Perceived organizational support and well-being of tour guides: The mediating effects of quality of work life

The reciprocity norm theory suggests that individuals develop a sense of obligation and indebtedness to reciprocate the favorable treatment they receive. Rooted in the notion of reciprocity norm, organizational support is regarded as essential for organizations to maintain long-term relationships with their employees. Despite an established academic discussion on organizational support and its outcomes in behavioral and applied psychology research, a comprehensive understanding of its role in enhancing employees' well-being is surprisingly limited in the field of tourism. Drawing on the organizational support theory and theoretical conceptualizations on well-being, the present study proposes a conceptual model linking perceived organizational support (POS) with quality of work life, life satisfaction, and burnout. Using data from 301 tour guides, the results show that POS enhances tour guides' quality of work life and reduces their levels of burnout. The findings also show that while POS does not have a direct effect on life satisfaction, this effect emerges mediated by the quality of work life. As predicted, quality of work life was found as a key antecedent of life satisfaction. The current study highlights the role of POS in enhancing the well-being of tour guides and shows how well-being at the workplace is associated with well-being in life

Host Perceptions of Tourism Development: The Case of Petra

The nature of tourism sector requires “consumer” to move to where the service is provided. Consumer’s movement to a different place leads to a direct encounter not only with service providers but also with those who live where the service is provided. This encounter results in a set of changes in the host community’s life. By using a self-completion questionnaire, this paper examined the residents’ perceptions of tourism development in Jordan’s main tourist destination, Petra. The findings suggested that the host community in Petra had positive attitudes toward tourism development in their city. The results showed that social and cultural impacts of tourism were most favored by surveyed sample. Host community is also assumed to favor tourism development for its role in bringing about better local services. The results are discussed thoroughly and directions for future research are suggested

Entrepreneurial motives, entrepreneurial success and life satisfaction of refugees venturing in tourism and hospitality

Purpose. A burgeoning stream of tourism and hospitality research highlights the role of entrepreneurship in bringing about positive social and economic outcomes for both refugees themselves and their host countries. Yet little has been done so far both in mainstream entrepreneurship research and tourism scholarship to explore how motivations influence perceived entrepreneurial success of refugees and how this eventually affects their subjective well-being. To address this gap, the present study proposes and empirically tests a conceptual model postulating relationships between contextual and individual entrepreneurial motives, perceptions of entrepreneurial success, and life satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach. The study draws on quantitative data collected through 172 surveys of refugee entrepreneurs venturing in different sub-sectors within tourism and hospitality in Turkey and the UK. A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed theoretical model. Findings. The results reveal that contextual and individual entrepreneurial motives have a significant positive impact on perceived entrepreneurial success. As predicted, perceived entrepreneurial success is found to have a significant positive impact on life satisfaction. A multi-group analysis involving host country (Turkey vs the UK) and mode of entry (founder vs takeover) indicates no significant difference based on host country whereas the strength of relationships for takeovers is relatively greater as compared to founders. Practical implications. The study advocates that the reductionist approach viewing refugees as temporary “outsiders” who are in consistent need of public provision and welfare services should not prevail against their ability to achieve self-efficiency through entrepreneurship. Hence, policies need to be oriented toward supporting refugee entrepreneurial activities over various business stages and modes of entry. More importantly, ensuring high success rates among refugee entrepreneurs should be viewed as a pivotal tool to address the well-being of refugees, their families, and their fellows. Originality/value. While previous research identifies drivers of entrepreneurship success and the potential favorable outcomes, none of these studies empirically models refugee entrepreneurship motives, self-reported entrepreneurial success, and life satisfaction as a distinct and growing cohort of entrepreneurs. The study makes significant theoretical contributions to the corpus of literature on the social outcomes of entrepreneurship and provides timely implications for policy makers to utilize entrepreneurship as a market-based solution to address refugees’ subjective well-being

The effect of hospitableness on positive emotions, experience, and well-being of hospital patients

The role of hospitableness in hedonic service settings has been subject to considerable theoretical and empirical investigation; however, its role in utilitarian service settings (e.g., hospitals) has received notably scant attention. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study proposes and tests a conceptual model linking hospitableness, patient experience, positive emotions, overall satisfaction, subjective well-being, and recommendation intention. Drawing on quantitative data (n = 204) collected from inpatients in hospitals, the findings largely support the proposed theoretical model and confirm that hospitableness can positively influence patient experience and positive emotions, but not overall satisfaction. Interestingly, while hospitableness does not seem to directly influence overall satisfaction, this effect is indirectly achieved via patient experience. The findings also reveal that patients’ subjective well-being may be enhanced by positive emotions but not overall satisfaction. Both positive emotions and overall satisfaction have a positive effect on recommendation intention. The study makes several theoretical implications and proposes significant practical implications both for the hospitality and healthcare sectors

Modelling social inclusion, self-esteem, loneliness, psychological distress, and psychological resilience of refugees : does hospitableness matter?

Despite a growing stream of research addressing hospitableness in destinations and hospitality settings, very little is known about the role of hospitableness in fostering favorable social outcomes for vulnerable individuals such as refugees. This omission is intriguing given the heated debate on how local communities in refugee hosting countries can contribute to tackling the refugee crisis. Drawing on data collected from Ukrainian refugees hosted by locals in Slovakia, this study proposes and tests a conceptual model linking hospitableness, social inclusion, self-esteem, loneliness, psychological distress, psychological resilience, and subjective well-being. Using SEM-PLS, the findings confirm that hospitableness can positively enhance social inclusion while mitigating loneliness. Contrary to our predication, however, our results fail to confirm the positive effect of hospitableness on subjective well-being both directly and indirectly mediated by self-esteem and social inclusion. Psychological resilience significantly moderates the relationship between hospitableness and social inclusion. The study makes significant theoretical contributions to the corpus of literature on the social outcomes of hospitableness and provides timely implications for policy makers to utilise “refugee hosting by locals” schemes and “private sponsorship of refugees” programmes as a viable solution to enhance refugees’ social inclusion and foster their overall well-being

Exploring entrepreneurship in the sharing accommodation sector: Empirical evidence from a developing country

A plethora of research has been conducted over the past few years to explore several aspects of the key exchange actors within the sharing accommodation sector (i.e. hosts and guests). However, despite the exponential growth in the sharing accommodation entrepreneurship, literature exploring the characteristics, motivations, and challenges of entrepreneurs venturing in this sector is still scant. This study draws on a qualitative study approach using semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs involved in the sharing accommodation sector in Petra, Jordan. Findings revealed that sharing accommodation entrepreneurs were mainly driven by the desire for economic and cultural benefits. The positive host-guest relationship (e.g., honesty toward guests and enhancing positive reputation) emerged as a key factor influencing the growth of the sharing accommodation businesses whereas market-related issues (e.g., severe competition and lobbying efforts from traditional lodging businesses) were found to be the key challenges derailing the businesses

Publishing in predatory tourism and hospitality journals: Mapping the academic market and identifying response strategies

The exponential growth of open access publishing has sadly encouraged the emergence of numerous predatory publishers and journals harming the scientific community and threatening scholarly communication. While the issue has received some attention from the academic community in medical and applied sciences, much less work has been done within the realm of social sciences. Specifically, despite the gravity of predatory publishing as unethical practice and its negative effect on the progress and quality of tourism and hospitality research, empirical investigation on the topic remains very limited. The present study used a mixed method design combining data from 612 articles published in 13 potential tourism and hospitality predatory journals with data from two surveys drawing on authors' experiences as well as tourism and hospitality most prolific scholars' perceptions. The findings reveal that predatory journals are succeeding in targeting a wide range of researchers regardless of their career experience from both developed and developing countries. Lack of awareness of predatory journals, pressure for publication, and high rejection rates in legitimate journals were found to be the key motivations for publishing in predatory journals. Raising awareness of predatory journals and reconsidering tenure and promotion requirements were suggested as the best response strategies to curb predatory publishing. The study offers several theoretical and practical implications and proposes avenues for future research

Digital transformation and revenue management: Evidence from the hotel industry

To maximize their revenues and protect their market share against traditional competitors (e.g. formal lodging businesses) and disruptive business models (e.g. Airbnb), the lodging industry increasingly relies on technology in various operations. However, the extent to which hotels adopt technology innovation in their revenue management (RM) operations, as well as the benefits of and barriers for digitalization, remains unclear. Moreover, the possible impacts of digital transformation on the future of revenue managers' professions have been largely overlooked in previous studies. Drawing on qualitative data collected through 23 semistructured interviews with revenue managers in luxury and upscale hotels across Jordan, the findings suggest that RM is going through digital transformation with different levels of sophistication. While acknowledging the benefits of digital transformation in saving time, supporting the decision-making process, and yielding more revenues, the high cost of RM software emerges as a key barrier for digital transformation. The findings also reveal that the automation of various manual heuristics in RM is far from being possible, and therefore, digital transformation is unlikely to pose a threat to the future of the RM profession

Motivation, emotion and world heritage status in discerning the heritage tourists: A segmentation perspective

Heritage tourists' motives are heterogeneous but few studies examine the relationship between these motives, emotions felt after the visit, and tourists' perceptions of the attributes that contribute to World Heritage Status (WHS) listing of a site. Using cognitive appraisal theory (CAT) as the theoretical lens, we evaluate the relationship between motivation, emotion and site characteristics. Based on a sample of 1531 international visitors to Petra, we segment their motives and emotions and profile these with respect to perceptions of the attributes for WHS listing. The results show the existence of two motivation clusters “General Tourists” and “Heritage Tourists”, with the latter being drawn to Petra for reasons related to both site characteristics and heritage. Three clusters of emotions were identified namely, “Positive Arousals”, “Low Arousals” and “Mixed Arousals”. Significant relationships were identified between the motivation and emotion clusters and their respective perceptions of the attributes for WHS listing. A logit model confirmed that the emotion felt by the different clusters can be predicted by motivation clusters, demographic and travel characteristics. Implications for theory and practice are offered