Old Food was Never Better: Augmenting event authenticity at a medieval festival

This study aimed at developing an understanding of a medieval festival’s visitor attitudes towards how food and beverage (F&B) service might augment an event’s authenticity mission. It applies an authenticity framework to relatively untested aspects of the tourist/visitor experience. Initially, an exploratory ethnographic study was conducted at a pre-festival medieval banquet to explore dimensions of F&B apparent in the literature. This informed a resultant survey which was administered at the festival tournament. Herein is reported the exploratory study and preliminary findings from the survey. In conclusion the paper proposes theoretical contributions, practical implications and considerations for future research

Managing experience co-creation practices: Direct and indirect inducement in pop-up food tourism events

Consumers performing the role of value-creators in experience co-creation introduces idiosyncrasies that challenge experiential consistency. Taking ‘pop-up’ dining events as its empirical focus, and drawing on semi-structured interviews with participants, this study examines how organisations and consumers interact to negotiate ambiguity, variability and consistency. The paper questions how organisers try to prescribe normative rules governing events. It considers how consumers invest in preparing for events, and engage in socialised performances to create unique experiences. The data are also used to show how peer surveillance shapes consumer expectations, behaviours and interpretations. Consequently, this study contributes to knowledge on the practical management of co-creation by conceptualising different pathways through which organisations and consumers attempt to orchestrate behaviours. Moreover, in theorising from the data, this paper distinguishes between direct and indirect modes of inducement used to achieve experiential outcomes, identifying how ‘value-signalling’ practices engage event stakeholders and shape their co-creation.

Tourism workforce research : a review, taxonomy and agenda

This paper offers a critical review, purview and future view of 'workforce' research. We argue that the tourism (and hospitality) workforce research domain, beyond being neglected relative to its importance, suffers from piecemeal approaches at topic, analytical, theoretical and methods levels. We adopt a three-tiered macro, meso and micro level framework into which we map the five pervasive themes from our systematic review across a 10 year period (2005-2014). A critique of the literature, following a 'representations' narrative, culminates in the modelling of a tourism workforce taxonomy, which we propose should guide the acknowledgement and advancement of more holistic tourism workforce knowledge development

Creating family-friendly pub experiences: A composite data study

Pubs have traditionally been important social and community spaces, hosting multiple consumer segments. Successful pubs have broadened their appeal, for example by expanding their food provision and targeting family segments. However, little is known about the features and practices that make pubs appealing to families. Drawing on a ‘composite’ data set, consisting of 40 qualitative interviews and 387 responses to a directed online discussion thread, this paper examines what contributes to making pubs family-friendly. Data show how parental consumption intersects with parenting work, highlighting how physical and symbolic design features, tailored services, social interactions, and socio-material practices of the food offerings can shape consumption experiences positively and negatively. The paper thus contributes to practical knowledge by identifying how pubs can create family-friendly experiences. It also contributes to theoretical knowledge by conceptualising how ‘framing’ processes or effects, shaped by personal, situational and socio-cultural ‘imperatives’, influence consumer perceptions, behaviours and experiences

Are things just too hot in the kitchen? Chefs’ mental health and wellbeing

There is growing public awareness of the pervasiveness of the individual, community, societal and economic costs of mental health and wellbeing. The workplace is a domain of stress triggering mental health and wellbeing risks. Tourism fundamentally depends on chefs and cooks to both produce sustenance and create experiences for destination visitors, yet nearly every developed economy reports sustained skills shortages in this vital tourism occupation. While the Orwellian themes of poor working conditions, low pay and unsociable hours are routinely rehearsed, in the exploratory study this paper reports we ask is there evidence of these factors being the antecedents to mental health and wellbeing risks. We find, in a serious of astonishingly candid interviews with 16 experienced professional chefs that indeed these factors threatened their state of mind and wellbeing. More than this they reported resorting to destructive coping mechanisms. The paper concludes by proposing pathways forward, to address industrial and occupational cultures that apparently perpetuate mental health and wellbeing risks

Evaluation of Art from the Margins Inspired AIR Program

This document provides findings and recommendations of the recent Art from the Margins (AFTM) Inspired AIR Program. Art from the Margins received funding from the Queensland Government’s Arts Showcase Program to host three artists-in-residency (AIR) projects at their Brunswick Gallery and Studios

Investigating the workplace stressors of young cooks and chefs: implications for mental health and wellbeing interventions

Working conditions create significant stress which have deleterious impacts on their physical and mental health, on their families and social lives. The working conditions are exacerbated by a deeply entrenched occupational culture that promotes varying forms of bullying and harassment. These combine to often leave chefs physically and mentally exhausted. Coping strategies are generally ill-advised and include habitual drug and alcohol abuse. Apprentices report working in fear\ua0-\ua0paradoxical\ua0to\ua0their learning. Despite acknowledging they are a generation that has been raised to recognise that bullying and harassment, in its multiple forms, is unacceptable, and also possessing tools to call it out, the apprentices report being completely disempowered in toxic workplaces

Linkages between creativity and intention to quit: An occupational study of chefs

Human resource issues persist as a vexation for tourism managers. Foodservice is a core component of many tourism destinations and attractions yet the foodservice labour market is historically volatile. This article reports on the findings of a job satisfaction survey of chefs working in Australia's tourism and hospitality industry. This study's aim is to determine empirically whether there is a positive relationship between creativity and job and occupational satisfaction. A customised instrument is designed to mitigate the shortcomings of generalising scale items and findings of generic job satisfaction surveys to a single occupation. This paper focuses on identifying a range of dimensions of job satisfaction and occupational attributes connected to creativity and its associated dimensions. Reliability and data reduction analyses were conducted to validate the construction of composite 'creativity' variables for the basis of further comparisons. The findings indicate that the sample ranks creativity more highly than working conditions and that there is a clear relationship between creativity and both organisational and occupational satisfaction. Results vary as a function of gender. In conclusion, theoretical and practical implications for occupational and tourism management are discussed