Purpose – Besides possessing professional knowledge, tourism service providers need to have expressed communication skills and soft skills in order to offer a better tourism service. In this paper, the tourism employees' set of soft and communication skills is analysed and compared from two different points of view: tourists on the one hand and future tourism professionals, i.e., tourism students, on the other. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to analyse the importance and differences in the perception of soft skills and communication skills in the tourism and hospitality sector from these two standpoints. Methodology – Two structured questionnaires were used to collect primary data: the first questionnaire aimed at examining the tourists' attitudes regarding the importance of soft and communication skills (N=431), and the second one, at analysing the importance of soft and communication skills from the perspective of future tourism professionals (N=404). The research results are presented using descriptive statistics, the t-test, and the Mann-Whitney U test. Findings – The results indicate that both groups are aware of the importance of communication and soft skills. The statistically significant differences between the tourist sample and the future tourism professional sample were found for all items of the Soft skills factor, with the exception of the items Demonstrating respect, Integrity, and Responsibility. Both samples show similarities with regard to all kinds of Communication skills. Statistically significant differences in the perception of all five Communication skills items from tourists' and future tourism professionals' perspectives were found. Contribution – The paper contributes to the theory by systematizing and analysing the literature and conceptualizing the soft skills and communication skills up to date. Its empirical contribution derives from the examination of data related to the tourist sample and the future tourism employee sample. This different point of view contributes to filling the research gap and opens new future research directions. By examining the most important soft skills and communication skills from these two perspectives, this study provides a practical implication for tourism educators and hospitality managers, revealing the communication skills and soft skills that require further development.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the global economy, particularly the tourism sector, thus making the interplay of pandemics and tourism a prominent topic of research. This paper aims to provide an overview of scientific research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and determine future research directions. The main research questions are: 1) Which research topics related to the impact of the pandemic on tourism have been addressed? 2) What are the bibliometric characteristics of published papers on these topics? 3) What are the directions for future research within this field? A qualitative method was applied to obtain answers by analyzing the scientific papers published between March 2020 and March 2021. By applying the PRISMA protocol, a total of 33 relevant articles were identified, which were subjected to bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer, and finally, content analysis was conducted. Thereby, the following key research areas were distinguished: the impacts and consequences of COVID-19 on tourism, the transformation of tourism and post-pandemic recovery strategies, the changes in behavior from the travelers' perspective, and the issues from the perspective of tourism enterprises. Based on the analysis, new research directions are proposed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the corporate image as a high-order construct in the hospitality industry. Therefore, it includes an important part of all the agents that contribute to the formation of this corporate image: the clients, the employees and the hotel management.Design/methodology/approachIn order to better conceptualize and understand the dimensions of corporate image in the hospitality industry, a theoretical systematization and analysis of the literature on corporate image definitions and validated scales to date are presented. The primary research is based on a questionnaire survey that emerged from the theoretical model. The collected data were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM).FindingsResults indicate that corporate image is a high-order construct that includes the dimensions of symbols from servicescape, employees' behaviour, perception of the organization, perception of the management, perception of the service and perception of the hotel.Research limitations/implicationsThe application of this paper will enable new research in the corporate marketing literature, while the presented multidimensional approach will support future empirical research on corporate image in hospitality.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to theory by conceptualizing the corporate image as high-order construct. It provides evidence of corporate image multidimensionality, comprising six dimensions. Moreover, the findings provide an insight for practitioners to better understand how to manage hotel image.

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