Revenue Management as Competitive Advantage: Keep in House or Outsourse?

The hotel industry faces multiple pressures and effective profit maximization can make or break a hotel. Revenue management (RM) is a key tool in a responsible hotel manager’s arsenal. But not all hotels have the skills or resources to implement this process effectively inhouse. Dr. Mehmet Altin of UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management, applies a resource-based view (RBV) to understand how hotel decision makers approach RM: do they invest in internal development or outsource the RM function

Success Factors in Restaurant Crowdfunding

According to the US Department of Agriculture, Americans now spend more on food away from home than at home. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, more and more would-be food entrepreneurs want to enter the restaurant market. Raising finance can be a problem but crowdfunding provides a new route for people to realize their dreams. UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management’s Assistant Professors of Hospitality Services Mehmet Altin and Dipendra Singh, and Ph.D. candidate Gabriela Lelo de Larrea, are among the first to conduct empirical research to discover what determines crowdfunding success in start-up restaurants

USING ECONOMIC SENTIMENT IN DESTINATION DEMAND MANAGEMENT

As part of competitive marketing strategies, tourism demand modeling plays an important role in destination management and marketing. This study incorporated the concept of Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) into tourism demand studies along with more traditional variables such as interest rate, relative price, and relative exchange rate. The study utilized ARIMA, and ARDL Bound Test approach to cointegration for the long and short-run elasticities using 15 tourist generating countries from the members of EU to Turkey. The study concludes that ESI is an effective tool and good indicator to gauge and monitor tourism demand

THE PERCEIVED IMPACT OF NUCLEAR PLANT (NP) ON A TOURISM DESTINATION: A CASE OF MERSIN

This study is designed to examine the perception of residents, including second home owners of the province of Mersin about their general and tourism specific attitudes of the proposed nuclear power plant (NPP) location and assess the degree to which if there would be variations of perceptions within the local population about the construction of NPP. The study revealed that elder and more educated individuals have stronger opposition attitudes about the construction of the proposed NPP. However, the overall result indicates a matter of degrees of opposition that may need to be managed or mitigated should the project is implemented

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE, AND CREDIT RATINGS OF HOSPITALITY FIRMS

This study examines interrelated connections of corporate governance, ownership structure, and credit ratings. From the agency relationship perspective, the study analyzes this multiple association by accounting for firm-specific and ownership characteristics for the period between 1990 and 2007. In this context, logistic functions are used in regression models to predict the probable outcomes of these multiple relationships. Primary findings of this study revealed that hospitality firms with higher anti-takeover provisions (less shareholder power) enjoy higher credit ratings. Findings also revealed high coefficients of Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2003) index (the GIM index), suggesting that hospitality firms have strong governance provisions, reduced agency conflicts, and higher chances of getting better credit ratings

COMPARISON OF BASKETBALL PERFORMANCE AND EFFICIENCY SCORES BETWEEN TURKISH BASKETBALL LEAGUE PLAYERS WHO ARE TURKISH, AMERICAN AND OTHER NATIONS ORIGIN

The purpose of the present research is defining the changes between performance values and efficiency rates of basketball players of Turkish, American and other nation’s origin who played basketball in Spor Toto Turkish Basketball League in 2015-2016 seasons. The universe and the sample of the research consist of the total of 237 basketball players who played in Spor Toto Turkish Basketball League in 2015-2016 seasons. Of these players, 121 were from Turkey, 85 were from the United States of America and 51 were from other countries. Data related to players were obtained from Turkish Basketball Federation Spor Toto Basketball League website (www.bsl.org.tr). Efficiency scores of the players were calculated according to the formula developed by John Hollinger. The variation in performance and efficiency scores were tested with “Independent Samples t test” and “One-way ANOVA”, the source of the variation was found with Tukey test. According to the findings on the performance values, there aren’t any significant differences between American and other nation’s players, while there is a significant difference between foreign and Turkish players (p < 0.05). Accordingly, efficiency scores of Turkish players (51.88 ± 6.41) were lower than players from the United States of America (201.82 ± 12.45) and other countries (199.14 ± 18.61), and the difference between the scores was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Considering the performance and efficiency scores of basketball players who played in Spor Toto Basketball League in 2015-2016 season, it can be reported that players from the USA and other countries were more effective than Turkish players.   Article visualizations

NUTRITION ATTITUDES AND INFORMATION LEVELS OF FOOTBALL REFEREES

This study aims at revealing the changes in nutrition attitude and knowledge levels of football referees. 130 referees actively serving as Candidate, Provincial and Regional Referees in Izmir, Konya, Aksaray and Niğde provinces constituted the sample group of the study. The personal information form was used in obtaining the socio-demographic information and the nutrition knowledge and attitude scale developed by Ertürk (2010) was used in determination of the nutrition attitude and knowledge. The variance and homogeneity of the data were tested, "Independent Samples t Test" was used for binary comparisons, "One Way Anova" for differences between groups in multiple comparisons, and "Tukey" test for the determination of variation sources. The nutritional attitudes of the provincial and district referees were higher than those of the candidate referees and the nutritional information of the candidate referees were higher than the provincial and district referees and this change was statistically found to be significant (P <0.05). While no change due to the gender factor was observed, nutrition information of the referees received nutrition lessons was found to be higher than the referees who did not, and this change was statistically found to be significant (P <0.05). No difference was found in nutritional attitudes and knowledge of the referees depending on factors such as age, income, sibling, years of service, and level of education. As a result, it can be said that candidate referees who have just started their duties have more nutrition knowledge than provincial and district referees, and provincial and district referees have better nutrition attitudes than candidate referees. Football referees are thought to be an important issue in renewing their nutritional attitudes and knowledge in order to improve their performance and quality of life.  Article visualizations

The Relevance of the Vacation Home Rental Industry to Florida\u27s Economy and the COVID-19 Hangover

The University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management documented the economic footprint of Florida’s vacation rental home industry in excess of $27 billion. The study commissioned by Florida Realtors and conducted in partnership with the Florida Vacation Rental Management Association, took place in summer and fall of 2019 and was completed in early spring of 2020. The research team consisted of Robertico Croes, Ph.D., Manuel Rivera, Ph.D., Kelly Semrad, Ph.D., Valeriya Shapoval, Ph.D., Jorge Ridderstaat, Ph.D., and Mehmet Altin, Ph.D