The role of freedom in assessing the relationship between tourism competitiveness and quality of life: The case of Central America

The purpose of this dissertation study is to investigate the relationship among tourism competitiveness, quality of life, and freedom. The main premise is that the degree of freedom shapes the relationship between tourism development and quality of life. The study hypothesized that the greater the degree of freedom is, the greater impact tourism development will have on quality of life of residents of a destination. The theoretical framework of this study is based on combining Sen\u27s capability approach with the tourism competitiveness theory. Tourism competitiveness aims at enhancing the quality of life, while Sen\u27s capability approach provides the ingredients for how to improve quality of life through freedom. Thus, the main premise is that the combination of the two theoretical frameworks is possible through the construct of quality of life. The study is applied to the Central American region as tourism has become an important driver for socio-economic progress and growth. The study applied panel data analyses and comparative regression analyses to decipher and understand the context of tourism competitiveness and quality of life. The study built a tourism competitiveness index and investigated the intertemporal effects of tourism competitiveness, quality of life, and freedom. The major findings of this study are as follow. First, long term bi-directional causality was found between tourism competitiveness and quality of life. In other words, tourism not only positively impacts quality of life, but high levels of quality of life have positive influence on tourism competitiveness in the Central American region. This is a major contribution as such assumptions have been mainly hypothesized. Second, economic freedom was found to act as a moderating variable between tourism competitiveness and quality of life. This finding allows us to further understand what impact such relationship between tourism competitiveness and quality of life. Third, economic freedom was found not to have an impact on quality of life as originally thought. However, quality of life was found to have a short-term impact on economic freedom. Finally, economic freedom had a bi-directional relationship with tourism competitiveness. This is a major contribution as such relationship was not previously discussed in the academic literature. The theoretical implication of this study is in terms of combining the capability approach and the competitiveness theory. In terms of managerial implications, governments of the Central American region can work on strategies, such as marketing, to promote tourism which in turn will improve residents\u27 quality of life. At the same time, the government can work on improving residents\u27 well-being while impacting tourism competitiveness

Are students Real People ? The Use of Student Subjects in Hospitality Research

The objective of this study is to examine the service failure evaluations by sample group and failure type. Specifically, we examine three sample groups (hospitality major students, other major students, and non-students) in two service failure types (outcome and process). Understanding a possible systematic bias in the sample groups with a moderating factor (failure type) can provide useful insights for researchers to use student subjects in research and evaluate research findings more cautiously . Since the proportion of the total population is unknown, quota samples (100 for each group) of 300 respondents were collected for the comparison analysis. During this research, experimental study was designed using quasi-experimental design. This study can address some issues relating to the use of student samples in hospitality research. The findings can reveal patterns of service failure evaluation by different sample groups and they can guide researchers with possible systematic bias insights in conducting future research and evaluating previous research findings with hospitality student subjects

The Impact of National Differences on Government Response to COVID-19 and Hotel RevPAR

The COVID-19 pandemic has a deleterious effect on every aspect of human life. Because of the government restrictions that followed, hotels were overwhelmed by the mass booking cancellations. Even though the impact of crisis has been extensively studied in hospitality literature, the role of national differences, such as political, economic and culture differences, in the recovery process remains under-researched and little is known about the tourist behavior during a pandemic. The findings of the study indicates that COVID-19 cases, economic, political, and cultural environment has a significant impact on the government response to the pandemic. Similarly, the government response, COVID-19 cases, and national culture has a significant impact on hotel RevPAR. The results support previous findings that risk perception is influenced by cultural differences and origin region of the visitors matters. Therefore, national differences should be taken into consideration while formulating recovery strategies across destinations

Why People Cannot Work with Each Other? Examining the Barriers to Collaborative Destination Marketing

The objective of this study is to identify barriers that might jeopardize the success of collaboration partnership in the tourism industry and to identify the role employees’ personal characteristics play in collaborative relationships. To date, little research has been conducted on collaboration issues in the tourism industry. Understanding these barriers is not only important, but also the key to the future creation of collaborative relationships, its success, and effectiveness. Given the exploratory nature of this study, a qualitative case study approach was adopted. A total of thirty two in-depth interviews were collected during August 2009. This study can provide management with an overview of the barriers and personal characteristics they may face when entering interfirm partnerships

The Use of Student Subjects in Hospitality Research: Insights from Subjective Knowledge

This study addresses the use of students as a research subject issue by examining three groups’ (hospitality students, other major students, and non-student adults) responses to service failure and recovery. The findings, based on two experiments, suggest similar levels of overall satisfaction and return intentions but differences in the magnitude of failure, negative emotions, complaint intentions and overall justice perceptions in the three sample groups. Hospitality students’ responses are closer to non-student adults’ than other major students’ and subjective knowledge of restaurant services provides an explanation for this pattern. Implications using student samples and evaluating research findings based on them are discussed

From Potential to Ability to Compete: Towards a Performance-based Tourism Competitiveness Index

The purpose of this study is to design a ranking system for tourist destinations. The ranking system will be grounded in the competitiveness theory. The main tenet of the study reveals that the nexus inputs–outputs as entertained by several indices are not automatic. The study claims that a meaningful measurement of tourism competitiveness is performance. The study designs a tourism competitiveness index (TCI) derived from satisfaction, productivity and quality of life. The ranking in this study shows inconsistent results when compared to the World Economic Forum (WEF) tourism ranking. That is, the WEF tourism ranking revealed that countries at the top of the ranking are not necessarily strong in real tourism receipts per capita and quality of life; while the current study indicated that they actually are strong in those areas. The study further found that these two attributes (i.e. real receipts per capita and value added) strongly correlate with quality of life stressing the attributes of receipts per capita, value added and quality of life and their correlation as important elements in the descriptive theory building of tourism competitiveness

Destination Competitiveness and Human Development: The Compelling Critical Force of Human Agency

The study investigates whether governance and human agency act as intervening factors in the context of destination competitiveness and human development. This study employs the capability approach—that is, operationalizing human agency from an empowerment (feminist) perspective—and employed a case study research strategy to highlight the criticality of context. The results point to a bidirectional relationship between destination competitiveness and human development. Findings support three requisites: empowering people through occupational opportunities, promoting tourism toward sustaining human development, and placing agency over governance regarding public resource allocation. Surprisingly, results indicated that governance is lacking in the relationship between destination competitiveness and human development. Future research should concentrate on investigating urban versus rural destinations and gender roles, and in disaggregating employement indices to further understand the nature and forces of such relationships

Human Agency Shaping Tourism Competitiveness and Quality of Life in Developing Economies

The study investigates the nature of the relationship between tourism competitiveness and quality of life with human agency as an intervening variable. The study argues that integrating human agency as a foundational construct within the tourism competitiveness framework will enhance the theoretical knowledge of tourism competitiveness. A panel data analysis was applied to the case of Central America to examine the relationship between tourism competitiveness (TC) and quality of life (QoL). The results reveal a bi-directional causal relationship between the two constructs, as well as human agency acting as a moderator between TC and QoL, indicating a negative impact on such relationship. Such findings provide a number of theoretical and managerial implications, thus reinforcing the central role of human agency in defining the nature of the relationship between TC and QoL