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Examines the use of two selection techniques, i.e. biodata and personality assessment, which have been found to have high predictive validities when used in other industries, in the context of hotel employee recruitment. In the first phase of a pilot study, Saville and Holdsworth′s Customer Service Questionnaire (CSQ) was used together with a questionnaire designed specifically to collect biodata (biographical information). The research was carried out at a four‐star hotel in central Manchester, with the aim of identifying any characteristics which were common to those hotel operatives who frequently interacted with guests, who were reliable and who produced a high standard of work consistently, so that a specific selection tool which isolated these characteristics might be developed.

This paper aims to examine, discuss and intertwine theory and practice related to hotel guests’ home and lodging environments to identify their in-room psychological and physical needs.

The research design is qualitative, with a focus on understanding social phenomena through direct observation, communication and textual analysis; contextual subjective accuracy is stressed over generality. Using interpretative phenomenology, the psychological and sociological aspects of the individual’s journey are deliberated including: travelling through one’s own room; virtual travels from the room via electronic media; the hotel room as a reconstruction of the intimate sphere; the return to, and transformation of, one’s own room; and the accumulation of souvenirs. The tabulated findings are linked to hotel guests’ in-room needs using inductive thematic coding and content analysis.

The psychological and physical in-room needs of individual hotel guests are identified; safety, security and control emerge as paramount. Practical suggestions to complement, expand and enrich guests’ in-room experiences are offered.

As the focus is limited predominantly to the debate and rationalisation of concepts and the methodology is exploratory as opposed to scientific, the validity of the findings may be questioned; primary data triangulation modifies this criticism. Future researchers are advised to consider the evidence when developing hypotheses to establish a theory of lodging. Research on improving the quality of facilities and services should centre on an analysis of the concept of “being in one’s own room”, followed by an analysis of the transposition to “being in a hotel room” from both physiological and psychological perspectives.

Referring to the developed hierarchy, accommodation/lodging providers are recommended to increase their efforts to exceed the expectations of individual guests. Guest profiling should focus on individual needs and preferences, ideally at the booking stage.

Accommodation/lodging providers are encouraged to demonstrate social awareness and empathy through individual social responsibility efforts to enhance the experiences and quality of life of their guests.

The paper makes a valuable contribution by debating and connecting philosophical and psychological literature to the practical needs of hotel guests. It recognises and concludes that, as they are merely temporary residents, hotel guests’ experiences embrace a series of journeys through different, individual interiors. Based on this premise, an innovative hierarchy of hotel guests’ in-room needs is developed.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the magnitude of employee turnover (E-turnover) in Nigerian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with particular focus on the manufacturing and service firms adjudged as central to the growth and development of Nigerian economy.

Data from 602 employees and 94 owner/managers of SMEs located in three Southwestern Nigerian states were collected through survey questionnaire and analysed quantitatively.

Employees’ and management’s responses indicated that E-turnover still pervades the Nigerian SMEs surveyed with most employees leaving their jobs in less than a year of employment. Multiple exits also occurred; additionally, employees were more prone to exiting if they were male, older, had a smaller family size and/or worked in the manufacturing rather than service SMEs.

More needs to be done to comprehend owner-managers’ apparent deliberate disguise of employee over-casualisation in the SMEs studied, an act that appeared to limit the interpretation of status-related turnover extent among employees.

Twenty-first century businesses need to stimulate sustainable cost-effective employment relationship capable of thwarting the threat accompanying high E-turnover in businesses.

Through this research, extant global E-turnover literature (largely on western businesses) is enriched by dedicated empirical data on Nigerian SMEs that this study offers.

Aims to determine the nature of the criteria used in the selection of students for undergraduate courses and to establish the extent to which the academic and non‐academic qualities employed reflect and/or embrace those regarded as important by students’ subsequent employers. Considers findings from 25 in‐depth interviews with hotel and catering management UK undergraduate selectors representing 16 institutions, which provided sets of descriptors and an indication of the relative importances of the qualities sought. Concludes that there is little concordance between university admission officers’ and industrial employers’ selection criteria. Primarily, the former seek applicants whom they judge to be likely to complete the course successfully using academic measures, in contrast to the latter, who show a great interest in appropriate work experience and non‐academic qualities. Recommends that there should be better communication between undergraduate and industrial recruitment personnel concerning the “qualities that matter” in prospective students and industrial trainees and that, ideally, industrial representatives should have direct involvement in the recruitment of students to undergraduate courses.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the predictive value of age, gender and work experience in relation to hospitality management (HM) academic success, as measured by year one leadership programme (LP) achievement and cumulative grade point average (CGPA). The association between LP and CGPA success and internship performance is also evaluated.

The sample comprised 349 international undergraduate HM students. Secondary data were compiled and analysed using SPSS. Eight hypotheses, developed from the literature were tested using χ2, t-tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests as appropriate.

Although age was not a predictor of success, males significantly outperformed females. Pre-programme work experience was not a predictor of LP performance but length of paid work experience and supervisory work experience were linked significantly to mean CGPA. LP achievement was positively associated with CGPA and with successful internship completion.

Although the student sample was international and spanned three cohorts, the data collection was limited to one institution.

Pre-programme work experience, in particular supervisory experience, and the incorporation of management competency-linked LPs into first-year HM curricula are recommended.

The paper contributes to the under-researched predictive value of age, gender and pre-programme work experience in relation to HM academic performance, in particular in an LP context. An additional innovative finding is the positive association between LP achievement and success in HM professional practice.

Centres on the selection of undergraduates for hotel and catering management (HCM) courses in the UK. Semi‐structured, face‐to‐face in‐depth interviews (N = 25) were conducted with HCM tutors in 16 UK institutions to identify the source, nature and ways of measurement of the qualities used to select undergraduates. A synthesis of the evidence allowed a classification into four subgroups, e.g. academic attainment and ability, motivation to study, and commitment to work in, HCM, personal characteristics, and personal circumstances. As expected, the measures of academic attainment together with evidence from the headteachers’ reports, seemed to be key features of the selection process but there appeared to be a mismatch between what some of the admission procedures entailed and what the selectors considered to be important.

The hospitality and tourism industry is highly labor-intensive. It is constituted by a fast-paced, dynamic, unpredictable and unstable operating environment that requires an extraordinary leadership ability, and leaders may need to adopt a transformational leadership style. A plethora of theoretical and empirical studies have shown the importance of transformational leadership. However, there is still much to be learned. Meanwhile, no study to date has measured the relationship between transformational leadership, job involvement, and job satisfaction among employees in the hospitality and tourism industry in New Zealand. This study expands our understanding of transformational leadership in the specific context of hospitality and tourism.

The cruise sector's workforce is highly diverse in terms of nationalities, age, and gender. However, diversity in the workforce does not guarantee business success.

Decades of research on the effects of diversity indicate that it can negatively or positively affect an organization's performance. A more diverse workforce does not automatically perform better financially, feels more committed to their companies, nor experiences higher levels of satisfaction. Indeed, data suggest diversity may produce more conflict, employee turnover, but if well managed can lead to greater creativity and innovation.

This chapter explores the cruise industry's diversity and inclusion challenges and management practices. To examine what cruise companies are doing in this field, we reviewed the public data of the four largest cruise companies. We analyzed how these companies define diversity, their commitment to inclusion, their practices, their metrics, and their primary objectives.

Firstly, there is no theoretical model that includes all variables that affect the management of diversity in the cruise sector. Secondly, companies communicate a commitment to inclusion in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and refer to similar policies implemented by the hospitality industry. Thirdly, the main challenges are the multicultural environment and the limited female representation.

The major limitation of this study is the data source. We recommend further studies supported by nonpublic company data. We encourage cruise industry leaders to support the research to develop an empirically tested model that captures the specific variables that affect diversity management in the industry.

Explores the criteria used by industrial recruitment personnel in the selection of graduates from Hotel and Catering Management courses for management trainee positions in the hospitality industry. Reports on a study which is part of a wider investigation into the extent to which criteria employed for the admission to professionally or vocationally oriented university courses cover, or fail to cover, the criteria used for recruitment to employment positions, following the completion of such courses. Describes a series of extensive interviews with senior recruiters from 11 large UK hospitality organizations. Concludes that, in the recruitment of management trainees, first, considerable emphasis is placed on applicants’ motivation and commitment and also on certain personality aspects that are regarded as important for the industry; second, applicants’ home circumstances also influence recruitment decisions; third, little, if any, attention is paid to applicants’ previous academic career and/or achievement; lastly, industrial recruiters appear to rely largely on their own personal judgements and hunches, notwithstanding the fact that they are recognized to be subjective and, possibly, unreliable.