Sentiment,mood and outbound tourism demand

We investigate spillover effects from sentiment and mood shocks on US outbound tourism demand from 1996 until 2013. We use the Index of Consumer Sentiment and Economic Policy Uncertainty Index as proxies for sentiment and the S&P500 as a proxy for mood. We find a moderate to high interrelationship among sentiment, mood and outbound tourism demand. More importantly, sentiment and mood indicators are net transmitters of spillover shocks to outbound tourism demand. The magnitude of spillover effects sourced by sentiment and mood is time-varying and depends on certain socio-economic and environmental events. Our results have important implications for policymakers and travel agents in their efforts to predict tourism arrivals from key origin countries and to plan their tourism strategy.     

逍遥丸对人类免疫缺陷病毒感染患者抗病毒治疗初期情绪障碍的疗效

目的探讨逍遥丸对人类免疫缺陷病毒(HIV)感染患者抗病毒治疗初期情绪障碍的疗效。方法选取2019年2月至2019年9月于沈阳市第六人民医院AIDS门诊进行治疗的HIV阳性患者300例作为研究对象,采用随机数字表法将其分为对照组和观察组,每组150例。对照组仅进行抗病毒治疗和对症处置,观察组加用逍遥丸,治疗1个月,观察3个月,比较两组治疗前后汉密尔顿焦虑量表(HAMA)、汉密尔顿抑郁量表(HAMD)评分变化及CD4^+T淋巴细胞计数变化、不良反应发生情况。结果治疗后,观察组HAMA及HAMD评分优于对照组,CD4^+T淋巴细胞计数升高幅度大于对照组,失眠、腹泻发生率低于对照组,差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论逍遥丸可以改善HIV感染患者抗病毒治疗初期的焦虑及抑郁状态,减少临床相关症状,进而间接提升CD4^+T淋巴细胞数。     

The impact of mood states and surprise cues on satisfaction

Mood effects have been studied in consumer behavior literature, but prior research investigating the joint impact of mood and surprise on satisfaction is scant. To bridge this gap, this study examines the relationship among these three constructs. We manipulated customers’ pre-consumption mood and provided surprise cues with hypothetical scenarios in a 2 by 2 factorial design in a restaurant setting. The results show that a positive surprise yields high satisfaction without a significant effect from customers’ pre-consumption mood. Conversely, with a negative surprise, customers in a negative pre-consumption mood indicate lower satisfaction than those in a positive mood.     

Do supermarkets’ emails have any value for their customers? The effect of emails’ content and interestingness on customers’ attitude and engagement

Supermarkets use relational emails mainly to foster sales and support promotional campaigns, while brands and more exclusive retailers use more non-transactional contents in order to foster a positive attitude towards their brands, but also a better customer mood. Using the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework we study the role of relational email content and interestingness of emails emanating from supermarkets on consumer’s perceived value and on their attitude and engagement towards the supermarket, but also on their mood. Building a dedicated relational email perceived value scale and comparing three types of content, this article highlights the importance of emotional value even in a utilitarian context (supermarket). A few recommendations are offered to help supermarkets to provide value-added content to their customers in order to foster preference and loyalty in a highly competitive market where discounters are gaining shares.     

The sound of silence: Why music in supermarkets is just a distraction

Retailers use music in the service environment to try to change consumer behaviour with a view to increasing spend, or improving consumer mood. Previous research has largely focused on music but ignored the effects of other noises within a servicescape: yet all noises can impact consumers' affective states, and their behaviour.This study examines the role of both planned and other sounds within the supermarket environment. In particular, this study investigates the cognizant and emotional reactions of supermarket customers, and explores their shopping intentions in the context of shoppers' understanding of and reaction to the sounds they perceive.     

Affect and Retail Shopping Behavior: Understanding the Role of Mood Regulation and Regulatory Focus

Two studies investigate the relationship between promotion and prevention focus, mood regulation, and retail marketplace evaluations and behaviors. Study 1, a laboratory experiment, finds that individuals high in promotion focus regulate their moods more than individuals low in promotion focus. Study 2, a field study, investigates the relationships between retail outcomes, regulatory focus, and the three core mood regulation constructs of mood monitoring, mood clarity, and mood repair. Results suggest that mood regulation is closely related to promotion and prevention focus, having both a direct influence on retail outcomes as well as mediating the influence of regulatory focus. Implications for theory and practice, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Examining the ‘point of frustration’. The think-aloud method applied to online search tasks

By revisiting past research on the think-aloud method; its advantages, drawbacks and aptness for tracing online search processes will be examined. What emerges from this review is the need for more attention to detail so as to generate comparable findings. This is especially crucial as the method lends itself to both quantitative and qualitative data analysis and has been employed in a broad range of fields. Thus, a major concern is to describe in detail the design, procedure and framework of analysis of a qualitative study concerned with information needs of professionals in online search processes. Here, think-aloud protocols were used in combination with questionnaires and qualitative interviews, to examine how engineers and architects solved a search task on the European Union website (www.europa.eu). The protocols provided valuable data for tracing increasing levels of frustration followed by the ‘point of frustration’—when the participants gave up searching.     

The impact of uncertainty on tourists’ controllability,mood state and the persuasiveness of message framing in the pandemic era

Drawing on uncertainty theory, this study examines how to boost travel intention by analyzing the impacts of uncertainty on the effectiveness of destination marketing messages. Three studies (including four scenario-based experiments and five pretests) were employed to examine these impacts. Study 1 demonstrated that travel outcome uncertainty impacts travel intentions and revealed controllability and mood state as parallel and serial mediators. Study 2 showed that a combination of low (vs. high) uncertainty and gain (vs. loss) framing leads to higher travel intentions. The results further show that in the temporal distance condition, the effect of message framing is attenuated. Study 3 revealed that a combination of low (vs. high) uncertainty and hedonic (vs. utilitarian) attributes increased travel intentions. The research also provides practical implications for global tourism marketers to lower the uncertainty barrier.     

How voice retailers can predict customer mood and how they can use that information

In two studies we investigate how voice shopping may provide access to meaningful data on customer mood and how retailers may use such data. In Study 1 we explores the use of a machine learning approach to predict customer mood based on customer commands in the voice shopping process. We compare it to a heuristic approach to customer mood prediction based on situational correlates of mood that that a smart speaker can access (weather, music choice, day of week, and daylight). In Study 2 we explore how a voice retailer could use the potential capability to predict customer mood. Our results provide evidence that a customer’s good mood is associated with purchases of higher-priced premium brands. In addition, retailers can use mood prediction to adapt the presentation of product information to fit customer mood, thus helping customers optimize their decisions. In a sensitivity analysis, we examine what accuracy of mood prediction could enable retailers to use the explored effects.     

Therapeutic benefits of dining out,traveling, and drinking: Coping strategies for lonely consumers to improve their mood

The people in modern societies have found to be more lonely due to longer life span, rising single-person household, and disconnected interpersonal networks. Recently has research begun to shed light on how this phenomenon influences consumers’ compensatory consumption to cope with negative moods caused by loneliness. The hospitality and tourism industries need a better understanding of the ways in which their products and services (e.g. dining-out, traveling, and drinking alcohol) provide opportunities for consumers to cope with such loneliness. Thus, this study explored the benefits of hospitality and tourism experiences for individuals who dine out, travel, and drink as a means of coping with feelings of loneliness. Hence, the goals of the current study are threefold: (1) to examine if loneliness influences consumers to engage in consumption in order to cope with their feelings, (2) to compare age-related differences in coping strategies related to loneliness, and (3) to investigate the therapeutic benefits of dining out, traveling, and drinking across loneliness levels. The results of this study suggest that traveling and dining-out can provide significant ‘therapeutic benefits’ by repairing feelings of loneliness.