Delivering Hospitality through Franchising

Every one celebrates their birthday to cherish new dreams, and yet Monginis crawled in 1970 at Chembur, Mumbai with just one store. Mr. Albert Desouza, Marketing Head recalls the cascading journey that has carved a strategic path for Monginis, selling over 30 million pastries and 4 million cakes. It all grew from one store in 1970 to over 75 stores in 1986! However 1990's saw a new surge of energy with the Franchise model and hence this business travelled outside Mumbai. The Franchise model embraced some real time practices of Human Development that were carefully captured through the recruitment strategy, job engagement, training, positive work environment along with strategic practice of embracing local taste in product that has summoned success. Mr. Albert appears pensive at the CST railway station noticing the roaring volume of people and wonders: How will Monginis reach out to every Indian? While the Franchisee model has led to expansion and growth he seems restless; we still have a long journey…but now…how should we travel?

Tourism, Terrorism, Morality, and Marketing

A short time after the January 2015 Paris attacks, the city was quiet, perhaps too quiet. Associated press reporters noted that the tourists have simply gone. In a mid –January news article by Thomas Adamson perhaps summed up the situation best when it stated: “Among the tourists who were still braving visits, many took comfort in the extra security presences. With 10,000 troops deployed across the country including 6,000 in the Paris region alone, the security operation put in motion after the attacks is the most extensive in French soil in recent history The (Bryan Texas) Eagle, page A-3, January 19, 2015). The dearth of tourists however was short lived, as the French were able to assure the world that they had taken full control of the situation, employed some ten thousand troops to sensitive locales, and have given the impression that the terrorist attacks were an anomaly. The terrorism attacks in many parts of Europe remind us that terrorism is as much about purposeful negative marketing as it is about death and destruction.

Communicating Responsibly with the Global Tourist

This chapter is meant to give a glimpse into the challenges of communicating with foreign tourists. Since people travel nowadays more than ever, having hosts that are prepared for a quality intercultural interaction becomes of utmost importance. Starting with clarifications regarding the global tourist and the global tourist village, the section further discusses the basics of communicating with tourists and how responsibility translates to guest-host interaction. Culture as a potential barrier in communication occupies a central place.

Sociocultural Impacts of Sport Event Tourism in Mexico

Sport event tourism has been acknowledged as a potential agent of economic and sociocultural change in host destinations. The existing literature provides evidence that the impacts of sport events are extensively shaped by not only the type and magnitude of the events but also by the conditions of the destinations in question. By recognising that most of the empirical evidence on the sociocultural impacts of sport event tourism has been drawn from case studies in Western, developed countries, this paper suggests that the experiences of developing countries need to be incorporated into the general body of knowledge on this area. The paper then explores potential research needs and opportunities for the study of sociocultural impacts of sport event tourism in Mexico that could contribute to the general advancement of the theoretical and conceptual underpinning of sport event tourism's impacts.

The Role of Destination Attributes in Assessing/Constructing the Image of Tourist Destination

This chapter aims to present and discuss the concept of ‘destination image', as shown in the literature to date and also to identify the way in which the image has been formed. The process of image formation is a dynamic one, in which the influence factors have a different importance and they continuously change and complete each other. It intend to analyze the formation and communication of the image, in the new context created by the Internet and social networks. Given the importance of destination attributes in the cognitive process of development/ evaluation of the destination image, it suggests a method for prioritizing these attributes, through fuzzy modeling in order to find the mix of attributes that best matches the expectations of the visitors. This could be a tool used by DMOs in image building, strengthening those attributes of the destination that best meet the wishes of the visitors.

The Role of the Tourism and Cultural Policies since the End of Convertibility

In this work, we aim to study the role culture plays as an economic resource, especially for tourism promotion. Such conception is the result of changes in urban planning, international tourism tendencies and economy, politics and culture in general. Culture can generate income through tourism, crafts and other cultural activities.” Such urban transformations in Buenos Aires city have increased since the end of convertibility and become the essential resource for development. In order to carry out this study, we have worked with secondary statistical information elaborated by local administration institutions, such as the Ministry of Culture (Buenos Aires City Government) and CEDEM (Studies Center for Metropolitan Economic Development, Secretary of Economic Development, Buenos Aires City Government). This methodology helps us analyse the increase not only of artistic activities but of the consumption of cultural services through tourism, especially with the construction and promotion of tango as a trademark for Buenos Aires city.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Generation Y Attitudes to Nature, Wellbeing and Rural Tourism

This study focuses on questionnaire research which explores the attitudes and perceptions of Generation Y to nature-based activities. Case studies are given of Hungary and Romania, which are largely rural countries, but which have relatively low levels of health, wellbeing and happiness compared to the EU and OECD average. It is argued that new ways need to be found of developing a healthier, happier society, especially amongst the younger generations, such as increasing time spent in nature. More than 350 questionnaires were collected in a number of countries but the majority were from Hungary and Romania from students aged approximately 21-30. There were asked about their reasons for going to the countryside regularly (or not); their preferred activities and types of landscape, their perceptions of the health benefits of nature; and their intentions to spend more time in nature in the future, either as a resident or a tourist.

The Roles of Information Technology and Knowledge Management in Global Tourism

This chapter describes the roles of information technology (IT) and knowledge management (KM) in global tourism, thus explaining the theoretical and practical overviews of IT, KM, and global tourism; the significance of IT in global tourism; and the significance of KM in global tourism. The fulfillment of IT and KM is vital for modern organizations that seek to serve suppliers and customers, increase business performance, sustain competitiveness, and accomplish continuous success in global tourism. Therefore, it is necessary for modern organizations to promote their IT and KM applications and establish a strategic plan to regularly examine their advancements toward satisfying customer requirements. The chapter argues that applying IT and KM has the potential to increase organizational performance and gain sustainable competitive advantage in global tourism.

Failure-Avoidance in the Implementation of Tourism and Hospitality Strategies

One of the key factors for the effectiveness and success of tourism promotional methods is having the right strategy for each promotional technique and implementing those strategies properly. The problem with current tourism and hospitality literature is a lack of wide-scope and strategic perspective on the reasons for strategy fatality that can compile and categorize all major causes of strategy failure. A meta-analysis technique is used to systematically analyze existing related literature in the top eight related journals and all Amazon books that include one or more of the six strategy failure related keywords. The taxonomy of causes of strategy failure has emerged after systematic combination of the principal causes of strategy failure (absent, present, incompatible) and approximation of influential environments that contribute to failure of strategies (near, middle, far). The taxonomy of causes of strategy failure has nine sets of strategy-crashing factors.

Strategic Tools and Methods for Promoting Cultural Tourism

Culture, cultural tourism and experience economy are very common cited terms in the current literature. However these expressions are in close connection with each other, have own meanings and specialties, as well. Furthermore the promotion and selling the culture or cultural tourism are also popular activities and increasingly number of promotion tools appeared in the last decade. The objectives of this chapter are on the one hand to define the complex relations between culture, heritage, geography, tourism, economy and experience economy, on the other hand to get familiar the readers with the newest forms and trends in cultural tourism and experience economy furthermore to give an overview about the current promotion tools of cultural tourism.