Innovation in High-End Food Service During COVID-19 Lockdowns

COVID-19 lockdown measures have forced hospitality operators to re-configure their dynamic capabilities through innovating operational practices and pivoting traditional business models. The high-end food service sector has undergone a particularly drastic shift towards a new normal. This qualitative study explores factors facilitating innovation at 16 high-end food service organizations in Finland and the UK through semi-structured expert interviews. Three key themes facilitating innovation during COVID-19 lockdowns are identified: 1) Combining high-tech and high-touch through new ways of producing and providing technology-driven service offerings, 2) Prosocial engagement, i.e. working together with multiple stakeholders to bring added value to all parties, not just the business, and 3) Reactivity, i.e. pushing the traditional boundaries of the sector through quick decision-making and constant iteration and refining of processes and procedures. Drawing our empirical findings together, innovation during COVID-19 lockdowns in high-end food service is conceptualized into three phases: React, Refine, and Reflect

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2021

This open access book is the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 28th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER21@yourplace virtual conference January 19–22, 2021. This book advances the current knowledge base of information and communication technologies and tourism in the areas of social media and sharing economy, technology including AI-driven technologies, research related to destination management and innovations, COVID-19 repercussions, and others. Readers will find a wealth of state-of-the-art insights, ideas, and case studies on how information and communication technologies can be applied in travel and tourism as we encounter new opportunities and challenges in an unpredictable world

Evaluating the impact of physical activity apps and wearables: an interdisciplinary investigation of research designs and methods

Many smartphone apps and wearables have been developed to promote physical activity, however there are challenges in assessing their impact. Apps and wearables are rapidly evolving technologies and thousands of physical activity apps that are publicly available on app stores remain unevaluated. There are concerns that traditional “gold standard” evaluation approaches, such as randomised control trials (RCTs), may be too slow to keep up with these, and produce effectiveness results that do not reflect real world settings. Rapid research designs (such as single case designs; SCDs) and innovative data collection methods (in-device sensors, device-generated user logs) have been proposed to improve research efficiency, yet preliminary evidence suggests they are not widely used in mHealth. This thesis reports three studies undertaken to investigate the use of rapid research designs and efficient methods for evaluating physical activity apps and wearables. First, a scoping review of the extent to which these approaches are employed by health and HCI researchers. Second, semi-structured interviews with researchers, data scientists and industry professionals to provide a deeper understanding of current evaluation practices. Third, the development and refinement of a methodological framework to support researchers in using SCDs in automated app store evaluations of physical activity apps. The findings suggest rapid research designs are not often employed in evaluations of physical activity and other health behaviour change apps. Researchers feel they face opportunity barriers (e.g. risking not being funded or published) and do not have the necessary skills (e.g. in using device generated user logs). Industry professionals appear to lack the motivation and time to evaluate effectiveness. Trade-offs were perceived between the measurement accuracy of in-device sensors and other factors such as user burden. Automated trials may speed up evaluations of physical activity apps and wearables, and the suggested data collection framework aims to support researchers in conducting rigorous effectiveness evaluations using app store- based SCDs. However, further work is needed to enable industry professionals to use the framework to evaluate their publicly-available apps