This study explores the influence of digital leadership (DL) on sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) in tourism and hospitality businesses, focusing on green absorptive capability (GAC) and eco-innovation (EI) as mediators. This study focused on middle-line management in travel agencies and hotels in Saudi Arabia. A total of 323 valid responses were collected and analyzed using WarpPLS 7.0, a PLS-SEM analysis tool. DL positively affected SCA, GAC, and EI. In addition, SCA was positively impacted by GAC and EI. Furthermore, this study found that GAC and EI significantly mediated the DL→SCA relationship. This study enhances the Dynamic Capabilities Theory, offering valuable insights for tourism and hospitality managers to utilize digital strategies and environmental initiatives for eco-conscious market competitiveness.

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced customers to shift their food habits to more locally grown products. Therefore, restaurants have begun to provide local food, which is reflected in “farm to fork” or “locally-sourced” or “farm to table” restaurants. Thus, purchasing sustainable food, specifically local food products, has become one of the most salient sustainability practices in restaurants. Therefore, this study seeks to further explore the influences of the Sustainable Local Food Supply Chain (SLFSC) of green fine-dining restaurants on tourist food experiences and destination branding in the USA. Data were analyzed using the partial least square (PLS) technique of a sample of 232 respondents. The findings of this study showed positive impacts of all sustainability dimensions on most consumption values of tourists (i.e., emotional, epistemic, health, taste/quality, etc.). The findings indicated that each sustainability dimension and overall sustainability of the local food supply chain had strong positive effects on destination branding. Finally, tourist food experiences in totality mediated the relationship between the overall Sustainable Local Food Supply Chain and destination branding. This study contributes to the existing literature by developing and validating a scale to measure the sustainability practices of local food supply chains in restaurants to fill this gap in the literature. Additionally, the findings have intimate important theoretical and practical implications.

This study develops and tests an integrated model based on the Dynamic Capabilities View (DCV) to empirically examine how dynamic capabilities influence the operational performance of hotel food supply chains through the mediating role of supply chain resilience and the moderating influences of environmental uncertainty and disruption orientation. The model is tested using survey data from 160 five- and four-star hotel managers in Egypt and the findings of structural equation modeling. The findings support the proposed model and reveal a positive effect of total dynamic capabilities and the four dynamic capabilities (i.e., collaboration, integration, agility, and reconfiguration) on the operational performance of hotel food supply chains through the mediating role of supply chain resilience. The results affirm that supply chain resilience mediates the relationship between dynamic capabilities (in total) and operational performance. Furthermore, the results show that environmental uncertainty moderates the above linkage, whereas disruption orientation does not do that. With the extension of DCV, our findings contribute to deepening our understanding of the dynamic capabilities contributing to the development of hotel food supply chain performance. These findings hold crucial implications for academics, managers, and policymakers. They also provide valuable insights on how to effectively control operational performance during disruptions.

Climate change casts a shadow on the tourism industry in Egypt in general, and on coastal hotels in particular, as the coastal areas of Egypt have been classified as the most vulnerable to climate change in the Middle East. As such, mitigating the negative impacts and threats of climate change requires an assessment of the vulnerability of coastal hotels and the extent to which adaptation measures are applied. Accordingly, this study applied a hybrid methodology to achieve three main objectives. First, to evaluate Alexandria’s vulnerability to future climate change (at the destination level) by analyzing the recent climatic trends and expected scenarios. Second, to assess the vulnerability of Alexandria’s coastal hotels to climate change (sector level) using satellite images, aerial mapping, remote sensing, and geographic information systems (GIS). Third, to explore how coastal hotels are adapting to the risks of climate change using the four business-focused adaptation measures (i.e., technical, managerial, policies, and awareness-raising). The findings of the study revealed and confirmed that the hotel sector in Alexandria is threatened by sea level rise (SLR). Four hotels are at risk of inundation, and the extent of hotels at risk will increase with future scenarios of SLR. On the other hand, the results of examining the adaptation measures of 36 hotels indicated that the scope of the adaptation measures differed significantly between hotels due to factors such as hotel category, size, duration of operation, and EMS status, but overall, the scope of application was more comprehensive and varied than expected. Technical adaptation measures were the most common and applied by the majority of hotels in Alexandria. The results of this study should help figure out what adaptation measures coastal hotels should take and show policymakers where they should focus their adaptation efforts.

Research background: Despite the dynamically growing cross-sectional academic studies conducted on various aspects related to physical and mental workloads in the context of workplace safety, there is still room for further in-depth analyses of how these workloads affect employees' behavior and well-being. This phenomenon is of particular interest in the case of hospitality, where hotels should recognize the workloads imposed on their employees, since they are considered the most critical and influential stressors in the workplace. Purpose of the article: Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, our study aims to examine how hotel employees' physical and mental workloads affect their well-being and safe behaviors. The study also investigates how employee well-being and psychological resilience play a role in these patterns. Methods: The study employs an experience-sampling methodology to assess the physical and mental workloads of a group of full-time employees working in luxury hotels in the USA. Findings & value added: The findings derived from Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) reveal that both physical and mental workloads negatively impact overall well-being and safe behaviors. Additionally, physical workload influences mental workload. Also, employee well-being has been identified as a mediating factor in the relationship between workloads, psychological resilience, and safe behaviors. Notably, psychological resilience has not exhibited a moderating effect. This study expands on the COR theory by examining its impact on the hospitality industry. The study has developed and validated a model for assessing hotel employees' physical workload. Moreover, it emphasizes the significance of employees' well-being and psychological resilience in promoting safe behaviors in hotels. Therefore, this model is a significant step forward toward effectively measuring and maintaining the overall well-being and safe behaviors of employees in the hospitality industry. Furthermore, the value of the research is enhanced by surveying hotel employees directly rather than relying on subjective opinions from management about employee involvement in workplace health and safety. This approach avoids the bias often present in management assessments and provides a more accurate depiction of employee participation.

Modern technological innovations are driving the trends to digitalize the hotel supply chains. The most famous and used technologies are artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, and advanced predictive analytics. These technologies provide the tools that will inevitably redesign and transform many aspects of the hotel supply chains. Thus, this study aims to investigate the opportunities and chart the path to adopt the Intelligent Decision Support System (IDSS) in hotel supply chain management. IDSS is a computerized information system that facilitates the decision-making process by creating alternatives, which can then be evaluated using a set of predetermined patterns to make reliable and fact-based decisions. To that end, this study engaged in 12 Delphi survey with hotel managers and key industry experts in Egypt and received additional inputs from 70 structured surveys conducted amongst four and five-star hotels located in Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Sharm El-Sheikh, and Hurghada which allow a deeper insight into the prospective scenarios of how IDSS could be applied in hotel supply chain management. The results unveiled that the hotel supply chains in Egypt are moving towards digital transformation, albeit with slow steps. Also, the results revealed that data quality, analytical decision-making capabilities, and transformational impacts appear to be critical factors that influence the adoption of IDSS. A key finding of this study is that Egyptian hotels cannot reap the integration advantage of IDSS technology without additional engagement with supply chain partners.