Guest editorial

Citation

Unalan, D. (2012), "Guest editorial", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 3 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jhtt.2012.43303baa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Volume 3, Issue 2

About the Guest EditorDr Dilek Ünalan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Tourism Administration, the School of Applied Disciplines, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Introduction

Welcome to this Special Edition of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology (JHTT). We have compiled the final papers of a group of researchers who participated in the Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing and Management Conference organized by Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey and Washington State University held from 19-24 June 2011. This conference aimed at creating an international platform for balanced academic research with practical applications for the hospitality and tourism industry in order to foster synergetic interaction between academia and industry.

“Information systems and technologies for tourism” was one of the themes addressed in the Conference to provide an outlet for innovative studies. Research papers presented under this theme have identified the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the areas such as marketing facilitation, regional networking and the establishment of a destination management systems. Thus, these papers have contributed to our understanding of technological changes and innovations in the hospitality and tourism marketing and management. The selected conference papers are collected in this special issue to address the advances in information systems and technologies.

The first paper in the special issue by Srikath Beldona, Kunwei Lin and Joanne Yoo focuses on the roles of personal innovation and the delivery methods in travel-oriented location-based marketing services. This paper underscores the increased attention from tourism researchers and marketers to location based marketing services (LBS), particularly as mobile devices (including broadband internet and Global Positioning Systems) amass greater capabilities. The authors examine the impact of personal travel innovativeness and the relative efficacy of pull vs push techniques in the delivery of LBS based services. The authors conclude by emphasizing the significant implications for both marketers and academics from this study.

The second paper, by Erdogan Ekiz and Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore, draws on an investigation of online complaints concerning luxury hotels. This paper discusses how customers who share their dissatisfying experiences and disseminate negative word-of-mouth have been a significant challenge for companies who under-deliver. This problem is of major concern today by the aid of technology and the speed of internet. As the authors see little interest on how guests use the internet to share their experiences, they investigate the complaints posted by guests of luxury hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on a prominent travel review web site, TripAdvisor. In conclusion, the authors provide important measures that hoteliers can use as guidelines to further improve their service offerings.

The third paper, by Marios D. Soteriades, addresses a variety of approaches to improve the effectiveness of tourism destination marketing. In the first section, the context of tourism destination marketing is outlined and the value-chain approach is briefly presented. The next section addresses two issues of special interest to destination marketing within a highly competitive marketplace; the strategic marketing approach and electronic marketing. This section highlights the combination of employing the appropriate approach with using ICTs into various areas: marketing facilitation, regional networking; establishment of a destination management system and small medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) cooperative marketing. The third section investigates the main aspects of clustering (i.e. applications, activities, contribution and benefits) and proposes a conceptual framework to improve the effectiveness of destination marketing. The factors influencing e-marketing and clustering are highlighted and a set of recommendations contributing to improve the effectiveness of destination promotion are presented in the last section.

The fourth paper, by Thomas A. Maier, considers international hotel revenue management and provides a comparison of ten luxury and upper-upscale hotels using the web-performance effectiveness model. The author questions the fragmented literature of hotel web-effectiveness and online global distribution among marketing, branding, pricing and content dimensions, and aims to contribute to advancement of the literature concerning hotel web-effectiveness measurement. The research conclusions summarize poor price-parity web-effectiveness and sequencing among the examined hotel properties.

The fifth paper, by Ergün Kaya and Murat Azaltun, focuses on the role of information systems (IS) in the supply chain management (SCM). In the first part of the paper, the authors emphasize the importance of supply management from the perspective of customer satisfaction. Then, the authors examines how SCM can be applied on five-star hotels. To achieve this purpose, the relationships of SCM and IS in five-star hotels in Istanbul are examined and the findings inferred from the responses to research questions are assessed.

The selected articles in this special issue expose different facets of information and management systems. The benefits and the ways of application of technological advances as well as the changes and innovations are provided to enhance knowledge on the current level and potential beyond current level of these advances. Thus, the special issue should be viewed as a step toward creating better understanding of the use of advanced technologies and information systems in the hospitality and tourism marketing and management.

Dilek ÜnalanGuest Editor