Revisiting hospitality and tourism: New perspectives

              © PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural. ISSN 1695-7121
www.pasosonline.org
Vol. 10 Nº 2. Special Issue. Pp. 1-2. 2012
Boğaziçi University (Turkey)
Editorial
Revisiting hospitality and tourism: New perspectives
Maria D. Alvarez
Guest Editor
Tourism and hospitality are currently fa-cing
many challenges as globalization increa-ses
the level of competition that organizations
operating in this sector are facing. In parallel
to this trend, destination management organi-zations
and tourism companies alike have come
to realize that it is no longer possible to operate
within the same parameters as before. There
is an increased awareness and realization that
while tourism may be benefi cial from an econo-mic
perspective as it may increase employment
and economic welfare, it may also be detrimen-tal
to the environment and the local culture.
Therefore, new paradigms and perspectives
are emerging. Acknowledging this need for new
concepts and theories, scholars worldwide are
trying to address the needs of the sector and
reinvent the industry.
Destinations are trying to operate within
a more challenging and competitive environ-ment,
while they are also required to operate
within a sustainability perspective. Within this
framework, concepts such as poverty allevia-tion,
community-based tourism, stakeholder
participation and residents perceptions have
permeated scholarly tourism research. Howe-ver,
the implementation of these ideas and
practices may not be so straight forward, and
there is a need for best practices and practical
models that can serve as guidance for destina-tion
management organizations.
New developments are also emerging in
relation to the composition of the tourists and
their needs and motivations. As more senior ci-tizens
are participating in the tourism activity,
there is a need to understand and address their
requirements (Darcy and Buhalis, 2011). Simi-larly,
new technological developments are also
affecting the way that individuals purchase and
consume tourism products.
The special issue Revisiting Hospitality and
Tourism: New Perspectives has been designed
to address these questions. The papers that
have been included were selected among those
presented at the First Advances in Hospitali-ty
and Tourism Marketing and Management
Conference (AHTMM 2011) that was held in Is-tanbul
in June 2011. The conference’s main ob-jective
was to encourage discussion and creati-ve
thought regarding the many challenges that
tourism destinations and hospitality organiza-tions
are facing. The chosen articles represent a
selection that allows the reader to get insights
on the many topics discussed during the confe-rence
and to give an idea about the spirit of the
event.
The fi rst group of papers address destina-tion
development and the need for destinations
to contribute to poverty alleviation and the wel-fare
of the local community. The fi rst paper by
Kimbu focuses on the contribution of tourism
to the economic development of the community
and the attainment of the Millennium Develop-ment
Goals. The author proposes a framework
to increase the contribution of tourism and dis-cusses
its application in the case of Cameroon.
Within the same perspective of sustaina-ble
tourism, the article by Ertuna and Kırbaş
investigates the participation of the local com-munity
in the development of the rural tourism
product. The researchers used the organization
of an event, a traditional harvest day, to obser-ve
the factors that infl uence the organization
and coordination of the local stakeholders in
2 Revisiting hospitality and tourism: New perspectives
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 10(2). Special Issue. 2012 ISSN 1695-7121
creating a rural tourism product.
Building up on the theme of economic and social con-tribution
to the community, Presenza and Iocca investi-gate
these issues in relation to the management of music
festivals in Italy. According to these authors, a genuine
contribution of these events may only occur within the
interaction of the organizer and other public and private
stakeholders. Through the use of a stakeholder manage-ment
approach, the paper analyzes the structure and in-teraction
of stakeholders of music festivals in Italy.
The fi nal paper in the fi rst group is that of Sharma
and Dyer, who address the issue of residents’ perceptions
following a longitudinal approach. The authors compare
the attitude of residents in the Australian Gold Coast at
two different points in time. They conclude that the per-ceptions
and attitude towards tourism of the residents
has become more positive. Furthermore, overall there
seems to be a greater level of support for the tourism acti-vity
within the community.
The following two papers deal with changes and
trends in tourist behaviour. The article by Esichaikul
is concerned with the motivations and requirements of
European senior tourists travelling to Thailand. With
the aim of suggesting policies for the development of the
tourism product especially suited to this market, the re-search
determines that these senior tourists are particu-larly
concerned with the safety of the destination, the lo-cation
of the accommodation and the presence of natural
attractions.
Also dealing with consumer behaviour, Harcar and
Yucelt’s paper focuses on the use of new online technolo-gies
as a distribution channel for airline tickets. The re-search
examines the consumers’ attitudes towards online
transactions for the airline industry. The authors attempt
to provide insights regarding the airlines’ different distri-bution
channels.
The fi nal group of articles deal with human capital as
utilized by the tourism and hospitality industries. Gar-cía
Pozo and his colleagues examine the composition of
the Spanish hospitality industry in terms of the degree of
specialization and returns on human capital. The study
makes a comparison between different regions in Spain,
using data from the 2006 Spanish Wage Structure Sur-vey.
Differences between regions, as well as conclusions
regarding the returns on education are offered by these
authors.
Finally, Gökovalı and Avcı examine the role of human
capital, as well as collaboration with academia as affec-ting
the degree of innovation of hospitality companies in
the Mugla region in Turkey. Using logit and probit econo-metric
models, these authors determine that these factors
infl uence the innovation performance of the hospitality
fi rms.
While these papers offer new insights into the tourism
and hospitality industries, they also provide new avenues
for future research. Given new theoretical developments
resulting from new technologies, changes in the demo-graphic
composition of tourists or increased concern for
sustainability issues, research is necessary to develop
these concepts and to understand new practices. Thus the
selection of papers in this special issue may not only con-tribute
to existing conceptual discussions of tourism and
hospitality but it may also point towards future avenues
for research.
References
Darcy, S. and Buhalis, D.
2011 “Introduction: From disabled tourists to accessible
tourism.” In Buhalis, D. and Darcy, S. (Eds.) Accessi-ble
Tourism: Concepts and Issues. Bristol, UK: Chan-nel
View Publications, 1-20.