No description available.

This research study aims to investigate consumers' perception ( attitudes and their intention to chose) of green hotels. Due to significant increases in the Hispanic population and consequently their purchasing power, the study will focus on Hispanics' attitudes. Additionally, this study seeks to enlighten and identify attitudes that could possibly attract a different kind of consumer to green hotels. ' The use of eco-friendly products has risen as more people become aware of the consequences human behavior has on the environment. Likewise, the amount of hotels that employ strong efforts on environmental activities has increased. However, the concept of green hotels seems to be stronger in the supply-side rather than the consumer demand-side. This could be attributed to misperceptions of consumers' environmental behaviors and ineffective marketing campaigns. Additionally, a market that has not been thoroughly considered is the rapidly growing market of Hispanic consumers. A theoretical and practical approach is used throughout the study. The empirical part of the study was conducted at the 2009 Hispanic Business and Consumer Expo in Central Florida. The findings suggest that the Hispanic consumer has a highly positive attitude toward eco-friendly measures practiced in hotels. Additionally, the findings show significant differences within Hispanic subgroups when classified by various demographic factors. In consideration of the findings, practical implications are contended and future research is suggested in view of the limitations faced.

This research study investigated the impact of mobile technology on operational success of the hospitality industry SMMEs in South Africa under the prevailing socio-economic conditions.

This study uses ethnographic portraits of hotel school managers to identify specific soft skills lacking in Cambodian hospitality students and to examine the complex obstacles that the managers face when providing soft skills education. In Cambodia, 30% of the population lives under the poverty line (“UNICEF Cambodia Statistics,” n.d.). Meanwhile, the service and hospitality sector has grown to represent 39% of the country’s real GDP share (“Growth in service sector brings more challenges,” n.d.), making it an attractive industry for young workers to find employment and improve livelihoods. However, the World Bank identifies that there is a gap in young Cambodian workers’ skills, especially soft skills (Brixi, Van Adams, D’Amico, & Krauss, 2012). The qualitative portraiture method is used in the study to lend a more detailed perspective on school challenges since the existing literature on the soft skills deficiency in Cambodia is largely quantitative in nature. For this portraiture study, managers from the Don Bosco Hotel School, the largest hotel school in Cambodia, were chosen as protagonists. The findings reveal that the main soft skills lacking in students are: responsibility, self-assessment, honesty, self-confidence, teamwork, and culture sensitization. The findings also show that major obstacles hotel school managers faced when educating students in soft skills are: high staff turnover, lack of role models, short duration of training programs, lack of nutrition, problems with students’ families, and a shortage of external exchange opportunities. By humanizing the dialogue beyond quantitative statistics, a richer and more meaningful ecosystem of information can emerge. With greater contextual understanding, stakeholders in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors can create more sustainable changes for Cambodian hospitality soft skills training. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This research study investigated the impact of mobile technology on operational success of the hospitality industry SMMEs in South Africa under the prevailing socio-economic conditions.

No description available.

The world of cancer care is a strange land to a person newly diagnosed with cancer. Like someone who leaves the familiarity of home and arrives in a foreign place, the person with cancer loses equilibrium and feels lost, experiences an assault on self-identity, and encounters an alien language and culture. It is this person who knocks as a stranger on the door of cancerland. Many philosophic and religious traditions obligate those receiving the stranger to provide a deep hospitality. One model of the practice of deep hospitality is summarized as door, table, space. When applied to the relationship between the cancer care provider and the patient/stranger, this hospitality can humanize the experience for both parties and is education in its elemental sense of drawing out and leading forth—into healing and wisdom.

Franchise businesses are popular both in practice and, as a result, in academic study. In particular, much research has been devoted to franchise business survivability. This thesis discovers and examines key determinants that have influences on franchise business survivability in Indonesian franchise businesses in the restaurant and retail sectors. This research produces a franchise business survivability model that is based on previous research and theories. The researcher performs confirmatory factor analysis structural equation modelling (CFA-SEM) to test and analyse the relationships between the five key determinants which are: trust; commitment; dispute risk management; relationship satisfaction; and franchise business survivability. Based on the empirical analysis, the research reveals that trust and commitment as key determinants do not have significant influences on relationship satisfaction. The other key determinant, dispute risk management, has a significant influence on relationship satisfaction. This research also reveals that relationship satisfaction has significant influence on franchise business survivability. This study made a contribution to knowledge by building a salient model of key determinants to enhance business survivability within the context of Indonesian franchise businesses in the restaurant and retail sectors. Furthermore, this thesis also closes some gaps in previous research into franchise business survivability. Another unique contribution made by this research is that the author looked at the issue of survivability from both perspectives of franchisors and franchisees, whilst previous research has predominantly performed analysis from the perspective of only one of the partners in franchise business arrangements. Therefore, it provides a holistic analysis on key determinants that have influences in enhancing franchise business survivability in the Indonesian restaurant and retail sectors.

This thesis gives an overview and seeks to establish a framework for creating the built environments that would support an ethical and environmentally aware global counterculture in travel and tourism. It seeks to advocate for the use of natural building techniques, responsive architecture, and sustainability in hospitality design and demonstrates the positive impact that these strategies might have on the visitor as well as the host community. Such reciprocal benefits are achieved by encouraging respectful, ecologically, and culturally sustainable design of global hospitality facilities, while the visitor is immersed in contextually-conscious spaces and environments. This approach is illustrated in several global terroir-driven vineyard case-studies. A new design and development methodology is outlined, stemming from Goethean science and its emphasis on the relationship between people and environment, a methodology that involves reciprocity, wonderment, and gratitude. The thesis maintains that if a hospitality environment is developed as holistically as possible, the spirit of the place visited will be amplified to the extent that visitors will feel that un-namable sense of energy that comes from a deeper, almost spiritual, connection. In its detailed approach, this thesis examines the environmental design theories of Christopher Day. Additionally, the architectural theories of Christopher Alexander in his work 'The Timeless Way of Building', as they appear and have been adapted in built projects, and in the promise they hold for future of hospitality design, are reviewed. Overall, this thesis investigates the potential of the built environments of an alternative tourism. Responding to the evolving definitions of personal luxury and motivations for travel, this thesis is inspired by the notion that people are affected physically, mentally, and spiritually by the built environment that surrounds them. In its conclusion, this thesis outlines potential guidelines for the future of hospitality design and the interpretation of place as fundamental to the integrity of a destination and infinitely rewarding for the visitors that go there.

Catering flights is an important part of an airline's operations. The meal service has a critical impact on customer service quality and represents significant costs. Unfortunately, due to high passenger load variability and minimum production lead-time requirements, it is difficult to get the number of meals to exactly match the passenger count on each flight. The objective of the project is to reduce meal-catering costs due to over-catering while simultaneously improving service level by reducing under-catering. The proposed solution takes the form of a meal bank system. This concept suggests that flights should be systematically under-catered with the possibility of uploading a generic meal to fill in any shortage at the last minute when the final passenger load is known. A thorough investigation of current processes was carried in order to define and recommend process change based on the meal bank approach. The project concludes with a costing analysis of recommended solutions weighing additional investments, cost savings, and service improvement against current performance. Costing analysis results for Vancouver International Airport operations showed that service level could be improved by an approximate reduction of 50 percent in revenue passenger meal shortages. Also, net costs can be reduced up to an estimated $190,000 annually.