Social servicescape’s impact on customer perceptions of the hospitality brand – The role of branded social cues

This research examines how the social servicescape (i.e., employee-customer, employee-employee and customer-customer) impacts brand-related outcomes via branded social cues. Informed by theories related to cue consistency and conceptual fluency, results from three experimental studies conducted across sectors and scales of hospitality businesses (i.e., luxury hotel, high-end restaurant and limited-service hotel), indicate that branded social servicescape cues have direct, indirect and interactive effects on brand-related outcomes. In luxury contexts, when the brand’s personality is absent in employee-customer social cues, the negative effects were buffered if brand personality is reflected in employee-employee social cues. Conceptual fluency mediated the relationship between branded employee-customer social cues and brand-related outcomes, which was moderated by branded employee-employee social cues. Conceptual fluency also mediated the relationship between branded customer-customer social cues and brand-related outcomes. This research sheds light on how hospitality firms can leverage branded social cues to enhance customer evaluation of the hospitality brand.     

How to win the consumer’s heart? Exploring appraisal determinants of consumer pre-consumption emotions

Emotions are key drivers of consumption in the tourism and hospitality sector. Therefore, advancing our understanding of the determinants of consumer emotions is critical for tourism and hospitality marketers to effectively influence consumer affect-driven consumption behavior. However, research on the determinants of pre-consumption emotions remains under-explored. This study aims to fill the research gap and proposes a theoretical framework to explain affect-driven behavior. Grounded on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions, we hypothesize that marketing stimuli are personally appraised based on several dimensions such as novelty and goal relevance. These appraisal dimensions determine the elicitation of positive emotions, leading to behavioral intentions. A total of 655 participants were recruited for an empirical study to test this framework in the context of a tourism event experience. We use an experimental research design to examine consumer appraisals, emotions and behavioral intentions in four conditions: two marketing visual formats (poster vs. video) over two delivery channels (advertising vs. e-word-of-mouth). Research outcomes support the theoretical framework of consumer affect-driven behavior, suggesting that the elicitation of positive emotions beneficially guides consumer behavior in goal striving and novelty seeking. Based on this, emotion-focused marketing implications are recommended, including goal-based segmentation, goal-relevant content development and the use of eWOM as an emotion-enhancing message delivery channel.     

Does the geographic proximity of products influence a consumer’s decision? An evaluation in a restaurant

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Theme restaurants’ servicescape in developing quality of life: The moderating effect of perceived authenticity

This study was designed to investigate the role of servicescape, customer emotion, satisfaction, and perceived authenticity (PA) in the generation process of theme restaurant customers’ quality of life. We employed a survey methodology that used the data collected from theme restaurant customers, conducted structural analysis, and tested for metric invariance. Results showed that our theoretical model explained a sufficient amount of variance in overall quality of life; the hypothesized relationships in our research framework were generally supported; and customer emotion, satisfaction, and subjective well-being were significant mediators. Moreover, the proposed moderating impact of PA was partially supported. Overall, our empirical findings provide a significant contribution toward advancing the knowledge of how servicescape dimensions, customer emotion, satisfaction, subjective well-being, and quality of life are related. Finally, we share insight into how these relationships are affected by PA in the formation of theme restaurant customers’ quality of life.     

An examination of restaurant employees’ work-life outlook: The influence of support systems during COVID-19

The main objective of this research paper is to examine the influence of perceived support (i.e., organizational support and social support) on life satisfaction (i.e., current and anticipated life satisfaction), which is hypothesized to increase restaurant employees’ loyalty organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and decrease their intentions to leave the restaurant industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the moderating effects of employees’ resilience and employment status are also examined. Analyzing the responses of 609 restaurant employees using structural equation modeling (SEM), findings revealed that all direct effects were supported, except for the effect of anticipated life satisfaction on intention to leave the restaurant industry. Lastly, the moderating role of resilience in the relationships between current life satisfaction and restaurant employees’ loyalty OCB and intentions to leave the industry was confirmed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in detail.     

Dealing with pandemics: An investigation of the effects of COVID-19 on customers’ evaluations of hospitality services

The hospitality industry is highly vulnerable to pandemics. However, little is known about how pandemics alter travelers' evaluations of hospitality services. Therefore, this study investigates the changes in travelers' expectations and perceptions of hotel services during different stages of the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. 98,163 Chinese hotel reviews were collected and scrutinized via text mining and sentiment analysis techniques to derive new implications for service optimization. The results reveal shifts in consumers’ evaluations well beyond hygienic requirements. Insights obtained from this research can help guide hospitality practice in organizing its priorities during acute pandemic situations and adjusting to possibly longer-lasting shifts in consumer preferences.     

Diversity of offerings and consumer’s expenditure: an exploration of agritourism in China

ABSTRACT

As diversification becomes a pressing issue in China’s agritourism, extant literature provides insufficient and controversial findings on its influence. This research investigates the influence of the diversity of offerings on consumer’s expenditure, considering its interactive effects with quality and distance, by conducting analyses of hierarchical regression, multiple-linear regression and exploratory factor analysis. It is found that the diversity of offerings does not affect consumer’s expenditure alone, but interactively with quality and distance; consumer’s expenditure can be maximised with an optimal distance depending on the diversity of offerings; and there are four main business models of agritourism in China.     

The Role of Airline Travelers’ Pre-Recovery Emotions during the Service Recovery Process

This study examines (1) the relationships between airline travelers’ casual attribution (stability and controllability), pre-recovery emotions, post-recovery emotions, and overall satisfaction; and (2) analyzes the mediating effect of pre-recovery emotions on the relationship between causal attribution and post-recovery emotions. Theoretical hypotheses were derived based on a literature review, and to empirically test the hypotheses, data were collected from 210 airline travelers in Malaysia. These respondents were airline travelers who experienced some service failure and relevant service recovery within the past year. According to the results, the two dimensions of casual attribution both influenced pre-recovery emotions. Pre-recovery emotions were significantly related to positive and negative post-recovery emotions, and post-recovery emotions were significantly related to overall satisfaction. In addition, pre-recovery emotions moderated the relationship between casual attribution and post-recovery emotions. These results have important practical implications.     

The summer of the Spirits: Spiritual tourism to America’s foremost village of spirit mediums

The historic Spiritualist village of Lily Dale, New York, is a popular summer tourist destination in America, attracting approximately 20,000 visitors per year. This research argues that many of these visitors are “spiritual seekers”. Spiritual seeking is an important movement in the west. To date, however, there has been insufficient attention paid to the specific places in which this spiritual questing is undertaken. This research uses the concept of spiritual tourism to understand the summer journey to this part of America. Drawing on a range of ethnographic data, it finds that affective destinations play an irreducible part of many people's spiritual lives; it may only be through travel to dedicated places that seekers’ aspirations can be fully realized.     

An Assessment of Tourism’s Environmental Impact on the Lake Bosomtwe Basin

Using information from interviews with key stakeholders and secondary sources, this article assessed whether Lake Bosomtwe tourism development has negatively impacted its ecology and, if so, what can be done to mitigate the impact. The evidence showed that despite the increase in awareness of the need to protect the lake environment, far greater abuses of the ecology are endemic for two reasons—the mismatch between knowledge and practice of ecologically sustainable tourism development, and the omission from the calculus of the influences that segments of the tourism supply chain have on one another to encourage more environmentally responsible tourism.     

Women’s mountaineering tourism: an empirical investigation of its theoretical constraint dimensions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived constraints on participating in mountaineering tourism faced by women, and to empirically verify the dimensionality of those constraints. Survey responses from 314 female mountaineers were collected and four constraint dimensions were identified using confirmatory factor analysis. Three of these dimensions: ‘intra-personal’, ‘inter-personal’ and ‘structural’ constraints support earlier findings in the extant literature, both in general and in the adventure literature more specifically. The identification of a fourth dimension relating to ‘family’ constraints represents a theoretical contribution to the literature and an additional barrier to women’s participation in mountaineering tourism. In previous studies, ‘family’ constraints have typically been subsumed within ‘inter-personal’ or ‘intra-personal’ constraints, but have emerged as a distinctly separate constraint category for women in relation to this particular tourist activity. The findings also have important implications for adventure tourism management practice.     

Cigarette induced PM2.5 in hotel rooms: An assessment of the effectiveness of management’s mitigating measures

Many research evidence shows that the pollutants, especially the fine particulate matter (PM2.5), related to cigarette smoking, are harmful to the human body. Given that a hotel room is an almost air-tight setting and not very spacious, knowledge about the concentrations of PM2.5 created by cigarette smoking and the subsequent mitigation measures taken appears to be important in hotel management practice. Thus, field measurements were undertaken in a hotel room to ascertain the cigarette burning and smoking induced pollutant concentrations during the following ON and OFF conditions: with ventilation, with a window open, and using a specific air purifier designed to mitigate the effects of cigarette smoking. The investigation found that cigarette burning and smoking induced PM2.5 concentrations may reach 586 μg/m³ and 1368 μg/m³ on average when ventilation is OFF, respectively. The operation of ventilation may reduce the concentration to about 100 μg/m³. The effectiveness of opening a window as an alleviating measure greatly depends on outdoor PM2.5 concentrations; the observed threshold reference is 100 μg/m³. The tested air purifier works well for cigarette smoking, but not for cigarette burning. Implications of these results on management’s mitigation measures are further discussed in this paper.     

The application of Aristotle’s rhetorical theory to the sharing economy: an empirical study of Airbnb

ABSTRACT

Sharing economy businesses require extensive trust-based communication between users and service providers to facilitate users’ positive persuasion processes. Based on Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, this study identifies three key persuasive cues (credibility, emotional bonding, and accommodation characteristics) and validates their roles in establishing users’ trust in an Airbnb setting. The moderating role of interactivity is further analyzed. Research findings from a survey sample of 171 Airbnb users indicate that persuasive cues are positively associated with trust in Airbnb hosts, which significantly leads to Airbnb brand trust. Interestingly, the moderating role of interactivity is only found in the relationship between emotional bonding and trust in Airbnb hosts. This study contributes to a better understanding of the factors that affect users’ trust building in the sharing economy context, and it offers guidance for platform providers to better operate their businesses by highlighting the important roles of persuasive cues and interactivity in users’ trust-building processes.     

The ‘heritagisation’ of the British seaside resort: the rise of the ‘old penny arcade’

Amusement arcades have long been a key component of the British seaside resort. For almost a century, they enjoyed popularity and success and became established as a quintessential feature of the British seaside holiday. However, the advent of home-based video games along with recent gambling legislation has led to a decline of the seaside amusement arcade sector. Arcades gained a reputation as unsavoury places and their appearance and fortunes often mirrored those of the resorts in which they were located. However, over the past decade, a new variant of the seaside amusement arcade has appeared, featuring mechanical machines working on pre-decimal currency. Such ‘old penny arcades’ frequently describe themselves as museums or heritage centres and they offer an experience based on a nostalgic affection for the ‘traditional’ seaside holiday. They have appeared in the context of an increasing interest in the heritage of the British seaside resort and constitute one element of the ‘heritagisation’ of such resorts. This paper argues that such arcades can be important elements of strategies to reposition and rebrand resorts for the heritage tourism market.     

The Value of Service Robots from the Hotel Guest’s Perspective: A Mixed-Method Approach

Service robots (SR) are increasingly valued and embraced; they are here to stay. Research on collaborative intelligence to better understand robotic-human partnerships is scarce. To bridge that gap this study aimed to examine the value of SR from the guest’s perspective, thus gain a deeper understanding of the co-value creation process in the context of full-service hotels. A mixed-method design was used to capture the depth and breadth of perceived value of SR. Study 1 is a qualitative study probing consumers’ sense making regarding SR. Study 2 used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses derived from Study 1. Results indicate that perceived privacy, functional benefits of SR, and robot appearance positively influence consumers’ attitude towards adoption of SR. Functional benefits and novelty had an impact on the individuals’ anticipated overall experience. Attitude and anticipated overall experience, in turn, enhanced consumers’ acceptance of SR. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.     

Does ECO certification deliver benefits? An empirical investigation of visitors’ perceptions of the importance of ECO certification's attributes and of operators’ performance

Certification is highlighted as a key sustainable tourism management tool. Yet, very little is known about visitors’ perceptions of such schemes. This is an important gap: the success of certification schemes depends on consumers’ confidence in the quality of products and services that the schemes endorse. This paper surveyed 610 visitors to the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and surrounds in Queensland, Australia about (1) the perceived importance of various attributes of the ECO certification scheme; and (2) the perceived performance of operators based on those attributes. Data analysis identified aspects of ECO certification and of operator performance that may need improvement. It found that importance of attributes varied across products and visitor groups; at accommodations, most attributes were perceived to be important, Nature (as an aesthetic experience) and Marketing being more important than others, while at attractions and on tours, visitors were indifferent. Younger visitors rated Environment and Conservation more highly than their older counterparts and females rated Conservation more highly than males. Visitors – notably at accommodations – considered that ECO certified operators were performing “better” than non-ECO certified operators on many attributes. How these visitor perceptions translate into reality remains an important topic for future research.     

‘What’s the Story in Balamory?’: The Impacts of a Children’s TV Programme on Small Tourism Enterprises on the Isle of Mull,Scotland

Film- and television-induced tourism effects have been witnessed in a number of locations world-wide, creating a range of positive and negative impacts for host communities and environments. The children’s television programme Balamory, filmed on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, has created a new tourism phenomenon for the island, leading to concern that Mull’s reputation as a green destination for the discerning might be displaced by a less desirable form of tourism. Through a questionnaire survey of tourism businesses on Mull, this paper explores the perceptions of television-induced tourism and the effect of Balamory on business activity during the 2003 season, exploring customer numbers, spending, turnover and profitability, along with attitudes to the new visitors. The research also explores the implications for sustainable tourism development, particularly recognising the limited life-span of film- and television-induced tourism and issues relating to displacement of traditional markets, with an emphasis on sustaining tourism as a means of generating revenue to support a rural island community.     

Investigating the Effectiveness of Repositioning Strategies: The Customers’ Perspective

An effective repositioning means the target customers have developed a positive and favorable perception of the altered product offerings and satisfied with service delivery. Passengers of an Australian carrier were surveyed to determine whether its repositioning strategies have been effective. The findings reveal that passengers define product characteristics differently from industry and academia, resulting in a knowledge discrepancy, which in turn has a significant impact on the formulation of positive and favorable perception and satisfaction. We suggest an effective repositioning lies in managing consumers' knowledge strategically to minimize the knowledge gap.