Search results

This study aims to further an understanding of hospitality employees’ perceptions of their customers in the context of service encounter by utilizing the concepts of contact hypothesis and cultural distance in a multi-ethnic environment. The study compares perceptions of Chinese immigrants working in restaurants of their British patrons (from a remote culture) and Chinese patrons (from a proximate culture). The service encounter takes place in the London Chinatown. The dynamics of Chinatown as a “third space” adds complexity to service encounter and employee perceptions.

A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 118 Chinese restaurant employees in the Soho area of the London Chinatown. Perception questions were based on interviews undertaken in an earlier phase of the research. A paired t-test was run to identify significant differences in the Chinese restaurant employees’ perceptions of the Chinese and British patrons. Discriminant analysis was performed to determine which perception variables discriminated the most between the two patron groups.

Despite cultural proximity, the perceptions held by Chinese restaurant employees of their nationals were negative compared to the perceptions of British patrons. Out of 16, in 15 areas of measurement, there were significant differences in the Chinese restaurant employees’ perceptions’ of their Chinese and British guests. Six variables that discriminated the most between the two groups of guests were no tips, not polite, loud, no compliment, messy and demanding.

Research in ethnic and minority quarters, such as Chinatown in London, may suffer from “recall bias”, or in this case from making the difference between customer groups. Also, the Chinese are not a homogeneous group. For example, despite cultural similarity with mainstream culture, cultural and behavioral characteristics may exist between residents from the South, North and Hong Kong.

The cultural diversity of the industry’s employees necessitates managing cultural diversity effectively, especially in the sectors that rely heavily on guest–employee interaction. Perceptions affect attitudes and behavior. Training programs about perception and its roots may bridge the service gap in high-contact service encounters.

This study provides a ground for future empirical research into understanding the immigrant employees’ perceptions of their guests, nationals versus non-nationals and the ways for improving these perceptions. Taking the example of Chinatown as a dynamic “third space” is another approach to understanding the effects of “ethnoscape” on encounters in a more globalized village.

The purpose of this study is to examine the escape motivations of the emerging market and provide suggestions for Australia’s promotion. This study adopts the push and pull framework to identify travel motivations of Emirati nationals to Australia.

This study uses a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews to understand the escape motivations that encourage Emiratis to leave their home country and travel to Australia for a holiday.

The results indicate that Emiratis are motivated to travel to Australia by three escape factors: physical, interpersonal and fun. The internal motivations that encourage Emiratis to escape their home country are inseparable from Australia’s external attributes that attract the Emiratis to the country.

The study contributes to the theory of tourist motivation by supporting it in the culturally different Muslim/Arab context, which has not been explored before. The authors argue that it is not so much what Australia offers and what escape needs the Emiratis can fulfil in Australia, but rather that Australia serves the Emiratis well and meets their escape needs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of travel motivation, Muslim-friendly amenities and lifestyle, cognitive and affective destination image and quality of service on Kuwaiti travelers’ intentions to visit Islamic tourism destinations.

A self-administered questionnaire consisting of multiple-item scales was developed. A convenience sample of 224 Kuwaitis was surveyed. The hierarchical regression analysis tested whether and how much the influencing factors predicted a significant amount of the variance in travel. The analysis was controlled for the effects of demographic variables.

Travel motivation and cognitive and affective image had the largest significant effects on the Kuwaiti travelers’ intention to visit Islamic destinations. Contrary to expectations, the findings suggested that Muslim-friendly amenities and quality of service did not affect Kuwaitis’ travel decisions.

This study provides a starting point for future empirical research into Islamic tourism in the Middle East. It provides an understanding of the importance of travel motivation and destination image in attracting Kuwaiti travelers to Islamic destinations.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the acculturation process of foreign‐born residents of the US. In particular, the study seeks to identify factors that influence acculturation of foreign residents, the degree to which their acculturation takes place and its effect on individuals.

A sample of Korean‐born residents of the US was surveyed regarding their socio‐demographic characteristics and lifestyle preferences. Hofstede's five culture measures were used to identify the values of Korean and host culture. T‐tests were performed to determine if Korean respondents differed from their host culture and to identify the effects of marital status, spouse country of birth, and residence preferences. Correlations were run to assess the relationships between time (years residing in the US) and acculturation as measured by language, food and community preferences.

The study found that acculturation occurred, as measured by language preferences and Hofstede's culture measures, but only to a limited extent. Time, age, marital status, spouse country of birth, and preferred country of residence had only modest influence on acculturation. Most foreign‐born Korean residents of the US maintained a strong preference for their native culture.

Tourism destinations are becoming increasingly more ethnically diverse societies, due in part to immigration. From a marketing perspective, the increasing diversity in the foreign‐born population increases the need for new market segmentation. This, in turn, requires an understanding of if and how quickly foreign‐born residents abandon aspects of their native culture and become fully assimilated into their adopted host culture.

This paper aims to explore how destination image can be shaped, created and crafted, from an induced-source, supply-side perspective to better cater to Arab visitors, drawing on empirical research conducted on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Two sequential stages of research were implemented. The first stage conducted an analysis of websites to compare and contrast the image of the Gold Coast projected with the image perceived by Arab visitors. The second stage conducted semi-structured interviews with professionals from two destination marketing organisations (DMOs) directly responsible for marketing the Gold Coast to Arab visitors.

Key findings indicate that the DMOs sought to portray a strong destination brand to Arab visitors, specifically around its current branding of “Gold Coast: Famous for Fun”. The Gold Coast has highly evolved strategies to target Arab visitors, including productive working relationships between DMOs and strategic partnerships with tourism organisations in the Arab world. However, analysis of websites revealed some incongruence between core attractions. Arab websites emphasise the beach more than do the Australian, state and local DMOs, and entertainment did not rate as highly as the need for beaches, shopping and accommodation.

Importantly, this research highlights the need for DMOs to clearly understand the needs of Arab visitors and integrating such information into targeted marketing campaigns aligned with the core destination brand.

The contribution of this research is in providing a more nuanced understanding of the importance of using culture as a key segmentation tool not only to help attract more tourists but to assist DMOs to understand the special needs of various cultures in the destination.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for understanding issues affecting Egyptian online travel website preferences.

Grounded theory was selected due to its suitability in generating frameworks from data gathered plus existing theory.

The research describes the development of the electronic cultural adaptation framework (E-CAF), which consists of six theoretical dimensions that allow both researchers and practitioners to comprehend how Egyptian cultural values can affect their online travel shopping behaviour, in particular website design preferences.

The construction of the E-CAF is based on research into Egyptian online travel consumers. Development of the E-CAF could be expanded using participants from different cultural groups and other shopping domains.

This research will help practitioners to understand how Egyptian cultural values can affect online behaviour and assist in developing strategies for local adaptations of online travel offerings. The framework will also provide web designers with guidelines for gathering and developing requirements from clients to implement culturally adaptive web interfaces for Egyptian consumers.

While there are a number of existing cultural frameworks in existence, such as those of Hofstede, Hall, or Schwartz, these frameworks are not based on consumer behaviour, either online or offline, and are, therefore, not optimally suited for use in online marketing strategies or web design for Egyptian consumers. This research overcomes these limitations by providing a framework that recognises how cultural values can impact Egyptian consumer behaviour and provides a platform for further research, as well as online marketing strategies and tactics.

Presents the results of an empirical analysis of the cultural differences between Australian and Japanese populations in a tourism context. Argues that the challenge for tourism marketers lies in understanding the cultural make‐up of the Japanese market, and developing culture‐oriented marketing strategies. Identifies the major reasons for the decline in Japanese tourist arrivals to Australia. Compares the Japanese and Western cultural orientation. Describes and interprets the cultural dimensions identified by a principal components analysis. Determines the most critical cultural dimensions and their indicators by a LISREL analysis. The findings show that the key cultural factors influencing Japanese holiday experiences in Australia are culturally determined perceptions of service and interpersonal relations with hosts. Presents the impact of cultural traits on Japanese tourist perceptions of Australian service and interpersonal contact with hosts. Discusses the implications of these findings for tourism marketers.

Presents the results of an exploratory study on Japanese tourists′ perceptions of service quality in Australian shops. Eight areas of service were examined: the shop assistants′ friendliness, politeness, information giving, helpfulness, concern about customers, ability to speak Japanese, ability to wrap goods, and financial exploitation. It was found that in four out of eight areas of service – information giving, helpfulness, concern about tourists′ needs and ability to speak the Japanese language‐there were significant differences between tourists′ pre‐travel expectations and post‐travel perceptions of service. Explores the implications of these findings for the retail sector and outlines recommendations.

The aim of this paper is to present a model in which the relationship between Muslims’ involvement with traveling to Islamic destinations and Islamic destination brand equity is investigated.

Based on the existing theoretical and empirical research on involvement and brand equity in tourism marketing and the literature on Muslim tourists’ needs and culture, a conceptual model for Muslim tourists is developed. The model investigates the relationships between Muslims’ psychological motivations for traveling to Islamic destinations and the evaluation of destination Islamic brand.

The study shows that the more Muslims are involved in traveling to Islamic destinations, the more likely they evaluate the key dimensions of destination Islamic brand. This is demonstrated by the influence of Muslims’ involvement on their awareness of Islamic destinations, their image of the Islamic destination attributes, the perceived quality of Islamic offerings, the perceived Islamic value and their loyalty toward Islamic destinations.

The study evaluates the Islamic brand equity in the context of Islamic tourism destinations and in relation to Muslims’ interests in traveling to Islamic countries. The study contributes to better understand the Islamic destinations and how to maximize the benefits of their Islamic attributes. It is suggested that Islamic attributes should be highlighted more for Muslim tourists interested in traveling to Islamic countries. Investigating the concepts analyzed will help tourism destinations to integrate marketing and promotional campaigns and build a more powerful Islamic brand in Muslim markets.

The relationship between involvement and brand equity has not been yet explored adequately, especially in the context of Islamic branding. This study adds to the previous studies in which the link between personal involvement with a specific destination and destination brand equity was explored. The role of Islamic values in this relationship is highlighted. The study contributes to destination branding studies by being one of the primary works, which applies the concept of brand equity to Islamic destinations.