Hospitality Students Taking Synchronous Online Classes: Are They Ready?

Hospitality programs have relatively heavier hands-on components, and many subjects (if not all) are conventionally taught face-to-face. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced teaching and learning activities onto online platforms, in theoretical and practical components. Considering that hospitality students are used to the uniformed and face-to-face interaction dominant environment, how are they coping with their online classes? The current study explores hospitality students' online learning experience, taking into consideration their personality differences, learning skill levels, and perceived difficulty of learning tasks. A questionnaire was designed and distributed among hospitality students in Macao and Mainland China. Data were collected online from mid-May to early August 2020 using the platform Sojump. Over 700 students from all over the country responded to the survey, and 643 valid responses were included in the data analysis by using multiple regression models. Results suggest that the perceived level of challenge poses a good level of influence over students' learning experience, and personality differences add complications. Theoretical development and managerial implications are discussed, and suggestions regarding online teaching for hospitality students are provided.

Compensatory travel in the post COVID-19 pandemic era: How does boredom stimulate intentions?

To promote tourism recovery in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, it is critical to understand the psychological factors that either boost or suppress travel demands. However, little is known about the underlying psychological mechanism that affects compensatory travel intention. Therefore, by scrutinizing the roles that autonomous self-motivation, sensation seeking, and perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 play, this study conducted two scenario-based experiments (N = 223 + 200) to explore the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions behind the influence of boredom on compensatory travel intention. The findings reveal that people are more likely to generate compensatory travel intention when there is a higher level of boredom during the COVID-19 pandemic due to their desire for sensation seeking. This effect is magnified when people adopt autonomous self-motivating strategies. However, for people with high (vs. low) perceived susceptibility to COVID-19, a high level of boredom evokes lower compensatory travel intention through sensation seeking.

Hospitality Students Taking Synchronous Online Classes: Are They Ready?

Hospitality programs have relatively heavier hands-on components, and many subjects (if not all) are conventionally taught face-to-face. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced teaching and learning activities onto online platforms, in theoretical and practical components. Considering that hospitality students are used to the uniformed and face-to-face interaction dominant environment, how are they coping with their online classes? The current study explores hospitality students’ online learning experience, taking into consideration their personality differences, learning skill levels, and perceived difficulty of learning tasks. A questionnaire was designed and distributed among hospitality students in Macao and Mainland China. Data were collected online from mid-May to early August 2020 using the platform Sojump. Over 700 students from all over the country responded to the survey, and 643 valid responses were included in the data analysis by using multiple regression models. Results suggest that the perceived level of challenge poses a good level of influence over students’ learning experience, and personality differences add complications. Theoretical development and managerial implications are discussed, and suggestions regarding online teaching for hospitality students are provided.

Tour guides' dilemma under the pandemic: to stay or not to stay? An investigation of occupational loyalty among tour guides in Macao. (Special Issue: Where to from here? COVID 19 and the future of tourism.)

COVID-19 has struck the tourism industry and its professions with unprecedented severity. The tour guides are among the most impacted group in the industry, with many now facing the dilemma of whether to remain guides or switch to other professions. This study aims to identify the mitigators that keep tour guides from switching to other professions. It also provides insights regarding their current situation and how they cope with the unexpected adversity. Data are mainly collected via in-depth interviews in Macao and analyzed thematically. The findings contribute to the scholarly knowledge of occupational commitment via the lens of mitigating factors.

Coping with Stress: How Hotel Employees Fight to Work

Working in hospitality establishments involves high levels of stress, partially due to the anti-social shift rotations and the high levels of emotional labor needed. Unmanaged stress often leads to psychological and even physical diseases, which harm both individual career development and hotel operations. Thus, it is of great importance to identify effective stress coping strategies to maintain a sustainable hotel work force. Stress coping behavior varies among different demographics and generations. Commonly used stress coping scales were established almost 40 years ago, and under the context of daily events, and may not be applicable in today’s hospitality context. Thus, this study was designed to investigate effective stress coping strategies among today’s hotel employees. Data were collected from 470 hotel employees in 37 cities in China. The results identified 12 effective coping strategies that fell under three dimensions: distraction, sharing, and self-indulgence. The findings contribute to scholarly knowledge of stress coping. Managerial implications are also discussed.

Hospitality students at the online classes during COVID-19 - How personality affects experience?

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced all teaching and learning activities to shift to online platforms. Hospitality students are not exempted from this transition even though they are used to offline learning environment and often take a blended learning of theoretical and practical components. This sudden change has caused disruptions in their learning process and created all kinds of anxieties. Thus, this study aimed to explore how the personality traits of hospitality students are associated with their level of anxieties and how their learning experience is affected. A survey was conducted in Hong Kong shortly after the affected semester ended. Results showed that students with high levels of agreeableness and openness to experience perceive a high degree of learning, technical, and financial anxiety. By contrast, students with high levels of conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism partially sense a low degree of these anxieties. Results also revealed that a low degree of learning and financial anxiety can enhance students' perceived online learning and consequently improve student satisfaction. Theoretical development and managerial implications are further discussed.