Building A Resilient Event Industry: Lessons Learned during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Guided by the theoretical framework of organizational resilience, this study interviewed twenty-six event planners regarding their risk and crisis management related practices and their experiences with the COVID-19 global pandemic. This study conducted thematic analyses to analyze the data. The results showed that organizational resilience was approached through planned and adaptive resilience. Their crisis management practices are influenced by event planners’ personal knowledge, experiences, and expertise as well as their organization’s policy and leadership. When it comes to the case of COVID-19, the concept of organizational residence is mainly reflected through adaptive resilience. It also seems that most resilient organizations have been excellent in communicating and managing customer relationships and creating innovative strategies to generate revenue. Further theoretical and practical implications were provided based on the findings

Exploring Residents’ Roles as Risk Insiders in Tourism Crisis Management

The purpose of this study is to explore residents’ roles as risk insiders in tourism crisis management. Particularly, this study used the recent event of Red Tides in Florida as the context and surveyed 969 potential visitors and 460 Florida residents. The preliminary findings indicated that visitors tend to rely on residents for risk related information. Guided by the social identity theory, this study further investigated the main drivers of Florida residents’ information-sharing behavior. The results indicated that both subjective knowledge and social identity influenced residents’ willingness to share risk information with visitors and their actual behavior. Based on the findings, this study further discussed a new research direction that involves residents in tourism crisis management. This study also offers practical implications on how to encourage residents to participate in the information-exchange process in tourism crisis management

Learning from past crises: Evaluating hotels’ online crisis responses to health crises

Organizational learning is an important function of tourism crisis management. By examining and evaluating hotels’ responses to the 2010 bed bug crisis on social media, the purpose of this study was to provide insights into how to establish effective crisis responses. Situational crisis communication theory was used as the theoretical framework and a total of 136 management responses were included in the sample. Content analysis and co-occurrence analysis were conducted. The results revealed a learning curve of crisis management for hotels. Enhancing and Bolstering were the most commonly used strategies within the sample. Further analysis showed the inconsistencies between hotels’ crisis response strategies and the situational crisis communication theory guidelines, where instructing information were seldom included. Based on the findings, this study discussed the importance of creating effective crisis responses and future research directions

Exploring inbound tourists experience in Beijing, China: an online deductive approach

Purpose Beijing is becoming one of the top global destinations but the number of international tourists to the city has been declining recently. By analyzing inbound tourists experience in Beijing and identifying the relationship between the destination attributes and satisfaction, the purpose of this paper is to provide important insights into city tourism research and city destination development. Design/methodology/approach This study used an online deductive approach and collected 1,254 reviews on TripAdvisor referencing major attractions in Beijing. This study used the Leximancer software to analyze the content of the reviews and to identify the underlying relationships. Findings The results showed that international tourists’ experience in Beijing can be reflected via five aspects: attractions, city, transportation, service and people. The results further indicated that the major concern of international tourists visiting Beijing related to the service quality on site. Originality/value This study explored inbound tourists experience in Beijing using an online deductive approach. Practical implications were provided with respect to improving international tourists experience in Beijing and enhancing their satisfaction and revisiting intentions

Industry convergence in rural tourism development: a China-featured term or a new initiative?

Industry convergence is a popular term that has been widely referenced in the context of rural tourism development in China. All levels of government (local, regional, national) in China have repeatedly addressed the significance of industry convergence in their tourism plans and related policies. Despite its popularity, limited studies at present have explored this concept in-depth. Using Huai’an as a case, this study applied a path analysis and reported the industry convergence process in a destination. The findings of this study can provide both theoretical and practical implications that are useful for tourism planners and policy makers

Applying Crowd Risk Mitigation Technologies in Urban Sport Events: A Case Analysis of the Collegiate Football Event in Indianapolis, IN

In recent years, the need for advanced precautions for mitigating the risks imposed by events, which involve high volumes of people in shared spaces, has multiplied. The occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic has further altered event practices, spaces, and event attendees’ mindsets in large-scale events. Proper crowd management not only seeks to prevent acts of violence and injury, but in today’s event environments; efforts should be consciously applied to reduce the spread of respiratory infections such as COVID-19. As the events industry continues to evolve and face new limitations, ways in which event organizers respond must evolve as well. Smartphone technologies are opening new ways for event organizers to communicate with and monitor attendees. This case study explores current crowd management strategies, analyzes the gaps in widely used models, and finally proposes event management technologies trending in the field

Does robotic service improve restaurant consumer experiences? An application of the value-co-creation framework

One recent application of technology In the foodservice industry involves robotic services in restaurants, mainly because it reduces labor costs and increases efficiencies. Driven by the value co-creation framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of robot service on restaurant customer experiences and satisfaction. The sample includes a total of 1381 reviews posted from January 2015 to January 2020. This study used the software Leximancer to analyze the data and identified the following themes: Food, Robot, Quality, Ordering and Delivery Serivces. The findings further indicated that robotic services play an essential role in creating positive dining experiences and are more likely to lead to higher satisfaction levels. Based on the results, this study discussed how robotic services might contribute to customers’ value co-creating process and affect their evaluation of the dining experiences. This study, however, is delimited to English reviews and North American restaurants

Can post-disaster tourism development improve destination livelihoods? A case study of Aceh, Indonesia

This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or be any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Destinations are vulnerable to natural disasters, which can result in damage to infrastructure and built facilities, negative destination images, and a difficult time of recovery. Recently, a growing number of destinations have incorporated tourism development in their disaster relief efforts and used post-disaster tourism as a strategy to enhance local livelihoods and build community resilience. Guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Tourism (SLFT), this study analyzed the case of Aceh, Indonesia, a destination that had been struck by a severe natural disaster and developed tsunami tourism as a strategy to recover. The data were collected through focus group interviews among local stakeholders. Based on the SLFT, this study employed a deductive approach to analyze the data and identified six themes. The findings not only validated the applicability of the SLFT to a post-disaster tourism development context, but also revealed how tourism could contribute to various community assets and a resilient destination in the aftermath of a crisis. The study also underscored the importance of local culture and religion during the recovery process. Based on the findings, further discussions are provided regarding the dynamics involving sustainable development, post-disaster tourism, and resilient destinations

Model Organisms Reveal Insight into Human Neurodegenerative Disease: Ataxin-2 Intermediate-Length Polyglutamine Expansions Are a Risk Factor for ALS

Model organisms include yeast Saccromyces cerevisae and fly Drosophila melanogaster. These systems have powerful genetic approaches, as well as highly conserved pathways, both for normal function and disease. Here, we review and highlight how we applied these systems to provide mechanistic insight into the toxicity of TDP-43. TDP-43 accumulates in pathological aggregates in ALS and about half of FTD. Yeast and fly studies revealed an interaction with the counterparts of human Ataxin-2, a gene whose polyglutamine repeat expansion is associated with spinocerebellar ataxia type 2. This finding raised the hypothesis that repeat expansions in ataxin-2 may associate with diseases characterized by TDP-43 pathology such as ALS. DNA analysis of patients revealed that intermediate-length polyglutamine expansions in ataxin-2 are a risk factor for ALS, such that repeat lengths are greater than normal, but lower than that associated with spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 (SCA2), and are more frequent in ALS patients than in matched controls. Moreover, repeat expansions associated with ALS are interrupted CAA-CAG sequences as opposed to the pure CAG repeat expansions typically associated with SCA2. These studies provide an example of how model systems, when extended to human cells and human patient tissue, can reveal new mechanistic insight into disease