When asked to identify what characteristics are needed to fulfill an entry level management position in their companies, recruiters replied they were looking for someone “good”. When asked why they are enrolled in a 4 year hospitality program, a student may say to acquire a “good” job. The purpose of this study was to investigate the word “good” as it relates to hospitality industry recruiters in fulfilling an entry-level management position, as well as the hospitality management students perspective of “good” related to acquiring an entry level management position upon graduation from a four year hospitality degree program. This study investigated characteristics, skills, experience, and education of an entry-level manager, as defined by hospitality industry recruiters and hospitality students as “good.” There are opportunities to ensure that development is relevant and valued by both organization and students, through greater understanding of which competencies the industry recruiter is looking for in a “good” entry-level manager. Examples of good practice that enable development of existing talent should be published, in order that industry, academia and college graduates can learn from each other. Industry will ultimately determine the strengths and weaknesses of each four year hospitality degree program, based on whether or not …

The purpose of this study was to develop a test blue-print for a hospitality management capstone course to measure programmatic student learning outcomes. A total of 50 hospitality industry professionals and hospitality management faculty were interviewed through focus group discussions, and a post-focus group survey was conducted to determine a weighted percentage for each of the nine determined content domains. A test blueprint was developed from the weighted proportions determined by this study and a process by which other educational institutions could follow to establish a consistent and accurate evaluation method for a capstone course was described.

Research is needed that examines the effects of kiosk technology on restaurant operational performance measures, such as total sales. The study employs a 2X2 between-subjects field experimental design to empirically test the hypothesized relationships proposed in the research model. The data collection site was Burger King located in the student union of a large Tier 1 research university in southwest USA. The independent variables included ordering method (kiosk vs. cashier) and operational volume (peak vs. off-peak). The dependent variables were cognitive and affective attitudes, behavioral intention, satisfaction, sales per person, and order time. Consumers at Burger King were approached before they started ordering their meal to ask for voluntary participation. If they agreed to participate, they were randomly assigned into two test groups. Participants in one test group used kiosk technology to order their meals, while those in the other test groups spoke with a cashier to order their meals. The same number of participants were recruited from peak and non-peak volumes. The seconds used to order was observed and recorded after consumer engagement with the ordering method. After participants ordered, they completed a paper survey that measured their behaviors while ordering with each method and asked participants to indicate …

The purpose of this study is to examine hospitality and tourism students' attitudinal process shaping their intentions to work in the sustainable industry. The cognitive-affective-conative-attitude framework is used to examine students' intentions to work in the sustainable industry. This study proposes that intentions to work in the sustainable industry is as a result of students' satisfaction of and affective engagement with programs teaching sustainability courses. Sustainability knowledge, program perceptions and perceived value on sustainability education are identified as the factors impacting satisfaction and affective engagement. Four hundred sixty responses were collected from 14 institutions in the U.S. and Asia. A total of 342 responses were used to test the hypotheses. Factor analysis is used to identify the independent variables of the study, and multiple regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that students´ satisfaction of programs teaching sustainability courses is as a result of their perceptions the program. Affective engagement with the programs teaching sustainability courses is as a result of their perceptions of the program and perceived value on sustainability education. The findings also provide evidence that affective engagement and program satisfaction are directly associated with intentions to work in the sustainable industry. Finally, the …

The purpose of this study is to investigate how internal and external sources influence dog owners’ desire and intent to travel with their dogs, using the model of goal-directed behavior (MGB). Specifically, this study investigates 1) the demographic profile of participating dog owners, 2) the relationship between dog owners’ Anticipated Emotions (AE) and their desire to travel with their dogs, 3) dog owners’ Attitudes toward the act (Aact) of traveling with their dogs and its relationship with their desire to travel with dogs, 4) the relationship between Subjective Norms (SN) and dog owners desire to travel with dogs, 5) owners’ Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) over their dog-accompanied travel situation, 6) the relationship between desire for dog-accompanied travel and Behavioral Intent (BI), and 7) the relationship between Past Behavior (PB) and the desire and BI regarding future travel with dogs.

The restaurant industry is a highly customer-driven field. Therefore, it is imperative that restaurateurs consider customer expectations with regard to restaurant menus. The purpose of this experimental study is to examine the effects of menu format (i.e., paper or digital) and amount of nutritional information (i.e., extensive, brief, or none) on customer perceptions of the effectiveness, perceived ease of use, and information quality of the menu. Furthermore, this research intends to test the effect of these three menu attributes on the outcomes of value and satisfaction in order to assess the competitive advantage of one format over the other. The Cognitive Appraisal and Information Processing Theories provide structure to the proposed conceptual framework and give credence to the findings. This study also fills gaps in the present research by not only ameliorating weaknesses of extant studies, but also by examining several different aspects of restaurant menus simultaneously within a single study.

This study examined the relationships between the six benefit types and customer loyalty through trust and satisfaction in integrated resorts. A self-administered survey was developed based on previous studies in customer loyalty and was distributed through e-Reward online survey panel. The findings showed that only financial gaming benefits, functional gaming benefits, and psychological non-gaming benefits had impacts on customer attitudinal loyalty and customer behavioral loyalty through trust and satisfaction in integrated resorts. Besides, functional gaming benefits had the most influence on customer loyalty through trust and satisfaction. This study extended existing literature in integrated resorts by showing that benefit types in a loyalty program can build customer attitudinal loyalty and customer behavioral loyalty in integrated resorts. This study also examined different types of benefits affect customer loyalty in different degrees. For operators of integrated resorts, understanding how different benefits of a loyalty program affect customer loyalty will allow them to modify their loyalty programs effectively to increase revenue and maintain customers.

Childhood obesity in America is reaching epidemic proportions. This study explored whether daily online lunch menu information was sufficient to enable parents to advise their children about healthy and unhealthy menu choices in 350 Texas middle schools and whether online menu information strongly correlated with the descriptions of the offerings given by 52 school cafeteria managers in telephone interviews. Although schools are making efforts to describe their offerings, they are not vigorously taking advantage of the opportunity to aggressively inform or educate. They are not coding their descriptions in such a way as to explicitly brand food as healthy or unhealthy. They are also not labeling food as generally required by law for consumer services that provide food (except for the fresh produce that lines supermarket shelves). Instead, they only briefly describe what they are serving in the way of fruit in one or two word snippets. Finally, cafeteria managers’ online descriptions were inconsistent with what they described in interviews. Online and verbal descriptions were sometimes contradictory, raising questions about the accuracy of either type of description.

Development is important to the initial phase of a new restaurant multi-unit manager (MUM), and appropriate training should be conducted in concert with acceptance of the position. The purpose of this study is to explore the need for individual training of restaurant MUMs in order to facilitate a smoother transition between executive level management positions. The exhaustive literature review aided in the creation of three research questions to be answered through the interpretation of collected interview data. Restaurant MUMs were invited to participate via LinkedIn, a social media network for professionals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 restaurant MUMs over a two-week period and then transcribed into Word documents and uploaded into ATLAS.ti for analysis. The use of tools within ATLAS.ti, such as network mapping and semantic layouts, allowed the researcher to interpret the correlation between codes and themes created and therefore, answer the research questions. Conventionally, managers have to leave their restaurants or area for many days in order to obtain the necessary training to be more effective in their positions. This study has concluded that while MUMs are aware of their tasks and responsibilities, they are not aware of training available in order to gain the skillset necessary …

This experimental study examined the source-message congruence effect on source credibility by manipulating the congruence of the reviewer’s profile information (travel interest, geographical location) with no changes in the review content. the congruence effect was found to influence perceptions of the reviewer’s expertise in a travel interest. This finding suggests that revealing the reviewer’s travel interest can assist the credibility assessment of travel reviewers-particularly in terms of expertise-within the category of a travel interest. the refined classification of travel reviewers based on their travel interests can improve their usefulness as information sources for prospective travelers’ information searches. These attributes can further be employed as search cues if embedded in the reviewer’s profile.