Rapid responding to the COVID-19 crisis: Assessing the resilience in the German restaurant and bar industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally impacted the restaurant and bar industry. Simultaneously, this industry is already undergoing structural change. Using the concept of organisational resilience, we analyse the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on owner’s assessment of resilience in the German restaurant and bar industry. Findings from an online survey with 623 owners and managers show that ex-ante business problems, and financing by loans or credit, reduce the likelihood of owners perceiving their business as resilient; while, delivery and takeaway service, ownership of property and higher age of owners, increase the likelihood of enterprise resilience. The paper contributes to understanding how restaurants and bars absorb and cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, we make recommendation for future research on the recovery and adaptability of the business sector.     

Preference for robot service or human service in hotels? Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic

Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are becoming more prominent in the tourism industry. Nowadays, consumers are faced with multiple options involving both human and robot interactions. A series of experimental studies were implemented. Four experiments demonstrated that consumers had a more positive attitude toward robot-staffed (vs. human-staffed) hotels when COVID-19 was salient. The results were different from previous studies, which were conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the moderating role of perceived threat in consumers’ preference for robot-staffed hotels was significant, the respondents’ preference was attributed to the global health crisis. This research provides a number of theoretical and managerial implications by improving the understanding of technology acceptance during a health crisis.     

Subconscious influences on perceived cleanliness in hospitality settings

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, now and for years to come, guests at hospitality venues will have heightened awareness with regard to formulating their perceptions of cleanliness. While perceived cleanliness has received attention in our existing body of literature, this conceptual paper integrates potential subconscious influencers on cleanliness perceptions into our understanding. Specifically, findings contained in various streams of research suggest that a number of factors can have subconscious influences on individuals’ perceptions of cleanliness in service environments. Such factors include the degree of lighting, the presence of plants / greenery, the shininess of surfaces, the use of ambient scents, the use of white bedding, and the presence of cleaning staff. Evidently, the sooner hospitality venues (particularly airlines, lodging operations, restaurants, and cruise ships) are perceived as clean and safe, the faster they will recover from the pandemic. As such, this paper is rich with both practical and research implications.     

与新冠肺炎疫情相关的旅游者行为研究——回顾与反思

旅游者行为研究一直是国内外旅游学界关注的重点和热点。在全球旅游业遭遇新冠肺炎疫情带来的巨大冲击和挑战时,英文期刊上与新冠疫情相关的旅游者行为研究也与日俱增。虽然英文学界对与新冠疫情相关的旅游研究有过零星的、整体上的批判性思考,但鲜见对旅游者行为这一具体研究领域最新进展和实质贡献的讨论。基于对8种旅游类英文SSCI期刊截至2021年8月31日所载83篇论文的分析,本文回顾了与新冠疫情相关的旅游者行为研究进展,并评价了这些研究的实质贡献。从研究主题看,现有文献集中在“风险感知与出游意向”“旅游购买决策”“实际旅游中的行为与体验”和“对技术的态度”等四个方面。从研究取向看,定量研究占主导;与之相对应的是,问卷调查是主要的数据收集渠道。虽然大部分研究明确提及使用了某种或某几种理论,但主要是应用现有理论来提出所假设的变量之间的关系,或解释新冠疫情背景下新的旅游消费现象,并未对现有理论框架、概念做出重大改变。未来的研究还应该考虑运用定性方法、大数据分析技术和实验法,挖掘、识别、验证新冠疫情作为公共健康危机的独特属性以及与之关联的独特的旅游者行为和旅游消费现象,以期更好地实现概念化、理论化,并在中国特色的疫情防控实践中,更好地实现与新冠疫情有关的旅游者行为研究的本土化。     

Predicting preventive travel behaviors under the COVID-19 pandemic through an integration of Health Belief Model and Value-Belief-Norm

This study developed a conceptual framework for a preventive travel decision-making process amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, combining the Health Belief Model (HBM) and Value-Belief-Norm (VBN). Analyzing 409 responses collected from an online survey, this study verified the integrated model as a salient theory addressing the importance of social components and health belief factors in affecting behavior. The model revealed that altruistic value influences the HBM variables, whereas personal norms mediate preventive behaviors and beliefs in both VBN and HBM. These findings offer new theoretical insights into decision-making process and provide practitioners with effective crisis management strategies concerning pro-social and health beliefs.     

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.     

Organizational trust in times of COVID-19: Hospitality employees’ affective responses to managers’ communication

During a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, what managers communicate to their employees can greatly impact important organizational attitudes, such as organizational trust. There is, however, very little research focusing on the mechanisms explaining how managers’ messages during a crisis can influence employees’ organizational trust. To address this gap, the current study examined the role that emotions play in developing organizational trust using a 2 (following CDC norms vs. ignoring CDC norms) by 2 (employee focus vs. bottom-line focus) between-subjects factorial experiment, with COVID-19 as the context. The results showed that a manager’s communication that followed the CDC social norms made employees feel grateful, whereas communication that ignored CDC social norms enhanced fear and anger toward the organization. The feelings of gratefulness and fear influenced organizational trust. These results provide important theoretical and practical implications for understanding organizational trust during a crisis.     

Hospitality workers’ COVID-19 risk perception and depression: A contingent model based on transactional theory of stress model

The hospitality industry worldwide is suffering under the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the transactional theory of stress and coping, this study aims to investigate when hospitality workers’ COVID-19 risk perception affects their likelihood of having depressive symptoms. Using data from 211 hospitality workers in 76 hotels in Peru, we examined the effects of perceived COVID-19 risk on the likelihood of experiencing depressive symptoms. We posited that this relationship is moderated by the workers’ environment at work (job satisfaction) and at home (the number of children). The results indicate that job satisfaction weakens the link between hospitality workers’ COVID-19 risk perception and their likelihood of depressive symptoms while the number of children exacerbates this link. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on COVID-19 risk perception and offer practical implications for hospitality workers under COVID-19 crisis.     

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 in the hospitality sector SMEs in Pakistan during COVID-19″

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered one of the worst economic shocks in modern history and the hospitality sector has been severely affected. Since small businesses from the hospitality sector are known to be relatively more susceptible to the economic complications arising from a crisis, we explore the underlying factors and management practices that influence their continuity of operations as they continue to struggle with the on-going COVID-19 crisis in Pakistan. Using a phenomenological approach, in-depth interviews were conducted to comprehend the experiences of owners-managers. The findings show that government support, cordial relationships with stakeholders, self-determination of entrepreneurs and formal planning are the most crucial factors that shaped the immediate adjustments of operational activities in response to COVID-19. These resilient practices are hygiene concerns, increased promotion through social media, innovative marketing practices (e.g., revised offerings), operational cost-cutting and employee training to comply with changing standard operating procedures from the government and industry. The practical and theoretical implications are also discussed.     

Crisis and Africa's tourism industry: A comprehensive review and agenda for future research

Although several studies have investigated crisis and crisis management in tourism, knowledge, and scholarship are limited in this field, especially in third-world nations like those in Africa. This paper presents a comprehensive review and synthesis of crisis management literature in Africa to address the gap in current understanding. The content-based analysis of 77 published articles from 29 journals provides a deeper understanding of Africa's tourism crisis research and scholarship trends. A three-stage integrative framework classifying crisis management literature/approaches was developed: pre-crisis, during-crisis, and post-crisis. This paper examines Africa's current and emerging tourism crisis issues identified in the analysis. It also discusses the implications of existing studies on crisis management research and outlines new research directions and implications concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences

This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences. Employing a mixed-method research design, two rounds of nation-wide online surveys were conducted, one in February 2020 when COVID-19 cases started to peak in China and another one in June 2020 when COVID-19 was a global pandemic; both survey studies were accompanied with semi-structured in-depth interviews and altogether 37 interviews were conducted in two stages. Based on both quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data, the research identified that: 1) COVID-19 significantly reduced Chinese nationals' preferences to travel to countries with high infection numbers, and geographically faraway, administratively and culturally distant outbound destinations; 2) Chinese nationals reduced their preferences in all travel modes and most of the tourism forms, but most of them would prefer nature-based, rural, and cultural destinations after COVID-19; and 3) shortened trips in short travel distance are preferred after COVID-19. The findings offer rich insights and practical implications for governments, industry organisations, and tourism operators to formulate tourism recovery strategies toward Chinese tourists.     

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.     

COVID-19 and the future of work in the hospitality industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the hospitality industry. This research combines different data to examine the US labor market trends during COVID-19. It is found that low-preparation jobs in leisure and hospitality are the hardest hit and slow to recover. The pandemic has highlighted growing issues in workplace safety, skill gaps, technology adoption, and work reorganization in the hospitality industry. This paper develops two propositions about preparing hospitality workers for the future of work and providing flexible work arrangements.     

Perceived hygiene attributes in the hotel industry: customer retention amid the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a crisis in the hotel industry worldwide, but few studies have suggested methods to retain customers. This study proposes hygiene management as a means to minimize the indirect damage from COVID-19 to the hotel industry. It identifies perceived hygiene attributes and explores their influence on hotel image, word of mouth, and revisit intentions. This study identifies and validates three types of perceived hygiene attributes through qualitative and quantitative methods. It uses structural equation modeling to validate hypotheses and concludes that there are significant relationships of influence between the proposed variables. This study provides important and meaningful insights into hotel image and customer behavior through perceived hygiene attributes.     

Too afraid to Travel? Development of a Pandemic (COVID-19) Anxiety Travel Scale (PATS)

Pandemics are affecting tourism in many ways. Being a niche research field before, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic created a strong urgency to develop this topic. For researching pandemic-induced changes in tourist beliefs and travel behaviour, we developed a construct that measures the intra-personal anxiety of travellers (and non-travellers): the Pandemic (COVID-19) Anxiety Travel Scale (PATS), using two large online studies (N = 2180; N = 2062) and including two different cultural contexts (US and Denmark). In Study 1, explorative and confirmative factors analysis confirms a short and easy-to-use 5-item solution, while the presented model adds face validity. Study 2 confirmed the structure (reliability) and tested nomological validity, by putting PATS into the context of different constructs (xenophobia and prevention focus). Although the proposed scale arose from the coronavirus (COVID-19), it is not limited to this specific pandemic and will hopefully prove to be a valuable measurement tool for future pandemics as well.     

Ability and willingness to work during COVID-19 pandemic:Perspectives of front-line hotel employees

This research note reports the results of a qualitative study exploring front-line hotel employees’ views about working during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to identify factors that may influence their ability and willingness to report to work. Findings from online focus-groups reveal that front-line hotel employees generally felt a sense of duty to work during the pandemic. However, there were also a number of perceived barriers to working that impacted on this sense of duty. These emerged as barriers to ability and barriers to willingness, but the distinction is not clear-cut. Instead, most barriers seem to form a continuum ranging from negotiable barriers to insuperable barriers. Following this coneptualisation, the key to reducing absenteeism during the pandemic is likely to take remedial action so that barriers to willingness do not become perceived as barriers to ability to work. Practical implications towards this direction are offered.     

Air-travelers' concerns emerging from online comments during the COVID-19 outbreak

This research aims to assess air travelers' concerns affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, expressed in the comments they wrote online. A sample of 639 comments written on the Italian National Consumer Union website and related to the airline industry was assessed through an automated sentiment analysis in this study. The achieved results showed that travelers' concerns were directed mainly towards compensations, cancellations, and COVID-19 and at the same time, they had mixed and unpredictable feelings. This element suggests that consumers may have understood that airline companies are facing unsustainable cash-flow and revenue situations. Moreover, all our hypotheses, grounded on existing literature, were refuted. Accordingly, we argue that the actual context prevents assessments based on previous assumptions, and studies related to the impact of COVID-19 need to be conducted anew.     

The coevolutionary process of restaurant CSR in the time of mega disruption

This study investigates how US foodservice conglomerates have embarked on corporate social responsibility (CSR) measures to circumvent dire situations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the evolution of CSR practices from restaurant enterprises to rescue and salvage their stakeholders. By analyzing press releases from ten restaurant chains in three different crisis phases (incubation, acceleration, and climax) through corpus linguistics, we identify a CSR progression mechanism that coevolves with the aftermath of the crisis among their stakeholders. This study improvises the CSR- as-process view to highlight the time-variant dynamic nature of CSR development over the course of major disruption.     

COVID-19 in Singapore and New Zealand: Newspaper portrayal,crisis management

News frames influence destination reputation. Research primarily focuses on social media impact relative to destination reputation. Newspaper reporting is a major source of information which remains a study area underexplored when assessing news media framing. This study fills the gap by analyzing how newspapers from tourist generating countries such as China, USA, and Australia portrayed reputable destinations like New Zealand's and Singapore's efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. The ProQuest library database was used to collect 192 newspaper articles. The software Qualtrics Text iQ and Leximancer were used to track sentiments, identify themes and concepts correlating with literature on tourism crisis management. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic yields a negatively lower sentiment value for New Zealand, than Singapore's higher sentiment value. The contribution lies in the relationship concept emphasizing shifts in destination reputation corollary to crisis management, and to account for reputation fluctuations in media framework theory.