Understanding attributes affecting meal choice decisions in a bundling context

This study examined attributes that contribute to consumer meal choice decisions within a prix fixe menu. Drawing on typologies of consumer purchase behavior, factors potentially influencing consumers’ meal choice are identified and empirically tested. The results showed that consumers consider value for price as the most important consideration for their meal bundle choices. The results also indicated that familiar and healthy foods also contribute to the selection process. However, consumers tend to avoid the risk of choosing new menu items.     

Bayesian approach to assess consumers’ brand selection process and identification of brand attributes in a service context

The proliferation of branded products and services within the last decade has made it increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish and choose amongst various brands. To reduce the complexity when choosing one brand over another, consumers may focus on a small set of a few brands in which they contrast and compare. This study examined the consumer's brand categorization process and brand evaluations using Bayesian statistics. Particular brand attributes within the Evoked Set resulting in a significant influence include the consumers’ confidence in their ability to evaluate speed of service, taste, price, quality and location of the branded restaurants. Consumers placed restaurant brands in their Hold Set due to lack of confidence in evaluating the taste of the products offered, its prices, brand locations and, most likely, not having formed a clear opinion about the brand. For the most part, cognition and confidence predictably predisposed a consumer to place a brand in the Foggy Set. Finally, in the case of Reject Set, lack of confidence in evaluating a brand, dissatisfaction with a brand and a negative intention to eat at a restaurant were significant factors in placing a brand in a consumers’ Reject Set.     

Nutritional information disclosure on the menu: Focusing on the roles of menu context,nutritional knowledge and motivation

As menu labeling legislation that requires nutritional information on restaurant menus becomes increasingly prevalent, it is controversial whether the provision of nutritional information promotes consumers to select healthy items. This study aims to examine the extent to which the nutritional information presented on menus influences consumer food evaluation and choice in restaurant patronage. We also investigate the effect of menu context and individual characteristics, such as nutritional knowledge and motivation to process, on consumers’ information processing. A computer-based experiment was conducted to collect data. The results show significant effects of the presence of nutritional information and the menu context, which is the healthiness of other alternatives on the menu, on consumer food decision. Consumer motivation to process the provided nutritional information significantly moderates the effect of nutritional information disclosure. These results present valuable implications for restaurateurs and policy makers interested in the effect of menu labeling.     

Good discounts earn good reviews in return? Effects of price promotion on online restaurant reviews

Online consumer reviews (OCRs) are valuable to consumers and sellers. Online price promotion is commonly used by local merchants to increase sales. However, knowledge of the differences in OCRs between consumers who received a discount and regular consumers is limited. This study investigates the effects of price discounts on restaurant OCRs by comparing the review rating and open-ended contents of OCRs from consumers who received a discount and regular consumers. The results show that the review rating is higher from consumers who received a discount, whereas the word count, image count, and diversity of review contents are higher from regular consumers. Regular consumers are more likely to mention product quality, environmental quality, service quality, geographic location, purchasing process, recommendation expression, and loyalty expression in OCRs, and there is no significant difference in the dimensions of price, cognitive attitude, and emotional attitude between the two groups.     

Language representation of restaurants: Implications for developing online recommender systems

As a marketing tool recommender systems have the potential to provide relevant and highly personalized information to consumers. However, developing effective recommender systems requires a substantive understanding of consumers’ preferences as well as meaningful ways to represent hospitality and travel products. This paper argues that language holds the key to understanding consumer preferences and therefore developing effective online recommender systems. Specifically, it explores the nature of the language used by consumers to describe their dining experiences in contrast to the language used by restaurant websites. The findings indicate that consumers use substantially different vocabularies from restaurant websites to describe dining experiences. This study provides implications for developing online recommender systems for restaurants as well as general hospitality and travel products.     

The influence of multiple types of service convenience on behavioral intentions: The mediating role of consumer satisfaction in a Taiwanese leisure setting

Service organizations are looking for ways to better deliver consumer value and to increase consumers’ purchase intentions. Organizations can differentiate themselves by making their services easier to consume, that is, more convenient. Service convenience is complex and is comprised of five convenience types, namely, decision, access, transaction, benefit, and post-benefit. Research into service convenience has examined how these types of convenience affect consumers’ experiences and intentions, but limited research has studied it within a leisure setting. With data collected from a sample of 443 Taiwanese, this research uses mediated regression to examine the influence of the five types of convenience on consumers’ behavioral intentions, and the mediating role satisfaction plays in the relationship. The findings indicate that only benefit and post-benefit convenience are associated with improved behavioral intentions and that satisfaction partially mediates the relationship for those two types of convenience. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

The role of tie strength on consumer dissatisfaction responses

This study examines the impact of tie strength and service failure type on consumers’ behavioral intention (voice complaint and negative Word-of-Mouth) in a restaurant context. Overall, the results indicate that tie strength significantly reduces consumers’ intention to spread negative Word-of-Mouth, but it fails to influence their complaint intention. In addition, failure type plays an important role on consumers’ complaint behavior; consumers are more willing to voice a complaint after a core service failure than after an interactional service failure.     

Determinants of customer loyalty and purchasing behavior for full-service and limited-service hotels

This study investigated factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions for two hotel segments: full-service and limited-service. Results from an online survey indicated that full-service hotel guests were more likely to be reward program members and be emotionally attached to their preferred brand. Price was the most important factor for limited-service guests’ purchase decisions, while both price and utility were important for full-service guests. Limited-service guests had lower switching costs, that is, they required less of a discount to switch to a non-preferred brand than full-service guests. The findings have implications for hotel pricing and marketing strategies.     

Consumer values among restaurant customers

The research presented in this article focuses on consumer values in restaurant meal experiences from the restaurant customers’ points of view. Based on a set of data, the purpose is to evaluate the customers’ perceived consumer values in restaurant meal experiences and to compare the results with other studies on consumer values and service quality and with studies of meal experiences. A modified grounded theory approach has been followed. The empirical data are based on seven semi-structured interviews of experienced restaurant customers in two cities in Norway. A conceptual model illustrates the coding process that shows the connection between the different categories. The data analysis produces different categories of consumer-specific values on three levels of integration. The lowest level includes 29 consumer values that are integrated into 13 specified values. On the highest level, five value categories of consumer-oriented values are specified. These are excellence, harmony, emotional stimulation, acknowledgement, and circumstance value, of which harmony is the most emphasised value among the restaurant customers.     

Perceived justice in service recovery and behavioral intentions: The role of relationship quality

This study examined restaurant customers’ perceptions of justice according to service recovery effort levels and whether perceived justice influences customers’ future behavioral intentions. This study also investigated whether the effects of perceived justice on future behavioral intentions vary across customers’ relationship quality levels. The results showed that high recovery efforts were consistently evaluated highly in terms of perceived justice when compared to low recovery efforts, regardless of the level of relationship quality. Additionally, perceived justice brought about by service recovery efforts has a positive effect on customers’ future behavioral intentions. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that relationship quality plays a moderating role between perceived justice and behavioral intentions in the distributive and procedural justice dimensions. Implications for the restaurant industry are also discussed.     

The effects of brand relationship quality on responses to service failure of hotel consumers

This article examines the applicability of Fournier's (1998) Brand Relationship Quality (BRQ) framework in the hotel industry, and also investigates the effects of BRQ on hotel consumers’ behavioral intentions, after service failures in high-class hotels. The empirical results show that BRQ is applicable to the hotel industry and has a moderating effect on consumers’ post-failure emotions, particularly in terms of influencing future behavioral intentions. However, this finding is not applicable when the service failures are severe.     

Effects of compensation for service recovery: From the equity theory perspective

Using equity theory, this study investigated the importance of consumers’ entire history of shared interactions with service organizations, in addition to fairness perceptions, when evaluating recovery efforts following service failure. Specifically, this study empirically tested the different consequences of compensation by manipulating the consumer relationship level. The relationship level determines the perspective of equity (transactional equity perception versus cumulative equity perception) and motivates consumers to follow different psychological processes to redress service failure. An online survey using hypothetical scenarios manipulating recovery efforts and relationship level conditions was conducted to collect data. Mediation tests showed that perceived equity fully mediates the effect of compensation on a consumer's future behavioral intentions. The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that when additional compensation is offered after a service failure, perceived equity was found to increase regardless of the consumer's relationship level. However, enhanced equity perception does not automatically mean that corresponding future behavioral intentions are also enhanced. When consumers have a high customer–organization relationship, there is no difference in behavioral intentions between those who are compensated and those who are not. Managerial implications for restaurant operations are also discussed.     

Sustainability communication: The effect of message construals on consumers’ attitudes towards green restaurants

As consumer preferences for environmentally conscious products have intensified in recent years, scholars have begun to more deeply explore the complex relationship between green practices and consumer behavior in the hospitality industry. Recently, this stream of research has been extended to the restaurant industry where consumers have become increasingly concerned about corporate social responsibility in general, and sustainable operations in particular. However, while there is general agreement about the importance of promoting a company’s sustainability message from a consumer marketing standpoint, an essential underlying question remains unanswered: What is it about sustainability messaging that leads to positive consumer attitudes? The purpose of this research is to explore this question via the complementary theoretical perspectives of construal level theory and information processing theory. Data collected from a sample of restaurant consumers in the United States suggest that consumers process information differently according to variations in the construals of a company’s sustainability message. The results indicate that messages congruent with the consumer’s perception of sustainability result in a more positive attitude toward the company.     

Restaurant experiences triggering positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) motivations

This study empirically examined which restaurant experiences trigger customers to engage in positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), where the quality of restaurant service (food quality, service quality, atmosphere, and price fairness) is the antecedent of eWOM communication. The results of this study suggest that (1) restaurants’ food quality positively influences customers to spread positive eWOM, motivated by their desire to help the restaurant; (2) satisfactory restaurant experiences with service employees triggered positive eWOM, motivated by the need to help the restaurant or to express positive feelings; (3) a superior atmosphere in restaurants elicited positive eWOM motivated by a concern for others; and (4) price fairness in restaurants did not drive restaurant customers toward eWOM. Additionally, this study investigated sources of positive eWOM and types of eWOM media used among opinion leaders in the restaurant industry to enhance the practical implications of the study regarding online marketing. Because of the small number of opinion leaders in the study sample, specifying who the opinion leaders were (the source of eWOM) and the type of eWOM media the opinion leaders used had no effect. Further discussion and implications are provided in the text.     

A conflict of choice: How consumers choose where to go for dinner

Studies concerning consumers’ decision-making regarding a restaurant choice commonly cite food quality, service quality, and price as important determinants. Less research has focused on how consumers are willing to trade off gains and losses from respective foodservice attributes. Also, extant literature does not account for consumers who use a non-compensatory decision-making strategy. The present study examined consumers’ choices of casual restaurants using a simulation where trade-offs were inevitable. By utilizing a choice experiment, the researchers found that food quality is the most important attribute in restaurant choice, consistent with the literature reviewed. Good service quality, however, does not increase choice likelihood while poor service quality significantly reduces it. Most importantly, we determined a considerable percentage (24.57%) of respondents do not trade off food quality for better service or a lower price. Findings of the study are discussed with implications for practitioners.     

电子口碑对餐厅在线浏览量影响研究

Web 2.0技术和用户创造内容的发展改变了人们搜索和分享信息的方式,电子口碑作为传统口碑在互联网时代的发展产物,日渐成为消费者收集信息和进行决策的主要渠道。特别是近年来第三方点评网站数量不断增加,汇集了海量的信息,形成电子口碑效应,但是目前对这种效应的评价和测量研究不足。因此,文章借助第三方点评网站,研究消费者点评和编辑点评对餐厅网页浏览量的影响以及点评网上呈现餐厅的哪些口碑因素是吸引消费者浏览餐厅网页最重要的因素。研究发现,这两种形式的电子口碑对增加餐厅网页浏览量都具有显著的作用,编辑点评的重要性开始凸显,但消费者点评的作用更强。其中,点评数量是影响消费者浏览餐厅网页的最重要因素,其次是价格因素和消费者在餐厅网页上发布的图片。在餐厅体验的3个基本因素中,食物味道是影响餐厅网页浏览量最重要的因素。研究结果对第三方点评网站和旅游企业都具有重要的现实意义。     

Local foods in a university setting: Price consciousness,product involvement,price/quality inference and consumer's willingness-to-pay

The current study looks at the relationship between price consciousness, product involvement, price/quality inference, and consumer's willingness-to-pay related to local foods in a university foodservice environment. The study develops a model that looks at the above relationships as well as the potential moderating factor of perceived product information to determine what role they play in the willingness-to-pay for locally grown products. A survey of 352 students at a large, southeastern U.S. university foodservice operation asked about the role of the above factors in choosing local foods. The study found there were significant relationships between product involvement, price consciousness, and price/quality inference on willingness-to-pay, although perceived product information did not moderate the relationships. Ensuring that customers have sufficient information regarding local products and increasing emotional interest in the local products specifically will help to increase willingness-to-pay for those products. Implications for academics and university foodservice practitioners are discussed.     

Moderating effect of capital intensity on the relationship between leverage and financial distress in the U.S. restaurant industry

During the recent and ongoing economic turmoil, countless businesses have been facing financial distress and many have filed for bankruptcy. This issue is especially critical for the restaurant industry due to restaurants’ sensitivity to economic fluctuations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the financial distress issue in the U.S. restaurant industry. In particular, the study examines a moderating effect of capital intensity on the relationship between a firm's leverage and degree of financial distress. The dataset includes publicly traded U.S. restaurant firms during the period 1990–2008. The study measures the degree of financial distress by modified Z-scores, and findings suggest a positive moderating effect of capital intensity on the relationship between leverage and financial distress.