Environmental knowledge and consumers’ intentions to visit green hotels: the mediating role of consumption values

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research is to explore the effect of environmental knowledge on consumers’ intentions to visit green hotels through consumption values. The research data was collected using the questionnaire survey. The results showed that environmental knowledge is significantly related to consumption values of consumers, which in turn has significant impacts on the visiting intentions. Moreover, this study also found that consumption values mediate the relationship between environmental knowledge and the intentions to visit green hotels. According to the results, the implications, limitations, and the directions of follow-up research were discussed.     

The effect of information presentation modes on tourists’ responses in Internet marketing: the moderating role of emotions

In order to enhance our understanding of the effectiveness of information transmission through virtual reality (VR), this study used a modified stimulus–organism–response framework to examine the relationships between information presentation modes (VR versus picture), emotions (pleasure and arousal), and tourists’ responses, namely attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA) in the context of Internet tourism marketing. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) were employed to analyze data gathered from 184 respondents participating in a factorial experimental design. The results indicated that compared with the picture mode, the VR mode had superior effects on tourists’ responses, but these superior effects were moderated by arousal. High-arousal tourists had stronger AIDA responses in the VR mode than in the picture mode. However, the stronger effects of the VR mode on tourists’ AIDA responses disappeared in the low-arousal group. The findings of this study provide several important theoretical and practical implications for Internet tourism marketing.     

The determinants of hospitality employees’ pro-environmental behaviors: The moderating role of generational differences

Seeking to build a deeper understanding of the determinants of hospitality employees’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs), this study explored linkages between employees’ autonomous and external motivations to perform PEBs, environmental concerns, self-efficacy, and employees’ reported PEBs. Hospitality employees (n = 432) indicated that autonomous motivation was associated with increases in employees’ environmental concern, self-efficacy, and PEBs. External motivation was significantly related to employees’ levels of environmental concern and PEBs. Employees’ environmental concern levels had positive effects on self-efficacy and PEBs. Self-efficacy was, in turn, positively associated with PEBs. The relationships between these variables were moderated by generational differences (e.g., Gen X and Gen Y) because generational characteristics might lead to formulating distinct generational perceptions in an organizational context. There were significant differences in the effects of autonomous motivation on environmental concern levels and PEBs between Gen X and Gen Y. In addition, the differences in effects of external motivation on environmental concern and PEBs were statistically significant between the two generations. Lastly, the impacts of environmental concern and self-efficacy on PEBs were significantly different between the two generations as well. Overall, our results suggest that the interplay of autonomous motivation, external motivation, environmental concern, and self-efficacy is important to the process of influencing hospitality employees’ PEBs.     

The effect of brand popularity statements on consumers’ purchase intentions: The role of instrumental attitudes toward the act

Marketers increasingly use brand popularity statements in attempts to influence consumers’ purchase decisions. Through the use of two experiments this research finds that a brand's popularity statement exerts a greater positive influence on the purchase intentions of consumers who possess less favorable instrumental attitudes toward the associated act (i.e. useless/foolish/harmful) than on purchase intentions of those consumers who have more favorable instrumental attitudes toward the act (i.e. useful/wise/beneficial). Further, this research also finds that a popularity statement for a brand of which society generally has a less favorable instrumental attitude toward the associated act (e.g. fast food consumption) has a larger positive influence on consumers’ purchase intent than does a popularity statement for a brand of which society generally has a more favorable instrumental attitude toward the associated act (e.g. dining at a casual theme restaurant). These findings suggest that brand popularity statements should be targeted at those consumers who might possess less favorable attitude toward the associated act or can be most effective in sectors in which consumer sentiment is generally low (e.g. the fast food sector).     

Chinese international students’ psychological adaptation process in Korea: the role of tourism experience in the host country

This study aims to shed light on the effect of international students’ lifelong learning and dining experience during the trip in a host country on their psychological adaptation, place attachment, and sharing of tourism experience. Employing responses from 247 Chinese students in South Korea, a SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) technique was used for the analysis. The study found that lifelong learning positively influences dining-out flow experience, which in turn placed positive effects on psychological adaptation, place attachment, and sharing of tourism experience, whereas place attachment mediates the relationship between flow experience and both sharing of tourism experience and psychological adaptation.     

Factors influencing local residents’ intentions to conserve the built heritage in Tanzania

This study used the dominant cognitive-based theory of planned behaviour (TPB) complemented by the affection-based attachment theory (AT) to investigate factors influencing local residents’ conservation intentions. Thus, in addition to TPB’s variables, such as attitudes towards conservation, perceived social pressure and perceived control over conservation, the study considered the effects of heritage affection on conservation intentions. Cross-sectional questionnaire-based data gathered from the three historic towns of Zanzibar Stone Town, Kilwa Kivinje and Pangani in Tanzania were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. The TPB’s variables and heritage affection all showed a positive and significant correlation with conservation intention. The empirical data therefore supported using the TPB, complemented by the AT, to explain engagement in conservation in the built heritage setting. The study concludes that conservation intention is best viewed as a mixture of cognitive and affective factors. Theoretical and managerial implications as well as suggestions for future studies are provided.     

Seniors’ dual route of persuasive communications in mobile social media and the moderating role of discretionary time

More than two-thirds of seniors use smartphones and in South Korea, over half of all senior smartphone owners are mobile social media (MSM) users. This study tested two basic routes to persuasion in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), applying the new concepts of benefits and authentic experience among senior MSM users for travel- and tourism-related purposes, along with the moderating role of discretionary time spent on MSM. To this end, an online survey was conducted for senior MSM users for tourism activities, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to analyze data obtained from 500 study participants. Results reveal that argument quality had a stronger effect on benefit than source credibility. Benefits and authentic experience played important mediating roles in the ELM. Discretionary time on MSM played a significant moderating role in the central and peripheral routes. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed in the conclusions section.     

Older adults’ parasocial interaction formation process in the context of travel websites: The moderating role of parent-child geographic proximity

This study aims to identify the effects of age identity and innovativeness on parasocial interaction (PSI), and the moderating effect of parent-children proximity between age identity and PSI, and to examine the causal relationships between PSI, well-being and word-of-mouth (WOM). A sample of 271 U.S. residents aged 50 and older were recruited through an online survey company. The conceptual model was developed and tested using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The results found that psychological and physical age have positive effects on PSI, whereas social age has a negative one. Importantly, innovativeness had a negative impact on PSI regardless of the age identity. The psychological and social age induced PSI to a stronger extent when the children lived out of state. Finally, PSI was found to lead to well-being and WOM, whilst well-being itself had a positive effect on WOM. The managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The roles of attitude,subjective norm,and perceived behavioral control in the formation of consumers’ behavioral intentions to read menu labels in the restaurant industry

Increases in food-away-from-home purchases brought public awareness to policies for improving nutritional value of foods served at restaurants. As a result, offering choices to consumers that affect health and wellness has become a growing concern in the food industry and restaurants, as evidenced by provisions for nutritional labeling to guide consumers’ food purchasing decisions for healthy eating. This study pursues an empirical examination of the consumers’ behavior toward reading nutritional labeling at casual-dining restaurants. The study tests the conceptual framework of the proposed effects of constructs on consumers’ behavioral intentions. Findings indicate that the variable of attitude acts as a mediator in the relationship between subjective norm and behavioral intention. This study is meaningful to academia by offering insights into the relationship between consumers’ behavior and nutritional information in the context of restaurants and is beneficial to the restaurant industry by offering implications for establishing marketing strategies to improve consumers’ perceptions of menu items.     

How nutrition information frame affects parents’ perceptions of restaurants: The moderating role of information credibility

Adding easy-to-read information on menus is recommended for customers’ healthy food selections. But what format yields the best outcomes for restaurateurs has not been investigated. We use the emphasis framing effect as a theoretical lens to examine how the credibility of nutrition information affects parents’ perceptions of restaurant healthfulness and trustworthiness when exposed to two nutrition information frames on children's menus: numeric values only and numeric values with low-calorie symbols. The results of the experimental study show that parents who do not perceive nutrition information as being highly credible perceive restaurants providing numerical values only as more healthful and trustworthy. However, parents who do perceive nutrition information as being highly credible perceive restaurants as more healthful and trustworthy when both numeric values and low-calorie symbols are presented and have more positive perceptions overall. We advise restaurateurs to increase nutrition information credibility and provide additional easy-to-read information to elicit more positive perceptions.     

The mediating role of place identity in the relationship between residents’ perceptions of heritage tourism and place attachment: the Macau youth experience

Ever since Macau became a World Heritage city, there is a growing body of research on Macau heritage tourism. However, the study on Macau residents’ place identity (PI) and place attachment (PA) amid heritage tourism development has yet to be explored. Owing to this, the current study explores the mediating role of PI on the relationship between heritage tourism perceptions and PA.     

Hit close to home: the moderating effects of past experiences on tourists’ on-site experiences and behavioral intention in post-earthquake site

Echoing calls for further empirical research of exploring complex mechanism of dark tourism experiences, as well as following the series of studies on post-disaster recovery (Wenchuan earthquake in China), it takes an earthquake-ruined country town Beichuan as a study case to explore relationships between dark places, on-site experiences, and behavioral intentions. By using structural equation modeling, it proves that the framework of aroused memory, cognition-affection, satisfaction, and behavior intention (place protection) is an effective new approach to understand visitors’ psychological experiences in the contest of dark tourism. Most importantly, it innovatively proves in quantitative way that aroused memory (either firsthand or secondhand) is the antecedent factor that influences the on-site cognition and emotion, and past experience plays the moderating role affects both the extent and the inner relation of dark experiences between visitors who were exposed/not exposed to a specific dark event. The findings are also beneficial in guiding post-disaster site planning and management.     

The influence of face on Chinese tourists’ gift purchase behaviour: The moderating role of the gift giver–receiver relationship

This study investigated the influence of face as a Chinese cultural value on Chinese outbound group tourists' gift purchase behaviour. Specifically, the study examined how face's impact on gift purchase behaviour is moderated by the gift giver–receiver relationship. The results confirmed that self-face concern positively affected gift selection effort, brand orientation, and purchase cost in gift purchase. The type and status aspects of the giver–receiver relationship were found to moderate the relationship between face concern and gift purchase behaviour. Self-face concern has a stronger impact on gift purchase for non-family receivers and higher status receivers. The findings suggest that cultural values and social relations in the home society exert influence on tourist behaviours even though tourists are physically away from home. This study also provides valuable practical implications for destinations wishing to better understand the shopping needs of Chinese tourists.     

Examining tourism SME owners’ place attachment,support for community and business performance: the role of the enlightened self-interest model

This research examines how support for the local community by small tourism businesses influences their enterprise performance, and the extent to which the owners’ place attachment influences the level of support that they provide to the community. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the responses from the owners of 298 small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) operating in regional South Australia. Results of the analysis provide support for the validity of a structural model. The place attachment of tourism business owners has a significant positive effect on their support for the community which in turn has a significant positive effect on enterprise performance. The robustness of the structural model was tested through a series of invariance (equality) tests. Results demonstrate that the causal relationships among place attachment, support for community and enterprise performance hold true (are invariant) irrespective of the gender of the business owner, the size of the business, and/or the length of time the business has been operating. These findings have implications for research scholars in developing more robust tests of model relationships between and across groups, and for tourism policymakers aiming to support the sustainable development of regional tourism destinations.     

The formation of visitor behavioral intention to creative tourism: the role of push–Pull motivation

This study proposes and examines a behavioral intention to re-experience model consisting of experience quality, perceived value, satisfaction, and push–pull motivation factor as the determinants. For this purpose, self-administrated questionnaires were utilized to gather data from 369 participants of five creative tourism attractions in Indonesia. To examine the proposed model and hypotheses, partial least square modeling was applied. The results provide evidence that pull motivation impacts visitor behavioral intention to re-experience. It also demonstrates that push motivation impacts visitor behavioral intention to re-experience and is strengthened by experience quality and perceived value.     

Residents’ changed perceptions of sport event impacts: the case of the 2012 Tour de Taiwan

The study explores subgroups within host residents based on perceptions of the impacts of the 2012 Tour de Taiwan before and after the event. Theoretical perspectives of event impact studies considering Confucian traditions, social exchange theory and a sense of ‘feel-good’ or ‘communitas’ help to provide fresh insights. Data were collected from host residents in three competition stages, before and after the event. Twenty-two impact items divided into four factors generated subgroups of ‘neutral’ and ‘moderately positive’ (pre-event), and ‘neutral’ and ‘positive’ (post-event). The results show significant differences among the subgroups at the pre- and post-event stages in terms of gender, income, engagement in cycling exercises, levels of support and interest in the event, television watching, and event attendance. General benefits, negative impacts, the level of interest in the event and attendance were significant predictors of event support. The findings suggest that event feel-good can help the intangible characteristics of sporting events (do not entail construction and maintenance of permanent structures) to lever tangible and direct benefits for host communities.     

The view from inside the 'simulacrum‘: visitors’ tales from the set of Coronation Street

The social significance of visits to television and film locations has been little studied. This article concentrates on Granada Studios Tour (GST) - home of the external set of Coronation Street - and uses as its main source interviews with visitors to GST, conducted on site and in visitors' homes, to explore the complex significance of this site. Although sites such as GST have tended to be dismissed because of their ‘fictive’ status, a detailed examination of visitors’ experiences - in particular, their reactions to the Street set's status as an actual place of filming - suggests a more interesting picture. Visiting the Street set connects viewers to the ‘world of television’, a connection examined from a number of different perspectives: ‘aura’ (in Walter Benjamin's sense), social memory and symbolic reversals, pilgrimage and ritual place. The analysis of GST and the Street set as ‘ritual places’ draws in particular on the work of the anthropologist Jonathan Smith. It develops from the way the set connects two places and two worlds organized in a symbolic hierarchy: the ‘ordinary world’ of viewers and the ‘media world’. Such worlds are, largely, social constructions, but they are the basis of GST's particular ‘power of place’. The conclusion connects this analysis to Lash and Urry's recent (1994) analysis of the ‘resubjectivization of space’ in contemporary travel and reflexivity.     

Intrinsic or extrinsic motivations for hospitality employees’ creativity: The moderating role of organization-level regulatory focus

This study predicts that the intrinsic (creative personality) and extrinsic motivators (transformational leadership) reinforce employee creativity and job performance in the hospitality industry. More importantly, the positive moderating effects of organizational regulatory focus (promotion and prevention) on employee creativity are included in proposed model. To test the mode, data (339 employees and 72 supervisors) was collected from 62 Taiwan international hotels in the summer of 2014. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) were conducted to examine measurement model and hypotheses. The HLM results confirmed the effects of individual-level factors. However, an organizational promotion focus only enhances the extrinsic creative motivator. The intrinsic creative motivator was reinforced by an organizational prevention focus. The research findings suggest that hospitality managers should consider both individual- and organizational-level factors simultaneously. Indeed, the organizational goals could be set depending on the features of the department. Further discussions and implications are elucidated.     

The influence of hospitality leaders’ relational transparency on followers’ trust and deviance behaviors: Mediating role of behavioral integrity

This paper investigates the effect of leader’s relational transparency on follower organizational deviance through followers’ perception of leader’s behavioral integrity and their trust in leader. Multi-level modeling results from a multisource survey-based field-study with 24 hospitality student project teams (N = 149) show that behavioral integrity mediates the relationship between leader’s relational transparency and follower’s trust in leader. Furthermore, multi-level path analysis suggests that leader’s relational transparency, a team-level construct, exerts a cross-level effect on follower’s organizational deviance through the mediating roles of behavioral integrity and follower’s trust in leader. The study has yielded theoretical and practical implications that are useful for hospitality leaders.     

The role of server–patron mutual disclosure in the formation of rapport with and revisit intentions of patrons at full-service restaurants: The moderating roles of marital status and educational level

The purposes of this study are (1) to determine the specific server attributes that have the strongest influences on server–patron mutual disclosure; (2) to examine the causal relationships between server–patron mutual disclosures and rapport with and revisit intentions of patrons; and (3) to investigate the moderating roles of marital status and educational level in the process. Theoretical relationships between server attributes, mutual disclosure, rapport, and patrons’ revisit intentions were derived based on a literature review. Following the collection and analysis of data obtained from full-service restaurant patrons, this study found that three server attributes directly influence two sub-dimensions of mutual disclosure (server disclosure and customer disclosure). Furthermore, mutual disclosure was shown to have a positive impact on rapport, which results in patron revisit intentions. This study also found that marital status and educational level have key moderating functions in the relationship between mutual disclosure and rapport. The possible interpretations and managerial implications of these findings are provided.