Culture’s Influence on the Design and Delivery of the Marketing Mix Elements in Tourism and Hospitality

This review study presents intercultural research findings relating to elements or aspects of the marketing mix (7Ps) in tourism and hospitality. The study aims to present a comprehensive and compact document on almost all cultural variables/characteristics and all marketing mix elements based on data collected from a wide range of countries supported by several research studies. It is believed that the study will have significant value for researchers, practitioners, and students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, as at present there is no compact and comprehensive document that brings together research findings to establish a cumulative or overall cross-cultural understanding of the design and delivery of the tourism and hospitality marketing mix elements. Currently, studies on culture and tourism and hospitality mainly focus only on one or few cultural variables/dimensions, one or few countries, and one marketing mix element, or various sub-elements of the marketing mix, e.g., sales promotions or advertisements under the promotion element.

Translation in Intercultural Communication: Differences and Solutions: A Case Study of the English Translated Text of Song of a Pipa Player

Intercultural communication has always been an important concept and core hot-spot in the field of intercultural research. In the early 1980s, Chinese scholars introduced the study of intercultural communication. The study of intercultural communication in China has formed a trend of cross-integration with the disciplines including Language Teaching, Translation Studies and Culturology, etc., after about 40 years of development. Thanks to the differences between Chinese and English, there are still many issues in translation on intercultural communication. Therefore, this research focuses on the in-depth analysis of three types of differences in the English translated text of Song of a Pipa Player from the perspective of intercultural communication to put forward corresponding translation strategies for intercultural communication and offer some help to the translation among different cultures.

Resilience: A “Psychosocial” Competency and Its Role in the Pathways of University Students in Intercultural Research (Pre and Post-COVID19)

Rapid changes to the workplace, even more so after the pandemic, demand education in competencies different from strictly disciplinary competencies, competencies which allow the individual to deal with emergencies and which imply a renewal of professional and institutional identity, favoring restructuring, employability and professionalization focused on future needs. In this paper, the focus is on what the author describes as a “psychosocial competency” in light of her theory, or Resilience. Like resilience, this theory, the Three Dimensional Spiral of Sense, involves three interacting and self-sustained levels: micro (individual), meso (organizational) and macro (national). We present two studies in which the impact of Resilience was observed: a) on academic achievement for delayed students, associated with institutions that do little to promote resilience and b) its importance in the shared representations of university students with respect to the competencies necessary for facing new challenges in the workplace. This group was taking part in a bilateral exchange program in France. COVID-19 suddenly placed them in an emergency situation, which demanded flexibility and the ability to adapt (stranded, without financial or health resources and lacking psychosocial support). Both research studies refer to the Quality of university education as regards Achievement, Professionalization, Identity and Employability. Both reveal deficiencies in the education system in terms of coping with crises. The methodologies, respectively, were quantitative (bivariate and multivariate level) and qualitative (techniques: interview and hierarchical evocation). The results of both studies show: a) the relevant role of Resilience with respect to Achievement; b) the lack of development in this regard. Finally, with a view towards transfer and intervention, a proposal is made to create and/or improve resilience and other psychosocial competencies by means of agreed-upon psychosocial support programs.

Culture and Ethics

The necessity for global ethics to guide international and intercultural research is by no means new phenomenon. In 1996, James Bretzke wrote about a then-growing appeal for global ethics, which led to a habitude of scholarly employment of hermeneutical and communicative theories that were thought to represent workable models for Christian ethics. The notion of morality has been subjected to descriptive references by socio-anthropologists when they report on the moral comportment of the societies they study. A descriptive explanation should suffice as a micro definition for the purpose of associating the notions of ethics and morality with the conduct of individuals on the basis of membership affiliation. A normative definition that is applicable to all humans would depict a macro or universal account. Gert and Gert specified that a condition of rationality is almost always a requirement for moral agency.