Medical Tourism in India- A Paradigm Shift

The health tourism Industry is witnessing a sudden paradigm shift in last five years. India has become a home of traditional medicine that has been practiced for several thousand years as a part of manav dharma to give relief to the needy and mostly free of cost. With modern diagnostic and treatment facilities, experienced surgeons, one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in world, and a tradition of caring, India provides world class surgical and healthcare facilities, with comparable success rates and prompt service levels. The potential of medical tourism is such that it can even surpass the revenue earned from IT sector. Recognizing the pivotal contribution of medical tourism to the economic development, the Indian Government has initiated numerous measures to promote this vary young industry to attract international tourism. This has motivated to identify recent trends and opportunities in India for the medical and healthcare tourism, and to explore the critical factors which can lead to success of initiatives taken by ministry of tourism for the development of medical tourism in India. Finally paper suggests measures to enhance medical tourism in the country.

On the Dimensionality of Measuring Tourist Satisfaction towards Homestay

This study focuses on measuring tourist satisfaction towards home stay. This paper emphasized to identify the variables that are related to tourist satisfaction during tourist homestay. It is also focused on analyzing the relationship and impact of these latent construct of factors to overall tourist satisfaction towards home stay. In an attempt to visualize the purpose, tourists satisfaction in a homestay in Nepal has taken into as a case, with an aim to identify the underlying dimensions of tourist satisfaction during tourist homestay. Twenty six (26) manifest variables of homestay has been formulated to understand the dimensions. Likewise, for a conforming the latent construct (1) statement as dependent variable of overall satisfaction was developed for the purpose of the primary data collection. The manifest variables are basically focused on aspects of home stay attributes namely cultural attraction, hospitality, amenities and safety & security at the home stay destination. Post Exploratory Factor Analysis indicates factor loading for twenty two (22) items manifest variables as significant, loaded with five (5) factors of home stay attributes named as Amenities & Safety, Reception, Local Cuisine & Accommodation, Local Life style & Costumes, and Cultural Performance. This study contributes to the development of survey instrument for exploring tourist satisfaction for Home stay for future researchers.

The Impact of Bar Service Operation Practices on Organizational Performance in Indian Hotel Industry

The paper has a two fold purpose - examine the impact of bar service operation practices (BSOP) on organizational performance (OP) and study the relationship between organizational performance and demographic variables. Based on a survey of 362 bar managers perceptions on the impact of bar service operation practices on organizational performance were assessed by 59 practices and 6 demographic variables. Bivariate test and ANOVA were employed to test the working hypothesis in the study. Results indicated that there is a positive relationship between the bar service operation practices and organizational performance. Further, the results indicate some practical and managerial implications to improve organizational overall performance.

Occupational Safety and Health of Laundry Employees in Hotel Industry

Employee safety and health is considered to be one of the major important human resource functions for any hotel organization. The current paper focuses on the application of occupational safety and health of laundry employees looking at the nature of the tasks performed in day to day operations. OSH is one of the significant factors responsible for employees inspiration and moreover retention in a hotel organization. Health, safety and performance of the employees are dependent on understanding and application of ergonomic practices followed during laundry operations. The paper explores laundry employee protection against various critical factors such as injuries, accidents, work postures, chemical exposure, heat, fire, noise, etc. A questionnaire was used to perpetuate perception of laundry employees in regard to protection from factors concerning safety and health issues from hotels of India. The results reveal that some of the OSH practices are been followed in hotels, while some were missing from hotels such as training, periodical audit and protection against chemical hazards. The present study suggests need for adopting OSH practices and enforcing periodical check for the same in every hotel besides of its categorization.

Emotional Labour and Employee Performance Appraisal: The Missing Link in Some Hotels in South East Nigeria

The main objective of this study was to determine if emotional labour has become a criterion in performance appraisal, job description, selection, and training schemes in the hotel industry in Nigeria. Our main assumption was that majority of hotel organizations have not built emotional labour into their human resources management schemes. Data were gathered by the use of structured questionnaires designed in Likert format, and interviews. The focus group was managers of the selected hotels. Analyses revealed that majority of the hotels have not built emotional labour into their human resources schemes particularly in the 1, 2, and 3-star hotels. It was observed that service employees of 1, 2, and 3-star hotels have not been adequately trained to perform emotional labour, a critical factor in quality service delivery. Managers of 1, 2, and 3-star hotels have not given serious thought to emotional labour as a critical factor in quality service delivery. The study revealed that suitability of an individuals characteristics is not being considered as a criterion for selection and performance appraisal for service employees. The implication of this is that, person-job-fit is not seriously considered. It was observed that there has been a disconnect between required emotional competency, its recognition, evaluation and training. Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that selection, training, job description and performance appraisal instruments in use in hotels in Nigeria are inadequate. Human resource implications of the findings in this study are presented. It is recommended that hotel organizations should re-design and plan the emotional content and context of their human resources practices to reflect the emotional demands of frontline jobs in the hotel industry and the crucial role emotional labor plays during service encounters.

A Relationship Framework between Souvenir Purchase Intention, Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage tourism is one of the oldest and most widely practiced forms of tourism over the world. Pilgrimage has not only been confined to religious and spiritual benefits of the pilgrims but has extended gains to other participating communities including the locals and the service providers. As a pilgrimage destination flourishes, it becomes a source of income generation for the locals and service providers, along with fulfilling the spiritual desires of the pilgrims. With the core activity of offering prayers and pilgrimage, allied activities particularly shopping at the destination is a key indulgence at a pilgrimage destination. Special products, believed to possess spiritual and religious relevance are sold at the destinations. The pilgrims buy these products to offer to their God. Such products when used for commercial purpose are known to be Souvenirs. Pilgrims buy souvenirs to take back memories of their journey and to gift to others as a momento or token of affection. The present study is an empirical research which tends to know the souvenir purchase behavior of the pilgrims at one of the most visited pilgrimage shrine of India, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi. The research explores the Souvenir Purchase trend at the destination and tends to study how the Souvenir Purchase intention is affected by the demographics of the respondents. The difference in Souvenier Purchase Intentions of the pilgrims on the basis of their visiting Motivation will also be worked upon. It includes first hand as well as second hand data and will be analyzed with the help of tools like percentage, mean, t-test and ANOVA.

Travel Risks vs Tourist Decision Making: A Tourist Perspective

This paper sheds light on tourists emotional experiences on holiday, which are central to increase our understanding of tourist behavior. Tourists usually travel to cities with good impression. Choosing a travel destination is definitely a complicated decision-making process for tourists. For safety concerns, some tourists intentionally visit somewhere familiar and nearby, but avoid nations or areas with high crime rates or political instability. A wide range of perceptions governs the desirability and appeal of a destination to the potential traveler. The importance of investigating perceptions of travel risks has been recognized with in a number of different disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, criminology and marketing. It is often assumed that perceptions of safety and security may influence individuals destination choice. Consumers use information gathered from various sources like word of mouth, different forms of media, guidebooks, talking to friends and relatives, to form a perception of a particular destination. This is a quantitative study conducted in Malaysia. The respondents who participated in this research were the nationals of Malaysia, India, China, Indonesia, Australia, and France, etc. The study found that most holidaymakers perceive earthquake, tsunami, SARS, terrorist activities, swine flu as risk. The results of the study suggest that safety, peace and stability are major concerns for tourists while choosing their travel destination.

Factors Affecting Perception of Value for Money and Customer Satisfaction for Foreign Tourists in Goa

The current study is an attempt to identify the various critical factors that are essential for creating value for money and therefore, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The review of literature indicated a gap in the area of relationship between value for money and customer satisfaction. For this, a study was placed in which a sample of 300 foreign tourists in Goa was taken and a survey was conducted to analyze which factors led to their increase in value for money. It was found that the value for money was affected by both ease of visiting Goa and level of enjoyment experience offered by Goa. Out of these two factors, the level of enjoyment was found to be more significantly and positively affecting the foreign tourist perception of value for money and satisfaction level as compared to the ease of visiting.

A New ICT based Business Model for Tourism Industry for the Maharashtra and Goa States of India

Tourism is the act of travel for the purpose of recreation. It is an industry of moving, housing and entertaining people. It is one of the worlds largest service industries and fastest growing economic sectors in terms of generating gross revenue as well as earning of foreign exchange. Nowadays the Internet and the developments in ICTs have revolutionized the entire tourism industry all over the world. It provides new tools and enables new distribution channels to create a new business environment. In order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of transactions, to reduce the cost of transactions and to provide the one stop services to the customers, tourism market needs a new ICT based business model to grow tourism industry in the states of Maharashtra and Goa. In this paper we propose a new ICT based tourism business model that includes the modern tools of ICT which affects the tourism business as a whole.

Service Quality and Consumer Satisfaction and Loyalty Association Moderated by Switching Cost in Hospitality Industry

Booming travel and tourism trade cause a tremendous growth in hotel industry in Malaysia. This industry will continue to promote country and other businesses in a good way. Therefore, the evaluation of customers perception, satisfaction and loyalty in hospitality industry has been major of attention in marketing strategies. This research aims to evaluate customer loyalty at in-house restaurant hotels in Malaysia. To achieve this goal, this research takes two steps to better understand the role and influence of each constructs, (1) Examines customer satisfaction by considering the effect of service quality antecedents on customer satisfaction. (2) Investigates the association between customer satisfaction and loyalty by identifying the moderating role of switching cost in satisfaction-loyalty relationship. The data is collected through self-administrated questionnaire from hotels in two states of Malaysia from 200 customers who have been served at in-house restaurant of those hotels since last three months. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to analyze the reliability and validity of data and the hypothesized relationships in the proposed research model.