Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travelers’ preference for crowded versus non-crowded options

Crowding is a critical determinant of consumers' satisfaction with and preferences for different shopping and travel situations. When considering a selection of travel and hospitality options, travelers are influenced by perceived crowding. This research examined how the current health crisis (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic) affects travelers’ preferences for crowded and non-crowded options. Specifically, we predicted that travelers would have a diminished preference for crowded (vs. non-crowded) travel and hospitality options when the ongoing pandemic is salient. We demonstrated that the primary effect of the salience of the threat was persistent across different travel categories and contexts. We also found that travelers with high levels of sensation seeking and a high need for uniqueness show the opposite pattern, suggesting a possible recovery strategy from the pandemic. Five experimental studies provide several theoretical and managerial implications for travel and hospitality business marketers.     

Negotiated exchanges in the online hospitality market: Hoteliers and hotel managers’ perceptions of Booking.com

Social exchange theory and online business-to-business (B2B) relational exchanges have been scarcely examined in the hospitality sector. Taking into consideration this research gap and the expansion of online travel agencies (OTAs), this exploratory study aims at examining hoteliers and hotel managers’ perceptions of their negotiated exchanges with Booking.com. Twenty two in-depth interviews were conducted with hoteliers and hotel managers from two Regions of Northern Greece. The results revealed that the informants considered their negotiated exchanges with Booking.com to be characterized by assurance rather than trust and admitted being dependent on it in financial and advertising terms. The hoteliers and hotel managers felt satisfied with their economic exchanges but required stronger social interactions. Additionally, hotel reputation was considered among the most important intangible outcomes of this partnership. Based on these findings relevant managerial implications are provided to improve social exchanges between Booking.com and accommodation providers.     

Bringing Hotels to Healthcare

Abstract

The field of medical tourism has grown and developed over the last ten years into a popular option for having a medical procedure done. Continuing success is expected, and becoming involved with medical tourism appears to be an excellent way for the hotel industry to differentiate their services. By integrating a medical tourism program into an existing hotel company's services, both aspects of the partnership will build off of the other's success and create a new and exciting travel experience. A joint partnership between a medical facility and a luxury hotel would enjoy abounding success in this new and exhilarating market.     

Creating a safe haven during the crisis: How organizations can achieve deep compliance with COVID-19 safety measures in the hospitality industry

The COVID-19 health crisis has engendered a set of additional health and safety regulations and procedures (e.g. social distancing) to the hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to explore in-depth how organizations can facilitate employees’ deep compliance with these procedures. Employing an instrumental case-study approach, we collected multi-level interview data and archival data in a small-medium sized restaurant in China. The findings reveal that employees’ deep compliance with safety procedures includes a four-stage psychological process, and this process is underpinned by both management safety practices and organizational crisis strategies. As the hospitality industry starts to exit lockdown and ramp up operations, this study offers theoretical and practical insights on how organizations in hospitality can protect the health and safety of their employees and the broader community.     

Responding to the bed bug crisis in social media

The increasing trend in social media changes the landscape of crisis communication and thus, calls for innovation in hotel crisis management practices. This research examined how New York City hotels responded to recent issues surrounding the bed bug crisis on the social media site TripAdviosr. This study adopted a mixed methods research design. The quantitative findings revealed that hotels’ response behaviors were associated with organizational factors (e.g. hotel's popularity, average rating, and star rating) and the rating of online reviews. The qualitative findings indicated that hotels employed various types of strategies in the response, which were dominated by strategies of bolstering and enhancing. In conclusion, this study addressed the need for a proactive approach in hotel crisis management and provided practical implications.     

Hotel booking through online travel agency: Optimal Stackelberg strategies under customer-centric payment service

Facing stiff competition, online travel agencies (OTAs) are dedicating to provide customer-centric payment service in hotel online booking, which poses challenges for hotels and customers to make optimal strategies. This paper studies the optimal Stackelberg decisions and strategic interactions of a hotel and a customer in online booking through online travel agencies with customer-centric payment service. The results show that refund rate has great effect on the customer's payment decision, while transaction cost has great influence on the hotel's operational decision. When the refund rate is greater than a threshold, the customer prefers online payment. Being a leader in the Stackelberg game, the hotel can induce customers to choose the payment option with the lowest transaction cost by setting a refund rate.     

Attitude Towards Green Hotel by Hoteliers and Travel Agency Managers in Taiwan

Analysis is performed by green hotel features: energy conservation, water conservation, waste management, green purchasing, and corporate social responsibility. Questionnaires were distributed to managers of hotels and travel agencies via snowball-sampling. Findings show that hoteliers have higher green hotel attitudes than travel agency managers. By gender, female managers have higher green hotel attitudes. Managers with less work experience have higher green hotel attitudes. Managers who work for upscale hotels have higher green hotel attitudes than managers of typical hotels and travel agencies. Managers working in south or east Taiwan have higher green hotel attitudes than those in north or central Taiwan.     

The effects of SARS on the Korean hotel industry and measures to overcome the crisis: A case study of six Korean five-star hotels

The major objectives of this study were: (1) to discuss the impact of the SARS outbreak on the Korean hotel industry; (2) to explore how the crisis management contingency concept was implemented by the Korean hotel industry during this crisis; (3) to examine what the implications are for managers in the hotel industry. Results of this study indicate that the SARS outbreak had an adverse impact on the Korean hotel industry. During the six months affected by the SARS outbreak, the Korean hotel industry tried to minimize operating costs and offered employees education programs concerning health awareness, training and operating new hygiene equipment. This study is expected to provide lessons from the experience of the Korean hotel industry during the SARS-affected period.     

The effect of online reviews on hotel booking intention: The role of reader-reviewer similarity

Due to the experiential nature of travel-related products, online reviews have become an increasingly popular information source in travel planning and have a profound effect on consumers’ buying decisions, particularly in hotel booking. On the basis of homophily and similarity-attraction theory, we posit that review valence is positively related to consumers’ hotel booking intentions, and expect this relationship to be moderated by surface- (demographic) and deep-level (preference) similarities. The findings from two experiments conducted in Germany and Macau indicate that review valence significantly affects hotel booking intention, and that reader-reviewer demographic similarity moderates this effect. This three-way interaction reveals a substituting moderation effect between demographic similarity and preference similarity. One practical implication is that travel websites should find methods of exposing users to reviews written by those with either similar demographic characteristics or preferences, which facilitate travelers’ decision-making processes.     

Critical Success Factors for Crisis Recovery Management: A Case Study of Phuket Hotels

Tourism is a major export industry for Thailand. Phuket, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, has been negatively influenced in recent years by a number of crises, including the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This has limited the travel budget not only for domestic tourists but also those from overseas. Hotel businesses have been particularly affected by the GFC. While hotel managers may not be able anticipate a crisis, it is crucial for them to understand the critical success factors contributing to effective crisis recovery in order to ensure their long-term survival.This research identifies critical success factors necessary for effective economic crisis management through qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with managers of Phuket hotels. The findings of these interviews provide a rich and meaningful understanding of pertinent factors emphasized by managers as important in crisis recovery.     

Identification of the reactions of hotel managers to new competition

This paper arises out of research carried out recently on the impact of a new hotel on the other hotel businesses which are operating in the same market. To ascertain the possible reactions of hotel managers to new competition and the relative importance of alternative price and non-price strategies a postal survey of 250 three-and four-star graded hotels across the U.K. was undertaken. It was found that a change in published tariff rates is regarded as being relatively unimportant whilst sales promotion is given the highest priority. Disaggregation of the sample by hotel size and occupancy rates does not reveal any significant changes in the relative importance of possible strategies. While the survey indicates that both non-price and price competitive strategies are seen by managers as essentially complementary, nevertheless, price competition in the form of secret discounting of published room rates to mass market intermediaries (tour operators and travel agents) and corporations is particularly important. While price discounting is the ‘private’ face of hotel competition much more research is needed on both the ‘public’ and ‘private’ nature of competition in the hotel industry and how these inter-link.     

旅游企业信用缺失的道德治理

信用缺失已经成为困扰我国旅游产业健康发展的严峻问题.单纯依靠经济、法律等强制手段,对于治理旅游企业信用危机作用有限.道德治理是刚性治理结构的有益补充,通过道德治理,使企业树立自我监管的伦理意识,对于建立旅游企业信誉机制,抑制企业败德行为的发生将起到积极作用.     

Hosting in turbulent times: Hoteliers’ perceptions and strategies to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic

This research examines hoteliers’ perceptions and strategies in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and their predictions about an uncertain industry that has shifted attention to safety and hygiene concerns to regain guests’ trust. A cross-sectional study comprised of four assessments with hoteliers worldwide (N_{study 1} = 144; N_study2 = 100; N_study3 = 97; N_study4 = 66) was conducted between April and June 2020. Hoteliers’ forecasts and operating procedures were assessed in light of crisis management, providing important insights for researchers and the hotel industry. Remarkably, most of the hoteliers predict that the crisis is recoverable and believe that sales revenue will reach 2019 levels in 2021. They have implemented extraordinary recovery measures to make up for the loss of revenue caused by the crisis. From special health and safety protocols to long-term vouchers to promote reservations, strategic efforts to recover from the pandemic are ongoing.     

Relationships of Perceived Justice to Service Recovery,Service Failure Attributions,Recovery Satisfaction,and Loyalty in the Context of Airline Travelers

In recent years, hospitality and tourism researchers have presented their findings of many studies on website performance and evaluations. Although these prior studies have achieved a certain degree of success for assisting industrial practitioners to develop and maintain their websites, it remains largely unknown how consumers find a specific travel or hotel website. This paper reports a study that investigated the perceived importance of different channels for finding travel or hotel websites from an international travelers' perspective. Empirical results from 153 travel or hotel website users indicated that the Google search engine was the only channel that was perceived as important, and 47.4% of the respondents viewed up to three screens in the list of search results when using search engines. The paper should be of interest to industrial practitioners and academic researchers to understand better the behavior of users of travel and hotel websites during their website search procedure.     

The impact of hotel CSR for strategic philanthropy on booking behavior and hotel performance during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, some hotels have engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to help overcome the crisis. Given that most existing research examines the impact of hotel CSR on a single stakeholder, how hotel CSR activities in a crisis are perceived by multiple stakeholders is unknown. Drawing on the concept of strategic philanthropy, this study examines the impact of hotel CSR activities during the pandemic, such as providing accommodations to healthcare workers, on hotel firms' market value and prospective hotel customers’ booking behavior. Adopting mixed-methods approach, this study finds negative impacts of hotel CSR for strategic philanthropy on firm market value and customer booking behavior. The study result indicates that the value of hotel CSR depends on the nature and environmental contexts of CSR. Specific theoretical and practical implications are provided.     

Crisis Management During the SARS Threat

ABSTRACT

No one could have predicted the outbreak of SARS and its impact on the tourism business. Within a fortnight, hotel occupancy dropped by more than 80% to a single digit record. The hotel industry in Hong Kong was largely caught unprepared, and had to quickly work out ways in which to mitigate the loss of business and profit. This paper identifies the impact of SARS on hotels in Hong Kong, and the relevant human resources strategies used to tackle the crisis. The findings show that unpaid leave and involuntary separation were the most common immediate solutions adopted by the hotels.     

Investigating employees' deviant work behavior in the hotel industry during COVID-19: Empirical evidence from an emerging country

Employees in the hotel industry are among the most vulnerable groups that have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Anchored on the general strain theory, transactional theory of stress and coping, and theory of justice, this study investigates the mechanism through which hotel employees' perceived job insecurity affects their deviant work behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey method was used to collect three-wave sample data from 988 hotel employees in popular tourist destinations in Vietnam. Multivariate data analysis reveals a positive relationship between perceived job insecurity and deviant work behavior, and this relationship is mediated by psychological distress. Furthermore, abusive supervision positively moderates the association between psychological distress–deviant work behavior and the indirect influence of perceived job insecurity on deviant work behavior through psychological distress. These findings are useful for hotel managers seeking to manage and develop employees in a global health crisis such as COVID-19.     

Deterrence and leadership factors: Which are important for information security policy compliance in the hotel industry

Hotels have developed information security policies to deal with information security incidents, and managers are interested in how to enhance employees' compliance with these policies. This study examines how deterrence perception and managers' leadership influence employees' intention to comply with information security policies. Two rounds of surveys were conducted to collect data from Chinese hotel employees. The results show that perceived deterrent certainty has a positive effect. On the other hand, ethical leadership has a significant indirect effect with the second-round compliance intention. Abusive supervision does not have positive effects, even when managers' intent is motivational. Our study is among the first to examine the effect of managers' leadership on information security compliance intentions in the hotel industry. Our study also provides important strategic guidelines for by informing hotel managers that ethical leadership should be practiced as a means of enhancing employees' information security policy compliance.     

Is there stability underneath health risk resilience in Hong Kong inbound tourism?

The impacts of health crises on tourism demand vary according to the crises’ magnitude, causes, and recoverability. In some cases, the effects of these unexpected incidents have been severe. This study investigates the underlying stability of Hong Kong’s inbound tourism during three phases of health events. Data on 14 market sources for Hong Kong tourism are compared and the results discussed. Specific examinations suggest that travel from India, the U.S., the U.K., Indonesia, and the Philippines are, somewhat, less influenced by health crises in Hong Kong. Men, unmarried travelers, non-working vacationers, and repeat visitors display resilient tendencies. Expenditure tends to decrease during crises, although lengths of stay tend to increase. The inclusion of three types and phases of health crisis events and their effects on inbound travel markets suggest that the impacts of health crisis events differ according to the profile of health crisis. Implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.