Mark Robert Holmes

Wine tourism: Winery visitation in the wine appellations of Ontario

This study explores various factors that encourage travel to wineries in the Ontario viticultural regions of the Niagara Peninsula, Prince Edward County, Pelee Island and Lake Erie North Shore. A convenience sample of 1309 visitors at 19 wineries revealed that the winery experience was not the primary purpose of the trip for a majority of the visitors but was a major influencer in their decision to travel to the regions. Planning typically began within three weeks of departure when friends, family and local websites provided the principal sources of information. Differences were observed among the four regions in demographic profile, motivations, influencers and consumption behavior. Proprietary tasting events and comprehensive wine tour packages including fine dining and overnight accommodation were suggested products that would attract more visitors whose on-site purchases were critical to the success of many operations.

Integrated rural wine tourism: a case study approach

ABSTRACT Using the Niagara Peninsula Appellation as the case study, qualitative research was employed through the use of interviews conducted with wineries and industry associations, in an attempt to answer two specific questions: (1) how does the wine industry and wine tourism aid in the development of Niagara’s rural area using the integrated rural tourism (IRT) concept, and (2) how can IRT aid in rural development through direct, experiential, conservation, development, and synergistic benefits. It is apparent that the seven components of IRT provide a reasonable framework to analyse the ability of IRT to realize benefits, although that the addition of marketing and future needs/desires as components improve its explanatory power. Using the modified IRT framework, this research found that wine tourism has derived direct, experiential, conservation, and synergistic benefits, with work still to be undertaken in order to improve upon tourism’s positive impacts in Niagara and peripherally rural areas more generally in the areas of community engagement and improved industry synergy.

Is there a Benefit from being Green? Assessing Benefits from MarketingSustainability by North American Hotels

The purpose of this research study was to determine if green hotels actually benefited from undertaking environmental practices and integrating these practices into their marketing strategy. After looking at sustainable communications and marketing literature, a total of 2,248 structured surveys were administered to hotels across North America. Responses from 247 hotels (11% response rate) were analyzed using frequencies, t-tests, and regression analysis to examine significant differences. The results show that the extent to which hotels perceive they benefitted from marketing sustainability practices through guest visits, guest length of stay, guest satisfaction, revenue, profit, and average daily rate can be predicted by examining the extent to which a hotel believes that green marketing has been incorporated into a hotels green marketing strategy. Findings also show that hotels that are a part of the Green Key certification program have a higher perceived probability of attracting new customers and retaining old ones. This study provides support that there is a benefit to sustainability marketing and this study is the first to examine how perceived hotel sustainability management and marketing inform one another and could be beneficial to hotels in how they utilize this information to inform marketing decisions.

The Challenges of Full-Service Restaurant Brand Internationalization: A United States/Canada Perspective

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to identify the challenges faced by full-service restaurant brands internationalizing across the border between the United States and Canada. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from 54 senior executives across the US and Canada. The results show differences in the challenges faced by U.S. versus Canadian full-service restaurant brands when they are expanding across the border based upon the context of the full-service restaurant and how they are internationalizing. This is the first empirical study about cross border expansion challenges for U.S. and Canadian full-service restaurant brands.

Local and organic food on wheels: exploring the use of local and organic food in the food truck industry

ABSTRACT An exploratory study approach was used in this research to examine the use of local and organic food in Toronto’s food truck industry, the rationale for its use, and the challenges that food truck owners face in sourcing it. Results showed that all-but-one of the food trucks sourced local or organic food for their menu and were motivated by fresh taste/quality, social responsibility and customer preference. While there were challenges with utilizing organic/local food due to seasonality and cost, food trucks found they can derive benefits by way of increased patronage, menu differentiation, and competitiveness.

Between the corporation and the closet: Ethically researching LGBTQ+ identities in the workplace

The purpose of this paper is to engage the ecological model as a conceptual tool to examine the ethics of conducting research on LGBTQ+ individuals in the workplace. In particular, it focuses on outness and the act of outing in research.,Established methodologies for studying LGBTQ+ persons in the workplace are examined using a critical outness lens. The ecological model is used to identify a critical path forward for researchers working with LGBTQ+ participants and to improve LGBTQ+ workplace experiences more broadly.,The tension between the ethics of coming out of the closet and the ethics of outing someone for the greater good is problematized. It suggests that organizational and diversity scholars approach research methods with an understanding of the role played by the body and sexuality in LGBTQ+ workplace research.,Researchers should recognize that workers may have varying degrees of outness within their organization and/or across their private and public lives.,Research on LGBTQ+ persons in the workplace is limited, and research examining the ethics of relevant methods is scarcer still. This paper begins a discussion on how researchers can trouble current hegemonic approaches to LGBTQ+-centered research in organizations.

Lake Watershed Tourists: Who They Are and How to Attract Them

Lakes act as both ecosystems for numerous life forms, and in many cases, tourist destinations. In order to sustain lakes as tourist destinations and protect them as ecosystems, municipalities need to understand the tourist, their demographics, motivations, satisfaction levels and the tourists’ desire for sustainability initiatives. To this end, the purpose of this study was to examine lake tourists, their demographics, motivational drivers and their relation to each other. Using a sample of 475 surveys, cross-tabulations, t-tests, and ANOVA’s were executed to understand differences and relationships. The results show varying differences with three key findings. First, motivations drive visitors based on their age and gender. Second, income has an influence on the importance visitors put on businesses promoting sustainability, such that the greater the income-level the lower the importance visitors placed on businesses promoting sustainability. This research builds upon past segmentation studies to show the link between sustainable types of tourism and the importance of sustainability. This adds a third key finding to the area of inquiry, demonstrating that increased awareness not only strengthens the relationship between demand and nature-based offerings, but that it can also increase satisfaction levels.