Poster Session
Three Year-three Facility Longitudinal Case Studies: Fall Semester Comparisons of University’s Laboratory Restaurants View Digital Media
Poster Session Paulette R. Hebert
University programs in hospitality, tourism and leisure often provide experiential training for future leaders of these industries. “Dining out” is a leisure activity. Tourism and leisure students participate in “real world” restaurant laboratory experiences by providing instructor-supervised dining services to patrons. Covid-19 impacted all sectors of hospitality, leisure and tourism markets. Educators wanted to determine on-campus university restaurants’ effects, over time, in a geographic area that is currently experiencing Covid-19 variant spikes. For three University restaurants over a three-year period from Fall 2019 (Pre-Covid 19) to Fall 2021, the educators reviewed several artifacts. They studied historic, photo-documentation; university documents; restaurant lab course syllabi. They examined restaurant patron counts and food receipt records. They reviewed restaurants’ signage and physical settings; reflected on their own informal observations; considered: restaurant student workers’ and patrons’ patterns of mask-wearing and social distancing; university policies; restaurant furniture arrangements and signage. Findings revealed: no mask-wearing or social-distancing in Pre-Covid Year 1; evidence of mask-wearing and social distancing in Year 2; less evidence of mask-wearing and minimal social-distancing behavior in Year 3. No Covid-19 restriction signage was in evidence Years 1 and 3 but was conspicuous in Year 2. University restaurant policies, procedures and University messaging specifically related to Covid-19 were non-existent in 2019 and varied over 2020-2021. Serving configurations, seating placement and capacity within restaurants varied over three-year period. Relatively sustained total patronage counts and food sales have resulted across the study period despite some variability. All three restaurants remained open and viable during the study period.
NYC Flagship Stores’ Lighting Enhances Shopping as a Tourist and Leisure Activity: Student Training Utilizes an Empirical Study View Digital Media
Poster Session Greg Clare, Paulette R. Hebert
Shopping constitutes a major tourist and leisure activity (Lutzoni, 2009; Moscardo, 2004). New York City is a major tourist destination and home to many “flagship” stores (Zukin, 2009). Flagships are large or primary stores in prime locations, which often act as brand “monuments”, reflecting essential elements of brand identity (Sabbadin & Aiolfi, 2019). Although some “brick and mortar” stores are closing in the USA (Cavan, 2016), flagship stores continue to entice visitors; they offer special shopping experiences (Jones et al., 2010; Palaiologou & Penn, 2013). Shoppers may be frustrated with online purchasing which grew exponentially during Pandemic (Aryani et al., 2021; Pham et al., 2020). Lighting is an important visual component in built environment (Hwang & Kim, 2010; Yılmaz, 2018). Lighting may reveal product features; reinforces stores’ image; communicate target market; guide shoppers (IES, 2001). Lighting attributes may be empirically measured. As enhancement to merchandising and design students’ training, a faculty-led, Pre-Covid-19, New York City study trip included visits to two flagships. Store A promoted an earthy, hip vibe; sold clothing and home goods; targeted towards imaginative, educated, affluent 30-45-year-old women (Anthroplogie, 2021). Store B promoted a modern, sporty image, sold sports apparel and footwear; targeted towards various ages (Nike 2021). The student study utilized Asensetek Lighting Passport model ALP-01 spectrometer and Spectrum Genius software. Results revealed lighting variability across stores. Store A was warmer. Store B was cooler. Light levels varied within and across stores. Lighting is anticipated to continue to play a key role in flagship stores, post-pandemic.
Finding the Sweet Spot Between Hotels’ Sustainability Practices and Post-pandemic Precocious Protocols View Digital Media
Poster Session Faranak Memarzadeh
Due to Pandemic related complication, hotel guests have become more demanding about the details of their accommodation compared to pre-pandemic (Yang, Zhang & Chen, 2020). As a result, the hotel industry is heavily affected by this unprecedented situation. Even though the continuous commitment to sustainability was very important for the hospitality industry, COVID-19 caused massive challenges which might lessen the industry's commitment to sustainable programs (Jones & Comfort, 2020). For instance, maintaining a strong position against disposable items may increase operating costs for hospitality businesses that are gradually recovering from the financial crisis (Altenrath, 2020). Based on these challenges, Legrand (2020), defines COVID-19 as “a stress test for sustainable development in hospitality”. Beyond costs, precocious protocols associated with COVID-19 may be incompatible with hotels’ sustainability programs and initiatives. Whereas violating hygiene protocols is a vast concern, reduced sustainability practices are a remarkable matter as well (Altenrath, 2020). Dealing with contamination by the virus is a burden for housekeeping managers and staff (Park, Kline, Kim, Almanza, & Ma, 2019) and thus enhanced cleaning requires specific training The main focus of the study is finding the sweet spot between hotels’ sustainable practices and post-pandemic-related precocious protocols, in a way that not only addresses guests’ post-pandemic-related hygiene concerns but also fulfills guests’ desire for sustainability practices. This study utilizes an online self-administered questionnaire via Qualtrics to collect the data. Later, the data is analyzed with SPSS 25 and SmartPLS 3.
