European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation

The Strategic Performance Measurement System and Organisational Performance Through the Lenses of Contextual Factors

2023-11-08T11:26:50+00:00

The unprecedented effects of COVID-19 have been problematic for hotels. Therefore, implementing a performance measurement system (PMS) has become critical for hotel organisations. This study thus examined how the balanced scorecard (BSC) as a strategic PMS has a function in revealing hotel performance. Two contextual factors of hotels—external environmental uncertainty (EEU) and decentralised decision-making—were also investigated to understand their effects on the use of the BSC, which, in turn, determines hotel performance. A survey was conducted involving 145 four- and five-star hotels in Turkey. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. It was found that EEU is significantly related to decentralised decision-making but not to the BSC. Meanwhile, the BSC does not have an indirect effect on the relationship between EEU and hotel performance; however, it was found to act as a mediator between the decentralisation of decision-making and hotel performance. Finally, decentralised decision-making was found to act as a mediator between EEU and the BSC.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Travels

2023-11-08T11:39:54+00:00

The purpose of this research is to reveal the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on the domestic and international travel activities of Turkish academicians for academic reasons and to get insights into academicians’ opinions about how this pandemic would affect academic studies by preventing travel and socialising. An email interview technique is used. Collected data were analysed by using MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. As a result of content analysis, 70% of the respondents declared that their academic travel plans were cancelled due to this pandemic. The study emphasised that virtual travels seem to increase accessibility and equality for many academicians, especially those with travel restrictions.

Smart Destination Selection Process

2023-11-08T11:49:13+00:00

The aim of this study is to reveal the smart destination selection process of Generation Y tourists. In this context, data were collected from 228 tourists in Turkey. The fact that the research focuses on millennials, who use technology the most, makes this research different from other studies. In this way, the research offered more realistic results thanks to the people with high technology literacy. This research shows that consumers’ attitudes toward smart products significantly affected their travel intentions. At the same time, another remarkable result of the research is that behaviour related to smart products significantly affects travel intentions.

Twitter sentiment analysis

2023-11-08T11:53:21+00:00

The novel coronavirus pandemic drastically impacted economies in 2020, including travel and tourism. The nationwide lockdown to curb infection has led people to use social media such as Twitter to express their opinions and share information on several issues. This paper focuses on sentiment analysis using Indian tourist Tweets during Covid-19 using Python and the maximum likelihood method to determine the parameters. The sentiment analysis yielded valuable insights into which sites will revive quickly; the analysis of the Tweets using sentiment analysis will help in predicting the revival of the tourism sector after the pandemic. The various algorithm scores will help in predicting the best ways to enhance the customer experience at various sites in the tourism sector. Further, the study will enable the tourism sector to design a revival strategy in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 and the Portuguese accommodation sector

2023-11-08T11:56:11+00:00

According to organisational theories, performance can be explained by threats and opportunities generated in the external environment and the interplay between the macro and the microenvironment. This logic holds for tourism companies. This study aims to analyse the impact of a macro-environmental factor, the COVID-19 pandemic, on the accommodation sector in Portugal, studying differences across regional destinations and industries. A descriptive approach was made using secondary data from INE (the Portuguese Statistics Institute) for 2019 and 2020. Three performance indicators were analysed: number of overnight stays, number of guests, and total income. Results suggest that the impact of COVID-19 was relatively higher in the regions of Lisbon and the Azores and on the industry of short-term rentals. The region of Alentejo and the industry of rural tourism/manor houses were the least affected. Implications are both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, this study highlights the interplay between the macro and the microenvironment, translating to future crises. For managers, our research also highlights specific characteristics of regional destinations and industries, which might have been a source of competitive advantage during the pandemic, translating into less unfavourable outcomes in this context.

Research trajectory on tourism policy

2023-11-08T11:59:41+00:00

Many scholars from various countries have been enthused by the term ‘tourism policy’ since it first appeared in the Scopus database in 1976. However, comprehensive scientific information on tourism policy is still limited. T his article aims to explore the bibliography of tourism policy studies. This article uses a bibliometric analysis approach, and applies VOSviewer to visualise bibliographic data. This article indicates that tourism policy studies are increasing yearly, in line with how countries are implementing many tourism policies as an alternative to national economic development. Furthermore, research on tourism policy has involved many authors from various institutions and countries. From 159 articles reviewed, six dominant clusters were obtained. This clustering can help other scholars to see the position of their studies alongside previous studies. The results of this article show that economic development, competitiveness, policy, and management strategy are of interest to academics on the tourism policy topic. Moreover, the sustainability issues (ecotourism) and international tourism have become two of the major subjects that could greatly influence the course of future tourism policy research.

What has been said about the reinvention of postCOVID tourism

2023-11-08T12:09:45+00:00

The purpose of this study is to analyse the relationship between the COVID-19 impacts on tourism and the political approaches adopted to overcome the crisis in this sector. There has been a deep reflection on a new tourism paradigm, guided by an increasing commitment to sustainability and innovation, which was triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak. This perspective reinforces the role of decentralisation and autonomy of policies at the regional level. A network governance model emerges as a strategy to overcome this crisis. A bibliometric analysis (Rafael & Pires, 2021) was carried out using the SCOPUS and Web of Science (WOS) databases, from January 2020 to April 2021. The search criteria followed the assumptions of the non-probabilistic snow-ball sampling technique (Vinuto, 2014). The results were processed in SPSS and VosViewer software. Four main dimensions were found that mediate the relationship between tourism and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely: (1) policies, enabling network governance and regional autonomy; (2) research, enhancing knowledge transfer and new teaching models; (3) economic collaborative approaches that support DMO´s activities; and (4) network innovation that fosters positive change. Understanding the impacts of COVID-19 in tourism politics and strategies offers important guidelines to both private and public decision-makers.

Crowdfunding in the accommodation realm and pandemic times

2023-11-08T12:14:05+00:00

Crowdfunding campaigns have recently promoted a range of new business models in different contexts. This study investigates crowdfunding in the accommodation realm from a socio-cultural perspective and across its international dynamics. Drawing on complexity theory, the study explores the successful case of CleanBnb, the leading crowdfunded company in the Italian shortterm rental market, and informs hospitality actors on the coping strategies implemented to challenge the Covid- 19 pandemic. The study adopts a case study approach, combining primary data collected through an in-depth interview of the CEO and the analysis of secondary data from different company reports. The results highlight the importance of (1) business diversification, (2) grouping opportunities and (3) widening of service range as key factors in pandemic business survival for start-ups operating in the accommodation realm. The study finally discusses post-pandemic scenarios for both the traditional hotel industry and sharing economy operators by offering managerial insights.

Determinants and COVID-19 effects on RevPAR

2023-11-08T12:16:20+00:00

As Europe prepares itself for a new downturn, this paper proposes to examine the determinants of hotel Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) through literature review, and contribute to improving hotels’ performance by understanding the weight of the occupancy rate and the Average Daily Rate (ADR) on RevPAR, after the pandemic. A quantitative methodology was used, collecting data from STR Share Center and Our World in Data, such as ADR, occupancy rate, RevPAR, and COVID-19 confirmed cases. Results show the overwhelming effect of COVID-19 on hotel performance, conducing to ADR, occupancy rate, and RevPAR decline, and highlighting a co-movement of these indicators during COVID-19. After the lifting of major COVID-19 restrictions, RevPAR had a greater influence from ADR in some European countries, but the occupancy rate should not be disregarded. The findings, however, suggest the absence of the revenge travel phenomenon. The relationship between the number of COVID-19 cases and the decrease in RevPAR is not statistically significant, implying the existence of other factors that probably also had impact. The different measures adopted by governments to contain the virus, and each country´s dependency on tourism, led to different impacts on hotel performance. This study helps hoteliers to know how to measure performance and the RevPAR drivers that can improve it, taking into account the situations that differ by country, as well as variables that are not controllable.

How does the economy affect a religious phenomenon?

2023-11-08T12:36:16+00:00

This paper investigates the economic determinants of Catholic pilgrimages to the Shrine of Fatima using a panel data set with annual observations from 2008 to 2017 from 29 origin countries. The Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag, using the estimator of Driscoll and Kraay (1998), was employed to examine short- and long-run impacts. The results reveal that, in the short run, GDP per capita, the exchange rate and overall international departures positively impact the number of pilgrims. In the long run, international departures and GDP per capita cause positive impacts, while unemployment shows a negative impact. All effects are statistically significant. Besides shedding light on the relationship between economic determinants and religious phenomena, this paper is valuable to national and local policymakers, shrine managers and regional entrepreneurs. It is a tool for everyone who must be aware of the main determinants of the number of pilgrims, to plan joint measures that may generate more significant opportunities to attract pilgrims, crucial to supporting the local economy and in addition to being an important contribution to the economics of religion literature, indicating contemporary impacts on a religious phenomenon.