Search results

This study aims to explore the good crowding effect among Indian domestic travellers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the city destination. This study uses the framework of social motivation theory to achieve the objective.

This study adopted a qualitative research design by taking the case of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Using purposive sampling, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 respondents, and themes were drawn manually.

The analysis found four themes that create a good crowding effect among domestic tourists, namely, convenience and price; familiarity and place attachment; social affiliation; and safety. The themes indicated that despite the pandemic, and constant occurrences of new variants, Indian domestic tourists’ on-site attitude towards crowding was favourable.

Firstly, the good crowding effect during the pandemic could have been better understood using empirical data. Secondly, the results cannot be generalized, specifically for developed economies.

This study offers practical implications to destination managers and local administrative bodies for whom achieving sustainability in urban tourism has always been concerning. These include developing infrastructural facilities, encouraging cultural activities in city centres and improving the perception of safety to sustain the good crowding effect.

The affective dimension involved in making a travelling decision played a significant role in the post-pandemic phase. While suppliers needed survival, tourists needed social affiliation and escape from the mandated home isolation due to multiple phases of COVID-19 lockdown in India. This study adds value to society by emphasising that the need for social affiliation among travellers remains intact, and the tourism industry should embrace this transformation.

While most of the pandemic-related studies criticised crowd and tourists’ crowd averting behaviour, this study reported that the good crowding effect could also be an outcome owing to different factors. Therefore, this study offers distinctive nuance of tourists’ behaviour in the post-COVID-19 phase, allowing destination managers and tourism stakeholders to re-think their strategies.

Marketing strategy, product positioning, brand building, and economies of scope.

MBA groups, marketing consultants and business management students of undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Abhishek Industries Limited (ABIL) is an entrepreneurial venture of Mr Abhishek Batra that came into being in 1993. ABIL is the leading supplier of Terry Towels to some of world's leading retailers including Wal-Mart, JC Penney and Sears. In spite of some business fluctuations, ABIL has an impressive performance record that is reflected in its financial data. The concern, however, is that of product commoditisation, since established foreign importers and distributors prefer to sell the products under their own brand name. Consequently, even though the export margins may be lucrative; the lack of a brand presence is what bothers the senior management of the company. Given an optimistic domestic business scenario, the senior management is once again evaluating the odds to enter the domestic market using its own brand name. While some of the younger managers are optimistic and want ABIL to emerge as a brand, some senior colleagues are unsure.

The student's skills will be sharpened in working through a problem; it will help the students take an active role of a thinker, analyser, evaluator, decider and implementer; it will assist the students in learning to reason with the given quantitative as well as qualitative data; it will help the students think critically and reason effectively; it will make the students realize that the emphasis is not on solution. Rather, the process of arriving at a solution is more important.

Teaching note.

Pharmaceutical marketing, brand protection.

It could be used with the pharmaceutical marketing students and MBA students for analysing counterfeit medicines' menace in developing countries and positioning of a disruptive technology. The case could be used for marketing consultants, Brand managers and executive development programmes to explore issues such as protecting brands through technology, pharmaceutical packaging marketing, competitiveness of counterfeit drugs, global harmonisation.

Against the backdrop of rising menace of counterfeit drugs in developing countries, the case talks in particular about an innovative pharmaceutical packaging company. The company has developed a unique security technology called non-ClonableID™ which can enable products to be authenticated throughout the supply chain, thus protecting brands and preventing misuse. Despite a promising technology, it poses challenges regarding its adoption and commercial success.

Counterfeiting as an inevitable result of Globalization has become a global nuisance and has to be dealt at global level. Brand protection could be one of the lowest cost tools for pharmaceutical companies to restore public confidence in their products and themselves. While all methods for anti-counterfeiting are known to have short lives the menace still must be dealt with. For this, companies need to deploy anti-counterfeiting strategies that set up various layers of security.

Teaching note.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many working mothers in India adopted involuntary telecommuting work option for the first time. However, no research explored their adjustments and experiences in the new work setting. This paper aims to gain an in-depth understanding of Indian working mothers' lived experience of involuntary telecommuting.

A phenomenological research design was adopted. The authors conducted 14 in-depth, semi-structured telephonic and online interviews. Data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis framework.

The data analysis yielded two interconnected superordinate themes in this research: (1) characteristics of involuntary telecommuting and (2) the impact of involuntary telecommuting. Under the first theme, four sub-themes emerged: long working hours, increased family demands, reduced interaction with coworkers and technology-enabled communication with supervisors. The second theme comprised five sub-themes: time-based work interference with family, time-based family interference with work, strain-based family interference with work, absence of emotional and professional support and performance management concerns. Involuntary telecommuting mothers faced challenges due to lack of control over their daily work schedule and demands, along with an increased burden of unpaid household work, leading to difficulties in managing their work schedule and negotiating their professional role identity within the family. These findings emphasize that working mothers who participated in involuntary telecommuting encountered bidirectional time-based conflicts and unidirectional strain-based conflict.

The study examines a particular subset of women telecommuters who were working mothers with young children. These potential limitations are to be addressed in future research.

The findings suggest that managers should develop HR policies and telecommuting ecosystems in order to enhance effectiveness of telecommuting. Specifically, organizations offering telecommuting work options should create opportunities for informal interaction among peers and formal one-to-one interaction with managers. Moreover, HR managers should develop and implement employee-friendly telecommuting policies.

The research contributes to HRM and gender literature.

The paper contributes to the discourses of work-life balance, workplace relationships and work policies within telecommuting literature.

The investigation of the relationship between the future of humanity and the future of ecology is a pertinent issue. In this context, the study aimed to explore people's travel experience in the Himalayan region of India for transformation and well-being and how transformation induces their involvement in regenerative practices. The authors investigated if transformations contribute to the well-being of all living beings and the environment and induce involvement in regenerative practices?

The authors preferred qualitative research design and selected narrative inquiry as a research approach to bring individuals' life stories to the centre stage for examination. Accordingly, diachronic data was collected, and a paradigmatic type of narrative inquiry was applied that uses paradigmatic analytical procedures to produce thematic categories and taxonomies from the database.

Nine themes were identified and discussed in the light of existing literature. Transformational tourism promotes well-being and reduces mental health anomalies. The study participants used words like calm, compose, stress-free, and compassion, indicating enhanced consciousness. They also reported satisfaction and induced environmentally friendly behaviour after serving the community and environment at tourist destinations situated in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and the Union territory of Ladakh of the Himalayan region of India.

The paper collates evidence to establish a correlation between transformation and regeneration. There is a suggestion that transformative travel leads to participation in regenerative activities. The paper is based on people's experiences described as green workers of the Indian Himalayas and provides empirical conclusions that support the argument of transformational induced regenerative tourism.

Although the concept of destination is often described as an economic term that describes places of interest for tourists and visitors, currently, there is still little awareness in the extant literature about regional, city, village, resort, or even standalone tourist destinations. This chapter aims to clarify the meaning of destinations. It distinguishes the differences between common locations and tourist destinations. It uses case studies to describe places, placemaking, and the experiencescapes of various destinations. This contribution implies that tourist attractions differentiate themselves from other places, as they offer accessible attractions with amenities.

This chapter aims to analyse the evolution of research in the Indian tourism and hospitality domain from 1976 to 2021. By employing the bibliometric and systematic literature review, the chapter highlights the prominent authors, institutions, methods, emerging and explored research themes in the tourism and hospitality field. Accordingly, the authors collected 458 articles from core tourism and hospitality related journals using PRISMA and evaluated them using VOSViewer. The findings revealed an emic perspective of research contribution in Indian tourism and hospitality. While some topics such as religious tourism, sustainability, cultural and heritage tourism products have attained more attention, topics such as tourism entrepreneurship, technology and human resource development failed to seek attention in the eyes of journals and researchers. Although the literature has expanded significantly, there is a need to build global academic networks to examine the state of Indian tourism and hospitality. The chapters suggest that future research should critically evaluate the schemes and initiatives undertaken by the government to promote Indian tourism, expand research to western and eastern parts of the country, and follow the mixed-method research to contribute holistically to the topic.

The study was undertaken with a purpose to investigate if any generalization in importance of service quality dimensions is possible. Service providers are often not sure of the amount of tangibilisation necessary and the right mix of other service quality dimensions – reliability, assurance, empathy, responsiveness, and the role of price‐added by researcher.

A two stage analysis was deployed. First free listing of important service quality concerns for 16 services across the four service types (as suggested by Lovelock) was done to see if any rank correlation was possible. This was followed by two‐step cluster analysis to reveal natural grouping (or clusters) within a data set for each service quality dimension that would otherwise not be apparent.

Generalization of quality dimensions was not possible among all types of services taken together, however important insights were available pertaining to each service type.

Some generalizations within the service types were possible for different services. Thus, service providers can consider these finding when designing service delivery.

Considering the two important dimensions – tangibility of service act and whether such an action is targeted at the customer or their possessions, the paper details what service quality issues are important for which service type.

This chapter relies on descriptive case studies from various regions around the world to better explain critical elements for the effective marketing of destinations. The authors put forward a theoretical framework, entitled the destination marketing triangle (DMT), that sheds light on the complex relationships and on the interconnectedness of three dimensions of destination marketing. Their model suggests that destination leaders ought to work closely with tourism service providers and to continuously engage with tourists through traditional and digital media. This way, they can improve the experiences of their visitors and prospects. At the same time, they could build a solid brand identity for their destination.