to 35 HQMs and 576 employees of three‐, four‐, and five‐star hotels. Interviews were conducted with HQMs. Descriptive statistics, t‐test, and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. All interviews were transcribed, hand coded, and analyzed for themes.

Compared to hotel employees, HQMs had higher scores for all leadership and workforce items. Comparing managers’ perceptions revealed a statistically significant difference between three‐ and four‐star with five‐star hotels on developing explicit quality policies and measurable objectives. For employees, there were statistically significant differences for most of the questionnaire items between three‐ and four‐star with five‐star hotels. HQMs identified inefficient communication systems and failure to develop explicit quality policies and objectives as main reasons for perception incongruences between employees and managers.

Two of the seven MBNQA criteria were used in this study; future research utilizing the other five criteria may be beneficial.

This study provides hoteliers with quality practice perception differences between HQMs and employees in different star‐rated hotels. Knowing these differences should compel hoteliers to review their leadership and workforce practices, identify reasons for discrepancies, and attempt to minimize the gap.

No known studies in Malaysia, investigating this issue, have been conducted using a mixed methods approach. Additionally, this study provides empirical findings on quality practices from manager and employee perspectives.

This study aims to shed light on the factors that affect frugality (FR) in the hotel industry. Specifically, it aims to test the role of environmental advertisement (EA) and eco-labelling (EL) on FR through green attitude (GA) in the Malaysian hotel industry. It also tested the role of government initiatives (GIS) as the moderator.

Using the judgemental sampling technique, a total of 259 usable responses were gathered from hotel guests. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the study hypotheses.

This study found that EA and EL affect hotel guests’ GA positively. Additionally, the finding revealed that GA exerts a positive influence on FR. Furthermore, this study disclosed that GA mediates the relationship between green marketing strategies (EA and EL) and FR. Contrary to expectation, the moderating role of GIs was not supported in this study.

This is a pioneering study that investigates FR in the hotel industry. Further, this study developed new relationships such as the mediating role of GA between marketing strategies in terms of EA and EL and FR. In addition, the moderating effect of GIs on the relationship between GA and FR, which is comparatively new in the literature was developed. The findings from this study are expected to benefit the hoteliers, governments and the researchers that specialized in consumer behaviour study.

The prevailing overconsumption issue in the hotel industry is attributable mainly to the irresponsible consumption behaviour of hotel guests. In parallel with Islamic principles, which advocate abstinence from excess consumption and frugality, the “waste not, want not” notion can be considered as one of the effective solutions to this problem. However, little is known about the factors that drive frugality amongst Muslim tourists. In addressing this gap, this study aims to predict the effect of environmental advertising and green attitude on frugality in the context of the Malaysian hotel industry. The study also tests the mediating role of the green attitude between environmental advertising and frugality. Furthermore, it examines the role of price consciousness as a moderator of the green attitude-frugality link.

The stimulus-organism-response theory was used to develop the conceptual framework of this study. A cross-sectional method was used to collect 222 usable questionnaires from Muslim tourists in Malaysia. The hypothesised relationships were tested using the structural equation modelling, partial least squares approach.

The study found support for the direct effect of environmental advertising and green attitude on frugality. It also confirmed the mediating effect of the green attitude in the environmental advertising-frugality link. However, price consciousness did not moderate the relationship.

The findings of the study provide valuable insight for hoteliers in developing a green strategy that will foster frugality amongst Muslim hotel guests. It will also help them develop better strategies for the frugal segment, especially for the Muslim community.

The study is amongst the pioneers in investigating frugality in the tourism industry. It is also the first to introduce price consciousness as a moderator of the relationship between the green attitude and frugality. Furthermore, its examination of frugality amongst Muslim hotel guests is a new contribution to the literature.

The objective of this study is to investigate if the five barriers, namely, Regulation/Government, Customer Demand, Level of Competition, Greenness at the Organizational Level, and Attitude at the Organizational Level towards Change, greatly impact the costs and potential benefits of environmental management practices (EMPs).

The target population of this research was 208 hotels, which are four- and five-star hotels in Malaysia. Due to small population, questionnaires were sent by mail to all the targeted four- and five-star hotels in Malaysia.

Only Greenness at the Organizational Level was found to have partially supported EMPs. Even though the results show that there is significant impact overall between barriers and EMPs in 40 four- and five-star hotels in Malaysia. In other words, the drivers do influence hotels' application of EMPs but weakly.

The limitation that is worth mentioning is regarding the drivers of EMPs chosen in this research. While the result indicated that drivers of EMPs significantly influenced hotels' usage of EMPs, the range of R2 of the five drivers and the two dimensions of EMPs was relatively very low.

A definitive conceptual framework of EMPs is essential, which could only be achieved through consensus and close cooperation amongst scholars and practitioners. For that reason, EMPs should not be seen as a mere collection of management systems but more towards management practices that are used within and for hotels' strategic purpose.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the impact of the minimum wage order from the perspectives of two different stakeholders, namely, hotel managers and employees, in the Malaysian hotel industry.

For the study, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews from three managers and three employees from hotels in West Malaysia.

From the managers’ perspective, minimum wage implementation has resulted in managers adopting the best payment structure to reduce labour costs for the operators, deciding to reduce the service charge allocation to employees and having to deal with minimal improvement in employee productivity and motivation. In contrast, the positive impact from the managers’ perspective is lower turnover intentions and social justice for foreign workers. From the employees’ perspective, there is a rather negative impact – minimum wage policy has resulted in a minimal increase in the salary. From a positive perspective, employees said that they have experienced an improvement in living standards.

This research presents current responses from hotel participants regarding the latest wage increase impact, some six years after its implementation.

In Malaysia, globalization has increased the number of multinational hotel chains and independent five-star hotels employing foreign professionals, interns and labourers. This study aims to explore the benefits and challenges for hotels of the many foreigners working in Malaysia.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Malaysian hotel managers concerning employment of foreign workers.

The results indicate that the employment of foreign workers benefits customers, enlarges the hotel’s network of industry contacts and enhances the knowledge, professionalism and service culture of the hotel workforce. This study identified challenges for the foreign workers such as culture shocks and problems with learning the Malay language.

This is an exploratory qualitative study conducted prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. The unemployment issue is worsened as COVID-19 spreads globally. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first study to examine the positive and negative impacts of foreign workers employment in hotels in Malaysia.

The employment of foreign workers reduces the availability of jobs for locals. Recommendations are provided for locals to improve their employability and for hotels to better host international interns.

This study highlights the need for balance between the benefits of foreign workers employment, and its challenges such as local unemployment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first in the international human resources management literature to provide a first-hand perspective of employment of expatriate managers, foreign labourers and interns in hotels in a Southeast Asian developing country.