Authentic dining experiences in ethnic theme restaurants

The literature on ethnic theme restaurants has already shown that patrons of such restaurants often wish to experience authentic ethnic culture, and customer satisfaction correlates with authenticity. This study examines the relationship between importance and performance of perceptions of authentic dining experiences in ethnic theme restaurants, and attempts to verify the influence of authentic dining experiences on repurchase intention in ethnic theme restaurants. After designing questionnaire content and sampling, this study obtained 538 samples. The analytical results show that authentic dining experiences effectively indicate customer repurchase intention. This study thus concludes that to attract more customers, ethnic theme restaurants should improve their service, settings, and food to provide customers a more authentic dining experience.     

三类餐馆顾客体验实证研究

不同定位的餐馆带给顾客不同的体验,了解这种感知上的差异对于提高餐饮业的管理水平具有重要意义.论文调研了豪华餐馆、大众餐馆和快餐店中的顾客体验,研究证实在不同种类的餐馆,菜肴质量、服务环境和员工服务对顾客的情感体验和社会体验具有不同的影响,并且顾客在三类餐馆的就餐目的也有很大差异.     

顾客餐馆体验的实证研究

餐馆的菜肴质量、服务环境和员工服务影响顾客的情感体验和社会体验,论文用调研问卷方法验证了不同体验之间的内部关系,以及不同人口统计特征的顾客对体验的差异化反应.研究发现,菜肴质量、员工服务是影响顾客体验的主要因素,顾客体验感知差异主要来源于年龄上的差异.     

Change in Consumer Patronage and Willingness to Pay at Different Levels of Service Attributes in Restaurants: A Study in India

Consumer patronage and consumer willingness to pay are the two most important criteria for business development. The current study investigates the changing preferences of consumers in a developing economy with respect to three major service attributes from the restaurant industry: food quality, service, and ambiance. Results indicated that consumers give greater preference to quality over service in high-end restaurants and prefer service compared with ambiance in quick-service restaurants. Food quality was found to have strong interaction effect with two other variables. When food quality was improved from low to high, consumer preferences for ambiance and service tended to change accordingly in the same direction, but not necessarily at the same level. Thus, restaurateurs have a strategic advantage when they choose high quality food and an appropriate level of service or ambiance. Consumer expectations are significantly different for high-end, full-service restaurants and quick-service restaurants in service attributes.     

In darkness we seek light: The impact of focal and general lighting designs on customers’ approach intentions toward restaurants

For many hospitality businesses, environmental lighting design can be a powerful tool to be leveraged to stage the servicescape when creating marketing collateral to attract customers. Addressing this underexplored topic, the current research examines how and why focal and general lighting designs, as presented in the restaurant’s ambient images, influence consumers’ approach intentions: namely, the perceptions of attractiveness of the restaurant and their visit intention. Our findings demonstrate that images that present focal lighting (e.g., table lighting) against a generally dimmed dining ambience can effectively boost the restaurant’s perceived attractiveness and visit intention among diners who are of high (vs. low) relational intimacy. Moderated-moderated mediation analysis (Hayes, 2018) further reveals that it is ambient intimacy that explains such effects. Theoretical and managerial implications of this research are presented before discussing limitations and future research opportunities.     

现象世界的旅游体验:旅游世界与生活世界

本文从基础理论研究的角度探讨了旅游现象研究的几个基本范畴.作者认为,旅游现象是一种纷繁复杂的社会经济现象,而构成这种复杂现象的内核的元素就是旅游体验.这种旅游体验过程是一个有一定自组织能力的连续系统.它由一个个富有特色和专门意义的情境串联组合而成,这些情境则共同构成了一个有别于人们日常生活世界的另类行为环境:旅游世界.通过对旅游世界结构性要素的分析和描述,本文构建了一个理解旅游现象的新的视角,而这种视角的哲学渊源来自现象学方法.     

How do authenticity and quality perceptions affect dining experiences and recommendations of food trucks? The moderating role of perceived risk

A growing number of food trucks differentiate themselves in the competitive market by serving ethnic foods. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of customers’ authenticity and quality perceptions of ethnic food trucks on their memorable dining experience (MDE) and, consequently, word of mouth (WOM) while considering customers’ perceived risk. Data were collected from 540 customers who had dined at ethnic food trucks in the U.S. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicated that authenticity perceptions influence quality perceptions and dining satisfaction directly, and MDE indirectly through dining satisfaction. Moreover, dining satisfaction affects WOM directly as well as indirectly through MDE. Among the three dimensions of perceived risk, hygienic risk mitigates both of the relationships between authenticity perceptions and dining satisfaction as well as between quality perceptions and dining satisfaction. Implications and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

Examining the effects of robotic service on brand experience: the moderating role of hotel segment

This research investigates the effects of robotic service on guest evaluations of hotel brand experience, and examines the moderating effects of hotel segment via a 2 (service delivery video: human or robot) x 3 (hotel segment: budget, midscale, or luxury) between-subjects experimental design. The findings suggest higher levels of sensory and intellectual experience from robotic service but lower levels of affective experience. For behavioral experience, robotic service influenced a higher rating for midscale and budget hotels, but not for a luxury hotel. Overall, robotic service may not necessarily enhance brand experience as influenced by the moderating role of hotel segment.     

Service Failure,Tipping Behavior,and the Effect of Service Industry Experience

The relationship between tipping and the service provided is not always linear. Factors such as demographic profile of the consumer, industry norms, and social norms affect the amount of tip. Results from the current study reveal that tipping varies when service failure occurs due to servers’ fault or organizational failure. Consumers with prior professional experience in the restaurant industry can distinguish between causes of failure, and tip accordingly. Consumers with prior professional restaurant experience were found to tip significantly more than those consumers that do not have prior hospitality experience. Tip rates for service failure due to organization failure tend to be higher compared with the service failure due to servers’ mistakes indicating that consumers do not penalize a server when the organization has caused the service failure.     

Leisure Involvement,Job Satisfaction,and Service Performance among Frontline Restaurant Employees

The importance of employee leisure involvement to employee service performance has been suggested but not tested in the literature. This study closes this research gap by inspecting the direct consequence of leisure involvement on service performance and leisure involvement’s indirect effect on service performance via job satisfaction for frontline service employees. This study uses a sample of 313 restaurant employees collected from Bandung, Indonesia. The proposed model is tested using variance-based SEM-PLS. The results show the importance of leisure involvement as a determinant of frontline service performance. Moreover, this study reveals that the effect of leisure involvement on service performance is partially mediated by job satisfaction. The conceptual and practical significance of these results are reviewed.     

Hourly Employee Retention Factors in the Quick Service Restaurant Industry

Abstract

Hourly employee retention in the quick service restaurant industry has long been a major area of concern for both operators and multi-unit restaurant decision makers. While numerous studies concentrated on managers' perceptions on why employees leave, few have explored the employees' perceptions on employment characteristics that kept them from changing jobs. The study employed a self-administered questionnaire and asked 233 quick service restaurant employees in the Midwestern region of the United States to rate the importance of and their experience with 20 employment characteristics of their job. The findings revealed that the most important employment characteristics were nice people to work with, humane approach to employees, and hourly wages. In addition, the study showed statistically significant differences between the level of importance and the level of experience attached to 18 out of 20 employment characteristics, which could explain the high turnover and low retention of employees in the industry. Implications for management are discussed.