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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/EUM0000000001683. When citing the article, please cite: Paul R. Gamble, (1991), “IT Connectivity and Pan-European Hospitality Marketing”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 3 Iss: 4.

Much of the focus on information technology has been on the technology rather than the information. Developments in computing and communication systems have sharply accelerated the trend towards highly connected networks of organisations, each of which contributes to the total provision of goods or services to the consumer. Travel and hospitality products are almost archetypal examples of this type of structure. Hospitality managers must develop the technical skills that will enable them to envisage different forms of organisation structure and to devise new marketing strategies to exploit it.

Discusses the idea that the potential for change which machines represent for organizations allows people to change themselves – with reference to a recent MIT study emphasizing that managers rather than technology must be the agent of change. Reviews in brief possible IT advances. Outlines a strategy for pan‐European and international marketing transformed by these advances.

Delayed initiatives in respect of information technology do not seem to have resulted in major gains for the hospitality industry. On the contrary, there are many symptoms of a lack of firm direction. A strategic approach to IT offers the advantages of planning and consistency. It is necessary if companies are to manage their approach to IT effectively over the next decade. As the significant changes in the operating environment of the 1990s begin to make themselves evident, hospitality companies may well come to recognise an IT strategy as a key component of continued successful growth.

Management education, training and development is a key issue for the British economy which has, by international standards, an undereducated, underqualified and undertrained workforce. However, the varied nature of managerial work reduces the value of prescriptive approaches to management education. The Hotel, Catering and Institutional Management Association (HCIMA) recently redesigned its professional qualifications to try to meet the complex needs of the hospitality industry more closely. In general its proposals have been well received but it is clear that as elsewhere, hospitality managers need to take a more positive stance towards personal development and education if they are to cope with the 1990s as effectively as their European counterparts seem ready to do.

For more than three decades, computerisation has seemed to promise much to help managers perform more effectively. However, various attempts to develop management information systems in the 1960s and 1970s appeared to do little beyond overwhelming managers with hard data that may have borne little relevance to the soft data actually used to make decisions. New advances in computer hardware and software in the 1980s offer the prospect of more complete Decision Support Systems (DSS). Other service organisations such as airlines and tour operators are beginning to exploit DSS. If hospitality organisations are to cope with the 1990s, some changes in their corporate culture must be envisaged, to take better advantage of management skills.

A look at how professional qualifications could help UK hospitality managers to raise their standards of expertise to meet the European challenge.

An estimated 1.2 million students gamble, equating to approximately two in every three students. In the UK, university students have reached the legal age to gamble; many have received significant sums of financial support and will be responsible for managing their own finances. Some UK universities have acknowledged that students engage in gambling activity and the need to provide gambling-related support. However, more research is needed to better understand student gambling activities and how universities can optimise provision of support. The purpose of this study was to enhance this understanding.

A total of 210 university students completed an online survey to provide details of their gambling behaviour and views on the types of support that they felt would best support students.

Both gambling and non-gambling students reported a preference for specialised gambling-related support within student services without the requirement for gambling-focused workshops (p < 0.01). Follow-up analysis revealed a significantly greater proportion of females did not gamble (p < 0.01), that males spent more money when gambling (p < 0.01) and were higher risk gamblers than females (p < 0.01).

These results provide evidence for gambling support to feature overtly as part of university support and well-being services.