Marketing

The impacts of the increasing human activities mostly through socioeconomic and environment interactions have continued to generate more scientific studies and contemporary discussion on issues ranging from the climate change to income and gender gap. Accordingly, the current study employed the cointegration and a two-step (system) SYS-Generalized Method of Moments to examine the environmental sustainability effects of income, international tourism arrivals, and labour force vis-à-vis gender unemployment in the panel of (32) Organization for Economic Development and Corporation (OECD) for the period 1995-2016. The study revealed that income growth in the OECD countries and increase in the inflow of international tourists into the OECD member countries are significant endangering factors for the bloc's environmental sustainability. More striking is the environmental impact of labour force in the panel countries. Intuitively, a positive labour force-environmental degradation nexus is expected; the negatively desirable labour force-environmental degradation nexus in the current study is a justification of (1) the prevailing gender employment/unemployment classifications in the OECD member countries, and (2) the increasing adoption of more environmental friendlier working conditions or operation among the member countries. Moreover, the current study strongly posits a significant policy framework for the governments and stakeholders of the OECD member countries.

Several conspiracy theories and hypotheses have been postulated by some individuals from various strata of governance globally concerning the outbreak and spread of the novel coronavirus in the last quarter of 2019. A pertinent hypothesis is the correlation of meteorological elements to the spread of the pandemic. To verify this claim and also confirm the initial findings of Tosepu et al.'s (2020), this study investigated the Spearman rank-order correlation of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Russian Federation with temperature-maximum, minimum, and average as well as precipitation. Our findings indicated a stronger correlation between average temperature (r s = 0.75 ***) and also recorded significant correlations for the other variants of temperature. Hence, the hypothesis of weather-induced COVID-19 spread is substantiated.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) elaborately encompass a global goal for sustainable consumption and production (Goal 12: SDGs), thus providing potential drivers and/or pathways to attaining sustainable consumption. In view of this global goal, this study examined the role of real income per capita, urbanization and especially inbound tourism in domestic material consumption for the panel of OECD countries. The study is conducted for the period of 1995 to 2016 by employing the panel quantile approach. Interestingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship between outbound tourism and domestic material consumption is established across the quantiles, thus indicating that sustainable domestic consumption is achievable after a threshold of domestic material consumption is attained. In addition, achieving sustainable consumption through economic or income growth is a herculean task for the OECD countries because the current reality indicates that income growth trigger...

The aim of this study is to consider individual opinions in order to attain the final ranking of determining factors in student housing choice in Northern Cyprus’ universities. This region is becoming a renowned force of international education, and there is a distinct need to know and enhance those factors having the greatest influence on student housing decisions. This investigation proposes applying the multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method of analytical hierarchy process (AHP), using the pairwise comparison between criteria to create an evaluation structure with criteria and related weights for improving service quality in student housing. A four-level model was constructed and tested, with sixteen sub-factors on fourth levels were compared, and the findings revealed that the preferred housing attributes were ventilation and peace, which were preferred equally, followed by flexible room arrangements, rules and regulations, empathy, Internet access, communication, priva...

Language learning in tourism is increasingly embracing digital technologies for both synchronous and asynchronous content delivery and interaction. Blended learning combining online and traditional face-to-face forms as well as immersive forms such as 3D virtual worlds, where participants may travel as they learn from the comfort of their sofa, offer promising benefits, namely in times of pandemic and other turbulent events. Involving culturally and geographically distant tutors in the learning process may increase learners’ motivation as well as satisfaction, provided that the course curricula and lesson plans utilize the potential by appropriate selection of activities. Despite all the potential benefits, however, troubles caused by the increased complexity of digitally enhanced courses may ruin learners’ experience. The paper provides a conceptual basis for a systemic approach in planning, creating, and delivering courses, considering both technical and psychological aspects, whi...

As nations and tourism destinations are beginning to relax nonpharmaceutical measures for the prevention of the COVID-19 virus, a major quest of tourism stakeholders is to restart and restore the once viable and productive industry to its prior state. While the urge to restart and restore may necessitate a strategic plan and drastic measures, care must be taken not to undermine the sustainability of the destination. The current study seeks to understand the perceptions of residents of Northern Cyprus as key tourism stakeholders concerning the impacts of COVID-19 to the island’s tourism activities and recommendations for recovery post pandemic. To this end, the study used grounded theory and semistructured interviews to explore how residents perceive the contribution of focused advertisements and stakeholder engagement in the sustainable restoration of tourism activities post COVID-19 on the island. While divergent opinions were gathered, it can be inferred that stakeholders expect t...

In recent years, social tourism has been strongly promoted in the EU, including the travel of people with various types of disabilities. The present study analyses travel motivation and barriers to travel for visually impaired people. This analysis is based on several years of research at the Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, then on the personal travel experience of a visually impaired person and the practice of a rehabilitation instructor at Tyfloservis, o.p.s (charitable trust), Hradec Králové, an organization supporting independent living of visually impaired people. The study is also based on interviews with ten visually impaired respondents and their travel experience. SARS-COV-2 is also included as a current barrier to travel.

Even though Czechia is flourishing economically, the country is the EU's fourthlargest carbon emitter, which indicates that its economic growth achievements are not sustained simultaneously with its environmental quality. Therefore, this study analyzed the effect of economic growth, international tourist arrivals, foreign direct investment, and ecoinnovation on reduction of the carbon emissions of the country. Data spanning from 2003 to 2018 was used and several econometric methods were applied to assess the effect of these variables. Findings revealed that foreign direct investment (FDI) increases carbon emissions as 1% rise in FDI leads to a 0.002% increase in carbon emissions while international tourist arrival and economic growth significantly reduce carbon emissions, as 1% rise in tourist arrival leads to-0.02% decline in the long run. Based on these findings, it is recommended that policies be put in place to further promote the Czech Republic as a destination country while observing the carrying capacity to ensure long term tourism sustainability towards reducing environmental degradation and achieving carbon neutrality.

The goal of sustainability in business is the maximization of resources for long-term productivity at a minimized negative impact for all key stakeholders. Several functions of human resources management are designed to achieve this goal. However, HRM practices can sometimes spiral down and result in the perception of favoritism–a practice that recruits or rewards relationship over merit. Hence, this project was designed to measure the impact of favoritism on the development of a sustainable hospitality workforce through the measures of subjective well-being, psychological capital, and knowledge hiding behavior. With the aid of randomly selected employees and estimation of structural models, the study validates the deleterious impact of favoritism and organizational politics on employee outcomes and by extension the sustainability of the workforce. Practical and theoretical recommendations are provided.

The Internet offers a rich atmosphere for prospective travelers to gain familiarity, and harvest and retrieve travel-related information and resources. An increasing number of tourism and hospitality firms have turned their attention to new business opportunities on the Web. Travel 2.0 has emerged as a new tool for competitive advantage. This study draws on social cognitive theory and the DeLone and McLean Information Systems (D&M IS) success model to diagnose the impact of websites design quality on booking/reservation intentions from a travelers’ perspective. This research model was tested with 700 valid data collected from travelers using Travel 2.0 websites through online survey using SPSS v18 for the analysis. The results of the data analysis provided support for the hypothesized relationships of e-service and system quality with booking/reservation/purchase behavioral intention implying that an e-travel site’s quality is an essential success factor for tourism enterprises. How...

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) elaborately promote “sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all” (Goal 8: SDGs). Considering that there has not been any cross-country comparison of the role of intellectual capital in career success, this study examines the nexus between intellectual capital and career success through the channels of income inequality, information, and communication technology from 1997 to 2018 for six European Economic Area (EEA) countries with high human development index (HDI). Using the Pooled Mean Group Autoregressive distributive lag model, results show that there is a positive and linear relationship between intellectual capital, income inequality, information and communication technology, and career success in the long run. Findings from the causality test reveal there is one-way causality running from information and communication technology and career success as we...

Background/Objectives Many economies are on the trajectory of alternative growth drivers other than conventional capital and labor. Access to credit facilities is a pertinent indicator of economic growth. In line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs-8) agenda, the national goal for sustainable development for most economies and Arab economies is no exception. Therefore, the current study adopts a traditional growth model by exploring the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, credit for private sectors, ratio of exports, real GDP, and per labor force participants for selected Arab economies annually from 2001 to 2020. Research design This study leverages the Fourier Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS) unit root test and second-generation panel econometrics as estimation techniques, such as Westerlund and Edgerton panel cointegration test, and the use of two estimators, namely the augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated er...

This paper investigates the impact of a manager’s proactive personality on organisational performance. Furthermore, this study explores the mediating mechanism of service innovation and the moderating impact of organisational resilience on the relationship between a manager’s proactive personality and organisational performance. The study applies resilience theory to support the proposed framework. Using data from several sources, including hotel managers in Cyprus and their staff, the researchers developed a model to illustrate how managers with proactive personalities contribute to organisational performance. Findings from the structural equation modelling revealed that a proactive personality strongly influences organisational performance. Furthermore, service innovation mediates the relationship between organisational resilience and organisational performance of hotels. Finally, this paper discusses the theoretical and managerial implications and limitations of the study as well...

PurposeThe current study is designed to investigate the factors that foster the framing of destination competitiveness and establish the factors that drive the contribution of tourism innovations to economic growth in smart tourism destinations.Design/methodology/approachA four-year panel data were extracted from the World Economic Forum's travel and tourism competitiveness index and data were analysed using Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood regression model.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that both the enabling environment and airport infrastructure significantly affect tourism's impact on the economy of the selected smart European tourism destinations. Conversely, human resources and general infrastructure display a negative correlation with tourism's contribution to the economy. However, no data in the sample support the idea that tourism policies, government prioritization or readiness of tourism information and communication technologies impact tourism's contri...

Although the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries are largely regarded as a high human development index and high-income economies, evidence has continued to reveal the existential gap among the member countries drive toward achieving environmental sustainability. Giving this motivation, this research employed a panel quantile approach to examine the role of square of per capita income (the environmental Kuznets curve-EKC hypothesis) and per capita income, tourist arrivals, energy consumption, and urbanization on environmental quality in the panel of (31) selected OECD countries over the period 1995-2016. A handful of vital results were presented in the study. First, the evidence of EKC (inverted U-shaped) proposition is establish just for the lower quantiles while a no EKC (U-shaped) hypothesis is found from the 0.25th to 0.90th quantile. In specific, environmental quality starts to improve when the per capita real income peaked at 11, 271.13 USD (0.05th quantile) and 8, 604.15 USD (0.10th quantile) while the environment becomes damaged after income per capita becomes 89, 321.72 USD (0.25th quantile) and 36, 315.50 USD (0.50th quantile). Moreover, the effect of international tourism arrivals, urbanization, and energy consumption are all significant and damaging to environmental quality across the quantile but with a slightly minimized impact toward the upper quantile. Furthermore, there is statistical significant evidence of Granger causality at least from tourism development, energy consumption, urbanization, and per capita income to carbon emissions. Considering the aforementioned results, the study outlined relevant policy mechanism that is poised to guide the OECD member countries on the sustainable development path.

Background/Objectives: Many economies are on the trajectory of alternative growth drivers other than conventional capital and labor. Access to credit facilities is a pertinent indicator of economic growth. In line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs-8) agenda, the national goal for sustainable development for most economies and Arab economies is no exception. Therefore, the current study adopts a traditional growth model by exploring the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, credit for private sectors, ratio of exports, real GDP, and per labor force participants for selected Arab economies annually from 2001 to 2020. Research design: This study leverages the Fourier Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) unit root test and second-generation panel econometrics as estimation techniques, such as Westerlund and Edgerton panel cointegration test, and the use of two estimators, namely the augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated error mean group (CCEMG), to obtain robust results. Findings: Empirical findings from Westerlund and Edgerton panel cointegration tests validate the long-run equilibrium relationship among the outlined variables. Further empirical results indicate that the share of exports is negatively significant with economic growth in countries such as Kuwait, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Jordan. Additionally, savings and labor force participation have a positive relationship with economic growth in individual countries such as Algeria and Bahrain. As per the panel, there is no significant relationship between labor force participation and economic growth. This indicates that the skilled labor force enhanced economic growth. Conclusions: These findings come with inherent far-reaching policy suggestions for economies and panels. Further details on country-specific policy actions are presented in the concluding section.

Drawing from knowledge management theory, this study examines the relationships between employee's propensity to trust, organic organizational structure, knowledge sharing behavior, and service innovation in a multivariate nexus in restaurants. Data from 180 restaurants with a total of 453 employees were used to test the research hypotheses via partial least square structural equation modelling. As expected, the results of the empirical analysis revealed that propensity to trust is positively related to knowledge sharing behavior, organic organizational structure and service innovation; and knowledge sharing behavior is positively related to organic organizational structure and service innovation. Further, this study established that both knowledge sharing behavior and organic organizational structure serially mediates the positive effect of propensity to trust on service innovation. The result of importance-performance analysis highlights propensity to trust as the highest important predictor of service innovation while knowledge sharing is the best performance factor for service innovation in restaurants.