Total Quality Management in Sport Tourism and the Hospitality Industry: The Case of Greek Luxury Resorts with Sport and Recreation Facilities and Services

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciated that the authors efforted to study an excited paper. However, the way to developing theories is weak for this study, particularly in the literature review section.

1.          The author needs to add more description to construct a strong logic of theorical contributions before point out hypotheses.

2.          Regarding to methodology. It is important to specify the constructs used in this article and provide corresponding references.

I would like to suggest that:

• Explaining the Likert scale.

• Describing what research was done (qualitative, quantitative, ...)

3.          Include more discussions on the relationship between market power, structure characteristic to get the aim of paper and compare prior study results.

4.  Authors should be illustrative conceptual framework is needed with more arguments and provide of indication of prior studies to state clearly and in the discussion and research implications section as well.

I don't see a clear link between research, practice, and society.

English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

Author Response

We attach the response for the comments of Reviewer 1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the Author's:

Dear authors, first I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to review your article. After a thorough analysis of tour article, I would like to provide some constructive suggestions to enhance the clarity and impact of your work:

1. Introduction

“Greek luxury resorts with sport and recreation facilities and services are a fast-growing service industry of sport tourism that has trust in/depends on the recurrent approval by delighted consumers or on the creation of competitive advantage through novel methods of services delivery processes.”

Reviewer: The authors should verify statements without reference to previous studies. Statements like this need to be proven or supported by the literature. Additionally, the introduction needs a more robust and detailed justification for the specific choice of this study. Why this industry was selected and its relevance to the existing literature is not entirely clear. On the other hand, while the authors mention the influence of leadership, organizational culture, customer-oriented strategy, and human resource empowerment on innovation, there is no in-depth exploration of the theoretical basis underlying these concepts. Specific citations from previous studies could strengthen this section. Although the authors mention that this is the first quantitative study in the Greek hotel industry, they do not provide empirical evidence to substantiate this claim, making it necessary to prove such statements. Detailing existing gaps in the literature would be beneficial. Additionally, the specific connection between innovation and TQM is not entirely clear.

2. Literature Review

Reviewer: Before the literature review for research hypotheses, the authors should provide a brief overview of the state of the art on recreation and innovation. Since the study falls within the theme of tourist activities, it would be important for the authors to emphasize the originality and significance of the study by citing some recent studies on innovative tourist activities. For example, the study by Jorge et al., 2023 - (https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.34624/rtd.v43i0.32992), reinforces the determination of tourism companies to create memorable tourist experiences through innovative activities such as VR. On the other hand, the authors should justify in this reflection the importance of studying innovative activities in tourism. For instance, the study by Losada et al., 2022 – (https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1007/978-981-16-9268-0_49) mentions a trend in the demand for innovative tourist activities by visitors.

3. Materials and Methods

Reviewer: At this point, the authors should emphasize the importance of using this methodology in this theme based on previous studies.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

Reviewer: Results need to be better discussed with the previous literature. A more comprehensive discussion is essential, detailing what previous studies have concluded about the investigated hypotheses and explaining how the results of this study confirm or contribute to the existing literature.

7. Theoretical implications

Reviewer: "Practical Implications, right?"

English language just needs a minor revision.

Author Response

We attach the response for the comments of Reviewer 2.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper analyzes the impact of leadership, organization culture (OC), customer-oriented strategy (COS) and human resource empowerment (HRE) on innovation as well as the effect of innovation on TQM for sustainable development at Greek luxury resorts with sport and recreation facilities and services.

The objectives and the rationale of the study clearly stated in the introduction section. The theoretical framework is well described in the Literature review and the hypotheses are formulated based on an analysis of previous studies, as well as the proposed conceptual model.

The Greek study settings may be described in the first part of the paper so that the readers may understand better the results.

In the third section, more details need to be mentioned regarding the administration of the questionnaires (where and how they were completed by the respondents) and the selection of the sample as well as the time frame of the data collection.

The tables representing the principal components may be better presented in one table which may synthetize the information.

The discussion and conclusion section needs to be improved and developed. The authors need to clearly emphasize the strengths of their study and their contribution to the body of literature.

 I think that section 7 should be named Practical implications.

Author Response

We attach the response for the comments of Reviewer 3.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for your hard work thorough revisions. I am happy to accept the manuscript.

This manuscript has been improved but still has som minor English language errors.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, the article has significantly improved your scientific contribution. Making your results more evident and relevant. 

Good luck!