Billy Bai

Understanding travel expenditure patterns: a study of Japanese pleasure travelers to the United States by income level.

Abstract Japanese travelers have been one of the largest groups of travelers to the United States. Given the importance of Japanese travel, an understanding of expenditure patterns is vital to travel organizers and destination marketers. Using the 1997 In-Flight Survey data, this study profiled Japanese pleasure travelers by income level and investigated the determinants of travel expenditure in the US. Marketing implications were drawn from the findings. Several socio-demographic and trip-related variables including age, occupation, travel companion, number of nights spent in the US, and repeat visit were found to significantly contribute to explaining expenditure variations. The findings should be useful to tourism marketers for a better understanding of Japanese pleasure travelers and travel consumption behavior in the US.

Hospitality marketing research from 2000 to 2009 : Topics, methods, and trends

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide an analysis of published marketing research within the top four hospitality journals and suggest future research directions. Design/methodology/approach – The study selects the top four hospitality-oriented journals and analyzes the topics, methods, and trends of hospitality marketing articles published between 2000 and 2009 through a qualitative research design using content analysis and descriptive analysis. Findings – The study explores how hospitality marketing research has progressed within the past decade in terms of topical areas, industry applications, and methods, and additionally discovers notable trends for hospitality marketing research. Practical implications – The study analyzes published research in hospitality marketing and is thus expected to provide topical and methodological recommendations to academic scholars in contributing further to scientific progress and the literature. Originality/value – Based on the existing reviews, this study...

The Marketing Effectiveness of Social Media in the Hotel Industry: A Comparison of Facebook and Twitter

The unprecedented popularity of social media outlets have forced scholars to inquire about their marketing effectiveness, especially in the hotel industry. This study attempted to explore the marketing effectiveness of two different social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) in the hotel industry. Integrating the attitude-toward-the-ad (Aad) model with the concepts of attitude-toward-social-media-page, the study proposed a theoretical model of hotel social media marketing effectiveness. Based on the data collected from an online survey, the goodness of fit of the model implied that the Aad model provides an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry. The results revealed that hotel customers’ social media experiences influence their attitudes-toward-social-media-site, which in turn influences their attitudes-toward-hotel-brand, and that hotel customers’ attitudes-toward-hotel-brand affects their hotel booking intentions and, in turn, intentions to spread electronic word of mouth. The study also indicated that different social media sites demonstrate the same marketing effectiveness, suggesting that hotel managers use the same marketing tactics for Facebook and Twitter marketing.

Job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and internal service quality: a case study of Las Vegas hotel/casino industry.

Abstract The purpose of this study, was to create a case study in employee attitudes on job satisfaction, in a major Las Vegas, Nevada hotel/casino. To accomplish this, the authors specifically investigated the discrete level of their job satisfaction, internal service quality, and organizational commitment. They also explored the overall impact of job satisfaction and internal service quality on employee organizational commitment. Currently there is no reported research on the simultaneous examination of these three variables. The results of this study have practical applications given the size and the nature of the casino business, in which a large number of employees may be assembled in a single location, and where employees may move easily from one property to another.

Examining E-Relationship Marketing Features on Hotel Websites

Abstract This study developed and tested a progressive five-level e-Relationship marketing (e-RM) model. The authors examined e-RM web features of the top 127 hotel companies. The results indicate that the hotel companies in the study did not extensively utilize higher-level (Accountable, Proactive, and Partnership) e-RM features on their websites although they employed many lower-level (Basic and Reactive) features. The study also reveals that the extent to which a hotel company employed e-RM website features was positively associated with the size of the hotel company but negatively associated with the number of brands held by the company. This article provides an in-depth e-RM literature review and discusses practical marketing implications as well.

Exploring Family Roles in Purchasing Decisions During Vacation Planning: Review and Discussions for Future Research

Abstract Family decision making not only has been an interesting subject to consumer behavior researchers but also has served as a valuable source in shaping marketing strategies adopted by the tourism and hospitality industry. However, little research has been devoted to understanding the roles of family members in the decision-making process during vacation planning. This paper attempts to provide further understanding on the nature and the importance of family roles played in making travel purchase decisions. The authors conceptually reviewed past studies to explore different roles played by the core family members in the decision-making process and developed research propositions along with a conceptual model regarding family vacation planning. Relevant marketing implications were discussed and unique research methods were also recommended for further study.

A Canonical Correlation Analysis of E-Relationship Marketing and Hotel Financial Performance

Hotel companies have used their websites to nurture customer relationships. One question is whether or not relationship marketing (RM) pays. The evidence of this empirical study involving 39 top hotel companies indicated a strong canonical correlation between the level of website development in relationship marketing and financial performance. In the proposed three-level e-relationship marketing ‘financial’ model (Basic, Accountable, and Partnership), a significant canonical variate disclosed that the ‘basic’ level and the ‘partnership’ level were positively correlated to the changes in sales revenue but negatively correlated to net income. This finding may imply that relatively more capital investment is necessary to create basic e-relationships and upgrade online customers to the partnership level than to maintain e-relationships at the ‘accountable’ level.

E-RELATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS ON HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM PROGRAM WEB SITES

The increasingly competitive market of recruiting prospective students stimulates academic program administrators to adopt relationship marketing (RM) principles and to leverage the capacity of the Internet technologies in facilitating RM practices. The authors develop an operational framework to evaluate electronic RM (e-RM) features on the Web sites of selected postsecondary hospitality and tourism programs in the United States. As a result of the two-step cluster analysis procedure, the sampled programs are first grouped into two distinctive categories based on designed measures of preidentified e-RM features adopted on their Web sites. A logistic regression analysis then reveals that the program size and the level of the program (undergraduate vs. graduate) are significant indicators of the level of e-RM Web feature adoption.

The Role Demographics Have on Customer Involvement in Obtaining a Hotel Discount and Implications for Hotel Revenue Management Strategy

This study attempted to focus attention back on identifying consumers based on certain demographics. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of gender, age, education, and income in influencing consumers level of involvement in obtaining a hotel discount. The results showed that females and consumers with less education tend to demonstrate higher involvement in obtaining a discount. There was not a significant difference between age groups, and younger consumers were found not statistically associated with higher levels of involvement. Interestingly, consumers with different incomes tended to respond comparably to discounts, unless consumers were very affluent. The findings are helpful for hotel management in designing discounts.

Internet marketing research in hospitality and tourism: a review and journal preferences

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide a progress review of published Internet marketing research within the top eight hospitality and tourism journals and to provide suggestions on future research directions. Design/methodology/approach – The study collected 331 Internet marketing-related articles published in the top eight hospitality and tourism journals during the period of 1996-2013. Using content analysis, the study analyzed and discussed research topics, research methods and industry sectors of selected articles. The study period was broken into three sub-periods and used correspondence analysis (CA) to examine the significant changes of topical areas over time. A follow-up CA was conducted to compare the topical and methodological preferences of the selected eight journals. Findings – In all, 5-category and 27-subcategory classifications of research topics were identified in the study. The two-dimensional perceptual map indicates that Internet marketing research in the hospitality and t...