Making connections: Partner quality, identity, and community

The study of equine companion ship and horse ownership provides an opportunity to explore the constructs of partner quality, identity projects, and consumer community.     

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.     

How sensitive are consumer expenditures to retail energy prices?

There is growing evidence that the primary effect of energy price shocks on the U.S. economy involves a reduction in consumer spending. We quantify the direct effect on real consumption of unanticipated changes in discretionary income, shifts in precautionary savings, and changes in the operating cost of energy-using durables. The possibility of asymmetries in the response of real consumption to energy price shocks is also considered. We demonstrate that linear models are consistent with the symmetric behavior of real consumption in 1979 (when energy prices increased sharply) and in 1986 (when they fell sharply). It is shown that historically energy price shocks have been an important factor in explaining U.S. real consumption growth, but by no means the dominant factor.     

Ideological maps of consumer education

The case is made for the merit of discovering and owning the ideological and paradigmatic underpinnings of consumer‐related education initiatives. After briefly profiling two camps of dominant and contending/emergent world views (ideologies and attendant paradigms), two ideological maps of consumer education are developed and applied, providing a scaffold for future deliberations about the import of world views in consumer education.     

Web-based permission marketing: Segmentation for the lodging industry

Permission marketing is becoming an important tool in maintaining relationships with travelers via the Internet. Its growing importance can be seen in tourism marketing, specifically in the lodging industry. With an increase in industry use, the effectiveness of this technique needs assessment. This paper initiates this process by examining current methods used to collect contact information for the purpose of permission marketing. Three segments of the market are identified and compared based upon their willingness to supply contact information. Significant differences were found in socio-demographics, online habits, trip characteristics, and website design preferences. Implications for lodging marketers are presented and future research topics are discussed.     

Demand system estimation in the absence of price data: an application of Stone-Lewbel price indices

This article evaluates the feasibility of estimating a system of demand equations in the absence of price information using the approach developed by Lewbel (1989). Stone-Lewbel (SL) price indices for commodity groups are constructed using information on the budget shares and the Consumer Price Indices (CPIs) of the goods comprising the commodity groups, which allows for household-level prices to be recovered. This study evaluates how susceptible are elasticities and marginal effects estimates from traditional parametric demand systems to the CPI used in the construction of the SL prices. To do this, three alternative regional CPIs are considered for the construction of the SL prices: monthly, quarterly and a constant (unity) price index. Elasticities and marginal effect estimates are computed for eight food commodity groups using the Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) model as the parametric demand system and data from the United States Consumer Expenditure Survey. The estimates proved to be robust to the alternative regional CPIs considered in the construction of SL price indices, even to the absence of one. Hence, the results suggest that it is possible to accurately estimate a demand system even in the absence of price information.     

The power of sentiment: Irrational beliefs of households and consumer loan dynamics

We examine whether household sentiment can explain fluctuations in newly issued consumer loans. We construct a novel measure of household sentiment using detailed data from the harmonized consumer surveys conducted in European countries. We differentiate between rational sentiment, which mimics dynamics in macroeconomic fundamentals, and irrational sentiment, which proxies households’ optimism/pessimism on top of their rationally sourced beliefs. We show that shocks to the sentiment of households do have a measurable impact on growth of consumer loans. Specifically, we assert a significantly positive role of irrational sentiment on top of the economic fundamentals identified in the literature. Moreover, a closer examination reveals that the studied relationship is not symmetric over the business cycle — the effect of irrational sentiment is present only in periods in which a country’s output is well above its potential.     

Environmental Actions and Consumer Participation: Which Impacts on Brand Relationship? The Multiple Realities of the Hospitality Sector

This paper focuses on the complex causal relationships between consumers’ attitude towards environmental actions, their participation in the hospitality supply and their brand relationship from different perspectives. These relationships are modelled by using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of hotels. The findings show that for each kind of participation, attitude of consumer regarding environmental actions appears to be a necessary condition. Various paths are identified to explain consumer brand relationship in budget and luxury hotels. The models have a good predictive validity and provide useful recommendations in the understanding of consumer behaviors.     

The interaction effect of emoji and social media content on consumer engagement: A mixed approach on peer-to-peer accommodation brands

This study examines how the interaction between emoji (emotional vs semantic) and social media content (aesthetic experience vs promotion) influences consumer engagement in tourism brands' digital communication. Based on real Twitter data and an online experiment, our results show that, for aesthetic experience content, emotional emoji elicits more consumer engagement than semantic emoji does. Moreover, emotional emoji increases consumer engagement by eliciting a higher level of emotional responses for aesthetic experience content, whereas semantic emoji enhances consumer engagement by generating greater credibility for promotion content. This study contributes to the textual paralanguage literature in tourism by offering theoretical explanations on how and why the matching effects of emoji and content type on consumer engagement occur in tourism brands’ digital communication. This study also provides practical implications for tourism social media marketers on how to increase consumer engagement via the appropriate use of emoji.     

The influence of self-construal and co-consumption others on consumer complaining behavior

Consumers show great individual variability in complaining behavior even after experiencing similar service failures. The present study examined the effect of self-construal and co-consumption others on consumer complaining behavior following a service failure. Based on an experimental study with a sample of 202 in a restaurant context, MANCOVA results revealed significant effects of self-construal on voice response and switching behavior. The results also showed a significant interaction effect of self-construal and the presence of co-consumption others on switching behavior. The findings shed light into the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics at work when consumers react to service failures. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are also discussed.