Current Search: Breiter, Deborah (x)
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- Title
- EVENT PLANNERS' RATINGS OF DESTINATION SELECTION VARIABLES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN MEMBERS OF THREE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION GROUPS.
- Creator
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Godlewska, Marta, Breiter, Deborah, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Several researchers have attempted to understand the destination selection criteria that are important to event planners (Crouch & Ritchie, 1998; Getz, 2003; Oppermann, 1996). However, an examination of the previous studies indicated that only limited understanding of the destination selection criteria has been provided. There is little research that compares event planners belonging to different professional associations and their rating of destination selection criteria. This study examined...
Show moreSeveral researchers have attempted to understand the destination selection criteria that are important to event planners (Crouch & Ritchie, 1998; Getz, 2003; Oppermann, 1996). However, an examination of the previous studies indicated that only limited understanding of the destination selection criteria has been provided. There is little research that compares event planners belonging to different professional associations and their rating of destination selection criteria. This study examined the differences that exist between three groups of event planners in rating thirteen destination selection variables. The study provides more understanding in the search of an optimal combination of destination selection mix based on multiple dependent variables. This study found significant differences in ratings of five out of thirteen destination selection variables by event planners who were the members of three different associations. Therefore it is providing a valuable contribution to the existing body of literature. From a practical standpoint, this study can help by providing information about how planners of different events feel about certain destination criteria at the time a destination selection is made. All parties with a vested interest in the event industry may use this information to appropriately position their services in the market and tailor their products to better compete for the limited number of events in an environment where the space to host such events continues to grow.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001469, ucf:47094
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001469
- Title
- An Exploratory Study of Customer Vulnerability: A Cross-Segment Approach.
- Creator
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Aiello, Taryn, Severt, Denver, Rompf, Paul, Breiter, Deborah, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of customer vulnerability across varying service industries. While the concept of customer vulnerability has been debated in business, marketing, sociology, and psychology scholarly literature, there has been little research conducted that specifically investigates consumers' perceptions of vulnerability during the service exchange. Specific to this research, customer vulnerability is defined as experiences in which consumers participate in...
Show moreThe purpose of this study is to explore the concept of customer vulnerability across varying service industries. While the concept of customer vulnerability has been debated in business, marketing, sociology, and psychology scholarly literature, there has been little research conducted that specifically investigates consumers' perceptions of vulnerability during the service exchange. Specific to this research, customer vulnerability is defined as experiences in which consumers participate in a service exchange with a firm during a time of individual or shared medical, physical, emotional, or spiritual necessity, whether the vulnerability is experienced during the course of the transaction or whether consumers arrive to the firm already immersed in that state. Customer vulnerability is an important concept for research, as the exchanges between service providers and consumers during a time of vulnerability are heightened in emotion and memory. As a result, these exchanges lend themselves to be more likely to become transformative experiences, in that the provider and recipient may be left emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually changed as a result. Therefore, additional focus is needed in this area to understand transformative experiences in service as a result of exchanges between service providers and customers.The explorative study first conducts a critical literature review across disciplines regarding scales that have been used and are considered by the researcher to be important constructs of analysis when exploring vulnerable service encounters. Next, a qualitative investigation of consumer forums is conducted in the air travel, banking, and assisted living industries, which resulted in the finding that similar behavioral attributes within industry, but different behavioral attributes between industries, were needed to cater to consumers experiencing vulnerability. The study is followed by a quantitative investigation of vulnerable service experiences through an application of the identified scales combined with the results of the qualitative investigation across the same three industries. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that two industries' results loaded onto two factors; however, each industry's factors differed due to the nature of that industry. The air travel factors were entitled task humanism and task functionality. The banking factors were entitled maintenance functionality and maintenance humanism. A third factor was revealed within the assisted living facility segment entitled hospitable humanism, along with factors of personal humanism and personal functionality. The study concludes by presenting a discussion of the findings and practical implications for service industry managers, a presentation of the study limitations, and suggestions for future research.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005291, ucf:50542
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005291
- Title
- Business Closure in the North American Theme Park Industry: An Analysis of Causes.
- Creator
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Kaak, Kelly, Milman, Ady, Breiter Terry, Deborah, Mendez, Jesse, Schuckert, Markus, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Prior to this study, no analysis had focused on the 31% failure rate recorded among theme parks opened in North American between the years 1955 and 2009. This study's purpose was to identify the causes of closures among the 23 failed theme parks and inform the industry of what can be learned from these business failures. Business failure analysis typically stresses the impact of financial ratios and the accuracy of certain negative numbers to predict impending failure, but such studies avoid...
Show morePrior to this study, no analysis had focused on the 31% failure rate recorded among theme parks opened in North American between the years 1955 and 2009. This study's purpose was to identify the causes of closures among the 23 failed theme parks and inform the industry of what can be learned from these business failures. Business failure analysis typically stresses the impact of financial ratios and the accuracy of certain negative numbers to predict impending failure, but such studies avoid examining the underlying causes that lead to poor financial performance in the first place. To focus on this question, this study adopted an events approach to discover the actual event causes that preceded failure and business closure. This study tabulated the frequency of event occurrences among two samples: failed/closed theme parks and a comparable sample of surviving theme parks. Event occurrences were more common among the failed/closed sample than among the surviving theme parks sample. A detailed analysis revealed that six of the 21 events measured were more common among the failed/closed theme park sample: declaring bankruptcy; excessive debt or general unprofitability; low customer satisfaction, defined as not offering enough to do in the park and/or inadequate capacity; development pressures; limited space for expansion; and a location in a regional geographic market. Theme parks failed more frequently due to involuntary event causes than due to voluntary closures. And, in contrast to previous studies, the occurrences of internal environmental events associated with business failure were not significantly different from the occurrences of external environmental events associated with failure. These findings identified events that have preceded failure or closure in theme parks and can provide insights to operators and industry decision makers on how best to prevent or better manage such business closures in the future.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007026, ucf:52030
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007026
- Title
- The influence of an annual meeting on the sense of community of association members, their satisfaction, and future intentions.
- Creator
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Hahm, Jee Yeon, Breiter, Deborah, Wang, Youcheng, Fjelstul, Jill, Boote, David, Severt, Kimberly, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Over the past decade, many studies have provided some understanding on what influences association members' decision to attend a meeting; however, more systematic and theoretical research is necessary. The decision making process of attendees is a complicated human behavior practice. The major contribution of this study is adopting the sense of community (SOC) model from psychology to gain a better understanding of the attendee behavior. By doing so, this study will add a theoretical...
Show moreOver the past decade, many studies have provided some understanding on what influences association members' decision to attend a meeting; however, more systematic and theoretical research is necessary. The decision making process of attendees is a complicated human behavior practice. The major contribution of this study is adopting the sense of community (SOC) model from psychology to gain a better understanding of the attendee behavior. By doing so, this study will add a theoretical foundation to the existing research in the meeting industry. Also, this study will contribute to the SOC research in psychology by applying the concept to a different setting. This study investigates whether annual conferences build a SOC among association members. First, the SOC of association members at the conference will be analyzed. Second, the influence of SOC on members' satisfaction with the conference will be studied. Lastly, the direct and indirect relationship between SOC and future intentions (i.e., return to next meeting, membership renewal, and membership recommendation) will be examined. Data was collected through an intercept survey approach at three annual conferences of national/international associations. The questionnaire consisted of four sections: sense of community, satisfaction with the conference, future intentions, and member profile. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the factor structure and structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships, and Spearman's rank order correlation was used to see the strength of the relationship between respondent characteristics and sense of community. The results showed that sense of community was a strong predictor of future intentions. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed in the final chapter.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004543, ucf:49247
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004543
- Title
- Employer Perceptions: An exploratory study of employability skills expected of new graduates in the hospitality industry.
- Creator
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Kleeman, Amy, Boyd, Tammy, Cintron Delgado, Rosa, Blank, William, Breiter, Deborah, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Graduate employability skills have become one of the most important topics on the higher education agenda in the first decade of the 21st century. In the United States, and throughout the world, global competition, growth of a knowledge-based economy, technological advances, and the multigenerational workforce have combined to substantially alter the contemporary workplace (Gedye (&) Chalkey, 2006). Whether by choice or circumstance, the expectation of a secure lifelong position with one...
Show moreGraduate employability skills have become one of the most important topics on the higher education agenda in the first decade of the 21st century. In the United States, and throughout the world, global competition, growth of a knowledge-based economy, technological advances, and the multigenerational workforce have combined to substantially alter the contemporary workplace (Gedye (&) Chalkey, 2006). Whether by choice or circumstance, the expectation of a secure lifelong position with one employer and the opportunity for linear career progression are no longer typical nor practical in the contemporary workplace (Harvey, Locke, (&) Morey, 2002). Employability skills are those skills, attributes, and behaviors, e.g., communication skills, problem-solving, organization, and planning, that bridge most disciplines, industries, and employing organizations. They have the greatest impact on the sustained, productive, successful employment of graduates (Cranmer, 2006; Gedye, Fender, (&) Chalkey, 2004). The purpose of this study was to (a) identify the employability skills employers perceive to be important for entry-level management/management-in-training positions in the hospitality industry, (b) to establish employability skills competency levels employers expect for these positions, and (c) to garner employer perceptions of Rosen College of Hospitality Management (RCHM) interns’ and new graduates’ employability skills competence for entry-level management/management-in-training positions in the hospitality industry. The findings add to the body of literature and provide insight into the need for further employability skills development of students prior to graduation and entrance into the workforce. Additionally, the study provides information and insight for faculty, career services, and experiential learning professionals regarding the skills students currently possess, the need for further skills development, and those skills employers deem most important.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0004123, ucf:49096
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004123
- Title
- Customer Relationship Marketing by Destination Marketing Organizations: Does it lead to favorable behavioral intentions to meeting planners?.
- Creator
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Lee, Jumyong, Breiter, Deborah, Wang, Youcheng, Kwun, David, Boote, David, Ro, Hee Jung, Love, Curtis, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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In convention market, one of the fastest growing sectors in hospitality industry, meeting planners play an important role to select a destination for their event. Therefore, a good relationship with them can be a competitive advantage for a convention destination considering a fierce competition among the destinations. The objective of this study is to develop an empirically valid relationship marketing (RM) model that would verify the antecedents, mediators, and consequence of the...
Show moreIn convention market, one of the fastest growing sectors in hospitality industry, meeting planners play an important role to select a destination for their event. Therefore, a good relationship with them can be a competitive advantage for a convention destination considering a fierce competition among the destinations. The objective of this study is to develop an empirically valid relationship marketing (RM) model that would verify the antecedents, mediators, and consequence of the relationship between the destination marketing organization (DMO) and meeting planners. This study found three antecedents (i.e., customer orientation, familiarity, and reputation) of the RM mediating constructs that consist of satisfaction, trust, and commitment as well as consequence (i.e. behavioral intention) led by the RM mediators based on review of the literature. Therefore, the hypothesized relationships 1) between the antecedents and the mediators, 2) between the mediators, 3) and 3) between the mediators and the consequence in the model were tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISREL results. Eight out of eleven hypotheses were supported by the examination of path coefficients while 33 observed indicators were confirmed in the measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The SEM results showed the significant relationships that lead to meaningful implications in both industry and academia while this study is not immune to limitations that can be the starting points of recommendations for future studies.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0004126, ucf:49122
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004126