Hospitality employees inevitably face emotional exhaustion when performing their jobs. The purpose of this study was to investigate dispositional antecedents of hospitality employees’ emotional exhaustion, including self-instability, pessimism, and affect variability, and how employees’ affect variability mediates the relations between self-instability and pessimism and emotional exhaustion. In addition, we explored the moderating role of positive work reflection on the relation between affect variability and emotional exhaustion. A total of 224 frontline employees in 18 four- and five-star hotels in Ecuador responded to surveys about their emotions and work lives. The findings suggest that (a) emotional exhaustion was influenced by affect variability, (b) affect variability mediated the relations between self-instability and pessimism and emotional exhaustion, and (c) the relation between affect variability and emotional exhaustion was weakened by positive work reflection. The results highlight the importance of potential low-cost and easily trainable interventions that could help in attenuating the negative effects of highly variable emotions and the resulting exhaustion that are prevalent in the hospitality industry. This research is among the first to examine the dispositional antecedents of emotional exhaustion, and the first to highlight the role of positive work reflection as a moderating variable that can buffer the negative effect of affect variability on emotional exhaustion.

A study into reading behavior and reading compliance among 2,600 students in five universities in Ecuador found that their reading behavior and reading compliance were better than among students in the United States, despite the challenges that exist in Ecuadorian higher education. Suggestions for future research, in particular with regard to improving students’ time management skills as a way to enhance their reading compliance, are included.

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El presente estudio expone las experiencias de algunos hoteles de la ciudad de Guayaquil sobre la implementación de prácticas sostenibles en sus instalaciones, para mejorar su eficiencia en lo ambiental. Concretamente se recogen las experiencias de estos hoteles en el manejo del recurso agua y energía eléctrica, así como también en el manejo de los desechos que generan. Estas experiencias fueron recogidas a través de entrevistas personales en cada uno de los hoteles estudiados. Los establecimientos participaron voluntariamente, luego de hacerles una invitación abierta a todos los hoteles de las categorías lujo y primera clase y sólo algunos de ellos aceptaron participar. Los resultados de la investigación muestran que la mayor parte de las medidas empleadas por los hoteles estudiados corresponden a prácticas de bajo costo, aunque unas cuantas también requieren el uso de tecnología sofisticada.

The understanding of the different conditions that shape the recreational use of sandy beaches is key for their management. This article explores visitors' and residents' recreational use of four sandy beaches in Ecuador in relation to the physical and socioeconomic context in which this use takes place, including beach morphodynamics, level of urban development, as well as the type and quality of tourism services available. Results show that visitors and residents use the beach for the same recreational activities (i.e., walking and swimming) on beaches with different morphologies and socioeconomic conditions. However, respondents also indicated that physical characteristics (e.g., beach size and swell) are important aspects for choosing a beach. Visitors to rural beaches are more likely to consume informal catering services located within the beach area than formal ones located outside. This particular emerging theme should be taken into consideration for further research on management initiatives in the context of developing countries.

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Cultural tightness-looseness represents the degree to which a particular culture possesses strong behavioral norms, and the degree to which members of that culture are likely to sanction individuals who deviate from those norms. While tightness-looseness has been quantified for a large and growing number of countries around the world, there are many countries where a tightness-looseness score has yet to be determined, thus impeding the inclusion of those countries in cross-cultural research with a tightness-looseness focus. There is a dearth of research on cultural tightness-looseness in South America in particular. We report results from a national survey of 1,265 Ecuadorian residents which provided quantification of the relatively tight culture of Ecuador.

INFORMACIÓN DEL ARTÍCULO ResumenLa infraestructura, modernización y crecimiento modular que ha experimentado el anterior aeropuerto Simón Bolívar, conocido ahora como José Joaquín de Olmedo, desde la inauguración de su nueva terminal en julio de 2006, ha permitido que muchas aerolíneas encuentren atractivo el hacer de éste, su centro de conexiones internacionales, lo que a su vez ha permitido que el incremento del número de llegadas y salidas de visitantes que arriban al Ecuador, se produzcan desde la ciudad de Guayaquil. A partir de una investigación de tipo descriptiva y cumpliendo las normas de la autoridad aeroportuaria, se aplicaron encuestas aleatorias a turistas extranjeros que salieron desde Guayaquil, luego de visitar Ecuador, encontrándose que muchos de ellos realizaron su viaje por actividades relacionadas con su tiempo libre o negocios. El resultado de este estudio permitió determinar su percepción, intereses, probabilidad de retorno, recomendación del destino y otros datos relacionados, sobre la experiencia previa y posterior de su visita al país. Palabras Clave:Imagen del destino, percepción, atractivo turístico, emociones, frecuencia.