With the extensive scope of the global crisis due to COVID 19, are pre-pandemic industry trend projections still helpful in guiding future academic research and managerial actions? Dr. Sunmee Choi – Dean, Professor of College of Business Management, VinUniversity and her research team from Fordham University, Florida State University, St. John’s University, Florida Atlantic University and Cornell University recently published an article, namely “Global Trends in hospitality” in Journal of Business Research, which is a high-impact journal. This research provides an overview of the most important short and long-term trends in global hospitality from the view of hospitality scholars and practitioners. The findings of the research provide a crucial guide to the recovery of the hospitality industry through the serious disruption due to COVID 19. 

In this paper, Prof. Sunmee Choi and her research team reviewed recent hospitality research and industry trends to determine which themes have received the most attention, and then contrasted these trends to the survey findings from two important stakeholders – academics and practitioners – in this report. The survey’s main goal was to identify both short-term (1-3 years) and long-term (4-10 years) trends in the hospitality industry. 

As a result, the most notable and expected conclusion is that COVID-19 has pushed issues of safety and disease prevention to the forefront in the short term. However, the research findings also suggest that future research should keep investigating the topics that were important prior to the COVID-19 pandemic which have got the general alignment by both academics and practitioners, including a) technology and b) demand, supply, and revenue. Moreover, environmental and sustainability mentions rise significantly over the long term, becoming the thirst most important expected trend. Another noteworthy finding was that while the relative importance of safety and cleanliness is expected to decline over time, the perceived relevance of environmental/ sustainability will gain increasing attention in the future. According to this study, it seems there is a need for multi- and cross-disciplinary studies to extend our understanding of the roles and relevance of environmental and sustainability issues. It may focus primarily on policies, programs, and systems that can be connected to business outcomes that are in line with priorities expressed by industry practitioners (e.g, demand, supply and revenue). 

On the other hand, these findings point to additional opportunities for academic hospitality researchers to address gaps in the literature on topics believed to be important by both academics and practitioners. Furthermore, the findings highlight the importance of academic researchers to carefully consider and integrate managerial relevance with academic rigor to their investigations. In this way, researchers will be better able to help the hospitality industry, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, recover fast and thrive in the long run. 

“This finding is an important foundation for researchers to have a deeper investigation on short- and long-term research trends in hospitality. It helps to bridge the gap between academics and hospitality industry professionals, contributing to the development of the hospitality industry after COVID 19 pandemic.” said Professor Choi.  

You can read the whole story at this LINK 

By Nguyen Minh Phuong

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Reference

Lerzan Aksoy, et al (2022). Global trends in hospitality. Journal of Business Research, 142 (2022), 957-973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.12.068