Ahmad Puad Mat Som
Universiti Sains Malaysia
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Tourism Management Perspectives | 2012
Zahed Ghaderi; Ahmad Puad Mat Som; Joan C. Henderson
Abstract Crisis management and tourism is attracting increasing attention as an industry practice and subject of academic enquiry, not least in South East Asia which has been affected by a number of severe crises in recent years. However, organisations are not always well prepared and response strategies can be deficient. The paper discusses issues of tourism crisis management with specific reference to the popular Malaysian destination of Penang. Findings are based on qualitative research consisting of semi-structured interviews with industry leaders from assorted sectors. Tourism in Penang emerges as vulnerable to regional and global events which act as a trigger for tourism crises, demanding a response in which various strategies are employed. The destination is also seen to recover fairly quickly from experiences of crises, but a well designed and formulated tourism crisis management plan under the stewardship of the public sector is necessary to mitigate further damage in the future.
Journal of Relationship Marketing | 2011
Seyedeh Fatemeh Mostafavi Shirazi; Ahmad Puad Mat Som
To strongly cope in the competitive market of tourism destinations, it is imperative to consider competitive advantages. The major success factors for achieving competitive advantages have not yet been comprehensively examined in the tourism destination literature. Destination management as a universal strategic approach for attaining competitive advantages can run the core resources and address all fundamental elements of a destination. What is more, relationship marketing as a strategy arguably offers considerable potential for pulling off a competitive advantage in destination. The approach to relationship marketing and destination management in this article is conceptual and integrated. The authors attempt to consider an integrated view in both fields to contribute insights to the marketing literature as well as provide an agenda for future research in the areas of relationship marketing and destination management.
Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing | 2014
Zahed Ghaderi; Ahmad Puad Mat Som; Jia Wang
ABSTRACT Tourism and related organizations are dealing with crises either based on a specific crisis management plan, contingency planning, designed guideline, or ad hoc response. These organizations learn from crises in different ways, but no mechanisms have been explored to indicate how these organizations learn within the framework of Tourism Crisis Management (TCM). Among various reasons is limited systematic research that has been undertaken in this area. This study addresses this gap in our current knowledge by proposing a model for analyzing and developing organizational learning within the framework of TCM. The study shows the perceptions of 25 key players in Malaysia’s tourism industry on the role of organizational learning in managing crises. The findings also revealed that organizational learning is subject to negligence and few key practitioners thinking about in-depth learning from the crisis management perspectives.
SAGE Open | 2013
Ahmad Rasmi AlBattat; Ahmad Puad Mat Som
Safety and security are the most important issues to tourist while traveling and the first aspect they consider is to be protected from hazards. Emergency planning and preparedness for a crisis are the most significant components of dealing with disasters. Hospitality practitioners noticed a rising number of natural and man-made crises that harm the hospitality industry, regarding its vulnerability to crisis and internal and external hazards. By using secondary data, this study aims to shed some light on this issue, contributing to knowledge and awareness on emergency preparedness for the hospitality industry. Moreover, the study aims to explain the management’s commitment to adopt, develop, and update emergency plans. The results of this study explain that tourism as an international mobile industry must respond to internal and external hazards such as disease movement and terrorist attacks. Marketing safety is important to promote hotels and tourist destinations to the guests and holiday advisors. Hotels have a long history of being a soft target for terrorist attacks, as can be seen in several accidents that have shaken the hotel industry in the past few decades. Hotels invest a lot to install protective techniques, but terrorists are becoming more organized. Practitioners propose disaster management frameworks using several measurements. Recovery from crisis and learning help business retention that minimizes negative impacts and prevent losses. Finally, evaluation and feedback are very important to overcome the hazards and return to normal, as well as adopting new ideas to deal with emergencies. Single- and double-loop organizational learning should benefit proactive preparedness.
Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research | 2014
Ahmad Puad Mat Som; Chai-Aun Ooi; Chee-Wooi Hooy
The study on tourism crisis management has been established since decades ago. Prior to crisis management, researchers find that it is essential to develop crisis typologies for better understanding on the nature of crisis. Hence, the classification of crisis has been established. In the literature, crises have been classified from two perspectives: gestation period to occur and human involvement. For instance, Booth (1993) classifies crises into gradual, periodic, and suddenwhile Parsons (1996) (as cited inMaditinos &Vassiliadis, 2008) considers crises by immediate, emerging, and sustained. Seymour and Moore (2000) also classify crises into cobra which strikes suddenly and python which occurs gradually. Besides, Karagiannis, Maditinos, and Vassiliadis (2006) classify crises into direct, indirect, and no human involvement while Sausmarez (2007) classifies crises into man-made and natural disaster. The nexus between crisis and tourism demand is focused in tourism research. However, the literature review finds that limited studies provide empirical evidence on the relationship between each type of crises and tourism demand. This study fills the research gap by providing empirical evidence on the effects of the two crisis typologies (namely cobra/python type of crises and natural disaster/man-made-type of crises) towards tourism demand. Panel regression with fixed effect specification is applied by covering tourism demand from 96 countries globally between the years 1995 and 2009.
Anatolia | 2010
Bashar Aref Mohammad Al-Haj Mohammad; Ahmad Puad Mat Som
Tourists usually have initial expectations of the type and quality of services to be offered in a particular destination. The extent to which their expectations are met will eventually determine the level of tourists‘ satisfaction. Tourists are considered satisfied, if the overall performance while or after visiting a destination, exceeds or meets their initial expectations (Akama and Kieti 2003). Subsequently, satisfied tourists are more likely to recommend the tourist destination to others, which is the cheapest and most effective form of marketing and promotion (Crosby 1993; Soderlund 1998). Thus, it is widely acknowledged that tourist satisfaction is increasingly becoming a prominent issue in tourism and hospitality industry. Tourist satisfaction not only facilitates destination choice (Kozak and Rimmington 2000), but also contributes to increased rates of retention of tourists’ patronage, loyalty and acquisition, which in turn helps in realizing economic goals such as increased number of tourists and revenues. Over time, the relationship between tourists and the destination is strengthened because there is always a positive association between tourist satisfaction and destination’s long term economic success. As tourism is increasingly becoming an important sector in Jordan’s economy, this paper attempts to examine foreign tourists’ satisfaction on the different types of facilities and services that they utilize during their stay in the country.
Managerial Finance | 2017
Chai-Aun Ooi; Chee-Wooi Hooy; Ahmad Puad Mat Som
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether board diversity in human capital and social capital effectively mitigates the negative impacts of crises on firm performance. Design/methodology/approach Cross-sectional time series data for 2001-2011 are collected from all the tourism-related public listed firms across four Asian markets. Linear and non-linear effects of board diversity on firm performance are examined. Findings This study finds that board diversity in human capital and social capital does not significantly improve firm performance, but it significantly mitigates the negative impacts of crises striking firm performance. The effects of board diversity show difference with sudden and gradual crises. The effects of board diversity show non-linear when tackling sudden crises. Only high levels of board diversity in external network ties are effective to tackle gradual crisis. Practical implications The best composition of board capital should depend on the external environment. Only through adopting excessively high board diversity in social capital is suitable when the firms have lower frequency of industry cycle, or prone to the crisis which is likely to sustain. Instead, a moderate level of board diversity in human and social capital is crucial if the firms are always situated in harsh circumstances such as high competition environment, or prone to face industrial bubble. Originality/value This study directly investigates board diversity in human capital and social capital, rather than investigating through the proxy of age, gender, ethnicity, etc. This study sheds light on the influence of the board diversity in the crisis periods, the findings are enhanced with the classification of crises into sudden and gradual-onset type.
Journal of Tourism and Hospitality | 2013
Ala`a Nimer AbuKhalifeh; Ahmad Puad Mat Som; Ahmad Rasmi AlBattat
This study reviews the human resource management practices of food and beverage services. The performance is measured by the turnover rate for managerial and non-managerial employees, labor productivity, and its return on assets. This paper aims to review existing literature on HRM practices in the F&B departments of hotels analyzing, the impacts of the framework of HRM practices. This paper discusses the HRM practices model, and explains Cho`s HRM item`s framework of HRM practices in the area of F&B and its application to Jordanian hotels. The conceptual model suggests applications of the HRM practices in the F&B department and encourages hotels to improve its management to better satisfy their employees.
Journal of Tourism and Hospitality | 2013
Ahmad Puad Mat Som; Amer Hani Al-Kassem
Domestic tourism is supposed to compose the largest and most unaddressed proportion of the tourism ‘iceberg’, but has been overshadowed by the interest in international tourism on behalf of academics and policy makers. Unlike international tourism which depends greatly on global systems and mega-infrastructure, domestic tourism deems to have evolved and sustained itself in the absence of heavy investments and commercialization. It has also been suggested as an appropriate substitute to international tourism under the influence of external factors such as disasters and crises. In tourism studies, not many researchers have engaged themselves in the topic of domestic tourism in the Middle-east region especially in Saudi Arabia. The focus on domestic tourism is important in Saudi Arabia as the country is one of the biggest exporters of tourists going out of the kingdom, and the government is trying to retain a larger portion of tourism spending of its local tourists in the national tourism industry. In view of this, this paper attempts to discuss the potentials and challenges of developing domestic tourism in the Asir region, which is situated in the southwestern part of Saudi Arabia. The analysis is based on secondary data and supported by interviews with twelve tourism operators and hoteliers in the region. The findings revealed that Asir region is a unique tourist destination and has considerable unrealized potential, however, the growth of domestic tourism requires diversification in terms of product, market and geographical areas. As tourism development is a comprehensive undertaking involving many sectors and stakeholders, it is crucial for the government to come up with multi-hierarchical, all-inclusive and coordinated development strategy, and these are the challenges to which the country’s tourism industry should respond to promote domestic tourism.
International Journal of Biometrics | 2010
Bashar Aref Mohammad Al-Haj Mohammad; Ahmad Puad Mat Som