Enhancing customers’ brand loyalty via branded hotel apps

Many hotels have launched their own branded mobile applications to develop relationships with customers. Yet, research examining the benefits of branded hotel apps on brand loyalty is scant. The current research investigates the role of branded hotel apps on brand loyalty through customer engagement and brand trust in the hotel industry, based on uses and gratifications theory. Results identified cognitive and social benefits of the branded hotel apps positively influenced customer engagement and brand trust. Hedonic benefits positively influenced customer engagement and they indirectly influenced brand trust through customer engagement. Both customer engagement and brand trust positively influenced brand loyalty. Moreover, mediation effects of customer engagement and brand trust were identified. Results highlight how branded hotel apps serve as a facilitator of brand loyalty, providing theoretical and managerial implications.     

Effects of Picture Presentations on Customers' Behavioral Intentions on the Web

SUMMARY

As the Web is becoming a major communication channel to bridge hotels and customers, great marketing efforts have been made to attract new customers and repeat business. A wide variety of studies have been conducted to identify factors that could affect customers' purchase behavior on the Web. Little research, however, has been documented that assessed the effects different pictures presented on the Web had on customers' online purchase behavior. Based on the content analyses with 203 existing hotel Websites, this study examined the potential effects of Website format, Website contents, and Website realism on customers' behavioral intentions. Results indicate that the content and realism of picture presentations are important predictors of customers' attitudes toward the Website. The attitudes appear to be a strong predictor of behavioral intentions on the Web. Suggestions and implications are included for the lodging industry and future research.     

A New Tune from an Old Instrument

SUMMARY

The ability to provide high quality customer service and to deliver customer value is critical to attracting customers in the competitive tourism service environment. This research seeks to explore whether the instrument developed by Zeithaml et al. (1990), referred to as SERVQUAL, can be applied to a tourism service business to provide a quantifiable method of measuring service quality. An adaptation of SERVQUAL was applied to a business operating tours through a brewery in Tasmania, Australia. The instrument proved to be adequately internally reliable and provided apparently useful and easily interpretable diagnostic data to the management of the business. It was concluded that SERVQUAL has the potential to be a useful management tool provided care is taken to adapt the instrument to the individual needs of the user while remaining within the underlying theoretical framework. Adaptation and simplification of the complicated instrument provides small tourism businesses with a new way of gaining theory-based diagnostic data that can be self-administered by management on an ongoing basis and is not a burden to the customers.     

国外网络旅游信息搜寻研究进展与启示

文章通过对国外近15年来相关文献的分析,发现国外关于网络旅游信息搜寻的研究起步较早,研究视角较宽泛,理论研究与方法应用较为成熟。研究重点主要集中在网络旅游信息需求与搜寻动机、搜寻内容偏好、搜寻行为特征、搜寻者特性和网络旅游信息源等5个方面。研究方法上,注重定性与定量方法的有机结合,并借助先进的网络软件和技术,研究结论更具科学性和说服力。最后,基于国外研究现状,展望未来研究方向,以期为国内相关研究与实践提供借鉴。     

社会化视角下接待业服务机器人对顾客体验的影响研究

随着人工智能和自动化技术日渐普及,服务机器人被越来越多地引入旅游接待业,但其应用尚处于探索阶段。在已有文献和理论基础上,本文依据互联网、社交媒体中接待业顾客对服务机器人的评价信息,以及对接待业顾客和员工进行深度访谈的数据,分析顾客对机器人服务的感知及体验。研究发现:(1)对机器人服务的感知涉及工具、社会化两个属性,社会化属性对顾客的愉悦体验产生重要影响;(2)服务机器人通过提升服务和营造愉悦氛围两条路径改善顾客体验。在此基础上,本文构建了服务机器人影响顾客体验的概念模型。本文从社会化视角探讨服务机器人的顾客体验感知,对服务机器人设计、服务场景管理和体验设计具有启示意义。     

What are guests scared of? Crime-related hotel experiences and fear of crime

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore the typology of hotel crime and how it is related to guests’ fear of crime based on a cause-and-consequence model. A total of 873 TripAdvisor reviews were content-analyzed to develop a typology of hotel crime. High-class hotels experienced more theft, fraud, and burglary while low-class hotels encountered more prostitution and drug-related activities. Hotel guests generated a higher fear of crime when crime occurred inside guest rooms, especially in cases of burglary, theft, or fraud. Reviews mentioning crimes were perceived to be more helpful. Managerial implications and best practices of crime prevention are provided for hotel practitioners.     

The impact of IT-enabled customer service systems on service personalization,customer service perceptions,and hotel performance

Customer service is a critical element of a hotel's strategy and an important lever for differentiation of the hotel's offer. Over the last two decades, information systems have contributed to the transformation of customer interactions, enabling an unprecedented scale and scope of service personalization in the tourism industry. This paper reports the results of a mixed method study in a hotel that offers three contributions to the development and refinement of IT-enabled service personalization theory. It explores the role of signifiers in the design of customer service systems, showing that they significantly increase customer preference elicitation during the learning phase of the service personalization process. It then demonstrates that improved preference elicitation translates into higher customer service evaluations and value perceptions of the hotel. Finally, our study shows that IT-enabled service personalization creates financial benefits for the hotel via revenue share-shift from costly intermediated to direct distribution channels.     

Impression Management and the Hospitality Service Encounter

Abstract

Managers, marketers, and employees in the hotel and restaurant industry that are aware of the needs of people from different cultures will be able to better direct their efforts at product development, provide better guest services, and thereby offer a means of developing competitive advantage. This study determined cross-cultural differences in customer perceptions of employee behavior, intentions to return, and tipping between Americans and Asians living in the United States. The study was based on several impression management dimensions (ingratiation, intimidation, self-promotion, exemplification, supplication, and non-verbal behaviors). The results suggest that behaviors associated with ingratiation and exemplification techniques were perceived as being more satisfying for American than Asian respondents. Behaviors demonstrative of intimidation and supplication techniques were perceived as very dissatisfying for Americans.     

基于LVQ神经网络的电信企业客户流失预测模型研究

随着人工智能的快速发展,人工神经网络被广泛地运用到分类预测领域。文章首先明确了客户流失的定义及其分类,然后分析了LVQ神经网络的基本原理,最后从研究样本的确定、预测变量的选取、模型的训练及评估三个方面构建了基于LVQ神经网络的电信企业客户流失预测模型,以期为电信企业客户流失预测模型的设计提供一定的借鉴意义。