Dr Julian Ayeh

Globally, the study of entrepreneurship is increasingly becoming a prominent component of hospitality and tourism education. However, uncertainties arising from an unpredictable business environment, inadequate governmental support as well as the ramifications of the recent Covid-19 pandemic have heightened the risks of starting business ventures. Yet the role of risk-taking propensity in driving entrepreneurial attitudes and career decisions in the context of developing economies has received limited attention. Using a survey of 547 hospitality and tourism students from five public universities, the structural equation modeling technique of partial least squares was applied in examining students’ response to entrepreneurship. While entrepreneurial attitudes are driven by risk-taking inclination, the findings suggest that entrepreneurial career decisions are more complicated. The study outcome further underscores the critical roles of personal attitude, normative influence, and behavioral control in shaping entrepreneurial mind-sets.

Globally, the study of entrepreneurship is increasingly becoming a prominent component of hospitality and tourism education. However, uncertainties arising from an unpredictable business environment, inadequate governmental support as well as the ramifications of the recent Covid-19 pandemic have heightened the risks of starting business ventures. Yet the role of risk-taking propensity in driving entrepreneurial attitudes and career decisions in the context of developing economies has received limited attention. Using a survey of 547 hospitality and tourism students from five public universities, the structural equation modeling technique of partial least squares was applied in examining students’ response to entrepreneurship. While entrepreneurial attitudes are driven by risk-taking inclination, the findings suggest that entrepreneurial career decisions are more complicated. The study outcome further underscores the critical roles of personal attitude, normative influence, and behavioral control in shaping entrepreneurial mind-sets.

Culinary tourism has emerged as an area of practical interest for many developing destinations. Nonetheless, little is known about the factors shaping international tourists’ acceptance of local cuisine. Through an application of the Tri-Component Attitude Model, this study explores how attitudes are influenced by food-related personality traits of tourists. Using a survey of 396 international tourists, the study provides insights into the role of neophilia in explaining tourists’ cognitive, affective and conative responses toward local cuisines. The findings verify the significant influence of food neophilia and highlights the confounding effects of tourists’ idiosyncrasies. The study further offers distinct implications for theory and practice.

Purpose.
The purpose of this paper is to assess the organisational readiness of small and medium scaled hotels to serve indigenous local cuisines and to segment the hotel properties for gastronomic tourism campaigning and destination marketing aims. The study also explores how the concept of organisational readiness relates to menu decision makers’ intentions, perceived benefits and organisational characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach.
Organisational readiness was measured by three dimensions (culture, climate and capacity). Data were derived from a survey of primary menu decision makers from 187 hotels in Ghana. Using a combination of hierarchical and non-hierarchical (K-means) algorithms, the hotels were clustered into homogenous groups based on the original raw scores of hotel readiness indicators. The resultant cluster solution was then validated and profiled against relevant external variables.

Findings.
Analyses reveal three clusters which distinguish hotels by the degree of readiness to serve indigenous local dishes. The resultant segments differ by hotel category (star rating) as well as by the job positions and perceptions of primary menu decision makers. Unexpectedly, lower class hotels displayed significantly greater levels of organisational readiness to serve indigenous cuisines than those in the higher class category.

Research limitations/implications.
The study demonstrates that organisational readiness is related to perceived benefits and intentions. Among others, the findings advance the understanding of organisational readiness in hotels in the context of menu decision-making. Given the need to embed new practices in a fast-changing hospitality environment, insights drawn could also serve as a basis for future research. Generalisability of empirical findings may be limited by the socio-economic context as well as the study’s focus on small and medium scaled hotels.

Practical implications.
This paper supports hotel businesses in understanding the concept of organisational readiness and its relation to organisational characteristics and menu decision-making. By highlighting the different clusters of hotels, the findings accentuate the need for destination marketers and gastronomic tourism campaigners to target higher classed hotels and draw attention to the potential benefits of serving indigenous cuisines while addressing latent concerns. The results further underscore the role of organisational culture and the necessity for such campaign activities to be directed towards those with ample influence within the hierarchical structures of hotels.

Originality/value.
This is an initial attempt to examine the application of the organisational readiness concept to menu decision-making in hotels and to explore the implications for segmentation purposes. Further analysis revealed the critical role of organisational culture on menu decision-making patterns. Thus, the paper applies an important element of organisational development theory to the hotel industry and represents a valuable contribution to the scant literature on indigenous cuisines in hotel food service contexts.

Purpose.
This paper aims to investigate antecedents of using non-travel-specific social media (specifically Facebook) for travel decision-making before a leisure trip.

Design/methodology/approach.
Based on an online survey of 426 young travel consumers from Italy and Sweden, this work applies structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.

Findings.
The study finds support for most of the conventional TAM-related constructs: perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and intention, while ease of use is not found relevant in this context.

Research limitations/implications.
Results shed light on the antecedents of using non-travel specific social media in two countries. Future research might focus on validating the factors identified and add others that might shape usage in the selected countries. Future studies could further investigate possible differences arising from culture, country of origin and age. The analysis can also be extended to other countries.

Practical implications.
The analysis might help managers in the hospitality and tourism sector by providing an understanding of the cognitive factors which determine travelers’ decision to use Facebook for trip planning. Thus, managers should get to know these factors in their effort to influence social media in hospitality and tourism settings.

Originality/value.
The findings offer interesting perspectives on the applicability of conventional models to the context of non-travel-specific social media platforms. The exploration of cross-cultural differences also adds to the extant body of knowledge.

Digital technology has undeniably altered the way tourists experience destinations. Yet, the problematic use of smartphones and similar mobile devices in vacation contexts has received limited attention. Using descriptive and interpretive approaches, this study explores tourists' experiences and perspectives on the impact or lack thereof of continual engagement with mobile media devices on their tourism experiences. The broad-spectrum view was that mobile distraction takes “something” away from individual tourist experiences as well as travel groups' experiences, although interpretations of the significance of this forfeiture varied considerably. Findings highlight the perceived repercussions of various forms of digital distractions for the quality and scope of the tourist's consumption of sights and sounds; the tourist's wellbeing; social interactions; and the experiences of ‘others’. However, some tourists' cognizance of these deleterious effects may not necessarily translate into mindful use of mobile technologies in the holiday context. Findings hold key implications for theory and practice.

Indigenous cuisines – in many developing economies – play a central role in the celebrations, cultural practices and festivals of the local people, but their presence on hotel food service menu is often insignificant. Yet, little is known about the determinants of menu decision making with regards to the inclusion of indigenous dishes on the hotel menu. Using a survey of menu decision makers from 184 small and medium sized hotels, this study explores the factors affecting menu decision-makers’ attitudes and intention to place more variety of indigenous dishes on the hotel menu. Findings shed intriguing insights into the role of antecedents like normative beliefs, perceived benefits to business, perceived difficulties in production and service of indigenous dishes as well as customer patronage. Among other implications for theory and practice, the findings foray into the debate on the relevance of attitude in driving behavioural intention in workplace situations.

Increasing reliance of potential guests on online hotel reviews has given rise to trepidation among some hospitality managers recently, thus necessitating a better understanding of its adoption. Literature on multicultural studies have suggested that behavioral models do not universally hold across cultures. In view of the limited generalizability and applicability of extant cross-cultural studies to this context, this study generates cross-national insights into the antecedents of travelers’ intention to use online hotel reviews to better understand the use of consumer-generated reviews across cultures. Generally, the predictive power of the model derived from the Motivation Theory and TAM holds true for both the United States and Singapore. Nonetheless, tests for structural invariance reveals some noteworthy differences between the two countries. The results highlight the complex cognitive mechanisms determining the acceptance of online hotel reviews in each country as moderated by national culture orientations. Findings hold implications for practitioners and researchers as they navigate through social media in different cultural contexts.

Despite the rising influence of social media, the use of consumer-generated media (CGM) for the task of travel planning still meets with scepticism among certain online travel consumers. Hence the need to further explore the psychological factors underlying this aspect of online behaviour. The study proposes a model of consumer-generated media acceptance for the purpose of travel planning which integrates the Technology Acceptance Model with the Source Credibility Theory. Using an online survey of 661 valid responses and structural equation modelling, the findings highlight the critical factors relevant to the cognitive processes which determine online travellers’ affective and conative responses to the use of consumer-generated media for travel planning. The results suggest that integrating technology acceptance factors with that of information adoption can enhance the understanding of consumer-generated media usage in the vacation planning context. The study outcome holds implications for theory and practice.

Recent press reports and complaints by hoteliers have called into question the credibility of travel-related user-generated content (UGC). Yet our understanding of the role of credibility perceptions in the context of UGC is limited, notwithstanding the rising interest in social media. Using an online survey of 661 travel consumers, this study applies the component-based structural equation modeling technique of partial least squares to examine online travelers’ perceptions of the credibility of UGC sources and how these perceptions influence attitudes and intentions toward UGC utilization in the travel planning process. The model also draws on the theory of homophily to make predictions about the antecedent of credibility. Results validate the Source Credibility Theory in the context of UGC but also accentuate the central mediating role of attitude. In addition, the study finds support for perceptual homophily as a critical determinant of both credibility and attitude. Theoretical and managerial implications are highlighted.

Despite the growing enthusiasm about social media, empirical research findings suggest that the majority of Internet users are not using consumer-generated media (CGM) for travel planning. Yet little is presently known about the relevant factors determining CGM usage for the specific purpose of travel planning. Using an online survey of travel consumers, this study investigates the intention to use consumer-generated media for travel planning by introducing new factors into the conventional TAM and using a partial least squares' estimation. Findings shed light on the differences in terms of the antecedents in this context. While the study demonstrates the theoretical validity and the empirical applicability of the TAM model to the context of CGM usage for travel planning, it goes further to verify the significant roles of distinctive factors like travelers' perceptions of similarity of interest, trustworthiness and enjoyment. Several managerial and research implications emerge.

This study assessed the performance of the hotel, retail and travel agency sectors in Hong Kong. The importance–performance analysis (IPA) model and various statistical techniques were employed to examine visitors’ cognition of the importance and performance of pertinent service quality attributes and to better understand the factors that may influence their overall satisfaction across different sectors and source markets. Whereas the multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of variance tests suggest no significant differences in service quality perceptions across the three sectors, the IPA revealed that these sectors differ qualitatively in terms of which service quality attributes are most critical. The findings further suggest a negative relationship between cultural distance and satisfaction with Asian tourists being less satisfied than their non-Asian counterparts. The results hold important managerial implications for resource allocation and service quality improvement in specific areas.

Accurate forecast of inbound tourism demand is vital for the tourism industry as well as government economic policy and decision making. This article sought to identify the factors which influence the demand for China’s tourism with the aid of econometric models and to generate forecasts of international tourist arrivals to China from five major long-haul source markets. Using the general-to-specific modelling approach, the demand for tourism in China by the residents of Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America is modelled and forecasted. The empirical results indicate that the ‘word of mouth effect’, income levels in the origin country, the costs of tourism in both China and competing destinations are the crucial factors that determine the demand for China’s tourism by residents of the five origin countries. The forecasts show sluggish growth in tourist arrivals for most of the Western source markets. Findings hold implications for policy formulations.

The Internet has emerged as a very important technology among businesses. Studies indicate that regardless of the technological revolution experienced in the tourism industry, hospitality organizations have traditionally been reluctant to utilize Information Communication Technology (ICT). They are impeded by many factors in their attempt to employ the Internet. This study, therefore, sought to explore and explain the factors determining the adoption and use of the Internet, and discuss the challenges inherent in its utilization in Ghanaian hotels. The study found that, although the hotels' environmental context, managerial characteristics, and perceived attributes of the Internet all have somewhat influence on their adoption and use of the Internet; organizational characteristics were better determinants of the hotels' tendency to employ the Internet for business purposes. These hotels were impeded in their attempt to utilize the World Wide Web (www) by a number of challenges with costs and inadequate knowledge as critical factors. Additional research is necessary to reassess the results and widen the scope of this study.