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The purpose of this research paper is to establish the impact of process and service innovation on non-financial and financial performance in the tourism sector, as well as to explain the mediating role of organizational learning.

A quantitative approach was used, based on partial least squares–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), Smart PLS 4.0 software. The sample consisted of 426 establishments in the tourism sector in Zone I, Ecuador. Online surveys were employed to collect data, yielding 118 responses, to assess the impact of innovation on business performance from 2020 to 2022.

Process and service innovation positively and significantly affect non-financial and financial performance, respectively. Organizational learning mediates the relationship between process innovation and disservice. The relationship between non-financial and financial performance could not be confirmed. The model explains 53.10% of non-financial performance and 26.10% of financial performance.

The relationship between innovation and performance in the tourism sector has been studied in several developed economies, while little has been studied in developing countries. This work contributes to an empirical discussion including a mediating variable in the innovation–performance relationship in the Latin American context.

El propósito de esta investigación es establecer el impacto de la innovación de procesos y servicios en el desempeño no financiero y financiero en el sector turístico, así como explicar el papel mediador del aprendizaje organizacional.

Se utilizó un enfoque cuantitativo, basado en el software PLS SE M, Smart PLS 4.0. La muestra estuvo constituida por 426 establecimientos del sector turístico de la Zona I, Ecuador. Se aplicaron encuestas en línea para recopilar datos, que arrojaron 118 respuestas, para evaluar el impacto de la innovación en el desempeño empresarial de 2020 a 2022.

La innovación de proceso y de servicio afecta positiva y significativa al desempeño no financiero y financiero, respectivamente. El aprendizaje organizacional media la relación entre innovación de proceso y des servicio. No se pudo confirmar la relación entre desempeño no financiero y financiero. El modelo explica el 53.10% del desempeño no financiero y el 26.10 del desempeño financiero.

La relación entre innovación y rendimiento en el sector turístico se ha estudiado en varias economías desarrolladas, mientras que en los países en desarrollo se ha estudiado poco. Este trabajo contribuye a una discusión empírica incluyendo una variable mediadora en la relación innovación-desempeño en contexto latinoamericano.

Studies show that internet has become a major force propelling growth in tourism sector in many countries. An appropriate diffusion of the information and communication technology (ICT) services can facilitate visibility of hotels and lodges on search sites and third-party booking websites and thus influence demand. It also helps leverage the use of social media for promotion and customer acquisition purposes. Recently, Myanmar, with impressive historical world heritage sites, is witnessing a tourist boom; more hotels are opening up and achieving competitive advantage by offering free internet connectivity to guests and locating their premises in the vicinity of an ICT infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate ICT readiness to support the lodging industry in Myanmar by focusing on one sub-index of the Network Readiness Index (NRI, a term heavily used by World Economic Forum). The paper focuses on the “Network Use” component of NRI, pertaining to the effect of the “quality of the Internet connection” available to lodges, and its association with the following dimensions: customer service: the availability of ICT services to guests, such as internet connectivity and availability of ATM in the vicinity; digital marketing: the use of social media, keeping records of guests and analyzing aggregate data to extract business insights; and business-to-business online booking: the use of online booking via major third-party intermediary websites like Expedia, Booking.com and Agoda.com.

Surveys were conducted in three major touristic cities in Myanmar: Bagan, Mandalay and the capital city, Nay Pyi Taw. A total of 101 valid questionnaires were used. Survey questions were centered around the following themes: internet connection problems, digital marketing activities, and online booking directly or via third party digital intermediary. The data are presented and interpreted by descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Though, Myanmar is new to internet and commercial use of ICT, the awareness of the importance of leveraging social media and online booking for business development is surprisingly high in the lodging sector. On average, about 80 percent of surveyed hotels are present on the WWW through a dedicated hotel website. However, most websites lack an online booking capability. As a result, and due to a global trend, online booking through third-party intermediaries has become the dominant option for hotel booking arrangements in Myanmar. Agoda, founded in Bangkok in 2002, was found to be the number one choice for online booking intermediary in Myanmar, followed by Booking.com. Analysis of the logistic regression revealed that it was highly likely that areas around ATMs have better internet connectivity. As expected, it was also found that it is very unlikely that hotels reporting a problem in internet connectivity will be able to provide internet service to their guests. Despite the presence of problems in internet connectivity in Mandalay and Bagan cities, located away from the capital; most hotels in these cities resort to leveraging social media for promotion and customer/guest development. The analysis also revealed that cities located away from the capital are more aggressive in leverage online third-booking intermediaries.

While researchers were hoping for a higher participation rate in the survey, especially in the city of Mandalay, data collection was challenging, a number of hotels/lodges denied participation. This may have some implications on the generalization of results. However, over 70 and 45 percent of hotels/lodges in the capital city and the ancient city of Bagan, respectively, had participated in the survey.

Tourism has a great potential for growth in Myanmar. This research recommends ways to achieve and sustain competitive advantage for the lodging sector, which is vital for tourism.

Though a considerable research exists on tourism and the recent advances of the ICT sector in Myanmar, the country’s readiness for the actual usage of the internet for the development of tourism has not been specifically addressed. This paper explores this with compelling research findings useful for policy makers as well as players in the tourism sector.

The main purpose of this paper is to outline the antecedents of patient satisfaction in the field of medical tourism (MT) applying extant literature and to develop a conceptual model based on the review.

This paper presents a thorough review of prior studies related to the antecedents of patient satisfaction in the MT sector. Moreover, it provides the theoretical base that helped the researcher to identify significant relationship between the patient satisfaction and its antecedents.

The researchers identified the prominent antecedents of patient satisfaction and present the potential interrelationships between different antecedents of patient satisfaction such as treatment quality, cost attractiveness, destination image and service quality with patient satisfaction based on the review.

The results have momentous practical implications as they will help researchers to better understand the antecedents of patient satisfaction and their potential inter linkages with patient satisfaction in MT sector. The conceptual model derived from the review may guide the actions of researchers as well as practitioners in the MT industry as a whole. The present study provides insights for further research in the MT sector and thereby helps to further enrich the existing theoretical base of the MT.

The study brings together the scattered knowledge from the broad and extensive range of medical or health tourism and cognate literature which indicate ideological differences among various aspects of MT as well as potential factors determining patient satisfaction in MT sector (antecedents of satisfaction). The newly developed model incorporates a new construct called “treatment quality” as different from “service quality,” which is a widely used construct to explain customer satisfaction. The antecedents of patient satisfaction and their inter-linkages with patient satisfaction provide a sound theoretical foundation for the future studies.

This chapter examines the competitiveness of the tourism cluster in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by applying Porter's competitiveness of nation diamond model, with its four dimensions: factor conditions, demand conditions, the related and supporting industries, and, lastly, the firm's strategy and rivalry. Specifically, we provide a thorough analysis of the UAE's strategic plans, initiatives, and tactics to cultivate competitiveness in tourism across the nation. This includes the draft of a vision for the nation, decisions to build and reinforce their infrastructure, determination to develop and nurture skilled workforce, ability to respond innovatively to their customers' evolving demands, selection of the appropriate base for competition, and, finally, continuous melioration of related industries. Examining secondary data and by reviewing governmental reports, we find that UAE did not cultivate a national advantage by owning random natural resources, but rather by having a strategic intent to converge all their efforts and to deliberately build a coherent cluster in the tourism sector. The chapter also provides some limitations and recommendations for future research.

The aim of the study is to determine the benefits of transforming a destination into smart destination (SD) to restart tourism after the COVID-19 outbreak, to match the dimensions of SD with restarting strategies, and to make conceptual inferences to serve this. For this purpose, two reports published by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) in 2020 were examined: Priorities for Tourism Recovery and Global Guidelines to Restart Tourism. Then, the contents of these reports and the dimensions of SDs were matched and a guiding model for tourism decision-makers was developed.

This study examines how domestic honeymoon destination quality contributes to achieving honeymooners' fantasy experience and how fantasy experience impacts honeymooners' revisit intention.

Using the convenience sampling technique, 202 self-administrated survey questionnaires were collected (184 considered useable) from domestic honeymooners who had experienced honeymoon trip. The analysis was performed by employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4.0.

The findings indicate that honeymoon destination image strongly and significantly influenced honeymooners' fantasy experience, followed by honeymooners' privileges, service providers, social aspects and accommodation. At the same time, the dining experience and honeymoon expenses had no significant impact on the honeymooners' fantasy experience. Notably, honeymooners' fantasy experience also had a strong and significant effect on their revisit intention to honeymoon destination in the future.

This study has an important theoretical contribution, being the first to explore the post-consumption behavior, that is, fantasy experience and revisit intention of domestic honeymooners in tourism literature. The study also has important implications for tourism industry stakeholders, that is, government, tourism department and officials, honeymoon tour planners and hotel managers, to make honeymoon destinations more attractive and fascinating, especially among newlywed couples and the young generation of tourists.

This study examines the significance of Oman’s sustainable strategies to mitigate overtourism. The study adopts a quantitative study design with a survey method to investigate the strategies’ effectiveness. Two hundred twenty participants were recruited through random sampling, most of whom were male. The data was collected from October to November 2020, and the data collection process lasted for four months, from December to March 2021. This study also reviews the role of economic challenges in causing overtourism in Oman. Further, it analyses the sustainable strategies adopted by the Omani government to overcome the overcrowding of tourist places in Muscat and Salalah and prevent the deterioration in the quality of tourism-related services and products. The significance and impact of the sustainable strategies were investigated through factor analysis. We developed the following hypotheses: (i) the economic challenges have resulted in overcrowded tourism in Oman; (ii) the sustainable strategies or framework(s) are sufficient to overcome overtourism in Oman; and (iii) there is a significant impact of sustainable strategies or framework(s) to overcome overtourism in Oman. The study concluded that economic challenges directly impacted the quality of the services and the entire hospitality and tourism sector in Oman, concerning overtourism. However, the government of Oman has adopted sustainable strategies and frameworks to address this overtourism challenge. Most respondents asserted that the steps taken to mitigate overtourism were significant in eliminating the challenge of overtourism in Oman.

This study aims to determine the effects of lodging infrastructure development (LID) on Cordillera Administrative Region’s (CAR) environmental quality and natural resource management and its implication to globally responsible leadership. Specifically, this study sought to determine the contribution of LID to environmental deterioration and natural resource degradation in the CAR. As a result, a mathematical model is developed, which supports sustainability practices to maintain the environmental quality and natural resource management in CAR, Philippines.

This study used a descriptive research design using a mixed-methods approach. Self-structured interview and survey were used to gather the data. The population of this study involved three groups. There were 6.28% (34) experts in the field for the qualitative data, 70.24% (380) respondents for the quantitative data and 23.47% (127) from the lodging establishments. 120 respondents from the Department of Tourism – CAR (DOT-CAR) accredited hotels. Nonparametric and nonlinear regression analysis was used to process the data.

The effects of LID on the environmental quality and natural resource management in CAR as measured through carbon emission from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), electricity and water consumption in the occupied guest rooms revealed a direct correlation between the LID. Findings conclude that the increase in tourist arrival is a trigger factor in the increase in LID in the CAR. The increase in LID implies a rise in carbon emission in the lodging infrastructure. Any increase in tourist arrivals increases lodging room occupancy; the increased lodging room occupancy contributes to carbon emissions. Thus, tourism trends contribute to the deterioration of the environmental quality and degradation of the natural resources in the CAR. A log-log model shows the percentage change in the average growth of tourist arrival and the percentage increase in carbon emissions. Establishments should observe standard room capacity to maintain the carbon emission of occupied lodging rooms at a minimum. Responsible leadership is a factor in the implementation of policy on standard room capacity.

The result of the study has some implications for the lodging businesses, the local government unit (LGU), the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the CAR. The study highlights the contribution of the lodging establishments to CO₂ emission, which can degrade the quality of the environment, and the implication of responsible leadership in managing natural resources in the CAR. The direct inverse relationship between energy use and CO₂ emission in hotels indicates that increased energy consumption leads to environmental degradation (Ahmad et al., 2018). Therefore, responsible leadership among policymakers in the lodging and government sectors – LGU, DOT and DENR – should abound in the CAR. Benchmarking on the model embarked from this study can help in designing and/or enhancing the policy on room capacity standardization, considering the total area with its maximum capacity to keep the carbon emission at a lower rate. Furthermore, as a responsible leader in the community, one should create programs that regulate the number of tourists visiting the place to decrease the number of overnight stays. Besides, having the political will to implement reduced room occupancy throughout the lodging establishments in CAR can help reduce the carbon emissions from the lodging businesses. After all, one of the aims of the International Environment Protection Organization is to reduce CO₂ emissions in the tourism industry. Hence, responsible leadership in environmental quality preservation and sustainable natural resource management must help prevent and avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Most studies about carbon emission in the environment tackle about carbon dioxide emitted by transportation and factories. This study adds to the insights on the existing information about the carbon emission in the environment from the lodging establishments through the use of LPG, electricity and water consumption in the occupied guest rooms. The findings of the study open an avenue for globally responsible leadership in sustaining environmental quality and preservation of natural resources by revisiting and amending the policies on the number of room occupancy, guidelines and standardization, considering the total lodging area with its maximum capacity to keep the carbon emission at a minimum, thus contributing to the lowering of GHG emissions from the lodging industry.

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether higher tourism development in a region is associated with lower-quality employment in that region.

The analysis is based on the last two editions of the European Working Conditions Survey and on the tourism development of European regions. Two samples were studied (2015 and 2021).

Tourism development does not affect the quality of employment in regions. The institutional regime of the country to which the region belongs is associated with the job quality (JQ) in the region.

Only subjective indicators of employment quality are considered in the analysis.

The quality of employment is related to the institutional regime. Policymakers should consider the institutional factors of social democratic countries to improve the low quality of tourism occupations.

Research on the quality of employment in tourism has mostly focused on tourism occupations without considering determinants other than industry characteristics. This research is unique because it includes both the institutional view of JQ and the overall regional employment.

分析一个地区较高的旅游业发展是否与该地区较低品质的就业有关

分析基于最近两版的欧洲工作条件调查和欧洲地区的旅游业发展。研究了两个样本, 分别为 2015 年和 2021 年。

旅游业发展不影响地区就业品质。该地区所属国家的制度体系与该地区的就业品质相关。

旅游就业品质的研究多集中在旅游职业, 没有考虑产业特征以外的决定因素。这项研究的独特之处在于它既包含了工作品质的制度观点, 也包含了整体地区就业情况。

分析中仅考虑就业品质的主观指标。

就业品质与制度体系有关; 因此, 政策制定者应考虑社会民主国家的体制因素, 以改善某些旅游职业的低品质状况。

Analizar si un mayor desarrollo turístico en una región está asociado a un empleo de menor calidad en dicha región.

El análisis se basa en las dos últimas ediciones de la Encuesta Europea sobre las Condiciones de Trabajo y en el desarrollo turístico de las regiones europeas. Se estudiaron dos muestras (2015 y 2021).

El desarrollo turístico no afecta a la calidad del empleo en las regiones. El régimen institucional del país al que pertenece la región está asociado a la calidad del empleo en la región.

La investigación sobre la calidad del empleo en el turismo se ha centrado mayoritariamente en las ocupaciones turísticas sin tener en cuenta otros factores determinantes aparte de las características de la industria. Esta investigación es única porque incluye tanto el punto de vista institucional de la calidad del empleo como el empleo regional global.

En el análisis sólo se consideran indicadores subjetivos de la calidad del empleo.

La calidad del empleo está relacionada con el régimen institucional. Los responsables políticos deberían tener en cuenta los factores institucionales de los países socialdemócratas para mejorar la baja calidad de las ocupaciones turísticas.

This study examines two crucial aspects of employability in the tourism industry, with a particular emphasis on contemporary advancements. The first aspect pertains to the emerging demands in the employability sector of the tourism industry, driven by technological advancements. Given the evident nature of this emerging trend, it is imperative to possess a robust infrastructure and comprehensive knowledge. The second aspect is to evaluate the level of education that industry employees receive in relation to the tourism sector in order to ensure sustainable development.

The study employed a thematic literature review to evaluate the significance of tourism education on employability and the necessity of adopting technology.

The findings deviate from the extensive literature search showed that Higher Education Institutions should prioritise ensuring that the new generation’s technological capabilities align with the traditional curricula in their respective fields, given the widespread use of personal computers and smartphones. Ultimately, students are increasingly expecting that technology will significantly impact their educational experiences and modes of communication for their future careers.

It is widely acknowledged that the most efficient approach to fostering learning is to exert authority over the learning setting, and educators should generate learning prospects for students rather than merely transmitting information and facts.

This review assesses two key aspects of employability in the tourism industry, focussing on recent technological advancements and the necessary skills for students' future careers.