News & Events
Research on 9/11’s Impact on NYC Restaurant Industry Earns City Tech Professor ‘Best Paper’ Award"
The Impact of 9/11 Terrorism on the New York City Restaurant Industry: Strategic Responses for Survival," a paper co-authored by Hospitality Management Professor Patricia Bartholomew, has earned a Best Paper Award from the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (CHRIE).
In the paper, Bartholomew and her co-authors Claudia G. Green (Pace University) and Suzanne Murrmann (Virginia Tech) explore the recovery strategies of Lower Manhattan restaurants after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
The three women developed an interview questionnaire that was administered to 14 restaurant owners/managers selected from Zagat's 2001 survey of Lower Manhattan restaurants. They examined the restaurateurs’ first response following the terrorist attack followed by their responses to employees, customers and the downturn in their business volume.
Bartholomew and her co-authors concluded that industry reaction in New York City followed a pattern established in other international tourism destinations affected by terrorism: the first response was caring for the people involved -- providing safe space, basic amenities, and phone and e-mail access. Next, the industry implemented recovery strategies -- information dissemination, public relations, publicity, marketing, lower price points and participation in city-sponsored promotions.
According to Bartholomew, the upshot is that business in some parts of Lower Manhattan, particularly Chinatown, may still be 20 percent off, and that the business areas surrounding the World Trade Center (WTC) site have lost 100,000 potential customers (WTC tenants and visitors) a day, but restaurateurs cited a spirit of hope and unity in dealing with "the new normal." While no model exists with which to forecast business as before, restaurateurs are finding ways to move forward.
" I did all the interviewing and analysis of the interviews; I'm the person with the restaurant contacts and background in qualitative research, from my doctoral dissertation on women chefs," says Bartholomew, who before entering academia was a pioneering female chef at such establishments as the Waldorf=Astoria, Ruskay’s and The Front Porch.
Her paper, presented this summer at CHRIE's Annual Conference & Exposition in Philadelphia, was acknowledged at a special awards luncheon on July 30. Founded in 1946, CHRIE is the global advocate of hospitality and tourism education for educational institutions offering programs in hotel and restaurant management, foodservice management and culinary arts.
Bartholomew’s research was presented previously, in a different form, at the 41st annual Eastern Academy of Management meeting in Providence, RI, in May 2004. The three women also published an article, "New York Restaurant Industry: Strategic Responses to September 11, 2001," in the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing (February 2, 2003), and a chapter in Safety and Security in Tourism: Relationships, Management and Marketing (The Haworth Hospitality Press, Binghamton, NY, 2003).
In commenting on this latest honor, Bartholomew said, "I thought we did well with our published article, book chapter and presentation in May. Then I got a note saying we won a Best Paper Award for the CHRIE Conference. How cool is that!"
The Best Paper Award lengthens Bartholomew's list of accomplishments. In 2001, the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry named her one of its Women History Makers, at a Brooklyn Borough Hall ceremony. She was City Tech's 1999/2000 Scholar on Campus, also receiving the Student Government Association's Educational Excellence Award.
Bartholomew, a former acting dean of City Tech's School of Professional Studies, was a regular recipient of Diplomas of Honor from the Société Culinaire Philanthropique at its annual International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show's Salon of Culinary Arts in New York. She has been interviewed by Restaurants USA and appeared on cable television for Woman's Day Magazine. Earlier in her career she was food editor and test kitchen director for Restaurant Business magazine.
At City Tech, Bartholomew has taught a research methodologies course to seniors in the Hospitality Management program, supervised field internships online and started the travel and tourism baccalaureate option. She also serves on the board of directors of Les Dames d'Escoffier and is chair of its scholarship committee, is a member of the board of directors and executive committee of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, and serves on the Advisory Council for Brooklyn's Kitchen, a Chamber of Commerce program.
8/30/04
