The Relation between Demographic Factors and the Turnover Intention in Pre-opening Hotel Businesses

AbstractDetermining the employees’ turnover intention in pre-opening hotel businesses is important for the hospitality industry who have to bear the costs of employment and in-service training. This study aims to examine the relation between of the employees who are recruited by opening hotel businesses and their turnover intentions. A questionnaire was utilized on 151 employees who worked at six 5-Star pre-opening hotels in Istanbul. Respondents were selected based on convenience sampling method. According to the results of the study, turnover intentions of the employees in opening hotel businesses are low. It was also found that there is difference on turnover intention based on gender variable

Discourses of Islamic Finance Supporting in Muslim-Friendly Tourism in the New Normal Era (Indonesia Cases)

This conceptual paper analyzes how to develop Muslim-friendly tourism in Indonesia in the new era to increase the number of Muslim tourists. Furthermore, the method is qualitatively based on research questions: (i) What is the government’s strategy to develop Islamic finance in Indonesia? (ii) What is Indonesia’s strategy for developing halal products and services? (iii) What is the strategy for developing Islamic finance to strengthen Muslim-friendly tourism and the creative economy?. The result showed that the existence of Islamic finance and digital ecosystems are very much needed. Therefore, the implication of this conceptual paper is to provide input and information to stakeholders who have the authority to develop Muslim-friendly tourism in Indonesia; and that there is a need for collaboration and synergy between parties, especially in the Islamic finance industry. Keywords: digital era, finance, halal tourism, post-pandemic, supply chai

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

Predicting NOx emissions in diesel engines via sigmoid NARX models using a new experiment design for combustion identification

Diesel engines are still widely used in heavy-duty engine industry because of their high energy conversion efficiency. In recent decades, governmental institutions limit the maximum acceptable hazardous emissions of diesel engines by stringent international regulations, which enforces engine manufacturers to find a solution for reducing the emissions while keeping the power requirements. A reliable model of the diesel engine combustion process can be quite useful to search for the best engine operating conditions. In this study, nonlinear modeling of a heavy-duty diesel engine NOx emission formation is presented. As a new experiment design, air-path and fuel-path input channels were excited by chirp signals where the frequency profile of each channel is different in terms of the number and the direction of the sweeps. This method is proposed as an alternative to the steady-state experiment design based modeling approach to substantially reduce testing time and improve modeling accuracy in transient operating conditions. Sigmoid based nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) model is employed to predict NOx emissions with given input set under both steady-state and transient cycles. Models for different values of parameters are generated to analyze the sensitivity to parameter changes and a parameter selection method using an easy-to-interpret map is proposed to find the best modeling parameters. Experimental results show that the steady-state and the transient validation accuracies for the majority of the obtained models are higher than 80% and 70%, respectively

Estimating soot emission in diesel engines using gated recurrent unit networks

In this paper, a new data-driven modeling of a diesel engine soot emission formation using gated recurrent unit (GRU) networks is proposed. Different from the traditional time series prediction methods such as nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) approach, GRU structure does not require the determination of the pure time delay between the inputs and the output, and the number of regressors does not have to be chosen beforehand. Gates in a GRU network enable to capture such dependencies on the past input values without any prior knowledge. As a design of experiment, 30 different points in engine speed - injected fuel quantity plane are determined and the rest of the input channels, i.e., rail pressure, main start of injection, equivalence ratio, and intake oxygen concentration are excited with chirp signals in the intended regions of operation. Experimental results show that the prediction performances of GRU based soot models are quite satisfactory with 77% training and 57% validation fit accuracies and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) values are less than 0.038 and 0.069, respectively. GRU soot models surpass the traditional NARX based soot models in both steady-state and transient cycles

Experience vs quality: predicting satisfaction and loyalty in services

Both quality and experience are discussed as antecedents of satisfaction and loyalty in services. Despite their popularity in measuring success, no previous study compared the effect size and impact of quality and experience on positive outcomes on the same product. In order to do so, package tours were selected as the case service. 356 questionnaires were collected from tourists participating in package tours. The impact of service quality and customer experience on satisfaction and loyalty was measured using regression analysis. Findings revealed that customer experience was a better predictor for both satisfaction and loyalty. Although service quality was also found as a significant antecedent, experience was able to explain a greater percentage of variance in positive customer behaviors. Through comparing the strength of service quality and customer experience on satisfaction and loyalty, this study offers both theoretical contributions and practical implications. The study identified experience as a better predictor for both satisfaction and loyalty than satisfaction which is an important contribution to the discussion on consumer behavior and its components. Tour operators organizing package tours who might design their itineraries based on experiential components might also achieve a greater satisfaction and loyalty

Marketing Istanbul As A Culinary Destination

This study investigates whether and how Istanbul, Turkey is marketed and promoted as a culinary destination. Based on a critical literature review, a research framework was developed, and official brochures and websites for Istanbul, Turkey, were content-analyzed. The research findings suggest that although Istanbul has rich culinary resources and offers many domestic and international cuisines, the city is not well marketed and promoted as a culinary destination. This is one of the first studies discussing how far a leading urban destination in a developing country is not successfully marketed and promoted as a culinary destination. Based on the research findings, this study offers specific theoretical and practical implications on how Istanbul and similar destinations can better utilize their unique culinary resources

Tour Operating Business

PublishedTourist product is composed of an amalgam of services and products that are brought together to create an overall tourist experience. This multi-service product, by definition, includes a trip away and an overnight at the destination, and can either be created by the tourists themselves or by a tour operator. Travel trade is an important sector of the tourism industry responsible for packaging travel services and offering them to potential travelers. They also have an important role in commercialization of tourist products and destination development. Tour packages are usually cheaper, safer and more convenient for tourists. Hence, travel firms create the link between tourist products at the destination and the travelers. Tour operators even create and brand destinations. They take various risks and invest in the destination product ahead of the sales, hence they are an important stakeholder for tourism destination development. Despite there being extensive literature on transportation, accommodation, restaurants, attractions and events; the tour operators, their place in tourism system and their operations are neglected in education and research. This book addresses this gap both in theory and practice. The first chapter discusses the nature of the tourism industry and tourism supply. Tourism resources, tourism types, tourist services and organizations are also explored in this section. The second chapter focuses on the tourist product, features of tourism as a service, standardization and distribution of tourism products. This chapter also introduces travel firms as both producers and intermediaries of tourism products and services. The third chapter focuses on the travel industry, defining travel agencies and tour operators. Differences between the two and different types of each are also detailed in this section. This book also recognizes tour guides as an important part of the tourism industry and a significant partner to travel firms. Tour guides, their roles, certification and their relationships with tour operators are examined in chapter four. Tourism education, its significance, characteristics and challenges are provided in chapter five. Chapter six delves into tour operation, its management and stages. The importance of tour operators for destination development, sustainability, branding and competition and their relationships with other stakeholders are examined in this chapter. Chapter six also explores ICT information and communication technology tools in tour operation, disintermediation and online travel agencies. This book is designed as a comprehensive destination management book as well. Hence the second part of the book delves into multinational tourism organizations, tourism types and offers case destinations for further discussion. The seventh chapter focuses on multinational corporations that invest in travel trade, including financial institutions. Vertical and horizontal integration in the industry and different types of investors are also examined in this chapter. Business travel and MICE tourism are discussed in chapter eight and nine. Their characteristics, types, operation, destination and choice factors are examined supported with sample itineraries, promotion kits and SWOT analysis. Faith tourism is another tourism type, explored in chapter ten. Istanbul and Anatolia as faith tourism destinations and their relationship with tourism are explored from the perspective of different stakeholders. Chapter eleven delves into culture tourism, which is another significant tourist segment for tour operators. Culture tourism is explored from the perspective of Istanbul and its cultural resources. This book, in chapter twelve, also makes a comparison between two popular destinations in Turkey: Antalya, the major leisure destination and Istanbul, the center for business travel and cultural tourism. The book finally concludes with an epilogue discussing the geopolitical dimensions of tourism and tourist flows. As both authors are scholars with hands on experience in tour operation, who integrated theory with practice within the book and provided real life examples, illustrations and itineraries. It is very much hoped that the content will provide both theoretical and practical contributions and will be a useful resource for tour operator education and training