Understanding guests’ behavior to visit green hotels: The role of ethical ideology and religiosity

The main aim of this study is to develop and test a model to understand guests’ behavior to visit green hotel by merging the theory of planed behavior (TPB) with theories of ethics and religiosity in a single model. Furthermore, it examines the moderating role of ethical ideology. This research utilized a quantitative method to assess the suggested conceptual framework. Data were gathered from 871 participants and analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). According to the study results, the suggested model shows a favorable prediction level of guests’ behavior, which confirmed the superiority of the proposed model. Our study indicated that TPB and ethical theory adequately explain guests’ behavior to visit green hotel. Ethical ideology was found to be a key driver of guests’ green decision-making process. Our study makes several contributions to the practice and theory by providing useful insights on drivers of consumers’ behavior to visit green hotels in the Egyptian hospitality environment.     

Exploring the impact of personalized management responses on tourists’ satisfaction: A topic matching perspective

As an online reputation management tool, hotel managers increasingly rely on management responses to online reviews to improve the electronic word of mouth (eWOM). Due to the substantial heterogeneity of textual reviews with different topics, it is particularly challenging to personalize the response for customer relationship management. Based on a panel data of 500 hotels in the state of Texas collected from TripAdvisor, this study examines the influence of personalized management responses on rating increase from a topic matching perspective. The empirical results show that (1) a high level of topic matching of management response leads to an increase of hotel online rating; (2) a high valence and a large variation of existing rating weaken the positive influence of such personalized management response; (3) the influence is stronger for economy hotels compared to luxury ones. Lastly, practical implications are provided.     

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.     

What hinders hotels’ adoption of environmental technologies: A quantitative study

In response to our planet’s severe environmental problems, many businesses use environmental technologies to strengthen their environmental performance. However, the adoption rate of using such technologies in hotels is still slow, and very few quantitative studies have examined the reasons why. This study examined the barriers to environmental technology adoption in the Hong Kong hotel industry. We sent 648 questionnaires to the target sample and eventually received 102 completed responses. Seven barriers were identified: (1) monopolised after-sales service; (2) human resource limitations; (3) government and initial support; (4) financial performance; (5) lack of green knowledge and green network; (6) customer experience; and (7) environmental feasibility. An independent samples t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to investigate the relative significance of the seven barriers for different hotel demographic variables. This study offers specific theoretical and practical implications. Recommendations for the industry are also provided.     

Application of the extended VBN theory to understand consumers’ decisions about green hotels

An increasing number of hotels are altering their operations proactively to include more environmentally friendly practices. Despite the greater interest in consumers’ green behaviors, the theoretical application of the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory has been used only rarely to investigate consumers’ intentions to visit a green hotel. The purpose of this study was to expand existing knowledge of hotel consumers’ green behaviors by developing and testing an extended VBN theory used in the hospitality literature. More specifically, this study incorporated subjective norms and green trust into the original VBN model as a theoretical framework to understand comprehensively consumers’ decision-making processes with respect to their intentions to visit a green hotel. A web-based survey was used to collect data from a convenience sample of faculty members working at an institution of higher education in the Midwestern United States who have been lodging consumers. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses. The results showed that all but subjective norms were successful in explaining consumers’ decision-making processes regarding their intentions to visit a green hotel. The results can assist hotel managers in the adoption and implementation of hotel operations based on the needs of environmentally conscious consumers.     

From customers' fingertips to employees’ well-being: The impact of mobile application ordering from a job demand-resource perspective

Service is entering a 2.0 transformation where service no longer simply involves customer-employee interactions, but customer-technology-employee interactions. However, previous literature predominantly focuses on customers from a marketing approach, failing to incorporate employees' perspective in the face of technology-enabled changes in a service encounter. Building on Job demand-resource model, this study proposes mobile applications as a job resource and examines their impact on restaurant employees. This study conducts interviews and qualitative content analysis in Study 1 and further employs a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design in Study 2. The results indicate that mobile orders may assist frontline employees to invest less cognitive and emotional effort, even in the condition of higher order complexity, leading to enhanced employee workplace well-being. This study newly introduces mobile apps as job resources and a potential way to improve employees’ well-being at work. This study contributes both JD-R and the well-being literature with practical implications.     

The future of the State-owned hotels in China: Stay or go?

Hotel sector was the first one to employ joint venture in China after its ‘Open Door Policy’ in 1978. In transition from production unit to business unit, the operating system of China's State-owned hotels (SOHs) has changed greatly. Though its hotel industry has become more open, many of the tourist hotels are still State-owned enterprises (SOEs) today, and they account for over half of the loss of all hotels in the country. This study aims to find out: first, critical issues causing those problems facing the SOHs; second, factors affecting the development of SOHs, and third, their future. Government ownership and its related problems, such as complicated ownership, bureaucratic structure and control, add difficulty to restructure SOHs. The future of the SOHs in China regarding whether to stay or to go very much depends on government policy and commitment on restructuring the industry which is vital to success and sustainability of SOHs in the socialist market economy environment.     

Organizational trust in times of COVID-19: Hospitality employees’ affective responses to managers’ communication

During a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, what managers communicate to their employees can greatly impact important organizational attitudes, such as organizational trust. There is, however, very little research focusing on the mechanisms explaining how managers’ messages during a crisis can influence employees’ organizational trust. To address this gap, the current study examined the role that emotions play in developing organizational trust using a 2 (following CDC norms vs. ignoring CDC norms) by 2 (employee focus vs. bottom-line focus) between-subjects factorial experiment, with COVID-19 as the context. The results showed that a manager’s communication that followed the CDC social norms made employees feel grateful, whereas communication that ignored CDC social norms enhanced fear and anger toward the organization. The feelings of gratefulness and fear influenced organizational trust. These results provide important theoretical and practical implications for understanding organizational trust during a crisis.     

How managerial ties affect hotels’ proactive environmental practices in China: The contingent role of institutional environments

Despite the increasing attention of environmental management in the hotel industry, few studies have examined how managerial ties impact hotels’ adoption of proactive environmental practices (PEPs) in China. Drawing on institutional theory, this study develops a model that investigates the differential effects of political ties and business ties on PEPs in the presence of important institutional factors. Using a primary survey and multiple secondary datasets on 190 Chinese hotels, we find that political ties inhibit a hotel’s adoption of PEPs whereas business ties facilitate PEPs. Moreover, advanced legal development and high levels of regional pollution reduce the impacts of both political ties and business ties on PEPs. We also test the relationship between PEPs and hotels’ financial performance. These findings provide novel insights into how managerial ties shape a hotel’s strategic behaviors for environmental protection under the influence of institutional environments in emerging economies.     

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on customer experience design: The hotel managers’ perspective

This research responds to calls for research on the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry by investigating how hotel managers are designing safe customer experiences. Specifically, this study examines the measures adopted in high-end and luxury hotels and identifies the effects of such measures on the intended (or planned) experience. Based on thematic analysis of interviews with hotel managers, this study identifies seven safety measures: hygiene and protection, internal work reorganization, servicescape reorganization, investments in technology and digital innovations, customer wait time reorganization, staff training, and updated communication. These measures are expected to affect the intended experience in terms of reassurance, quickness, intimacy, and proximity, as emerged from correspondence factor analysis. Based on these results, this research proposes a model for safe customer experience design and suggests practical implications to help hotel managers formulate strategies aimed at customer experience creation under safe conditions.     

Diners’ responses to talent vs. effort of restaurant employees

When presenting employees’ laudable performance, shall restaurant managers emphasize effort or talent of their employees as the source of such performance? This study is proposed to answer this question. We suggest that diners’ responses to employees’ effort vs. talent hinge on diners’ need to belong and restaurant type. Study 1 shows that diners’ need to belong moderates their responses to effort- vs. talent-focused messages. Study 2 finds that restaurant type (casual vs. fine dining) moderates diners’ responses to effort- vs. talent-focused messages. Diners’ perceptions of fit with employees (Study 1) and persuasiveness of a message (Study 2) are mechanisms underlying the proposed moderating effects. Restaurant managers may benefit from tailoring their messages conveying employee performance on the basis of diners’ need to belong and restaurant type.     

Dimensions and Effects of Consumers' Travel–Transportation Involvement: The Case of the Mini Three Links

Since its implementation in 2001, the Mini Three Links (MTL) has become the most important transportation means for Taiwanese travelling to China. The MTL is connected to recreation/travel in Kinmen: service providers often include short local trips as part of the transit process. This study focuses on the concept of travel–transportation involvement in the MTL, exploring its effects on consumers’ travel–transportation dependence, identity, loyalty, price sensitivity, and product purchase intention. Travel–transportation involvement is divided into behavioural involvement and social–psychological involvement, which in turn considers attraction, self-expression, and centrality to lifestyle. Survey respondents are passengers using the MTL service at Kinmen Shangyi Airport and Shuitou Port. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the 380 valid questionnaires; results show that different involvement dimensions have unique effects. Behavioural involvement positively affects price sensitivity. Attraction positively affects travel–transportation dependence, which further improves travel–transportation identity. Attraction also has indirect negative effects on loyalty and price sensitivity, which are mediated by its impact on travel–transportation dependence and identity. Further, centrality to lifestyle negatively affects product purchase intention during the travel process. Self-expression has a direct positive effect on travel–transportation dependence and loyalty, but a direct negative effect on price sensitivity. Finally, self-expression has indirect negative effects on loyalty and price sensitivity; the mediation process is identical to that for attraction. This study is valuable in terms of distinguishing between various effects among previously overlooked dimensions of travel–transportation involvement; it also provides practical implications for related travel–transportation-service practitioners and tourism development within Kinmen.     

The impact of language style on consumers′ reactions to online reviews

The current research examines the novel impact of an online review's language style (figurative vs. literal) on consumers' attitudes towards a hotel and their reservation intention. Previous marketing research advocated for the use of figurative language to advertise hedonic consumptions. Yet, we found that, in the context of online hotel reviews, figurative language doesn't offer significant advantages in terms of persuasive power. Specifically, our findings indicate that, when a review is posted by a reviewer with low expertise level, consumers actually exhibit lower levels of attitude and reservation intention if the review is written in figurative (vs. literal) language. When the reviewer possesses high expertise level, the language style effect was attenuated. Finally, serial mediation tests show that the causal link between language typicality → perceived reviewer expertise explains the language style effect on consumers' pre-purchase evaluations.     

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’.     

The impact of knowledge hiding on targets’ knowledge sharing with perpetrators

Using a sequential mixed-methods approach, this study explored how knowledge hiding (KH) targets react to perpetrators in the hospitality industry. Study 1 entailed in-depth interviews of 20 employees from 13 hotels. Findings indicate that KH influences knowledge transfer behavior through negative emotions. Moreover, individual personality and motivation, team and interpersonal factors, job characteristics, and KH characteristics can moderate this effect. In Studies 2 (n = 54) and 3 (n = 118), two scenario-based experiments reveal that KH negatively affects targets’ knowledge sharing (KS) with perpetrators directly and indirectly through negative emotions. In Study 4, the results of a survey from 475 employees indicate that when the need for affiliation of employees and task interdependence is high, the negative effect of negative emotions on KS with perpetrators is weaker. This study advances the literature on KH by offering a sound theoretical treatment of emotional concerns and the interaction between knowledge seekers and knowledge hiders.     

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.