Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

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Proceedings of 2007 International 
CHRIE Annual Conference 
Dallas, Texas, USA 
 
 
Co-Edited by: 
Evangelos Christou 
University of the Aegean, Greece

Marianna Sigala 
University of the Aegean, Greece

 
Editorial Assistant: 
Konstantina Tsiakali 
University of the Aegean, Greece
 
 

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i
Preface
 
The collection of papers published here are those presented at the Annual International CHRIE 
Conference, held at Dallas, Texas, USA the 25-29 July 2007. International CHRIE organizes this highly 
esteemed event since 1946, when the inaugural conference was held at Chicago, USA. International 
CHRIE is an association representing the majority of universities and associated institutions worldwide 
offering higher education studies in tourism and hospitality. The aims of this conference are to promote 
and enhance the quality of research and teaching in tourism, travel, hospitality and leisure education all 
over the world, by enabling researchers to share good practices and innovative ideas. Over 62 years, the 
stature of the event has grown to mirror the maturity of research in all fields of tourism. Looking through 
the papers one cannot help but be impressed by the range of topics covered, the range of research 
approaches adopted and the quality of research that can justly stand against research in any other field. 
This 
Proceedings
contains 70 double blind-refereed papers from a total of 152 stand-up papers submitted 
by academics from 18 different countries – a record number of countries for an International CHRIE 
Conference! This year a total of 241 papers (152 stand-up papers and 89 poster papers) were submitted 
for review, representing an increase over previous years. The Refereed Papers Review Committee 
completed 503 reviews (as some papers were triple blind-reviewed) with the valuable assistance of 171 
expert reviewers. 
We are honored to be the Co-Editors of this Proceedings and Co-Chairs of the Refereed Papers Review 
Committee for this year’s International CHRIE Conference. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to all 
the Associate Editors of this 
Proceedings
as well as to all Reviewers who volunteered for this time-
consuming but highly important task. Without their hard work it would have been impossible to guarantee 
the high academic standards of the 2007 International CHRIE Conference.
We would also like to thank the Department of Business Administration of the University of the Aegean, 
located at the Island of Chios in Greece, for the continued support that we received in this project. In 
addition, we would like to thank our graduate assistant Ms Konstantina Tsiakali who dedicated many 
hours of work to format the 
Proceedings
. Heartfelt thanks are also deserved for the International CHRIE 
Office and especially for Ms. Jessica Brim for their support and encouragement. 
Last but not least, we wish to thank all the authors who worked hard to submit their papers and wished to 
share their research findings and expertise with all of us.
If you are one of the delegates attending the conference, we hope you enjoy taking part in the 
presentations as much as reading these papers. For those of you reading these papers who did not 
attend, we hope that what you read encourages you to submit a paper to the 2008 International CHRIE 
Conference – we all look forward to seeing you there!