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Internal factors and their impact on the success of restaurants are widely studied in restaurant research, yet there is little knowledge concerning external factors affecting the success of restaurants. The purpose of the present paper is to explore the external factors of the business environment (PESTEL factors) and how they are perceived by the Finnish restaurant industry. Research data consisted of the editorials of the Finnish trade journal Vitriini from 1979 to 2023 which were mainly written by the CEOs of the Finnish Hospitality Association (MaRa). The most discussed factors were clear political factors followed by legal factors, but other external factors also emerged from data which did not fit within PESTEL, namely COVID-19. The results of a discourse analysis showed that the external factors are regarded as significant elements in operating a restaurant business. Alcohol and taxation are the two main discourses identified in the data, which are regarded as challenges to the industry. Although the data of this study is large in volume, it is limited to only the Finnish hospitality industry association representatives. For practical implementation, this study can inspire new viewpoints for discussion about the future of the restaurant industry between restaurant industry leaders and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of how hotel management perceives the role of the hotel room from the customers' perspective and what role the room plays as regards the hotel management business. Previous research has focused on the hotel's location, the attributes of the hotel and the room, revenue management, pricing, hotel guest experiences, and customer satisfaction. In this study, 19 managers operating in Finland were interviewed: ten hotel managers from 4-5-star hotels and nine from 2-3-star hotels. An inductive approach to the data analysis was adapted and the research findings indicated that the hotel managers were deeply concerned about the customer expectations of their hotel stay. The role of the hotel room as the core element of hotel accommodation was acknowledged by the interviewees. Even though accommodation in the room is regarded as the major product of a hotel, the hotel overnight stay may be different for the customer depending on the hotel's facilities, their services and the customers targeted. In the case of business customers, accommodation with a good bed and the necessary services is all that is seen to be required. While for leisure customers, the overnight stay is perceived to be similar to a home experience during a holiday. However, the findings of this study reveal that there is a contradiction between the management's perception of the role of the room and the everyday practices of the hotel management in terms of marketing the amenities the hotel offers. Although hotel managers follow roombased accounting metrics to measure the performance of the hotel they also simultaneously attempt to grasp the intangible feelings of the guests. In order to sell experiences, hotel managers first need to sell the room. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the conceptions of wellness tourism among wellness enterprises, investigating how wellness tourism is materialised in their service offering. This multiple case study encompasses Eastern Finland, Russian Karelia, and Lithuania. First, the study indicates the main differences in the concept of wellness, proposing that regulation, history, traditions, and natural resources can impact the understanding of wellness. Second, the findings show that spas play a central role in wellness tourism, being used to offer added value and marketing strategies. Third, it discusses the merging of the line between purely wellness or medically oriented institutions. The study concludes with suggestions for businesses to focus on the unique destination-specific elements that can increase competitiveness and to take different customer segments into account when planning facilities and designing marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to examine how destination image and destination sentiment change over time using content from online travel reviews. We explore the evolution of Finland's destination image from 2013 to 2018 by analysing 10,197 unstructured Chinese travel reviews. With a mixed analysis approach, we identify the evolutions of the perception of destination attributes, destination structure, and destination sentiment at functional, the mixed functional-psychological, and the psychological levels. The results show that the perceptions of destination attributes can evolve and change surprisingly rapidly, even in the case of a country-level destination. Although the structure of destination image seems to be stable, individual dimensions may evolve rapidly. In terms of destination sentiment, the evolving trends of destination sentiment can be even in the opposite direction of the evolution of destination attributes. These findings improve the research on the dynamic characteristics of destination image and provide industry insights for destination marketers in formulating long-term marketing strategies and monitoring destination image development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores service providers' perceptions of the luxury tourist experience as a product and its challenges in Finland. To examine the essence of this product, eleven narrative interviews with service providers were analyzed. The findings indicate that service providers facilitate prerequisites for a luxury experience based on the customer's needs and motivations which may add meaningfulness. The aim is to make the customer feel special by recognizing the different value expectations of the customer. The Finnish luxury tourist experience aims to provide hedonic or eudaimonic wellbeing experiences, in which activities in nature and encounters with people create intrinsic customer value, and the customer's active participation leads to experiential value. Furthermore, as the context of the experience is a non-commercial one where commercial aspects of the luxury product are combined with the experience, the possibility to gain prudential value may be present. The study suggests that the contemporary luxury tourist experience product can be based on different experiential value elements than those experiences enjoyed in traditional luxury destinations. Furthermore, the study supports the view that luxury services should be seen as a continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]