Importance of Creativity and Innovation for Gastronomy and Business Tourism

Gastronomy examines, researches, and applies the food and beverage culture of a society in the historical process. Gastronomy is also a field of science that includes elements of science and art. The aim of gastronomy education is to train experts with the knowledge and equipment needed by the sector. Creativity is an important parameter in the field of gastronomy. The concept of creativity can be defined in different ways. In a simple way, creativity is used in the meaning of creating, revealing, and discovering the unknown. The Torrance scale is one of the most widely used methods for measuring creativity. In this chapter, the effect of gender, the type of school graduated at high school, and pre-school education on creativity was examined for undergraduate students studying gastronomy at the universities. The importance of gastronomy in business tourism is increasing. The development of creative ideas and thoughts by gastronomy employees can positively affect gastronomy tourism.

Signifying Business Tourism Through Knowledge Sharing and Innovation Processes

The main objective of this chapter is to highlight the significance of business tourism in the global village where the advanced technologies are utilizing for knowledge sharing and implementing innovation to attract the potential customers effectively and enhance the profitability of tourism industry. It also reviews how the professionals are developed by business schools, which are offering degree programs in tourism. With the growing popularity of tourism industry, there is a need for producing graduates in tourism who may perform excellently in launching innovations through effective knowledge sharing processes. It also discusses how knowledge sharing and innovation play an instrumental role in meeting the challenging demands of the potential clients of the tourism industry.

A Survey on Recent Recommendation Systems for the Tourism Industry

Data mining is an important field that derives insights from the data and recommendation systems. Recommendation systems have become common in recent years in the field of tourism. These are widely used as a tool that can input various selection criteria and user preferences and yields travel recommendations to tourists. User's style and preferences should be constructed accurately so as to supply most relevant suggestions. Researchers proposed various types of tourism recommendation systems (TRS) in order to improve the accuracy and user satisfaction. In this chapter, the authors studied the current state of tourism recommendation system models and discussed their preference criteria. As a part of that, the authors studied various important preference factors in TRS and categorized them based on their likeness. This chapter reports TRS model future directions and compiles a comprehensive reference list to assist researchers.

Contribution of Social Capital to Innovation

In today's uncertain environment, companies should develop solutions to meet the global competition trends and the rapidly changing customer demands. In fact, to gain a competitive advantage, organizations should be equipped with knowledge, which is considered as an essential resource, rather than with traditional resources, such as durable assets or material/technical resources. In other words, investing in intangible assets that are difficult to imitate, such as social capital, promotes dissemination and exchange of accessible knowledge used by organizations. Such knowledge management processes enable firms to enhance their capacity of innovation as well as their creativity skills. The objective is therefore to develop a literature review that helps enrich and in-depth understanding the dynamics of social capital within an industrial cluster (i.e., a common geographical area).

Authentic Leaders and Business Tourism

With increasing global accessibility, business travel has become a key mechanism to share knowledge across modernist nation borders. Such business travel typically includes conferences, training events, meetings, pitches, and working retreats. Yet, at the end of each of these activities, the rate of continued knowledge sharing, and network establishment likely diminishes. This chapter explores the role of authentic leaders and authentic relationships as a catalyst to create meaningful exchanges of knowledge and a genuine desire to maintain relationships after the business tourism activity ends. The implications, if founded, include a need to train and develop authentic leader behaviors for employees who are likely to engage in business tourism activities. The effect? Higher creativity and innovation, more knowledge sharing, and better cross-cultural connectivity.

Constraints of Business Tourism and Proposed Remedies

Business tourism is the oldest form of tourism in human history. Business tourism is based on four types of activities i.e. meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE). The inbound business tourism performs a significant role in the economic growth and development of any country. The objectives of this chapter are as follows. First, to highlight the key constraints of inbound business tourism in Pakistan. Second, possible and suitable remedies to resolve these constraints. Third, to explain the importance of inbound business tourism from the perspective of the China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC). The present chapter divides the constraints of business tourism in Pakistan into four levels, namely: state-level constraints, government level constraints, industrial level constraints, and individual-level constraints. This study proposes different remedies against different levels of constraints such as an establishment of an international platform of business tourism of Pakistan.

The Exploration of New Avenues Toward Better Business Management

Business tourism is type of tourism that involves work rather than enjoyment. It is becoming the most income-generating part of tourism. Business tourism has different types that are meetings, incentives, convention, and exhibition (MICE); congress tourism; event tourism; sport tourism; and business agencies. Meetings, incentives, convention, and exhibition is a detailed and comprehensive type of business tourism. The incentive traveling is that of business tourism that is offered by the company to their employees. Exhibitions are those types of traveling that are organized to introduced new products, services, and information to the business tourists. Convention consists of the congresses and conferences. Congresses are the larger-scale business meetings, and conferences are the smaller-scale business meetings while complexes are the combination of small exhibitions and conferences. There is a need to understand that leisure tourism is different from business tourism.

Work-Based Learning Strategies and Innovative Work Behavior

This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies and innovative work behavior. The author chooses business organizations (e.g., textile industry, sports industry, and pharmaceutical companies) for the purpose of data collection. Particularly, those employees are targeted who avail business tours and conferences on a regular basis. Hence, the convenience sampling technique is used to collect data. A total of 800 questionnaires were distributed, but 535 proper filled questionnaires having response rate 66.87% were utilized. Data were collected in two-time waves. At T1 (Time lag 1), data were collected regarding employee demographics (e.g., gender, age, and education and work experience) as well as independent variables (e.g., cognitive learning strategies as well as behavioral learning strategies). At T2 (Time lag 2), data were collected on the dependent variable (innovative work behavior). The results of the study indicate that CLS and BLS have a positive impact on IWB. Managerial and theoretical implications are also discussed along with limitations and future directions.

Barriers and Enablers to Knowledge Management in the Pakistani Hospitality Industry

Knowledge has become a fundamental factor for success of organizations in today's dynamic and competitive era. Due to globalization, the survival of organizations rests upon their ability to attain and retain knowledge. Like other assets, knowledge management (KM) has gained considerable attention in the field of management. Present research is a case study carried for a focalized examination of knowledge management practices in hospitality industry of Pakistan and highlighting the antecedents that impede the KM application to this industry. The study conducted a detailed and comprehensive review of literature including both qualitative and quantitative research studies and formed a list of antecedents. Later, the application of fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) concluded that there are factors like bad law and order situation, lack of support from top management, employees' turnover, conflict among employees, lack of formal knowledge on KM, and its application and poor infrastructure facilities are among the top barriers that hinder the application of KM in the hospitality industry of Pakistan.

Knowledge Management Processes and Infrastructures

The principal goal of this study is to identify the role of knowledge management processes and infrastructures as a determinant of financial and operational in the hotel industry, particularly how these knowledge management strategies have positive an impact on the hotels performance. The authors use a quantitative approach based on an email survey applied to 55 Portuguese hotels. The results show that the knowledge management systems and technological and non-technological infrastructure are critical for hotels competitiveness and obtaining operational and financial competitive advantages. This will help hotel managers better understand how to align knowledge management strategies linked with systems, technological and non-technological infrastructure, and improve hotel competitiveness. This chapter is one of the first studies to investigate the links among knowledge management strategy of systems and technological and non-technological infrastructure with operational and financial performance.