Becky Liu-Lastres

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https://hdl.handle.net/1805/26142

Are We Always Prepared? Examining Risk and Crisis Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Tourism and hospitality is a solid part of our local, domestic, and global economy . Despite its importance, the industry is vulnerable to various adverse events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Becky Liu-Lastres 's primary research interests involve risk and crisis communication and management in tourism and hospitality. Through a systematic approach, Dr. Liu-Lastres has established a research program focusing on how various stakeholders, including tourists, residents, organizations, and destinations, respond and manage emerging issues. These findings have been translated to practical implications in terms of crisis management and resilience building in tourism and hospitality.

Dr. Liu-Lastres's translation of research into strategies to promote success and resilience in the tourism and hospitality industry is another excellent example of how IUPUI's faculty members are TRANSLATING their RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.

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    Are female business travelers willing to travel during COVID-19? An exploratory study
    (SAGE, 2021-01-20) Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Mirehie, Mona; Cecil, Amanda
    The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the tourism industry. A successful recovery from the pandemic requires a clear understanding of the ‘new normal’, including tourists’ perceived risks, safety perceptions, attitudes, and willingness to travel. Guided by the Risk Perception Attitude (RPA) Framework, this study investigated female business travelers’ risk perception attitude and willingness to travel in the COVID-19 climate. This study segmented the sample into four distinct RPA groups, including the Avoidance, Proactive, Responsive, and Indifference groups. These groups differ in some demographic characteristics and the strength of willingness to travel. Findings also showed that anxiety, perceived safety, and consumer confidence mediate the relationships between the sample’s RPA and willingness to travel, but the exact relationship varies by groups. Finally, this paper discussed the theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study.
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    Are we always prepared? Examining Risk and Crisis Management in Tourism and Hospitality
    (Center for Translating Research Into Practice, IU Indianapolis, 2021-07-23) Liu-Lastres, Becky
    The tourism and hospitality industry is a solid supporter for our local and domestic economy. Despite its importance, the industry is vulnerable to various adverse events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Becky Liu-Lastres' primary research interests involve risk and crisis management in tourism and hospitality. In this presentation, Professor Liu-Lastres shares some of her major findings in previous research and provides insights into the lessons we have learned from the industry's experiences with COVID-19 and how we can adapt to the new normal.
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    Are we missing the boat? Examining managers’ perspectives on employee wellbeing in the foodservice industry
    (Edward Elgar, 2021-05-01) Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Wen, Han
    The purpose of this research note was to examine managers’ perspectives on employee wellbeing in the foodservice industry. Particularly, this study conducted 14 semi-structured individual interviews with upper-level managers of various organizations within the foodservice industry. Thematic analyses were employed to analyze the data. The overall findings addressed the essence of considering employee wellbeing in the industry. Particularly, this study revealed managers’ interpretation of employee wellbeing, identified major influences on employee wellbeing, reported the current measures, and presented the major challenges facing most organizations regarding improving employee wellbeing. From a theoretical point of view, this study used a qualitative approach and reflected managers’ perspectives on the concept of employee wellbeing. Building on those findings, this study provides practical implications, which mainly involves using a forward-thinking, top-down approach to enhance employee wellbeing, and highlights the roles of organizational support and organizational culture. Based on the findings, this study also discusses future research directions and limitations.
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    Building A Resilient Event Industry: Lessons Learned during the COVID-19 Pandemic
    (TTRA, 2021-06) Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Cahyanto, Ignatius; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    Guided by the theoretical framework of organizational resilience, this study interviewed twenty-six event planners regarding their risk and crisis management related practices and their experiences with the COVID-19 global pandemic. This study conducted thematic analyses to analyze the data. The results showed that organizational resilience was approached through planned and adaptive resilience. Their crisis management practices are influenced by event planners’ personal knowledge, experiences, and expertise as well as their organization’s policy and leadership. When it comes to the case of COVID-19, the concept of organizational residence is mainly reflected through adaptive resilience. It also seems that most resilient organizations have been excellent in communicating and managing customer relationships and creating innovative strategies to generate revenue. Further theoretical and practical implications were provided based on the findings.
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    Business travel, risk, and safety of female university faculty and staff
    (Taylor and Francis, 2020-09-29) Mirehie, Mona; Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Cecil, A.; Jain, N.
    Women constitute a significant portion of the total business travel market in the U.S. This study aimed to explore travel risk and safety issues among women in higher education who regularly travel for work. Three focus groups were conducted with female faculty and staff at a major public university in the U.S. Results of an inductive-deductive analysis indicated three major themes, namely, risk perception, risk treatment, and risk adoption. Findings provide insights into how female higher education employees perceive risk and safety during business trips, and their travel behaviour that include actions taken to mitigate the potential risks or time-to-time risky decisions about travel arrangements. Further, recommendations are made for enhancement of travel policies at the institutional level to ensure safety of female employees.
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    Can post-disaster tourism development improve destination livelihoods? A case study of Aceh, Indonesia
    (Elsevier, 2020-10-21) Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Mariska, Dini; Tan, Xiaoyuan; Ying, Tianyu; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    Destinations are vulnerable to natural disasters, which can result in damage to infrastructure and built facilities, negative destination images, and a difficult time of recovery. Recently, a growing number of destinations have incorporated tourism development in their disaster relief efforts and used post-disaster tourism as a strategy to enhance local livelihoods and build community resilience. Guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Tourism (SLFT), this study analyzed the case of Aceh, Indonesia, a destination that had been struck by a severe natural disaster and developed tsunami tourism as a strategy to recover. The data were collected through focus group interviews among local stakeholders. Based on the SLFT, this study employed a deductive approach to analyze the data and identified six themes. The findings not only validated the applicability of the SLFT to a post-disaster tourism development context, but also revealed how tourism could contribute to various community assets and a resilient destination in the aftermath of a crisis. The study also underscored the importance of local culture and religion during the recovery process. Based on the findings, further discussions are provided regarding the dynamics involving sustainable development, post-disaster tourism, and resilient destinations.
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    Cruise Line Customers’ Responses to Risk and Crisis Communication Messages: An Application of the Risk Perception Attitude Framework
    (Sage, 2018) Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Schroeder, Ashley; Pennington-Gray, Lori; Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management, School of Health and Human Sciences
    The main purpose of this study was to test cruise line customers’ responses to risk and crisis communication messages addressing health-related incidents on cruise ships. This study used norovirus infections as the context and the Risk Perception Attitude framework as the conceptual foundation. An experiment was conducted to test how communication messages affected cruise line customers’ information search behavior, safety perceptions, and cruise travel intentions. A total of 240 responses were included and analyzed. The results revealed group differences on the three outcome variables. The results also showed that safety perceptions mediated the relationship between participants’ RPAs and cruise travel intentions. Based on the findings, this study provided practical implications on how to develop effective risk and crisis communication messages. This study also highlighted the need for more empirical and theory-driven research in the area of tourism crisis communication.
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    Developing a resilience-based adaptive co-management framework: public sectors’ insights on the role of tourism
    (Taylor and Francis, 2020) Cahyanto, Ignatius P.; Liu-Lastres, Bingjie; Edwards, Chase
    Public-private partnerships are essential to effective disaster response and recovery. Given their scare resources, it is neither efficient nor practical for governing bodies to bear the sole responsibility for maintaining an ever-ready disaster response infrastructure and workforce. While it is necessary and admirable for governments to improve their internal disaster response mechanisms, a community's resilience can also be enhanced by leveraging private entities and their assets. This study utilized the Adaptive co-management (ACM) framework to examine existing partnerships between emergency operations centers and the tourism industry in co-managing hurricane-related disasters. By utilizing group discussion and individual interviews, this study reveals the public sectors’ expectations of the tourism industry when partnering to co-manage disasters. The findings highlight theoretical and practical implications for current public-private partnerships and the need to improve these efforts in disaster management. Several critical deficiencies are identified and discussed, including interagency trust, financial support, and communication.
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    Empirically Testing the Influence of Travel Safety Concerns: Examining Alternative Models
    (Travel and Tourism Research Association, 2016-06-03) Liu, Bingjie; Schroeder, Ashley; Pennington-Gray, Lori
    Tourists’ risk perceptions and perceptions of safety are important topics within the tourism literature; however, the conceptual approaches to these concepts are inconsistent. Following the risk-as-feeling hypothesis, this study proposes that: perceived severity and perceived susceptibility could be considered as tourists’ cognitive risk perceptions; perceived safety could be considered as affective risk perceptions; efficacy beliefs should also be included within the theoretical framework. To clarify the underlying relationships between these variables, six conceptual models were developed and tested using data collected from 444 U.S. citizens. In the best fitting model, perceived safety mediated the relationship between one’s travel interest and travel intentions. This mediating relationship was moderated by cognitive risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs. The findings suggest that amplified cognitive risk perceptions may affect individuals’ perceived safety and subsequent travel decisions. Accordingly, destinations should promote safety measures for tourists during times of crisis and restore tourists’ confidence in the destination.
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    Examining the impact of psychological capital on workplace outcomes of ethnic minority foodservice employees
    (Elsevier, 2021-04-01) Wen, Han; Liu-Lastres, Bingjie
    The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of psychological capital on workplace outcomes of ethnic minority employees in the foodservice industry. Guided by the social exchange theory and the equity theory, this study developed and tested a survey instrument and collected 407 valid responses through an online survey. Results of the structural equation model analysis confirmed the positive impact of psychological capital on work engagement and workplace happiness, and their further impacts on job satisfaction and commitment. The results of multi-group comparisons showed differences between salaried and hourly employees. For individuals holding salaried positions, it was work engagement, rather than psychological capital, that affected their workplace happiness. For hourly employees, although psychological capital influenced their work engagement and workplace happiness, their work engagement and work happiness remain unrelated. Based on the findings, this study offered practical implications on how to enhance psychological capital for ethnic minority employees.