Erwin Losekoot

This paper considers the role that volunteers have in making a museum a hospitable place for visitors. It proposes a model of the factors which impact on the ability of volunteers to provide a welcoming atmosphere to visitors and colleagues alike. An exploratory, qualitative approach was used by the two researchers who had been asked to run a series of workshops for volunteers in a regional nature museum aimed at the family market. Following scoping interviews with management the researchers co-created two workshops attended by twenty staff. This paper reports on the findings and understandings that emerged from those workshops and observation notes from the researchers who were participant observers. Findings were that volunteers felt a sense of responsibility for making visitors feel welcome, for showing hospitality to visitors and colleagues, taking time to understand needs, being available, professionalism, being authentic and the impact of the physical environment. The research focusses on the volunteers of the museum. This research gives museum management an insight into the motivation and needs of museum volunteers and may assist them in recruiting and retaining volunteer staff. It also builds on existing knowledge around volunteers in heritage recreation settings and proposes a new model based on sociology, psychology and hospitality.

This chapter outlines the political history of Vietnam and the importance of tourism and hospitality to its continued development. It describes the growth of tourism and hospitality education provision and how that fits in with the development of a thriving tourism sector of the economy. Vietnam’s control economy has impacted on the ability of the tourism and hospitality industry to respond to customer demands. Many parents felt there was no choice but to send their children overseas for a quality tertiary education, but that is changing with an increasing number of high-quality providers based in Vietnam. Challenges remain in terms of finding enough qualified staff to teach, finding sufficient resources to pay those staff and ensuring that unscrupulous and sub-standard education providers are not allowed to proliferate and damage the reputation of Vietnam’s tourism and hospitality education providers. Students also need to be exposed to current industry standards and experiences and be allowed to develop soft skills which are increasingly important for future development of the industry.

Airports are amazing places (see the movie Love Actually). They are one of the few places left in our society where everyone follows a similar process and goes through a single ‘gateway’, whether they are ‘road warriors’ who travel hundreds of days a year or total novice travelers on their first ever ‘OE’ (overseas experience – a rite of passage for young New Zealanders without their parents). As a result, the experience they have in airports are frequently taken to symbolize the hospitableness of nations. While airports are keen to create a welcoming hospitable experience, it is impossible to avoid the fact that airports are ‘panopticons’ where every move is scrutinized and biometric data taken and stored with impunity. Bell (2011) refers to the interpersonal encounters that occur, and what he calls ‘cafe friends’ and ‘seatmates’ who form a temporary community for as long as a flight is delayed. The eponymous liminal nature of the airport environment creates a perfect ‘non-place’ b...

This research paper conducts a review of the development of facilities management as a profession and some of the key moments in that journey. It then considers the situation of New Zealand, which has a number of characteristics such as a small population, relatively few large organisations which might make use of Facilities Management (FM) at a strategic level, and an understanding of FM which is more about operational rather than strategic issues. Through the tool of a ‘World-Cafe’ methodology during an FM Masterclass at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) with members of FMANZ, New Zealand’s FM professional association, key issues in the development of FM professionals in New Zealand are discussed and recommendations made. It is interesting to note that the issues of professional recognition, career pathways and academic qualifications are all issues raised in the literature and also by participants in the World-Cafe session held. This suggests that New Zealand’s FM professio...

This chapter outlines the political history of Vietnam and the importance of tourism and hospitality to its continued development. It describes the growth of tourism and hospitality education provision and how that fits in with the development of a thriving tourism sector of the economy. Vietnam’s control economy has impacted on the ability of the tourism and hospitality industry to respond to customer demands. Many parents felt there was no choice but to send their children overseas for a quality tertiary education, but that is changing with an increasing number of high-quality providers based in Vietnam. Challenges remain in terms of finding enough qualified staff to teach, finding sufficient resources to pay those staff and ensuring that unscrupulous and sub-standard education providers are not allowed to proliferate and damage the reputation of Vietnam’s tourism and hospitality education providers. Students also need to be exposed to current industry standards and experiences an...

This study explored employees’ attitudes towards team-building events. Anonymous qualitative data were obtained using netnography and analysed through an interpretive content analysis approach. The data analysis yielded sixteen codes and five main themes, on the basis of which employees’ attitudes were modelled into eight categories, represented on a two-dimensional coordinate system along two axes (attitudinal and behavioural): true believers, go with the flow, rational thinkers, pragmatists, saboteurs, political dropouts, honest opt-outs, and absentees with genuine reasons. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed both in general terms and for hospitality enterprises.

Este articulo analiza la importancia del Tratado de Waitangi (1840) para la Educacion Superior en Nueva Zelanda, y como influye la experiencia educativa de los estudiantes de hospitalidad, turismo y organizacion de eventos. Este articulo examina los trabajos publicados sobre diversidad cultural, internacionalizacion y desarrollo curricular; el papel de la cultura en la educacion de estudiantes locales e internacionales, y en que forma la aculturacion que experimentan los estudiantes de Educacion Superior como parte de sus estudios puede dar lugar a una comprension mas profunda de cultura e identidad en el sitio de trabajo del ambito de la hospitalidad. Existe una brecha en los trabajos publicados sobre este tema alrededor de en que forma un plan de estudios de Educacion Superior puede ayudar al desarrollo de una conciencia cultural y una comprension de los compromisos historicos. El articulo identifica por lo tanto varios principios clave que se consideran imprescindibles para la id...

Evidence suggests that hospital patients receive the medical treatment they need but are sometimes left feeling depersonalized and alienated with their overall treatment. This New Zealand study explored the lived experience of hospitality among adults during their recent hospital stay. A hermeneutic phenomenological methodology was used to design and conduct the study. Seven participants, aged 22 to 65 years, who had spent at least three days in a hospital for elective surgery were purposively recruited. Data were gathered using semi-structured, conversational-style individual interviews. Participant-validated, coherent stories were drawn from the transcripts and analysed. The findings revealed that hospitality showed itself in different ways to the participants. When present, they experienced feelings of comfort, of being at ease and of being healed. The implications for health care practitioners are that offering often small, yet heartfelt acts of hospitality may evoke powerful lived experiences that benefit the patient, suggesting that caring about the patient is an important element of the healing process.

Between 1972 and 2003 there were 168 attempts by terrorists to attack respondents or spectators at major sporting events around the world. A literature review of over 100 research papers outlines the reasons terrorist groups target such high-profile events, one of which, is the presence of the international media. This study considers how well New Zealand hotel managers were prepared for a terrorist attack, in their preparations for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The senior managers interviewed operated a range of properties from serviced apartments to five-star hotels. The aim of the study was to determine levels of preparedness for an attack, and assess attitudes and approaches to risk management. The study finds that New Zealand hotel managers displayed a somewhat laissez faire approach to security, and it is suggested that Hofstede's low uncertainty avoidance category may help explain their carefree attitude to security risks during sporting mega events. It is hoped that results of this study will bring attention to the weak security measures, as these were not sufficient to prevent a successful terrorist attack in New Zealand.

This paper considers the changing role of national airports. Traditionally national airports are seen as a symbol of national pride and act as a base for a country's flag-carrier airline, but in recent years there has been a shift to a more customer-focused, marketdriven facility ...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present some of the fundamental barriers and challenges in the use of Six Sigma as a business improvement methodology in the hospitality industry.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken was to collate data through observations made by the third author during the execution of the research project within the case study company as well as collating data from company story boards and interviewing relevant and appropriate staff members in the case study company.FindingsThe challenges of “data collection”, “defining projects” and “getting group consensus” can be considered to be somewhat very challenging in the context of hospitality industry.Research limitations/implicationsDue to limited time constraints, the number of people participated in the study was relatively small. Perhaps a simple survey questionnaire could also be distributed to a number of people at the top management level, middle management level and front‐line staff personnel in...

By using Heidegger’s concept of Da-sein this paper will investigate the meaning that airport customers ascribe to the airport. Looking at the meaning of the airport experience for individual airport customers will allow researchers to develop an understanding of what it is like to be in an airport. This understanding of being in an airport is a novel approach to the management literature which has in the past focused on the effective management of airports. The knowledge of what it is like to be in an airport will enable management to better care for the airport passenger or visitor, to create a more hospitable environment and therefore and lead to their becoming the preferred airport.

This paper considers the situation of Tonga, a small Pacific island state, and the impact of allowing airlines to fly in and out of its main airport on a Sunday. It summarises the limited literature on restrictions on travel by the authorities on religious grounds before considering the specific context of Tonga. The paper discusses the limited economic data available for an economic impact analysis of Sunday air traffic to Tonga before making a number of recommendations for consideration and discussion. Doing so would increase average stay from 9 to 12 days and increase 2016 direct visitor expenditure from T$75m to T$136m giving Tongan tourism an estimated economic value of T$219 for 2017. The paper acknowledges that such changes will change the environment for the people of Tonga in both business and personal ways but argues that the benefits outweigh the costs.

This paper is an investigation of the impact of an explicitly Christian culture and ethos on the operational management of a hospitality facility. It was stimulated by the experiences of academic faculty members over almost a decade who stayed in the property being researched, the YMCA Salisbury hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The paper discusses previous research conducted at the property and reported in academic journals (SD, 2002; Pun and Ho, 2001) and explores the historical links between religion and hospitality or hospitable-ness, including literature on the Rule of St Benedict (Morrison and O'Gorman, 2008). Having established that there is a long tradition between religion and hospitality, the paper goes on to pose the question of whether it is possible to be 'hospitable' at the same time as being efficient and commercially successful. Heracleous and Johnston (2009) illustrate using two case studies in Singapore that there are examples of public and not-for-profit or...

This paper sets out to consider the stage of development of the Facilities Management (FM) sector in New Zealand and draw lessons from other countries which may be further down the road of professionalisation. A comprehensive literature review was conducted in order to learn from other regions. This was followed by a "world-cafe" discussion forum attended by 18 FM managers and academics in New Zealand held during an FM Masterclass. Delegates highlighted the issues of professional recognition, career pathways and academic qualifications, and these closely mirrored key themes from the literature and from professional FM associations in the USA, UK and continental Europe. While many key organisations and individuals in the New Zealand FM industry were represented in this study, the field of FM is still young in New Zealand, and there are many individuals active in FM in New Zealand who may not recognise that term and who were therefore not consulted for this study. Further la...

This study considers the attitudes to and experiences of travel agents and tourism intermediaries when servicing the needs of mature travellers. It reviews the literature on mature travellers within the broader area of ‘accessible tourism’. The survey of members of a professional association within the travel industry in Auckland, New Zealand highlighted a number of key challenges and opportunities for those working in this increasingly valuable sector of the tourism industry. While this study was a pilot study of the supply side of the tourism industry in Auckland, the research concludes with examples of best practice and some recommendations drawn from the many years’ experience of the survey respondents which would form a useful starting point for a more detailed study considering the experiences of mature travellers.

The aim of this study was to investigate the factors influencing the airport customer experience. Much current research and management effort on airports focuses on efficiency, effectiveness, speed of processing and rankings on international league tables. These measures seem to reward those airports which can best move the largest number of passengers and their luggage. The writer of this study believed that the ‘experience’ of the ‘airport customer’ (passengers and those meeting or farewelling them) is not being given sufficient prominence at a time when it is recognised that the ‘experience economy’ can add value and create customer loyalty. New Zealand’s largest airport was the case study location for this research, and 120 interviews were undertaken in the airport environment with people who were experiencing the airport, either as arriving or departing passengers, or those greeting or farewelling them. In addition, 10 interviews were undertaken with airport management to explo...

espanolEste articulo analiza la importancia del Tratado de Waitangi (1840) para la Educacion Superior en Nueva Zelanda, y como influye la experiencia educativa de los estudiantes de hospitalidad, turismo y organizacion de eventos. Este articulo examina los trabajos publicados sobre diversidad cultural, internacionalizacion y desarrollo curricular; el papel de la cultura en la educacion de estudiantes locales e internacionales, y en que forma la aculturacion que experimentan los estudiantes de Educacion Superior como parte de sus estudios puede dar lugar a una comprension mas profunda de cultura e identidad en el sitio de trabajo del ambito de la hospitalidad. Existe una brecha en los trabajos publicados sobre este tema alrededor de en que forma un plan de estudios de Educacion Superior puede ayudar al desarrollo de una conciencia cultural y una comprension de los compromisos historicos. El articulo identifica por lo tanto varios principios clave que se consideran imprescindibles par...

This paper proposes a new gaze: the refractive gaze. To provide a contextual framework for it, this paper explores Foucault's (1963) physicians gaze; Urry's (1999) tourist gaze; Maoz's (2006) mutual gaze and Bell's (2005) prescriptive and nervous gazes. We introduce the refractive gaze by examining how tourist-gastronomes negotiate food risk and how this fuels their culinary and cultural capital. The refractive gaze incorporates the subjectively experienced cognitive and sensuous elements that tourist-gastronomes encounter in their quest for 'out of the ordinary' food experiences. Our research is based on secondary case sources that illuminate the articulated theory; in particular, the work of Bell (2010) - who noted how tourist-gastronomes negotiate horse milk consumption in rural Mongolia - which emphasised the internal thought processes followed in deciding to override a fear/risk nexus in order to gain the bragging rights of cultural and culinary capital....

This monograph aims to understand the pressures which push organisations to adopt particular routes to competitive advantage. The monograph aims to discover if the best practice high skill, high wage and high quality route is used in the hospitality industry. It seeks to determine the influence of companies' product market strategies and their in-company and external structural factors on skills levels, work organisation, job design and people management systems. The monograph looked at the notion of best practice approaches and then moved on to consider the best way to carry forward the future research agenda of reviewing the nature of human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality sector. Conclusions were drawn from a range of interviews and from existing work which has sought to address the issue of HRM in the hospitality sector.

Abstract This paper considers what is known and extends the knowledge about the value of using posters in tertiary student assessment. It carries out a literature review before considering academic staff and student feedback on poster presentations, highlighting the rationale for using them, challenges in implementing posters as a form of assessment, and student responses to posters as a summative assessment tool. The paper concludes with recommendations based on our findings for those considering using posters and opportunities for further pedagogical research in this increasingly popular tool within the field of hospitality and tourism management.

This paper evaluates the customer needs of cruise passengers in a context of industry ports in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The study was conducted for the Cruise Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (CANAL) providing primary data as part of their assessment for their Port Readiness Program. The results are generated from a survey of 34 key decision-makers working in 24 ports in the province. Another survey representing the views of 12 cruise lines operating in these ports was also completed. Findings show that the cruise industry needs to adopt closer co-ordination between ports and cruise companies to advance port readiness as well as to protect and facilitate an understanding of the natural and cultural heritage of the destination to meet the needs and expectations of cruise line passengers to the province.

The aim of this study was to investigate the factors influencing the airport customer experience. Much current research and management effort on airports focuses on efficiency, effectiveness, speed of processing and rankings on international league tables. These measures seem to reward those airports which can best move the largest number of passengers and their luggage. The writer of this study believed that the ‘experience’ of the ‘airport customer’ (passengers and those meeting or farewelling them) is not being given sufficient prominence at a time when it is recognised that the ‘experience economy’ can add value and create customer loyalty. New Zealand’s largest airport was the case study location for this research, and 120 interviews were undertaken in the airport environment with people who were experiencing the airport, either as arriving or departing passengers, or those greeting or farewelling them. In addition, 10 interviews were undertaken with airport management to explore their perceptions of the airport customer experience. All interviews with airport customers were undertaken in the land-side food court area of the international terminal. A plan of the airport is provided in Appendix 2 to assist the reader in understanding the layout of the airport. The guided conversations were focused on encouraging participants to share their perspective of the airport customer experience in order to build on what is already known from the quantitative surveys of passengers which are the more common form of research into airports. Together with the above data, the writer also kept a detailed research diary with observations made over the course of the data gathering phase. Hermeneutics guided the interpretive process which resulted in a number of overarching themes or notions which form the basis of this study’s findings. These include processes, people, physical environment and ‘placeness’. However, the research also uncovered what the writer has termed a ‘personal travel philosophy’. There was a significant number of people who, despite delays and other obstacles to their travel plans, appeared to be remarkably content with their lot at the airport, and this term is used to describe that group. The research concludes with a proposed model of the airport customer experience addressing five aspects – physical environment, processing, people, placeness and personal travel philosophy – and provides recommendations for airport management and opportunities for further academic research both in airports and in congruous areas such as hospitals. Airport management must spend time making people feel welcome if these spaces are to be perceived as hospitable places. The contribution that this thesis makes to the body of knowledge is a deeper understanding of the factors influencing the airport customer experience in the customers’ own words. It allows the voices of airport customers to be heard in a way that has not previously happened, in part because the dominant paradigm is a positivist one of facts, figures, benchmarks and league tables. By taking the time to listen carefully in an open-ended discussion, this research has identified much of what the airport customer really feels about the space they are obliged to spend an increasing amount of time in.

This study explored employees’ attitudes towards team-building events. Anonymous qualitative data were obtained using netnography and analysed through an interpretive content analysis approach. The data analysis yielded sixteen codes and five main themes, on the basis of which employees’ attitudes were modelled into eight categories, represented on a two-dimensional coordinate system along two axes (attitudinal and behavioural): true believers, go with the flow, rational thinkers, pragmatists, saboteurs, political dropouts, honest opt-outs, and absentees with genuine reasons. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed both in general terms and for hospitality enterprises.

This article aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of the hospitality servicescape. Through this analysis this article makes recommendations to managers on how they can set about creating a genuine sense of welcome and hospitality in a contemporary setting. It uses a case study of Jabixhûs, a “prayer house” in the northern Dutch city of Leeuwarden to investigate how religious convictions can blend with architectural expertise and a lifetime love of hosting “the other” to create a hospitable space where people can share experiences. The location of Jabixhûs on the actual historical pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and socially within the community in Leeuwarden provides a combination of influences on the religious hospitality experiences offered. As well as extensive observations, a phenomenological interview was conducted with its owners, designers and operators, supplemented by feedback posted on the accommodation’s Airbnb listing. The three theoretical servicescape-related themes identified are the provision of hospitality through architecture, theology and community. Management recommendations include the suggestion that the closer personal motivations and the hospitality offering are aligned, the easier it is to deliver a meaningful experience. A clear and authentic hospitality servicescape can help to ensure that this occurs.

This study was conducted to investigate the impact of applying a Design-Based Education approach to teaching on International Branch Campuses (IBC). A focus group was held with staff from Stenden Hotel Management School's IBCs after which themes were identified from the transcripts and the academic literature on Transnational Education, Design-Based Education and Problem Based Education. Four themes identified - definitions and understanding of DBE; the impact of culture on teaching using DBE; opportunities and challenges of DBE, and Recommendations. Within these themes key findings were that the focus in DBE is on validation and creativity; that local culture plays a role in its adoption; that there is much confusion amongst both staff and students about what is expected of them; that there is much confusion amongst both staff and students about what is expected of them; that there may be different challenges depending on whether the subjects are social sciences or technical; that management processes must also support DBE in their systems, and that IBCs are sometimes ahead of the 'home' campus in DBE implementation and experimentation. For this approach to teaching to be adopted successfully across all campuses, significant amounts of time needs to be spent explaining and allowing staff and students to experiment with this new approach. Additional training and support may be required to move students from rote and surface learning to a DBE approach. How this can best be achieved will need go be an act of co-creation between campuses, staff, students and industry.

This book chapter outlines the political history of Vietnam and the importance of tourism and hospitality to its continued development. It describes the growth of tourism and hospitality education provision and how that fits in with the development of a thriving tourism sector of the economy. Vietnam's control economy has impacted on the ability of the tourism and hospitality industry to respond to customer demands. Many parents felt they had no choice but to send their children overseas for a quality tertiary education, but that is changing with an increasing number of high-quality providers based in Vietnam. Challenges remain in terms of finding enough qualified staff to teach, finding sufficient resources to pay those staff and ensuring that unscrupulous and sub-standard education providers are not allowed to proliferate and damage the reputation of Vietnam's tourism and hospitality education providers. Students also need to be exposed to current industry standards and experiences and be allowed to develop soft skills which are increasingly important for future development of the industry.