Search results

The paper aims to find the preferences of different tourist type. Since, COVID-19 pandemic has brought the international hospitality industry to a standstill, there are some early signs of recovery. For this industry’s long-term recovery, the tourists’ changing preferences need to be analyzed. Moreover, with different types of tourists, a more nuanced and in-depth study is required to analyze the preferences of each tourist type.

The research focuses on the changing preferences of the tourist by comparatively analyzing the pre-COVID-19 and current COVID-19 phase. The study extracted online data from TripAdvisor and identified themes by applying Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA).

The study’s findings confirmed the change in preferences of the different types of tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic by performing thematic analysis. New themes emerged in the pandemic phase, providing more insights into tourists’ changing preferences in the current COVID-19 phase. The study also found that specific dominant themes in the pre-COVID-19 phase were replaced by new themes in the current COVID-19 phase.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare the pre-COVID-19 and current COVID-19 phase themes to decipher the new themes that managers of the hotels should consider to win back tourists’ confidence during the pandemic. The unraveling of changing preferences of the different tourist types in the current COVID-19 pandemic is the novel contribution of the study.

在 COVID-19 大流行期间改变游客对酒店业的偏好

COVID-19 大流行使国际酒店业陷入停顿。虽然有一些复苏的早期迹象, 但对于这个行业的长期复苏, 还需要分析游客不断变化的偏好。此外, 针对不同类型的游客, 需要进行更细致和深入的研究来分析每种游客类型的偏好。

该研究通过比较分析 COVID-19 之前和当前 COVID-19 阶段, 重点关注游客不断变化的偏好。该研究从 TripAdvisor 提取在线数据, 并通过应用隐含狄利克雷分布 (LDA) 确定主题。

该研究的调查结果通过进行主题分析证实了不同类型游客在 COVID-19 大流行期间偏好的变化。大流行阶段出现了新主题, 为游客在当前 COVID-19 阶段不断变化的偏好提供了更多见解。该研究还发现, COVID-19之前阶段的特定主导主题被当前 COVID-19 阶段的新主题所取代。

该研究首次比较了 COVID-19 之前和当前 COVID-19 阶段的主题, 从而为酒店管理者在大流行期间赢回游客的信心提供了应该考虑的新主题。研究发现在当前的 COVID-19 大流行中不同游客类型的偏好的变化是该研究的新贡献。

This study is concerned with an empirical investigation that explores the barriers to export that emerging market entrepreneurs face when engaging in international business. The data was gathered from a survey of 214 manufacturing firms, headquartered in Malaysia, and considered to be an emerging market. Statistical analysis was carried out using one‐way analysis of variance and the Tukey‐Kramer Multiple Comparison Procedure. The study’s key findings indicate that exporters and non‐exporters perceive the importance of the need to adapt products to meet foreign customer preferences and a lack of capacity dedicated to a continuing supply of exports differently as barriers to export. However, other than those barriers to export the study findings indicate no significant differences in the perceptions of exporters and non‐exporters from an emerging market towards the different barriers to export.

This study explores the role of the Internet in export marketing. The data was gathered based on a survey of 61 Lebanese manufacturing firms engaged in exporting. The findings indicate a positive relationship between Website ownership, average annual sales volume and export. The findings further indicate that the main reason for owning a corporate Website was to attract clients outside of Lebanon. The second and third top reasons for owning a corporate Website turned out to be improving the company’s image and advertising, respectively. Finally, the findings indicate a positive relationship between Website ownership and engaging in export, share of exports over total sales and the number of countries to which the firm exports.

This study aims to examine country of origin (COO), price and brand effects on Lebanese consumers’ attitudes towards US products and brands while evaluating a low‐involvement product like chocolate.

The research comprised formulation of a detailed questionnaire that was served to 488 administered at various shopping malls across Lebanon. Statistical analyses of data employed included Pearson correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests.

The data supported both the hypotheses that respectively predicted that brand price was more important than COO in the evaluation of low‐involvement products. The data did not support the hypothesis that predicted a preference by Lebanese consumers for “Made in Lebanon” products, based on a similar observed preference for domestic products in developed nations.

The external validity of the findings are limited since an over‐exaggerated weight is provided for the “made in” label while in a real purchase situation; price as well as brand have a weight that is far superior to that of the COO. In today's business world several cues are already embedded in the brand name which limits the internal validity of the study; this includes the “made in” labels as external cues used by respondents while evaluating a particular chocolate brand regardless of the origin cue already dispatched by the brand itself.

The results have evidenced, if needed, the importance of taste when purchasing a particular brand. Hence, a Lebanese consumer would not mind choosing a Ghour chocolate bar instead of a Nestlé or even a Cadbury chocolate bar only if these three brands had equivalent attributes. Brand is the second attribute considered by consumers when choosing a particular chocolate. Thus, a successful approach for international marketers would be to build strong brand equity. The results provide extremely useful outputs to the marketing professionals.

If one traces the changes in India's economic policies over the last five decades, they bear the imprint of changing geopolitical dynamics. While India's policy makers often couch their agendas in ideological terms, in reality the economy has been steered by the ruling elite to their economic advantage. Therefore, liberalization and the permissible boundaries within which a reform process will operate can be best understood if contextually examined and interpreted. This paper attempts to explain the dynamics of the economic policy process and outlines the contours of India's liberalization program.

Investing in emerging economies has become very popular as a result of globalization of markets and competition. Among these, the countries in East and Southeast Asia have become very popular investment sites. This chapter explores the promise and potential problems associated with one Southeast Asian emerging market, Vietnam, and presents a survey-based study of Singaporean companies involved in the Vietnamese market. This study helps us understand why foreign firms might view Vietnam as an attractive investment site and describes the keys to success in operating in the Vietnamese market.

This study seeks to examine country of origin (COO) and national loyalty effects on Lebanese consumers' quality perceptions, attitudes, and purchase intentions with respect to airlines serving Lebanon.

The research comprised formulation of a detailed questionnaire that was served to 360 persons via personal delivery and e‐mails. Statistical analysis of data employed chi‐square and ANOVA tests.

It was found that factors other than personal experience could impact customer perceptions when selecting the airlines of preference in which national loyalty was a key factor. An important finding was that, from the point of view of personal experience, demographic variables influenced customer perceptions, whereas otherwise the country of origin (COO) effect was predominant.

There was a direct implication that factors other than personal experience do impact customer perception when selecting the airlines of preference. The findings show disagreement with many scholars who give high importance to personal experience as a basis for selection. In this scenario, the majority of the respondents traveled on MEA and gave a good evaluation for the quality services provided by MEA. A different experimental setting would be required to determine the response of dissatisfied customers with travel on MEA.

The analysis of COO effect in selecting an airline by Lebanese consumers is the first of its kind of study in Lebanon and would contribute to the overall literature. It could also provide useful information to the airline industry and national aviation planners in Lebanon.

The aim of this paper is to explore the historical development of brands and the development of literature on brand switching to define the antecedents that cause switching behavior among consumers and the impact of switching on market share of companies.

The historical development of brands is tracked using different secondary sources. Then an intensive literature review is conducted on brand switching at the consumer and business levels. At each level, studies on brand switching are divided into several categories, such as household products, technological products and service providers, and the common factors behind switching for each category and between categories are determined.

An examination of the historical development of brands shows that brands appeared on products a long time ago and evolved through a number of stages based on the economic and social environment. The literature reveals that no single model can explain brand switching behavior of consumers or businesses across different industries and products. Each study uses a specific set of factors to explain brand switching. However, brand attractiveness can be counted as the most common factor behind brand switching.

There is little understanding of the historical mutations of brand switching behavior and the influence of mutation on branding strategies. The study suggests that continuous exploration of consumer’s preferences is needed to create and sustain attractive brands.

Managers increasingly recognize brands as one of the most valuable assets of an organization, and, therefore, an informed knowledge of the factors underpinning brand switching may help managers build attractive brands and prevent brand switching. This condition imposes significant challenges in a highly innovative environment, where technological changes can quickly make attractive brands obsolete.

This paper highlights that the factors behind brand switching should be monitored constantly, even for the same brand, to define an appropriate strategy that helps sustain brand attractiveness.

This article aims to analyze factors impacting international entrepreneurship in Malaysia.

Interviews were conducted with 71 firms, both in the manufacturing sector and the service sector, across the 12 states of Malaysia.

The interviews revealed the reasons these firms internationalised, key success factors, and the barriers to internationalisation including export market attractiveness, government policy, foreign practices being incompatible with domestic business and adapting to foreign market needs.

Due to a lack of resources, firms from West Malaysia were not contacted. West Malaysian firms may well possess characteristics concerning the barriers to internationalisation that are unique to their region.

This article provides insight into the perceptions and decision‐making processes of Malaysian entrepreneurs with regard to the barriers to internationalisation, thereby making a contribution to international business knowledge in a relatively unknown region of the world.

The study findings and interviews showed that in order to encourage and to be successful in international business, government policy must play an active role in promoting, assisting and helping Malaysian firms in terms of financing, training, technology and the offer of lucrative tax concessions so that the domestic firms would be encouraged to engage in international business.

Two hypotheses concerning two variables that potentially influence the “add/drop” foreign market decisions of U.S. exporters of sewing machines are developed and empirically tested. The variables are import market potential, and a surrogate measure of import market competitiveness. A third variable, concerning a developing country’s “trade regime” – Import Substituting, Export Promoting (Bhagwati, 1978) – is employed as a control variable in the tests. The two hypotheses are confirmed, and the results shed light on how U.S. exporters of sewing machines should analyze data on the three variables en route to adjusting their respective portfolios of export markets in a context of making add/drop foreign market decisions. The results of the research potentially contribute to three different literatures: the international marketing literature, the competitiveness literature and the “trade regime” literature in international economics.