The influence of service brand orientation on hotel employees’ attitude and behaviors in China

As foreign hotel brands continue to roll out their investment in China, the competitive landscape intensifies. Central to the success of these hotel brands is their ability to offer the unique features of their service offering, as reflected in the brand, in which employees play a key role. However, in the Chinese market, where the introduction of foreign hotel brands is in its initial stages, employee brand knowledge may be limited resulting in service behaviors that are inconsistent with the brand. Therefore, the adoption of a service brand orientation to guide employee attitudes and behavior is considered to be necessary. In an effort to realize productive service employees, this study examines the consequences of adopting a service brand orientation. Results suggest that a service brand orientation is imperative for positive employee brand-oriented behaviors as well as customer-oriented behaviors that are a consequence of an employee customer orientation.     

The impact of customers’ prior online experience on future hotel usage behavior

Service experience model stipulates the importance of service experience in increasing satisfaction, price acceptance, revisit intentions, etc. It has been extensively tested and validated in hotel management studies. However, the online service experience which, in these days, precedes the physical service experience has not be considered together in most hotel service experience studies. In hotel management literature, studies on online experiences are largely segregated from physical service experience model. In this study, prior online experience model is proposed which includes online experience preceding the physical service encounter, and a survey is administered. Result indicates the strong influence of online experience as a leading construct of the service experience model in hotels. Online experience strongly conditions the customers’ perception of physical service experience and, also, provides good ground for price acceptance. Interestingly, the influence of physical service experience on price acceptance seems to be rather alleviated with online experience, indicating the important role the online experience plays in managing customer perception on hotel service experience. Hotel management needs to pay close attention to their customers’ online experience beyond simple esthetics as the online experience seems to influence all the subsequent components of hotel service model.     

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on customer experience design: The hotel managers’ perspective

This research responds to calls for research on the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry by investigating how hotel managers are designing safe customer experiences. Specifically, this study examines the measures adopted in high-end and luxury hotels and identifies the effects of such measures on the intended (or planned) experience. Based on thematic analysis of interviews with hotel managers, this study identifies seven safety measures: hygiene and protection, internal work reorganization, servicescape reorganization, investments in technology and digital innovations, customer wait time reorganization, staff training, and updated communication. These measures are expected to affect the intended experience in terms of reassurance, quickness, intimacy, and proximity, as emerged from correspondence factor analysis. Based on these results, this research proposes a model for safe customer experience design and suggests practical implications to help hotel managers formulate strategies aimed at customer experience creation under safe conditions.     

Does a cute artificial intelligence assistant soften the blow? The impact of cuteness on customer tolerance of assistant service failure

As artificial intelligent technologies have been increasingly applied in tourism and hospitality industry, the service failure caused by artificial intelligence assistant and how to recover them are worth empirical studying. Laboratory experiments were employed to test the impact of cuteness in service failure, with effective manipulation of cute appearance, cute voice and cute language style of artificial intelligence assistant. By utilizing three studies with seven experiments, this research demonstrated the positive effect of cuteness design of artificial intelligence assistant on customer tolerance of service failure and further revealed the two mediating paths (tenderness and performance expectancy) as well as the boundary (failure severity and time pressure) of the cuteness effect. These findings contribute to the knowledge on artificial intelligent assistant service and provide insight for cute design using in tourism and hospitality industry.     

Invisible pioneers? The impact of women on the recreation movement

Abstract

This article explores and describes the impact of women on the American recreation movement from 1900 to 1960. The theses that emerged in this article are that women were actively involved in the early and middle years of the movement, that their activities were different from men's activities and thus largely invisible as recorded in the history of the recreation movement, and that the social “ethic of caring” embodied the professional and volunteer activities that women undertook. These theses provided a transitional history about the women who were involved with the recreation movement in various capacities. Although notable women were identified through the data collection, it was the “collective biography” of the women in the field that provided the archetypical model that described the impact of women on the recreation movement.     

The role of brand personality,self-congruity,and sensory experience in elucidating sky lounge users’ behavior

This study attempted to develop an integrated model linking brand personality, self-image congruity, hedonic and utilitarian values, and behavioral intentions in the sky lounge context. Our results indicated that brand personality was significantly related to self-image congruity, which in turn influenced hedonic and utilitarian values. While hedonic value significantly affected intentions to revisit and recommend, utilitarian value significantly influenced intention to recommend. Moreover, self-image congruity and values played a significant mediating role. Furthermore, the links from hedonic value to intentions to revisit and recommend, and from utilitarian value to intention to revisit were significantly moderated by sensory experience.     

The impact of exploitative leadership on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance: A social exchange perspective

Based on social exchange theory, we investigate the impact of perceived exploitative leadership on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance. A three-phase analysis of 207 supervisor–subordinate dyads from three hotels in China demonstrates that exploitative leadership has a negative effect on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance. Furthermore, leader−member exchange (LMX) plays a mediating role in the relationship between exploitative leadership and employee service performance. Moderated path analyses indicate that traditionality weakens the direct influence of exploitative leadership on LMX and an indirect influence of exploitative leadership on employee service performance through reduced LMX. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

A longitudinal study of Olympic Games’ impact on the image of a host country

This study tracked the change in Brazil’s image due to hosting a mega event. The authors measured perceptions of Brazil before and at three points in time after the 2016 Summer Olympics. The findings revealed some differences in the country image but no significant changes in destination image or Olympics image over time. This may indicate how difficult it is to change people’s perceptions positively in a world filled with negative media coverage, such as what Brazil received leading up to and during the Olympics. For DMOs, controlling the media narrative is more important than ever when forming the destination image.     

The effects of service climate and internal service quality on frontline hotel employees’ service-oriented behaviors

When employees in a service profit chain receive quality internal services, they provide quality services to external customers, but extant research does not address what connects internal and external services. This study espouses service climate as an integral part of the service profit chain by exploring its role in linking internal service management and external service performance, and the boundary conditions in which it operates. Data collected from 538 employees of 81 department managers in 24 Chinese hotels were examined using hierarchical linear modeling. Results suggest that managers’ commitment to service quality affects service climate through empowering leadership, service climate links empowering leadership and employee service-oriented behaviors, and external departments’ internal service quality strengthens the positive effect of service climate on service-oriented behaviors. This study advances the literature by integrating service climate and internal service quality into the service profit chain, helping hospitality managers understand how to foster service-oriented behaviors.     

When does a service guarantee work? The roles of the popularity of service guarantees and firm reputation

Despite substantial research on service guarantees in the literature, little study has examined how the popularity of service guarantees (SG) in a particular industry affects the effectiveness of SGs. Through four studies, the authors demonstrate an interactive effect between the market-level factor (the popularity of SGs) and the firm-level factor (firm reputation) in affecting consumer's responses to a travel agency's actions in (not) offering an SG. When offering SGs is popular in a given market, consumers perceive a loss from the absence of SGs, and a high-reputation agency will outperform a low-reputation agency in consumer service evaluation when neither agencies offer SGs. However, if both agencies provide guarantees, the SG offered by the high-reputation agency does not necessarily lead to greater service evaluation than that offered by the low-reputation agency. The results reverse when offering SGs is rare in the market, as consumers perceive a gain from the presence of SGs.     

The effect of agritourism experience on consumers’ future food purchase patterns

Recent studies on agritourism share a common voice in that the economic benefit of agritourism to farms is significant but rather small. However, the majority of studies examine only the short-term economic impact of agritourism. This suggests that the potential long-run economic impacts of agritourism may not have been empirically investigated yet, leading to underestimation of its net impact. Meanwhile, theories on mere exposure and product familiarity suggest that agritourism may lead tourists to change their agriproduct purchasing patterns after the experience. Thus, this study examines the effect of agritourism experience on consumers' future grocery purchase patterns. Household-level consumer panel data on grocery expenditure is estimated through the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) approach. The results indicate that agritourism experience significantly alters consumers' expenditure patterns in the food categories of grain, vegetable, fruit, meat, and fish. Implications for research and practice are discussed along with the findings of the study.     

Impacts of cruise service quality and price on vacationers’ cruise experience: Moderating role of price sensitivity

In view of the increased interest in cruise vacations and limited study on cruises, the purpose of this study was to shed light on an understanding of cruise vacationers’ evaluations of onboard experiences with cruise lines in North America and their loyalty-formation process. The empirical results revealed that interactional quality and outcome quality were significantly and positively associated with novelty and perceived value which in turn, affected satisfaction and loyalty. In addition, perceived price was a significant and negative predictor of perceived value. The moderating function of price sensitivity showed that novelty was more effective in inducing satisfaction in the low price sensitivity group and it was more effective in enhancing perceived value in the high price sensitivity group. Overall, these results help cruise line operators who observe that cruise vacationers have become more demanding on service quality, price, and value. Practical and theoretical contributions are discussed.     

The effects of restaurant servers’ perceptions of customers’ tipping behaviors on service discrimination

Scholars have noted that the institution of tipping may encourage restaurant servers to provide discriminate service. The prospect of receiving an excellent tip from a patron, for example, is thought to encourage servers to discriminately provide excellent service. In contrast, the prospect of receiving a poor tip from a patron is thought to encourage servers to extend service that is commensurately poor. The effects of service workers’ a priori assumptions about customers’ tipping behaviors on service discrimination have however not been adequately assessed to-date. This article addresses this gap in the literature by assessing how server sensitivity to demographic tipping differences affects their proclivities to discriminately provide either excellent or poor service in response to the prospect of receiving an excellent or poor tip, respectively. Using a multilevel modeling technique (HLM), findings show that server sensitivity to demographic tipping differences is predictive of servers’ propensities to discriminately allocate excellent service but not poor service. The implications for the management of restaurant operations along with directions for future research are discussed.     

The impact of language style on consumers′ reactions to online reviews

The current research examines the novel impact of an online review's language style (figurative vs. literal) on consumers' attitudes towards a hotel and their reservation intention. Previous marketing research advocated for the use of figurative language to advertise hedonic consumptions. Yet, we found that, in the context of online hotel reviews, figurative language doesn't offer significant advantages in terms of persuasive power. Specifically, our findings indicate that, when a review is posted by a reviewer with low expertise level, consumers actually exhibit lower levels of attitude and reservation intention if the review is written in figurative (vs. literal) language. When the reviewer possesses high expertise level, the language style effect was attenuated. Finally, serial mediation tests show that the causal link between language typicality → perceived reviewer expertise explains the language style effect on consumers' pre-purchase evaluations.     

The impact of knowledge hiding on targets’ knowledge sharing with perpetrators

Using a sequential mixed-methods approach, this study explored how knowledge hiding (KH) targets react to perpetrators in the hospitality industry. Study 1 entailed in-depth interviews of 20 employees from 13 hotels. Findings indicate that KH influences knowledge transfer behavior through negative emotions. Moreover, individual personality and motivation, team and interpersonal factors, job characteristics, and KH characteristics can moderate this effect. In Studies 2 (n = 54) and 3 (n = 118), two scenario-based experiments reveal that KH negatively affects targets’ knowledge sharing (KS) with perpetrators directly and indirectly through negative emotions. In Study 4, the results of a survey from 475 employees indicate that when the need for affiliation of employees and task interdependence is high, the negative effect of negative emotions on KS with perpetrators is weaker. This study advances the literature on KH by offering a sound theoretical treatment of emotional concerns and the interaction between knowledge seekers and knowledge hiders.     

Does the look matter? The impact of casino servicescape on gaming customer satisfaction,intention to revisit,and desire to stay

Despite huge investment made by casinos on their physical structures, little has been know if physical environment actually affects psychological responses of gaming customers. This paper explores how dimensions of servicescape influence customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions in the casino environment. Using Bitner's model of physical surroundings, we hypothesized how ambience, navigation, seating comfort, interior decor, and cleanliness affected cognitive and affective satisfaction of gaming customers. We further proposed that gaming customer satisfaction would affect their desire to stay and intention to revisit. Data from 513 gaming customers of Macau offered support to most of our hypotheses. Implications for research and managerial practices were also discussed.     

The impact of corporate charitable giving on hospitality firm performance: Doing well by doing good?

While corporate charitable giving (CCG) may have a positive or negative effect on corporate performance (based on value enhancement theory and agency cost theory, respectively), CCG could also have no impact at all. This article tests the extent to which CCG can influence corporate performance of Taiwan's publicly traded hospitality companies. The variable of CCG is defined as the ratio of the total value of corporate giving to total sales revenue. The measures of corporate performance are profitability (return on assets and return on equity), stock performance and Tobin's Q. Panel regression test results reveal that CCG can affect all measures of corporate performance except for stock return. In particular, the impact of CCG on return on assets, return on equity and Tobin's Q is an inverted U-shape, implying that an increased CCG can enhance corporate performance, but as the level of CCG reaches its optimal point, an increase in CCG could have a negative influence on corporate performance. Empirical test results can offer valuable managerial insights for the hospitality industry.