Culinary tourism and post-pandemic travel: Ecosystem responses to an external shock

Purpose: The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) global pandemic forced hospitality and tourism service providers to respond by pivoting business models in line with governmental restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. This paper explores the online responsiveness of tourism-affiliated culinary service providers to a major external disruption. Methods: This study uses ecosystem resilience and Internet marketing theories to analyze 139 web homepages of culinary tourism service providers promoted by the official tourism website of Jamaica, to measure of Jamaica to measure online responsiveness to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Findings show that web page responses vary between the official tourism web page and the restaurants promoted on its site. Responses also vary across restaurant affiliation clusters and across location clusters. Further, resilient web page responses are more commonly associated with hotel restaurants and eponymous restaurants. Implications: Culinary service providers promoted by the official tourism marketing arm of a destination should consistently practice resilient online marketing response to external shocks. This study provides a novel analysis of online responsiveness to COVID-19 and contributes a summary framework for resilient response by culinary ecosystem providers preparing for post-pandemic travel

Blast injuries in children: a mixed-methods narrative review.

Background and significance. Blast injuries arising from high explosive weaponry is common in conflict areas. While blast injury characteristics are well recognised in the adults, there is a lack of consensus as to whether these characteristics translate to the paediatric population. Understanding blast injury patterns in this cohort is essential for providing appropriate provision of services and care for this vulnerable cohort. Methods. In this mixed-method review, original papers were screened for data pertaining to paediatric injuries following blasts. Information on demographics, morbidity and mortality and service requirements were evaluated. The papers were written and published in English from a range of international specialists in the field. Patient and public involvement statement: No patients or members of the public were involved in this review. Results. Children affected by blast injuries are predominantly male and their injuries arise from explosive remnants of war, particularly unexploded ordinance. Blasts show increased morbidity and mortality in younger children, while older children have injury patterns similar to adults. Head and burn injuries represent a significant cause of mortality in young children, while lower limb morbidity is reduced compared to adults. Children have a disproportionate requirement for both operative and non-operative service resources, and provisions for this burden are essential. Conclusions. Certain characteristics of paediatric injuries arising from blasts are distinct from that of the adult cohort, while the intensive demands on services highlights the importance of understanding the diverse injury patterns in order to optimise future service provisions in caring for this the child blast survivor

Do Social Media Investments Pay Off? Preliminary evidence from Swiss destination marketing organizations

ocial media has become a dominant subject in tourism and hospitality research. Given the importance of social media in the customer journey, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) need to understand the effectiveness of their social media activities. This paper analyses the relationship between DMOs’ marketing spending and staffing and various social media key performance indicators (KPIs). We used an online questionnaire to collect data about social media activities and respective marketing budgets of DMOs in Switzerland for the reference year 2014. We also gathered social media KPI figures of the five main social media platforms used by these DMOs (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram). Our results suggest that DMOs’ investments in social media (allocated resources for marketing, online marketing, and especially social media) correlate with identified metrics for measuring social media success

The return on tourism organizations' social media investments ::preliminary evidence from Belgium, France and Switzerland

Literature suggests dozens of ways of how to quantify the success of social media. However, there is no consent about the measurement of the return of investment (ROI). Only very limited empirical work is looking at the topic especially in tourism. This study is one of the first attempts to look at the ROI of tourism organizations. In doing so, various input (i.e. budget, manpower, amount of platforms used) and outcome (i.e. posts, website success and social media KPIs such as number of posts, interaction, and page performance index) variables are analysed. Responses of 150 tourism organizations to an online questionnaire and social media data collected via the monitoring tool Fanpage Karma provide insights for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. Our data indicates that despite an ever increasing importance of online services for the customer journey, the monetary and manpower resources allocated to online marketing and social media is modest for most tourism organizations of the three surveyed countries. The achieved outcomes of the tourism organizations are weak especially when it comes to engagement figures. Revealed relationships such as between marketing budget and success measures for YouTube videos are presented and a discussion is provided