This paper identifies and analyses a specific psychological barrier that plays a crucial role in explaining why the tourism accommodation sector so far has only made a limited contribution to sustainable development. This barrier represents a so-called social dilemma and relates to behavioural patterns and conflicting interests of relevant stakeholders and their inability to resolve the resulting lock-in. Through presenting and reviewing the outcomes of three empirical studies and relating them to relevant literature, this paper explores the details of this particular social dilemma. It also establishes promising avenues for moving beyond the current stagnation point. The paper concludes that there is an urgent need for more research into the social, cultural and psychological structures and barriers that lock-in the behaviour of relevant stakeholders. However, it is also concludes that actually resolving the dilemma is a shared responsibility of all stakeholders and requires more than just research, for instance setting up galvanising action groups and adjusting tourism and hospitality curricula.
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While luxury accommodation experience research has increased in the last decade, the field shows little accumulation of knowledge over time, requiring further foundational development. This study presents a meta-ethnographic synthesis of sixteen qualitative studies to propose a new conceptualisation of the luxury accommodation experience. The study follows Noblit and Hare (1988) seven-steps methodology for the interpretative synthesis of qualitative empirical studies, an under-utilised methodology introduced by Smit, Melissen, Font, and Gkritzali (2020) in tourism and hospitality research. The synthesis model highlights the emotional, multi-dimensional and process-driven nature of the luxury accommodation experiences, created by guests, hosts, and external others through the social interaction occurring within a physical and sensorial environment and influenced by personal and situational factors. The synthesis also underlines three factors characterising the luxury accommodation experience, congruence, culture, and collaboration, providing a foundational framework to advance hospitality luxury experience research. Implications for practitioners are also highlighted.
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Experience quality has been studied for many decades in various contexts. While understanding of experience quality has advanced, its context-specific and multi-dimensional nature has challenged its conceptualisation. With the rise of experiential accommodation in tourism and hospitality, luxury lodges have been increasingly recognised in the industry and by customers as the emblem of luxury experiences, albeit receiving limited scholarly attention. Through a qualitative multiple-case study methodology, utilising high-engagement research techniques, this study explores the dimensions and determinants of luxury lodge experience quality. The study presents an experience quality model grounded in empirical data, bridging various experience quality theoretical perspectives to explain the luxury lodge experience, and demonstrating generalisation capabilities for other service contexts. The study contributes to the ongoing discourse on experience quality, particularly in the context of small luxury accommodation. The study also offers important practical implications for luxury accommodation operators on designing, staging and managing quality experiences.
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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important consideration in tourism and hospitality management, yet extensive empirical studies on how it is implemented in developing country’s context are lacking. Using qualitative methodology, this article addresses this knowledge gap by exploring CSR practices among hotels and accommodation providers in Malawi. Our findings demonstrate that a broad-based CSR agenda is slowly being pursued by certain firms although corporate philanthropy remains the major area of focus for most of the considered firms. The article further demonstrates differences in the choice of CSR agenda firms pursue can be influenced by the nature of firm’s ownership. Whereas locally owned and managed firms showed a strong orientation towards philanthropic-based CSR agenda, foreign owner/mangers favoured a broad-based CSR agenda.
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This study explores the negotiation process underpinning the creation of authentic experiences in luxury lodges. The findings of this study highlight how this is a balancing act performed by the hosts through the provision of an authentic experiential platform connecting guests with unique places and genuine people and is of a luxurious nature. Staged experiences are authenticated by the guests through their bodies and minds, activating, in turn, experiences of existential authenticity. Contributing to service marketing and management literature, the study departs from purely abstract authenticity conceptualisations by applying an experience design and management lens to understanding authentic experiences. Practically, our findings demonstrate how authenticity is operationalised in luxury lodges and how these experiences are understood and valued by tourism and hospitality consumers and providers, providing crucial implications for luxury accommodation marketers and managers.
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This research aims to investigate the impacts of Covid -19 on Bethlehem and examine the potential recovery strategies for the tourism sector during and after the pandemic. This research contributes in fulfilling intriguing gaps in literature on the impacts of Covid-19 on Bethlehem. All data collected were in the period of August and September 2020. This study is exploratory in nature applying qualitative and quantitative methods. Open-ended questions used in the interviews and the interviews were analysed. In addition, open and closed-ended questions carried out with fifty-two respondents from tourism business owners and key player stakeholders in Bethlehem’s tourism sector. The findings show that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in that all Bethlehem’s tourism sector and sub-sectors suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the worst affected sub-sectors are souvenir stores and accommodation, while the least affected industry in the tourist restaurants sub-sector. The pandemic has resulted in massive job losses in Bethlehem. Bethlehem’s tourism sector has implemented pay cuts and laying off workers as a way of mitigating loss of revenue resulting from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, this research provides academic as well as managerial implications.
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