Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Services Technology and Management

 

Special Issue on: "Measuring Service Performance in the Tourism and Entertainment Industries"

Guest Editors:
Prof. Frank Pons and Prof. Elissar Toufaily, Kedge Business School, France and Laval University (GREMM Research Group), Canada

The tourism and entertainment industries represent critical sectors in the global service industry. For instance, international tourist arrivals have shown a continuous growth – from 25 million in 1950 to 528 million in 1995 and 1.08 billion in 2013. In addition, the tourism industry today represents 1 in 11 jobs in the world. International tourism also accounts for 29% of the world’s exports of services (UNWTO, 2014). The entertainment industry also boasts key figures in global business. For instance, the global entertainment and media market generated a worldwide revenue of nearly $1.639 trillion in 2013 and is expected to reach more than $2.152 trillion in 2017 (Bond, 2013), combining product and service offerings. These staggering numbers emphasise the importance for both managers and academics to better understand how these two industries function. Of particular interest is the role played by service delivery in these contexts which share a high level of intangibles and emotional content (Klaassen et al., 1998).

Over the last two decades the entertainment and tourism services industry have undergone major transformations. Firms in these service industries have realised that, in order to stay competitive and survive, they have to pay serious attention to their performance measurement (both at the financial and customer level) as well as their return on investment. In fact, the measurement of service productivity represents a very challenging task as productivity increase in the service sector is often difficult to achieve due to the characteristics of services (i.e. intangibility, heterogeneity, simultaneity and perishability) (McLaughlin & Coffey, 1990). Therefore, this special issue has the objective of presenting research in the tourism and entertainment contexts with a special focus on service performance measurement and/or ROI.

The aim of the issue is to examine how the service performance/evaluation literature (economic/financial/satisfaction/loyalty) can be applied to the tourism and/or entertainment contexts and to better understand how these performance measurements may improve firms’ strategic management of service encounters.

Submissions are welcome on any analysis related to service performance and delivery both in the tourism and entertainment sectors. International submissions are encouraged as a global perspective on services is sought.

While research in all areas associated with service performance measurement in the context of tourism and entertainment is welcome, some examples of possible topics are listed below.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Loyalty measurement in services
• Service quality measurement
• Financial performance of services
• Economic analysis and performance
• Return on investment measurement in services
• Unique service characteristics
• Innovative methods to measure service performance
• Service delivery
• Cross-cultural and individual differences in service performance measurement

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page.

For further information about this special issue or for expressions of interest, please contact the Guest Editors:
Dr. Frank Pons: frank.pons@fsa.ulaval.ca
Dr. Elissar Toufaily: elissar.toufaily@fsa.ulaval.ca

Important Dates

Manuscripts due by: 30 September, 2015