THE MEDIATING ROLE OF TURNOVER INTENTION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB SATISFACTION AND EMPLOYEES’ JOB PERFORMANCE IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

This study examined the mediating role of employees' turnover intention on the relationship between job satisfaction, and job performance in the hotel industry in Lagos State, Nigeria. A quantitative research design was used. The population of the study comprised employees of 792 registered hotels in Lagos State. 63 of the 792 registered hotels were selected through systematic random sampling. The employees of the 63 selected hotels put at 1, 624 formed the unit of analysis of the study. Since it is practically impossible for the researchers to sample the entire 1, 624 employees, hence Taro Yamane formula based on proportional allocation was used to determine the sample size of the study put at 330 employees. Partial Least Square (PLS) structural equation modelling was used for the analysis. The study revealed a positive and significant association between job satisfaction and employees’ performance. It also found that turnover intention partially and strongly mediates the connection between job satisfaction and employees’ performance. These findings may serve as a guide to the formulation, and implementation of policies by human resources, and the management of the hotel industry in Lagos State. The management of hotels in Lagos State may use employees’ turnover as a predictor of hotel employee behaviours and then formulate recruitment policies that will help maintain employee satisfaction, and performance thereby helping in employees’ retention. The study also confirmed the applicability of Hertzberg’s Two Factor theory to hotel employees’ work behaviour in an emerging economy

PERSONALITY TRAITS AND TOURISM-PRENEURSHIP TENDENCY OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT UNDERGRADUATES

This paper examined the relationship between the big five personality traits and tourism-preneurship tendency of undergraduate students of hospitality and tourism management, University of Port Harcourt. The study used a structured questionnaire. Multiple regressions analysis that allows for exploration of the interrelationship among sets of variables were adopted for the analysis of data collected. The researchers carefully screen the data in terms of missing values, influential outliers, normality, and multicollinearity using statistical package for social science (SPSS) software version 23 before proceeding with the analysis. The result shows that there is a positive and significant correlation between the five dimensions of personality traits and tourism-prenueuriship tendency (TPI) in respect to hospitality and tourism management undergraduate students, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria except for openness to experiences. The result further validates the proposed big-five personality traits and tourism-preneurship tendency model for hospitality and tourism management undergraduate students of the University of Port Harcourt. It also confirms contentiousness as making the strongest unique contribution to tourism-preneurship tendency of hospitality and tourism management undergraduate students, University of Port Harcourt, Choba, Nigeria. This study contributed to the body of knowledge in the tourism domain by authenticating the usage of the big five personality traits for predicting tourism-entrepreneurship tendency of hospitality and tourism management students in an emerging economy. Overall, this research contributes to knowledge of university student’s personality traits and their relations with tourism-entrepreneurship intention. It fills the gap of limited empirical studies on entrepreneurship and tourism management in emerging economies

Influence of Policy Strategies, Instruments, and Malaysians’ Attitude on Sustainable Edu-tourist Industry in Malaysia

This paper proposes a theoretical model that explains predictive influence of edu-tourist policy strategies, and instruments, including, attitude of Malaysians towards international edu-tourists on sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia. The design / methodology that was adopted in this article involves presentation of an hypothetical model which shows sustainable edu-tourist indusrty in Malaysia as a dependent variable been influenced by two (2) sets of  independent variables: policy strategies, and instruments, including, the mediating influence of attitude of Malaysian towards internaional edu-tourists between Malaysian edu-tourist policy strategies, and instruments, and sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia. These variables, whether consciously or unconsciously influence the choice of Malaysia as a preferred edu-tourist destination country among international edu-tourists. The limitations of this study stem from the nature of the study itself.  The study integrate factors identified in existing literature that influence sustainable edu-tourist industry in other countries, hence, replicate same in the context of Malaysia.  Future research on the subject in Malaysia context will examine the existing relationships among the aforementioned variables. In particular, it will give and analyse the weight of each factor and the relative importance of each element for the factor it belongs. Therefore, determining the relative importance of each element and factors they belong would constitute an important source of information for future work on sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia. Since, there are few studies which try to examine the influence of policy strategies,and instruments, including, the mediating effects of attitudes of Malaysian towards internaional edu-tourists between edu-tourist policy strategies, and instruments, and sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia from an integrated point of view, this paper contributes to bridging the gap. Keywords: Policy Strategies, Policy Instruments,  Edu-tourism, Edu-tourist

Destination selection process among international higher education students in Malaysia

International student migration is now a multi-billion dollar business to many countries, and the global economy. Globally, over 4.1 million students seek for university education outside their home countries in 2010, and created market worth RM1, 120-1,400 billion. Various countries are taking advantage of mobility of international students to brand a tourism typology known as edu-tourism. Thus,taking advantage of this industry to boost their foreign exchange earnings. Malaysia is having her fair share for exporting university education. This form of edu-tourism product contributed RM27 billion or four percent to the Malaysia’s Gross National Income in 2009. The government of Malaysia plan to earn RM60 billion per year from edu-tourism from the year 2020, thus, creating additional jobs of about 536,000. This highlight the attractiveness and importance of international students as a potential target group to fulfilling the national goal. Explanation on why international students decide to come to Malaysia to pursue higher education,including, factors that influence this touristic travel decision informed this study. A modified synthesis model was adapted and used to develop the contemporary edutourism destination choice model (CEDCM). The CEDCM model was used to explain edu-tourist’s decision making process, and to seek various dimensions that determine edu-tourists decision at each stage of the choice process. The research sampled 1000 postgraduate and undergraduate international students who enrolled in 13 Malaysia’s public and private universities using a survey questionnaire. The research reveals that edu-tourist’s socio-cultural factor, quest for career development, and economic factor of home country are the key intrinsic and extrinsic push factors that determines their decision to study abroad. The sociocultural and economic factor of Malaysia attracted them to Malaysia, while they choose Malaysia’s university due to its institutional characteristics, and internationalisation attributes. The study further shows socio-cultural factor of edutourists as the most influencer of decision to study abroad. Socio-cultural factor of Malaysia mostly influenced their choice of Malaysia, while institutional characteristics mostly informed their choice of university. The three hypotheses in the study are significant, hence supported, while the mediation test shows a partial mediation. This study provides significant implications for the government of Malaysia, the ministry of tourism, and higher education, including, the managers of Malaysia’s education institutions to implement its useful findings in order to leap-frog the Malaysia’s tourism sector. This include continuous tourism research effort aimed at identifying intrinsic / motives of the edu-tourists to study abroad, aside their major learning motive. Government of Malaysia, and the tourism operators should make the most of the attractive socio-economic image of Malaysia for effective positioning strategy of Malaysia in the global tourism market. Design effective tourism destination marketing strategy for the country using the socio-economic platform of the country to attracting more tourists, and as well, international students. Maximise the institutional image, and internalisation reputation of Malaysia’s universities as essential tourism assets for the country to develop its tourism industry. The ministry of tourism Malaysia in collaboration with the ministry of higher education should explore a new thrust of culture-base or adventure type of tourism to attract this specific niche market of education oriented travellers. Environment and atmosphere at the Malaysia’s tourism destinations visited by students should encourage social interaction. Specific effort should be undertaken in other to promote interaction between university students and hosts, particularly in destinations, and context where tourists-host interaction was lower among other recommendations

Edutourism : International Student’s Decision Making Process In Selecting A Host University In Malaysia

This paper proposes a theoretical model that integrates the different groups of factors which influences the decision making process of international students in selecting a university of study in Malaysia. The design / methodology that was adopted involves presention of hypothetical model which shows the choice of Malaysian university as an independent variable dependent on four factors: institutional reputation; financial factor, degree of internalisation of university; and social / geographical link. The consideration, whether conscious or unconscious on the part of the  prospective international student, will determine the final choice made by these students in selecting a university of study in Malaysia. The limitations of this study stem from the nature of the study itself. Being a preliminary study, it aims to integrate the factors identified in the existing literature. Thus, future research on the subject will examine the existing relationships among the aforementioned factors. In particular, it will give and analyse the weight of each factor on the university choice intention of the international students, and the relative importance of each element for the factor it belongs to. Therefore, determining the relative importance of each element and factor would constitute an important source of information for future work in international edutourism studies. Since, there are few studies which try to tackle the decision making process of the prospective international student on choice of university in Malaysia from an integrated point of view. This paper contributes to bridging that gap. Keywords: Edutourism, Decision Making, Higher education, International Student,and Universit

Psychometric properties of decision to study abroad attributes among international edu-tourists from emerging economies

This article developed and validates the psychometric properties of attributes that influences edu-tourists from emerging economies to study in emerging country (AISE) in respect to Malaysia. A survey was done on 1000 international edu-tourists from Africa, Asia and Middle-East in 13 Malaysian edu-tourism institutions. The structure of the underlying dimensions of decision to study abroad was framed based on the Push and Pull theory and literature. Reliability analysis, exploratory, and confirmatory factor analysis were applied to investigate internal consistency and construct validity of the AISE model using SPSS and Analysis of Moment Structure version 22. The Composite Reliability (CR) and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) were examined to determine the construct reliability and convergent validity. Result of exploratory factor analysis showed that four dimensions emerged with 20 corresponding items. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a three-dimensional model with14 corresponding indicators of a good fit. Dimensions in the final model include: Social-cultural factor, Economic factor, and Career development with valid Cronbach’s Alpha values and a good construct reliability. The value of the AVE shows that the AISE model has adequate convergent validity. Since the focus of the Malaysian government is to attract 200, 000 international edu-tourists by the year 2020. Factors capable of determining international edu-tourists from other emerging countries to decide to study abroad in Malaysia need to be identified. This study suggests a three-dimensional AISE model capable of explaining the decision to study abroad behaviour of international edu-tourists from emerging economies

Conceptualising the intrinsic and extrinsic push factors influencing international edu-tourists decision to study abroad: the Malaysia perspective

This article conceptualised the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence international edu-tourists from the emerging economy to study in an emerging economy like Malaysia. A growing body of models has been developed to explain the factors influencing international edu-tourist from the emerging economies to choose to study abroad in the developed economy. In view of the new mobility trend of the international edu-tourists from the emerging economies to study abroad in an emerging country, including, limited model to explain this new mobility trend in Malaysia, this article contributes to the Malaysia literature pertaining to this subject. The article proposes 4 intrinsic and 2 extrinsic antecedent variables in predicting the new mobility behaviour of the international edu-tourists from the emerging economies who chooses to study abroad in Malaysia (an emerging economy). The limitations of this article stem from the nature of the study itself. Being a preliminary study, it integrated the factors identified in the existing literature. Thus, future empirical research on this subject is required to examine the existing relationships among the aforementioned factors, by giving and analyse the weight of each factor influencing the choice to study abroad in an emerging economy by the international edu-tourists from the emerging countries. Therefore, determining the relative importance of each element and factors that constitute an important source of information for future work in international edu-tourism studies