Willingness to pay: Who are the cheap talkers?

The purpose of this paper is to determine who is willing to pay (WTP) for a greener event by applying a Contingent Valuation (CV) approach together with an experimental design. To identify the cheap talkers a survey was conducted at the Wacky Wine Festival in South Africa, were 474 respondents participated. Using a Heckman two-step approach, the results confirmed that the decision to contribute depends on behavioural and motivational factors, while the amount is income-dependent. The extent of cheap talking is significant, with a 50% deviation in stated and revealed behaviour. Besides cheap talkers, another category is identified, namely “ethicals”, who contribute their voucher to the tree planting project without indicating that they are willing to pay.     

Determining guests’ willingness to pay for hotel room attributes with a discrete choice model

Hotel managers need to understand the marginal utility customers associate with a specific attribute of a hotel in order to effectively set up rate fences and to price their rooms accordingly. This study adopted a stated choice experiment and discrete choice modeling method to obtain hotel guests’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a specific set of room attributes within a single hotel property. The attributes include room views, hotel floor, club access, free mini-bar items, smartphone service, and cancellation policy. The study discovered that leisure travelers versus business travelers, and first-time visitors versus repeat visitors, perceive different WTP values for various attributes. These findings provide valuable information for hotel managers to segment their market and conduct revenue management practices in order to maximize revenue and profit. The results also demonstrate the value of discrete choice modeling in obtaining WTP for hotel room attributes.     

Is VR game training more effective for hospitality employees? A longitudinal experiment

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) game training compared to both in-person demonstration and traditional video training. Combining the constructivist learning theory with the cognitive-affective theory of learning, the study designed a longitudinal lab experiment in the context of restaurant frontline worker training. The results showed that VR game training led to more favorable brand attitudes but less knowledge retention than the other two training methods, both immediately after training and four weeks later. The contradictory results might be explained by higher arousal elicited by VR game training, which has a negative mediating effect on knowledge retention. On the other hand, pleasure positively mediates the effect of training method on brand attitude and knowledge retention. In addition, intrinsic motivation showed a significant moderating role only in delayed effects of training. The study findings have significant implications for both academia and professionals.     

Sentiment and guest satisfaction with peer-to-peer accommodation: When are online ratings more trustworthy?

This study aims to decode guest satisfaction with peer-to-peer accommodations by analyzing the relationship between guests’ sentiment and online ratings and examining how analytical thinking and authenticity influence this relationship. Based on reviews of 4602 Airbnb listings in San Francisco, we empirically find that positive (negative) sentiment is linked to a high (low) rating. We further show that this link is stronger when guests manifest a higher extent of analytical thinking and authenticity. Both Tobit and ordered logit models yield consistent estimation results, showing the robustness of our findings. Our study contributes to the tourism and hospitality literature by theoretically explaining the association between sentiment and ratings. In addition, this paper enriches our knowledge regarding the trustworthiness of Airbnb ratings.     

How do tourists with disabilities respond to service failure? An application of affective events theory

Service failures and complaints have been topics where there is an increasing interest among researchers as well as practitioners and it has been thoroughly examined in relation to the general traveling public.But this is not the case for tourists with disabilities.Therefore, the aim of the current research is to examine the relationship of service failure with complaint behavior based on the Affective Events Theory.An on-site survey was administered to collect data from Koreans with disabilities living in South Korea, and a total of 283 responses were used for data analysis. The findings showed that emotional evaluation had a significant relationship with regard to explaining cognitive evaluation, core service failure, and interpersonal service failure respectively. Emotional evaluation showed a positive relationship with complaint behavior. These findings provide insight regarding ways to provide better services for tourists with disabilities and for strategic planning and marketing purposes.     

Which factors are associated with the chefs' perception of stress at the beginning of COVID-19 lockdown?

With the theoretical starting point of the transactional stress model of Lazarus and its further elaboration and operationalization by Levenstein et al. we investigate the following research question: Which factors are associated with the chefs' perception of stress at the beginning of COVID-19 lockdown? With the help of an online survey among 128 Michelin-star chefs and 159 non-Michelin-star chefs in Germany, we provide answers to the research question. Our results show that resilience is the strongest predictor for reducing the chef’s perception of stress. In contrast, financial restrictions due to unemployment or short-time work compensation do not increase the perception of stress. Additionally, self-employment status increases the stress perception. Meanwhile, the assessment of the governmental economic support as insufficient also has a high impact on the stress perception.     

To be or to refuse to be? Exploring the concept of leisure as resistance for young people who are visually impaired

This study explored the concept of leisure as resistance to social constraints of blindness. Leisure, because of its relative freedoms, has been conceptualised as a forum in which dominant cultural discourses and stereotypes can be challenged or resisted. A post-structural analysis of the leisure narratives of five young people who are blind revealed that they intentionally used aspects of leisure to resist some constraints and stereotypes of disability. Three strategies were identified: advocacy, redefinition and passing. Advocacy targeted other people’s beliefs; yet, some activities done to resist dominant discourses actually perpetuated them. Redefinition was a covert strategy to show themselves that they could be the same as everyone else. Passing was used in different ways. One young person used it when advocating, another to maintain social connections. However, maintaining social connections by passing was often at the cost of enjoyment, engagement and perceptions of ability. Empowerment through resistance in leisure related primarily to gains in self-confidence. These gains in self-confidence have the potential to contribute to social interactions and perhaps influence some of the discourses that operate as ‘truths’ about people who are blind.     

How can tourism use land more efficiently? A model-based approach to land-use efficiency for tourist destinations

In densely populated areas of Central Europe, many successful tourist destinations face the problem of approaching the limit of their growth potential. Solutions to this problem commonly refer to the idea of “smart growth” based on increasing efficiency in the use of nature for economic production (eco-efficiency). In this paper, we show how eco-efficiency can be used to evaluate tourism strategies on local scale based on an augmented regional input–output model that delivers information on economic performance, land use (as indicator for environmental pressure), and employment. We illustrate this approach via a case study of the tourist destination of Davos in the Swiss Alps. The model predicts that the key drivers of land-use efficiency are: (i) the economic impact of tourists, (ii) occupancy intensity, and (iii) the density of beds per area covered by residential buildings and hotels. The economic impact of increasing bed capacity is highly dependent on the tourist category triggering the development; this can also be used to attract new tourist categories at the expense of tourist categories that make inefficient use of available land. As the impact of an increased density of beds per ground floor area is as high as an improved occupancy rate over during the year, spatial planning, building design, and facility management also play a major role in improving land efficiency in the tourism sector.     

Vacation from work: A ‘ticket to creativity’?: The effects of recreational travel on cognitive flexibility and originality

Recreational travel may increase creativity by relieving workers from stress, providing diversifying experiences and increasing positive emotions. Consequently, vacations may boost creativity, apparent in a greater variety (flexibility) and originality of ideas after work resumption.In our longitudinal field study, creativity (measured by Guilford's Alternative Uses Task; independently scored by three raters) was assessed in 46 workers before and after vacation. Potential precursors for creativity changes (i.e. work load, vacation hassles, vacation destination and positive affect) were also explored.Cognitive flexibility increased whereas originality remained the same after vacation. None of the precursors explained variance in creativity changes.Although vacations seem to increase chances on creative insights by raising the amount of available cognitive elements (flexibility), they do not necessarily lead to higher levels of originality (uncommon, remote and clever ideas). Research in larger samples is required to further explore mechanisms that may explain why travel seems to enhance creativity.     

Which consumer feedback metrics are the most valuable in driving consumer expenditure in the tourism industries? A view from macroeconomic perspective

The link between consumer feedback metrics and consumer expenditure at the microeconomic level has been extensively examined. However, little is known at the macroeconomic level about the influence of consumer feedback metrics on consumer expenditure. Relying on actual data concerning consumer feedback metrics and consumer expenditure, the present study examines the influence of various consumer feedback metrics on consumer expenditure in the tourism industries. Our study collected data about consumer feedback metrics and consumer expenditure over the period 2008–2017. The findings indicate that consumer satisfaction and consumer effort score (CES) are the best performing consumer feedback metrics in hotels, restaurants, and travel agencies industries. Furthermore, the top-2-box performs best for predicting consumer expenditure in online booking industry. The findings reflect the significance of consumer feedback metrics on the economy as a whole; therefore, efforts to boost consumer feedback metrics should consider a national agenda.     

How do people negotiate through their constraints to engage in pro-environmental behavior? A study of front-country campers in Alberta,Canada

This study examined structural models of associations among constraints to pro-environmental nature-based tourism behavior, negotiation through these constraints, motivations to engage in pro-environmental behavior, and knowledge of pro-environmental activities. Three types of constraints (i.e., intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural) were investigated to obtain a detailed understanding of barriers to pro-environmental tourism behavior. Structural models were tested using data obtained from front-country campers (n = 1009) in Alberta, Canada. Results showed that constraints negatively and directly influence intention. Negotiation and knowledge positively and directly influenced intention. Motivation and knowledge directly and negatively influenced constraints, and directly and positively influenced negotiation. The mitigating effect of negotiation on the association between constraints and intention was supported by the data. The theoretical and practical implications relating specifically to constraints to engaging in pro-environmental nature-based tourism activities are emphasized.