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PurposeCapsule hotels are a revolutionary Japanese concept of lodging that dates back over four decades. On the other hand, capsule hotels are a relatively new concept for most travelers outside of Japan. Organizations within this target segment are starting to recognize the critical role that an excellent customer experience management (CEM) strategy offers in improving competitiveness and organizational success. Thus, this research provides scholastic insight into the framework of CEM by evaluating the user-generated content at capsule hotels.Design/methodology/approachThis study inspected 1,304 online user-generated content from the top 10 capsule hotels from Booking.com. Leximancer 4.5 was deployed to analyze the data.FindingsThe analyses revealed nine key themes to CEM of capsule hotels which are “staff,” “hotel,” “area,” “location,” “bed,” “capsule,” “check-in,” “noisy” and “luggage”.Practical implicationsThis research encourages hospitality and tourism executives to develop specific strategies for capsule hotels.Originality/valueThis research differs from previous writings in that it attempts to fill a gap in the research by offering insight into the issue in the low-budget hotel industry and by identifying key indicators that influence customer experience.

Language learning in tourism is increasingly embracing digital technologies for both synchronous and asynchronous content delivery and interaction. Blended learning combining online and traditional face-to-face forms as well as immersive forms such as 3D virtual worlds, where participants may travel as they learn from the comfort of their sofa, offer promising benefits, namely in times of pandemic and other turbulent events. Involving culturally and geographically distant tutors in the learning process may increase learners’ motivation as well as satisfaction, provided that the course curricula and lesson plans utilize the potential by appropriate selection of activities. Despite all the potential benefits, however, troubles caused by the increased complexity of digitally enhanced courses may ruin learners’ experience. The paper provides a conceptual basis for a systemic approach in planning, creating, and delivering courses, considering both technical and psychological aspects, which may assist in the prevention or mitigation of the challenges. To provide a relevant context, presentations of several language schools are briefly examined. The study of changes in their presentations between 2014 and 2021, in the light of web search trends, provides an additional glimpse into the evolution of the adoption and perception of relevant forms of education and technologies, further supporting the necessity of a systematic approach. Experience from three separate projects implementing innovative language courses collected both qualitatively and quantitatively via questionnaires is summarized, pointing out both successes and challenges.

In recent years, social tourism has been strongly promoted in the EU, including the travel of people with various types of disabilities. The present study analyses travel motivation and barriers to travel for visually impaired people. This analysis is based on several years of research at the Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, then on the personal travel experience of a visually impaired person and the practice of a rehabilitation instructor at Tyfloservis, o.p.s (charitable trust), Hradec Králové, an organization supporting independent living of visually impaired people. The study is also based on interviews with ten visually impaired respondents and their travel experience. SARS-COV-2 is also included as a current barrier to travel.

PurposeThis study aims to build and test an empirical model that investigates the mechanism with which innovation-based human resource management (HRM) impacts employee satisfaction and performance in Nigerian international airports.Design/methodology/approachA time-lagged approach that involved three-waves was used to collect data from passenger-contact employees and their immediate managers for three-month period starting from January to March 2019. A total of 247 dyads of passenger-contact employees and managers were used for the data analysis.FindingsResults from data analysis showed that coworker support and absorptive capacity mediate the impact of innovation-based HRM on employee satisfaction and performance. Innovation-based human resource effort is best applied when coworker support is evident in the workplace.Originality/valueThe development and application of innovation-driven human resources in the Nigerian aviation context encourage satisfaction with assigned task roles, leading to employee performance. Theory-based implications for managing passenger-contact employees were also given. A significant strength of this study is that it is among the forerunners of scholars that investigated innovation-based HRM as a continuum rather than different aspects of broader management issues.

The goal of sustainability in business is the maximization of resources for long-term productivity at a minimized negative impact for all key stakeholders. Several functions of human resources management are designed to achieve this goal. However, HRM practices can sometimes spiral down and result in the perception of favoritism–a practice that recruits or rewards relationship over merit. Hence, this project was designed to measure the impact of favoritism on the development of a sustainable hospitality workforce through the measures of subjective well-being, psychological capital, and knowledge hiding behavior. With the aid of randomly selected employees and estimation of structural models, the study validates the deleterious impact of favoritism and organizational politics on employee outcomes and by extension the sustainability of the workforce. Practical and theoretical recommendations are provided.

Beyond the anticipated experience associated with tourism destinations, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further tasked (especially the destination countries) on the importance of tourism to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From this dimension, this study employed the ecological footprint of the 10 most visited countries (France, Spain, United States, China, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, and Thailand) over the period 1995–2016. Specifically, the study employed an econometric approach and found that increase in tourism arrivals and globalization is detrimental to the attainment of sustainable environmental quality in a long term. Precisely, a 1% increase in international arrivals and globalization is responsible for a 0.18 and 0.89% increase in ecological footprint in the long-run. These impacts of tourism activities and globalization are detrimental to the environmental quality of the destination countries. Meanwhile, the real income per capita and biocapacity in the destination countries improve the environmental quality of the panel of destination countries in the long-run. In addition, the study found significant evidence of Granger causality from tourism and real income to ecological footprint without feedback, the globalization-ecological footprint Granger causality nexus is with feedback. Moreover, potentially effective policies for government and other stakeholders especially toward attaining Global goals were proffered in the study.

Several conspiracy theories and hypotheses have been postulated by some individuals from various strata of governance globally concerning the outbreak and spread of the novel coronavirus in the last quarter of 2019. A pertinent hypothesis is the correlation of meteorological elements to the spread of the pandemic. To verify this claim and also confirm the initial findings of Tosepu et al.'s (2020), this study investigated the Spearman rank-order correlation of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Russian Federation with temperature-maximum, minimum, and average as well as precipitation. Our findings indicated a stronger correlation between average temperature (rs = 0.75***) and also recorded significant correlations for the other variants of temperature. Hence, the hypothesis of weather-induced COVID-19 spread is substantiated.

Document Information Language:English Accession Number: WOS:000565599100001 PubMed ID: 32852717 ISSN: 0944-1344 eISSN: 1614-7499, Although the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries are largely regarded as a high human development index and high-income economies, evidence has continued to reveal the existential gap among the member countries drive toward achieving environmental sustainability. Giving this motivation, this research employed a panel quantile approach to examine the role of square of per capita income (the environmental Kuznets curve-EKC hypothesis) and per capita income, tourist arrivals, energy consumption, and urbanization on environmental quality in the panel of (31) selected OECD countries over the period 1995-2016. A handful of vital results were presented in the study. First, the evidence of EKC (invertedU-shaped) proposition is establish just for the lower quantiles while a no EKC (U-shaped) hypothesis is found from the 0.25th to 0.90th quantile. In specific, environmental quality starts to improve when the per capita real income peaked at 11, 271.13 USD (0.05th quantile) and 8, 604.15 USD (0.10th quantile) while the environment becomes damaged after income per capita becomes 89, 321.72 USD (0.25th quantile) and 36, 315.50 USD (0.50th quantile). Moreover, the effect of international tourism arrivals, urbanization, and energy consumption are all significant and damaging to environmental quality across the quantile but with a slightly minimized impact toward the upper quantile. Furthermore, there is statistical significant evidence of Granger causality at least from tourism development, energy consumption, urbanization, and per capita income to carbon emissions. Considering the aforementioned results, the study outlined relevant policy mechanism that is poised to guide the OECD member countries on the sustainable development path.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) elaborately encompass a global goal for sustainable consumption and production (Goal 12: SDGs), thus providing potential drivers and/or pathways to attaining sustainable consumption. In view of this global goal, this study examined the role of real income per capita, urbanization and especially inbound tourism in domestic material consumption for the panel of OECD countries. The study is conducted for the period of 1995 to 2016 by employing the panel quantile approach. Interestingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship between outbound tourism and domestic material consumption is established across the quantiles, thus indicating that sustainable domestic consumption is achievable after a threshold of domestic material consumption is attained. In addition, achieving sustainable consumption through economic or income growth is a herculean task for the OECD countries because the current reality indicates that income growth triggers higher consumption of domestic materials. However, the results suggest that urbanization is a recipe for sustainable domestic consumption since there is a negative and significant relationship between the two parameters across the quantiles. Nevertheless, the study presents relevant policy for efficient material and resources utilization and that is suitable to drive the SDGs for 2030 and other country-specific sustainable ambitions.

Purpose The geographical location and the ambiance of the Coastline Mediterranean Countries (CMCs) advantageously present the region as a tourist destination with rich cultures. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach As such, this study investigates the dynamics of energy import and environmental quality in relation to international tourism development for nine CMCs over the period 1995–2013 using a pooled mean group approach. Findings Although the impacts of energy import, CO2 (here as environmental quality) and GDP on international tourism receipts are observed to be significant and negative, international tourist arrival expectedly exerts positive and significant impact, all at the adjustment speed of 0.19. A heterogeneously robust Granger non-causality test further reveals a strong one-directional causal relationship from energy import to tourism receipts. Research limitations/implications The dynamics of the energy market amidst persistent evolution of new source(s) of energy would evidently play a significant role in the region’s tourism sector. It then suggests policy direction to governments of the region and by extension the global tourism market. Originality/value By providing insight into the nexus of environment, energy and tourism development, the current study is the first that addresses the concern in the context of the CMCs.