conference in review

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Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research

DOI: 10.1177/109634800002400409

2000; 24; 541 Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research Liping A. Cai Conference in Review https://www.wendangku.net/doc/685087399.html,

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CONFERENCE IN REVIEW

The Fifth Annual Conference of Graduate Education and Graduate Student Re-search in Hospitality and Tourism, Houston, Texas, January 6-8, 2000.

The Fifth Annual Conference of Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research in Hospitality and Tourism was held at the University of Houston from January6to8,2000. Hosted by the Conrad N.Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management,the confer-ence was the first international academic gathering of the new millennium in hospitality and tourism.

The2000event set new records in terms of the number of cosponsors,the number of universities and countries represented,the variety and number of papers presented,and the number of attendees.Two of the founding institutions,the University of Houston and the University of Nevada–Las Vegas,were joined by15other universities and two publishing houses in sponsoring the conference:Bournemouth University,Georgia State University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University,Iowa State University,Johnson&Wales University, Kansas State University,Michigan State University,New York University,Oklahoma State University,Pennsylvania State University,Purdue University,the Rochester Institute of Technology,Texas Tech,the University of Guelph,the University of South Carolina, Haworth Press,and Sage Publications.Thirty universities sent their graduate students and faculty members to attend the conference.They represented11countries or regions,in-cluding Canada,China,Cyprus,Hong Kong,Israel,Korea,Macao,Singapore,Taiwan,the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Following tradition and based on popular demand at the previous four annual events,a preconference workshop on publishing in hospitality and tourism journals was offered on the afternoon of January6.Dr.Kaye Chon,conference chair and professor of the hosting university,conducted the workshop.He shared with the participants valuable tips on how to prepare and revise manuscripts for publication and how to critically examine their own manuscripts from the perspective of journal editors and reviewers.Although this precon-ference activity was optional,about60“early birds”participated in the workshop,starting their conference programs on an exciting and productive note.

The conference was officially opened on the evening of January6by Dr.Kaye Chon. Dr.Alan Stutts,dean of the Conrad N.Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Manage-ment,gave a welcoming speech at the opening reception.Dr.Connie Mok,chair of the Pa-per Review Committee,introduced the conference sponsors during the opening ceremony. In the next1?days,the conference program featured114research papers delivered as ei-ther stand-up,roundtable,or poster presentations.Twenty-five concurrent thematic ses-sions were scheduled to accommodate a wide range of research topics.

Stand-Up Presentations

Seventeen research papers were delivered as stand-up presentations.Six of them were empirical studies that represented the two themes of advances in consumer research and tourism research.Six of the studies addressed such topics as the influence of prior product Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, V ol. 24, No. 4, November 2000,541-545

? 2000 International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education

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knowledge and motivations,the traveler’s utilization of external information sources,fac-tors affecting destination choices of Japanese pleasure travelers,movie-induced tourism, promotional strategies during the financial crisis in Thailand,tourists’perceptions and sat-isfactions of airport foodservice in Hong Kong,and effects of airline deregulation and air-fare/airline profit margin on customer airline quality ratings.The six papers were contrib-uted by graduate students and their advisors from Virginia Tech,Purdue University,the University of Houston,Oklahoma State University,the University of Missouri–Columbia, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the University of South Carolina.

The theme of hospitality and tourism education and research featured three presenta-tions made by faculty and graduate students from Kansas State University,Peking Univer-sity,Purdue University,and Plattsburgh State University.Their studies examined the rela-tionship between graduate students’personal factors and their success in graduate programs,the contribution of geography to tourism graduate education and research in China,and the incorporation of visual data into hospitality research.Two of the three em-pirical papers on the theme of human resource management were presented by graduate students from Purdue University and covered the impact of cultural differences on human resource management in hotels and the use of psychological tests in the hospitality indus-try.Another paper on the theme,presented by delegates from James Madison University and Virginia Tech,was an examination of the usefulness of diversity management training programs in the lodging industry.The theme of casinos and customer satisfaction measure-ment was represented by two papers from delegates from the University of Nevada–Las Vegas,and one from Kaohsiung Hospitality College in Taiwan,on the topics of the effec-tiveness of casino promotions,the impact of land-based casinos on restaurants,and cus-tomer satisfaction measurement practices in Taiwanese hotels.The theme of technology was featured in two presentations from Kaohsiung Hospitality College and the University of South Carolina.The thematic topics included a Web site content analysis of interna-tional tourist hotels and tour wholesalers in Taiwan,and a content analysis of technological trends and their impact on the hospitality industry.

Roundtable Presentations

Over50completed papers or works in progress were delivered at the conference as roundtable presentations around15topical themes.Three of the themes focused on hospi-tality and tourism education,programs,curricula,and students.Papers under these themes covered such topics as program and curriculum development,curriculum and course as-sessment,student preparedness for challenges in the real world,recruiting,student expec-tations and perceptions of career opportunities,and career experience and development of alumni.Presenters of these papers came from the University of Nevada–Las Vegas,Penn-sylvania State University,the University of South Carolina,Texas Tech,the University of Louisiana–Lafayette, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Houston.

Two thematic sessions of roundtable presentations were devoted to issues in human re-source management and organizational behavior.Delegates from Virginia Tech,Texas Tech,the University of Nevada–Las Vegas,Pennsylvania State University,Hong Kong Polytechnic University,and Oklahoma State University reported their research findings or research plans on such topics as training quality,the effects of rewards on employee moti-vation,performance-based scheduling,the relationship between person–organization fit and employee satisfaction and retention,and the relationship between organizational fac-tors and employee job satisfaction.A separate thematic session addressed legal and regula-tory issues in the foodservice and hotel industries,including such topics as consumers’knowledge of the truth-in-menu law,restaurant managers’perceptions and attitudes to-ward smoking ordinances,the impact of the North American Industry Classification Sys-

CONFERENCE IN REVIEW543 tem on accommodation and foodservices,and the implications of a service charge distribu-tion system in the hotel industry of Singapore.Presenters on these topics came from the University of North Texas,Oklahoma State University,Purdue University,Iowa State Uni-versity, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Service quality,customer satisfaction,and customer loyalty were the topics of six pa-pers delivered at two roundtable thematic sessions.In two separate presentations,Kansas State University delegates reported their study plan to evaluate the impact of employee ser-vice orientation on service quality and to apply the DINESERV scale in measuring service quality of the restaurants in Korea.A graduate student from the University of Nevada–Las Vegas reported her research findings on loyalty factors in casino hotels.Presenters from Pennsylvania State University,Texas Tech,and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan presented their respective study plans to examine customer sat-isfaction issues in restaurants and other foodservice establishments.

Hotel operations and lodging management,meetings and conventions,and foodservice and restaurant management and marketing were the focuses of four thematic roundtable sessions.Presentations of these themes addressed such issues as the entry mode choices of international hotel chains,customers’perceptions of servers and amenities in economy and budget hotels,senior preferences of decor,service,and menu in assisted living facilities,a profile of national associations’annual meetings and criteria of convention site selection, sales forecasting of restaurant companies,and differences of uncertainty levels between different segments of restaurants.Presenters on these and other topics of the four themes came from Central Michigan University,Hong Kong Polytechnic University,the Univer-sity of Houston,Kansas State University,Oklahoma State University,Pennsylvania State University,Purdue University,the University of Nevada–Las Vegas,the University of North Texas,the University of South Carolina,the University of Surrey,Virginia Tech,and Washington State University.

One roundtable thematic session was devoted to four presentations on topics related to tourist characteristics,perceptions,and satisfaction,and rural residents’perceptions and attitudes toward Native American gaming development.These presentations were made by delegates from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel,the University of Houston, and Kansas State University.Institutional foodservice management was the theme of four presentations made by representatives from Purdue University,Texas Tech,the University of Nevada–Las Vegas,and Oklahoma State University.Their topics ranged from evalua-tions on the nutritional quality of school lunches to the assessment of a mobile meals pro-gram and its effects on the perceived well-being of the elderly.Texas Tech contributed three papers to the session on the theme of wine consumers.

Poster Presentations

Poster presentations were adopted as a feature of the conference for the first time since the annual event began5years ago.Altogether,45presentations were on display during six sessions scheduled concurrently with roundtable sessions.The posters were also themati-cally organized.The first theme,sales and marketing and consumers,featured13com-pleted papers or works in progress.Four of them addressed thematic issues concerning ho-tel industries in Singapore,Thailand,the United States,and China.Customer satisfaction, the effects of fast food TV advertising on consumer preferences,the impact of special events promotions on consumer preferences and behaviors,and longitudinal consumption patterns were the topics of five exhibited papers related to thematic issues of restaurants and other foodservice establishments.The remaining four posters displayed conceptual frameworks or empirical findings related to hospitality branding,the impact of political

544JOURNAL OF HOSPIT ALITY & TOURISM RESEARCH

controversy on tourism,consumer behavior in a winery tourism setting,and the application of SERVQUAL in the tourism industry of Israel.

Eight poster papers were on display with the theme of tourism destinations and tourists. In addition to the topic of tourism economic impact,these papers also covered the topics of tourism development and marketing based on,or in the context of,special interests and events such as film and television,ecosystems,national parks,food,sports,heritage,and economic crises.Human resource management and organizational behavior were themes that were featured in six exhibits on such issues as job satisfaction,leadership styles, intercultural communication,job market projection,profile of sales professionals,and generational differences of work attitudes.Four exhibits were devoted to the theme of foodservice management issues.Technology was the focus of six presentations,most of which evaluated the impact of the Internet on hospitality and tourism education and on var-ious sectors of the industry.

Hospitality and tourism education was the theme of eight papers displayed in the last session of poster presentations.A variety of issues were addressed from the perspectives of students,instructors,the industry,and administrators.Examples of topics include the im-pact of student internship experiences on their job selection attitudes,course reengineering,mentors’roles in classrooms and the industry,and the partnership between industry and academic programs.

The research presentations at the Fifth Annual Conference of Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research in Hospitality and Tourism were complemented by two key-note speeches and a number of formal and informal social gatherings.The keynote speech at the luncheon on January7was given by Dr.Dale Fodness,manager of marketing re-search at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport,and program director of marketing man-agement at the University of Dallas Graduate School of Management.Dr.Fodness de-scribed the role of marketing research at the airport and shared with the audience some of the research programs implemented by his research team.The audience was especially at-tracted to his elaboration on the measurement model of service quality,which consisted of the three dimensions of servicescape,services,and service providers.The banquet dinner on January8featured a keynote speech prepared by Dr.Edward Sheridan,senior vice presi-dent and provost at the University of Houston and delivered by Dr.Alan Stutts on his be-half.Dr.Sheridan commended the diversity and quality of the research papers presented at the conference and called on the audience to emphasize relevance and applicability in their future endeavors of academic investigation.The banquet dinner was highlighted by the an-nouncement of the two best conference papers.The Haworth Hospitality Press Award was presented to Dogan Gursoy,a graduate student from Virginia Tech.Brian Tyrrell and Cary Countryman,graduate students from Purdue University,and two of their faculty advisors were the recipients of the Sage Publication Award.

Through the efforts of the sponsors,the hosting institution of the Conrad N.Hilton Col-lege of Hotel and Restaurant Management,and all the conference attendees,this confer-ence set new records and was a huge success by all measures.It achieved the objectives of providing a unique venue for graduate students to share their research works with,and get feedback from,their peers and experienced faculty members,providing a forum for faculty and graduate students to keep up to date on emerging research topics and exchange views on current issues and future trends in hospitality and tourism research and education,and providing a network for academic programs and students to explore employment opportu-nities.

The conference proceedings,edited by Dr.Connie C.B.Mok and Dr.Agnes L. DeFranco,include112completed papers or extended abstracts,and can be obtained from Dr.Kaye Chon at the Conrad N.Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management(tele-

CONFERENCE IN REVIEW545 phone:713-743-2655).The Sixth Annual Conference will be held in Atlanta,Georgia,in January2001.It will be hosted by Georgia State University.More information about next year’s event is available from Dr.Michael Lefever,conference chair(telephone: 404-651-3512).

Liping A. Cai

Purdue University Submitted March 5, 2000

Revision Submitted March 27, 2000

Accepted March 28, 2000

Liping A.Cai,Ph.D.(e-mail:liping@https://www.wendangku.net/doc/685087399.html,),is an assistant professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University(1266Stone Hall, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1266).