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Fight or Flight? Coping with Stress in the Airline Sector

polyushtm — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 03:19:29 +0000

During the COVID-19 pandemic, airline employees experienced unprecedented levels of work-related stress and job uncertainty. However, their coping strategies and cultural differences in their responses to work-related stress remain understudied. In a timely recent study, Professor Seongseop (Sam) Kim of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and co-authors explored the relationships between job stressors, psychological stress and coping strategies amongst airline employees in Hong Kong and South Korea during the pandemic. Their work provides fruitful insights that could help airlines minimise employees’ psychological stress and provide resources to support coping strategies. Crucially, their results also show that national culture should be considered when adopting such measures.

COVID-19 crippled business operations in a multitude of sectors, and air travel was amongst the hardest hit. Airlines are no stranger to economic or health and safety challenges, but the international travel restrictions imposed in 2020 dealt the sector an unprecedented blow. With mass lay-offs, rescheduling and furloughs, airline employees faced severe job insecurity and ambiguity. “Consequently”, say the researchers, “it makes sense to predict that work-related conditions caused by the pandemic may increase stress and anxiety among airline employees in a way that is different from work-induced stress prior to the pandemic”.

To date, however, studies have done little to elucidate the specific psychological and behavioural repercussions of industry-level events like COVID-19 for workers in this sector. “How airline employees perceive work-related stress is not fully understood”, say the authors. Furthermore, scant attention has been paid to their coping strategies in response to such stress.

Context is another important factor. As employees’ reactions to work-related stress may differ between countries and cultures, the findings of Western studies of job stress may not be generalisable to other contexts, such as Asia. Although the pandemic affected airline employees worldwide, East Asian settings such as South Korea and Hong Kong may differ in their job stress predictors and outcomes relative to Western countries, and even relative to each other. “Airline employees from these two nationalities may experience and manage work-related stress differently”, say the authors.

With these considerations in mind, the researchers set out to provide “a systematic understanding of coping strategies in relation to work-related stress for airline employees during the tourism crisis”.

Generally, we experience psychological stress when we feel that too much is being demanded of us. Common job stressors include excessive work demands, role conflict and job insecurity. According to “conservation of resources” theory, stress poses a threat to our resources, and we respond by seeking to conserve our existing resources and obtain new ones. “Exemplifying this point”, say the researchers, “studies have shown that service-oriented employees adopt appropriate coping strategies to conserve their resources (e.g. well-being, self-esteem) and alleviate stress”.

Accordingly, the authors note, “coping styles play a crucial role in understanding how employees adapt to stressful work events”. This raises the question of what airline employees can do to counteract resource loss during an industry-wide crisis like COVID-19. However, we still know little about which coping strategies airline employees use to deal with work-related stress. The researchers’ first step in tackling this question was to establish a theoretical model linking job stressors to psychological stress and coping strategies. “In the model”, the authors say, “multiple job stressors are anticipated to increase the psychological stress levels of airline employees. Psychological stress, in turn, determines their coping strategies”.

Various possible coping strategies are available to employees. Task-oriented coping attempts to find a solution to the root cause of stress, such as devising a plan to solve the problem. Emotion-oriented coping aims to regulate the emotional distress caused by the stressor, such as through self-revelation or self-blame. Avoidance-oriented coping involves a deliberate attempt to disengage from the stressful situation. If we feel that we have control over a stressful situation and possess the resources to deal with it, we are likely to adopt task-oriented coping. “Emotion-oriented coping and avoidance-oriented coping are more dominant when both control and coping resources are perceived to be low”, say the researchers.

During COVID-19, airline employees had no control over the stressors they faced, such as international travel restrictions, the slow progress of virus containment and economic slowdown. Therefore, the authors hypothesised that airline employees experiencing job-related stress during the pandemic engaged primarily in emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping. They also hypothesised that as national culture affects people’s responses to stress, airline employees from different cultural settings experienced and managed work-related stress differently during the pandemic.

To test their theoretical model, the authors empirically examined the relationships between job stressors, job strain and coping strategies amongst airline employees in two Asian cultural contexts during the global tourism crisis caused by COVID-19. A cross-sectional survey was completed online by 366 airline employees in South Korea and Hong Kong in summer 2020.

Psychological stress was measured by the participants’ self-reports of difficulty relaxing, nervous arousal and being easily upset, irritable and impatient. The survey also measured the airline employees’ perceptions of job stressors such as “forced labour policies”, “concern about layoffs”, “forced unpaid leave” and “lack of appropriate training and knowledge about the prevention of virus transmission”. Coping strategies were assessed using a battery of scales measuring task-oriented, emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping.

Rigorous statistical analysis of the questionnaire responses identified three major work-related stressors associated with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline industry. First, psychological stress was related to work schedules and demands – reflecting the major operational changes that airlines had to impose during the pandemic. Companies can mitigate this source of stress through timely and transparent communication with employees, say the researchers.

Second, job insecurity and financial concerns were found to be a major source of stress. Although cost-saving measures are unavoidable during crises like COVID-19, airline companies should be transparent about their decisions concerning lay-offs, salary cuts and forced unpaid leave. “It is important for the airline industry to emphasize its efforts to ride out the hardship together with its employees”, argue the researchers.

Third, stress was caused by role conflict. “Employees may suffer job strain when performing multiple roles and responsibilities other than those normally anticipated”, note the researchers. “Therefore, airline management should consider the willingness of airline employees and provide alternatives instead of implementing forced policies”.

For both the Hong Kong airline employees and the South Korean airline employees, psychological stress was linked to heightened emotion-oriented coping. However, job stressors and coping strategies differed between the two cultures. Hong Kong airline employees – whose perceived stressors related to work schedules and demands, job security and financial concerns, and role conflict – were more drawn to emotion- and avoidance-oriented coping strategies. South Korean airline employees reported only work schedules and demands as contributing significantly to their psychological stress, and this elicited primarily emotion-oriented coping strategies.

“This delivers an important message to the global airline industry”, say the authors. As employees from different countries/cultural settings may respond differently to the same work-related stressors, airline management should implement culturally appropriate measures to regulate employees’ work-related stress during industry-wide crises. Based on this study’s findings, for example, airlines in Hong Kong should promote both emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping strategies, whilst South Korean airlines should focus on the former.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique setting for examination of job-related stress in the airline sector. Airlines can learn from this crisis and better protect their invaluable human resources by communicating more transparently with employees, mitigating sources of job-related stress, and equipping employees with culturally specific coping skills. Emotion-oriented coping strategies could be reinforced by organising workshops or employing on-site psychological therapists, and avoidance-oriented strategies could be fostered by subsidising recreational activities and hosting social gatherings.

Chua, Bee-Lia, Al-Ansi, Amr, Kim, Seongseop (Sam), Wong, Antony King Fung, and Han, Heesup (2022). Examining Airline Employees’ Work-Related Stress and Coping Strategies During the Global Tourism Crisis. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 34, Issue 10, 3715-3742.

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Tourist-Triggered Emotions

polyushtm — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 02:04:32 +0000

How do tourists in your town make you feel? A study co-authored by Dr Shiqin Zhang, Dr Nan Chen and Professor Cathy H. C. Hsu of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University shows that Hong Kong natives have complex emotional responses to visitors from the mainland. The paper may help improve host–visitor relations in Hong Kong and abroad as tourist numbers pick up in the post-pandemic era. The study setting is particularly relevant as mainland Chinese tourists become more adventurous travellers.

The importance of emotions in tourism cannot be overstated. Improving our subjective state of mind, whether through joy, excitement or relaxation, is the essential goal of leisure travel. Notably, local populations in tourist areas play a key role in shaping visitors’ environment and in turn the emotional experiences of visitors. However, this is a two-way relationship that also depends on locals’ own disposition towards tourists.

Currently, research on hosts’ emotional responses to tourists lags behind the study of tourists’ emotions. To address this, tourism researchers need to not only broaden their scope but also learn from psychologists. “Emotion research in tourism as a whole”, say the researchers, “is still in its infancy compared to that in psychology”. They propose that hosts’ multi-layered emotional reactions arise from the interplay between desires and stereotypes.

As discussed in detail by the authors, we may not know our own emotions as well as we think. Befitting their role in both regulating behaviour and signalling thoughts, emotional responses are highly complex. For one thing, emotions consist of both mental components, such as cognitive appraisal, and physical components, such as physiological arousal. Thus, the researchers tell us, “combinations of various psychophysiological measures (e.g., EEG, EDA and facial expressions) and self-reports are strongly encouraged”.

Furthermore, some emotional reactions happen so quickly that they can evade conscious notice. This complicates the attempts to measure emotional reactions to tourist behaviour. As “a complex state that can be expressed through various channels”, the researchers note, emotion requires objective measurement techniques in addition to the subjective methods that are used in conventional tourism research.

Another way to classify emotions is based on explicit vs. implicit expression. As the researchers argue, “explicitly expressed emotions are more like cognitive or conscious responses toward triggers”. Such emotions, also described as “conscious”, “deliberate” or “reflective”, can be easily noticed and described by the subject, making them accessible to researchers using questionnaire or interview techniques.

In contrast, when we feel an implicit – or “automatic”, “spontaneous” or “raw” – emotion, we cannot control it and may even fail to observe it. Implicit responses can only be measured using real-time experimental methods such as pulse monitoring. This makes it problematic that “emotion research in tourism, even in marketing and psychology, has a long tradition of relying on self-report methods”, in the authors’ words.

Many psychologists recognise at least six basic emotions: anger, happiness, surprise, disgust, sadness and fear. Nonetheless, tourism researchers have often overlooked this diversity, instead measuring emotional responses on a simple two-dimensional scale of valence (positive/negative) and arousal (activated/non-activated). “While this approach is useful”, the authors write, “it hides the various roles of discrete emotions in tourism encounters”.

Social encounters, such as those between tourists and locals, may give rise to a rich set of emotions. These are likely to be deeply rooted in the cultural context of the host community and the socialisation of individual people. Given the rich social nature of host–tourist interactions, the SHTM team realised that “more efforts with full considerations of basic emotions combining implicit measures in a tourism context are needed”.

Hence, to objectively measure locals’ reactions to tourists, the researchers used facial expressions as cues. The study of faces to read emotional states is not only intuitive but has a scientific basis stretching back to Darwin. However, despite the variety of the human emotional palette, “the limited number of tourism studies that examined discrete emotions, unfortunately, only measured one or a few specific emotions”, the researchers tell us.

Facial expression analysis also avoids the social and psychological biases that bedevil self-reports. “Self-reported methods could have cognitive and social desirability bias and thus limit the understanding of emotions to those explicitly expressed”, the authors write. This is because we can simply deny feeling socially undesirable emotions, to others and even to ourselves.

However, we cannot fully suppress our facial micro-expressions, which give away information on how we react to our surroundings. Hence, if we conceal our feelings for the sake of social harmony, the implicit emotions showing on our faces may be more reliable than the explicit emotions we choose to report. Thus, due to the discrepancies caused by biases, research has validated implicit measures as “effective and necessary to complement self-reports”.

To get to the truth, the researchers recruited 14 Hong Kong residents who all identified fully or partly as “Hongkongese”. These participants were shown short (1–2 minute) video clips, presenting interactions between locals and mainland tourists, based on real anecdotes from a different set of Hongkongers. Three scenarios portrayed the tourists in a positive light, while the rest depicted various forms of unsocial behaviour, such as queue-jumping, loudness and a young child urinating in public.

As the participants watched the scenes (no more than three per person), their facial expressions were video-recorded to capture their implicit emotions. Using specialised software, the researchers analysed the subjects’ faces to determine their dominant emotion at each time point throughout the viewing. Afterwards, the viewers answered a survey on the intensity of their explicit emotional responses, and the researchers interviewed them to dig deeper into how they felt about the scenarios and why.

The results showed that the self-report method and facial analysis revealed different information. The self-report surveys and interviews were heavily outperformed by the software in measuring the participants’ happiness, sadness and anger. However, the self-report methods encountered no such difficulties with disgust, surprise and fear, “implying a higher consistency between the two approaches when identifying these three emotions compared with the others”.

These differences sometimes led to contrary outcomes. One older woman, watching tourists in a shop trying on cosmetics in a selfish and unhygienic way, showed a low intensity of all facial emotions. Afterwards, however, she reported having strongly felt sadness and disgust. If even specialist AI failed to register her displeasure from visual clues, one can imagine that real-life tourists would fail to realise how she felt. In the researchers’ words, “when tourists encounter this resident, they may not find her unfriendly or being offended”.

The study identified happiness, sadness and anger – revealed by facial expressions – as “desires-driven” emotions rooted in the unconscious mind. They are founded on an implicit expectation of good social outcomes. In contrast, disgust and surprise, which the participants revealed verbally after watching the clips, arise from the confirmation or violation of stereotypes about mainlanders. Negative emotions were amplified in the self-reports, such as when the older woman described the cosmetics shoppers as “selfish, self-centred, and arrogant”.

Hong Kong residents hold ambivalent views of mainland tourists, as revealed by verbal reports and face tracking. In the authors’ words, “facial expressions and words can tell different stories”. Given that emotions can drive behaviours, the authors suggest that the tourist board and media promote positive stereotypes of mainland Chinese to influence the explicit emotional reactions of locals during host–guest interactions. This study, the first of its kind, pushes forward tourism research towards a richer understanding of ways to boost harmonious relations.

Zhang, Shiqin, Chen, Nan, and Hsu, Cathy H. C. (2021). Facial Expressions Versus Words: Unlocking Complex Emotional Responses of Residents Toward Tourists. Tourism Management, Vol. 83, 104226.

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Exploring the World of Dusit International: A Transformative Educational Visit

Ravidhut Boonyakierti — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 01:54:45 +0000

Recently, A group of fourth-year students of Dusit Thani College, Thailand’s leading higher education in hospitality businesses under Dusit International, enjoyed a unique opportunity to delve into the inner workings of Dusit International, gaining invaluable insights from the esteemed management team.

The visit commenced with a warm welcome from Ms. Suphajee Suthumpun, the Group Chief Executive Officer, whose inspirational speech provided a visionary outlook on the hospitality industry for budding hoteliers.

Following this, Mr. Siradej Donavanik, the Vice President of Hotel Business Development, generously shared his expertise on hotel management business development, offering a comprehensive understanding of Dusit International’s overall status and strategies. This exposure proved instrumental in acquainting the students with the fundamental principles of organizational operations within the service sector.

Mr. Gilles Cretallaz, the Chief Operating Officer, further enriched the students’ experience by providing a global perspective on Dusit Hotels, including insights into the hotel pipeline and the innovative concept of ASAI hotels. He expressed anticipation for the emergence of a new generation of Dusit Thani students within the global realm of Dusit properties.

A standout moment during the visit involved Ms. Seetala Allison Belle, the Director of Content Culture and Strategy at Dusit Digital Lab, the group’s latest department. Ms. Seetala shared Dusit International’s innovative approach to reaching customers anytime, anywhere, and through any format. This new strategy, focused on enhancing customer engagement, left a lasting impression on the students, providing them with insights into the cutting-edge strategies employed by Dusit International to connect with their target audience.

The visit concluded with an exploration of various departments and a comprehensive tour of the offices. This hands-on experience provided students with a profound understanding of the systems and operations at Dusit International, enriching their knowledge of the industry.

Special thanks were extended to Ms. Chitpapong Tipparat, Corporate Director of Learning & Development, and her dedicated team for the successful organization of this enlightening field trip. The knowledge and in-depth information acquired during this visit are anticipated to significantly benefit the students in their future careers in hotel management, enhancing their readiness for internships and providing a clearer vision for their professional paths ahead.

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Calls for Enrolment for Cornell University’s Executive Women in Leadership

Busi Tshabalala — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 03:15:30 +0000

Johannesburg, South Africa, November 15, 2023 / TRAVELNEWSHUB / In partnership with Africa Tourism Partners (ATP), Cornell University (USA), has made available an exclusive offer and invitation to Women in executive leadership and women in leadership to enrol for Cornell University’s two and a half-month online Executive Women and Women in Leadership certificate programmes.

To be delivered through the Cornell University’s eCornell platform, the main thrust of this programme is to drive women inclusivity across that African travel, tourism and hospitality value chain. This is one of the key outcomes of annual Africa Tourism Leadership Forum held in Botswana in 2022 and 2023 as well as a critical component of Africa Tourism Innovation Hub initiative being pursued by Africa Tourism Partners and key stakeholders.

Ultimately, the programme aims to foster leadership and professional growth for women in executive and management positions. Therefore, this special offer gives participants almost 90% discount of the University’s standard programme fees as a result of the partnership forged between the University’s and Africa Tourism Partners, mainly for the professional and executive development of African women in leadership and executive management positions.

Participants will attain Executive Women in Leadership or Women in Leadership Certificate from Cornell University with 50 Professional Development Credits (PDCs) on completion of the programme. Space is limited as the first cohort which will commence in December 2023 and January 2024 will be made available to only 35 participants per propgramme.

Core courses for the certificate programme include Power and Gender Dynamics; Developing Executive Presence for Women Leaders; Gender Bias and Negotiation Strategies; and The Network Effect. Additionally, participants may choose one (1) of the following elective courses:
• Decoding the Gender Gap in Board Membership.
• Fostering an Inclusive Climate.
• Becoming a Strategic Leader.

Cornell University offers over 290 online professional development certificate programmes and courses. These are designed for public and private sector executives, managers, entrepreneurs and start-ups in a wide variety of disciplines. Among these are, Leadership and Strategic Management, Finance and Business Performance, Business Strategy, Hospitality and Food Service Management, Data Science, Finance & Business, Hospitality Management, Marketing, Technology and more. To read more about the programme and explore other relevant certificated learning opportunities for you, colleagues and your staff, click here

To register and role for the programme, kindly contact contact Ms. Rejoice Chishamba rejoice@africatourismpartners.com or +27 81 303 7030 for enrolment form and more information.

About Africa Tourism Partners
African Tourism Partners (ATP) – www.africatourismpartners.com is a UNWTO- affiliated award-winning Pan-African tourism development and strategic destination marketing advisory firm. The firm specializes in tourism and MICE strategy formulation, investment facilitation and promotion, research, master planning and destination market development and capacity building across Africa’s travel, tourism, hospitality, aviation and golf sub-industries.

Our clients and partners include but are not limited to UNWTO, World Bank, Mastercard Foundation, NEPAD, AfCFTA, South African Tourism, Ghana Tourism Authority, Tourism KwaZulu- Natal, Rwanda Development Board, Rwanda Convention Bureau, Rwanda Chamber of Commerce, SAACI, RwandAir, SAA, Ethiopia Airlines, Tanzania Tourism Board, Kenya Tourism Board, Uganda Tourism Board, Gauteng Tourism Authority, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Tourism Business Council of South Africa, Nigeria and more.

About the AfCFTA
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a free trade area encompassing most of Africa. It was established in 2018 by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which has 43 parties and another 11 signatories, making it the largest free-trade area by number of member states, after the World Trade Organization, and the largest in population and geographic size, spanning 1.3 billion people across the world’s second largest continent.

The agreement founding AfCFTA was brokered by the African Union (AU) and signed by 44 of its 55 member states in Kigali, Rwanda on 21 March 2018. The proposal was set to come into force 30 days after ratification by 22 of the signatory states. On 29 April 2019, the Saharawi Republic made the 22nd deposit of instruments of ratification, bringing the agreement into force on May 30; it entered its operational phase following a summit on 7 July 2019, and officially commenced 1 January 2021. AfCFTA’s negotiations and implementation are overseen by a permanent secretariat based in Accra, Ghana.

About Cornell University and eCornell
Cornell is a privately endowed research university and a partner of the State University of New York. As the federal land-grant institution in New York State, we have a responsibility—unique within the Ivy League—to make contributions in all fields of knowledge in a manner that prioritizes public engagement to help improve the quality of life in our state, the nation, the world.

For more information about the program, registration and enquiries, please contact Ms. Rejoice Chishamba at: +27 (0) 11 318 1741 / +27 (0) 81 303 7030.

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Dusit Thani College Receives Recognition in THE-ICE IPOE Forum 2023

Ravidhut Boonyakierti — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 03:07:52 +0000

From October 30 to November 2, 2023, the International Centre of Excellence in Tourism and Hospitality Education (THE-ICE) held its 16th International Panel of Experts (IPOE) Forum at William Angliss Institute, Melbourne, Australia. THE-ICE IPoE Forum 2023 brought together representatives from TH&E (Tourism, hospitality, and events) research, education, and industry to address the theme “Leading Change in Challenging Times – Finding and Framing the Transformative TH&E graduates for the 21st Century”. Dusit Thani College (DTC), Thailand’s leading higher education in hospitality businesses under Dusit International, was represented by the rector, Khun Frouke Gerbens, Executive Dean Simon Lloyd, and Asst. Prof. Dr. Myla Medrano Loreto.

Executive Dean Simon Lloyd and Asst. Prof. Dr. Myla Medrano Loreto presented their paper, “Best Practices in the Integration of Leadership Competencies into Hospitality Education”. This paper was awarded as one of the recipients of THE-ICE Research Grant Scheme (RGS) 2023. THE-ICE RGS facilitates and promotes research by member institutions, supporting THE-ICE’s objective to enhance the quality of higher education in tourism, hospitality, events, and culinary arts. The presentation highlighted DTC’s pioneering approach to the student leadership program – Inspiring Hospitality Leadership (IHL) and how it is integrated into classroom instruction among all courses.

In addition, DTC also received THE-ICE & HOSCO Award for being the Most Active Alumni Community in THE-ICE Global Network.

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Turning Website Views into Restaurant Visits

polyushtm — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 10:02:07 +0000

If you’ve visited a new city lately, you may have searched online for places to eat. Maybe you read some reviews, then clicked through to the restaurants’ own sites. New research by the team of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University shows that in the hospitality sector, turning user clicks into dining visits depends on consistently positive messaging. By testing two competing theories of the effect of customer reviews, the study by Dr Seunghun Shin, Dr Hyejo Hailey Shin and Dr Jaehee Gim will help local restaurants optimise their marketing strategy through homepage testimonials.

In a crowded market like Hong Kong, restaurants have to be smart to stand out. Today, this means having an effective online presence to gain the trust of short-term visitors searching for nearby restaurants. While there are many third-party review platforms in the hospitality sector, such as TOP25 Restaurants, restaurants often add positive testimonials to their own homepages, hoping to “seal the deal” for those whose interest is piqued by reading such reviews. “About 70% of hospitality businesses display testimonial reviews on their websites”, say the researchers, “and about 80% of diners check a restaurant’s website before choosing to visit”.

Which write-ups should a restaurant select for its testimonials? Naturally they should be positive, but there are degrees of positivity. Overly glowing reviews might be seen as biased, perhaps written by people who have a close relationship with the business and are thus not objective. This is in line with attribution theory. “When reading a review”, the authors explain, “customers are less likely to adopt it in their decision-making if they perceive its evaluation is based on the reviewer’s personal reasons”. It might then seem more trustworthy for the restaurant to quote moderately positive reviews. Indeed, the authors mention a study showing that 5-star-rated products sell less well than 4.2–4.5-star products.

However, it could be argued that extremely positive testimonials have a better chance of providing the final push for prospective customers viewing the homepage. This fits with regulatory focus theory, which sees customers as focusing on their ideal goals, such as a satisfying experience. Indeed, there is evidence that some customers perceive unambiguously positive reviews as more credible than moderately positive reviews that also mention negative information. Where does this leave restaurants? “These two conflicting views make it difficult for hospitality businesses to determine how positive reviews need to be leveraged as testimonials”, the authors point out.

This uncertainty arises because most research has focused on the effects of reviews from third-party sites: online review communities, social networks, media-sharing platforms and search engines. The assumption is that the reviewers are independent of the firms they rate. However, testimonial reviews may not be perceived as fully independent, despite being written by customers, because firms choose to place them on their websites. This calls into question the generalisability of earlier studies. “It remains unclear how effective positive reviews are when communicated through a business official website as testimonials”, the authors say.

Another way to think about testimonials is in terms of how consumers classify them. The researchers note that “testimonial reviews have characteristics of both electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and advertisements”. On the one hand, they are like unbiased opinions, because real customers write them without any thought of making a profit; on the other, they resemble a form of online advertising, because businesses propagate them independently of the original writers. Whether they are ultimately judged as eWOM or advertisements affects how they should be phrased: word-of-mouth relies on authenticity, implying that any negative aspects ought to be mentioned, whereas advertising is expected to focus solely on the positive.

This lack of understanding of how testimonial positivity affects customers’ decision-making was the motivation for Shin, Shin and Gim’s study. Contrasting attribution theory and regulatory focus theory, they realised that “these two conflicting views make it difficult for hospitality businesses to determine how positive reviews need to be leveraged as testimonials to get the expected outcomes”. They therefore set out to determine how review positivity affects customers’ reactions to online testimonial reviews of restaurants, and how this contrasts with the effect of reviews hosted on other types of online platform.

The team started their study by scraping write-ups of Hong Kong restaurants from TripAdvisor. By analysing the answers to the optional question “was this review helpful?”, they found that 4-star reviews were perceived as more helpful than 5-star reviews. This set the stage for a detailed investigation of how ratings actually affect users’ visit intention. Three hundred participants were asked to search for a nearby Italian restaurant using their smartphones and confirm their choice after checking the restaurant’s website. Half of them saw fully positive 5-star testimonials on the homepages, while the others saw 4-star reviews that were mostly positive but noted caveats such as “a bit crowded”.

Considering that real-life restaurant websites might contain a mix of extremely and moderately positive testimonials, the researchers then studied the effects of such a mixture. Another 200 participants were recruited and tasked with settling on a local Italian eatery. This time, however, when they landed on a restaurant’s homepage, they saw either three 5-star reviews and one 4-star review, or vice versa. As in the above-mentioned experiment, the participants were subsequently asked about their intention to visit the restaurants that they had investigated using their phones, and their overall feelings about them.

Extremely positive testimonials were found to improve both the participants’ view of the restaurants and their actual visit intention. When the restaurants’ homepages carried unambiguously positive reviews, with nothing but praise for the food, prices and service, potential diners were more likely to rate their attitude towards the establishments as favourable and state that they would be likely to visit them. “A hospitality business should make potential customers who visit its website feel confident about their pre-decision by displaying glowing testimonial reviews”, the researchers infer.

When the participants saw mixed positive reviews (some including minor criticisms and others not), the results were consistent with the first experiment. Those who saw mostly the extremely positive reviews had more favourable attitudes and higher visit intention than those who read mostly the tempered positive write-ups. Evidently, according to the researchers, “it is more strategic for a hospitality business to display extremely positive reviews on their websites as testimonials”.

The strategic advantage of extremely positive reviews also indicates that the readers of testimonials tend to think of them as advertisements rather than eWOM. Consumers expect eWOM to be mixed, and there is evidence that they are more strongly influenced by moderately positive than extremely positive reviews on sites like TripAdvisor. However, they react less well when businesses mention criticisms on their own websites. Rather, when reading homepage testimonials, “customers want to be certain about their pre-choice when following up on the product of interest”, the authors conclude.

The next time you search for a restaurant online, your reaction to positive reviews may depend on whether you read review communities or the establishments’ own sites. If the restaurants have their strategy right, they will carefully choose their homepage testimonials and include only the most positive reviews to give interested diners the final push. The study’s authors suggest that restaurants could boost their visit rates by prioritising advert-like content over general information on the pages that users see when clicking through from a search app. In summary, this research fills an important gap in our understanding of testimonial review strategy and should aid hospitality businesses going forward.

Shin, Seunghun, Shin, Hyejo Hailey, and Gim, Jaehee (2023). How Positive Do Testimonials on a Restaurant Website Need to Be? Impact of Positivity of Testimonial Reviews on Customers’ Decision-making. International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 108, 103382.

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Samarkand Academy Adds to Growing UNWTO Education Network

hub1 — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 01:42:27 +0000

Samarkand, Uzbekistan, October 31, 2023 / TRAVELINDEX / The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further enhanced its status as the global leader in advancing education and skills development for the tourism sector. As one of the top priorities of the Organization’s leadership, and fully endorsed by all Member States, education serves as the foundation for building more resilience and accelerating the shift to greater sustainability.

Against the backdrop of the 25th General Assembly (Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 16-20 October 2023), Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili visited the new Tourism Academy Samarkand in Collaboration with UNWTO. The Academy will train students new to the sector as well as those already working in tourism, giving them the skills they need to grow their careers. The Secretary-General praised the commitment of President President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Minister Aziz Abdukhakimov to investing in education and professional training and for recognizing the role both can play outside of the tourism sector itself.

The Samarkand Academy is just the latest in a growing network of education initiatives spearheaded by UNWTO. Just one month before the General Assembly, against the backdrop of this year’s World Tourism Day (27 September), the Secretary-General visited the newly-opened Riyadh School for Hospitality and Tourism in Collaboration with UNWTO. The school has already welcomed its first students and aims to welcome many thousands more, both from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself as well as from across the wider region and the world.

Alongside its Academies, UNWTO is transforming tourism education at every level. The Education Toolkit, launched out of the UNWTO Regional Office for the Middle East, is designed to support Member States everywhere introduce tourism as a high school subject. This stands alongside the growing UNWTO Tourism Online Academy, the UNWTO Students League and now the Bachelor’s Degree in Sustainable Tourism Management offered by UNWTO in partnership with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and the Arts of Switzerland, in supporting people at every stage of their educational journey in tourism.

Education as a priority for the sector will next be highlighted at the Minister Summit hosted by UNWTO at the World Travel Market (London, 6 November).

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PolyU School of Hotel & Tourism Management Tops World Ranking

polyushtm — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 01:56:20 +0000

The School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has again excelled in the university rankings, claiming the top spot in the “Hospitality and Tourism Management” category of ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2023.

This is the seventh consecutive year in which the SHTM has been recognised as the world’s number one by ShanghaiRanking, a globally respected institution. The School won first place in 2017, the first time ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects included the “Hospitality and Tourism Management” category, and has held the top spot ever since.

ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities has been published annually since 2009 and is regarded as one of the three most influential and widely followed university classifications, alongside the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Earlier this year, the SHTM was recognised as world No. 1 in the 2022/23 Field Based Ranking of the University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) Research Laboratory. The School has won first place globally in the “Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services” category for six years in a row.

The URAP Research Laboratory was established at the Informatics Institute of the Middle East Technical University in 2009. Its main objective is to develop a ranking system for world universities based on academic performance as determined by the quality and quantity of their scholarly publications.

The SHTM is honoured to be recognised internationally as a world-leading hospitality and tourism management school. These rankings confirm the School’s outstanding reputation and commitment to global excellence in hospitality and tourism education and research and are a ringing endorsement of its visionary leadership, dedicated researchers and innovative educational approach.

“The No. 1 ranking is a tribute to the SHTM’s dedicated faculty members, trail-blazing graduates and culture of academic and research excellence,” said Professor Kaye Chon, SHTM Dean, Chair Professor and Walter and Wendy Kwok Family Foundation Professor in International Hospitality Management. “For more than four decades, the SHTM has spearheaded hospitality and tourism education, supporting the hospitality and tourism industry, a key driver of socio-economic growth.”

For more information on ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2023, please visit: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0513

About PolyU’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management

For over 40 years, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has refined a distinctive vision of hospitality and tourism education and become a world-leading hotel and tourism school. Ranked No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality and Tourism Management” category in ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2023 for the seventh consecutive year; placed No. 1 globally in the “Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services” category in the University Ranking by Academic Performance in 2022/2023 for six years in a row; rated No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism” subject area by the CWUR Rankings by Subject 2017; and ranked No. 2 in the world among university based programmes in the “Hospitality and Leisure Management” subject area in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 for the seventh consecutive year, the SHTM is a symbol of excellence in the field, exemplifying its motto of Leading Hospitality and Tourism.

The School is driven by the need to serve its industry and academic communities through the advancement of education and dissemination of knowledge. With a strong international team of 90 faculty members from 20 countries and regions around the world, the SHTM offers programmes at levels ranging from undergraduate to doctoral degrees. Through Hotel ICON, the School’s groundbreaking teaching and research hotel and a vital aspect of its paradigm-shifting approach to hospitality and tourism education, the SHTM is advancing teaching, learning and research, and inspiring a new generation of passionate, pioneering professionals to take their positions as leaders in the hospitality and tourism industry.

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Dusit Thani College Students Exclusive Invitation to Sustainability Summit MENA

Ravidhut Boonyakierti — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 10:17:35 +0000

Nowadays, there have been repeated reports about climate change all over the world. An issue which has been kept a close eye on globally is the northern polar ice and the white sheet in Greenland melting 6-7 times faster compared to what happened 25 years ago. The loss of 4,700 million tons of ice in Greenland partially accounts for an increase of sealevel 1.2 centimetres. This incident reflects how bad the Earth’s climate is now.

Therefore, sustainability becomes a topic that people around the world should prioritise. All sectors are working together to find sustainable solutions for environmental conservation for the next generation. One of the initiatives is the event by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Sustainable Tourism Global Center (STGC) with the collaboration of the United Nations called MENA Climate Week 2023 (MENA = Middle East and Northern Africa). It was greatly held in the city of Riyadh to understand the issue of climate change which requires global recognition and urgent consensual actions among countries to solve this problem. The event also sets the directions and the future of sustainable tourism and hospitality industry worldwide. The summit featured a number of presentations beneficial for sustainable development, from conferences and workshops to innovative digital media. There was also Youth Forum 2023 for young generations whose interests place in tourism and sustainability.

To encourage the awareness of this event, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia invited students from over 80 countries around the world to participate in the summit. Dusit Thani College was an only educational institution in Thailand being invited to join this remarkable international sustainability and sustainable tourism event without any expenses since it is the first and only educational institution in Thailand specialised in tourism and hospitality businesses. The college brought 41 students on a flight to the city of Riyadh during October 8-12, 2023, considered an exclusive eye-opening experience for students of Dusit Thani College which could not be found anywhere.

“I had the amazing opportunity to meet, listen, and engage with many global leaders such as H.R.H Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, H.H. Princess Haifa of Saudi Arabia, UN leaders, Delegates, and students from corners of the globe,” said Ms. Kamelia Ferdousi, a Hospitality Management (International Program) student of Dusit Thani College – as being one of the41 participating students. “The event displayed a marvelous youth engagement and our commitment as well as powerful contributions to generate positive change to the Earth. Surely, the MENA Climate Week Youth Forum facilitated a global network of future leaders to lead us to our beautiful planet Earth in a sustainable and cherishable way. We had a chance to visit The City of Light ‘Diriyah’ and the exhibition of NEOM with the visualisation of The Line project, which plans to house 9 million people in a first-of-a-kind fascinating futuristic development. Furthermore, MENA Climate Week enlightened me into a promising future considering the youth’s powerful involvement and awareness. This trip is considered an enriching experience that allowed me to visit a new country with distinctive culture and amazing Arab cuisine. The warm hospitality of the Arabian people has left an incredible mark on my heart.”

While Mr. Nitipon Tangsangakun, Culinary Arts and Kitchen Management Program student of Dusit Thani College, added that “It is a pleasure and honour of mine for having a chance to learn concepts, cultural exchange, and event planning in Saudi Arabia. I was able to witness the way of life of the locals here, from the way of living to lifestyle and communication which are different from Thailand. It was very heartwarming to be welcomed and given a great care by our host, especially for safety, comfortable accommodations, and meals. I also gained knowledge from attending activities in MENA Climate Change which could not be found in classrooms. I will utilise what I learned from this opportunity in my way of living to conserve our world’s environment. I would like to thank Dusit Thani College for granting this great opportunity to students.”

The opportunity of Dusit Thani College students to attend MENA Climate Week 2023 as future leaders of tourism and hospitality business is not only an oversea experience for them to harvest, but also an inspiration to make this world more livable. The event also visualises the guidelines for tourism businesses to develop following the current trend. The college wishes that a small start on the campus will lead to sustainable development in the future.

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PolyU School of Hotel and Tourism Management Recognised for Outstanding Tourism Education

polyushtm — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 10:20:42 +0000

The School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University was deeply honoured to be bestowed the 2023 ISTTE Institutional Achievement Award by the International Society of Travel and Tourism Educators (ISTTE) in recognition of its significant contributions to tourism education.

The latest honour was bestowed at the Annual Conference of the International Society of Travel and Tourism Educators held in Toronto, Canada on 16–18 October 2023. The SHTM was praised for its leadership in advancing tourism education in the region and the world for its innovativeness in academic programming and world-class teaching and research facilities.

Professor Kaye Chon, SHTM Dean, Chair Professor and Walter and Wendy Kwok Family Foundation Professor in International Hospitality Management, said that the accolade further underpins the School’s world-leading position in providing innovative programmes that advance the tourism and hospitality sector’s development. “As a global centre of excellence in hospitality and tourism education and research, the SHTM is well poised to continue to lead hospitality and tourism in the years to come,” he remarked.

The SHTM has made a lasting mark on hospitality and tourism education by being a two-time recipient of the ISTTE Institutional Achievement Award. The School first received the prestigious award in 2003, recognising its commitment to educational excellence. A ringing endorsement of the SHTM’s visionary leadership, dedicated researchers and innovative educational approach, the award confirms the School’s outstanding reputation and dedication in providing world-class hospitality and tourism education for Hong Kong and beyond.

Taking this opportunity, the SHTM is delighted to announce that the 43rd Annual ISTTE Conference will be held at Hotel ICON, Hong Kong on 14-16 October 2024. The year 2024 is a special year for the SHTM as it marks the School’s 45th anniversary. In hosting an international event as celebrated as the annual ISTTE Conference in such an auspicious year, the SHTM aims to further contribute to the ISTTE and to extend the frontier of knowledge in tourism and hospitality.

The International Society of Travel and Tourism Educators is an international organisation of travel, tourism and hospitality professionals representing all levels of educational institutions. A non-profit international organisation, the ISTTE is dedicated to improving the quality of education and research in travel, tourism and hospitality by promoting the exchange of information and ideas and outstanding service among its members.

About PolyU’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management

For over 40 years, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has refined a distinctive vision of hospitality and tourism education and become a world-leading hotel and tourism school. Ranked No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality and Tourism Management” category in ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2022 for the sixth consecutive year; placed No. 1 globally in the “Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services” category in the University Ranking by Academic Performance in 2022/2023 for six years in a row; rated No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism” subject area by the CWUR Rankings by Subject 2017; and ranked No. 2 in the world among university based programmes in the “Hospitality and Leisure Management” subject area in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 for the seventh consecutive year, the SHTM is a symbol of excellence in the field, exemplifying its motto of Leading Hospitality and Tourism.

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