Ijthr vol 1 (1) november 2014 by GIAP Journals

International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

ANTHROPOLOGY OF PILGRIMS WITH REGARD TO ACCOMMODATION AND THE ACTIVITIES THEY PERFORMED WHILE VISITING TO SHAHDRA SHARIEF SHRINE Parvez Abdulla, Asst. Professor, School of Management Studies BGSB University, Rajouri, Jammu & Kashmir parvezabdullahkhan@gmail.com Sharaz Ahmed Malik Research Assistant, School of Management Studies, SMVD University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir sherazahmedmalik09@gmail.com Abstract Tourism is a prosperous industry; within tourism pilgrimage tourism is on evolving a lot in these days. It has been found that pilgrimage tourism increased many fold in every nook and corner of the world. May it be the case of Christine, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist followers, pilgrimage of all of these has risen in the these years. Pilgrims, like tourists also spends money on traveling, accommodation, donation, eating and purchasing. Spending of these pilgrims becomes a source for earning natives of pilgrimage destination. Keeping, this thing in mind, this study has been conducted to know various activities of pilgrims. Here in this paper only accommodation related activities, time duration of trip of pilgrims and various activities which were performed by pilgrims has been recorded, specifically from those pilgrims who visits to Shahdra Shrief Shrine Rajouri of State Jammu and Kashmir. Keywords: Pilgrims, Shahdra Shrief, Accommodation, Tour, Trip, Activities. INTRODUCTION Name of Jammu and Kashmir remains associated with tourism since, hundreds years. But pilgrimage in the State is a new trend which evolved and got many folds increased in last few decades. There are number of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Shikh Shrine. Among them Shri Mata Vashno Devi Katra, Shri Amarnath, Shahdra Shrief, Charar Sharif, Hazaratbal, and Nangali Sahib Gurdawara are prominent religious places. Pilgrims visited to vVashno Devi recorded all time high during 2011. Similarly, pilgrims comparatively to other Muslim Shrine in the Stae are increasing day by day to Shahdra Shief Shrine from last few years. Shahdra Shrarief is the Shrine of Baba Ghulam Ali Shah Badshah (RA) which is located in the mid of hills of State Jammu and Kashmir in Tehsil Thanamandi of District Rajouri. Millions of visitors and pilgrims visited to this Shrine round the year but during the summer season, this Shrine received large number of tourist from within the State and different parts of the country. Therefore, while visiting to Shrine pilgrims spend money on different activities like transportation, accommodation, donation, purchasing and eating. This money generates the income for the localities and the people living in the Rajouri. The incoming visitor may not be considered as pure pilgrims, there are different types of visitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visits there. This can be understood by the activities they perform while visiting to Shahdra Shrief. This study is endeavor to analyze visitors accommodation related facet, activities they performed and duration of their trip, time they spent at the Shrine and the factor facilitate to their visits to Shahdra. OBJECTIVES This study is conducted for pilgrims who visit to Shahdra Sharief Shrine Rajouri, therefore: 1. This work is devoted to study accommodation related aspect of pilgrims. 2. Duration of trip of pilgrims and time spend by them at Shrine 3. Various activities performed by pilgrims while visiting to Shrine. HYPOTHESES In the light of objectives following hypotheses has been laid down: H1: Tourism has made a significant contribution to the economic development and upliftment of social status of people living in the vicinity of the shrine H0: The pilgrimage tourism does not provide any scope for socio economic transformation of the region. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A sample of 1000 respondents has been selected non probability sampling techniques and responses were recorded from 1000 respondent but at the time of scrutinizing of responses only 734 responses were found valid and fit for study. Non probability sampling technique is used because in such type of study were we have not prior data available we cannot apply random sampling or probability method, so for study of such nature we therefore usually apply non probability sampling method. But with due care we can incorporate random affect within this method also which we have done here. Data is collected through a well structured questionnaire and tabulated and analyzed using SPSS and Excel. Basic Statistical techniques like frequency, limit of central tendency, percentage, cross tabulation and Chi Square test has been used. Reason behind using this simple statistics is that the aforesaid objectives and hypothesis are completely addressed and explain by these methods therefore we confined to applying these research techniques. Moreover in these kinds of study were we have open ended questions rather than Likert type scale. It is difficult to apply parametric test so we used non parametric tests. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Dasgupta, Mondal, & Basu (2006) stated that pilgrimage tourism plays a great role towards socio-economic changes. According to Indian sentiment the pilgrim centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or tirthasthan used to visit by number of tourists to earn virtue. One of such centre where taking holy dip. During maker sankranti, thought as in life of a person earns that much of virtue which one can earn by visiting the entire pilgrimage centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s throughout the life. The pilgrimage tourism is a vital and living experience in pilgrimage sites have also become important destinations, because they are closely linked with the cultural identity and heritage of a destinations where also pleasure components are being added to the familiar pilgrim routes and itineraries. Thus due to continuous flow of pilgrims and tourists at this land, the socio-economic life of the islanders are evident. Therefore, it can be said that pilgrimage tourism has opened several sources of cash earning and as a result several new occupations have emerged due to pilgrimage tourism. Vijayanand (2012) describes that pilgrimage tourism is playing a major role in socio-economic development. Among other observations, it has shown that, for many countries of the region, the economic significance of pilgrimage tourism is very large when measured against GDP and exports. For many countries in general and the least developed countries in particular, pilgrimage tourism is a sector in which they have comparative, if not competitive, advantages for which they can efficiently convert domestic resources into foreign exchange. If appropriately used, such foreign exchange can purchase the investment goods necessary to support more broadly based economic development policies. The study has demonstrated that the social significance of pilgrimage tourism, measured in terms of employment (especially unskilled labour), is very large. It has also illustrated that appropriate pilgrimage tourism-related interventions can play a role in raising the standard of living and in reducing poverty in local communities. Further, Dasgupta, Mondal and Basu (2006) study conclude that the key elements of a pilgrimage are religious belief and knowledge within a particular socio cultural context. In a country like India where for the masses tourism may not be economically feasible; the pilgrimage is a vital and living experience. Pilgrimage sites have also turn out to be important tourist destinations, because they are closely linked with the cultural identity and heritage of destination like Ganga Sagar, where also pleasure component are being added to the familiar pilgrim routes and itinerates. Malik, S.A. and Abdulla, P. (2013), studied Potential, Prospects and Challenges of Development of Tourism in Rajouri & Poonch which is published in Acme Intellects International Journal of Research in Management, this study is explores unexplored tourism potential of the area. In another attempt Malik, S.A. (2013) undertakes development of difficult Region through Travel, Trade and Tourism: A Case Study of Twin Border Districts Rajouri and Poonch which is also published in International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services & Management Research. This study sets a relation between cross border tourism and economic development in the area. DISCUSSION (ANALYSIS OF PRIMARY DATA) Accommodation related Analysis - Total duration of the entire trip of the pilgrims and average days spends at shrine. Decides the place of stay, expenditure incurred on the stay and their entire accommodation related activities. Duration of the Trip - Thousand of people visit to Shahdra Shrief Shrine throughout the year from State J&K and from different parts of the country. As bulk of the respondents belongs from the same area, therefore, majority of the respondents were on 1 day visit which represents 82% of the sample size. Table 1 shows that 13% visitors were on 2 days visit and 4% visitors were on 4 or >4 days journey. Only 2% of the total www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

respondents comes under 3 days tour duration. Duration of visits which dominates respondent response was 1 day and least percentage comes under 3 days journey. Table 1: Duration of Trip

Valid

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

596

81.2

2 Days

12.7

93.9

3 Days

2.0

95.9 100.0

1 Day

.>4 Days

4.1

Total

734

100.0

Average = 1 Days

Figure 1a: Trip duration

Time spent at Shrine - Thousands of people, who visit Shrine of Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah (RA), after performing routine rituals, proceed for meal at common mess (Langar). After taking food, day visitors and others went back to their places or some stays at different hotels in Rajouri. Pilgrims who stay at shrine they opt any among free dormitories, restaurant, TRC, house of nearby people for night stay. It is found that 81% respondents were the day visitors, they did not halt for night stay therefore, they spends only one day at Shrine. Remaining 12 %, 4% and 2% respondents were the two days, four or more than four days and three days visitors as depicted in the Table 2. They stayed two days, four or more than four days and three days at the holy Shrine. Table 2: Time spent at Shrine

Valid

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

1 Day

596

81.2

2 Days

12.7

93.9

3Days

2.0

95.9

>4Days

4.1

100.0

Total

734

100.0

Average = 1 Day

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

Figure 2a: Time Spent at the Shrine

Place of Stay (Night Stay) - As average duration of tour decides number of days spends and the preference of staying place. Distribution Table 3 shows that 36% of the respondent stayed at Shrine, in dormitories. 12% in stayed at Shrine restaurant and 10% and 4% in hotels and tourist reception centers and tourist huts. Remaining 24% were the day visitors they didn’t stay at any of these destinations and went back to their places. Table 3: Distribution of respondents by their Place of Stay Frequency Percent Valid Day Visits

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

175

23.8

Hotel

10.2

34.1

Shrine dormitory

262

35.7

69.8

Shrine Restaurant

12.1

81.9

TRC/Tourist hut

4.5

86.4

Other Places

100

13.6

100.0

Total

734

100.0

Average =Shrine dormitory

Figure 3a: Place of Stay

Expenditure incurred on Accommodation – Table 4, shows that respondents who stayed at different places during their tour, spends proportion of their money on hired accommodation. It is seen that 38% of the respondents spents an average of Rs. 100-500 on accommodation. 11% respondents spend in between Rs. 5011,000 and 4.2% respondents spend Rs. 1001-15, 00 on their accommodation. There are 2% respondents who spend in between Rs 15, 01-2,000 and again 4% respondents spend an average amount in between Rs. 2,0005,000 on accommodation related activities. Table 5.29 shows that there is also a small proportion of respondent (0.4%) who spends >Rs 5,000 on their accommodation, remaining respondents were the day visitors they didn’t spent on accommodation, they contains 40% of the total sample size. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

Table 4: Spending on Accommodation Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

296

40.3

Rs. 100-500

280

38.1

78.5

Rs. 501-1000

10.6

89.1

Rs. 1001-1500

4.2

93.3

Rs. 1501-2000

2.0

95.4

Rs. 2001-5000

4.2

99.6

>Rs. 5000

100.0

734

100.0

Valid Have Not Spend

Total

Average = Rs. 300

Figure 4a: Spending on Accommodation

Religious/ Faith related activities - A large section i.e. 38% of the respondents visited to Shrine for just to have glimpses of the Holy Mizar. There were also a good percentage of the devotees who visit again to Shrine after approval of their wish, and the person coming exclusively for praying at Darbar and asking for favour for their wish, these are 24%, 16% and 12% respondents. Distribution Table 5 also shows that 8% respondent visits to the Shrine not specifically related to religious faith, or something related to wish or donation, they just visited there like a common tourists. Table 5:Religious Activities Performed Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Not specific Related to Religious activity

8.3

281

38.3

46.6

Came exclusively for asking something related to Wish

12.8

59.4

Coming for Donation after approval of Wish

180

24.5

83.9

All of above

118

16.1

100.0

734

100.0

Visit to Shahdara Shrief Just to have a Glimpses of Darbar

Total

Average = Visit to Shahdara Shrief Just to have a Glimpses of Darbar

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

Figure 5a: Religious Activities Performed

Factor Facilitates this Visit - Factor which motivates the respondents for visit shows some interesting facts that bulk of the visitors are coming regularly to the Shrine during summer season after revival of the Mughal road; these respondents account 22% of the total respondents. Respondent’s visits related to religious motivation, scenic beauty and revival of Poonch – Rawlakote Road contains 19%, 4% and 2%. Some respondent’s visits facilitate factor were mixture of the entire factor like revival of the Mughal road, religious faith and scenic beauty, this section of respondents comprises of 8% of total sample size. 0.8% visitors facilitate factors were revival of Poonch Rawlakote road, religious motivation and beauty of the area as shown in table 6. Table 6:Factor Facilitates this Visit Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

322

43.9

Revival of Mughal Road

165

22.5

66.3

Revival of Poonch Rawalakote Road

2.2

68.5

Religious Motivation

137

18.7

87.2

Scenic beauty

4.4

91.6

a, c, d (Revival of Mughal Road, Religious Motivation, Scenic beauty )

7.6

99.2

b, c, d (Revival of Poonch Rawalakote Road, Religious Faith, Scenic beauty)

100.0

734

100.0

Valid Others

Total

Average = Revival of Mughal Road

It is pertain to mentioned here that Mughal road is a historical route which was firstly used by Emperor Akbar the Great in 1556 AD,then after it was used by Mughals to Visit Lahro to Kashmir. It is a majestic and shortest route to Kashmir, heaving pictures-tic view around. This road is nearby to Shrine, therefore visitors who visits to Mughal road also goes to Shahdra Shrief Rajouri Figure 6a: Factor Facilitates this Visit

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

Duration of Stay and Expenditure Incurred on the Accommodation Table 7, depicts that majority of the visitors stay one day at in Shahdra and they spend approximately Rs. Rs. 500-1000 on ther accommodation. Another 73% of the one day visitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sections pay out Rs. 1501-2000 for their accommodation. Similarly, table 5.97 shows various combination of spending pattern of the visitors for their accommodation for one, two three and four day stay which ranges from Rs.100-500, Rs. 500-1000, Rs.1000-1500, Rs. 1500-2000, Rs.2000-5000 more the 50000 respectively. Table 7: Spending on Accommodation * time spent at Shrine Cross tabulation time spent at Shrine 2 1 Day Days 3Days >4Days Total Spending on Accommodation

Have Not Spend

Rs. 100500

Rs. 5011000

Rs. 10011500

Rs. 15012000

Rs. 20015000

Count

267

% within Spending on Accommodation

90.2% 5.7%

Count

221

% within Spending on Accommodation

.3% 6

Count

% within Spending on Accommodation

80.6% 16.1% 3.2%

Count

% within Spending on Accommodation

73.3% 26.7% .0%

Count

% within Spending on Accommodation

3.7% 100.0% 280

4.3% 100.0% 3

67.9% 21.8% 6.4%

Count

296

78.9% 14.6% 2.1%

3.8% 100.0% 0

.0%

100.0%

.0%

100.0%

51.6% 29.0% 6.5% 12.9% 100.0%

>Rs. 5000 Count

% within Spending on Accommodation Total

100.0% .0%

Count

596

% within Spending on Accommodation

.0%

100.0%

734

81.2% 12.7% 2.0%

4.1% 100.0%

Table 7a:Chi-Square Tests Value

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square

58.213

.000

Likelihood Ratio

57.388

.000

Linear-by-Linear Association

17.509

.000

N of Valid Cases

734

a. 15 cells (53.6%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .06.

Chi Square test as shown in table 7a proves that the expenditure of visitors on accommodation and their duration of stay are significantly different. Therefore null hypothesis which reads that there is no relation between spending on accommodation and duration of stay stands rejected and alternate hypothesis is accepted. This test also supports our principle hypothesis i.e. therefore, from Chi square test it is found that null hypothesis is not true and is rejected as p value of chi square test supports the alternate hypothesis i.e. tourism has made a significant contribution to the economic development and upliftment of social status of people living in the vicinity of the shrine has been accepted. In the meantime the second null hypothesis i.e. the pilgrimage tourism does not provide any scope for socio economic transformation of the region is also rejected and the alternate hypothesis is accepted. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09 Table 8: Time spent at Shrine * Trip Duration Cross tabulation Trip Duration

time spent at Shrine

1 Day

% within time spent at Shrine 2 Days

.>4 Days

Total

596

93.0%

6.7%

.2%

100.0%

34.4%

53.8%

7.5%

4.3%

100.0%

26.7%

20.0%

46.7%

6.7%

100.0%

20.0%

.0%

80.0%

100.0%

Count % within time spent at Shrine

Total

3 Days

Count % within time spent at Shrine

>4Days

2 Days

554

Count % within time spent at Shrine

3Days

1 Day Count

Count % within time spent at Shrine

596

734

81.2%

12.7%

2.0%

4.1%

100.0%

The above table 8 shows that Chi square value of 8.16 (df=9, N-734), p<0.05 is significant at 12 degree of freedom, showing that there is a significant at 9 degree of freedom, showing that there is significant difference in trip duration and days/time spent at shrine. Table 8a: Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases

8.160E2 360.368 410.176 734

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

9 9 1

.000 .000 .000

a. 8 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .31.

CONCLUSION Tourist and Pilgrims who used to visit to different they perform various activities. During their visit spending on travelling, accommodation, shopping and allied activates are the major segment of tourist expenditure. This expenditure of tourist on the other hand becomes income for the people who are residing nearby the the destination where pilgrims and tourist visits. This fact is proved herein case of Shadra Shrief Shrine. Therefore, It can be concluded as most of the visitor visits to Shrine are from catchment areas therefore average trip duration of these visitors is of one day. They also spends one day in the Shrine. As inputs from primary data that there is various type of accommodation available in the Shrine but average number of visits who spent night there preferred stayed in Shrine free dormitories. There are various activities performed by visitor who visits to Shrine but majority of the visitor said that they just visited to have glimpses of Shrine only. Upon enquiring about the factor which facilitates their visit to Shahdra, majority of them said that they visited there because of revival of historical Mughal road. REFERENCES 1.

3. 4. 5. 6.

Malik, S.A. and Abdulla, P. (2013), Potential, Prospects and Challenges of Development of Tourism in Rajouri & Poonch in Acme Intellects International Journal of Research in Management, Vol. 2 (2), 2320-2793, p. (69-76). Malik, S.A. (2013) Development of Difficult Region through Travel, Trade and Tourism: A Case Study of Twin Border Districts Rajouri and Poonch in International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services & Management Research (PRINT JOURNAL), Vol. 2 (2), p. 56-66. Vijayanand, S. (2012). Socio-Economic Impacts in Pilgrimage Tourism, Zenith International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2(1) Dasgupta, S,. Mondal, K & Basu, K.(2006). Dissemination of Cultural Heritage and Impact of Pilgrim Tourist at Ganga Sagar Island, Anthropological Survey of India, Anthropologist, 8(1), 11-15. Cronbach, L. J., & Shavelson, R. J. (2004). My Current Thoughts on Coefficient Alpha and Successor Procedures. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 64(3), 391-418. Claudia Liebelt. (2010). Becoming Pilgrims in the Holy Land: On Filipina Domestic Workers Struggles and Pilgrimages for a, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 11(34), (p.1444-2213).

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 01-09

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Naquin, S., & Yu, C. F. (1992). Pilgrimage in China. In S. Naquin & C. F. Yu (Eds.), Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China (pp. 1-38). Berkeley: University of California Press. Naqati S.G. (2003). Mir Sayed Ali Hamadani and Kubraviya Sufi Order in Kashmir, Wattan Publications, J&K, (p.1-29, 85-107). Pinho, M. I. R. B & Pinho, I. M. R. T. (2007). FĂĄtima: The Religious Tourism Altar. In R. Raj & N. D. Morpeth (Eds.), Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, Management, CAB International (8), (p. 211-221), Cambridge, U. S. A. PHD Research Bureau. (2011). Jammu and Kashmir: The State Profile, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi, 17-35. Raj, R., & Morpeth, N. D. (2007). Introduction: Establishing Linkages between Religious Travel and Tourism. in R. Raj & N. D. Morpeth (Eds.), Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Management: An International Perspective (pp. 1-14). Cambridge, U.S.A. Smith, V. L. (1992). Introduction the Quest in Guest, Annals of Tourism Research, (19), 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;17. Tourism and Local Economic Development .(2004) .The International Centre for Responsible Tourism Tomoko, T., & Samuel, M. (2009. Economic and Social Impact of Tourism on a Small Town: Peterborough New Hampshire, Journal of Service Science and Management, 61-70.

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 10-17

CHANGING PERCEPTION OF STUDENTS TOWARDS HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Anoop Kumar Assistant Professor Institute of Hotel & Tourism Management Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana anoopmtm@gmail.com Pankaj Kumar Singh Lecturer cum Instructor State Institute of Hotel Management, Rohtak Amit Kumar Assistant Lecturer cum Assistant Instructor State Institute of Hotel Management, Rohtak Shalini Lecturer Government Polytechnic College, Sanghi, Rohtak Abstract Hospitality Management Institutes have seen a tremendous growth in the recent years. More and more students are inclining to pursue hospitality related course from the institutes at national level or at different universities or from private institutes. The popularity of this course amongst the young aspirants is because of various factors such as, job opportunities, different avenues, popularity of various television programme based on cooking skills, parents of students already into hotel business, eligibility criteria, entrepreneurship plans, overseas job opportunities, passion & interest etc. Whenever a student takes admission to the hospitality course he do think positive about the industry. But by reaching to the final year this positivity turns into the negativity and the student takes decision either not to join the industry or to pursue some thing else. Therefore a study is conducted to understand the difference between the perception of first year and final year students studying hospitality courses towards the hospitality industry. A structured questionnaire was designed in which 21 variables were included on the basis of review of literature. Further T-test was applied to find out the significant difference between the perceptions of first year and final year students. 15 variables were found where no significant difference exists between the perception of first year and final year students. 06 variables were found with significant difference between the perception of first year and final year students. The results show that overall a significant difference is there between the perception of first year and final year students and null hypothesis is rejected. The study also reveals the fact that first year students do have positive perception towards the industry as compare to the final year students. Keywords: Perception, Hospitality, First year, Final year. Students INTRODUCTION The tourism and hospitality industry is one of the largest segments under the services sector of the Indian economy. Tourism in India is a key growth driver and a significant source of foreign exchange earnings. In India, the sector's direct contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow at 7.8 per cent per annum during the period 2013-2023. The tourism sector in India is flourishing due to an increase in foreign tourist arrivals (FTA) and a larger number of Indians travelling to domestic destinations. According to statistics available with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), revenues gained from domestic tourism rose by 5.1 per cent in 2013 and is expected to increase by 8.2 per cent this year. Hotels are also an extremely important component of the tourism industry. The Indian hospitality sector has been growing at a cumulative annual growth rate of 14 per cent every year, adding significant amount of foreign exchange to the economy. The gross annual manpower demand in the hospitality industry has crossed five lakh in 2010 and likely to grow to almost 9,20,000 in 2020. The above discussion clearly shows that there are ample opportunities of growth in the tourism and hospitality sector. Moreover media is also playing a pivotal role in shaping of the young aspirants towards hospitality industry. Various TV channels like Food Food, TLC, NDTV Good Times, Khana Khazana as well various programmes on television like Master Chef, Highway on Plate etc. are popular amongst the audience and help in drawing huge pool of young aspirants to opt www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 10-17

hospitality as a career. This positive marketing and plethora of employment opportunities provided by the hospitality sector led the young aspirants to opt for hospitality as a career. The new entrants are filled with high expectations and enthusiastic to work in the industry but it is observed that till the time they reach the final year of their graduation, their perceptions and interest to work in the hospitality industry declines. This has instigated us to pursue the current study to investigate into the difference in the perception of first year and final year students and to know the nature of their perception. REVIEW OF LITERATURE The subject of research needed extensive review of earlier work to understand the concept and how to go about further in the study. Though commendable research work has been done at international level but very limited research work is available in Indian context. Casado (1992). Conducted a study on new and final year students and found that students who just joined the institute were having very positive attitude towards the industry, but the final year students who were exposed to the industry were not having equally positive attitude. Barron and Maxwell (1993) found that in general the new students had positive image of the industry, whereas the students with supervised work experience were having less positive in their views. Emenheiser et al. (1997) found in his study that a majority of final year students were satisfied with their internship which strengthened their problem-solving ability in the hospitality industry hence have a positive perception about the industry. Kusluvan and Kusluvan (2000) says that most of the hospitality students have no idea about the industry when they join the course and thus when they are exposed to the actual conditions in the industry, they get negative attitude and this contributes to the high turnover rate in hospitality Industry. It implies that students‟ expectation will be realistic if they are informed about the real scenario of hospitality industry, and thus they will prepare themselves to confront the upcoming conditions. He further emphasized that motivation and commitment of staff in hospitality industry helps an organization to attain an edge over its competitors. But it is always felt that students who are going to join the industry mostly have negative perception towards industry that is a cause of concern for hospitality industry. As it will affect the standards of services offered to the guest. Hence it is necessary that students pursuing hospitality courses should have a positive attitude and commitment for their job. Many times the low salary structure of hospitality jobs are said to be responsible for the negative attitude of students. Leslie & Richardson, (2000) surveyed that student‟s pre-internship perceptions and post-internship experiences influence students to avoid a career in Hospitality / tourism industry. Jenkins (2001) in his study stated that work experience as a trainee in the industry affected senior students‟ perceptions in a negative way. Collins, (2002); Lam & Ching (2007) found that poor or no stripened, poor employee relations, unorganized work environment, limited or no delegation, long working hours and overall a hectic working environment faced by the final year graduates during internship are the most common factors that create dissatisfaction and decreased motivation towards industry and internship. Roney and Öztin (2007) highlighted that students' negative internship experiences resulted in development of a less favorable perception of hospitality and tourism. Even when the students are having quite realistic expectations before and during their studies, still their turnover rate is high when they join industry. Yafang and Gongyong (2008) emphasized that final year hospitality students who were exposed to real work conditions in hotels during their internship period develop negative perception towards industry due to lack of coordination between schools and employers‟, „opportunities for self-development‟, „pay and welfare‟, „work pressure‟, „opportunity for work rotation‟, „interesting and challenging work‟, and „autonomy involved in the work '. Park and Kim (2011) have stated that post-internship perceptions generally have lower mean values than preinternship expectations for most career factors, thereby implying that final year students after internships become pessimistic regarding their future jobs.

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Kasli and Ilban (2013) in their finding revealed that the final year students who have undergone on a training have developed a perception of trainees viewed as cheap labour in the hospitality industry and doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x;t contribute to the professional development of them and this changes the perception of the senior students negatively. Datta et al (2013) explained that there was difference in expectation between senior students who had completed internship and juniors who were yet to undergo industrial training. The students who had completed their training had a more negative perspective towards the hotel industry. The previous conduced study shows that a difference in the perception exists, between the senior and junior students. Therefore the current study was conducted with the following objectives. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The current investigation was carried to fulfill the following objectives. 1. 2.

To study the perception of first year and final year students studying hospitality courses towards the industry. To find out whether this perception towards the industry is in the positive side or negative side.

HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY On the basis of objective no.1 following hypothesis was framed which will be tested with the help of statistical tools. H1:

Overall there is no significant difference between the perception of the first year and final year students

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Sample: Total 372 students participated in the survey out of which 221 students were studying in first year of their graduation while 151 were studying in the final year of their graduation. The questionnaire was filled by the students studying in University Teaching Department, Government owned Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) and private Hotel Management Institutes (HMI). State Institute of Hotel Management Rohtak, Institute of Hotel Management PUSA New Delhi, Ganpati Institute of Hotel Management Yamunanagar, Institute of Hotel and Tourism Management Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak and Department of Tourism and Hotel Management Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra were the main participating institutes. Questionnaire: A structured questionnaire which consists of two parts was designed in which Part A was developed to collect the demographic profiles of the respondents though the Part B was designed to record the perception of students towards the Hospitality Industry. The perception of students was recorded on a likert five point scale in which 5 was scored as Strongly Agree, 4 as Agree, 3 as Neutral/Not Sure, 2 as Disagree and 1 as Strongly Disagree. Analysis: The data was analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 11.5. As the objective of the research was to find out the significant difference between the perception of first year and final year students therefore independent sample t-test was applied to find out the significant difference between the two groups. Further to know whether this perception is in the positive side or in the negative side Mean and Standard Deviation was used. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Demographic profile of respondents is elaborated by table-1. Data given in table-1 indicate that 87% of respondents were male, maximum number of respondents 61.0% were in the age group of 18-20 years followed by 25.8% of 2022 yrs. Students from commerce background were more 38.2% followed by Non Medical 29.6%. Students from medical background were least in numbers (3.5%). Majority of students (79.8%) were aware about the career opportunities in hospitality industry. 51.3% of the students already have an exposure of the hospitality industry. Friends and Relatives of 55.6% students were already working in the hospitality industry. Maximum number (62.9%) of students want to work in the hospitality industry after pursuing bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x;s degree in hospitality management and very few only 2.2% want to go in teaching and research. To find out the significant difference between the perception of first year and final year students independent sample t-test was applied the results of the same are expressed in subsequent tables.

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Table 1: Demographic Profile of the Respondents Gender Age

Stream at 10+2

Prior Information about Career Opportunity Any Exposure to Hospitality Industry Any Friends & Relatives working in the Hospitality Industry Institute Studying In

Year of Graduation Future Projection after completing Graduation

Frequency 324 48 36 227 96 13 88 142 32 110 297 75 191 181 207 165 294 26 52 221 151 234 43 55 8 32

Male Female Below 18 Yrs 18-20 Yrs 20-22 Yrs Above 22 Yrs Humanities Commerce Medical Non Medical Yes No Yes No Yes No IHM Private HMI UTD First Year Final Year Job in the Industry Want to go Abroad Higher Studies Teaching & Research Others

Valid Percent 87.1 12.9 9.7 61 25.8 3.4 23.7 38.2 8.6 29.5 79.8 20.2 51.3 48.7 55.6 44.4 79 7 14 59.4 40.6 62.9 11.6 14.8 2.2 8.6

Out of 21 variables, 15 variables were found where no significant difference was found between the perception of first year and final year students. Though there is difference in the mean score of perception of first year and final year students but t test shows that this difference is not significant which means that both first year and final year students have almost same perception as far as these variables are concerned. Table 2 explains about the variables with no significant difference and these variables are “good salary perspective” “platform to interact with new people” “job security” “opportunity to travel to different places” “opportunity to work abroad” respectable jobs” “chances to meet celebrities, sportsmen, politicians” “glamorous and charming jobs” “reasonable work load” “opportunities to deal with foreigners” “parents will feel proud” “ one will get suitable life partner” “interesting and challenging jobs” opportunity for self development” “once can work as an entrepreneur”. Table-2: Variables Where No Significant Difference is found between the Perception of First year & Final Year Students N (First Year-221, Final Year-151) =372 Variables Good salary perspective Platform to interact with new people Job security opportunity to travel to different places www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

Year of Graduation

Mean Score

First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year

3.84 3.50 4.51 4.46 3.23 3.17 4.28 4.13

F-Value

Sig.

Difference

2.064

0.152

NSD

0.497

0.481

NSD

2.543

0.112

NSD

0.815

0.367

NSD Page 13

International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 10-17 Opportunity to work abroad Respectable jobs Chances to meet celebrities, sportsmen, politicians Glamorous and charming jobs Reasonable work load Opportunities to deal with foreigners Parents will feel proud One will get suitable life partner Interesting and Challenging jobs Opportunity for self development One can work as an entrepreneur

First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year

4.32 4.11 3.54 3.28 4.19 4.19 3.60 3.48 3.28 2.94 4.37 4.34 3.95 3.62 3.48 3.32 4.21 4.07 4.24 4.13 3.99 3.83

6.493

0.011

NSD

0.576

0.440

NSD

0.310

0.570

NSD

2.421

0.121

NSD

6.511

0.011

NSD

0.598

0.440

NSD

7.000

0.008

NSD

0.131

0.718

NSD

0.352

0.553

NSD

1.399

0.238

NSD

4.537

0.034

NSD

On remaining 6 variables first year and final year students differ in their opinion. Moreover t-test reveals that this difference in opinion is also significant (Table-3). “Good working environment to its employees” “fast career growth” “job satisfaction due to meeting daily new challenges” “reward for good performance” “one will get sense of achievement from the work” “managerial positions can be achieved” are the variables where a significant difference is found between the perception of first year and final year students. The results are also expressed with the help of table 3. Table-3: Variables Where Significant Difference is found between the Perception of First year & Final Year Students N (First Year-221, Final Year-151) =372 Variables Good working environment to its employees Fast career growth Job Satisfaction due to meeting daily new challenges Rewards for good performance One will get sense of achievement from the work Managerial positions can be achieved

Year of Graduation

Mean Score

First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year

3.81 3.43 3.79 3.50 3.88 3.66 4.07 3.87 4.09 3.85 2.93 3.15

F-Value

Sig.

Difference

32.702

0.000

15.836

0.000

24.041

0.000

9.520

0.002

15.064

0.000

8.788

0.003

The second objective of the study was to find out whether the perception of students is in the positive side or negative side. Interestingly out of total 21 variables selected for study only one variable named as “managerial position can be achieved” is found where the first year students have a negative perception and final year students have a positive perception (Table 4) as the mean score of final year students is greater than the mean score of first year students.

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Table-4: Variables with Positive Perception amongst Final Year Students N (First Year-221, Final Year-151) =372 Variables

Year of Graduation

Mean Score

Managerial positions can be achieved

First Year Final Year

2.93 3.15

One variable named as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chances to meet celebrities, sportsmen, politiciansâ&#x20AC;? is found where the mean score of first year and final year students is exactly the same which is 4.19 and elaborated by Table 5 which shows that both first year and final year students thinks exactly the same. Table-5: Variables with Same Perception amongst First and Final Year Students N (First Year-221, Final Year-151) =372 Variables

Year of Graduation

Mean Score

Chances to meet celebrities, sportsmen, politicians

First Year Final Year

4.19 4.19

Remaining 19 variables were found where the first year students have a positive perception as the mean score of first year students is greater than the mean score of final year students (Table 6). Table-6: Variables with Positive Perception amongst First Year Students N (First Year-221, Final Year-151) =372 Variables Good salary perspective Platform to interact with new people Job security opportunity to travel to different places Opportunity to work abroad Respectable jobs Glamorous and charming jobs Reasonable work load Opportunities to deal with foreigners Parents will feel proud One will get suitable life partner Interesting and Challenging jobs Opportunity for self development One can work as an entrepreneur www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

Year of Graduation

Mean Score

3.84 3.50 4.51 4.46 3.23 3.17 4.28 4.13 4.32 4.11 3.54 3.28 3.60 3.48 3.28 2.94 4.37 4.34 3.95 3.62 3.48 3.32 4.21 4.07 4.24 4.13 3.99 Page 15

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Good working environment to its employees Fast career growth Job Satisfaction due to meeting daily new challenges Rewards for good performance One will get sense of achievement from the work

Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year First Year Final Year

3.83 3.81 3.43 3.79 3.50 3.88 3.66 4.07 3.87 4.09 3.85

The variables where the mean score of first year students is higher than that of final year students are "Good salary perspective" "Platform to interact with new people" "Job security" "opportunity to travel to different places" "Opportunity to work abroad" "Respectable jobs" "Glamorous and charming jobs" "Reasonable work load" "Opportunities to deal with foreigners" "Parents will feel proud " "One will get suitable life partner" "Interesting and Challenging jobs" "Opportunity for self development " "One can work as an entrepreneur " "Good working environment to its employees" “Fast career growth" "Job Satisfaction due to meeting daily new challenges" "Rewards for good performance" "One will get sense of achievement from the work". Position of Hypothesis H1:

Overall there is no significant difference between the perception of the first year and final year students Table-7: Overall Perception Variables

Year of Graduation

Mean Score

F-Value

Sig.

Difference

Overall Perception

First Year Final Year

3.88 3.72

19.663

0.000

The proposed hypothesis given above is rejected. T-test confirms (table-7) that a significant difference is found between the overall perception of first year and final year students. CONCLUSION Some interesting facts are revealed by the research work conducted. First of all overall a significant difference is found between the perception of first year and final year students. When a student takes admission to the hospitality programme because of many reasons he does have a very positive perception about the industry. Similarly, because of many reasons by reaching to the final year this positive perception changes to the negative perception. One of the reasons of this changing perception of students is the interaction with the industry. Therefore the industry, while interacting with the hospitality graduates must take care certain points so that there should not be any change in the perception. The training programmes should be designed in such a way that the students enjoy the training sessions and not treat it as a burden. Moreover the need of future research also arises here. The future research will conducted to find out the reason of this negative perception. Further exposure to the industry is one of the reasons of this negative perception. Therefore the impact of training on the perception of students will also be studied. REFERENCES 1.

Barron, P. and Maxwell, G. (1993) Hospitality management students‟ view of the hospitality industry, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 5(5), 5-8.

Casado, M.A. (1992) Student expectations of hospitality jobs, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 33(4), 80-82.

Collins, A.B. (2002). Gateway to the real world, industrial training: Dilemmas and problems. Tourism Management, 23(1), 93–96

Datta, A. Biswakarma K. S and Nayak, B. (2013) Effect of internship on career perception of hotel management students; Zenith International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 3 (10)

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Emenheiser, D.A., Clayton, H. R., & Tas, R. F. (1997). Students‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of hospitality industry internship experience. Proceedings of the 1997 Annual CHRIE Conference, USA, 221-222.

Jenkins, A. K. (2001) Hospitality students‟ future perspectives: an Anglo-Dutch study. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 13(1), 13-20.

Kaşlı, M., and İlban, M. O. (2013) The relationship between problems faced during internships and interns‟ view of profession and intention to work in the tourism industry. Egitim Arastirmalari-Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 52, 79-96.

Park, J., and Kim, H.B. (2011) Internship participants‟ perceptions on career choice factors and career decision making in hospitality and tourism industry. Journal of Tourism and Leisure Research, 23(5), 131–149.

Kusluvan, S. and Kusluvan, Z. (2000) Perceptions and attitudes of undergraduate tourism students towards working in the tourism industry in Turkey”. Tourism Management, 21, 251-269.

10. Lam, T. and Ching, L. (2007). An exploratory study of an internship program: The case of Hong Kong students, Hospitality Management, 26(2): 336-351. 11. Leslie, D. and Richardson, A. (2000). Tourism and cooperative education in UK undergraduate courses: Are the benefits being realized? Tourism Management, 21, 489-498. 12. Roney, A. and Oztin. (2007) Career perceptions of undergraduate tourism students: a case study in turkey.” Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education 6(1), 4 -17. 13. Yafang. B and Gongyong. F (2008); A Study on Hospitality Students‟ Satisfaction towards their Internship: a Case from Hang Zhou, China; International Conference on Management Science and Engineering ; ISBN: 978-0-646-50293-9

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EMPLOYEES’ SERVICE INNOVATION BEHAVIOUR AND NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT IN FOUR-AND FIVE-STAR HOTELS Mukhles M. Al-Ababneh Assistant Professor of International Hospitality Management Department of Hotel Management and Tourism Petra College for Tourism and Archaeology Al-Hussein Bin Talal University Ma‟an, Jordan mukhles.ababneh@gmail.com Abstract This study aims to explore the impact of Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) on New Service Development (NSD) among hotels’ employees. A research model was proposed in which one hypothesis was developed. The empirical data were collected from employees who are working in four-and five-star hotels in Jordan. A total of 332 questionnaires were returned and the data were analysed using a single regression to determine the relationship between employee service innovation behaviour and new service development. The results supported the proposed model that there is a significant relationship between employee service innovation behaviour and new service development, and it also found that service innovation performance is exited in the hotel industry. The theoretical and managerial implications were drawn based on the study findings, and recommendations for future researchers were made, and limitations and conclusions are discussed. Keywords: Employee Service Innovation Behaviour, New Service Development, Hotels. INTRODUCTION It is necessary to differentiate creativity from innovation. Creativity means the development of potential new and useful ideas, and employees may share these ideas with others, it is considered as the initial phase of the innovation process. Innovation refers to the successful implementation of new and useful ideas at organisational level (Amabile, 1996, 1997). Creativity is defined as “the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain”, whereas innovation is defined as “the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization”. Innovation means the successful implementing of the generated ideas or products at the organisational level (Oldham and Cummings, 1996). Specifically, creativity seems to be the seed of all innovation (Amabile et al., 1996: p.1155). Another argument suggested that creativity is an important input into the substitute-generation stage of the innovation process (Ford, 1996). Also, creativity is treated as part of the organisational climate or culture, and this climate or culture could enhance innovation and performance (Swann and Birke, 2005). The promotion of employee creativity and the generation of new-ideas are considered the key factors which are necessary to implement innovation (Montes et al., 2003). High levels of employee productivity and creativity are required for developing new services and products and continuously improving internal processes (Forbes and Domm, 2004). However, creativity and innovation concepts are frequently employed interchangeably in the literature (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Awamleh, 1994; Martins and Terblanche, 2003; Mostafa, 2005). For example, Mostafa (2005: p.8) introduced one definition for creativity or innovation as a “systematic development and practical application of a new idea”. Hence, creativity and innovation are very much linked in individuals‟ minds as one term and they use these terms interchangeably. Some arguments state that creativity and innovation are fundamentally the same phenomenon, but they take place at various levels of analysis (Ford, 1996). For example, creativity is the initial phase to the process of innovation, while innovation refers to the successful implementation of new and useful ideas. Therefore, innovation is an important process for the long-standing success of an organisation (Amabile, 1997). As a result, the concepts of creativity and innovation are commonly phrased together because they are linked to each other even though there are some differences in their meanings, such as creativity being the production of ideas while innovation refers to the application of the produced ideas (Coveney, 2008). Other researchers (i.e. West, 2002; Rank et al., 2004; Flaatin, 2007) confirmed that creativity is considered as one stage of innovation, and that innovation consists of two stages, the idea generation stage and the idea implementation stage. Specifically, creativity refers to the generation of ideas, whereas innovation implies the transformation of ideas into new products or services. That means innovation is the implementation of creativity results, and creativity is considered as a part of the innovation process (Alves et al., 2007). Consequently, creativity is a desirable outcome which provides many benefits to organisations through transferring ideas to www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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employees for their own use and serving as a fundamental dimension for organisational innovations (Shalley et al., 2004). LITERATURE REVIEW Innovation is a necessary requirement for organisational effectiveness (Basadur et al., 2002), and for seeking for new solutions to product problems, as well as new and better solutions to business and customer problems (Herbig and Jacobs, 1996; Mostafa, 2005). Successful organisations are more dependent on creativity and innovation than ever (Wong and Pang, 2003a). Service Innovation Performance (SIP) represents two dimensions, namely Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB), and New Service Development (NSD). More specifically, service innovation performance emerged in service organisations to explore individual innovative behaviour. Innovation is defined as a multistage process, and creativity or generation of the ideas is only one stage of innovation which is the first stage, the second stage seeking sponsorship and supporters for an idea, and the last stage producing a model of innovation. Each stage requires different individual innovative behaviour and different activities, and therefore individual innovative behaviour is critical part in innovation (Scott and Bruce, 1994). NSD is important for service organisations as a competitive advantage that enables these organisations to achieve superior performance, and to response to changing customer requirements and competitive threats. Even the importance of new service development, but the research in that area still very limited (Matear et al., 2004). The concept of creativity is different from innovation. Specifically, creativity and innovation are fundamentally the same phenomenon, but they take place at various levels of analysis and therefore each concept has a different definition (Amabile et al., 1996). Hence, creativity is the initial phase of the innovation process, while innovation is the successful implementation of new and useful ideas (Amabile, 1997). Consequently, innovation is composed of two stages: idea generation and idea implementation. Creativity refers to idea generation, whereas innovation implies idea transformation into new products or services (West, 2002; Rank et al., 2004; Flaatin, 2007). Similarly, innovation is the implementation process of creativity results, and that supports creativity as a part of innovation (Alves et al., 2007). In the turbulent hospitality industry, innovation has become a strategic weapon for successful hospitality organisations. Innovations in hospitality are mostly intangible assets. Clearly, service innovations in the hospitality industry have a wide range starting from complete innovations that produce new services to new markets, to slight modifications of the present services through simple adapting of existing services (i.e. change keys to swipe cards), or offering added value to services through providing extra novel facilities (i.e. serviced apartments) (Ottenbacher and Gnoth, 2005). The hospitality industry faces the challenges of a turbulent and unstable environment that has forced hospitality organisations to modify and update their services to meet the change in their customersâ&#x20AC;&#x; needs and wants, and survive in the market. As a result, the implementation of innovation becomes an important technique for successful hospitality organisations. In the twenty-first century, creativity is considered as a vital factor in the development process in hospitality (Wong and Pang, 2003b). However, there is little published research about innovation in the hospitality industry despite the importance of innovation in that industry (Ottenbacher, 2007). The shortage of creativity research in the hospitality industry refers to the notion that creativity is generally related to the artistic industries like poetry, music composing, fiction writing, drama, painting, film making, and so on. The main concern in the hospitality industry was, historically, providing food and accommodation to travellers, therefore the hospitality concentrated on the routine work in hotels to meet and satisfy travellersâ&#x20AC;&#x; needs for both accommodation and food (Wong and Ladkin, 2008). Individuals with different cultures and backgrounds can produce variations in the need for creativity, and therefore diverse environmental motivators could be used to motivate individuals to be creative people. Thus, it is vital to determine the stimulants to creativity in the working environment and how hospitality organisations can enhance their individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x; creativity and so survive in the global competitive environment (Wong and Pang, 2003a). Independent studies have confirmed that creativity is considered to be a consistent and significant predictor of peak performance at different levels of employment within the hospitality industry (Houran and Ference, 2006). Innovation has many benefits, but the major benefit of successful innovation in the hospitality industry is the competitive advantage that has been achieved by organisations (Ottenbacher and Gnoth, 2005). Innovation in the hospitality industry can be rapidly imitated therefore continuous innovation becomes a vital element to reinforce imitation barriers to the competitive market (Harrington, 2004). Successful innovations are not always clear for managers in the hospitality industry. Creating an organisational culture that encourages creativity, are vital intangible features of organisations, as well as innovative thinking, and these stands out in innovation www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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management (Ottenbacher and Harrington, 2007). The tangible forms of organisational creative outcomes in the hotel industry such as: improved customer services, product innovations and continuous improvement (Wong and Pang, 2003b). Hence, hotels need to become innovative in service, processes and procedures through developing delivery of service to customers, especially with the increasing competitiveness of the market, and need to concentrate on the quality of products and distinction in service. The hospitality industry has plenty of options for determining which products and services will add value to customers. Hotels need to evaluate the value that will be added to service to customers before introducing a new innovation for a service or product (Victorino et al., 2005). The difference in levels of hotel quality does not really have an impact on hotel operations, but, the difference between high and low quality hotels is the quality of the extra services and tangibles. Thus, innovation is considered as a key lever to develop and upgrade operations at hotels (Wong and Ladkin, 2008). In the service industry, both „novel‟ and „useful‟ are essential characteristics for identifying a creative idea (Madjar and Ortiz-Walters, 2008). Despite the importance of creativity and innovation in the hospitality industry, few studies have been conducted to investigate creativity or innovation in that industry. For example, Ottenbacher and Gnoth (2005) indicated that innovation was less important than commitment to the service, empowerment, employee training and the effectiveness of human resources management in German hotels. They indicated that tangible features of service innovation were associated with successful innovations in the hospitality industry. Similarly, another study was conducted by Orfila-Sintes et al. (2005) to identify innovation activity in hotels in Spain. The results found that the higher category hotels (i.e. 3- , 4- and 5-star) have more innovation than the lower category hotels (i.e. 1and 2-star). As a result, hotels with 3-star or more have the capacity to differentiate their products and services, while, the 1- and 2-star hotels showed the lowest rate of innovation since these hotels tend to adopt a „„follow up behaviour‟‟ that allows them to survive in the market. In addition, highly technological innovation was present in chain hotels and hotels under management contract. Human capital skills and abilities showed an important role in successful innovation. The study also found that innovation activity was positively related to performance as evidenced by the generation of more rents at innovative hotels. However, the literature showed a shortage of empirical studies in organisational creativity in the hospitality sector, although a few studies investigated creativity, employee creativity or innovation rather than organisational creativity. Therefore, there is a need to investigate organisational creativity in the hospitality industry. Despite the absence of empirical studies in the relationship between creativity and innovation, Heunks (1998) supported the view that creativity was related to innovation in 200 organisations from six countries in European Union. He revealed that creativity had a significant positive relationship with product innovation in old organisations (over 32 years old), but creativity may also foster process innovation. Creativity tended to have some specific personal backgrounds: risk-taking, challenges and entrepreneurship, whereas, innovation had other aspects: risk-taking, education, self-confidence, future orientation, leadership, external capital and information. Consequently, risk-taking is the only personal background that is common to both creativity and innovation. More comprehensive results are presented by Prajogo et al. (2004), who argued that creativity and idea generation had a significant and positive relationship with both product innovation and process innovation in manufacturing and non-manufacturing organisations based on managerial perspectives, but had a stronger relationship with product innovation than with process innovation. The study also found that process and product innovation are strongly related to each other. As a result, organisations need to develop creativity in order to promote process and product innovation. Some scholars (i.e. Forbes and Domm, 2004; Montes et al., 2003) claimed that high levels of employee creativity was necessary for implementing innovation, developing new services/products and continuously improving internal processes. Swann and Birke (2005) showed that creativity is considered to be a part of the organisational climate or culture that could enhance innovation. Several empirical evidences were provided by other studies that confirmed the relationship between creativity and innovation in general rather than service innovation performance in particular. For example, Amabile (1988) argued that employee creativity-relevant skills significantly impact on innovation within organisations. Amabile (1997) confirmed the role of creativity to creating innovation. Furthermore, Miron et al. (2004) argued that creativity positively affected innovation at the implementation stage, thus creativity had a significant positive relationship with innovation. Bharadwaj and Menon (2000) investigated the impact of creativity mechanisms on innovation within a large number of manufacturing and service organisations in the US. They revealed that the presence of both individual and organisational creativity mechanisms led to the highest level of innovation. The study suggested that a high level of organisational creativity mechanisms with a low level of individual creativity mechanisms led to significantly superior innovation performance than low levels of both individual and organisational creativity mechanisms. They provided empirical evidence that organisational efforts at creativity had a positive www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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impact on innovation. Forbes and Domm (2004) claimed that high levels of employee productivity are required for developing new services and products and continuously improving internal processes. While, Hu et al. (2009) found that Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) was significantly and positively related to New Service Development (NSD). RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The current study aims to explore the relationship between employee service innovation behaviour and new Service development in the hotel industry. In order to fill the gap in the literature, the present study suggests a proposed model as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: A Proposed Model of the Study

Employee Service innovation Behaviour

New Service Development

Source: The Researcher

In the study model, the hypothesis was developed to test the relationship among the variables, and Figure 1displays the following hypothesis: H1: Employee service innovation behaviour is positively related to new service development. Variables’ Measurements: Innovation instrument is comprised of two parts. The first part will explore employees‟ perceptions of service innovation performance (i.e. employee service innovation behaviour, new service development) at their hotel, this part contained 14 statements to investigate innovative environment in order to measure service innovation performance. All items in this scale were adapted from Hu et al.‟s (2009) instrument using a six-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “Strongly Disagree” to 6 “Strongly Agree”, which describe two dimensions: 1.

Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) contained six statements (Sip1, Sip 3, Sip 5, Sip 7, Sip 10, Sip 13).

New Service Development (NSD) contained eight statements (Sip 2, Sip 4, Sip 6, Sip 8, Sip 9, Sip 11, Sip 12, Sip 14).

Finally, the second part contained ten statements about demographic profiles (gender, age, nationality, social status, and education), hotel name, experience, organisational position, department and monthly salary, which were developed by the researcher. Sample: The target population contains all employees who work at Jordanian resort hotels around the Dead Sea, Gulf of Aqaba and in Petra, since all Jordanian resort hotels are located in these locations. A purposive sampling was used to obtain only four- and five-star resort hotels, which have appropriate characteristics that meet the purpose of this study (Zikmund, 2003). Around 22 four- and five-star resort hotels are considered as destination resort hotels in Jordan were selected to participate in this study which had a total number of 4,179 employees in 2011 (Jordanian Ministry of Tourism, 2011). The sampling frame in this study contained all line employees. The researcher will approach the subjects in this sampling frame through a contact with their Human Resource (HR) managers. Furthermore, a random sampling technique will be selected to choose the study participants in order to obtain a representative sample for population (Sekaran, 2003), and to ensure that selecting the sample will be at random from sampling frame (Saunders et al., 2009). Data Collection: The study scales were adapted from the western context based on English versions, while the study context used the Arabic language. Hence, it was necessary to conduct two pilot tests, one on the English version and another on the Arabic version. The first pilot study was conducted in English version with people speaking and understanding English language very well, ten employees working in five-star resort hotels in Jordan were asked to complete the study‟s questionnaire. The majority of respondents completed the questionnaire without any confusion or need for more clarification. Based on the respondents‟ evaluations, the researcher modified and developed the statements of questionnaire in order to be understandable and applicable in the hotel industry. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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On the other hand, since Arabic is the mother language of the people in Jordan, and due to the fact that not all employees in the resort hotels could understand the English version, the questionnaire was translated from English into Arabic by the first qualified person who is speaking English fluently, after that questionnaire was translated back from Arabic to English by another fluently bilingual person, and then examined to assess the appropriateness of the translation. This translation was conducted in order to identify and modify inconsistency between English and Arabic versions (Zikmund, 2003). The second pilot study was conducted by administrating the questionnaire after the completion of translation and back-translation from English to Arabic, to ten employees working in five-star resort hotels in Jordan, who agreed to complete the questionnaire in Arabic version. Thus, ten questionnaires were distributed to employees. The respondents found few misleading words and unclear statements, and they suggested modifications to some statements. Then, the researcher changed misleading words and modified some statements regarding respondents‟ feedback in order to avoid ambiguous statements and misunderstanding those statements. The research population is made up of all employees in 17 four- and five-star resort hotels in Jordan. This research used a cross-sectional approach to collect data. Thus, data were collected via a self-administrated questionnaire. More clarification, 630 questionnaires were distributed to all employees. A total of 346 questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 53.9%. However, as 14 questionnaires were invalid due to incomplete data, the researcher obtained 332 usable questionnaires. The quantitative data were analysed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21.0 for windows. RESULTS Characteristics of the Participating Hotels: This study provides a brief description of the participated hotels characteristics such as hotel classification, hotel affiliation and hotel management as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Characteristics of the Participating Hotels (N=17) Characteristic Hotel Classification:  Five –star  Four-star Hotel Affiliation:  International chain  Independent hotels Hotel Management:  Management contract  Managed by owners

Number of hotels

Percentage

12 5

71% 29%

11 6

65% 35%

14 3

82% 18%

Demographic Characteristics of Employee Sample: The current study provides a brief description of the demographic characteristics of the participated employees such as gender, age, nationality, social status, education level, participants‟ departments and experiences, and monthly salary as shown in Table 2. Table 2: Demographic Characteristics of Employee Sample (N=332) Characteristic Gender:  Male  Female Age:  25 years or less  26-35  36-45  46-55  56 years or more Nationality:  Jordanian  Non-Jordanian Social Status:  Single  Married  Divorced  Widow(er). Education Level:  Less than secondary education  Secondary school graduates  Undergraduate degree  Postgraduate degree Department:

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Percentage 83% 17% 25.3% 59% 13.9% 1.5% 0.3% 96% 4% 52.4% 21.3% 2.7% 1.2% 14.2% 31.9% 51.8 % 2.1%

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 19-32  Front office and housekeeping  Food and beverage  Finance & sales and marketing  Personnel and training  Engineering and maintenance  Other departments Experience:  Less than one year  Between 2 and 4 years  Between 5 and 7 years  More than 8 years Monthly Salary:  Less than JD 300  Between JD 300-449  Between JD 450-600  More than JD 600

30.7% 40.7% 13.6% 6.3 % 3.9% 4.8% 18% 44.9% 29.8% 7.3% 45.2 % 39.8% 10.2 % 4.8%

A total number of employees participated in this study was 332. Most participants (83%) were males since Arabic culture restricts females to work in resort hotels. The majority of participants (84.7%) age 35 years or less that represents most employees were young people. But most of participants (96%) were Jordanian, and more than (52.4%) were single. However, (51.8%) of employees were undergraduate degree holders that indicate most employees were educated people. Most participants (40.7%) are working in food and beverage department as the main department in hotel. The highest number of participants (44.9%) was 2-4 years of service since some unskilled jobs in resorts need inexperienced people. Most participants (45.2%) had monthly salary less than JD 300. Scales purification: This study adapted existing western scales, which showed good reliability and validity results through different contexts in previous researches. However, it was necessary to purify these scales due to this study was conducted in Jordan as a non-western country. Factor analysis carried out through two ways: exploratory to discover the set of variables underlie the common factors of measurement scales, and confirmatory to confirm the structure of measurement scales. Exploratory Factor Analysis: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted in order to reduce the number of items in each scale due to poor loadings or cross loadings, as well to establish the factors underlying each construct in the innovation survey. An assumption analysis was necessary to check the suitability and factorability of obtained data for exploratory factor analysis and construct validity. Table 3 shows, the results of factor analysis assumptions for creativity instrument based on three criteria as suggested by Hair et al. (2010), which are: correlation matrix (r =0.30 or greater), Kasier-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) (0.60 or above), and Bartlett‟s Test of Sphericity (significant at P <0.05). Table 3: Factor Analysis Assumptions for Creativity Instrument

Correlation Matrix (KMO) Bartlett‟s Test of Sphericity

ESIB >.30 0.862 .000

Service Innovation Performance NSD >.30 0.910 .000

As can be seen from Table 3, a correlation matrix revealed that all constructs have many correlation coefficients with a value of 0.30 and above, (KMO) value ranging between 0.862 and 0.910, which are above the 0.60 recommended cut off point, and Bartlett‟s Test of Sphericity reached statistical significance for all variables (p=.000). These results confirmed the construct validity for all scales of creativity instrument, and therefore using factor analysis was acceptable. Based on the previous results, the 14 items of the innovation questionnaire representing two constructs of service innovation performance were subjected to EFA. Principle Components Analysis (PCA) using SPSS version 18 was performed for each scale separately, all items in scales were used in EFA before eliminating any item for maximizing reliability. A factor loading of 0.40 was used as the cut-off point in this study. 1.

Employee Service Innovation Behaviour: Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) was represented by six items in the original scale. Factor analysis was conducted using varimax rotation to test the underlying structure of ESIB as shown in Table 5. Table 5: Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis (ESIB) Scale

N of Items

Item

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Item Loading

N of Factors

Eigenvalue

% of Variance

Cumulative %

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International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Reviews Vol 1 (1), November 2014, ISBN 978-81-925781-0-1, pg 19-32 Component ESIB

Sip1 Sip3 Sip5 Sip7 Sip10 Sip13

.743 .833 .835 .699 .760 .785

3.626

60.431

As can be seen from Table 5, one extracted factor obtained Eigenvalue was highly greater than 1, with a high percentage of variance 60.431%. ESIB items showed very high factor loadings were ranged from 0.699 to 0.835. Consequently, the factor analysis confirmed that the items in ESIB scale formed a single factor. 2.

New Service Development: Table 6 shows the results of exploratory factor analysis for eight items of New Service Development (NSD) scale representing one initial dimension Table 6: Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis (NSD) Scale

N of Items

Item

Item Loading

N of Factors

Eigenvalue

% of Variance

Cumulative %

5.162

64.530

Component NSD

Sip2 Sip4 Sip6 Sip8 Sip9 Sip11 Sip12 Sip14

.788 .811 .816 .837 .788 .820 .805 .759

Table 6 shows, one extracted factor obtained Eigenvalue greater than 1, with a percentage of variance was 64.530%. NSD items had high factor loadings exceeding 0.40 ranged from 0.759 to 0.837. These results confirmed one-dimensional structure of NSD. Confirmatory Factor Analysis: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) aims to test hypotheses based on previous studies or on relevant theory. Factor loadings for the variables are hypothesized, and then proceeds to fit these loading in the target matrix (Kline, 1994). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to confirm the underlying structures of each construct. The goodness of fit tests assess by different fit indices, are: Normed Chi-Square (X²/df); PCLOSE; Tucker Lewis Index (TLI); Normed Fit Index (NFI); the Comparative Fit Index (CFI); the Incremental Fit Index (IFI); and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (Joreskog, 1993; Kline, 2005). 1.

Employee Service Innovation Behaviour: The six observed items of ESIB scale were initially subjected to CFA as specified by EFA. The initial results of ESIB model revealed that X²/df and RMSEA had high values and greater than the recommended values. As a result, this model was not accepted, and therefore the second run was necessary to improve the model fit. The results of second run after deleting two items (Sip7, Sip10) from ESIB scale. However, the results showed that CFI, IFI, NFI and TLI greater than the recommended 0.90, RMSEA and X²/df had high values but still within the acceptable level, and PCLOSE value was 0.082 which is greater than 0.05. As a result, the modified ESIB model had the good fit.

New Service Development: The NSD scale was subjected to CFA, the initial results of NSD model revealed that X²/df, RMSEA had high values and greater than the acceptable values, as well TLI, PCLOSE had values less than the recommended values. Therefore, four items (Sip2, Sip6, Sip8, Sip11) were deleted from NSD scale to obtain an acceptable model. The results of second run found that all fit measures had excellent values, specifically, the values of CFI, IFI, NFI and TLI were one or close to one and greater than the recommended 0.90, RMSEA value was 0.020, PCLOSE value was 0.574, and finally, X²/df was 1.132. Consequently, the good fit for NSD model was confirmed.

Reliability and Validity of the Creativity Instrument: The research instrument has to be valid and reliable for data collection, and therefore it was necessary to examine reliability and validity for each scale in the innovation instrument. Innovation instrument made up one part. Innovation service performance was developed consisted of two scales (i.e. employee service innovation behaviour, new service development). These scales were evaluated for reliability and validity, and some items were eliminated to maximise scale reliability. 1.

Reliability Test: Reliability refers to the extent to which measurement scales provide a consistent result. This study used Cronbach‟s alpha as a reliability coefficient. The acceptable value of Cronbach‟s alpha should be above 0.70 as suggested by Nunnally (1978) or at least above 0.60 as recommended by DeVellis

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(1991). An internal consistency analysis was conducted using the SPSS programme for each scale, and overall scores of scales. Following, are the reliability results of each scale used in the innovation instrument. A. Employee Service Innovation Behaviour Scale: Table 8 revealed the reliability results of ESIB scale, which includes four items.

Table 8: ESIB Scale Reliability N of items

Cronbach's Alpha

.849

ESIB

Item-Total Correlation

Sip1: At work, I seek new service techniques and methods.

.678

Sip3: At work, I sometimes come up with innovative and creative ideas.

.764

Sip5: At work, I sometimes propose my creative ideas and try to convince others.

.710

Sip13: Overall, I consider myself a creative member of my team.

.606

Table 8 pointed out that ESIB scale had an acceptable alpha reliability coefficient (α =.849), with inter-item correlation greater than (.50). This scale is therefore accepted as a measure of ESIB. B. New Service Development Scale:The internal consistency of NSD was estimated using the Cronbach‟s alpha as shown in Table 9. Table 9: NSD Scale Reliability

NSD

N of items

Cronbach's Alpha

.841

Item-Total Correlation

Sip4: All departments and units in this hotel interact well to develop new business.

.611

Sip9: Our team is professional in developing new services or new products.

.674

Sip12: The new services developed by our team are effective with respect to timing, resources and process.

.753

Sip14: The hotel‟s current manpower is sufficient for the new services that have to be developed.

.667

As can be seen from Table 9, NSD scale had an acceptable alpha reliability coefficient (α =.841), and interitem correlation ranged from 0.611 to 0.753. Therefore, there was no need to drop any item from the scales of creativity instrument to improve its reliability. As a result, creativity instrument had an acceptable internal consistency because Cronbach‟s alpha scores were above the recommended 0.60 level, and therefore the reliability for creativity instrument was good and acceptable for this work. Accordingly, the study‟ scales were judged to be reliable. 2.

Validity of Scales: The scales of innovation instrument had content validity due to the study used valid and reliable scales were all derived from an extensive review of the literature and have being used previously, as well detailed evaluations by academicians and practicing managers, for instance, innovation instrument has been piloted two times by experts of practitioners and academics as discussed earlier to ensure content validity.

Construct validity was confirmed for each scale separately by using assumptions of factor analysis to ensure the suitability of gathered data for factor analysis. The results indicated that all constructs have many correlation coefficients with a value greater than 0.30, (KMO) value ranging between 0.862 and 0.91, which are above the recommended value 0.60, and Bartlett‟s Test of Sphericity values for all constructs were significant at the level (P=.000). These results confirmed that all scales of the innovation instrument had construct validity. Another type of validity, criterion-related validity, was conducted for innovation instrument separately. Furthermore, criterion-related validity for innovation instrument was a measure of how well scale of ESIB is related to measures of NSD (the criteria). Bivariate correlation (Pearson) analysis was conducted for testing criterion validity by investigating the interrelationships between the independent and dependent variable sets: ESIB(predictor set) and NSD (the criterion set). The Bivariate correlation coefficients are listed in Table 10. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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Table 10: Bivariate Correlation Matrices Mean 4.45 4.33

ESIB NSD

SD 1.03 1.07

ESIB 1.000 .721**

NSD 1.000

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), N=332

As can be seen from Table 10, the correlation within innovation scales (criterion set), between the predictor set and criterion set were significant at the level (P=.000). As a result, this confirmed that innovation instrument had criterion-related validity. Based on the above results, the scales of innovation instrument had the three types of validity: content validity, criterion-related validity, and construct validity. Consequently, the scales in this instrument are valid and reliable for the further analyses. Distribution of the Study Dimensions in Creativity Instrument: After confirming the reliability and validity of the instrument scales, descriptive analysis was conducted for extracted dimensions and overall scales. Due to this study used different scales, and therefore each scale has a different midpoint. Table 11 shows descriptive statistics, including, mean, standard deviation, Skewness and Kurtosis. Table 11: Distribution of the Dimensions of the Creativity Instrument Scale

Scale

Service Innovation

Extracted dimensions ESIB NSD

1-6

Mean

Skewness*

Kurtosis*

4.45 4.33

1.03 1.07

-.808 -.615

.629 .095

N of Items 4 4

*The cut point between -1 and 1. SD: Standard Deviation.

Innovation instrument was used to measure three main scales, these scales were measured based on employees‟ perceptions. Two scales, ESIB and NSD, were used to measure service innovation performance. More specifically, the results revealed that employees perceived themselves as being highly oriented in their behaviour toward service innovation (mean=4.45, SD=1.03). Finally, employees felt they could provide new service development (NSD) (mean=4.33, SD=1.07). On the other hand, the distribution of collected data is supposed to be normal for statistical analysis. Two statistical measures, Skewness and Kurtosis, can be used to measure the normality of variables. Table 11 found that all variables in the innovation instrument are normally distributed. The values of Skewness and Kurtosis ranged between -0.808 to 0.629 fell within a range of acceptable values which are -1.0 to +1.0. These results confirmed the normality of data, and therefore the data are ready for further statistical analyses. Correlation Analysis: A correlation analysis will be used in this study to test the relationship between independent and dependent(s). A correlation coefficient was conducted among innovation behaviour and new service development. The results as shown in Table 10 indicated significant correlations were between ESIB and NSD, were (r =.721). Testing the Hypotheses: The current study tested the hypothesis by using a linear regression analysis. The results of correlation analysis revealed that there were very high significant correlations between all variables of this study, since the significant level was (P<.05). Hence, a linear regression model was necessary to conduct in order to indicate the impact of ESIB on NSD as dependent variables. H1: ESIB is positively related to NSD. In this study, ESIB as one dimension of service innovation was proposed to have a positive relationship with the second one (NSD). This hypothesis was tested by a liner regression analysis, and the results are presented in Table 14. Table 14: Linear Regression for Impact of ESIB on NSD Independent Variable ESIB

R .721

R² .520

Dependent Variable: NSD F β 357.594 .721

t 18.910**

Sig. .000

The regression results showed that ESIB is a good significant predicator of NSD as shown in Table 14, ESIB is positively related to NSD (β = .721, P<0.01). More specifically, ESIB explains (R²) 52 % of the variance in NSD. However, the overall statistical results indicated that ESIB positively influenced NSD. Accordingly, hypothesis 1 is accepted which confirmed the positive relationship between ESIB and NSD. DISCUSSION www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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Service Innovation Performance (SIP) was measured by using Hu et al.‟s (2009) scale which was developed from previous scales (i.e. Scott and Brue, 1994; Matear et al., 2004) for measuring SIP in the hotel industry. More specifically, the SIP scale consisted of two main scales: the Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) scale (6 items) which was originally developed by Scott and Brue (1994) as „individual innovative behaviour‟ scale using a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 “Not at all” to 5 “To an exceptional degree” at a research and development (R&D) centre in the US; and the New Service Development (NSD) scale (8 items) which was originally developed by Matear et al. (2004) using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “Strongly disagree” to 5 “Strongly agree” at service organisations in New Zealand. Contrary to previous studies, Hu et al. (2009) developed SIP, ESIB and NSD scales, in higher-class hotels in a non-western context, Taiwan, and they used a six-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “Strongly disagree” to 6 “Strongly agree”. From this, they confirmed that the SIP scale is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring service innovation performance, more specifically in the hotel industry.

Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) was measured by six items representing one initial dimension using a six-point scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 6 “strongly agree”. The results of EFA in the current study confirmed that the items of ESIB clearly formed a single factor, as these items showed high item loadings which ranged from 0.699 to 0.835. Based on the above results, the uni-dimensionality of the ESIB scale was supported in this study. Moreover, the results of first run of CFA revealed that the ESIB model was not accepted, and therefore two items (Sip7, Sip10) were dropped from the ESIB scale. The results of the second run of CFA indicated that fit indices CFI, IFI, NFI and TLI had values greater than the recommended 0.90, PCLOSE = 0.082, whereas RMSEA and X²/df had high values were 0.10, 4.319 respectively, falling within the range of the acceptable values. These results confirmed that the ESIB model had a good fit. Furthermore, the ESIB scale had an acceptable reliability shown by Cronbach‟s alpha being .849 and there was no need to drop any item to maximise the reliability of the scale, and inter-item correlations for the items ranged from 0.606 to 0.764. The ESIB scale had content validity and construct validity. This scale is therefore accepted as a measure of ESIB. Scott and Bruce (1994) confirmed the validity and reliability of the innovative behaviour scale, including six items, as Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient was (α=0.89). These results were supported by Hu et al. (2009) who found that all items of ESIB were loaded strongly into one factor with a range of 0.65 to 0.83, and also that ESIB had a high Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient (α=0.92) indicating a reliable and valid instrument to measure employee service innovation behaviour in the hotel industry. Chen et al. (2010) confirmed that Scott and Bruce‟s scale is a reliable scale; they found that the innovative behaviour scale had a high Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient .88. Similar results were obtained by Vinarski-Peretz et al. (2011), who indicated a Cronbach‟s alpha for this scale of (α=0.92). The mean score for ESIB in this study was measured, and found to be (4.45). This indicated that employees in the sampled hotels had ESIB. These results were supported by Scott and Bruce‟s (1994) findings by using a five-point scale; they found that R&D professionals rated their ESIB moderately (mean=3.20). In the hotel industry, Hu et al. (2009) found that employees at higher-class hotels in Taiwan showed ESIB evidenced by the mean score of ESIB being (4.18). New Service Development (NSD) was measured by eight items representing one initial dimension using a sixpoint scale ranging from 1 “Strongly disagree” to 6 “Strongly agree”. In this study, the results of exploratory factor analysis for items of the NSD scale indicated that all items were loaded on one factor, and therefore NSD was confirmed as a one-dimensional scale with high item loadings ranging from 0.759 to 0.837. The results of the first run of CFA revealed that the NSD model required some improvement due to the values of some fit indices being less than the recommended values, and therefore four items (Sip2, Sip6, Sip8, Sip11) were deleted from the NSD scale. On the other hand, the results of the second run confirmed an excellent fit for the NSD model, with fit measures CFI, IFI, NFI and TLI having excellent values which were greater than the recommended .90, and other fit indices RMSEA=.020, PCLOSE=.574, X²/df= 1.132 fell perfectly within the range of acceptable values. This study confirmed that the NSD scale is a reliable scale since it had Cronbach‟s alpha of (α=0.841), and there was no need to drop any item to improve the scale‟s reliability. For all items, the item-total correlations ranged from 0.611 to 0.753. Validity was confirmed for the NSD scale in terms of content validity and construct validity. Thus, the NSD scale was confirmed as a valid and reliable scale. Matear et al. (2004) used 17 items that were derived from previous studies to measure “new service development” representing four dimensions, namely, people, process, organisational support and implementation. They confirmed through exploratory factor analysis that NSD was measured by two www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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dimensions, organisational support and implementation, and each dimension had four items. Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient for NSD was (α=0.764). Furthermore, Hu et al. (2009) confirmed the uni-dimensionality of the NSD scale due to all items being loaded strongly into one factor with a range of 0.63 to 0.90, and they also confirmed the reliability of the NSD scale since it had a high Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient (α=0.94). As a result, the NSD scale was a reliable and valid instrument to measure new service development in the hotel industry. In this study, the mean score for NSD was measured and was found to be (4.33). This indicated that the sampled hotels had NSD. These results were consistent with Hu et al.‟s (2009) findings, suggesting that employees at higher-class hotels in Taiwan rated NSD moderately as the mean score of NSD was (4.03). The findings of this study were consistent with most scholars (e.g. Amabile, 1988; Heunks, 1998; Bharadwaj and Menon, 2000; Montes et al., 2003; Prajogo et al., 2004; Forbes and Domm, 2004; Miron et al., 2004; Swann and Birke, 2005) who argued that organisational creativity had a significant and positive relationship with innovation. Those scholars claimed that creativity was necessary for implementing innovation, and developing new service. As a result, organisations need to develop creativity in order to promote innovation. The current study confirmed Hu et al.‟s (2009) findings; they found that Employee Service Innovation Behaviour (ESIB) was significantly and positively related to New Service Development (NSD). CONCLUSIONS In developing countries like Jordan there is a shortage of creativity studies in general, and particularly in the hospitality industry. This study attempts to fill that gap by identifying the impact of organisational creativity on service innovation performance at Jordanian resort hotels. Specifically, individuals with different cultures and backgrounds show some differences about the need for creativity at work. Therefore, organisational creativity can vary based on individuals‟ achievements because each individual has a different level of creativity. Creativity can vary from a slight change at work to total change, whereas innovation refers to the successful implementation of creativity. As a result, organisational creativity can impact service innovation performance at hotels. The researcher concluded that organisational creativity in hotels had a positive impact on both employee service innovation behaviour and new service development. This study also determined the relationship between employee service innovation behaviour and new service development in the hotel industry. REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

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Alves, J., Marques, M. J., Saur, I. and Marques, P. (2007) “Creativity and innovation through multidisciplinary and multisectoral cooperation”, Creativity and Innovation Management, 16(1), pp.27-34. Amabile, T. M. (1996) Creativity in context. Colorad: Westview Press, Inc. Amabile, T. M. (1997) “Motivating creativity in organisation: on doing what you love and loving what you do”, California Management Review, 40(1), pp.39-58. Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J. and Herron, M. (1996) “Assessing the work environment for creativity”, The Academy of Management Journal, 39(5), pp.1154-1184. Amabile, T.M. and Conti, R. (1999) “Changes in the work environment for creativity during downsizing”, The Academy of Management Journal, 42(6), pp. 630-640. Andriopoulos, C. (2001) “Determinants of organisational creativity: a literature review”, Management Decision, 39(10), pp.834-840. Andriopoulos, C. and Lowe, A. (2000) “Enhancing organisational creativity: the process of perpetual challenging”, Management Decision, 38(10), pp.734-742. Awamleh, N. A. H. K. (1994) “Managerial innovation in the civil service in Jordan”, Journal of Management Development, 13(9), pp.52-60. Basadur, M., Pringle, P. and Kirkland, D. (2002) “Crossing cultures: training effects on the divergent thinking attitudes of Spanish-speaking South American managers”, Creativity Research Journal, 14(3&4), pp.395-408. Bharadwaj, S. and Menon, A. (2000) “Making innovation happen in organizations: individual creativity mechanisms, organizational creativity mechanisms”, J Prod Innov Manag, 17, pp.424-434. Byrne, B. (2001) Structural equation modeling with AMOS: basic concepts, applications and programming. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Chen, S.C., Wu, M.C. and Che, C.H. (2010) “Employee‟s personality traits, work motivation and innovative behavior in marine tourism industry”, Journal of Service Science & Management, 3(2), pp.198205. Coveney, B. (2008) “Assessing the organisational climate for creativity in a UK public library service: a case study”, Library and Information Research, 32(102), pp.38-56.

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BIOMETRIC TECHNOLOGIES IN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: THE CASE OF HOTELS 1

Ahmad Rasmi AlBattat1 and Ahmad Puad Mat Som2 School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia 2 Sustainable Tourism Research Cluster, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia battat_ahmed@yahoo.com Abstract

The hospitality industry is susceptible to emergencies and disasters and must be managed in order to mitigate potential impacts. This paper explores biometric technology and their potential usage in the hospitality industry. This paper reviews the viable biometric technologies and further with a discussion of their applications in the hospitality industry to enhance security and increase operational efficiency. Tracking employees and hotel guests may bolster emergency management response time by locating individuals, ensuring secure areas, and aiding individuals in evacuation procedures. In this study, various scenarios in which biometrics can be used are explored. The paper concludes with a discussion on the urgent need for biometric technologies to be installed the hospitality industry to reduce errors and eliminate potential terrorist activities. Keywords: Hotel, Biometric Technology, Emergency Management, Mitigation, Planning INTRODUCTION Hotel emergencies and safety procedures have become a highly topical issue, especially in the aftermath of several disasters affected hospitality industry in recent decades. Biometric technologies gained high acceptance and recognition through Hollywood blockbuster films, and then the increase of security threats gave this technology widely potential acceptance in science and other research scholars. Meyersa and Millsb (2007) asserted that the service industry could be enhanced by using biometric technologies to improve safety. Installing biometrics in the service industry can reduce the cost, likelihood of guest theft, terrorist activities, and improve operational efficiency and security. Biometric technologies may utilize the safety measurements to identify and verify the human`s identity (Find Biometrics, 2007). The rapidly expanding industry of biometrics changes security from physical access, such as door locks, to security formats such as computer passwords and manual screenings to prevent terrorists and criminals access. Several types of biometrics are now available and many could be used in the service industry, such as in hotels and aviations. The Economist (2003) mentioned seven biometric technologies in the market that could be used in the service industry (See Figure1). Reports also mentioned that biometrics has experienced exponential growth since September 11th, 2001 until 2007 (See Figure2).

Figure 1: Biometric Market Share Percentage. Source: (Economist, 2003)

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Figure 2: Biometric Booming 2002-2007. Source: (Economist, 2003) Many companies use biometric technology in addition to standard password systems as a layer of additional identity verification. Some biometrics systems are expensive and sacrifice some measure of personal privacy. To verify personal face, finger, or iris, hotels must have personal data in files in the verification systems which can be stolen or made public. But biometric technologies are becoming increasingly popular both as a standalone security system or added security. This study explores four biometric technologies: face recognition, fingerprint recognition, hand geometry, and iris scan. An overview of these four technologies and potential usage in the hotel industry will be discussed. EMERGENCY, DISASTER IN HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM In the last few decades, the tourism industry globally, particularly Southeast Asia, has been subjected to several disasters and emergencies that have caused problems with arrivals and revenue, loss of lives, and multiple challenges to the governments, public and private sectors (Prideaux, 2004). Emergency situations have been categorized into natural and man-made disasters. Richardson (1993) asserted that man-made disasters are known as socio-technical disasters and have four types: technical disasters, transport failure, stadia failure, and productivity failure. Since 1970s, scholars from a variety of areas adopted different approaches, statistical data, and case studies to determine best practices and management styles when dealing with emergencies (Faulkner, 2001). Specific research was conducted in the tourism industry, including aviation (Henderson, 2008), political unrest (Lehrman, 1986), terrorist activities in particular destinations such as Northern Ireland (Witt & Moore, 1992) and Egypt (Aziz, 1995). The Asian financial crisis (Prideaux, 1999) and the event of September 11 generated further studies in all research fields (Pizam, 2002). The range of topics confirms that the tourism industry faces great vulnerability to disasters and emergencies (Santana, 2004). In their book, Faulkner et al. (1998) conclude that tourism is marked by dynamic chaos and turbulence, extracting Faulkner and Russell (1997) who apply the chaos and complexity theories in tourism. They argue that the dynamism of tourism requires a new paradigm which can accommodate constant change. Change is evinced in natural and man-made disasters that influence the tourism industry, alongside shifts in demands and product innovation in supply. The matter which leads emphasize the importance of emergency management and preparedness, and devices used to mitigate the effect of any hazard event (Henderson, 2003). This led the researchers to search for why, since two decades hotels have not used biometric technology when dealing with guests. Experts argue that it is impossible to use when book the rooms from the websites. However, it could be used in the hotels and resorts, especially when the guest arrived and check-in procedures. BIOMETRIC TECHNOLOGIES: THE CURRENT USAGE IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Facial Recognition: Facial Recognition is accomplished using cameras to capture a personâ&#x20AC;&#x;s image and compare it with a stored template. Templates are data used to represent the measurements and compare subsequent images (National Information Assurance Partnership, 2003). By using these template systems that include the top of the lip, the bottom of the nose, and the distance between the eyes. This method used commercially since 1990â&#x20AC;&#x;s and gained more attention after September 11 terrorist attacks (National Center for State Courts, 2003). In hospitality Spangler (2004) mentioned that facial recognition was used by the Borgata

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Hotel Casino in the United Stated to identify card cheaters and unwanted guests, they used more than 2,000 cameras to compare images of guests with over 1,500 databases (See Figure 3).

Figure 3: Facial Recognition System Software. Source: (Kroeker, 2002). Fingerprint Recognition: The fingerprint is the most commonly known biometric (Jarvis, n.d.). Fingerprint recognition gained popularity based on the assumption that fingerprints are unique, static, and easy to use. The propagation of fingerprint recognition helped in solving and providing evidence for criminal cases around the world. The Biometric Institute (n.d.) defined it as â&#x20AC;&#x153;the use of the ridges and valleys found on the surface tips of a human finger to identify an individual.â&#x20AC;? By placing a finger on a scanning device, that acquires an image of the fingerprint, it is then stored for future use. The Waldrof Towers hotel in New York City installed a fingerprint recognition system for in-room safes in November 2003 from Elsafe, the global market leader in inroom security. Hospitality Upgrade (2003) explained the goal of the installation by providing additional guest security and loss prevention efforts. By placing the finger on the scanner A LED light would flash to indicate successful enrolment and the safe can then be used (ElSafe, n.d.) (See Figure 4).

Figure 4: Finger Print Scanner System. Source: (Kroeker, 2002) Hand & Two-Finger Geometry: Hand & Two-Finger Geometry is used primarily to verify utilizing measurements such as, three dimensional size, shape, and angles in conjunction with a pin number for a one-toone match. This geometry is unique in that the person presents his pin number or data card with squeezing the pins (See Figure 5). Since 1995, Disney World theme parks, in Orlando, FL, United States utilized this solution (Davis, 1997) in order to increase the security of annual membership passes for individuals over the age of 10 (Levin, 2001). So, the need arises to use a durable, reliable, and quick solution like finger geometry system. Wayman (2000) claimed that since the implementation, Disney has had over 20 million transactions. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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Figure 5: Hand & Two Finger Geometry Measurements. Source: (Ross et al., n.d.). Iris Recognition: The National Center for State Courts (N.D.) theorized in the 1930‟s that iris patterns were unique and defined it as recognition use feature patterns of the iris for recognition. By capturing an image of the iris, that image is processed that image using the system which takes a hundred of points of the iris and compares it to the database for identification. The system is very easy to use; it involves looking into the camera for a few seconds while the system captures the iris. The iris recognition system did not require any additional identification cards. The system is reliable and fast enough to do one-to-many match with a high probability, it can ever detect coloured contacts, eye surgery, and monitors pupil movement to enhance security. A summary of the pros and cons of the discussed biometrics is presented in (See table 1). Table 1: Summary of biometric Technologies Biometric Face Recognition

Finger Print

Hand Geometry

Iris

Pros  Can be used covertly  Easy to use  Dual Purpose – can be used as a security camera  Easy, Fast, Reliable, & well known  One-to-many Matching  Long life span  Suitable for many environments  Minimal privacy concerns  Fast & Reliable  Hard to produce  Easy, Fast, & Reliable  One-to-Many matching  Multi-purpose  Longest life spam

Cons  Environmental conditions can greatly affect matching  Personal features can result in high failure rates  Degradation of fingerprint: elderly, manual labor, drying of hand, cut  Requires physical interaction  Not suitable for all environments  Not static  Awkward & Obtrusive  One to One matching  Environment attributes may cause the camera to not acquire the image

Source: (Meyersa & Millsb, 2007) DISCUSSION Theories of disaster management assume that events move through several stages of actions until they reach the final disaster. Turner (1976) identified seven stages and Fink (1986) four. These stages can be summarized into three broad stages of pre-disaster, disaster, and post-disaster. Faulkner (2001) presented a tourism disaster management framework, presenting elements related to pre-event, prodormal, emergency, intermediate, long term/recovery and resolution stages. The conceptualization would be appropriate to hospitality studies after some modifications to the process proposed by Henderson (2003) mentioned in the (See figure 6). A pre-event stage, when hotels can implement preventive measures to ensure maximum safety and security, should be the ongoing standard practices in the hospitality industry. Biometric technologies can increase emergency preparedness and security, and reduce the chance terrorists have of using false names and stolen passports to check-in the hotels and pursue their terrorist activities. Guests have to spend some time in the reception area to complete the check-in procedures and sign some forms. This is enough time to check all guests using biometric technologies. Hotels may use face recognition, fingerprints and iris recognition to identify the passport holder who wants to check-in, which give more accurate, reliable, and perform one-to-many matches. Governments should use these biometric technologies when issuing passports and uploading them onto the Interpol network, and in connecting it with all related organizations, hotel companies and airports. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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Figure 6: Stages in Hotel disaster management. Adopted from (Henderson, 2003) Cassedy (1991) clarified that tourism and hospitality organizations have been already displayed their plans and prepared themselves for disasters and emergencies; while, aviation‟s must plan for emergencies and install necessary technologies to secure passengers and crew (IATA, 1998). Experts in disaster management, stress the necessity of establishing a task force to recognize potential terrorist zones, devise preventive measures, and formule coping policies when dealing with disasters. Biometric technology may be the wave of future security to hospitality and tourism companies. Furthermore, biometric technologies and its usage may exceed the experts‟ imagination. Considering all scenarios, as a guest in a hotel or resort upon arrival you check-in by providing you essential information and placing your finger on a scanner that capture your fingerprint while a camera captures your facial image and iris pattern. The hotel employee informs you that the only key you required to use in the room and hotel facilities is your finger and iris. After check-in, guest may proceed to the elevator using his finger to access the floor where his room located. The room door is equipped with iris scanner that captures his iris and identifies that he is the same user for the room the matter will allow him to open the door. After viewing the room, guest may decide to park his rented car by placing his finger on the scanner to open the parking gate which allows him to park his car without the need for a paper ticket. After having some rest guest decide to use the business centre to check his mails, he can simply access the computer using his registered fingerprint. In the evening, guest may decide to use the gym facilities and have access by his iris. On the way back to his room, guest may but soft drink from vending machine using his iris. The application of biometrics in the hotel and tourism is indeed viable. Biometric technologies have the potential opportunity to enhance safety and security and increase efficiency. With regards to fingerprint, face recognition, and iris recognition, may provide a good opportunity to assist local and federal agencies to prevent crime and terrorism (Chin, 2003). For example, the federal government related agencies may send biometric data of terrorists to the hotel and tourism agencies to add to database that will „red flag‟ the terrorist if they attempt to check-in to the hotel or resort. In addition, loge created by biometric recognition systems will help assist with tracking and reducing theft by employees and guests as well as misusage of a hotel property (Tinari, 2003). The tracking of guests and employees may help emergency management response time by locating individuals on the premises and ensuring areas are secured and clear. For instance, in the case of fire emergency it will be easier to locate individuals aiding in evacuation procedures. Biometric technologies may improve information technology security while reducing IT costs. Biometric technologies may reduce cyber-crimes using hotel computers, by having unique guest accounts rather than anonymous access. Furthermore, the employees and guest biometrics would become the password, eliminating the need for changing passwords. This may improve operational efficiency and increase security. Housekeeping may be more efficient by knowing the guest entry and exit real time, and then show the vacant rooms by using portable devices to update the room status. Record keeping of employees can be tied into the biometric system to eliminate redundant systems, increasing the security and reliability of employee time cards. Biometric technologies may improve competitive advantage by offering distinguishable services, thereby increasing guest loyalty and satisfaction as well as attracting new guests. CONCLUSION Hotel emergencies and safety procedures have become a highly topical issue in recent years, biometric technologies gained high acceptance and consideration with the growth of security threats spread to technology, science, and other research scholars. Several types of biometrics are now available in the market and many could be used in the service industry such as hotels and resorts. Man-made disasters affected the hotel industry

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known as socio-technical disasters that can occur in four types: technical disasters, transport failure, stadia failure, and productivity failure. As mentioned by many scholars, disaster management can be categorized into three major stages; pre-disaster, during-disaster, and post-disaster. Hotels may implement preventive measures to ensure maximum safety and security. Biometric technologies may used as the ongoing standard practices in the hospitality industry to increase the preparedness and security, reducing the chance of terrorists using fake passports to check-in and pursue their terrorist activities. Governments may use biometrics when issuing passports and upload it on the Interpol network, and then connect it with all related organizations, hotels, tourism companies and airlines. Further research needs to be conducted on the impact of biometrics in hotel and tourism industry. Hospitality organizations may have a logical approach for implementing biometric technologies to improve service quality, customer relation, and employee efficiency. Further, hospitality organizations should be aware of guestâ&#x20AC;&#x;s privacy, attitude towards, and trust factors that may surround the use of biometric technologies. Privacy may be an obstacle for organizations to overcome, particularly since this technology is not widely used in customer markets. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to extend their appreciation to the Universiti Sains Malaysia for the Research University Grant under the Sustainable Tourism Research Cluster (STRC) entitled 'Tourism Planning' [Grant No. 1001/PTS/8660013], and for USM fellowship Scheme which made this study possible. REFERENCES 1. 2. 3.

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18. Kroeker, K. L. (2002). Graphics and security: Exploring visual biometrics. Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE, 22(4), 16-21. Lehrman, C. K. (1986). When fact and fantasy collide Crisis management in the travel industry. Public Relations Journal, 42 (4), 25-28. Levin, G. (2001). Real World, Most Demanding Biometric System Usage. Paper presented at the Biometric Consortium. Meyersa, M., & Millsb, J. E. (2007). Are Biometric Technologies The Wave of the Future in Tourism and Hospitality? CERIAS Tech Report 2005-07. Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2086. National Center for State Courts. (2003). Biometric Facial Recognition. from: http://ctl.ncsc.dni.us/biomet%20web/bmfacial.html. access date: 27 March 2014. National Center for State Courts. (N.D.) Retrieved 28 March 2014, from http://ctl.ncsc.dni.us/biomet%20web/BMFacial.html, http://ctl.ncsc.dni.us/biomet%20web/BMIris.html National Information Assurance Partnership. (2003). U.S. Government Approved Protection Profile - U.S. Government Biometric Verification Mode Protection Profile for Medium Robustness Environments, Version 1.0. pp. 15. from: https://www.niap-ccevs.org/pp/PP_BVM_MR_v1.0/ access date: 27 March 2014. Pizam, A. (2002). Tourism and terrorism. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 21 1-3. Prideaux, B. (1999). Tourism perspectives of the Asian financial crisis: Lessons for the future. Current Issues in Tourism, 2(4), 279-293. Prideaux, B. (2004). The Need to Use Disaster Planning Frameworks to Respond to Major Tourism Disasters. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 15(4), 281-298. doi: 10.1300/J073v15n04_04 Richardson, B. (1993). Why we need to teach crisis management and to use case studies to do it. Management Learning, 24(2), 138-148. Ross, A., Jain, A., & Pankanti, S. (n.d.). Capturing Hand Geometry and Extracting Features. Retrieved from Retrived from: http://biometrics.ese.msu.edu/hand_proto.html Santana, G. (2004). Crisis Management and Tourism. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 15(4), 299321. doi: 10.1300/J073v15n04_05 Spangler, T. (Producer). (2004, 27 March 2014). Face Invaders. Tinari, M. (2003). Reducing Lawsuit Vulnerability of Your Hotel Parking Areas: Advise From a Legal Expert. Hotel/Casino/Resort Security September, 3-4. Turner, B. A. (1976). The organizational and interorganizational development of disasters. Administrative Science Quarterly, 378-397. Wayman, J. (2000), from Retrived from http://www.biomet.ch/aboutus.htm Witt, S. F., & Moore, S. A. (1992). Promoting tourism in the face of terrorism: the role of special events in Northern Ireland. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 4(3), 63-75.

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EXPLORING CRUISE PASSENGERS’ DEMOGRAPHICS, EXPERIENCE AND SATISFACTION WITH CRUISING THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN David Mc.A Baker, PhD. Associate Professor of Hospitality Management, Department of Business Administration Tennessee State University, Avon Williams Campus College of Business, Suite J-405 330 10th Avenue North Nashville, TN 37203-3401 dmbaker@tnstate.edu Abstract Each year millions of people vacation aboard cruise ships, some carrying thousands of passengers and crew members. These ships are small, floating cities that offer many options for food and entertainment and calling at various ports in the Caribbean. This study aims to explore cruise passengers experience and their satisfaction. Exploratory factor analysis was performed and revealed that the "environment factor" had the most influence on cruise passengers’ experience. Subsequently, a multiple regression was conducted to identify variables that affect passengers’ satisfaction; clean unpolluted environments and sun-sea-sand continue to be the top variables affecting tourists’ satisfaction in the Caribbean. Based on these findings recommendations are made to the cruise companies and Caribbean governments in order to have more effective marketing campaigns and to retain and/or attract cruise passengers through the offering of positive means in the cruise experience. Key words: Caribbean cruise, demographics, experience, satisfaction, cruise passengers INTRODUCTION The cruise industry is the fastest-growing category in the leisure travel market. Since 1980, the industry has experienced an average annual passenger growth rate of approximately 7.2% per annum. A record of just about 20 million passengers in the world cruised in 2011, with 11.6 million North American guests. Coupled with an annual occupancy percentage that exceeded 103% in 2011, this annual passenger growth for 2011 shows an industry where demand continues to surpass supply, even in trying economic environments. In 2011 alone, 12 new ships debuted from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) member lines, with guest capacities ranging from 162 to 3,652 passengers sailing the world‟s waters for the first time. According to the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA), the industry‟s growth is headlined by the Caribbean, which continues to rank as the dominant cruise destination, accounting for 39.8% of all itineraries in 2011, versus 41.3% in 2010, 37.02% in 2009, 37.25% in 2008, 41.02% in 2007 and 46.69% in 2006. Passenger numbers continue to remain consistent and high for the Caribbean, despite other rising cruise destinations. Carnival Cruise Lines is the largest cruise line in the world based on passengers carried (3.8 million in 2009), and is the flagship brand of Carnival Corporation & plc. A total of six new ships will be added this year 2013 with a gain in passenger capacity of 14,074 including the 3,600 passenger Royal Princess, the 4,010 passenger Norwegian Breakaway, 2,192-guest AIDAstella and 3,502 berth MSC Preziosa. Looking out further, 13 more new cruise ships will add 39,297 lower berths or 8.9% to passenger capacity by the end of 2015 and is expected to generate $3.2 billion more in annual revenue for the cruise industry. The worldwide cruise passenger market can be seen in Table 1. Despite the increasing research interest on cruising, there is rather limited research on cruise visitors‟ experience in Caribbean ports of call. To address past research negligence, this study attempts to provide a better understanding about cruise passengers experience and satisfaction. There are about 32 islands in the Caribbean that are populated. Many of them have developed their infrastructure and service sectors. The main cities where the cruise ports are located offer a wide range of tourist attractions, shopping, entertainment, restaurants and bars. The Caribbean also builds its distinctive image and identity on its sun, sea, sand. The history of the region dates back to the middle of the 15th century and its known for its rich cultural history. The region has a wide diversity of resources that are suitable for tourism, each at varying degrees of development or attractiveness. Tourism products in the cities range from cultural heritage attractions, urban visitor resources and recreational and health resources. In terms of its architecture, the Caribbean has retained a number of historic buildings and areas that represents its past, duty-free shopping, dining and entertainment in the Caribbean are also emerging to become a price competitive shopping www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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destination with international quality. The main cities have developed many shopping centers including new retail formats such as hypermarkets, duty-free shopping outlets and discount stores located at the cruise ports. Parks, recreational facilities and the rain forests have also been promoted to attract eco-tourists from the recreational and leisure segments. While the development of the cruise business signify an extremely successful business model, the cruise sector also faces several significant challenges, such as an exceptionally competitive commercial environment, concerns about over-capacity, concerns about the marine environments and the destinations ability to cater for new larger ships. Similarly, while destinations seek to embrace the industry's expansion, they also have to manage the often-diverse needs of communities at the same time as protecting the local environment and minimizing any costs associated with being a sustainable cruise destination (Lester & Weeden, 2004). Of further consideration here is the relationship between the number and size of vessels, with effective port planning and collaborative harbor expansion hugely important for managing cruise activity, especially in popular destinations (McCarthy, 2006). Moreover, the industry's continued investment in resort-style ships highlights the enclave nature of these leisure spaces (Wood, 2000), calling into question whether it is the ship or the destination that is important to passenger satisfaction. Indeed, while destinations are integral to the cruise concept and remain a prominent factor in consumer decisionmaking when selecting a cruise vacation (CLIA, 2008), it is argued by some that itineraries and ports of call are playing a reduced role in the overall consumer experience (Keynote, 2008). Table 1. Worldwide Cruise Passengers Market Year 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

North America 4,364,470 5,882,000 6,328,300 7,263,630 9,546,295 11,144,705 11,616,000

Europe 1,947,780 2,162,500 2,824,200 3,241,620 4,260,330 4,973,670 6,284,000

Rest of the World 901,750 605,500 1,307,500 1,500,750 1,972,375 2,302,625 2,160,000

Total Cruise Passengers 7,214,000 8,650,000 10,460,000 12,006,000 15,779,000 18,421,000 20,060,000

% Growth Worldwide 22.94% 19.91% 20.92% 14.78% 31.43% 16.74% 8.90%

Source: Cruise Line International Association, Florida Caribbean Cruise Association, Cruise Market Watch LITERATURE REVIEW: CRUISE PASSENGERS EXPERIENCE The typical Caribbean cruises make calls at different ports in the islands. All places and landscapes are individually experienced, as it is the individuals alone that see them through the lens of their attitudes, experiences, and intentions and from their unique circumstances (Lowenthal, 1961). Places are differentiated because they involve a concentration of intentions, attitudes, purposes and experience. Steele (1981) notes that experience of place can never really be described as simply a function of its physical attributes. According to Steele (1981), the types of place experience are; immediate feelings and thoughts, view of the world, occupational experience intimate knowledge of one spot, memories and fantasies, recognition or newness, personal identification with someone‟s “spot”, sense of accomplishment or blockage caused by the setting, sense of enjoyment, fun, or displeasure. Steele (1981) further elaborates that an individual describes a place through these elements: 1) Physical features, immediate surrounding with physical elements; physical features affect feelings as well as activities 2) Social features, individual‟s relationship with other people and social institutions; the social context helps to determine the impact of the physical setting 3) The degree to how people differentiate places, the links between place and activity, and the expectation of finding certain people in certain places indicate how a physical location becomes a „place‟ rather than simply a location (Canter,1977) Place in tourism holds a wide range of meaning as it does not only interact and relate to the locals of that particular place, but also experienced by visitors that come to the place. Relph (1976) argues that „an inauthentic attitude to place is nowhere more clearly expressed than in tourism, for in tourism, individual and authentic judgment about places is nearly always subsumed to expert or socially accepted opinion, or the act and means of tourism become more important that the places visited. He notes that it seems for many people, traveling is less to experience unique and different places than to collect those places, especially on film. This phenomenon is due the „mass culture‟ that is a result of designs that are formulated from above by manufacturers, governments, and professional designers guided and communicated through mass media. Hence, products and places that are the same or similar are created. Hall and Page (1999) also describe tourist experience as the result of the tourist ability to tolerate behavior of others, context and pattern of activities, motivation, expectation, perception, level of use and social situations. As described by Ryan (1995), the tourist experience is influenced by several different factors, which area: travelling experience, www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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destination attributes, the nature of attractions with individuals or certain groups, individual‟s responsive mechanism and personal factors. The character of place is part and parcel of the destination attributes. They are the elements, both tangible and intangible, that offer the experience to the tourist. The tourist‟s personal factors, on the other hand, influence their beliefs or become the basis of what is considered important to them, in any aspects. Therefore understanding the experience and behavior of cruise passengers as they undertake activities in urban destinations is foundational to understanding the ensuing impacts that occur and how key elements of the cruise experience can serve the visitors‟ needs and meet their expectations. Experience and behavior issues are also linked to economic and spatial considerations of the tourism industry through product delivery and the economic benefits realized from visitors. Similarly, visitor experience and behavior will influence governance and planning issues that guide infrastructure and management aspects at the Caribbean destinations. Designing places, whether it is for public or private uses, is about the interaction of places and people. In tourism, designing tourist attractions or destinations is ultimately about the interaction of places and tourists. It is a matter of harmonizing the needs of the developers with the demands of the users. Designing tourist attractions is not just about designing buildings, cruiseports and physical spaces, but what is also vital is the way the tangible elements of the attraction is designed that will shape the intangible visitor experience (Swarbrooke, 2002). Gunn (1994) suggests that travelers go to any destination because of its special qualities of place, as every destination possesses a varied set of geographical factors, traditions, relationship to markets and host characteristics. Numerous literatures have suggested the importance of place-making or creating a sense of place in building an identity for the attraction (Gunn, 1994; Canter, 1977; Bell, 1999; Potteiger et al., 1998). Currently, research that deals with landscape architecture and tourism is still at its infancy stage. In her study, Zakariya(2006) found that the primary factors that attract tourists to visit gardens are comfort and beauty of the gardens. Comfort and beauty include cleanliness, comfortable surroundings, ample facilities, nice scenery, architecture, landscape and aesthetic values. Additionally, in a study conducted by Asra (2005), only several landscape elements were found to be most important to the tourists. For example, provision of landscape elements such as gazebo, entrance, signage, jetty, lighting, walkway, rubbish bin, information board, map and design concept was considered one-dimension elements that must be present in order to satisfy the needs of the tourists. These studies have highlighted some of the important findings that share the common ground between the field of landscape architecture and tourism, where physical design meets tourist experience and satisfaction. It is all about creating a place for tourists that they can enjoy and experience, place making is the retention of the essence of the place while giving it new physical and psychological meaning (Gunn, 1994). In creating places for tourism, it is important to focus on the characteristics of the place that appeal to the tourists, as the environment created will influence the value of the experience gained by the tourists. Therefore, a high degree of tourist satisfaction is expected to be generated from a distinct and positive tourist experience. THE PORT OF CALL AND CRUISE PASSENGERS’ EXPERIENCE Vacation cruises are defined as “the transportation of pleasure-seeking travelers on ocean voyages offering one or more glamorous ports of call (Kendall, 1986). These ports of call are destinations serving multiple functions that consist the primary reasons for travellers to choose specific cruises. According to Henthorne (2000) cruise lines select particular ports providing their customers with positive in port experiences and “are willing to change itineraries and drop specific ports of call if an inordinate number of customers experience dissatisfaction (p.247).” Thus, as dissatisfactory aspects decrease the probability of a cruise to be perceived as enjoyable by passengers increases, this in turn will affect future return intentions (Duman and Mattila, 2005). In the words of Gabe, Lynch, and McConnon (2006): “cruise vacations typically expose passengers to multiple ports, and characteristics of the travellers and their experience in a given port may influence the likelihood of a return visit (p. 282).” Typically, cruise passengers derive benefits from participating in activities while on a port of call, mainly because activities provide novelty or change to daily routine, relief from stress and the possibility to escape from personal problems and/or difficulties (Andriotis, Agiomirgianakis, and Mihiotis, 2007). In other words, activities provide travelers with opportunities for certain physical, mental, and psychological rewards (Ross and Iso-Ahola, 1991), and therefore play a vital role on tourists‟ overall satisfaction (Euthimiadou, 2001). Along with the economic effects associated with cruise passengers and crew member expenditures, the ports of call provide the cruise passengers with a very important part of the entire cruise experience and satisfaction. CAPTURING EXPERIENCES Tourists take photographs of their experiences for a number of reasons. Images convey the experience of the person who captured it because the image provides a record of how they saw and interpreted the world, the people and www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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places in it and the meanings and associations that their experience conjured up (Markwell 2000). Photography is often used as proof that the experience was had (Markwell 1997). That is, it is a way in which a person can communicate an experience they have had in a particular place and time to an audience in another place and time (Crang 1997). The image becomes a keepsake and memory of the experience; it ties the images to the real world as proof to second and third parties or to the traveler themselves (Crang 1997; Van Dijck 2008). In doing so the photograph forms part of their process of communication and identity formation (Van Dijck 2008). While recording or collecting experience is one dimension of photography, Sontag (1978) also points to the more phenomenological nature of the tourists‟ photographic experience. Photography records also shape the cruise experience. Seeking opportunities for the „shot‟ changes the nature of the encounter, a change from the visual, aural and visceral toward a more technically mediated encounter. Sontag (1978) further suggests that doing something, a type of working at experience, also „appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun‟ (p. 10). The purpose of analyzing tourist images is to try and understand the types of experiences that tourists have for as Sontag (1978, p. 3) notes „photographs really are experience captured‟. This idea draws from the notion of the „circle of representation‟ (Jenkins 2003). According to Jenkins, the idea of visual images circulating within a culture and becoming imbued with particular meanings is an important part of the experience, associations and values are not new and although it is referenced in different terms, it is common across a number of disciplines. At the centre of this circle are the images projected through advertising such as an image of the Old San Juan Fortress in Puerto Rico, Dunns River Falls Ocho Rios in Jamaica, Harrison's Caves in Barbados, Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park in St.Kitts and Bath Springs in Nevis. When people visit the destination in which they have previously seen the advertised image they are likely to capture their own image of that attraction, through the medium of photography. Knowledge gained from understanding the importance of, and meanings given to, the images people capture can inform marketing campaigns that suit the types of experiences marketers know people will enjoy and want to take home with them. However, the meaning intended by the photographer and the meaning the observer derives from the image may be different. Clearly the observer can only interpret „implied meaning‟ from an image. This implied meaning is both personally and culturally determined from the experience. FACTORS AFFECTING THE CRUISE EXPERIENCE There are many factors that affect the cruise passenger experience, more specifically the food and beverage on the ship and at the destinations; entertainment, customer service, tours, itinerary and shopping are some of the strong predictors of the cruise experience and the subsequent overall satisfaction. According to the literature, lowexperience individuals, who are focused on developing social and interpersonal relationships, are particularly attentive to interactions with other individuals in order to understand role demands and expectations (Rapp, Ahearne, Mathieu, & Schillewaert, 2006). In addition, because customers interact with other customers in a relatively tightly coupled manner, they contribute more cooperative and collaborative efforts and receive more social rewards (Seers et al., 1995). However, as customers gain experience, they are better able to evaluate the different service offerings given by the organization (Bell, Auh, & Smalley, 2005). In other words, high-experience customers will be able to assess and evaluate beneath the layers of the organizational offerings. Therefore, they tend to refocus their attention from social concerns to organizational issues such as service quality, loyalty programs, value for money and economic benefits. For these reasons, it is expected that customer experience will affect the relative importance of the social exchange relationship in influencing the cruise experience and satisfaction. The highly subjective and individualistic nature of the tourist experience is gaining appreciation in recent years. It was recognized that tourism experience was not something that could be “stage-managed” by the service provider (Morgan 2007), but rather that tourists aided in the production of their own experiences through their personal characteristics, social identity, and the agendas they brought with them to the tourist encounters (McIntosh and Siggs 2005). This means that service providers could not sell a pre-orchestrated experience to the customers. What they can do is set the stage for tourists to create their own experiences (Morgan 2007). This implies that the tourist experience is influenced by a wider range of factors in addition to those under the direct control of the service providers (Baker and Crompton 2000; Cole, Crompton, and Willson 2002). These include the social-psychological state that a tourist brings to a site (e.g., mood, disposition, and needs), extraneous events (e.g., climate and social group interactions), and program or site attributes. Although an exhaustive list of these factors may be impossible, social interaction between unacquainted fellow tourists on a cruise ship could be one factor that deserves further exploration. This echoes the marketing literature on customer compatibility management (CCM) and observable oral participation (OOP), which recognizes the impact of unacquainted customers on customer experience and satisfaction. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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Cruise passengers experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the tourism company and its services, transportation, the airport and sea ports and the climate to name a few. Interactions refer to multiple channels, touch points, etc. A good cruise experience can assure the following advantages to the cruise company: increased sales, increased tourist satisfaction, product/service differentiation, valuable competitive advantage, improved brand perception, increased market share. Tourists will choose from the multitude of deals present on the tourism market. The cruise purchased will be the one that maximizes the value in relation with the costs involved in searching the products, coupled with the limited mobility, knowledge and income they possess. As a consequence, customers will appreciate whether the deal reaches the expected value level, which will influence the satisfaction and the probability to buy in the future. The two most important things for delivering the best tourist experience are: a great product that emotionally connects with the tourists and fulfills a basic need or desire; and a deep understanding of the traveler not just demographics but also psychographics, an understanding that allows the firm to anticipate what they need better and sooner than they know themselves. METHODOLOGY Questionnaire design Given the scarcity of data on most aspects of cruise visitors‟ experience in the Caribbean this current study was conducted. Following discussion with travel agents on issues related to cruisers experiences, hospitality and tourism professors, a review of past studies, such as Duman and Mattila (2005) and Qu, Wong & Ping (1999), Andriotis and Agiomirgianakis (2010), a self-completed questionnaire was designed. The cover letter provided information about the general purpose of the study, detailed instructions for administering the questionnaires, the data collection procedure and a request to fully complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised of three sections and was pilot tested (n=50) with cruise passengers a year earlier, their comments were used to revise and clarify the statements in the survey, the final version was then edited. The first section contained questions about respondents‟ profile utilizing socio-demographic variables (age, gender, marital status, education, income, employment status and geographic origin), travelling party and major source of information used to book the cruise. The second section asked respondents to indicate their level of satisfaction, while the third section dealt with attributes which affect the cruise experience, a 5-point Likert type scale, ranging from “5=extremely satisfied” to “1=very dissatisfied” was used to assess respondents agreement with a set of statements. The population of this study consisted of cruise passengers who were aboard the cruise ship Carnival Imagination on a 4 nights cruise to the Western Caribbean from the port of Miami stopping in the Florida Keys and Cozumel Mexico in October 2009. The ship was full to capacity with about 2052 cruise passengers and 920 crew members. It is very difficult to gather information about cruise passengers therefore this sample of passengers does not represent a probability sample but was a convenient sample of 218 participants. This represents approximately 10.6% of the 2,052 passengers on board the ship during this particular cruise. In more detail, the researcher and fifteen students from a tourism class undertook the four nights excursion on this cruise ship. The students were trained in class on how to solicit participation from cruise passengers. The reason for this was to observe activities and behaviours of passengers on board and at the destinations and to enable the researcher and students to experience directly the ways in which passengers were experiencing the cruise. In an attempt to understand the influences on cruise passengers experience and the relationships with cruisers‟ satisfaction this study was conducted aboard a ship cruising the Western Caribbean. A number of statistical procedures were carried out for this paper using the statistical package SPSS version 19 and Microsoft Excel 2010 from Microsoft Corporation for statistical analysis. First, descriptive statistics (frequency distributions, percentages, standard deviations and means) were calculated where appropriate. Second, an exploratory factor analysis was used to discover simple patterns in the pattern of relationships among the variables. The factor analysis results attempts to discover the unexplained factors that influence the cruise experience. Third, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify the extent to which different quality variables affect cruise passengers satisfaction. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The results of this study are consistent with recent trends. The demographic and travel characteristic profile of respondents are presented in Tables 2. The typical cruise passenger used to be older, wealthy and predominantly North American.

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Table 2. Demographic profile of Cruise Passengers (N=218) Country of current residence (N=218) USA Canada Australia Europe Other Age 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75 and older Gender Missing Male Female Education High School College BS Degree MS Degree PhD Degree Other Household Income Missing <$50,000 $50,000-$79,000 $80,000-$120,000 $120,000+ Major Source of Information Cruise company brochure Cruise company website Travel Agent Other travel websites Friends/relatives Advertising: TV, Newspaper, Magazines Other sources Cruise booking method By phone with Cruise Company Cruise company website Travel Agent Other travel websites Other method Have you been on a cruise prior to this voyage? Yes No Missing What type of shore excursions did you participate in? Island Tour Rainforest Tour Beach City tour Other Missing Would you recommend a Caribbean cruise to someone? Yes No Missing

Frequency(N) 168 22 9 10 9

Percent(%) 77.1 10.1 4.1 4.6 4.1

38 51 45 44 20 16 4

17.4 23.4 20.7 20.2 9.2 7.3 1.8

9 98 111

4.1 45.0 50.9

25 68 76 39 8 2

11.5 31.2 34.9 17.9 3.6 0.9

28 70 65 46 9

12.8 32.1 29.8 21.1 4.1

10 49 43 24 71 20 1

4.6 22.5 19.7 11.0 32.6 9.2 0.4

52 66 50 48 2

23.9 30.3 22.9 22.0 0.9

138 73 7

63.3 33.5 3.2

38 18 96 23 38 5

17.4 8.3 44.0 10.6 17.4 2.3

205 9 4

94.1 4.1 1.8

Today, the cruise market caters for all types of needs, ages and purchasing abilities. Cruising has become more of a leisure product than a transportation mode. The stereotype of a cruise passenger has been changed to a highly www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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segmented market. In our study, 41% (89) of the respondents were age 34 or younger, 21% (45) at age 35-44, 20% (44) at age 45-54 and 16% (36) 55years and older. Moscardo at el. (1996) showed that cruising had a clear marketing advantage with its all-inclusive product which minimized any inconvenience for customers to almost zero. He further stated that the product was seen by passengers as highly beneficial. The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) 2011 market profile study indicated that of the current total US population of about 304,130,000 people, not quite half 44% (132,947,000) were prime cruise candidates of age 25years and older with annual household incomes of $40,000 and higher. In our study, see Table 2., 32% (70) of the respondents had annual incomes of $50,000 or less while about 55% (120) had incomes of more than $50,000 annually. In the CLIA 2011 study, of the target population, 55% (73,121,000) of the people did take a cruise before, and somewhat fewer than half of those (32,838,000) did so within the past three years with 60% repeat cruisers. In our study this was the first cruise experience for about 34% (73) of the respondents, while almost 63% (138) indicated they had previously been on a cruise. Respondents major sources of information used to book the cruise were the cruise company web site 23% (49) and talking to friends and relatives 33% (71). However when the time came to actually book the cruise, respondents prefer to use the cruise line company either by telephone or the cruise line web site, 54% (108), using travel agents for booking accounted for 23% (50) while others prefer other travel web sites like Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, Kayak etc., 22% (48). The two main types of shore excursions for those passengers who left the ship were going to the beach and taking an Island tour. The CLIA study indicated that a majority of cruisers still book at least some of their cruises with travel agents, although that proportion declines to 68% in 2011 from 74% in 2008. Some portion of the decline is attributed to consumer confusion regarding online resources used and travel agents. With continued travel agency adoption of online resources, some customers attribute an online planning/booking when in fact that online resource is sourced to a travel agency. Overall, 45% of travelers most frequently name the Caribbean as their cruise destination of choice. In order to obtain the evaluation on the cruise experience from the cruise passengers, it was necessary to employ the factor analysis to summarize the perception items specifically, see Table 3. Before the factor analysis, 11 items regarding their impact on the experience were tested by the KMO and Bartlettâ&#x20AC;&#x;s test of sphericity to check their reliability. The result showed that the value of approx. Chi-Square was 1811.622 and P-value was 0.000, which was smaller than 0.001, which is to say, the data could be adopted for the factor analysis. The value of KMO was 0.927, indicating the factors were correlated significantly. This study adopted the exploratory factor analysis, the initial factors were then rotated using varimax rotation to explore the dimensionality in the data set. Finally the three factors explained 88.056 percent of cumulative variance and the reliability alpha were 0.891, 0.863 and 0.840, higher than the 0.5 (Nunnally, 1987), indicating the study results were highly reliable. The first factor "the environment" had strong comprehensiveness and with an Eigen-value of 7.003, it was the only factor with an Eigen-value bigger or equal with 1. Not surprisingly, the "Caribbean relaxing destinations" was evaluated highest on this factor (M=3.84, SD=1.10). Cruise passengers felt that the Caribbean had the best beaches in the world (M=3.25, SD=1.22); good safety and security (M=3.60, SD=1.08) and clean and unpolluted environments (M=3.67, SD=1.12) were the other impact items within the first factor. This indicating that cruise passengers had the highest expectation on this aspect of the cruise experience and from the results, factor 1 strongly influenced this experience, see Table 3. To satisfy this customer category, island destinations should consider additional resources to maintain or improve the "environmental" variables. In this regard, Caribbean destinations need to ensure that the islands reflect this market positioning opportunity well. They should place more emphasis on environmental cues when designing advertising and promotional activities thus using this success in their marketing campaigns. A regression analysis was conducted on the key 11 determinants of satisfaction of the cruise experience to determine their relative importance in contributing to level of satisfaction of cruise passengers. In this study, overall satisfaction level is used as the dependent variable, which allows us to explain the relationship between the dependent (satisfaction level) and the independent variables (the 11 determinant variables). Dependent variable was a Likert-type item with 5 response choices; there were eleven Likert-type independent variables also with 5 response choices each included in the analysis.

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Table 3. Exploratory Factor Analysis on the Influences of the cruise experience (N=218) Impact variables F1 The Environment Relaxing destination Best beaches in the world Good sense of safety & security Clean unpolluted environments F2 Exploration Adventure & excitement Natural landscape & scenery Unique history & culture F3 Food and Beverage Great food on the ship Great food on the islands Great beverage on the ship Great beverage on the islands

Factor loading

Eigen-value 7.003

Variance % 82.324

0.876 0.739 0.783 0.783 0.742

Mean

3.84 3.25 3.60 3.67

1.10 1.22 1.08 1.12

3.69 3.72 3.57

1.09 1.06 1.30

3.48 3.57 3.67 3.66

1.30 1.23 1.26 1.20

3.502

0.787 0.807 0.753 0.705

2.23

0.778 0.835 0.83 0.798

Table 4. lists those 11 items and the resulting statistical significance associated with each. As can be seen in Table 4, five of these items were statistically significantly related (at p< .05) to cruisers‟ satisfaction associated with the cruise experience: “The Caribbean - best beaches in the world”; “Clean unpolluted environments”; “The availability of great food on the islands”; “The availability of great beverages on the cruise ship” and “The availability of great beverages on the islands.” Together, these variables explained roughly 18% of the variability in respondents‟ satisfaction of the cruise experience. The multiple correlation coefficient is 0.425, this indicates that the correlation among the 11 items independent variables and the dependent variable (satisfaction) is positive. Qu et al. (1999) indicated that the major travel motivation factors of cruise ships were escape from normal life, social gathering, and beautiful environment and scenery; moreover, tourists report a high satisfaction level with food, beverages, facilities, quality, and staff performance on board cruise ships. The results of this regression are consistent with Qu et al. (1999) findings. From the tourists‟ point of view, the main reasons to purchase this kind of trip are entertainment and trying out the cruise experience. It is clear that satisfaction of the cruise experience involve quality variables on the cruise ship as well as the island destinations themselves. Table 4. Regression Analysis on Satisfaction of the Cruise Experience

Independent variables

Regression Coefficients

Std. Error

Intercept

2.839

0.226

Relaxing destinations

0.037

0.095

Best beaches in the world

0.174

Good sense of safety & security

t-value 12.555

P-value 0

0.065

0.385 2.696

0.7 .008*

-0.014

0.078

-0.18

0.858

Clean unpolluted environments

0.127

0.077

1.644

.102*

Adventure & excitement

0.042

0.08

0.527

0.599

Natural landscape & scenery

0.042

0.086

0.482

0.631

-0.036

0.076

-0.477

0.634

0.042 -0.101

0.062 0.08

660 -1.269

0.51 .206*

0.116

0.079

1.47

.143*

0.11

0.083

1.47

.143*

Unique history & culture Great food on the ship Great food on the islands Great beverage on the ship Great beverage on the islands Multiple R-squared: 0.18

*Variables statistically significant

F statistic: 4.121 with 11 and 207 degrees of freedom; the p value is 0.00 www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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CONCLUSION Today, the cruise market caters for all types of needs, ages and purchasing abilities. Cruising has become more of a leisure product than a transportation mode. The stereotype of a cruise passenger has been changed to a highly segmented market. The results of this study can be very useful to cruise lines companies as well as other stakeholders such as the Caribbean Islands governments tourism units and destinations management companies. Tourists who travel on these cruise ships to this region can now be classified into at least three main market segments; baby boomers born 1946-1964, generation X born 1965-1980 and generation Y born 1981 and after. There are differences in beliefs about food, dress, motivation, lifestyles and loyalty to name a few, however, all these market segments are present on the cruise ship at the same time. The cruise companies and the destinations must meet or exceed these different market segments needs, wants and desires. The Caribbean model of the sun, sea, sand persists because the beach is one of the main activities in which tourists intend to engage. An exploratory factor analysis discovered the unexplained factors that influence the co-variation among multiple observations. These factors represent underlying concepts that cannot be adequately measured by a single variable. The results of the analysis revealed that the factor "the environment" had strong comprehensiveness and strongly influenced the cruise experience. Further, a regression model was used to examine the relative importance of each of the eleven determinant variables and ascertain the satisfaction levels of cruise passengers. Sun, sea and sand - the best beaches in the world and clean unpolluted environments were the most influential variables on cruise passengers‟ satisfaction. Success in the cruise business depends on understanding the major influences on the cruise experience along with the key variables that determine customer satisfaction, ensuring that the business meets or exceeds customers‟expectations. Real positive customer experience comes from tourism companies that show they care about the customer. Companies that have a memory (so travelers don't have to tell their story repeatedly) and really provide ongoing value to a traveler understand that travelers are truly the most valuable entity of any business in the hospitality industry. Those companies treat their customers as not only their only source of revenue, but as a scarce, valuable resource. When companies work this way we are more likely to see really terrific tourists‟ experiences. The future cruise tourism industry will be an exciting global market of growth demanding leadership, partnership and professional management to handle: the fast development of technology, where all traveling starts on the Internet; destination development; customer orientation; leadership and management. Cruise companies and destination must understand that providing the tourists with a superior experience is the only sustainable advantage that the business may have in this highly competitive cruise industry. This paper brings to light factors which affect cruise marketing with respect to the cruise passengers experience and levels of satisfaction. However, the conclusions drawn should be analyzed with an awareness of the limitations faced. The results of this study need to be cautiously generalized because the sample is limited to one cruise ship; however, it is important for managers of cruise companies and island destinations to use this kind of information for marketing promotion to attract customers. Future research might explore samples from a number of cruise ships. REFERENCES 1.

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10. Cruise Lines International Association. (2008) Cruise market profile study. Cruise Lines International Association. Retrieved from http://www2.cruising.org/press/research/index.cfm 11. Cruise Lines International Association. (2011) Cruise market profile study. Cruise Lines International Association. Retrieved from http://www.cruising.org/sites/default/files/.../Market_Profile_2011.pdf 12. Cruise Market Watch: http://www.cruisemarketwatch.com 13. Duman,T., & Mattila, A. S. (2005). “The Role of Affective Factors on Perceived Cruise Vacation Value”. Tourism Management, 26, 311-323. 14. Euthimiadou, V. (2001). “The Relationship between Urban Visitors Motivation, Activities and Satisfaction with the City”. Paper presented in the: Growth in travel and tourism TTRA European Conference, 22-23 April, Kiruna, Sweden. 15. Florida Caribbean Cruise Association: http://www.f-cca.com 16. Gabe, T. M., Lynch, C. P., & McConnon, J. C. (2006). “Likelihood of Cruise Ship Passengers Return to a Visited Port: The Case of Bar Harbor, Maine.” Journal of Travel Research, 44, 281-287. 17. Gunn, C. (1994). Tourism Planning: Basics, Concepts, Cases (Third Edition). Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis. 18. Hall, C. M. & Page, S. J. (1999). The Geography of Tourism and Recreation:Environment, Place and Space. London: Taylor & Francis Group. 19. Henthorne, T. L. (2000). An Analysis of Expenditures by Cruise Ship Passengers in Jamaica”. Journal of Travel Research, 38, 246-250. 20. Jenkins, O. (2003). Photography and travel brochures: the circle of representation. Tourism Geographies 5(3), 305–328. 21. Kendall, L. (1986). The Business of Shipping. Cornell Maritime Press. Centreville. MD. 22. Keynote (2008). Cruise market. Key Note Limited. 23. Lester, J., & Weeden, C. (2004). Stakeholders, the natural environment and the future of Caribbean cruise tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research, 6, 39-50. 24. Lowenthal, L. (1961). “The Triumph of Mass Idols.” In Literature, Popular Culture, and Society. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books, 109-136. 25. Markwell, K. W. (1997). „Dimensions of Photography in a Nature Based Tour’, Annals of Tourism Research, 24(1), 131–155. 26. Markwell, K. W. (2000). „Photo-Documentation and Analyses as Research Strategies in Human Geography‟, Australian Geographical Studies, 38(1), 91–91. 27. McCarthy, J. (2006). The cruise industry and port city regeneration: The case of Valetta. European Planning Studies, 11(3), 341-352. 28. Mcintosh, A. J., & Siggs, A. (2005). “An Exploration of the Experiential Nature of Boutique Accommodation.” Journal of Travel Research, 44, 74-81. 29. Moscardo, G., Morrison, A., Cai, L., O‟Leary, J., & Nadkarni, N. (1996). Tourist Perspectives on Cruising: Multidimensional Scaling Analysis of Cruising and Holiday Types. Journal of Tourism Studies, 7(2), 54–64. 30. Morgan, M. (2007). “„We‟re Not the Barmy Army!‟ Reflections on the Sports Tourist Experience.” International Journal of Tourism Research, 9, 361-72.

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31. Nunnally, J. C. (1987). Psychometric Theory (2nd ed), New York: McGraw-Hall, 98. 32. Potteiger, M., & Purinton, J. (1998). Landscape Narratives: Design Practices for Telling Stories. New York & Chichester: John Wiley 33. Qu, H., Wong, E., & Ping, E. W. Y. (1999). “A Service Performance Model of Hong Kong Cruise Travelers‟ Motivation Factors and Satisfaction.” Tourism Management, 20, 237-244. 34. Relph, E. (1976). Place and Placelessness. London: Pion Limited. 35.

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36. Rapp, A., Ahearne, M., Mathieu, J., & Schillewaert, N. (2006). The impact of knowledge and empowerment on working smart and working hard: The moderating role of experience. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23(3), 279-293. 37. Ryan, C. (1995). Researching Tourist Satisfaction. London: Routledge. 38. Seers, A., Petty, M. M., & Cashman, J. F. (1995). Team-member exchange under team and traditional management. Group & Organization Studies, 20(1), 18-38. 39. Sontag, S. (1978). On Photography, Farrar Strauss and Giroux, New York. 40. Steele, F. (1981). The Sense of Place. Massachusetts: CBI Publishing Company, Inc. 41. Swarbrooke, J. (2002). The Development and Management of Visitor Attractions. Oxford: ButterworthHeinemann. 42. Van Dijck, J. (2008). „Digital Photography: communication, identity, memory‟, Visual Communication, 58–76. 43. Wood, R. E. (2000). Caribbean cruise tourism: Globalization at sea. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(2), 345370. 44. Zakariya, B. K. (2006). “Refining Tourist‟s Place Experience through Peacemaking: A Case Study on Middle East Tourists in Kuala Lumpur City Centre” Thesis: University of Technology Malaysia

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CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY IN LUXURY HOTELS IN PETRA AND AQABA, JORDAN AN EXPLORATORY STUDY Ala`a Nimer Abukhalifeh, Ahmad Puad Mat Som Ph. D Fellow & Researcher, Tourism Business and Marketing (Hotel Management) Institute of Postgraduate Studies (IPS), School of Housing, Building, and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang Island, Malaysia. dr.abukhalifeh@gmail.com Abstract The aim of the study is to assess customers perception of service quality in luxury hotels, in both, Petra (The iconic tourist attraction) and Aqaba (The commercial capital) on the Red Sea in Jordan and to help the hotel management identify how guest perceive the services and compare their performance against clients expectation. The study used a survey and interviews to accumulate information using SPSS version 20.0 for data analysis. The study sample consists of 271 participants of hotel guests at four- and five- star hotels in Petra and Aqaba. Findings results show that, for responses relating to front office, room service and in-house cafe´/restaurant, the importance score is statistically significant to and higher than the performance rating. Overall, the results indicate significant difference guest expectations and actual experiences, thus highlighting managerial implications. The current study cannot claim to be wholly conclusive as it is limited to a small sample size from only two cities of Jordan. From a practitioner’s perspective the study provides an opportunity to recognise, in ranking order, features that are considered important by the guests staying in luxury hotels of Petra and Aqaba as well as to identify the areas of disparity in service quality. It is observed that this is a significant study regards to its contribution to the literature and hotel managers who plan to improve their performance and competitiveness through guest satisfaction. Keywords: Hotel Service quality, Guest Satisfaction, Hotels, Jordan, Marketing. INTRODUCTION The Importance of Tourism To The Socio-Economic Development of Jordan: Jordan experienced a steady increase in tourism during the first decade of the 21st century. “Over eight million visitors in 2010 of which 4.55 million were overnight visitors, a 20.3% increase in overnight visitors on 2009. Tourism revenue reached more than 2.423 JD billion which contributed 12.4% to the national GDP. Direct employment reached 41,900 in 2010 and is estimated to support more than 150 thousand families (MOTA, 2011-2015, P.21) This increase in travel has impacted occupancy ratios and average room rates in Jordan. Several international hotel chains Kempinski, Marriott, and InterContinental Hotel Group etc. see this as an investment opportunity and have announced major investment plans in Jordan (JTS, 2011). The growth in international tourism generally and domestic tourism specifically have contributed in generating interest in Jordan. This interest has led to studying perceptions of people who use tourism and hotels facilities, particularly luxury hotels for the purpose of the current study. Based on participation and purpose of this study the term “luxury hotels” is used for five- and four-star hotels (Jordan Hotel Association, 2012) To develop a background and theoretical framework for the current study, a literature review relating to service quality in hotels was undertaken. The review shows that service quality in hotels continues to be an area of wider global research. Its strong significance is related to customer satisfaction and repeat business, which are determinants of profitability of business according to several studies. Service quality, customer perceptions of quality, service failures, and service competitiveness, have long been studied. However, for the current study reference is made to the literature of about the last 15 years. O’Neil et al., (1994) mentioned in their study that international demand for products and services no longer happens automatically but has to be created. In proposing that businesses typically lose 50% of their customers every five years, Mack et al., (2000) highlighted the need that businesses should talk to their customers, understand their expectations and make efforts to retain them and sustain profits. Links between service quality and business profits have long been apparent as indicated by (Baker & Crompton 2000; Zeithaml & Bitner 2000; Chu & Choi, 2000; Mohsin, 2003; Bates et al., 2003; Mohsin & Ryan, 2005; Han & Ryu, 2012; Ma et al., 2013). It is also recommended that irrespective of efforts positioned into producing quality service, it is the perceptions of customers that really matter (Getty & Getty, 2003). For this reason, there seems to be a need to study hotels’ customer perceptions (Wall & Berry, 2007). The current study makes such an effort and surveys luxury hotel customers in Petra and Aqaba. The survival of hotels in the current competitive environment where www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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most hotels have quite similar luxurious physical facilities much depends on delivery of service quality aiming to result in customer delight. Pallet et al., (2003) advice that quality has to be visioned, initiated, planned, delivered, monitored and sustained. They explained that quality problems and key staff issues in hotels often can be solved with a common “People and Quality” strategy which involves placing customer needs in the heart of the whole process; seeking suggestions from staff; developing corporate quality and people philosophy; training and empowering staff; benchmarking and reviewing (Pallet et al., 2003, p 349). Examining service quality across small, medium and large hotels in Scotland, Briggs et al., (2007) make a note of major inconsistencies in service quality performance across the sector. The study further suggests that most customers are not in fact overly demanding and are satisfied with a personal service that represents value for money and provides accurate information. The main difference between excellent and poor service for them relates to the absence of the personal touch and how staff deal with their complaints (Briggs et al., 2007; Brewster, 2012). Taking into consideration the Irish hotel industry, Keating and Harrington (2003) recommended that many quality programmes fail from lack of commitment on the part of senior and middle management, and front-line employees. The authors further suggested that the management of quality in contemporary hospitality organisations is lacking in involvement, communication and teamwork dimensions. Similarly investigating the service quality in China’s hotel industry, Tsang and Qu (2000) find that tourists’ perceptions of service quality provided in the hotel industry in China were consistently lower than their expectations and those managers overestimated the service delivery, compared to the tourists’ perceptions of service quality. In this manner it is noted that several studies of service quality in hotels continue to be undertaken in different parts of the globe. Thus, the literature and research places significant emphasis on service quality, customer satisfaction and its linkage with business profits. In view of this – what is the current situation in the hotels in Jordan? Are hotel guests satisfied with the services they receive? Is there a “disparity” or significant difference between their expectations and their actual experience from services offered by the hotel? Is a country like Jordan with a large trained workforce able to meet hotel guests’ expectations? Is the traditional Jordanian hospitality embedded in the service attitude of hotel employees? Does the traditional Jordanian hospitality culture (Yick & Ho, 2009), Bedouin Culture possess any role in contemporary hospitality? How is the traditional Jordanian culture influencing the service to guests in luxury hotels currently? Such questions became the impetus for the current study. Petra and Aqaba Read were chosen due to support provided in data collection by a local Petra Hotel Association and Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority. The large number of luxury hotels eased selection when approaching and obtaining management consent to participate in the study, although it was quite a challenging task in Jordan. Only 10 hotels out of 18 agreed to participate and they were between in the five-star and four star category. They were selected as major touristic destinations in the Kingdom attracting the majority of visitors (international and domestic) and hosting 16, 2% of the classified hotels in the country. METHODOLOGY According to the Jordan`s statistical Report from MOTA (2012) Petra and Aqaba account for 60% of hotel rooms in the five- and four-star categories. Accumulating data from all hotels in Petra and Aqaba was beyond the scopes of the current exploratory study. The study offers an opportunity to determine a largely under researched area of service quality, customer perceptions and their actual experience of luxury hotels in Jordan. The study also offers a possibility to compare and contrast with other similar studies undertaken with other destinations in the country The main objective of this study is to consider:   

Understanding the general expectations and factors of importance for customers who stay in various luxury hotels in Petra and Aqaba Read Sea Jordan. Comprehend customer actual experience and evaluation from the stay – how did the hotel perform aligned with a perception of importance of relevant factors? Disparity between the specific and overall components of importance and actual stay experience.

QUESTIONNAIRE CONSTRUCTION AND SAMPLE Peterson and Wilson (1992) confirm that customer satisfaction appears most typically to be measured through surveys. Surveys provide formal feedback to a firm and send a positive signal to customers that the firm is interested in them. This framework approach is undertaken in the current study. Management of different luxury hotels in Petra and Aqaba, Jordan, were approached to explain the reason of this study and achieve their consent to participate. The retention of anonymity in the research report aided the acquisition of approval to administer the survey to guests staying in the participating hotels. The study was undertaken at different five and four star www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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hotels willing to participate. The methodology involved surveying guests in the hotel lobby, restaurants, bar, room service or other convenient location within the hotel. During the survey any comments made were illustrious and further explanation was presented where necessary while participating guests filled the survey questionnaire. Some guests chose to take the survey and return it to hotel reception later. Guest had the option to withdraw from their participation at any stage of the survey. Front office, room service restaurant were chosen for the study as being most representative of guest contact and service delivery process demonstrating maximum moments of truth opportunities where the service provider comes in direct contact with the guest. A questionnaire was structured for this study with input from local hotel managers and individual items were selected and modified based on studies such as Lockyer (2000), Mohsin (2003), Mohsin & Lockyer (2010) along with Mohsin and Ryan (2005). The questionnaire comprised three sections. The first section gathered data on importance attributed to different features of front office, room service and in-house cafe´/restaurant by guests. The second section required an evaluation of how the establishment performed in the opinion of guests, as per the listed features of front office, room service and in-house cafe´/restaurant (Namkung, & Jang, 2010). The third section accumulated demographic details in terms of gender, age, type of trip (business or holiday) and country of residence. The study uses a Likert scale of 1 to 7, where 7 represents highest importance or agreement with the statement and 1 represents lowest importance or unacceptable level of service offered; 0 represented no opinion, and was excluded from the analysis. A useable sample of 271 participants resulted over a period of almost two months. THE RESULTS The convenience sample comprised of Jordanian and international respondents and consists mainly of 168 male respondents (62.0%) aged 31-40 (39, 5%) years followed by those aged 41-50 years (29.5%). The items, as previously noted, were derived from a sequence associated with guests checking in and using hotel facilities prior to departure. For reliability statistics the Cronbach Alpha for all the Importance and Performance questions was 0.854. While Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sample adequacy was 0.819 As suggested by (Ryan, 1995; Hair et al., 1998; Pallant, 2010). the usual “rule of thumb” of a minimum of five respondents per item used in a scale meant the sample size was found to be adequate. Such scores justified undertaking additional analysis. Additional analysis involves descriptive statistics for the two sections of importance and performance evaluation and factor analysis. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Descriptive analysis of front office features ’scores for importance showed that respondents consider “important” seven out of nine items listed, i.e. mean score is over 6 from the maximum possibility of 7: (1) Value for money of the hotel; (2) Receiving confirmation on reservation; (3) Making a reservation; (4) First impression of the hotel; (5) First contact with the hotel staff; (6) Helpful and friendly staff; and (7) Furnishings in the room. Respondents consider three items from room service feature scores for importance in the hotels in Petra and Aqaba, Jordan, with mean scores of over 6 from the highest possible score of 7: (1) Overall quality of food; (2) Value for money for room service; and (3) Overall selection of beverages. In case of in-house cafe´/restaurant in hotels in Petra and Aqaba, all eight importance features scores were above 6 from the highest possible score of 7: (1) Timely service; (2) Quality of service; (3) Quality of the restaurant food; (4) Appearance of the staff; (5) Value for money of the restaurant; (6) Dealing with complaints; (7) Product knowledge of staff; and (8) Ambience of the restaurant.

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After recognising the importance scores and ranking given by the respondents staying in hotels in Petra and Aqaba, the next step was to analyse the actual experience or performance scores attributed by the respondents to different features of front office, room service and in-house cafe´/restaurant. IMPORTANCE-PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS Front Office the importance-performance technique has been widely used in tourism academic literature. It is defined as a model of reasoned action by Sheppard et al., (1988). Recently, Ryan and Cessford (2004) disagree that, in the context of measuring visitor satisfaction with sites of New Zealand Conservation Estate, there is indeed much merit in asking a simple question such as “To what degree are you satisfied with your visit?”, and response analysis of the importance-evaluation matrix diagrammatically conveys important information to managers who can proceed to act upon such research. Major parts of the survey in the recent study include sets of importance-performance type questions. Paired sample t-test was used to determine the difference, if any, between importance-performance. The front office showed statistically significant difference in all the nine areas assessed when comparing importance and actual performance of service quality. Prominent areas with a mean difference of over 6, indicating a larger disparity between expectation and actual experience based on service performance, in ranking order given by the responding guests are as follows (See Table I): (1) The value for money of the hotel (mean difference 1.7). (2) The furnishings in the room (mean difference 1.13). (3) Receiving confirmation on reservation (mean difference 0.91). (4) Ease of making a reservation (mean difference 0.80). The above features are perhaps reasonably easy to deal with provided the hotel management recognise the significance attributed to them by the respondents. The difference existing between scores of importance and performance as illustrated in the table identify managerial implications in those areas. If the hotels do not seek to meet the current attributed importance by the guests can they ever be able to work towards exceeding the importance expectation and achieving “customer delight” through their performance? Room Service. The importance-performance analysis showed that in all room service responses the importance is higher than the performance and the difference is statistically significant (See Table I). Prominent areas with a mean difference of over 6, indicating a larger disparity between expectation and actual experience based on service performance, in ranking order given by the responding guests are as follows (see Table 1): (1) Value for money for room service (mean difference 1.57). (2) The overall quality of food (mean difference 4.27). (3) The overall selection of beverages (mean difference 1.29). Here again the scores illustrate difference between importance and performance which has managerial implications in improving quality. Cafe´/restaurant (in-house). Comparison of importance and actual performance of in-house cafe´/restaurant reflects a similar experience showing statistically significant difference in all eight areas assessed. All eight areas except one, showed mean difference of over 6, indicating a larger disparity between expectation and actual experience based on service performance. The following is the ranking order (See Table 1): (1) Quality of the restaurant food (mean difference 1.25). (2) The quality of service (mean difference 1.29). (3) Dealing with complaints (mean difference 2.47). (4) Timely service (mean difference 1.68). (5) The appearance of the staff (mean difference 1.05). (6) Value for money of the restaurant (mean difference 1.58). (7) Product knowledge of the staff (mean difference 1.63). Table (1) illustrates that overall in almost all cases importance was rated more highly than performance and the mean score difference was higher than “6” indicating statistically significant disparity. It leaves a disturbing situation that participating respondents” expectations were not met which usually impacts service quality perceptions of customers.

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Table 1: Importance and Performance

One-Sample Statistics Importance Performance Mean SD Mean SD

Items Front Office The Value For Money Of The Hotel The Furnishings In The Room Receiving Confirmation of Reservation Making a Reservation Helpful And Friendly Staff First Contact With The Hotel Staff First Impression Of The Hotel The Check In And Out Of The Hotel Room Service Value For Money For Room Service The Overall Quality Of Food The Overall Selection Of Beverages Prompt Respond From Order Taker Prompt Room Service If Used A Variety Of Items On The Menu In house cafe/Restaurant Quality Of The Restaurant Food The Quality Of Service Dealing With Complaints Timely Service The Appearance Of The Staff Value For Money Of The Restaurant Product Knowledge By Staff Ambience Of Restaurant

6.25

.587

6.07 5.96 5.87 6.21 5.94 6.21 6.03

.525 .470 .438 .525 .404 .481 .547

6.34

.525

6.10 6.28 5.98 6.11 6.26 6.53 6.21 6.21 6.45 6.24 6.30 6.17 6.20

Mean Difference

4.55 4.94 5.05 5.07 5.38 5.04 6.23 6.00

1.070 .913 .566 .574 .954 .739 .931 1.054

6.251 6.074 5.963 5.875 6.207 5.945 6.207 6.026

.518 .568 .590 .569 .622

4.77 1.83 4.99 5.16 1.76 5.16

.713 2.441 1.151 1.107 2.443 1.058

6.336 6.100 6.284 5.978 6.114 6.262

.595 .563 .613 3.741 .528 .599 .611 .526

5.28 5.01 3.74 4.77 5.19 4.72 4.54 5.52

1.345 1.120 2.109 .903 .812 1.033 .881 .910

6.528 6.214 6.214 6.446 6.240 6.299 6.173 6.196

The survey participants were also asked to rank five features using a five-point scale, where 1 represented being not important and 5 represented very important in the selection of a hotel. Each number was to be used only once. Table 2 lists the responses in descending order of mean. The purpose was to compare responses of Jordanian and international hotel guests with findings of other studies by other researchers (Lockyer, 2002, 2003; Al Khattab & Aldehayyat, 2011). Cleanliness of the hotel (mean ¼ 4:56) is listed as the most important followed by value for money (mean ¼ 4:62). Results indicate similarities when compared. Table 2: Ranking Descriptive Statistics One-Sample Statistics Feature

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

Cleanliness Of The Hotel

271

4.56

.497

.030

Value For Money

271

4.62

.517

.031

Location

271

4.65

.477

.029

Friendliness Of The Staff

271

4.66

.476

.029

Outside Appearance Of The Hotel

271

4.72

.476

.029

FACTOR ANALYSIS Factor analysis was undertaken as it identify underlying dimensions within a list of separate items was found suitable for the Importance data though here also couple of items loaded heavily into more than one factor such as “prompt response from the order taker” and “staff presentation and manners”. Exploratory factor analysis was undertaken using Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation. The KMO was 0.905, which indicates suitability for analysis (Table 3). The five underlying factors which emerge from this analysis could be classified and named as: (1) Hotel ambience and staff courtesy – which accounted for impression of the hotel, room conveniences and front office staff courtesy (variance 28.974%). (2) Food and beverage product and service quality – this factor accounted for quality and promptness of service (variance 6.022%). (3) Staff presentation and knowledge – this factor shows product knowledge, complaint handling and presentation of staff (variance 5.258 %). www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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(4) Reservation services – this factor reflects on all reservation services of the hotel including reservation for rooms and restaurant seating (variance 4.88%). (5) Overall value for money – it accounts for overall value impression of the hotel facilities (variance 4.50%). The above factors have a strategic meaning in identifying the features considered important by the customers. The features range from simple “courtesy” to “overall value for money”. Jordan despite its traditional hospitality culture stating (Jordan`s Bedouin Culture) runs the risk of developing an average and casual service attitude. Such a practice in hotel industry could result in dissatisfaction of customers and few or no repeat visits. The resulting factors from the analysis reflect on the existing attitude and importance of guests staying in the local hotels, thus providing some insights for current hotels managers to consider when planning their services. Table 3 Factor Analysis: Rotated Component Matrix

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION A review of literature suggests that quality continues to be an issue to debate and research. Hotels worldwide give importance to service quality as it reflects their standard and creates a positive image of their product and service. Analysing the response of two hotel managers on Does quality impact on hotel performance? Claver et al., (2006) discover that quality management system can have a positive effect on such areas as service quality, employee morale, reduction in working costs and waste, and customer satisfaction, which in turn can have a strong effect on sales and competitive position. Comparing the satisfaction among Asian and Western travellers with service quality in Hong Kong hotels, Choi and Chu (2000) recommend that Asian travellers’ overall satisfaction is primarily derived from the value factor, whereas their Western counterparts are influenced by the room quality and consider service quality as the most important factor. www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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Hotels in Jordan also take a similar come within reach of giving importance to service quality as per discussions with different hotel managers during the survey administration. What is the impression of the hotel guest in Petra and Aqaba Read Sea? The current study attempts to seek answer to this question. The responses and opinions of 271 participants about the quality of products and services offered by the five star hotels in Petra and Aqaba Read Sea, Jordan are representative of the population of similar hotel guests in Petra and Aqaba Read Sea. The information was accumulated to determine – general importance perceptions of customers who stay in luxury hotels in Petra and Aqaba, Jordan, their evaluation from the stay; any disparity between the specific and overall components of importance and the experience of their actual stay. The analysis of the results of the descriptive statistics shows statistically significant differences between importance and performance evaluations of the guests in every area within front office, room service and inhouse cafe´/restaurant that needs constructive measures on the part of hotel managements. There was not a single feature in any of the areas studied where the evaluation of performance of the property exceeded the guest importance perception. Though statistical significance was noted in importance-performance analysis of all front office features, some areas had a mean difference of over 6 such as – the value for money of the hotel; the furnishings in the room, receiving confirmation on reservation and making a reservation (See Table I). The results suggest significant efforts need to be undertaken from simple gestures of first contact on arrival to check in and out efficiency to improve and reflect on service quality being offered to match, if not exceed, the importance perception of the guests staying in local hotels. The situation with respect of room service was no different; statistical significance was noted in importanceperformance difference analysis of all room service features assessed in the study. Some areas had a mean difference of over6 such as: value for money for room service; overall quality of food and overall selection of beverages. The in-house cafe´/restaurant showed the worst results where statistical significance was noted in all eight features of importance-performance analysis and all but one feature i.e. ambience of the restaurant had a mean difference of less than 6. Some areas with a mean difference of over 6 are: quality of food; quality of service; dealing with complaints; appearance of staff, etc. The importance performance analysis (IPA) matrix in Table (4) summarises areas of disparity and suggests managerial implications. Table (4): Importance Performance Analysis Matrix Component Matrix Rotated Component Matrix First Impression Of The Hotel Helpful And Friendly Staff First Contact With The Hotel Staff Your First Impressions Of The Hotel The Check In And Out Of The Hotel The Furnishings In The Room A Variety Of Items On The Menu The Overall Quality Of Food The Overall Selection Of Beverages Quality Of The Restaurant Food Value For Money Of The Restaurant Prompt Room Service If Used Prompt Respond From Order Taker Product Knowledge By Staff The Appearance Of The Staff Dealing With Complaints Timely Service Receiving Confirmation of Reservation Ambience Of Restaurant Making a Reservation The Quality Of Service Value For Money For Room Service Value For Money

1 .242 .570 .439 .175 .361 .537 .788 .767 .832 .801 .575 .269 .443 .571 .593 .280 .696 .459 .314 .463 .794 .229 .118

3 -.394 -.147 .046 -.436 .197 -.155 -.202 -.178 -.151 -.045 .170 .788 .239 .349 -.037 .506 .239 -.091 -.354 -.168 -.134 .748 -.259

Component 4 .354 .186 .384 .438 -.016 -.199 -.140 -.375 -.223 -.234 -.083 .251 .089 .123 .230 -.090 -.118 .254 .324 .451 -.248 .253 .008

5 .237 -.083 -.296 .445 -.607 .236 .056 .134 .041 .070 -.095 .257 -.001 -.144 -.189 .209 -.134 -.168 -.154 .047 .183 .310 -.012

6 .066 .222 .241 .004 -.075 -.262 .020 .081 .037 -.008 -.175 -.050 .091 .192 -.275 .229 .064 -.219 .017 -.216 -.082 .026 .751

.469 -.231 .007 .131 .299 .072 -.073 -.074 -.022 .047 -.023 -.174 .462 .035 -.029 .291 -.123 .200 -.430 -.130 -.061 -.195 -.050

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT As discussed by Lockyer (2005a, b) the factors that impact on the repeat business in a hotel are very complex. To gain an understanding of these factors a factor analysis was undertaken which resulted in five underlying factors. The model in Figure 1 takes these five factors and suggests their impact on the selection of repeat business by guests. The model also introduces what is referred to as “Modifiers” which as suggested could modify the factors and thus influences the repeat business. For example the factors in selection are modified by gender by purpose etc. Five factors based on the importance data are being called - hotel ambience and staff; www.giapjournals.org/ijthr.html

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food and beverage product and service quality; staff presentation and knowledge; reservation services and overall value for money. Overall the results indicate statistically significant differences in importance and performance evaluation responses of the hotel guests. The study put forward to practitioners to record in ranking order features that are considered important by hotel guests and their actual experience evaluation of those features. An outcome of this finding points to the areas of disparity in service and product quality of the hotels. Managerial implication is to recognise disparity and undertake measures to improve with an approach of trying to exceed the expectations of the guests to build customer loyalty and repeat business. Developing a commitment to service quality is often a challenge faced by any service organisation, studying customers’ attitude, seeking feedback and accumulating that information to analyse along with research helps to identify areas of disparity in importance performance evaluation, thereby helping to develop appropriate actions and strategy to address such disparity. Something this study has attempted to facilitate. Figure (1): Factor Impacting Repeat Business

IMPLICATIONS FOR LITERATURE In response to the question – what has this study to contribute to the literature? It is observed that research in service quality of luxury hotels in Jordan is sparse; the current study has been the first attempt to measure the service quality perceptions of guests staying in luxury hotels in Petra and Aqaba Read Sea. In that sense, the research has some value as it provides material to other local and international researchers for a comparative study of service quality perceptions of luxury hotel guests with other such studies undertaken in different parts of the world. Most luxury hotels worldwide can easily compete with physical evidence and comforts, but, it is the service in the hotel that makes the difference. Moreover, it needs to be explored how hotels are working to achieve “customer delight”? This is possible through continuous research and contribution to literature and this is something this study has attempted to undertake. The current study cannot claim to be wholly conclusive as it is limited to a small sample size from only 2 city of Jordan and there could be subjectivity in responses. Additional study with a larger sample size accumulated from different cities of Jordan is suggested. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to extend their appreciation to Universiti Sains Malaysia for the university's fellowship scheme that helps make this study and paper possible. The authors are also grateful for the kind assistance and the constructive suggestions of the anonymous reviewers (Analysis Part) which helped strengthen this paper. REFERENCES 1. 2.

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