Volume 31, Issue 2 (2013) FIU Hospitality Review v.31 i.2

Forward and Call to Action

The hospitality industry has undergone radical transformations in the past three decades. Since the 1980s, technological advancements have been transforming the hospitality industry. Global Distribution Systems (GDS), Computer Reservation Systems (CRS), developments on the Web, advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and many other advances have changed the way hospitality companies conduct business. Their implications for research have also been tremendous. We can see a clear pattern that in recent year that hospitality research has improved in terms of methodology and statistical procedures. Earlier empirical research studies mainly included descriptive statistics. However in the past years we can observe that more sophisticated methods are being used such as SEM and PLS with the help of software such as LISREL, AMOS, and MPlus. Most of current research in the hospitality is empirical and they tend to deploy primary field surveys in a variety of areas such as marketing, consumer behavior, food science, accounting, finance, human resources, information technology, strategic management, entrepreneurship, pricing, psychology to name a few.  Hospitality researchers are now investigating a range of phenomenon, using diverse data and methods, producing new forms of scholarly output, and engaging in innovative new forms of research and publication. This call to action specifically focuses at the progress in information technology research in hospitality literature.

     Uncovering ever changing needs of contemporary traveler needs and trends is important for hospitality research. We, as researchers need to explore the unknown and unseen and utilize creative and innovative research approaches. Contemporary travelers are always connected. Hotel bookings from the Internet and mobile devices are on the rise. They use more devices across a common set of platforms to help decision making process, purchase, WOM behaviors and so on. Marketing research shows that the amount of time people spend on a mobile device is growing rapidly, at 14 times the rate of desktop usage. Mobile is becoming a more prominent channel for commercial transactions. Social media usage is still growing, presenting a great potential for both practitioners and academia. Hashtags also open up new opportunities.  Research studies indicate that photos make up half of news feed stories in social media. Therefore, visual interactions with branded content on social media will create research opportunities.

Call to Action:

1. Conduct research studies to investigate the differences among e-commerce of products vs. services. 
2. Work on continual study of online customer experiences by adopting theories from multidisciplinary perspectives. 
3. Collaborate with researchers in other fields.
4. Carry on research that combines a theoretical foundation with research questions that have value both to the industry and to the body of knowledge.
5. Focus on emerging areas such as
• e-commerce and market intelligence
• Recommender systems 
• Social media monitoring
• Social and virtual games 
• Gamification
• Impact of customer generated content