Influence of servicescape stimuli on word-of-mouth intentions: An integrated model to indigenous restaurants

This study explores the influence of servicescape on consumers’ word-of-mouth intentions using the stimulus-organism-response framework. It focuses on the interaction effects of substantive staging and communicative staging, and discusses the moderating effects of authenticity on the relationship between servicescape and experiential value. The results show that servicescape stimuli influence consumers’ experiential value, which in turn affects their emotions and generates word-of-mouth intentions. Authenticity as a moderator weakens the impact of substantive staging on experiential value. There is an interaction effect between substantive and communicative staging, and this interaction weakens the impact of servicescape on experiential value. The study concludes with practical implications.     

Understanding the relationship between food experiential quality and customer dining satisfaction: A perspective on negative bias

This research explores how food experiential quality of consumers affects their overall dining satisfaction. Drawing on negative bias theory, we propose a nonlinear relationship between food experiential quality and customer dining satisfaction. Moreover, we investigate how restaurant price moderates the nonlinear relationship between food experiential quality and customer dining satisfaction. Results of the threshold model using 10,950 online reviews of 219 restaurants on Dianping.com provide support for the proposed hypotheses. The results suggest that a curvilinear relationship is found between food experiential quality dining satisfaction, and the turning points of nonlinear returns decreases for restaurants that belong to high-priced groups. Theoretically, our findings contribute to the existing literature by considering the nonlinear effect of food experiential quality on customer dining satisfaction in the hospitality area through the lens of negative bias, as well as considering the boundary condition. Practically, our findings suggest that restaurant managements can improve customer dining satisfaction through focusing on the food experiential quality of their customers and enhancing their response to customers who have low-level food experiential quality. In addition, if the restaurant price is high, restaurant managers should provide high-level of food experiential quality.     

Consumers' Intention to Purchase Environmentally Friendly Wines: A Segmentation Approach

There has been a remarkable increase in environmental consciousness worldwide. Consumers are beginning to change their behavior to integrate environmental considerations into lifestyle choices, such as how well products satisfy their needs and how these products affect the natural environment. In some cases, consumers have expressed a willingness to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products. A goal of marketing is informing the public of the availability of goods and services that will advance their quality of life. However, this is true only if marketing's communication aids in informing, educating, and channeling consumers' needs toward “green” products and services. This study investigated the relationship of wine consumers' environmental knowledge, attitudes, gender, and their expressed intention to pay more for an environmentally friendly wine. The results suggest these variables could be used for segmentation and for selective marketing to reposition the product and then redirect consumers toward environmentally friendly wine purchasing.     

Travel and Leisure Services Preferences and Patronage Motives of Older Consumers

The population is aging and the number of people over 55 (older consumers) is increasing. Firms which recognize the importance of the older consumer segment can use this demographic change to their advantage. However, the older consumer market is more heterogeneous than the younger consumer market when it comes to preferences, motives, and spending patterns. Travel and leisure services are no exception. This study reports the result of a large‐scale study that examined the responses to travel and leisure services and patronage motives of different age and lifestyle groups. The results suggest several marketing strategies that would be most appropriate for reaching older consumers of travel and leisure services.     

Self-Service Technology Versus Traditional Service: Examining Cognitive Factors In The Purchase Of The Airline Ticket

This article aims to identify the cognitive factors which influence the consumer attitudes toward the purchase of the airline ticket. We refer to the comparison between the beliefs regarding self-service and the alternative service or traditional service. This study is based on a sample of 739 Spanish undergraduates and their attitudes toward buying an airline ticket. This is the best selling product on the Internet in Spain. We compare the beliefs in two segments—online consumers and offline consumers—regarding each of the two systems for air ticket purchasing: Internet versus traditional travel agency. Hence, in online consumers, control and delivery speed are observed to be differentiating cognitive factors in the use of a self-service system. However, with offline consumers, delivery speed is indicated as a particularly significant cognitive factor in the use of the traditional service system.     

The power of design: How does design affect consumers’ online hotel booking?

Emphasizing experiential appeals to consumers through design is most notable in the emerging lifestyle hotel segment of the lodging industry. This study identifies which lodging design mechanisms evoke consumer responses and provides a novel understanding of the relationships among consumer perception of hotel product/service design and booking intention by incorporating consumer emotional arousal and quality expectations in a theoretical model. The findings of this study suggest that aesthetics and symbolism in hotel design shape booking intention through emotional arousal and quality expectation. The functional dimension of design affects booking intention only through quality expectation. The findings will be particularly meaningful to the lodging industry because online booking requires both emotional and cognitive responses on the part of consumers.     

Consumerism in Sustainable Tourism: A Survey of UK Consumers

This article presents the results of a survey of tourism consumers from the Destinations Travel Show in the UK in 2000. Four hundred and eleven tourism consumers were interviewed over four days at the show on the type of information that they used in the selection of their holiday destination. This article posits that the power of the consumer can be a major force for progress towards greater sustainability by the tourism industry, acting as a rationale for change, which is often missing from more traditional planning, management or regulatory techniques. The research shows consumers are already making decisions based on environmental, social and economic quality for day-to-day products and are keen to transfer these habits to the purchase of tourism products. Recommendations are made, highlighting the need for the tourism industry to capitalise on this demand for a wider range of product information and so promote moves towards greater levels of sustainability in the industry.     

The role of tourism management in adaptation to climate change – a study of a European inland area with a diversified tourism supply

The Carpathian Basin is one of the most vulnerable European regions in terms of potential climate change impacts on biodiversity. Its wide range of tourism activities make it uniquely suitable for assessing the effects of climate change on tourism. This research sought to create a Tourism Adaptation Portfolio (TAP) for the Szentendre micro-region in Hungary and to assemble an adaptation toolbox for current and future use by tourism organizations. The TAP contains practical, easy to implement solutions for key stakeholders in the sector by adaptation type (technology, management, behavior, education, policy). Surveys of local tourism suppliers showed that 70% said they were well informed, largely by the Internet, but 55% admitted to not knowing enough. The methodology outlined here is transferable and the process can be replicated elsewhere, supporting other regions in becoming climate-friendly tourism destinations, creating opportunities for uniquely positioning a region for consumers. The article provides a concise overview of tourism provider attitudes assessed through a questionnaire, shedding light on points of intervention, willingness to pay, main barriers and suitable adaptation instruments. The adaptive capacity of stakeholders is also discussed, which is indispensable for implementing successful practices in adaptation and maintaining the current level of environmental services.     

When dessert comes close: The effects of anticipating indulgent consumption and dietary restraint on healthy food preference at restaurants

When dining in restaurants, diners often anticipate indulgent consumption, such as enjoying a dessert. This study examined the effects of anticipating such indulgence on preferences for healthy food among restrained and unrestrained eaters. Two experiments revealed that anticipating indulgent consumption reduced restrained eaters’ preference for the immediate consumption of healthy food. Conversely, unrestrained eaters’ expectation of indulgent consumption increased or did not change their preference for a healthy option. The interactive effect of indulgence anticipation and dietary restraint on healthy food preference held regardless of availability of nutrition information. The findings suggest that, despite increasing concern for healthy eating, restrained consumers ironically show a preference for unhealthy food options when anticipating a dessert consumption opportunity. The present study provides theoretical implications for consumption anticipation, sequential consumption, and dietary restraint, and practical implications for restaurateurs as well as for consumers, health professionals, and policymakers regarding healthy eating.     

Managing experience co-creation practices: Direct and indirect inducement in pop-up food tourism events

Consumers performing the role of value-creators in experience co-creation introduces idiosyncrasies that challenge experiential consistency. Taking ‘pop-up’ dining events as its empirical focus, and drawing on semi-structured interviews with participants, this study examines how organisations and consumers interact to negotiate ambiguity, variability and consistency. The paper questions how organisers try to prescribe normative rules governing events. It considers how consumers invest in preparing for events, and engage in socialised performances to create unique experiences. The data are also used to show how peer surveillance shapes consumer expectations, behaviours and interpretations. Consequently, this study contributes to knowledge on the practical management of co-creation by conceptualising different pathways through which organisations and consumers attempt to orchestrate behaviours. Moreover, in theorising from the data, this paper distinguishes between direct and indirect modes of inducement used to achieve experiential outcomes, identifying how ‘value-signalling’ practices engage event stakeholders and shape their co-creation.     

The effect of COVID-19 on tourists’ intention to resume hotel consumption: The role of resilience

This study aims to better understand how one particular personal capacity—psychological resilience—may help consumers adapt to the ‘new normal’ provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic in the hotel context, which is characterized by high uncertainty. We conducted a quantitative empirical study among consumers of hotel services, which showed that their psychological resilience has a negative effect on their perceived health risk and emotional risk. This negative effect on risk helps increase tourist intention to return to consuming hotel services despite the on-going pandemic. The findings are of value to the literature and the professional sector alike, as they demonstrate both relationships jointly for the first time. The work can help hotel firms to design more effective strategies for approaching customers in the ‘new normal’.     

A conceptual model of consumer evaluation of recreation service quality

The paper develops a model which is intended to explain the process by which a consumer evaluates recreation service quality. Much of the difficulty in measuring the quality of recreation services can be attributed to their intangibility, heterogeneity, and the inseparability of their production and consumption functions. Dimensions of recreation services are operationalized in the article, and the criteria used by consumers for evaluating recreation service quality are discussed. Recreation service quality is defined as the outcome of a comparison between expectations of a service and what is perceived to be received. Since much of the reported work in the area of service quality has been undertaken in a commercial context, key differences in the public and commercial sectors which may impact consumers' expectations of recreation services are discussed and integrated into the model.     

Farming and tourism enterprise: Experiential authenticity in the diversification of independent small-scale family farming

This article examines the business choices made by independent farming families, when confronting the need to diversify away from traditional agricultural activities by starting farm-based tourism businesses. Based on interviews with farm family members who have set up tourism attractions on their farms, and drawing upon the concept of experiential authenticity, the article explores their self-conceptions of their family identities. In so doing, it addresses the choices and dilemmas facing farm families who attempt diversification through the tourism attraction route, and considers how this affects their attitudes towards more traditional farming activities. Using qualitative case study data, an empirically grounded framework is proposed that expresses the choices and challenges facing tourism entrepreneurial family farm members in the UK, through the conceptual lens of experiential authenticity.     

Service customization: To upgrade or to downgrade? An investigation of how option framing affects tourists’ choice of package-tour services

Package-tour operators often tailor trips to fit travelers’ personal requirements to create higher customer value. In practice, there are various options available for presenting an identical package tour to potential customers. This research investigates how option framing influences travelers’ decision making in a package-tour customization task. Based on a behavioral study and a logistic regression analysis, our results show that: (1) when both upgrading (i.e., starting from an economic package and customizing upwards) and downgrading (i.e., beginning with a luxury package and customizing downwards) methods are available, more consumers prefer upgrading to downgrading; (2) consumers customize their tour packages to a higher total price in the downgrading condition; (3) after separating peripheral service from core service attributes, our results further reveal that option framing affects peripheral services more than core services; and (4) consumers who are quality conscious and promotion-focused are more likely to choose a downgrading method for package-tour customization. Combined, these findings offer important managerial implications for travel companies.     

A critical review of determinants of information search behavior and utilization of online reviews in decision making process (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

This conceptual paper provides a brief review of hospitality consumers’ information search behavior and the factors that are likely to influence their information search behavior and their utilization and processing of online reviews. This study focuses on the factors such as information overload, confusion, information processing, information presentation format, trust and evaluation mode that has not received much attention from hospitality scholars in addition to discussing the impacts of perceived risk and familiarity on information search and information processing approaches utilized by hospitality consumers. This study also discusses opportunities for hospitality researchers to empirically examine the extent to which each of the factors discussed might influence hospitality consumers information search, information processing and especially their utilization of online reviews in their decision making process.     

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.     

Staying with the ingroup or outgroup? A cross-country examination of international travelers’ home-sharing preferences

This paper examines the joint effect of host’s cultural identity (i.e., ingroup vs. outgroup), presence of a travel companion, and consumer’s country of origin on international travelers’ evaluations of home-sharing services. A quasi-experimental design was implemented to collect data from U.S. and Chinese consumers. Results indicate a significant three-way interaction: In a culturally different destination, Chinese consumers prefer home-sharing services provided by ingroup hosts whether traveling alone or with a companion, whereas American consumers only show ingroup preference if they travel alone; when traveling internationally with a travel companion, American consumers prefer home-sharing services provided by an outgroup host. Further, psychological closeness and perceived experience authenticity are found to be the mediators underlying international travelers’ home-sharing preferences. Findings of this study offer new insights to the research and management of sharing economy.     

The Effect of Basic,Performance and Excitement Service Factors of a Convention Center on Attendees' Experiential Value and Satisfaction: A Case Study of the Phoenix Convention Center

This study investigates how the various services provided by a convention center and its service quality affects attendees’ experiential values, and in turn, leads to the attendees’ overall satisfaction and loyalty. The sample consisted of 217 convention attendees in Phoenix, AZ, representing a response rate of 54%. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used for analyses. Results indicate that basic and excitement service factors have a positive influence on individual experiential values. Also, the study shows that enhanced individual experiential values have an impact on raising overall satisfaction with the convention center.     

Exploring consumers’ bidding results based on starting price,number of bidders and promotion programs

Online auctions are a core dynamic pricing mechanism that is now used widely in the tourism market, and consumers enjoy the exciting experience of bidding for products and services. The rapid development of the online auction market has lead scholars to call for more research into the factors that influence the results of such auctions and how they are related to consumers’ online bidding behavior. To this end, the current study designs a lab environment and mainly explores the influences of the start bidding price (US$0.33 versus US$60), the number of bidders and promotion programs (low price versus quality) on the results of online auctions of hotel coupons. The research results indicate the following market dynamics. (1) Regardless of whether there is a low or high start-bidding price, more bidders lead to higher end-prices, especially with high start-bidding prices. (2) When a seller provides a higher start-bidding price, the end-prices will be higher. (3) Different promotion programs result in different end-prices, especially when the product characteristics are integrated effectively with such programs. When hotel coupons are the main auction product, they are associated with high-quality leisure and lifestyle factors, thus indicating that the integration of high accommodation quality with quality promotion programs can attract consumers to join the bidding process and lead to higher end-prices. (4) Regardless of whether there is a low or high start-bidding price, winners will always report higher ratings regarding distributive fairness, procedural fairness and information fairness than will losers. The research results have important theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed in the conclusions.