Informatics Publishing Limited

Suvidha Khanna ¹, Saran Preet Kaur Broca ²

Affiliations
1 Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu., IN
2 University of Jammu., IN

Abstract

Web marketing is a new way of performing the task of marketing, made feasible by the advent of new technology namely the Internet. It is a form of direct marketing. Michael E. Porter (2001) has defined the Internet as an enabling technology, a powerful set of tools that can be used, wisely or unwisely, in almost any industry and as part of any strategy. In addition to physical goods, services are increasingly offered through the internet. Electronic services have already changed whole industries, such as banking, health, education, etc., changing the economics behind services offered by streamlining the business and service processes. Tourism industry is no exception to that. Information and communication technology in tourism sector is of special significance. This is due to its special product behavior. Accordingly, various high tech information and communication technologies are in use in the tourism sector around the world. They are used for tourism product development, marketing, distribution and training to tourism sector personnel. Mature tourist destinations are usually highly controlled by the operators. The introduction of the internet as a commercial tool has proved the supply side with an alternative channel for Communication, Marketing and Distribution, which may prove capable of side stepping these middlemen. In the present research, the role to the internet among hotel, travel agencies and airline companies in Jammu is analyzed. Primary survey was conducted among these companies in order to find out the extent of the use of internet in developing Jammu as a destination. With this backdrop, the present study aims to study the role of destination based tourism websites in promoting Jammu as a destination by various Service providers viz. Hotels, Travel Agencies and Airlines in terms of the parameters taken in the study and accordingly to suggest ways and means to improve the websites for better Tourism Destination Marketing. The findings of the study suggest that the websites are scoring above average values on the all the five factors under study namely Functionality, Convenience, Website Layout, Convenience and Content but, however, their performance can still be improved. The Service providers who use these websites, are completely satisfied with the speed of information downloads, transaction processing speed, website designs, logical organization of the website etc.

Keywords

Web Marketing, Destinations, Service Providers

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Suvidha Khanna ¹

Affiliations
1 Centre for Hospitality and Tourism, Studies, University of Jammu, J&K., IN

Abstract

The Quality of Work Life has emerged a pivotal research area in both developed as well as developing countries of the world especially hotel sector which people are recognised as a valuable asset. This study aims to make an in depth study of the factors of QWL that attribute to the satisfaction of women in the hotel industry, thereby suggesting various ways and means to improve the QWL among the women in this industry in Selected Hotel Chains in India i.e Taj, Oberoi, Ashok, Welcome and Radisson. The results of the study depicted that on the overall QWL index, women employees are satisfied with quality of work life in the hotel industry. Also, a comparison of the undermined QWL factors was made on the basis of chain and on the basis of location using ANOVA. In both these cases, it was proved that satisfaction of women employees remain to be the same.

Keywords

QWL, Hotel Industry, Gender, Anova, Factor Analysis

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Suvidha Khanna ¹

Affiliations
1 UGC-JRF-Centre for Hospitality & Tourism Managment University of Jammu-Jammu (J&K) 180 006.

Abstract

No Abstract

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Manik Arora ¹, Suvidha Khanna ²

Affiliations
1 School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, University of Jammu, J&K,, IN
2 School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, University of Jammu, J&K, IN

Abstract

The concept of service quality has achieved great significance during the last few years and especially with the advent of globalization where customers are been exposed to the world market. The issue of quality has become more important in service industry owing to special characteristics like intangibility, perishability, variability and inseparability. But the delivery of the quality service does not only depend upon the providers, but it also depends upon the perception of the customers. This holds true for all the service areas like tourism, hospitality, banking, technology, education etc. The concept of service quality has its applicability in passport services also which had been privatized in the year 2008 with the idea "to deliver all Passport-related services to the citizens in a timely, transparent, more accessible, reliable manner&in a comfortable environment through streamlined processes and committed, trained&motivated workforce". Not much research has been done to investigate the quality of services at passport office after the revamping of the old process except for the pilot project conducted by Tata Consultancy Services (T.C.S) at Bengaluru&Chandigarh, which concluded that there were some service failures in the set up and after making the required improvements, 77 passport seva kendras were established and one of the same kind was established in Jammu also. With this backdrop, the aim of the present study is to find out the improvement in the quality of service after the privatization of the passport issuance process and to analyze the Gap in service expected by the customers viz a viz performance delivered by the passport office. The research methods used in the study are mean, Standard Deviation, Percentage and Importance Performance Analysis.

Keywords

Service Quality, Importance Performance Analysis, Passport Office

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Suvidha Khanna ¹, Sandeva Khajuria ¹

Affiliations
1 School of Hospitality and tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jamu & Kashmir, IN

Abstract

Pilgrimage tourism is one of the oldest and most widely practiced forms of tourism over the world. Pilgrimage has not only been confined to religious and spiritual benefits of the pilgrims but has extended gains to other participating communities including the locals and the service providers. As a pilgrimage destination flourishes, it becomes a source of income generation for the locals and service providers, along with fulfilling the spiritual desires of the pilgrims. With the core activity of offering prayers and pilgrimage, allied activities particularly shopping at the destination is a key indulgence at a pilgrimage destination. Special products, believed to possess spiritual and religious relevance are sold at the destinations. The pilgrims buy these products to offer to their God. Such products when used for commercial purpose are known to be Souvenirs. Pilgrims buy souvenirs to take back memories of their journey and to gift to others as a momento or token of affection. The present study is an empirical research which tends to know the souvenir purchase behaviour of the pilgrims at one of the most visited pilgrimage shrine of India, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi. The research explores the Souvenir Purchase trend at the destination and tends to study how the Souvenir Purchase intention is affected by the demographics of the respondents. The difference in Souvenier Purchase Intentions of the pilgrims on the basis of their visiting Motivation will also be worked upon. It includes first hand as well as second hand data and will be analysed with the help of tools like percentage, mean, t-test and ANOVA.

Keywords

Souvenir, Purchase, Intention, Pilgrimage, Motivation.

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Shunali ¹, Manik Arora ¹, Suvidha Khanna ¹

Affiliations
1 School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, IN

Abstract

Purpose of this paper: The present paper is an attempt to explore how employee involvement can be used as a tool for increasing job satisfaction in the hotel industry.

Methodology: The data is collected through a self administered questionnaire. The total calculated sample size is 136 out of which 82 responses were usable. The data is collected from the A&B category hotels (Categorized by Department of Tourism J&K) of Jammu.

Findings: The major finding in this research is that employee involvement is positively linked to job satisfaction. But, since the percentage of impact of employee involvement on job satisfaction is low, there may be other factors that affect the job satisfaction more significantly.

Future Relevance: The managerial contribution of this study will help to create awareness among hotel employers, that management should respect the views of the employees within the organization and employees should be consulted before setting policies, rules and long term goals and objectives setting.

Value of Paper: The paper is especially valuable to the HR of the different hotels who face problems in retaining the work brigade, as the study provide an insight on the impact of employee involvement in organisation and its effect on overall job satisfaction.

Keywords

Job Satisfaction, Employee Involvement, Hotels etc.

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Vinay Chauhan ¹, Suvidha Khanna ¹

Affiliations
1 Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jammu, IN

Abstract

Tourism has been acknowledged as a powerful force for social well being, creating employment and wealth, and understanding of other cultures. There are many ways in which tourism has benefited a particular place, buildings or cultural activity. In Britain, many great buildings of the past would have been lost had there been no conversion into living museums for the tourist. Whole of inner cities and dockland areas have been restored and developed to make them attractive as tourist cities. With this backdrop, the objective of this study is to examine the social impacts of tourism in the study area i.e Katra. Both positive as well as negative social impacts of tourism development are been considered. The Present study is descriptive, evaluative and diagnostic in nature. It is descriptive as per the information collected about the resources of tourism. It is evaluative as per the evaluation of residents and entrepreneur's attitude towards the socio-cultural transformation. The study concluded that all the parameters relating to the socio-cultural impacts of tourism can be improved by the development strategies viz. capacity building programmes, educating the locals, making them feel pride in their culture, ensuring better host-guest understanding, reducing economic leakages, various training programmes, etc. And all these strategies further lead to the overall destination development thereby minimizing the negative impacts and maximizing the positive socio-cultural impacts of tourism.

Keywords

Social Impact, Tourism, Development.

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Suvidha Khanna ¹, Manik Arora ¹

Affiliations
1 SHTM, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, IN

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a major engine driving many nations' economic growth, innovation and competitiveness (Scarborough and Zimmerer, 2003; Kuratko and Hodgetts, 2004). Moreover, in the developing countries like India where the problem of unemployment is a serious concern, creating self employment is the only option available with the youth. But, at the same time very few people take the risk of an entrepreneurial venture and create resources and opportunities for self and others. But the Government of India, realizing the potential of entrepreneurship for tourism, has come up with many programs boosting the overall status and role of Entrepreneurs in Indian society. And with the government, there starts the role of universities in promoting this concept as a vehicle of employment. But the perception of the students before joining the university and actual performance of universities in the promotion of this, is a question yet to be answered. With this backdrop, the present research aims at evaluating the gender comparison of the expectations and performance of the tourism students vis-à-vis university's role in promoting entrepreneurship. The respondents of the study are the tourism students studying in the universities of Jammu. There are two universities offering tourism course i.e Jammu University and Central University of Jammu. Since there are only few students in these courses, census is taken for the study. The research makes use of various statistical tools like ANOVA, t-test, etc.

Keywords

Expectations, Performance, University, Tourism Students, Gender, Entrepreneurship.

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Bindya Kohli ¹, Suvidha Khanna ²

Affiliations
1 SSBM, IN
2 School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, IN

Abstract

Globalization, increasing competition and advances in information and communication technology have forced companies to increasingly focus on managing customer relationships and service quality in order to efficiently maximize revenues. CRM is the key competitive strategy & business need to stay focused on. It refers to all business activities directed towards initiating, establishing, maintaining and developing successful long term relationship exchange. Service quality has also been viewed critical for service firms to position themselves strongly in a competitive environment and also as indicators of business performance . In an increasing competitive environment, the issue of service quality can gain great significance, particularly, in the service sector owing to special characteristics like intangibility, perish ability, inseparability, etc. Tourism consumption can undergo a significant transformation and involvement of human factor in the qualitative delivery of products and services, can result in more attention towards the issue of efficiency, satisfaction and improvement in service quality. In the light of this the overall objective of the research is to study CRM in the hospitality industry. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of CRM on the service quality in the hospitality industry. The study also frames policy parameters to further enrich CRM and to improve its impact on service quality.

Keywords

CRM, Service Quality, Tourism.

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Suvidha Khanna ¹, Sandeva Khajuria ²

Affiliations
1 Assistant Professor, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, IN
2 Research Scholar, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, IN

Abstract

The state of Jammu and Kashmir is an immensely beautiful destination offering a variety of attractions worth experienced. Though known for pilgrimage tourism, Jammu region of the state is vested with the potential of tourism of many types. The various little known and unexplored places of the region provide a large scope to at least domestic tourism to mushroom up, while the local tourism is supplemented by small places of excursion. The region has a number of tourist spots which fall enroute to the famous attractions and serve as picnic and excursion spots to the locals. The undertaken study is a research work done in case of one such tourist place, Kol Kandoli. Enroute Jammu to Katra (Shri Mata Vaishno Devi), this tourist spot of town Nagrota , which is famous for Kol Kandoli Temple was visited by locals as well as domestic tourists who used to go to Mata Viashno Devi pIlgrimage. The temple holds the mythological significance of first hault for Mat Vaishno Devi Pilgrimage. But recently, the direct train to Katra (base camp of Mata Vaishno Devi Pilgrimage) excludes Jammu and thus Kol Kandoli from the way. Before the direct train operated, Jammu city was the nearest railway station to Katra and the pilgrims from across the county used to land in Jammu, the go by road to Katra and also took halt at Kolkandoli, Nagrota. There spending at the locals shops in Nagrota supported the economy of the town, This empirical study tends to explore the perception of the local residents of Nagrota about the impact of direct train to Katra. Techniques including Mean, Standard Deviation, t- test and ANOVA have been used to analyse the results of the study.

Keywords

Perception, Locals, En-route Destinations, Nagrota etc.

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Suvidha Khanna ¹, Sheetal Bhagat ²

Affiliations
1 Assistant Professor, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, IN
2 Research Scholar, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, IN

Abstract

The awareness and trying of ethnic food have augmented due to the developing and exchange of trade, also due to tourist traveling opportunities and movement of people across the globe. Many people consume ethnic cuisines for the appreciation of the culture and taste. Hence, ethnic food is emerged as a growing trend in present times and it continues to add with mainstream menus in many restaurants in the west (National Restaurant Association, 2015). Present study examines the tourists’ consumption intention of ethnic food, food-related personality traits (food neophobia) and as well as food motivation, influence of tourists’ reluctance to try ethnic food. The Jammu & Kashmir is well-known for its traditional or ethnic foods. Each region of Jammu & Kashmir has its own distinctive and customary foods influenced by the climatic conditions & customs, which is not less than a treasure for the food lovers. The findings show that tourists’ ethnic food consumption intention effectively explains tourists’ motivations toward local food. The results also show that food neophobia impact on tourists’ intentions to consume ethnic food at a destination. This study tries to provide insights to consider promotional activities related to local or ethnic food.

Keywords

Food Neophobia, Motivation, Tourists Intention, Ethnic Food.

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