An eclectic investigation of tourism multinationals: Evidence from Greece

This paper analyses determinants of profitability differences between subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and domestic enterprises (DMEs) in the tourism industry, using firm-level data. Previous studies focus on the hypothesis that ownership-specific advantages are a major determinant of performance differences. This paper explores performance issues using the eclectic paradigm configuration of tourism multinationals (NACE = 55), operating in Greece and a panel dataset for 95 firms and 10 years. A quantile regression technique is used to estimate the proposed model. Results indicate that, overall, MNEs out-perform their domestic competitors and are generally larger in terms of size. The study reveals, though, that when breaking MNEs into majority and minority owned, the latter perform better, as they make substantial use of local partners. These partners contribute with knowledge of the local market, which is an important aspect for the tourism industry. Finally, the authors discuss the conclusions and managerial implications of the findings.     

Ability and willingness to work during COVID-19 pandemic:Perspectives of front-line hotel employees

This research note reports the results of a qualitative study exploring front-line hotel employees’ views about working during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to identify factors that may influence their ability and willingness to report to work. Findings from online focus-groups reveal that front-line hotel employees generally felt a sense of duty to work during the pandemic. However, there were also a number of perceived barriers to working that impacted on this sense of duty. These emerged as barriers to ability and barriers to willingness, but the distinction is not clear-cut. Instead, most barriers seem to form a continuum ranging from negotiable barriers to insuperable barriers. Following this coneptualisation, the key to reducing absenteeism during the pandemic is likely to take remedial action so that barriers to willingness do not become perceived as barriers to ability to work. Practical implications towards this direction are offered.     

The role of public space in constructing experience capital: A longitudinal analysis in the hotel context

Public space plays a primary role in shaping customers' hospitality experiences. Yet how public space conditions customers' experiential outcomes in accumulating capital for hospitality organizations remains underexplored. Inspired by the theory of psychological ownership, this research presents an in-depth analysis of the impacts of customers' public space experiences on their experiential outcomes using a longitudinal hotel industry dataset merging information from customer surveys, property performance, and surrounding accessibility insights. Findings revealed the positive effects of customers’ public space experiences on their overall service experiences, the perceived value of the experience, revisit intentions, and recommendation intentions. Moreover, hotel class, other customers, and surrounding accessibility were empirically verified as moderators conditioning the positive impact of public space. These findings offer valuable implications for theory and practice that are worthy of further exploration.     

The impact of perceived benefits and risks on current and desired levels of outsourcing: Hotel managers’ perspective

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the interactions between perceived benefits and risks of outsourcing and outsourcing adoption from the hoteliers’ perspective. Data were collected from 123 hotels in Egypt using a list of 32 hotel activities. Results revealed that managers’ perceived benefits of outsourcing had a direct positive effect on the current level of outsourcing, while indirect effects on the desired level of outsourcing. Interestingly, results confirmed the mediating role of current outsourcing between managers’ perceived benefits and the desired outsourcing. However, the perceived risks of outsourcing had a nonsignificant moderating effect. The findings provide implications for both theory and practice.     

Online upselling: Moving beyond offline upselling in the hotel industry

The purpose of this study is to understand how online upselling is used in the hotel industry as a part of revenue management strategy. This study used a convergent parallel mixed method design where qualitative and quantitative data were collected in parallel, analyzed separately, and then merged. Study 1 took a qualitative approach, exploring how online upselling programs can provide additional value over offline upselling and traditional revenue management practices. Study 2 adopted a quantitative approach to analyze customers’ bidding patterns for superior room categories through secondary data. Findings indicate that an omni-channel approach to upselling can tackle the fragmented nature of multichannel upselling communications to provide customers with consistent information and experience across these channels. Through an omni-channel approach, the hotel industry can develop personalized and streamlined upselling strategies.     

Gazing at hotel guests: Deconstructing elements of the host-gaze

This study identifies key elements of the so-called host-gaze by investigating how Hong Kong hotel employees view guests emanating from a key source market - India. Front office and housekeeping staff evaluated their interactions with guests, particularly in the case of those from India. The researchers identified four elements of the host “gaze”, namely: (1) Initial Gaze; (2) Communication Gaze; (3) Customer Behavior Gaze and (4) Distinguishing Gaze. The authors reveal that though the gaze empowers employees to exercise control over their behaviors, manipulative behaviors increase the likelihood of workplace deviance. Drawing on the principles of emotional labor, the researchers affirm the importance of cultural and emotional intelligence for the professional demeanor and development of hospitality employees.     

An investigation of the moderating effects of current job position level and hotel work experience between technology readiness and technology acceptance

Rapid technology development has greatly changed the hotel structure in operation or customer relationship management. Most previous studies simply employed either the technology readiness index (TRI) or considered the technology acceptance model (TAM) to predict consumer behavior from the perceptions of consumers. Nonetheless, only limited studies, if ever any, integrated technology readiness (TR) into technology acceptance model in hospitality. Hence, to bridge the aforementioned research gap, the purpose of the present study is to advance and modify TAM by proposing a new research framework which integrates TR into TAM. Online questionnaire survey was conducted with hotel employees through a well-known survey company Qualtrics. Data were then analyzed by structural equation modelling. Findings indicate the direct relationship between technology readiness (TR) and technology acceptance (TA), and reveal the moderating effects of current job position level and hotel work experience on the proposed research framework. Implications are further discussed.     

A fad or the future? Examining the effectiveness of virtual reality advertising in the hotel industry

New virtual reality technology presents hotels with wide-ranging marketing, training, and customer service opportunities. The purpose of this study was to explore both the immediate and delayed effects of hotel VR commercials as compared to traditional video commercials. Based on the perceptual load theory and elaboration likelihood model, this study designed and conducted a 2 × 2 laboratory experiment with two stages of data collection. The study demonstrated that VR commercials produced better immediate effects than the traditional commercials, especially for participants with high elaboration likelihood levels. However, the findings also revealed significant decreases in purchase intention among participants watching VR commercials and a significant improvement in attitudes among participants watching traditional commercials. Both theoretical and practical implications were discussed to leverage the power of VR in marketing.     

Do consumers care about CSR in their online reviews? An empirical analysis

This research investigates how consumers assess hotels’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices when writing online reviews. The study explores the CSR discourse in online reviews over a 10-year period, highlighting how CSR’s social and environmental dimensions relate to the main hospitality topics (experience, amenities, location, transactions, value). Based on a longitudinal automated text analysis covering 480,000 reviews across six European cities, the findings reveal that hotel customers have gradually begun paying more attention to CSR factors, particularly to social and environmental ones. However, the aggregate results suggest that the overall CSR consumer discourse is still very limited, although it does have important implications in terms of consumer emotions and hospitality dimensions.     

The effects of choice set size and information filtering mechanisms on online hotel booking

Online booking is one of the most popular ways of making reservations for hotel guests. Thus, hoteliers are paying increasing attention to hotel website information presentation and design. The purpose of this study, then, is to examine the joint influence of choice set size and information filtering mechanisms on consumers’ decision confidence towards online hotel booking. Choice set size was operationalized through 3-, 9-, and 30-hotel room choice sets. Through experimental design, this study shows that the presence of an information filtering mechanism reduces consumers’ perceptions of choice overload with a large number of choices (30 choices), whereas its impact is attenuated with smaller choice sets (3 and 9 choices). In addition, choice overload mediates the impact of choice set size on decision confidence. Theoretical contribution and managerial implications are also discussed.