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Restaurants are unique and challenging environments for accommodating food allergies. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate food allergy knowledge, attitudes and resources among restaurant employees, and identify differences based on restaurant mode of operation.

A total of 209 food-service workers were surveyed in full-service restaurants across Southern Ontario, Canada. A paper-based questionnaire was used to evaluate participants’ food allergy knowledge, attitudes toward handling food allergy requests and emergencies, and the availability of food allergen resources at the restaurant.

Most participants were knowledgeable about food allergies, and valued being able to provide safe meals. However, there was a general lack of access to important food allergy risk management resources and training. Food allergy attitudes were significantly different between restaurant modes of operation. Also, food allergy training and resources were positively correlated with employee attitudes toward food allergies.

The results of this study show that engaging employees in food allergy training can contribute to greater levels in employee awareness and confidence in protecting health and safety of restaurant patrons with food allergies. Restaurants that demonstrate a strong preparedness toward handling food allergy requests can deliver a better customer experience and increase customer loyalty.

The findings of this study underscore the need for the restaurant industry, policy makers and food safety educators to work together to develop training programs and relevant resources to support and facilitate food allergy risk management in restaurants.

This study provides background information on the casino gaming and tourism industries in Canada. The historical, regulatory, developmental, and subsequent growth to the present size and scope of the Canadian casino gaming industry is profiled. There are currently 64 full‐service casinos in Canada. Net revenue from government‐operated lotteries, video lottery terminals (VLTs) and casinos increased from $2.7 billion in 1990, to $9.0 billion in 2000, generating more then $5 billion in profits for Canadian governments. Employment in the gambling industry increased from 12,000 in 1992 to 41,000 in 2001. Casino gaming is currently the fastest‐growing component of the Canadian tourism industry. Current Canadian casino gaming markets are identified and suggestions made for possible future directions in this high growth industry.

Despite extensive investments in food handler training, research suggests that training programs are inconsistent, and rarely evaluated for efficacy. The generic prescriptive content and school‐like delivery methods used in current food safety training may be a barrier to application. The purpose of this paper is to develop a food safety communication tool, food safety infosheets, targeted specifically to foodservice food handlers, utilizing popular media stories to illustrate the consequences of poor food handling.

Food safety infosheets were designed to be surprising, connect food handlers' actions and consequences, and generate discussion through a verbal narrative framework. A Delphi‐like exercise (n=19), a posting pilot (n=8) were carried out to assess the appropriateness of the concept of food safety infosheets. An intense participatory ethnographic study with an Ontario, Canada, restaurant, and in‐depth interviews with food service operators in Manhattan, Kansas, and Lansing, Michigan, (n=17) were conducted to gather qualitative data on the food service kitchen environment, including barriers to food safety practices, and the communication preferences of those who work in such kitchens.

The expert group, foodservice operators, and food handlers accepted food safety infosheets as an appropriate concept and valued storytelling as an effective communication strategy. Learning in the kitchen environment is largely hands‐on and visual, and time pressure dictates practices. It is often difficult to attract and keep the attention of food handlers. Storytelling, celebrity and local outbreaks are of interest to the target audience.

This paper provides a blueprint for the design and refinement of food safety communication tools targeted towards a specific audience. By utilizing multiple methodologies, it provides a framework for other researchers to follow.

The Travel and Tourism Research Association‐Canada Chapter held its 27th annual conference in Niagara Falls, Canada, from 14‐16 October 2001, with the theme of optimizing destination development. This paper is a summary of the presentations and workshops. Aside from a research case study of the Niagara region, two keynote addresses and a final plenary session, the conference dealt with six sub‐themes: the environmental and human sides of optimization, innovations in destination development and marketing, challenges associated with them and, finally, the relationship between food, wine and tourism. Two workshops were held on the effective use of online surveys and on the process of developing a tourism optimization management model (TOMM), using Niagara Falls and knowledge gained from the research case study as a basis for building it.

Tourism is a key source of income to South Africa. Food and beverages is a key part of tourism and the literature reveals that tourists spend up to a quarter of their budget on cuisine. South Africa has, however, been rated as the least-prepared culinary travel destination and the travel destination with the greatest potential for growth. Therefore, a segmentation taxonomy based on culinary preferences of international tourists to South Africa is put forth which can be used to prepare South Africa as a culinary travel destination. The 627 international tourists surveyed were divided into five segments with the use of factor analyses, t-tests, Spearman rank correlations and analysis of variance. The segments were named conservationists, experience seekers, devotees, explorers and socialisers (CEDES taxonomy). Multiple results and implications are discussed in the paper.

The application of network theory and social network analysis (SNA) to tourism and hospitality is recent. Nonetheless, several authors have been applying the method contributing to regional planning, local-level tourism networks, tourism policy and governance, innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge transfer, and learning. This chapter aims to characterize the use of SNA in tourism and hospitality research. Specifically, it intends to: (i) present the framework of SNA in a methodological perspective; (ii) perform a bibliometric analysis of SNA use in tourism and hospitality research; (iii) systematize the dimensions and metrics that researchers can use to apply SNA, namely the relevance for tourism; and (iv) present a case study analyzing tourism innovation networks. This chapter brings important contributions to tourism and hospitality research and practice, by focusing on the theoretical framework and practical application of SNA, providing relevant conceptual and practical knowledge that will empower researchers to use this method in tourism and hospitality studies.

While the importance of social media will continue to grow, the purpose of this study is to provide a retrospective systematic literature review of the social media research published in major hospitality and tourism journals over a specific time period.

The study conducted a bibliometric analysis to review the literature of 439 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals over a 15-year time span (2002-2016).

Ulrike Gretzel authored the highest fractional citations. The results indicated that social media-related research was mostly published in top-tier journals. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management was amongst the four leading journals in terms of the percentage of published social media articles. While inter-country social media research collaborations were relatively modest, interestingly, inter-country collaborations have been steadily increasing in the past five years. Another finding indicated that social media research in hospitality and tourism journals has been predominantly quantitative. The results revealed six new areas within the consumer behaviour research theme, namely, eWOM, service recovery, customer satisfaction, brand/destination image and service quality. Finally, it is important to note that four new trends in social media research appeared between 2011 and 2016, namely, big data, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0.

While this study made significant contributions to the social media literature, some limitations do exist. For example, the current research excluded publications from major conferences, books, book chapters and dissertations. Additionally, it is not within the scope of this paper to take into account issues related to self-citations.

The results obtained from analysis contribute to a comprehensive understanding of social media research progress in hospitality and tourism. For example, evaluating the performance of individual scholars helps educational institutions to compete in the global university ranking system. Additionally, to compete for funding opportunities on the topic of social media, institutions can use citation counts to demonstrate their competitiveness. Furthermore, due to the expected future growth in the number of social media platforms, practitioners need to understand motivating factors and tourists’ needs in different countries, target market segments, age groups and cultures to create highly engaging communities around their brands.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the sample of this study synthesized the largest selection of social media articles published in hospitality and tourism journals. This is the first study to apply the fractional score at the author level, the adjusted appearance score at the university level and the average citation score at the journal and inter-country levels in the analysis. In addition, prevalent research orientations and research trends in social media made significant contributions to existing literature.

Over the next few months a lively image of Dick Whittington and his cat will be making its appearance in the capital. Walking briskly along, with his cat trotting obediently behind or dashing ahead with its tail in the air, he will stride across the print and posters of the Museum of London as the Museum's new corporate image.