Guest editorial

Citation

Chen, B.T. (2015), "Guest editorial", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-02-2015-0016

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Volume 6, Issue 1

Welcome to the special issue of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology (JHTT). The production of this special issue marks the successful culmination of a year-long laborious process from the very successful The 3rd Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing & Management Conference (AHTMMC) held at The Grand Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan, between 25th-30th June, 2013, to the preparation of the refereed proceedings. The 3rd AHTMMC was jointly organized by National Chiayi University, National Taiwan Normal University, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, National Science Council, National Changhua University of Education, Washington State University and Alexander Technological Institute of Thessaloniki. On behalf of the co-organizers of the Conference, we are grateful to the JHTT editor-in-chief, Professor Cihan Cobanoglu for offering the journal space in support of the Conference. We also would like to thank the Conference scientific committee and review committee members who have provided valuable feedback during the review process.

For the 2015 JHTT special issue, papers are selected from the 3rd AHTMM conference proceedings. The selected papers for the special issue thoroughly examine contemporary hospitality and tourism issues, especially those related to the e-commerce business models, tourist behavior and travel making. It is important for the tourism industry to know the information technology trends in the fields of hospitality and also to understand tourists’ characteristics and the differences in today’s global tourism environment. We also believe that the new research perspectives provided by this special issue will enrich tourist behavior literature.

The following provides a summary of the papers included in the special issue. The first paper is “Are blogs still effective to maintain customer relationships? An empirical study on the travel industry” authored by Chaang-Iuan, Ho and Pie-Chun, Lee. This study is to develop a context-specific model of RM drivers to the travel blogosphere. The authors propose a model that investigates the effectiveness of travel blogs as an RM tool, specifically, attempting to identify the antecedents affecting an enduring relationship. The study indicated that blogging is an effective option for providing information to manage author–reader (or even seller-buyer) relationships for travel-related corporations. The findings offer practical implications for marketing managers and practitioners to place a high priority on enhancing their blog readers’ level of satisfaction and on improving their blog readers’ level of trust through the provision of information and its quality.

The second paper is “A discussion on the user intention of golfers toward golf GPS navigation” by Jen-Min Huang, Tu-Kuang Ho, Yen-Chun Liu and Yu-Hsiang Lin. The authors investigate the user’s willingness of golfers toward the use of GPS navigation based on the technology readiness and acceptance models. The technology acceptance model has been widely used to examine user’s acceptance and willingness toward computer technology or an information product. This study is based on this model and is used to investigate the user’s willingness of golfers toward golf GPS. It shall serve as a reference for future golf sports promotion and device research and development.

The third paper is “Explaining innovation in Tourism-Retailing contexts by applying Simon’s Sciences of the Artificial” authored by Li-Hui Chang, Ye-Sho Chen and Hsi-Lin Liu. This study shows a design artifact to explain Ever Rich’s strategies for introducing innovation. Ever Rich is a very successful duty-free shop in Taiwan that makes profits by improving airport lobby/terminals and enhancing Taiwan’s tourism brand image. The design artifact is based on Herbert Simon’s classical work of Science of the Artificial. The design artifact is also grounded in the theories of customer services life cycle, input-process-output model of strategic entrepreneurship and docility-based distributed cognition. The study provides valuable ideas that design artifact serve as a source of discovery with benefits for knowledge-building and relationship-building that are useful both for students and practitioners.

The fourth paper entitled “Correlation between the homestay experience and brand equity: Using the Yuehetang Rural Residence as a case study” is authored by Ching-Cheng Shen and Der-Jen Liu. The authors investigated the correlation between customer experience and brand equity for a homestay establishment in eastern Taiwan. The findings of this study contributed to the deeper understanding of important factors that could affect Yuehetang Rural Residence’s brand equity and more specifically, the homestay experiences that influence brand equity.

The fifth paper is “Visitor behavior and profitability of Turkmenbashi World of Fairytales in Turkmenistan” by Guych Nuryyev and Jennet Achyldurdyyeva. This paper discusses visitor behavior and the net present value of the only theme park in Turkmenistan – Turkmenbashi World of Fairytales. The results show that the park is mostly visited by young people, before noon or after 4 pm. A majority of their visitors do not spend a significant amount money in the theme park. Hence, achieving positive net present value may require improved revenue growth. The study also indicated that Turkmenbashi World of Fairytales is one of few publicly owned theme parks in the world. This provides a unique opportunity to test if positive net present value plays any role in construction of a public theme park.

The final paper is “Nostalgic tourism in Macau: The bidirectional causal relationship between destination image and experiential value” authored by Aliana Man Wai Leong, Li-Hui Chang and Shih-Shuo Yeh. The authors intend to investigate the role of nostalgia in destination image, experiential value and its effect on subsequent behavioral intention. The result indicates that nostalgia plays an important part in forming destination image and experiential value before an individual has had a chance to experience the destination. The destination image and experiential value share a bidirectional causal relationship that eventually contributes to future visit intention. The study also discovered that while experiential value is more effective in generating destination image, the latter contributes more to future visit intention.

In closing, I would like to, again, thank all the authors, reviewers of this special issue and the JHTT Editorial Board. Hopefully, the contributions in the special issue will provide new insights for future studies and trigger new ideas for hospitality and tourism research.

Brendan T. Chen - National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan