Employment and professional mobility are important aspects of life for both hospitality organizations and individual employees. Across two studies, we examine the effects of work–life conflict and actual (Study 1) and perceived (Study 2) progression in one’s career on hotel managers’ intentions to leave their organizations or leave the hotel industry altogether. In Study 1, positive relations between work–life conflict and turnover and career change intentions were found among actual hotel managers. Similarly, in Study 2, job seekers who were experimentally induced to expect higher work–life conflict in their future careers reported higher turnover and career change intentions. Across both studies, this effect was stronger among those with less progression in their careers. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of the high turnover rates in the hospitality industry, and we discuss how hospitality organizations can leverage this knowledge in managerial retention efforts.
With the growing number of customers engaged with social networking sites (SNSs), scholars have started investigating the effects of SNSs’ activities on customers’ well-being perceptions. However, the extant literature has not fully investigated SNSs’ activities that influenced customers’ well-being perceptions when customers shared their hotel experiences. This study explored the effectiveness of the well-being marketing to investigate SNSs’ activities that influenced customers’ psychological needs and impact of a sense of well-being on customers’ brand usage intent, based on self-determination theory in the context of the hotel industry. Results from this study provided theoretical and practical implications on the roles of SNS activities that led to customers’ well-being perceptions.
While customer-to-customer interactions are frequent in hospitality and tourism settings, very little research investigates the effects of other customers and other customer-generated service failures. Using the critical incident technique, this research builds on theory and provides important managerial implications in the areas of other customers, attributions, and service failure. Results find that customers experience emotions, including anger, frustration, and sympathy. In addition, even though customers attribute that the other customers are responsible for the failure, they still formed negative perceptions and behaviors toward the firm. Third, results find that management often did nothing to recover from the failure, which further exacerbated negative perceptions and behaviors.
This study investigated the structural relationships among destination social responsibility (DSR), tourism impacts (i.e., positive and negative impacts), residents’ support for tourism, and their perceived quality of life. A structural model was empirically tested with a sample of 272 residents living in the Phoenix Ancient Town in China. The results indicated that DSR enhanced residents’ perception of positive tourism impacts but did not influence their perception of negative impacts. Concurrently, DSR was found to have direct and positive effects on residents’ support for tourism and perceived quality of life. It also had indirect and positive effects on residents’ support for tourism and perceived quality of life, mediated by positive tourism impacts. While residents’ perceived positive tourism impacts increased their support for tourism and perceived quality of life, negative impacts would undermine support for tourism and proved to be disruptive to quality of life.
The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of four distinct aspects of brand equity—perceived quality, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand image—in tourism satisfaction with regard to Taiwanese night markets. Regression analysis and structural equation models were used to test the hypotheses for a sample of 348 foreign tourists with experience in night market tourism. The results indicate that perceived quality is positively related to brand awareness, whereas brand awareness is positively related to brand loyalty and brand image. This finding confirms the positive relationship between brand loyalty/image and tourist satisfaction. The empirical evidence of the Sobel test following Baron and Kenny’s procedure supports the multiple mediation effects of brand awareness on perceived quality and brand loyalty/image and indicates that brand loyalty/image mediates the effects of brand awareness and satisfaction.
As the body of work concerning emotional solidarity between residents and tourists continues to grow within the tourism literature, little focus has been placed on how the setting factors into such relationships. Using the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove (a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southwestern Nigeria) as a study site, this research examines the role visitors’ attachment to the place plays in explaining their perceived solidarity with area residents. From confirmatory factor analysis, a measurement model was established, which revealed strong psychometric properties for the two place attachment factors (i.e., place identity and place dependence) and the three emotional solidarity factors (i.e., feeling welcomed, emotional closeness, and sympathetic understanding). Structural equation modeling demonstrated that each of the place attachment factors explained a high degree of variance (e.g., R2 ranging between 45% and 54%) in visitors’ emotional solidarity with residents. Implications and future research opportunities are offered within the close of the article.
This article provides an objective, systematic, and integrated review of the Western academic literature on adventure tourism to discover the theoretical foundations and key themes underlying the field by combining three complementary approaches of bibliometric analysis, content analysis, and a quantitative systematic review. A total of 114 publications on adventure tourism were identified that revealed three broad areas of foci with adventure tourism research: (1) adventure tourism experience, (2) destination planning and development, and (3) adventure tourism operators. Adventure tourism has an intellectual tradition from multiple disciplines, such as the social psychology of sport and recreation. There is an underrepresentation of studies examining non-Western tourists in their own geographic contexts or non-Western tourists in Western geographic contexts. Our findings pave ways for developing a more robust framework and holistic understanding of the adventure tourism field.
In this article, the role of perceived insider status (PIS) as a predictor of attitudinal and behavioral work outcomes and the role of core job characteristics as moderators of this relationship has been investigated. Data from 203 employees of a casual restaurant chain in Singapore provide support for the central hypotheses. The results suggest that objective employment characteristics (full-time vs. part-time and permanent vs. seasonal) predict PIS even when controlling for organizational tenure. Moreover, PIS predicts job satisfaction, turnover intention, in-role job performance, as well as voice behavior and personal initiative. In addition to having significant main effects, enriched core job characteristics also moderate most of the relationships between PIS and the various outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of some important implications of these findings for research and for managerial practice in the hospitality industry.
The analysis of length of stay and its determinants remains important in tourism due to its significant implications for tourism management. Results from previous studies show conflicting effects of the two central factors of length of stay: distance and first-time visitation. Hence, taking into account the not always unambiguous effect of distance and the variety-seeking and inertial behaviors of repeat visitation, the objective of this research is to add to the extant literature further empirical evidence. Data were collected from 908 U.S. visitors to a tourism destination in the Atlantic Coast of the United States and analyzed using the truncated negative binomial models. A positive impact of both distance and first-time visitation on length of stay is found. Managerial implications are provided.
Corporate investments in diversity management programs have increased over the past two decades. Across two samples, the current study used experimental methods to examine if organizational attraction and person–organization fit (P–O fit) are influenced by corporate investment in diversity management. In Study 1, 132 hotel managers read about a hotel company that either invested in diversity management programs or removed their investment. In Study 2, 159 hospitality students on the job market read about a hotel company that either invested in diversity management programs or did not read this statement. The results of the current study showed why investing in diversity management matters, namely, because investing in diversity management influences organizational attraction. Across two studies, the participants were more attracted to an organization if the organization invested in diversity management and P–O fit mediated the relationship between corporate investment in diversity management and organizational attraction.
Although there has been a remarkable increase in the supply of domestic golf courses in South Korea, the demand for golf trips is believed to have reached a plateau. In this competitive environment, golf course managers need to examine diverse constraining factors that discourage their customers from visiting the facilities, and learn how those constraints are managed by golf tourists through a variety of strategies. Using a choice modeling, this study provides useful opportunities to better understand golf tourists’ choices made by intricate comparisons between negotiation strategies that help relieve the impact of golfing constraints. The results indicate that levels of perceived importance vary on several constraint attributes when golf tourists make decisions for golf trips. This study also identifies heterogeneous preferences for negotiation strategies between two golf tourist groups segmented based on their golfing experiences.
This article reports a study testing the hypothesis that, compared with community residents who are not affiliated with the tourism industry, residents affiliated with tourism are likely to perceive tourism impact more positively, and the more positive their perceptions of tourism development, the more likely they feel satisfied with their lives. The study involved a survey of community residents of four tourist destinations in the United States. A total of 407 responses were used for data analysis. The results provided support for the notion that the influence of community residents’ perceptions of tourism impact and their life satisfaction is dependent on whether the residents are affiliated or not affiliated with the tourism sector.
Although the winescape has been frequently referred to in wine-related research, empirical studies that conceptualize, operationalize, and test the construct remain limited. This research sets out to develop a scale to measure the supply-related winescape attributes that influence the winery experience. Adopting scale development procedure by Churchill and De Vellis, five focus groups, two expert panels, and six individual studies that involved 1,537 participants were conducted at varied wineries in diverse wine regions across two different wine countries. The resultant 20-item winescape scale comprised seven attributes, namely, setting, atmospherics, wine quality, wine value, complementary product, signage, and service staff, and was reliable and valid. Theoretically and methodologically, the winescape scale addresses a critical need for an empirical measure that encapsulates the supply-related attributes of a winery. Managerially, it offers wine producers a diagnostic tool to evaluate their winescape, guiding their positioning and service operations in the marketplace.
Network analysis is an effective tool for the study of collaboration relationships among researchers. Collaboration networks constructed from previous studies, and their changes over time have been studied. However, the impact of individual researchers in collaboration networks has not been investigated systematically. We introduce a new method of measuring the contribution of researchers to the connectivity of collaboration networks and evaluate the importance of researchers by considering both contribution and productivity. Betweenness centrality is found to be better than degree centrality in terms of reflecting the changes of importance of researchers. Accordingly, a method is further proposed to identify key researchers at certain periods. The performance of the identified researchers demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Limited tourism research has as yet drawn attention to the differences and interactions between country image and destination image. Therefore, this research explored the relationships among country image, destination image, familiarity, and destination evaluation. Based on an empirical study of international tourists in Beijing, China, a model was proposed covering these four variables. Country image mainly affected international tourists’ evaluations of China as a destination in a conditional indirect way, mediated by destination image and especially by psychological image, and moderated by familiarity. Moreover, familiarity directly and positively influenced functional destination image and negatively moderated the relationship between country and psychological destination images.
This study draws on environmental psychological theory to reintegrate the ongoing development of "environmental" cues in the tourism event context. Existing service perception scales often commingle service quality and physical cues; thus, this study proposes their separation and redefinition, as well as tests the effect of the supportive service environment on festival program quality in the experience of participants. The moderating effect of perceived authenticity in the quality–value–satisfaction process is also investigated. The results challenge the traditional view of program quality by highlighting that the service environment is a key antecedent to the quality–value–satisfaction framework. In contrast, the relationships among service environment, program quality, perceived value, and customer satisfaction are contingent on the extent to which participants perceive the authenticity of an event.
The purpose of this study was to propose and examine a three-component trade show evaluation framework on exhibitors’ and visitors’ performance that accounts for the relationships between all three key stakeholders (i.e., visitors, exhibitors, and organizers). After a review of previous literature on stakeholder theory and trade show performance evaluation, the visitor–exhibitor–organizer (VEO) framework was proposed to examine dimensions of overall satisfaction of trade show exhibitors and visitors. Based on the VEO framework, exhibitor and visitor performance evaluation models consist of three components that address three corresponding stakeholders: satisfaction with self-performance and satisfaction with the other two key stakeholders, respectively. To validate the framework, exhibitor and visitor models were tested using data from 514 visitors and 92 exhibitors. The results validated the VEO framework by indicating that the three key stakeholders must be accounted for when evaluating trade show performance. All three dimensions (i.e., satisfaction with self-performance, and the other two stakeholders) contributed to overall satisfaction and positive behavioral intention.
Although the implications of adopting a franchising strategy in the restaurant industry have been examined in previous literature, the role of franchising has mostly been viewed as a means of growth, without much attention paid to its role in reducing risk via alleviating earnings volatility. In this study, we examine whether, and to what extent, franchising in restaurant firms can reduce earnings volatility occurring due to fluctuating economic conditions. Our longitudinal analysis of publicly traded restaurant firms from 1994 to 2012 shows that, during changes in economic conditions, firms adopting a high degree of franchising face lower earnings volatility than firms that adopt a restricted degree of franchising. Our article contributes to the literature on restaurant franchising as a risk-management strategy while providing avenues for future research.
This study proposes and empirically tests a holistic framework of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) motivation that uses an altruistic–egoistic continuum. It also tests the structural relationships between altruistic and egoistic motivations and different dimensions of OCB. Analysis of questionnaire data from 398 hotel employee respondents supported eight of nine proposed relationships. Study results indicate a continuum incorporating multiple altruistic and egoistic motivations and suggest that OCB can be stimulated by both altruistic and egoistic motivations. The findings show that managers should facilitate positive social exchange in the hotel, provide constructive feedback regarding the desired performance, and encourage employees to engage more often in OCB directed toward the organization.
Psychological effects can be greatly influential for the foodservice industry, especially in menu design. Presenting dish pictures is a common practice on menus, but because of the psychological contagion effect, this practice could decrease consumers’ evaluations of dishes, sometimes without the awareness of consumers, let alone restaurant managers. This research aims to explore the potential threats of a psychological contagion by considering how dishes that make consumers feel uncomfortable can affect their evaluations of dishes located nearby. It further examines how a psychological contagion can be attenuated when a visual boundary is placed between a discomfiting dish and a target dish. The results demonstrate the occurrence of psychological contagion in menu design. The interaction between psychological contagions and visual boundaries suggest that the psychological contagion can be attenuated through visual boundaries.
The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of tourism on economic growth. Our analysis covers 133 countries over the period 1995 to 2007, including 32 countries highly dependent on tourism during that period. The results show that specialization in tourism per se had no significant effects on economic growth. However, countries that are both highly dependent on trade and on tourism tend to report significantly lower growth. These findings are consistent with tourism having an effect analogous to the Dutch disease.
Since information sharing is achieved in cooperation with others, not just by oneself, social networking sites (SNSs) based on extensive social networks are an ideal environment for sharing information. In particular, SNSs’ network externalities are crucial to the success of the information and communication technologies industry. Thus, this study investigated how SNSs’ network externalities affect users’ perceptions of benefits, satisfaction, and restaurant information-sharing intentions. This study found that perceived network size and perceived complementarity significantly influenced perceived usefulness. Furthermore, perceived referent network size, perceived complementarity, and perceived compatibility significantly influenced perceived enjoyment. In addition, perceived benefits significantly influenced satisfaction, which in turn significantly influenced restaurant information-sharing intentions on SNSs. These findings have considerable implications for understanding the role of SNSs’ network externalities in sharing information.
As suggested by the strategic management literature, foreign-invested firms with superior technology and managerial skills are likely to generate productivity spillovers that may benefit local firms. In this article, we examine productivity spillovers in the context of the hotel industry. Using panel data from star-rated hotels in China’s major cities from 2001 to 2012, we model the labor productivity of domestic hotels as dependent on degree of foreign hotel presence in the city and on other control variables. Our results confirm the existence of productivity spillovers in China’s hotel industry and suggest that the presence of foreign capital is associated with higher labor productivity among domestic hotels. Moreover, the magnitude of these spillovers increases along with the productivity gap between domestic and foreign-invested hotels. Finally, we present several policy implications based on the econometric estimation results.
This study investigates potential barriers to the adoption of environmental technologies used in Hong Kong hotels. Data were collected via in-depth semistructured interviews with senior hotel professionals including general managers, financial controllers, directors of engineering department, and environmental management system managers. The research findings illustrate several specific barriers to adoption of environmental technologies which are grouped under three categories: (1) product-related barriers, (2) external barriers, and (3) internal barriers. The study findings are discussed and specific recommendations for overcoming these barriers are put forward. Conclusions and suggestions for future research are also provided.
Value cocreation represents a critical element of the service-dominant logic paradigm, which is currently becoming increasingly important in hospitality. A number of recent studies are pointing to the criticality of examining the value cocreation mechanisms in hotels. While value can be cocreated using a variety of methods, mobile commerce offers unique opportunities to lay the foundation of value cocreation in hotels, which can bring substantial benefits for all stakeholders of this process. To understand the how hotel guests develop intentions to cocreate value in hotels using their mobile devices, a conceptual model was developed and validated empirically based on data from U.S. hotel guests. Guests’ perceptions of personalization, trust in the hotel, and their personal innovativeness were found to influence their degree of involvement with mobile devices in hotels, which are instrumental in the development of intentions to engage in specific cocreation behaviors.
Entertainment is a feature of some tourism settings and acts as a key pull factor for visiting certain destinations. Research-based studies about entertainment and the tourist experience are, however, rather limited. This study pursued this research opportunity and explored international tourists’ experiences in an iconic performance-based entertainment, the Impression Sanjie Liu in southern China. More than 350 tourists’ spontaneous reviews posted on TripAdvisor were analyzed through Leximancer software. It was found that international tourists were generally positive toward the culturally distinctive style of the entertainment. Despite the challenge of comprehending meanings and the language, they were impressed with the grand spectacle, the performances of many people, and the context. The disruptive behavior of other tourists, particularly the domestic Chinese tourists, troubled some international tourists. Implications for both academic research and the tourism entertainment industry are offered.
This article focuses on estimating and discussing cost and profit efficiencies related with the Spanish hotel sector. Managers have a special interest in controlling costs as a source of competitive advantage, which may enable companies to improve their results in a continuous manner. However, they usually do not attribute much importance to the improvement of profit efficiency, which is generally much lower than cost efficiency and as a result vital for achieving competitive advantage. In this article, cost and profit efficiencies are estimated in the Spanish hotel sector using a data panel for the years 2007 to 2011 and using distribution free approach methodology. The results show profit efficiency levels significantly lower than levels of cost efficiency, thereby confirming our working hypothesis.
The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of other customers on consumption behavior in shared consumption environments. The proposition is put forth that, like other factors that make up the consumption atmosphere, the mere presence of other customers has a significant impact on customers’ attachment to service organizations. Accordingly, this research proposes a framework that specifies the nature of the relationships among customer homogeneity in the social servicescape, company identification, place attachment, and word-of-mouth referral. To test the hypotheses, data were collected from a sample of 1,094 restaurant patrons in the United States. Results of structural equation analyses supported the overall contention that, in addition to the traditionally identified aspects of the servicescape (e.g., facility attractiveness, ambient conditions, seating comfort, and layout), the mere presence of others can affect the extent to which individuals perceive feelings of attachment to the restaurant. This relationship is demonstrated to take place via the mediating effect of company identification.
The main purpose of this study is to identify the underlying dimensions of consumer complaining and recovery effort and to develop a multidimensional scale to measure this construct. Literature suggests that the consumer complaining and recovery effort is a four-dimensional construct consisting of procedural, cognitive, time-related, and affective components. Using data collected from hotel guests, a measurement scale is developed to assess this four-dimensional construct. First, a factor analysis is conducted on one set of data. Afterward, the underlying dimensions identified by the exploratory factor analysis are confirmed by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis on a separate set of data. Findings suggest that the scale developed in this study presents substantial convergent validity, discriminant validity, predictive validity, and reliability.
Bed and Breakfast innkeeping as a form of self-employment is often perceived by aspiring innkeepers as a lifestyle choice that seemingly integrates work and life and enhances personal well-being. On the other hand, innkeeping as a business is known for long work hours and limited escape from work due to the blurred physical and temporal boundaries between work and life. Given the paradox, this exploratory study examined the respite experience (an interval of rest and relief from work) of innkeepers and its effect on subjective well-being. The findings from an online survey among 327 innkeepers in the United States reveal that innkeepers lack short-term respites at regular intervals. Engagement in active and high-effort social or hobby-based respite activities is found to be a primary pathway to an effective respite experience in the absence of psychological detachment from work. The results show that respite experience has a significant effect on an innkeeper’s subjective well-being after controlling for job demands, entrepreneurial motivation, and financial performance of the inn. This research has also identified three clusters of innkeepers (lifestyle innkeepers, seasonal innkeepers, and career innkeepers) based on their respite characteristics and other related operational and individual variables.
Price is a major influence on travel purchases; however, traveler reviews have also become a prevalent source of influence. Theories of social influence and cognitive dissonance provide insight into consumer decisions. This research investigated the effect of social influence in the form of traveler reviews and price on consumer decisions and postdecision dissonance. Student subjects evaluated two resorts for a Spring Break vacation in Cancun using a 2 (valence: positive or negative) x 2 (unanimity: unanimous or nonunanimous) x 3 (price: same, slightly lower, much lower) experimental design. The results reveal that social influence had a strong effect on both resort evaluations and postdecision dissonance. Nonunanimous reviews reduced the prevailing valence of reviews, but increased dissonance. The lack of results for price suggests that price may not be the predominant influence on decisions, as previously thought. This research provides new insight into the effect of traveler reviews on decisions by evaluating the unanimity of social influence, the effect of price differences, and the extent to which consumers engage in postdecision dissonance reduction.
The negotiation thesis offers a framework for understanding the participation decision making of tourists. Unlike previous studies that investigate the causal relationship between constraints and tourists’ revisit intention, this study identified distinct segments of ski tourist based on the relative strength of constraints experienced and then investigated their decision-making process across a sample of 1,348 tourists of ski resorts. Chi-squared automated interaction detection analysis revealed that the decision-making process regarding intention to revisit a ski destination varies between highly versus less constrained ski tourists, indicating different relative strengths of interpersonal, intrapersonal, and structural constraints and different interactions among them when predicting revisit intention. On a practical basis, albeit the vast majority of participants were willing to repeat its visit, we offer customized per segment recommendations on increasing frequency of visitation and spending levels.
The purpose of this study was to identify tangible and intangible gains resulting from advertising in restaurant businesses from both the marketing and finance/accounting perspectives. Specifically, this study examined both behavioral and intermediate effects of advertising on consumer behavior and firm performance. Annual sales, profit, Tobin’s Q, and advertising expenditure of 119 restaurant firms from 1991 to 2012 were used for data analysis. The findings revealed that advertising led to an immediate increase in consumer demand, but failed to improve profit. The effect of advertising on sales and profit through brand equity was found to be insignificant. This suggests a new angle on the use of advertising and brand strategies in the restaurant industry and discusses potential directions for future research.
Existing literature on the commodification of punishment has yet to examine small penal history museums or related issues of tourism marketing, networking, and souvenirs. Bringing this literature into conversation with tourism studies, we examine how penal history sites attempt to attract visitors and generate revenue to sustain their operations. Drawing on findings from a 5-year qualitative study of penal history museums across Canada, we argue tourism operators use three strategies for the marketing of commodified punishment: authenticity, historical specificity, and exclusiveness. Our findings also indicate that networking between these sites is underdeveloped and that the souvenirs sold to visitors are an important source of museum funding. Overall, we show that the concepts of marketing, networking, and souvenirs can comprise a key conceptual framework for examining consumption in small tourism enterprises in Canada and internationally. Our findings also raise questions about how to theorize and investigate museum management, solvency, and profitability in the penal and dark tourism sector.
The authors wish to acknowledge Amy McManus as a third contributor to the article. Ms. McManus contributed to earlier drafts of this article, in particular, the literature review and introduction.
Cheri Young’s contributions to the article included the following: Interviewing and conducting research with the Local 2 of Unite HERE and a multi-employer group (MEG) of 13 San Francisco hotels; Conceiving, designing and executing the study, including data collection and analysis and the writing of two extensive, written reports completed in early 2004, which were the basis for this article; Writing the methods and results sections of the paper.
David Corsun’s contributions included the following: Participating in conceiving, designing and executing the study, including data collection and analysis and the writing of two preliminary written reports completed in early 2004; Performing data analysis; Writing the methods and results sections of the paper.
Amy McManus’s contributions included assisting with writing portions of the paper, including the literature review and introduction.
The purpose of this study was to explore differences among three distinct groups, namely local residents, past tourists, and prospective tourists, in their perceptions of cognitive, affective, and overall image of a city destination and their future behavior. Analysis of data generally confirmed previously established structural relationships of cognitive and affective image, overall destination image, and word-of-mouth intentions. However, differences were identified among the three groups in terms of their destination image perceptions and their behavioral intentions to engage in word-of-mouth communications. Specifically, residents who engaged in word-of-mouth were primarily influenced by the cognitive and affective destination image components, while tourists relied on overall image perceptions.
This research presents an examination of literature written within hospitality and tourism studies and within other disciplines pertaining to virtual and hybrid meeting genres over a 10-year period (2002-2012). While 15 articles were found within hospitality and tourism journals, 67 articles were included within this review, with the majority published within refereed journals outside of hospitality and tourism. Articles were categorized by journal, year, methodology, and theme. Using the diffusion of innovation theory, five themes emerged: comparison of virtual and/or hybrid meetings with face-to-face meetings, perceptions and attitudes toward virtual and hybrid meetings, management and design of virtual and/or hybrid meetings, specific audiences for virtual and hybrid meetings, and uses of technology within virtual and hybrid meetings. These articles have been accumulated to identify gaps in the literature and provide future research recommendations within hospitality and tourism to be addressed.
This article extends the concept of customer perceived value (CPV) to the tourist outshopping context and explores the differences in antecedents and outcomes of CPV between cross-border and international outshoppers. A large-scale field survey in Hong Kong with cross-border outshoppers from mainland China and international shoppers from four Western countries (Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States) shows that perceived product quality, risk, and value for money have a stronger effect on CPV for cross-border outshoppers, and employee service quality and lifestyle congruence for international outshoppers. CPV also has a stronger positive effect on satisfaction, word of mouth, and repeat purchase intentions for cross-border outshoppers, whereas satisfaction has a stronger positive impact on word of mouth and repeat purchase intentions for international outshoppers. We discuss the conceptual contribution and managerial implications of our findings for international retailers, researchers, and tourism organizations.
In an effort to attract tourists, rural communities promote their festivals that are unique to the area and local culture. An examination of impacts beyond those of a monetary nature is rarely undertaken by these communities. Furthermore, the role that the relationship between residents and tourists plays in explaining perceived impacts of these festivals is nonexistent. The current work utilizes the Emotional Solidarity Scale in an effort to predict Caldwell, Texas, residents’ perceived impacts of hosting the Kolache Festival through the Festival Social Impact Attitude Scale. Results reveal strong measures of reliability and validity for each scale. Considering the relationship between emotional solidarity and perceived impacts of the festival, results showed that Emotional Solidarity Scale factors explained a considerable degree of variance (i.e., 29% to 36%) in the resulting Festival Social Impact Attitude Scale factors. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed along with limitations and opportunities for future research concerning this line of research.
The brand of a travel agency and the tour leader play critical roles in travel decision making. Attachment theory has recently been extended to the domain of travel behavior. However, little academic attention has been paid to travel agency brand and tour leader attachment. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand attachment and tour leader attachment on tourists’ behavioral intentions and to clarify the roles of perceived value and customer trust. The results indicate that brand attachment has an indirect effect on behavioral intentions through perceived value. Tour leader attachment also has both direct and indirect positive influences on tourists’ behavioral intentions. Finally, the influences of brand attachment and tour leader attachment on perceived value are stronger among customers with a high level of trust than among those with a low level of trust. The implications of these findings and future research are subsequently discussed.
The effect of consumer participation in online social networking activities on their susceptibility to influence is investigated in a context of restaurant consumption. This research identified a positive relationship between consumers engagement in social networking sites (SNS) on their susceptibility to global consumption influence, which is a multidimensional factor consisting of conformity to trend, social prestige, and quality perception. Furthermore, consumer engagement in SNS and susceptibility to global consumption influence positively affect social influence on SNS. That is, consumers with higher participation in SNS are more prone to global consumer convergence and peer influence on SNS. As implications for tourism and hospitality businesses, strategies to manage consumer-to-consumer communication on social media are suggested.
Although the importance of a mandatory customer participation construct in service delivery has been much discussed in the literature, little research has been devoted to conceptualizing and measuring one. To fill this void, this study followed a seven-step process for creating and analyzing scales in order to develop a customer participation scale and evaluate its generalizability, reliability, and validity. In theoretical terms, this scale extends the service quality literature, which has heavily emphasized the service provider’s responsibility for service quality, and will facilitate further studies in customer participation. In practical terms, the scale provides practitioners with useful mechanisms that could enhance their interactions with customers through facilitating the latter’s mandatory role in service delivery.
This study examines the roles of country of origin in diners’ perceptions of a cuisine in relation to the moderating effects of culinary and institutional factors. Using the survey data on 247 adults in Seoul, South Korea, this study finds that the country of origin shows substantial impacts on diners’ perceptions of a cuisine. Korea, as a country of origin, functions negatively, whereas China, Japan, and France/Italy assume positive roles. Noteworthy is that the effects of the country of origin are moderated by culinary or institutional factors in accordance with a country’s context. Interestingly, in the case of Korea, where the country’s image is weak, culinary factors, such as menu development, help overcome the negative effects of the country of origin. Therefore, it is proposed that the dynamics underlying country of origin and culinary and institutional factors shape a wide range of formulae to transform diners’ perceptions of a cuisine.
This study examines the effect of geographic dispersion on the short-run and long-run initial public offering (IPO) performance of restaurant firms. Sample of the study consists of 103 restaurant IPOs conducted between 1981 and 2011. The study finds that being geographically dispersed or concentrated in a small area does not lead to a significant difference in the initial returns of restaurant IPOs. Yet the analysis shows that restaurant firms with geographically dispersed operations have significantly higher long-run returns in the post-IPO period compared with their local counterparts. This is evidenced by the significantly larger cumulative abnormal returns for geographically dispersed restaurant firms in the post-IPO period.
This study examined research focus countries and regions in 4,654 articles published in 32 tourism, hospitality, and leisure academic journals from 2002 to 2011 inclusive. Applying a variety of analysis methods, the research showed the spatial distribution, co-occurrence relationships among countries, and the most popular topics of research focus and types of tourism by countries. There was a broad geographic focus of the research in tourism, hospitality, and leisure journals in the decade from 2002 to 2011 spanning 126 countries. It was found that a significant number (70) of countries were not covered in this 10-year snapshot of the academic journal research and require more attention from scholars in the future. Some major countries were underrepresented including France, Germany, and Russia. However, the predominance of the research focus on the Asia-Pacific region and particularly on China was a major finding in this analysis, as was the sparse coverage of South and Central America.
This study aims at identifying the dimensions of experiential quality and investigating the interrelationships among experiential quality, experiential value, experiential satisfaction, theme park image, and revisit intention perceived by theme park visitors. Analysis of data from 424 visitors in Janfusan Fancyworld of Taiwan indicates that the proposed model fits the data well. The results reveal that there are 4 primary dimensions and 11 subdimensions of experiential quality perceived by theme park visitors. In addition, the results indicate that physical environment quality is identified as the most primary dimension of experiential quality perceived by theme park visitors.
Virtual travel communities (VTCs) are now popular and influential venues for tourism information sharing. With the increasing number of VTCs and low switching cost, it is challenging to retain existing users and encourage their continued participation. Despite the importance of user retention to VTCs survival, little research attention has been devoted to understanding the members’ continued participation behavior. The purpose of this study is to test a new model of VTC beliefs, attitudes, and continuance behaviors, by integrating information system success model and flow theory. The model integrates measures proven in traditional consumer behavior theory, such as word-of-mouth and satisfaction, with behavioral measures unique to the virtual domain, such as stickiness. The results of a field survey of members of QYER, a Chinese VTC, indicate that system quality and information quality directly affect flow experience and member satisfaction, which ultimately determine site stickiness and word-of-mouth behavior. Furthermore, by modeling system quality and information quality as multifaceted constructs, the results reveal key quality concerns in VTCs. The findings will help academics as well as practitioners gain insights into member retention in VTCs.
The main objective of this research was to develop a scale for measuring destination personality of India. A list of human personality traits was generated from previous personality scales, and in-depth interviews were conducted among foreigners visiting India. A two-phase study was conducted to reduce the personality traits and to identify the underlying factor structure. The results indicate that destination personality of India is a multidimensional construct composed of six main dimensions: courteousness, vibrancy, conformity, liveliness, viciousness, and tranquility. In the first phase, a survey was conducted among a sample of 177 foreigners. In the second phase, a sample of 152 foreigners was collected to further refine the scale. A reduced scale with 23 items having the same psychometric properties and stability as the full 35-item scale was proposed. The article discusses the marketing applications of the scale for positioning destinations and estimating the relative impact of the personality dimensions on attitudes toward product-destination attitudes, and travel-destination attitude, and overall destination attitude.
The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) the moderating effect of CEO overconfidence on the relationship between equity-based compensation and strategic risk-taking and (b) the relationship between franchising and strategic risk-taking in the U.S. restaurant industry. Given wide use of a franchise system among U.S. restaurant firms, an understanding of the association between equity-based compensation and strategic risk-taking relative to CEOs’ risk behaviors seems particularly important. We conducted our empirical analysis in the U.S. restaurant industry using a sample of 659 firm-year observations from 1992 to 2013. Our findings showed that (a) overconfident CEOs, while holding equity-based compensation, tended to take on more strategically risky investments, and (b) there was a positive relation between franchising and risk-taking. Considering the behavioral and industry-specific characteristics, study findings could provide a more comprehensive understanding of how equity-based compensation influences strategic risk-taking in the U.S. restaurant industry.
Based on the norm of reciprocity, this study hypothesized that food servers would earn higher tips when they boxed customers’ leftovers compared with having customers’ box leftovers themselves. In addition, the effect of writing messages (i.e., the date and/or customer’s name) on boxes of leftovers was explored. Two female food servers waited on 608 diners and boxed or did not box leftovers, and wrote or did not write messages on boxes. The hypothesis was supported. However, writing messages was not associated with tipping behavior.
The purpose of this study was to propose and test a quality–value–attitude model by examining the antecedents and relationships among these three constructs at the Shanghai Expo 2010. The results of the structural equation modeling revealed that controllable service quality characteristics, such as program content, staff, and convenience, significantly affected both visitors’ emotional and economic values that, in turn, influenced visitors’ attitude. The findings of the study render important conceptual insights for understanding mega-event attendees’ perceptions and provide practical implications for the event organizers and planners.
This study analyzed the relationship between the critical network position and knowledge creation at the individual level. The hypothesis was tested among a sample of 109 tourism research scholars from 24 universities with tourism management departments. The majority of these universities are located in northern, middle, or southern Taiwan. The analyses tracked 466 scholars’ publications, 651 applications for research funding, and 675 coauthorships between 1993 and 2012. The results revealed trade-offs and nonlinear relationships between the critical position and the quality/quantity of knowledge created. Furthermore, research funding played important moderating roles, as it positively moderated the association between critical position and knowledge quality but negatively moderated knowledge quantity.
This study adopted a Delphi method to identify suitable criteria for evaluating the farm accommodation quality and applied the analytic hierarchy process to determine the relative weights of those evaluation criteria. A case study was then conducted to assess and rank 275 selected farm accommodations by adopting the proposed quality framework in order to obtain an accepted quality standard. Results of analyses with the data achieved through direct inspection of those operations and interview with their operators are shown as quality standard assessments of participating farm accommodations. Potential improvements that farms can make through the quality standard are also provided. Finally, this study suggests that the quality framework and evaluation results be used as a guide for farm accommodations to develop, review, and improve the quality and its management.
This article examines the use of an experiential branding process to help leisure resort businesses evaluate their brand. We integrate experiential marketing and the quality function development approach in combination to help understand the brand from the perspectives of both the consumer and firm, to help resort service businesses build their experience-oriented competitive brands. The value of this study is that it provides a real-world brand framework, especially those resorts with limited resources. Much is spoken about the influence of the brand and why it is important, but little is known about decisions related to developing a brand, especially for firms that have limited resources such as resort tourism operators. Tourism operators tend to be small-to-medium enterprises that do not necessarily have the capacity to do everything suggested. Therefore, we explore how firms assess the critical elements of their brand by using an integrated approach. For example, the study finds that, first, by using the quality function development method resorts can identify the most critical brand elements, and second, we identify the associated strengths of each brand element and confirm the identified resort’s critical brand elements for investment. Results show the potential strategies to create a more holistic set of experiences.
This study investigated whether advertisements with different (high or low) message sensation value (MSV) had different impacts on consumers with different (high or low) sensation-seeking (SS) trait with regard to their destination image perceptions and behavioral intentions through a cross-cultural comparison. The results indicated that for U.S. samples, matched MSV and SS trait (low–low) had stronger influence on consumers’ destination image perceptions than mismatched MSV and SS trait (low–high); while for Chinese samples, matched MSV and SS trait (high–high) had stronger influence on consumers’ behavioral intentions and destination image perceptions than mismatched MSV and SS trait (high–low). In addition, culture was found to moderate the effect of MSV and SS trait on consumers’ destination image and behavioral intentions. Finally, destination image was found to be a significant predictor of behavioral intentions.
This study uses data envelopment analysis and a two-stage procedure to compare the performance of Tunisian tourism destinations and to examine the impact of investment (public and private), economic circumstances, workers skills, and travel agent number on the efficiency of Tunisian tourism destinations. In the first stage, the efficiency score is calculated. This calculation is followed in the second stage with a bootstrapped truncated regression model examining the effects of the cited variables to determine the best development strategy that can increase the tourism competitiveness of Tunisian tourism destinations. This study has six major conclusions. First, the test results confirm that the destination efficiency is sensitive to public and private investment in the tourism industry. Second, the trade deficit has a significant negative impact on the efficiency of the country destinations. Third, tourism education and training in Tunisia do not meet the Tunisian tourist market needs. Fourth, the wage level in the tourism sector positively affects the performance of destinations. Fifth, whereas the number of Type A (hold and sell travel) travel agencies positively affects the performance of a destination, Type B agencies (only sell travels) negatively influence it. Last, tourism destinations have to develop commodities, tourism monuments, leisure activities, and other para-tourism activities to attract more tourists or to improve their length of stay.
In this study, the construct of psychological capital (PsyCap) is explored within the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry. PsyCap, a second-order construct composed of hope, optimism, resilience, and self-efficacy, has received little attention in hospitality research despite its relationships with improving attitudes and behaviors. This study tested the relationships among PsyCap, service quality, customer satisfaction, and unit revenues through bivariate and mediational tests. Data were collected from a national chain of QSR employees, mystery shops, customer evaluations, and company records. The results indicate that collective PsyCap is positively related to all variables. Additionally, the results showed that service quality and customer satisfaction fully mediates the collective PsyCap to unit revenues relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Customer loyalty has become a strategic goal to increase brand value and profitability. This study develops and tests a model of loyalty to understand the relative effects of loyalty program benefits (as positive barriers) and switching costs (as negative barriers) on emotional commitment and loyalty behaviors in the casino context. The findings showed that trust, perceived switching cost, and emotional commitment to the casino are more likely to influence relational or emotional outcomes such as word of mouth and voluntary partnership whereas the loyalty program is more likely to influence transactional outcomes such as repeat visitation and time spent in the casino. The emotional commitment served as a partial mediator in the model. The study has theoretical implications for understanding the loyalty process and practical implications for improving loyalty program effectiveness.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of personality types on consumer complaint channels. Respondents completed a survey that depicted four service failure scenarios, each with 11 possible courses of action. The three personality factors measured against the complaint behavior were locus of control, the California Psychological Inventory measure of sociability and Cattell’s 16 personality factors of relaxed versus tense. Factor analysis revealed three complaint channel dimensions: active, passive, and delayed. Sociability produced more active and less passive complaint behavior. Locus of control interacted with relaxed versus tense on the use of passive and delayed complaints. The findings have implications for recognizing and resolving customer complaints for different personality types.
This study examines the relationships among environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental concern, and employee ecological behavior to implement green practices across the hotel industry. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used with 385 employees from international tourist hotels in Hong Kong. The results show that environmental knowledge positively influences environmental concern and ecological behavior. In addition, employee environmental awareness mediates the relationship between environmental knowledge and concern, while both environmental awareness and concern appear to mediate the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of study results are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.
A new group of participants, young, independent, technology empowered Chinese tourists, are entering the international recreational vehicle (RV) drive market. This study addressed three research questions: Who are they? Why do they travel in this style? Where do they go? Netnography was undertaken as the research approach. The findings were contextualized by comparison with existing knowledge about mature RV users (e.g., Grey Nomads, Snowbirds, and retirees). It was found that the Chinese RV tourists share some commonalities with the mature RV market. The differences, however, were also substantial. Implications for other markets and destinations in developing the international driving market are offered. Furthermore, the use of netnography to offer insights to understand new markets and/or new activities is highlighted.
The Asia-Pacific region is a hot spot for population and tourism growth, both key drivers of water demand. Already, more than 75% of countries in this region are experiencing water stress. The management of water is becoming increasingly pressing, including for the tourism industry. Yet there has been little research into the predictors of water use in tourism in the Asia-Pacific region and opportunities for water saving. Therefore, this article develops both total and per guest night water-use models to determine the drivers of water use in accommodation in the Asia-Pacific region, delves into the differences between regions, and assesses the effectiveness of different water-saving measures. The results suggest geographical differences in water use that are influenced by climate zone and pool facilities. Importantly, the per guest night water-use model indicates that there are economies of scale to water use and that low/dual-flush toilets can significantly conserve water.
An increasing use of technology in service delivery presents challenges for businesses, in particular in relation to how customers perceive specific technology-enabled services (TESs) and which TESs they embrace. This study investigates the influence of technology readiness (TR) on travelers’ perceived importance of various airline TESs. Results reveal three categories of TESs: Established, Network Access, and New. Two dimensions of TR—Optimism and Innovativeness—were significantly associated with the perceived importance of TESs. Respondents who reported higher levels of Optimism rated Established TESs as particularly important. In contrast, respondents high on Innovativeness rated Network Access and New TESs as more important. The association between TR dimensions and perceived importance of TESs was more evident in customers of low-cost carriers than in customers of full-service airlines. This study contributes to the TES and TR literature by explaining why a TES may be more (or less) important to different customers through the association of the TR construct.
Increasingly, consumers are posting online reviews about hotels, restaurants, and other tourism and hospitality providers. While some managers are responding to these reviews, little is known about how to respond and how to do so effectively. Drawing on the service recovery, justice, and electronic word-of-mouth literatures, we developed a typology of management responses to negative online reviews of hotel accommodation. An initial version of the typology was verified through interviews with eight industry experts. The final "Triple A" typology comprised 19 specific forms of managerial responses subsumed within the three higher-level categories of acknowledgements, accounts, and actions. The typology was tested on a sample of 150 conversations drawn from the website, TripAdvisor. Most responses included an acknowledgement of the dissatisfying event, an account (explanation) for its occurrence, and a reference to action taken. Responses differed between top- and bottom-ranked hotels. Propositions for extending this area of research are provided.
Tourism businesses participate in network relationships with others to obtain resources that are unavailable within. Due to the socially embedded nature of interorganizational relationships, the social networks of the boundary-spanning personnel in tourism businesses are believed to have a profound influence on the formation and structure of their networks at the organizational level. Understanding the boundary-spanning personnel’s social network, particularly in a professional context, may facilitate tourism businesses in their human resources strategies and further benefit their business network development and maintenance. Using the Big-Five personality construct, this study investigated the personality effects on the tourism boundary-spanning personnel’s social network diversity and tie strength in a professional setting. The study revealed the connections between different aspects of individuals’ social networks and their personality traits. The findings indicated that, with different business networking needs or being at different network development stages, tourism businesses may need to look for employees with different personalities to undertake the corresponding networking tasks.
The purpose of this study is to explore the personal development and changes brought about by volunteer tourism among Asian students. This study adopts a qualitative inductive approach to collect data from semistructured interviews with 14 participants, an inductive content analysis to analyze the empirical data, and an interpretive paradigm to explain the results. The main finding of this study is that the participants’ volunteering experiences had certain influence on their academic development, daily life, careers, and choice of future tourism activities. Thirteen themes dealing with changes emerged and could be divided into four groups: (a) inner change, (b) change in view of life and the world, (c) change in learning attitude and future career direction, and (d) change in the choice of future tourism activities.
This study investigated wine tourism constraints from a market segmentation perspective to understand the potential importance they may have on preference and behavioral intentions to visit wine regions. Using constraints scales customized to the wine tourism context, a factor-cluster segmentation approach generated five homogenous subgroups: Highly Constrained, Cost & Time Conscious, Family Togetherness, Unmotivated, and Minimally Constrained. Analysis of variance tests indicated that preference and intentions to visit wine regions were significantly different among the five clusters. In particular, two cluster groups representing Minimally Constrained and Family Togetherness were found to offer the most utility for further wine tourism market segmentation research. Implications for all cluster groups regarding unique sociodemographic characteristics and behavioral intentions were discussed. This study provides future academic research opportunities pertaining to the application of wine tourism constraints scales. Destination marketing organizations can apply these findings toward the development of effective target market strategies.
Existing studies have found that restaurant servers sometimes deliver service that is informed by their customers’ race. However, we know considerably less about the causes underlying such discriminatory behaviors within the restaurant context. In this study, we advance this literature by analyzing data derived from a survey of restaurant servers (N = 195) to assess the effects of working in a racialized workplace environment, characterized by racist and stereotypical discourse, on servers’ reports of providing race-based service. Our findings reveal a strong statistically significant positive relationship between observing racialized workplace discourse and servers’ self-professed discriminatory behaviors. Furthermore, we find that these effects are not mediated or moderated by servers’ willingness to participate in the discursive spreading of racial stereotypes by discussing their customers’ race with peers. We conclude by identifying suggestions that restaurant leaders might consider to reduce racial discrimination within the restaurant industry.
This article takes a dyadic approach to the conceptualization of nature-based tourism (NBT) destinations. Treating the natural area and its gateway city as distinct evaluative objects, we propose that tourists may differentially assess each element of a city–park dyad based on the degree to which the attributes of each are perceived as conducive to the fulfillment of NBT-specific goals. By empirically testing this perspective, this study reveals the unique complexities of NBT. The findings indicate that nature-based tourists have distinct perceptions of natural areas and their gateway cities. The results also reveal that proenvironmental attitudes motivate individuals to engage in NBT and are associated with a positive image of the natural area. However, these proenvironmental attitudes also yield negative attitudes toward the human-made attributes of the gateway city, which result in a negative image of the city itself. The principal implications for future research and application are discussed.
The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of the relational structure of a community on tourism-related community collective action. Employing social network analysis and interviews, the network structure and community collective actions were examined at two communities on Jeju Island, South Korea. The research results demonstrate positive associations between successful collective action involvement and features from the relational network structure in communities, such as network density and social pressure related to social roles. The findings can be used to identify specific types of community network structure that facilitates an individual’s tourism related collective action involvement.
The purposes of this study were to examine the measurement equivalency of motivation to consume local food between British and Korean groups, and to extend the use of the multiple-group technique of measurement equivalence analysis by demonstrating formal tests that identify whether a measurement instrument shows similar relations among groups. Although multigroup confirmatory factor analyses revealed that measurement equivalence was fully equivalent among groups, this study proved metric and scalar invariance, and partial error invariance was equivalent. The results revealed that the observed variables and their underlying constructs were equivalent among groups. Implications and application of the study findings are discussed.
This article evaluates the electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM) features on hotel websites and examines the effectiveness of e-CRM quality as a signal that conveys information about unobservable hotel service quality. Complementary findings from two studies are presented. In Study 1, the results from lab experiments show that hotel e-CRM quality had positive effects on potential customers’ expectations for service quality, trust in and satisfaction with the hotel website, and intentions to purchase from the website. In Study 2, observational data collected from an influential hotel review website show a positive relationship between a hotel’s basic, proactive, and partnership e-CRM and the hotel’s rank in its region. Both studies found that smaller hotels and hotels with lesser known brands benefited more from better e-CRM. These findings suggest that a well-designed e-CRM system may help less visible hotels to gain advantages in the increasingly competitive online marketplace.
Customers, increasingly, seem concerned about social and environmental issues that often affect their buying behavior and attitudes toward the quality of goods and services purchased. Despite this trend, there exists little empirical research regarding how socially responsible consumers evaluate services and service quality. In this study, we investigate the role that consumer attitudes toward social responsibility play in evaluating service quality. The results of factor analysis show that social responsibility is a salient dimension of service quality and that high socially responsible customers use the concept of social responsibility more pronouncedly than others when evaluating service quality. Our study contributes to the current literature on the evaluation of service quality by a growing customer segment and outlines implications for managers and for future research.
The growth in premium coffee consumption in South Korea along with increased incomes and lifestyle changes has created important opportunities for marketers to target customers in the international market. To take advantage of these opportunities, it is critical to understand the underlying factors that motivate Gen Y coffee consumers in Korea in order to provide guidance for international food and beverage businesses. This study investigates three possible mechanisms in terms of the individual, social, and functional evaluations of customers with respect to coffee consumption in upscale cafés. The results of this study provide empirical evidence that the basic motivational drivers of Korean Gen Y consumers’ premium coffee consumption in cafés are similar to dimensions of luxury value such as materialism, conformity, conspicuous tendencies, and functional dimensions. Moreover, this study discovered the moderating effect of income source according to the context in which it is obtained (gifted money or earned money) in terms of young consumers spending habits.
With the rapid economic growth that has occurred in recent decades in China, engaging in wine tourism has emerged as a new phenomenon. This study aims to examine factors that may influence Chinese people’s intentions to visit local wineries. We have employed a theoretical model based on the self-determination theory to holistically explore the effects of travel motivation, attitudes toward domestic wine, subjective norm, past experiences, and perceived travel barriers. An online questionnaire was conducted in three tier-one cities, resulting in 500 respondents in the sample. The survey revealed that subjective norm influences visit intentions through the mediating role of travel motivation and so do attitudes toward domestic wine when mediated by the wine-specific travel motivation. Past experiences positively affected visit intentions. A lack of wine knowledge and low confidence in domestic wine inhibited visit intentions. We have discussed practical implications of effective measures to enhance marketing efforts by wine/tourism practitioners in China.
This study aims at identifying the dimensions of experiential quality and examining the interrelationships among experiential quality, perceived value, heritage image, experiential satisfaction, and behavioral intentions for heritage tourists. The dimensions of experiential quality are built on a basis of reflective indicators, and a multidimensional and hierarchical model is used as a framework to synthesize the effects of experiential quality, perceived value, heritage image, and experiential satisfaction on behavioral intentions perceived by heritage tourists. Analysis of data from 427 tourists in the Historic Center of Macau indicates that the proposed model fits the data well. The results reveal that there are four primary dimensions and 10 subdimensions of experiential quality perceived by heritage tourists. In addition, the results indicate that outcome quality is identified as the most primary dimension of experiential quality perceived by heritage tourists.
Study participants rated menu prices with an automatic percentage service gratuity as better deals than equivalent service-included prices when the service component of price was below the standard 15% tipping rate. However, the reverse was true when the service component of price was above 15%. Furthermore, a move from percentage service gratuity toward dollar service gratuity impeded participants’ menu price judgment. These findings provide some insights regarding which pricing alternative to tipping should be implemented if and when restaurateurs decide to abandon voluntary tipping.
This study focuses on domestic tourists at a World Heritage Site located in China and investigates the relationship of three important visitor perceptions (i.e., service fairness, destination image, and service quality) with tourism destination loyalty (i.e., positive word-of-mouth referrals and revisit intentions) through overall destination satisfaction and trust toward destination service providers. The structural equation modeling findings generally support the conceptual model and indicate that service fairness and service quality have a significant and positive impact on overall destination satisfaction and trust toward destination service providers, while destination image has a significant effect on overall destination satisfaction but not on trust toward destination service providers. In addition, the investigated perceptions-loyalty relationships are found to be mediated by overall destination satisfaction, but not necessarily by trust toward destination service providers. The paper includes discussions of the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.
This study examines customers’ willingness to pay more for green practices in restaurants using hypothetical scenarios. The objective of this study is to investigate the characteristics of consumers with a higher willingness to pay more and examine the relationship between consumers’ perceptions of green brand image and their willingness to pay more for a restaurant’s green practices. A total of 334 responses showed that more than two-thirds of restaurant customers would be willing to pay extra money for green restaurant practices. Age, previous experience, involvement, and self-perception were found to be significant in accessing consumers’ willingness to pay more for green practices in restaurants. In addition, the results showed that customers with a strong likelihood to pay more for green practices had higher perceptions of green brand image than those who were less likely to pay extra.
This study examines motivations and on-site experiences of volunteer tourists who participate in volunteer tourism at the Home and Life Orphanage in Phang Nga province, Thailand. An interpretive paradigm using qualitative data collection methods (semi-structured interviews, a focus group, participant observation, and diaries) was adopted. The informants included 24 volunteer tourists. The findings of the study suggest that the volunteer tourists’ motivations and on-site experiences are multidimensional. Five main themes of motivations have been identified: (a) to help the children who were affected by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, (b) to gain personal development and growth, (c) to gain new experiences, (d) to learn about/be immersed in local culture, and (e) to meet and make friends. In terms of the volunteer tourists’ on-site experiences, four experiential dimensions were found: (a) personal development and growth, (b) social, (c) cultural, and (d) feeling.
Many studies have found that the perceived authenticity of cultural and religious events affects event satisfaction and loyalty. Little is currently known about how perceived authenticity is affected by the quality of other event attributes, such as food and the availability of information, which are independent determinants of satisfaction and loyalty. This article explores this complex relationship using empirical data collected through a survey conducted during the 2010 Holy Year in Santiago de Compostela. A total of 400 questionnaires were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of our analysis of the 2010 Holy Year provide support for the effect of event perceived authenticity on event satisfaction, and they also indicate that event perceived authenticity does not have a direct impact on event loyalty. Instead, its relationship to the intention to revisit is mediated by event satisfaction. In addition, the effects of event attributes were assessed for both event satisfaction and perceived authenticity, and significant differences were found.
Tioman Island in Malaysia was once voted one of the most beautiful islands in the world. However, this ranking has gradually slipped, due to development and poor environmental management of the island. The authors employ the stakeholder theory in examining the perceptions of four stakeholder groups (tourists, local residents, government agencies, and business operators) on the environmental problems faced on the island and to identify the parties jointly responsible for solving these problems. A total of 15 problems were identified from 46 exploratory interviews conducted prior to the questionnaire survey. A questionnaire was constructed based on the interview data, and 320 questionnaires were collected from the four stakeholder groups. The results provide support that different stakeholder groups identify different problems and they perceived responsibility for solving these problems. The findings also indicated that problems related to limited road access, neglect of local community, limited phone and internet access, and dirty beaches needed immediate attention.
This research builds on the halo effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature in marketing to provide insight into the positive effect of CSR in a service encounter. Using a company’s green practices as CSR, this research examines how customers’ perceptions of CSR might spill over into their evaluations of the company and behavioral intentions in a service recovery context. The results, from 418 participants of the scenario-based role-playing experiment, indicate that CSR and service recovery have a significant effect on customer satisfaction, trust, word-of-mouth recommendations, and repeat patronage intentions in a casual-dining restaurant setting. Also, an interaction effect suggests that the CSR effect is more pronounced in a positive service recovery compared to a negative service recovery. The findings of this research provide researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of CSR and the positive influence it has on customer responses in a service encounter.
Family as a travel unit is an emerging phenomenon in China. This market segment, however, has not received as much scholarly attention as it deserves. This study investigated the vacation benefits that Chinese families pursue and their destination activity participation. Factor analysis revealed four dimensions of vacation benefits sought, namely, Communication and Togetherness, Shared Exploration, Escape and Relaxation, and Experiential Learning for Children. Taking pictures and videos was noted to be the most prevalent activity that Chinese family travelers were engaged in. This study further explored the interrelationships between the benefit-sought domains and destination activities. The results identified significant linkages between the two. The uncovered associations suggested that vacation activities served as a functional means to an end for Chinese families. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings were discussed, followed by recommendations for future research.
Destination competitiveness has become a prominent part of hospitality and tourism literature. Competitiveness, however, is not easily defined or uniformly calculated because a number of diverse factors must be considered. Although meeting planners’ site selection criteria has been studied in existing convention destination research, the attendees’ perspective has rarely been examined. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the indicators that affect a convention destination’s competitiveness in the eyes of convention attendees. Data were collected from three trade shows hosted by three different convention destinations, which resulted in 696 usable responses for data analyses. Importance-performance analysis (IPA) was implemented on seven attributes of convention destination competitiveness. In addition, the overall destination competitiveness indices were calculated to see the relative competitiveness among the destinations. Repeated measures of MANOVA were conducted to complement and to offer valid interpretation of the IPA results.
The growth of consumer-generated media (CGM) has promoted the popularity of online knowledge sharing and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). While the topic of eWOM has drawn much attention in academy and industry, little research has been published addressing the factors influencing eWOM intentions. Using a well-known restaurant review website, Openrice.com, as an example, this study explored three predictors to eWOM intentions in an integrative framework: experience factor (restaurant satisfaction), knowledge sharing factors (egoistic and altruistic needs), and technology acceptance factors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use). In addition, the moderating role of technology acceptance factors on the relationships between experience/knowledge sharing factors and eWOM intentions were examined. The results of the study indicate that (1) individuals’ altruistic needs trigger positive eWOM, (2) the perceived usefulness of the website has a significant main effect on eWOM intentions, and (3) the perceived usefulness significantly moderates the relationships between satisfaction/egoistic needs and eWOM intentions. The discussions also provide implications and managerial insights for research and practice.
The evoking freedom technique is a verbal compliance technique that consists of soliciting someone to comply with a request by simply saying that the solicitee is free to accept or refuse the request. The effect of this technique on customer behavior has never been tested, however. When presenting the menu to a patron, a waitress was instructed to suggest a dish. In half of the cases, when making this suggestion, the employee added that the patron was free to choose a different dish. Results showed that compared to a control condition, the suggestion associated with the evoking freedom technique had a positive effect on the patron’s choice. The magnitude and the generalization of this technique are discussed.
Despite the rapid growth of the luxury hospitality market, academic research has largely neglected the differences between luxury hospitality services and luxury goods, as well as the role of status seeking on luxury consumption. Relying on the status consumption and experience recommendation theories, the authors examine the combined effects of consumer characteristics (need for status) and product type (hospitality services vs. goods) on consumers’ word-of-mouth intentions. The results suggest that parvenus, who are high in need for status, are more likely to talk about their luxury goods purchases than patricians, who are low in need for status. More interestingly, both parvenus and patricians indicate equally strong intentions to spread positive word of mouth on luxury hospitality purchases. This study also extends the experience recommendation theory and reveals that parvenus are less likely to choose luxury hospitality services than patricians to advance their happiness.
The current study adopted cluster and discriminant analyses to investigate how differentially upscale restaurant customers view (a) the four dimensions of restaurant quality (price fairness, food quality, service quality, and physical environment), (b) the three dimensions of relational benefits (confidence benefits, social benefits, and special treatment benefits), and (c) revisit intentions and favorable reciprocal behaviors as proxies for customer reciprocity when customers perceive different levels (high vs. low) of relationship marketing investment (RMI). When customers perceived high RMI, they (high-RMI customers) evaluated all the aforementioned factors positively. By contrast, customers who experienced low RMI (low-RMI customers) rated the same factors negatively. High- and low-RMI customers were best distinguished by service quality, confidence benefits, and favorable reciprocal behaviors. Understanding the distinction between high- and low-RMI customers will shed light on how operators of upscale restaurants develop and reinforce perceived RMI to achieve favorable customer reciprocity.
This study explored frontline employees’ perceptions of and responses to illegitimate customer complaining behavior (ICCB) in hospitality business settings. In-depth interviews were conducted with frontline employees who had firsthand experiences with ICCB. Analysis of data revealed three types of illegitimate complainants as perceived by frontline employees: opportunistic plotters, repetitive grumblers, and occasional tyrants. In addition, some unique patterns of employees’ responses to ICCB were identified, including the double-whammy effect of ICCB on employees’ evaluative and emotional responses, emotional paradox, learned helplessness, and process-focused coping. Based on the results, this study developed a conceptual framework with four propositions related to frontline employees’ responses to ICCB. The theoretical and managerial implications of the findings were also discussed.
This study compares the image representations of Reunion Island on the Internet when using original websites in French and their English version. It analyzes the text content of web pages obtained from a list of web information sources providing both French and English versions. Textual data analysis and correspondence analysis based on the most frequent keywords is conducted using the software package Alceste. Results show that the image of Reunion Island is very different between language versions. These differences can be explained by the poor quality of the language translation even though the websites studied were retrieved from the top list of tourism websites providing information on Reunion Island as a destination. This study has strategic implications, as it demonstrates a failure to implement effective and consistent destination marketing by tourism organizations that will confuse the consumer. We make recommendations for future research and practice in terms of improved strategic, tactical, and operational integration.
This research’s purpose is to examine the factors that affect pet owners’ decisions when taking pets to participate in tourism activities. Unlike tourist travelling alone, pet owners must consider their own circumstances as well as the constraints their pets place on them. To narrow the gap in the literature, 568 Taiwanese dog owners who have included their pets in tourism activities were recruited. The results from structural equation modeling show pet-associated constraints will negatively affect owners’ behavior. On the other hand, motivated owners who are attached to their pets will still include their pets in tourism activities if they have the needed negotiation strategy.
With the domestic tourism market enjoying rapid expansion in the past decade, a number of significant changes in public policy have affected the institutionalization of public holidays and paid vacations in China. This article examines the impact of public policy in shaping domestic tourism development in China and estimates domestic tourism demand by applying a dynamic model using panel data. Three alternative models are applied to a panel data set made up of the ratio of domestic tourist departures in each of the 29 Chinese originating cities between 2001 and 2010. The empirical results exhibit the significant value of the lagged dependent variable on consumer decision and reveal the causal link between domestic tourism demand and consumer, trip-related and policy attributes. The findings clearly indicate that (a) China’s domestic tourism market is maturing, (b) the vacation policy changes adopted in 2007 have had a significant effect in changing domestic tourism demand, and (c) domestic tourism demand has been substituted by an ever-increasing outbound tourism market. Implications are discussed for policy making and destination management.
Theories on early and late mover advantages predicate that competitive operating advantages can occur with respect to the relative timing of market entry. Suspecting that "early mover" hotels can preempt desirable micro-locations for hotel operations, the current study tests for early mover advantage created by locations not fully imitable. Estimation of spatial econometric model reveals evidence of an early mover advantage. We also find that the effect of depreciation of older hotels may serve as a competitive advantage for new entrants with new facilities, although there was no considerable benefit for late movers. Furthermore, through additional tests we find the early mover advantage consistently significant for both chain and independent hotels. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Using a grounded theory approach, this study investigates stakeholders’ views of enclave tourism in the island of Mauritius. In-depth interviews with tourism stakeholders were conducted and data were analyzed using the principles of grounded theory. Seven subthemes emerged from the analysis and these were categorized into two main themes: enclave tourism as an agent of empowerment/improvement and enclave tourism as a force of sociocultural destruction/denial of freedom. The themes suggest that stakeholders’ views are nuanced and often contradictory. In line with the principles of grounded theory, a conceptual framework explaining stakeholders’ views of enclave tourism is developed. The findings are discussed with existing literature and similarities and contradictions are noted. Unlike what is usually claimed by researchers and scholars, enclave tourism development results in some environmental and socioeconomic benefits, particularly with respect to sustainable hotel operations, empowerment of local community and women, and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Involvement is a much theorized construct in the consumer behavior literature, yet extant food involvement scales have not been developed for leisure- or tourism-based contexts. Adopting a phenomenological approach, this article reports a study with two primary aims: to develop a customized food involvement scale and to administer the instrument to a sample of self-declared "food enthusiasts" with analysis focusing on identifying the underlying constructs of food involvement. An exploratory factor analysis finds four dimensions of food involvement: Food-Related Identity, Food Quality, Social Bonding, and Food Consciousness. The four dimensions are validated by discriminant analysis between the food enthusiast sample and a general population sample and logistic regression reveals that identity is the most powerful predictor of being a food enthusiast. We demonstrate the utility of the four factors by operationalizing them as variables in tests of difference vis-à-vis demographic variables and conclude the study by summarizing the theoretical and tourism destination implications. This research addresses a need for theory-driven knowledge to inform the burgeoning special interest tourism of food tourism.
Despite being one of the most common methods for selecting employees, the selection interview is not free from biases because it involves social interactions in which physical characteristics influence the interview—one being physical aberrations. The current study used a two-group experimental design in which participants interviewed a confederate without or with a facial stigma (i.e., a port-wine stain birthmark on the cheek). The results showed that interviewers felt more negative affect and displayed more negative behaviors toward a facially stigmatized applicant than an applicant who was not facially stigmatized. The interviewers’ negative affect and behavior were perceived by the applicant who in turn rated the interviewer as more negative than when the applicant did not have a facial stigma. The results were consistent with affective events theory and stigma theory in that interviewing a facially stigmatized applicant is a negative event for the interviewer that elicits negative affect and behaviors. Thus, the current research suggests that interviewers do feel and display negativity toward a facially stigmatized applicant and that a stigmatized applicant is aware of this negativity.
In order to advance in a scientific field the key concepts have to be validated. Despite growing academic interest in integrated rural tourism, there is no research on validating its key concepts. The objective of this research was to propose and validate measurement models for the elements networks, embeddedness, endogeneity, complementarity, scale, and empowerment, which potentially determine this type of tourism. As a result, a refined and validated measurement instrument was developed, offering a reliable tool to use in future research.
An online, hypothetical, tipping-scenario experiment found that subjects tipped the servers less (not more) when those servers wore a red shirt than when they wore a white or black one and that female subjects perceived a waiter (but not a waitress) as less attractive when wearing a red shirt than when wearing a white or black shirt. These findings are opposite those in the existing literature and suggest that the earlier findings are less generalizable than previously believed and that the process underlying previous clothing color effects on tipping may not be precisely what the researchers thought it was. Possible explanations of the discrepant findings are discussed along with directions for future research and practical implications.
Despite its known impacts on organizational effectiveness, few studies have investigated organizational citizenship behavior’s (OCB’s) impact on the individual employee. This study explored the affective and dispositional consequences of OCB for hotel employees and their relationships with turnover intention. A cross-cultural comparison of U.S. and Chinese hotel employees was incorporated into the survey-based research design. The results supported positive emotion, continuance commitment, and workplace social inclusion as consequences of OCBs and mediators in the OCB–turnover relationship, with significant differences by OCB targets. The results also supported culture’s moderating role in the relationship of OCB and its consequences. The implications of the findings and directions for future research were discussed.
Environmental factors are increasingly important in the hospitality industry, with "green" operations receiving more attention from the hotel industry. As a result, major hotel brands, such as Starwood, have started environmental initiatives with far-reaching effects on the development and operation of their properties. But are consumers ready for these changes, who are they, and what benefits do they perceive as important? To answer these questions, hoteliers must understand how to position their hotel and attract the right customer. Following prior research, and adapting a psychographic segmentation approach, this study segmented respondents into shades of green, then determined their preferences for hotel offerings of products and services and the perceived benefits they seek. The results highlight the importance of environmental attitudes in the prediction of green consumer behavior. The results show that the shades of green consumers are reasonably distinct and different in terms of identifiable characteristics and behavior patterns and suggest targeting specific strategies to particular green consumer segments as a powerful operational tool in attracting and retaining more guests.
Collaboration for innovation is a key contributor to successful innovations in the tourism industry. Research, however, has not fully understood how tourism organizations with less than 10 employees (also known as micro organizations) can foster collaboration for innovation. This study contributes to tourism research by successfully testing the effect of innovation formality, interorganizational communication, and leadership support on collaboration for innovation at destination marketing organizations with less than 10 employees. It was found that leadership support for both innovation and collaboration is the most important driver to collaborate with partners in the innovation process. Interorganizational communication and innovation formality were driven by leadership support but did not have a strong direct effect on collaboration for innovation. This suggests that micro destination marketing organizations need to identify and invest in leadership rather than develop or rely on organizational processes that are useful in large organizations.
Technology advancement induces information technology infusion in business processes and service encounter. The airline industry employs web-based self-service technology (SST), namely, airline online check-in system, to provide more choice, control, and convenience to passengers. Customer adoption intention of web-based SST is particularly momentous, since customer adoption highly drives the service development. Technology acceptance model (TAM), a robust framework measuring factors affecting technology acceptance intention, has been broadly examined in numerous settings. However, inconsistent results are noted in Western and non-Western countries, and the model is challenged from limited cultural orientation. In response to this criticism, this research aims to identify culturally unique dimensions for TAM and construct a framework for hospitality web-based SST adoption from Westerns’ and Asians’ perspectives. Etic–emic approach, incorporating literature search and focus group interviews with Asian respondents, was employed to provide a thoughtful review of examined factors and generate new factors from an Asian perspective.
This study examines possible moderating effects of generational differences (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials) on the relationship between job burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynicism, reduced professional efficacy) and employee satisfaction and turnover intention, as well as its moderating effects on the relationship between employee satisfaction and turnover intention using data collected from employees of a midscale chain hotel. Findings indicate that generational differences between Baby Boomers and Millennials have significant moderating effects on the relationship between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction and turnover intention, and on the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention.
Service consumption often involves waiting during the different stages of the delivery process. This research examines the effect of multistage waiting on consumers’ emotional responses and emotion regulation strategies. The study is conducted at a virtual restaurant in Second Life, an online simulation website. The results show that there is a significant interaction effect between consumption stage and the type of emotional responses. Although both anxiety and anger are the most intense emotions felt during preprocess waiting, anxiety is the strongest emotion felt during in-process waiting, and anger is the most salient emotional reaction during postprocess waiting. Results also indicate that there is a significant interaction effect between consumption stage and the type of emotion regulation strategies used by consumers. Attentional deployment and reappraisal are dominant emotion regulation strategies used by consumers during preprocess waiting; in addition, reappraisal and attentional deployment are the predominant strategies used during in-process waiting and postprocess waiting, respectively. The theoretical, methodological, and managerial contributions of the results are also discussed.
Within the restaurant and hospitality industry, employee behaviors and relationships are important in determining customer satisfaction. The present study extended the hospitality literature regarding customer satisfaction in three ways using a cross-sectional survey design. First, the relationship between manager communications and customer orientation was explored, and results supported a positive, significant relationship. Second, this study helped confirm past studies that have tested the relationship between customer orientation and customer satisfaction using a single-item customer response measure. Finally, a meditational test examined whether customer orientation carries the full influence of a manager’s communication and the resulting customer satisfaction. Results supported the meditational test. Practical and theoretical implications are explored for both hospitality researchers and practitioners.
In the face of increasingly intense competition and saturated markets, competitive advantages through innovation (also) in tourism are continuously gaining importance for business survival and growth. Using a qualitative approach to investigate 12 small and medium enterprises in the Viennese hotel sector, this study focuses on identifying the extent to which different forms of organizational innovativeness lead to different innovation results. On the basis of the analysis, four types of innovation results (systematic renewal, systematic improvement, adaptation, and startups) can be identified. These innovation results can be traced back to different configurations of organizational innovativeness. The study shows that systematic renewal is promoted by a combination of all dimensions of organizational innovativeness (willingness to innovate, ability to innovate, and possibility of innovation).
This study aims to identify antecedents and determinants affecting travelers’ technological acceptance of an app-based mobile tour guide (AMTG). Informativeness (IF) and entertainment (EN) are amended as antecedents apart from performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and facilitating conditions (FC) suggested by the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model. The empirical results were obtained in a sample of 205 travelers visiting Macau. Structural equation modeling is used to evaluate the relationships among the antecedents and determinants of the proposed model. The results indicate that IF and EN have direct effects on PE and EE. All factors except EN have significant effects on the behavioral intention of a traveler to use an AMTG. The results of this study provide implications for travel app designers and service providers to formulate business strategies to encourage travelers to adopt the AMTGs.
There is a worldwide growing interest in what factors lead tourism businesses to behave more responsibly. Three organizational values and four drivers of change are widely regarded as the key factors. This research seeks to understand the linkages between these values and drivers, and the related importance of barriers and facilitators. To elicit information, semistructured interviews were conducted with senior management of 24 New Zealand Responsible Tourism Qualmark scheme–accredited businesses. Businesses motivated by altruistic values rarely report external drivers, they were more likely to be gold accredited and they reported implementation of more costly and long-term responsible tourism measures. In contrast, businesses motivated by legitimacy and competitiveness values demonstrated strong linkages to the external drivers of business environment and economic advantage, and they interpreted responsible tourism as a business opportunity. Their accreditation was typically at the lower levels of silver and bronze, and they referred to a wide range of barriers that prevented them from implementing more extensive measures. Using the theory of planned behavior to integrate the factors and thereby explain intentions and responsible behavior, this research will help to improve accreditation schemes and target businesses more effectively to become involved.
Prior research has focused more on employee engagement than team engagement. The current work presents a theoretical framework proposing the antecedents and consequences of team engagement. Antecedents of team engagement include two types of team cognitions (shared mental models and transactive memory systems). Consequences of team engagement include team performance and team satisfaction. A longitudinal study was conducted with 27 service-management teams involving 178 students in a restaurant setting. Hierarchical linear modeling results indicate the (a) direct relationships between team cognitions and team engagement, and between team engagement and team outcomes, and (b) mediation effects of team engagement.
Sustainable consumption of hospitality products and services has become an increasingly important topic of interest in both hospitality academia and practice. Inducing pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in individuals has been recognized as one of the major challenges on the path to sustainable hospitality consumption. This research examined customers’ PEB in hotel settings. Based on a survey with a sample of 537 participants representing a broad range of demographic strata, this study identified seven dimensions of PEB as manifested in hotel settings (green consumerism, recycling, reuse, conservation, reduction, curtailing, and compromise) and examined the associations of psychological determinants with the seven PEB behavioral types. The results show that hotel customers display the least PEB when compromise of personal comfort is involved. The findings further suggest that the major determinant of PEB in hotel settings is nonenvironmental concerns, such as time and effort involved in PEB. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.
This study examines the relationship between meeting earnings benchmarks and regional factors related to the hospitality industry. Our hypothesis assumes that the tourist flow in which a hotel is located influences the hotel’s performance, but it is not the same for all firms. Specifically, firms meeting earnings benchmarks, when it is documented that managers have strong incentives to engage in earnings management strategy, present a different relationship with regional tourist flow. The evidence suggests that regional tourist flow is associated with the corporate performance of firms but that there is an inflexion point for firms meeting earnings benchmarks.
Given that the quality of the interpersonal interaction between customers and hospitality employees plays a critical role in customer satisfaction, both the concepts of emotion in the workplace and service orientation toward customers have attracted a great deal of interest in the hospitality industry. However, although the two concepts have strong theoretical relevance to one another, research about what emotional factors affect employee service-oriented commitments is lacking. This empirical study investigated the roles and compared the effects of emotional determinants that affect service orientation of hotel managers and line employees. Data were collected from 309 customer-contact hotel managers and line employees in the United States. Results of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that display rule perception, emotional intelligence, and sense of accomplishment have positive effects, whereas depersonalization has a negative effect, on service orientation. The results of this study also indicated that for line employees, display rule perception and depersonalization have more influence on predicting service orientation than for managers, whereas depersonalization has no effect on service orientation for managers. Emotional exhaustion had no significant effect on service orientation for either group. Managerial implications and suggestions for future research are provided.
To participate effectively in the present Chinese hotel market, multinational companies must achieve a competitive advantage, which they attain by building the brand. This study promotes employee brand understanding as a precursor to positive brand-building behavior. Results indicate that internally oriented brand activities, especially brand-oriented recruitment, brand-oriented training, and brand-oriented support, exert a significant influence on employees’ brand understanding, leading to subsequent exhibition of pro-brand behavior. In developing brand understanding, hotels must take into account the potentially limited knowledge of mainland Chinese employees regarding global hotel brands. The findings suggest that Chinese hotel employees’ understanding of multinational hotel groups’ brand is critical to successful brand-building behavior.
Citing the intense competition among products of similar quality, studies to date have largely advocated for the favorable effects of differentiated agglomeration on hotels. However, limited evidence also suggests that undifferentiated hotels may also have an incentive to agglomerate for favorable interactions such as resource and information sharing, heightened demand, and demand spillover. Under the framework of bounded price competition this study hypothesizes that for hotels agglomeration effects may be dependent on market demand, whereas undifferentiated competition may also create desirable externalities. Using data from the Texas lodging market for the year 2010, the current study tests the hypotheses and finds significant evidence of conditionality, in which undifferentiated agglomeration externalities can be more favorable on the operating performance of hotels. Implications for practitioners and suggestions for future research are discussed.
We study relationships between stock returns on U.S. and German exchanges for U.S. restaurant companies. Specifically, we examine whether information asymmetry affect how much stock returns in Germany lag stock returns of the same company on U.S. markets. German and U.S. investors differ in information access because of differing stock exchange listing requirements. Our main goals are to examine if (a) stock returns of U.S. underlying shares lead stock returns of cross-listed shares on the Open Market because of information asymmetry and (b) the lead–lag relationship is more evident among shares involuntarily cross-listed on the Open Market than securities voluntarily cross-listed on the EU Regulated Market because of differences in regulation in information disclosure. We estimated cross-autocorrelations using vector autoregressions and tested the hypotheses with the Wald test. The results, in general, support both hypotheses.
The purpose of this study is to apply the cultural tourism typology of McKercher and to estimate the economic relevance of cultural tourism to the context of a small island destination tourist market. Small island destinations may be confronted with environmental constraints that restrain the traditional small island tourism development model, which is based on sun, sand, and sea. The cultural tourism typology is used in order to determine whether the typology may be used to segment tourists thereby allowing researchers to determine the economic impact of different cultural tourist segments. This study draws attention to some of the foundational issues that researchers face when attempting to quantify the economic impact of cultural tourists. The results of the study indicate that McKercher’s typology may provide more refined results when incorporating the purpose of a trip; and, that cultural tourists may be a lucrative market for destinations to pursue given the results of an economic input–output model.
In the context of ethnic dining services, authenticity is the key ingredient. This study aims to investigate the impact of servicescape dimensions on consumers’ prepurchase authenticity perceptions and patronage intentions to ethnic restaurants. The authors propose that three key dimensions of the servicescape—the physical setting, service providers, and other customers—provide ethnic-associated cues for consumers to assess authenticity in the preconsumption stage. Empirical results from a between-subject experimental design suggest that servicescape dimensions can induce preconsumption authenticity perceptions of ethnic restaurants and that the dimensional cues interplay to affect authenticity assessments. Furthermore, a customer’s ethnicity (referent ethnic vs. mainstream) affects how she/he interprets servicescape cues and, therefore, his/her authenticity assessment. The perceived authenticity, together with a consumer’s trait of cosmopolitanism and his/her familiarity with such ethnic restaurants, consequently affect consumers’ patronage intentions. These findings contribute to hospitality research on consumers’ authenticity assessments of ethnic restaurants. Furthermore, managerial implications for ethnic restaurants in terms of marketing strategies will be discussed.
The study of destination brand performance measurement has only emerged in earnest as a field in the tourism literature since 2007. The concept of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) is gaining favor from services marketing researchers as an alternative to the traditional "net-present-value of future earnings"’ method of measuring brand equity. The perceptions-based CBBE model also appears suitable for examining destination brand performance, where a financial brand equity valuation on a destination marketing organization’s balance sheet is largely irrelevant. This is the first study to test and compare the model in both short- and long-haul markets. The article reports the results of tests of a CBBE model for Australia in a traditional short-haul market (New Zealand) and an emerging long-haul market (Chile). The data from both samples indicated destination brand salience, brand image, and brand value are positively related to purchase intent for Australia in these two disparate markets.
Are tourists who take more photos happier? Our study investigates the relationship between tourists’ photographing and happiness based on two proposed theories: photographing as a behavior that society expects from tourists, and photographing as a mechanism for social interaction. Questionnaires measuring photographic behavior and components of happiness such as positive emotions and life satisfaction were collected from 417 tourists at three destinations in the Netherlands. Additionally, we carried out participant observation to explore the potential roles of fulfilling cultural expectations and social interactions. We found a positive relationship between photography and tourists’ levels of happiness. People who take more pictures on holiday and rate photographing to be important experience more positive emotions and a higher life satisfaction, respectively. The participant observation data reveal that this relationship is strengthened when photography is used to build relationships, but weakened when people photograph to fulfill cultural expectations.
The authors test an extended technology acceptance model by incorporating two situational and two attitudinal variables as new predictors of self-service technology adoption. The situational variables are waiting line and service complexity, whereas the attitudinal variables are technology trust and technology anxiety. The study employs an experimental approach with hypothetical hotel check-in situations. The authors apply structural equation modeling techniques to provide additional insights into the main effects. They find significant main effects of all situational and attitudinal variables but no interaction effects between the situational and attitudinal variables. The main effects on intention to use self-service technologies occurred primarily through the mediation of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The technology acceptance model needs extension to include nontechnology variables as predictors of new technology adoption.
Culture has been proposed by marketing theorists as one of the underlying determinants of consumer behavior. This trend necessitates cross-cultural inquiries in tourism. However, investigations into tourism motivation are scarce and have only used nationality or ethnicity as proxies to define culture. The study reported here aimed to fill this gap. Three subcultural groups were identified based on the grid–group cultural theory and their cross-cultural differences and similarities in tourism motivations were examined. It was revealed that in the grid–group dichotomy of cultural types, the dimension of group had a greater influence on individuals’ tourism motivation than grid. The theoretical contributions and limitations of this study are discussed and future studies are proposed.
Self-contained and serviced apartments (SCSAs) are a primary offering at some destinations. To improve offerings for this type of accommodation, and consequently the competitiveness of the destination, understanding the direct or composite variables (i.e., dimensions that determine the image of SCSAs and the variables’ effect on the overall image of the accommodation product) is important. However, despite the apparent importance for commercial success, no previous research analyzed the nature of this image. This study, conducted in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands (Spain), encompasses a sample of 271 tourists, lodged at SCSAs, who completed a questionnaire at the airport departure terminal. An exploratory factor analysis examined both dimensions (cognitive and affective) followed by a logistic regression to analyze the influence of the different dimensions on the overall image of SCSAs. The empirical results suggest that, indeed, both main dimensions influence SCSAs’ overall image. For SCSAs on the Canary Islands, affective image is the formation of one factor—"SCSA’s affective image"—whereas cognitive image forms from seven factors. The logistic regression of the data further revealed that "SCSA affective image" is the most influential factor on SCSAs’ overall image, followed by four cognitive factors: "Personnel and cleanliness," "Primary services," "Outdoor areas," and "Kitchen." Such prioritizing provides destination marketing organizations with detailed information for better integrating marketing initiatives and, for owners, measures directed toward improving SCSA services and facilities.
The negative impact of climate change on Australian snow cover is resulting in an increasingly shorter winter tourism season for Australian ski resorts. It is therefore becoming essential for ski resort managers to diversify their product offering through the development of alternative activities that can support the economic viability of such facilities outside the winter period. The purpose of this article is to identify tourist segments likely to use Australian ski resorts in nonwinter periods, commonly referred to as the "green season." A two-step cluster analysis is employed to "cluster" current alpine resort tourists and identify viable market segments based on experience sought, the importance of destination attributes, and the types of activities these visitors want to experience should they return to an alpine resort in the green season. Using a case from Australia, marketing and managerial implications for the diversification of alpine resort activities in response to climate change are discussed.
The role of price in prepurchase evaluations for variably priced services has not been widely examined. Increased consumer awareness of variable pricing practices, coupled with growing availability of user-generated content (UGC) at the point of purchase in the online environment, may be changing the way that consumers use price in purchase decisions. This article examines the relative roles of price and UGC, specifically consumer reviews and aggregate consumer ratings, on consumers’ prepurchase evaluations in the context of the purchase of hotel accommodation, a service to which variable pricing is typically applied. Results indicate that, in the presence of UGC, price does not have a significant impact on perceived quality. Price and UGC have significant effects on perceived value, although consumers rely more on reviews than ratings when evaluating price–benefit trade-offs. These results suggest that, rather than simply competing on price, managers must also understand consumers’ perceptions of their firm versus the competition.
This study attempts to understand the position of the United States against its major non-Asian competitors in Mainland Chinese tourists’ minds. A multistep procedure of destination positioning analysis was designed, which involved a combination of multidimensional scaling, correspondence analysis, and logistic regression analysis. Furthermore, this study connects positioning analysis with market segmentation research, as the perceptual mapping analyses were performed at both aggregate and segment levels. Overall, it was found that the United States holds a unique position that is isolated from all other five destinations. The authors discussed the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.
Electronic word-of-mouth has become a driving force for hospitality businesses. Achieving customer loyalty is a primary goal of hospitality businesses, and reward programs are one mechanism for doing so. Customer-based communication channels have the potential to undermine or support these efforts. This study investigated attitudes toward hotel loyalty programs among members of flyertalk.com, a forum for frequent travelers. A content analysis of 1,519 comments from members of five major hotel programs was conducted. The core categories that emerged were program experience, value, process, obtaining status, company-created communication, customer-created communication, and defection motivators and inhibitors. A paradigm model indicated that communication is the most important loyalty antecedent, and that all antecedents influence loyalty via the program experience. The emergent relationships suggest that managers should actively monitor online channels and take action to correct issues that cause member frustration and dissatisfaction. Otherwise, these problems can escalate through the rapid spread of electronic word-of-mouth.
The main purpose of this study is to measure and explore the dimensionality of the event image by using the case of 2010 Shanghai World Expo. After literature review, this study used Keller’s framework of brand image as the conceptual base, followed the free associations method to identify the preliminary items, adopted expert opinions to further revise the items, used the exploratory factor analysis to explore the underlying structure of the event image, and adopted the confirmatory factor analysis to further validate the measurement scale. Finally, five dimensions including 17 items were extracted. They are labeled as Benefit, Facility, Service, Theme, and Event Content. The results of the current study were relatively consistent with some conceptual frameworks and to some extent confirmed previous empirical studies, which could provide useful implications for both future research and industry practice.
The unprecedented popularity of social media outlets have forced scholars to inquire about their marketing effectiveness, especially in the hotel industry. This study attempted to explore the marketing effectiveness of two different social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) in the hotel industry. Integrating the attitude-toward-the-ad (Aad) model with the concepts of attitude-toward-social-media-page, the study proposed a theoretical model of hotel social media marketing effectiveness. Based on the data collected from an online survey, the goodness of fit of the model implied that the Aad model provides an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry. The results revealed that hotel customers’ social media experiences influence their attitudes-toward-social-media-site, which in turn influences their attitudes-toward-hotel-brand, and that hotel customers’ attitudes-toward-hotel-brand affects their hotel booking intentions and, in turn, intentions to spread electronic word of mouth. The study also indicated that different social media sites demonstrate the same marketing effectiveness, suggesting that hotel managers use the same marketing tactics for Facebook and Twitter marketing.
This study used image congruity theory to understand customer loyalty in name-brand coffee shops in Korea. The authors developed and tested a structural model that links image congruity (self-congruity and functional congruity) and brand loyalty components (cognitive, affective, and conative loyalty). The elaboration likelihood model was used to understand the information processing underlying the structural model. The results showed that self-congruity significantly influences both cognitive and affective loyalty in the central route of persuasion. Functional congruity significantly influences cognitive loyalty in the peripheral route of communication. This study suggests promotional strategies for the marketers of name-brand coffee shops in Korea.
Many hospitality companies highlight the importance of their employees, and this features strongly in their consumer marketing. However, the capacity of organizations to deliver "people first" practices is seemingly subject to increasing pressure within the international hospitality sector, both internally and from the external environment. Nowhere is this clearer than in the roles that are played with respect to the human resource management (HRM) function, both by those specifically designated in that post and by nonspecialist managers taking HRM responsibilities. This conceptual article has two principal aims: first, to illuminate the growing trend of formalized HRM practices being downgraded, eliminated altogether, or decentralized; and second, to highlight the need for a greater understanding and consideration of the external factors affecting hospitality HRM practice. The article reviews the nature and scope of the HRM function in hospitality, presents an overview of the trends toward internal reorganization through decentralization of HRM functions and, finally, assesses the impact of external pressures of the delivery of effective HRM. We then propose a dynamic framework designed to help facilitate greater understanding of the implications of internal and external pressures by HRM professionals and researchers, and conclude with reflections and recommendations followed by proposals for future research.
Customer satisfaction has been a focus of researchers and marketers as an important antecedent of customer loyalty. Some recent studies propose that customer delight possibly produces greater customer loyalty than satisfaction. Loyalty has also become of greater interest to researchers and marketers as a multiphase concept as well as a useful segmentation of customers with accompanying targeted strategies. As one of few empirical studies on customer satisfaction, delight, and loyalty, the primary objectives of this research is to understand how customer satisfaction and delight influence loyalty and to understand the multiphase framework of loyalty, including cognitive, affective, and conative loyalties. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on customer satisfaction, delight, and loyalty and provides theoretical and applied suggestions for the hospitality industry.
Enhancing consumer value is an increasingly important trend in tourism and hospitality, yet the process remains poorly understood by researchers and managers. Wine tourism destinations, wineries, and cellar doors provide the perfect setting for investigating consumer value as they involve a range of attributes. Review and analysis of previous studies reveals the key attributes that must be provided, the most important involving excellent service quality and the setting and surroundings of each winery visited. Significantly, value-for-money is not an attribute sought by wine tourists, indicating that quality wine producers may receive a premium for their product through the provision of valuable wine consumer experiences. Thirteen extant studies of wine tourism experiences across a range of wine regions are meta-analyzed to identify and classify the key attributes. Studies are both qualitative and quantitative, and both approaches provided findings that are merged into a single matrix of key attribute types. The management and research implications for wine tourism are then discussed, as well as the limitations of analysis that combines qualitative and quantitative findings in multiple locations over time.
Popular media–induced tourism has emerged as a growing body of research. Although previous literatures have examined the relationship between celebrity involvement and behavioral intentions, the mechanism underlying this relationship remains a black box. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between celebrity involvement and behavioral intentions as well as to clarify the role of perceived value. Survey data from 382 tourists in Taiwan indicate that celebrity involvement is positively related to behavioral intentions. Moreover, perceived value partially mediates the relationship between celebrity involvement and behavioral intentions. Implications of these findings for managing marketing strategies as well as future research directions are subsequently discussed.
This study describes the use of the new model of environmental behavior, which links altruism with the theory of planned behavior (TPB), to predict the relatively difficult behavioral intention of visiting a green hotel in Taiwan. The objectives of the study are threefold. First, the authors empirically examine how individual characteristics of the TPB model affect traveler intention to visit green hotels; second, they apply a TPB model to construct an amended model that focuses on altruism, imported from psychology-based research. Third, by capturing the affective component that motivates behavioral intention, the altruism construct will help bolster the TPB model to the domain of visiting a green hotel. The findings show that attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and altruism all positively affect customer intention to visit a green hotel. This study also derives wider implications for managers in the hospitality industry, both from a theoretical and practical viewpoint.
The article aims to examine the effects of variables on outsourcing decisions in the hotel industry in Thailand. It specifically seeks to test and evaluate a theoretical framework that combines transaction cost economics (TCE) factors with additional factors affecting the level of outsourcing that emerged from a preliminary study. There is evidence to suggest that TCE explains outsourcing effectively in developed countries, but it may have less explanatory power in developing economies. Drawing on a sample of 391 hotels, each offering three activities for analysis, the results provide little support for TCE. Supplier availability, hotel experience, and hotel size are the strongest predictors of outsourcing in this study. Furthermore, because the low level of supplier market competition in hotel supporting industries in Thailand does not normally offer more efficiency and lower production cost than in-house operations, as assumed by TCE, the theory fails to provide a clear explanation for hotel outsourcing practices.
Drawing on literature on tourism, entrepreneurship, and family businesses, this research uses a structural model to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and enterprise performance. Based on samples of family-owned (N = 158) and nonfamily-owned (N = 143) small- and medium-sized tourism enterprise owners in regional South Australia, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multigroup invariance tests were used to validate the proposed structural model where ESE is the exogenous variable and performance is the endogenous variable. The study also examined if the causal model was invariant (equivalent) between family and nonfamily entrepreneurs to identify key differences between these two groups. Results support the validity of the models, with tourism business owners’ ESE having a significant positive effect on enterprise performance. The results of the multigroup invariance tests also indicated that the measurement models, structural model, and residual structure were equal across family and nonfamily business owners. Although previous studies have suggested differences between family- and nonfamily-owned businesses with regard to pattern of ownership, governance, management and succession, business structure, goals, and strategies, this study found that the "entrepreneurial self-efficacy" of business owners (regardless of whether or not the business is family owned) is an important predictor of business performance. The findings suggest that destination managers and policy makers need to support the ESE of local tourism business owners if they wish to enhance performance within the industry and the destination.
This study aimed to understand the initial career decisions of graduates from a hospitality and tourism management (HTM) program in Hong Kong. In Study 1, we used longitudinal data from graduate exit surveys undertaken between 2002 and 2010 to explore the nature of their initial career choices and how the program had influenced them. We found that more than half the graduates’ first jobs were in HTM and that hospitality electives and industry-specific programs (such as an executive-in-residence program and distinguished speaker series) contributed to their choice of such employment. Compared with jobs in other sectors, HTM jobs pay significantly less. In Study 2, we interviewed industry executives and alumni to supplement the findings of Study 1. Recommendations are provided for designing better HTM programs that will inspire more students to join the industry on graduation.
Barbados is one of the most popular destinations in the Caribbean. Historically most visitors were accommodated in hotels. In the past decade, however, the proportion of luxury rooms has declined in proportion to the expansion in the second home rental market. The behavior of rental prices for villas on the island, nevertheless, is not well understood. Using observations on 322 villas and cottages, this article estimates a hedonic regression of the prices for these properties. Prices are modeled as functions of structural, neighborhood, and environmental factors. The findings from the article suggest that the rental prices for villas and cottages on the island are largely because of unobserved neighborhood characteristics and structural features related to the property. The study contributes to the literature by providing an assessment of the villa market in a largely tourism-dependent economy and also proposes an approach for measuring unobserved neighborhood characteristics.
This article measures and compares performance in the accommodation industry across Australian states and territories. The authors specify a Bayesian frontier model and estimate the model using panel data spanning the period 1998 to 2009. The results indicate that there are differences in efficiency across states and territories and also between sectors. Empirical results show that the hotel sector is the most efficient, followed by the guest house and motel sector and, finally, the serviced apartment sector. The Bayesian regression results indicate that the key determinants of efficiency in the accommodation industry are the international attractiveness of the state or territory, the share of large accommodation providers in the sector, and the prevailing economic conditions within the state or territory. The findings that the efficiency measures differ across regions and types of sector indicate that adopting a holistic approach to policy formulation and implementation may not be appropriate to ensure competitiveness of the accommodation industry in Australia.
Medical tourism is a high-involvement and high-risk service. Because of these characteristics, consumers make decisions either by increasing benefit or by reducing risk. Therefore, there should be different decision-making procedures for different types of medical tour services. Consumers may perceive higher risk from significant treatment medical tour services, whereas lifestyle-related medical tour consumers may pay more attention to benefits. In this context, we propose a medical tour service evaluation model that reflects service characteristics and consumers’ involvement. From the results of this study, we drew meaningful marketing strategies for hospitals, travel agencies, and governments.
Limited research has examined the decay of destination image (DI) using longitudinal repeated measures. This study used a tripartite attitude perspective to examine the structural stability of DI among sport tourists after returning home. Two online survey waves were conducted to monitor the DI change held by 234 nonlocal participants in an international marathon event over a 9-month interval. The results revealed that the DI decayed over time and this decay was dimensionally specific. Affective and conative components of DI were more susceptible to change while cognitive DI was more stable. However, the pattern of decay was moderated by the strength of a tourist’s psychological connection to the destination. Relevant theoretical and managerial implications are discussed to provide insights for both researchers and practitioners.
Communication satisfaction is an important antecedent to significant work outcomes. Therefore, this study examines how organizational practices influence the communication satisfaction of lodging managers. The results showed a strong correlation between organizational practices that deal with language barriers and the communication satisfaction of the managers. Management awareness and encouragement to improve English skills were independently correlated with communication satisfaction. However, translation of documents and translation by coworkers alone were not correlated with communication satisfaction. This was significant because the results showed that the majority (62.8%) of managers rely on a translator, typically a bilingual employee, to communicate for them. More than half of the respondents (53.5%) reported that top management has paid attention to language barriers in the workplace. In fact, 46.5% stated that their company encourages employees with limited-language skills to improve by offering English at work programs.
This study extends the means–end approach to examine the motivating factors associated with the experiences of working holiday–makers, ranging from tangible attributes (i.e., travel characteristics), to the reasons for traveling and underlying personal values. By using the "laddering" technique and interviewing 60 subjects from Taiwan who had previously completed their working holidays in Australia or New Zealand, the resulting linkages strengthen the ability to probe outcomes and values and derive cognitive representation of tourist behavior, including how working holiday tourism is related to the enhancement of personal values and to meeting tourists’ needs. The study’s findings have implications for researchers and practitioners interested in working holiday tourism.
Investigating tourism consumption within Bourdieu’s empirical paradigm, this article explores the development of a model of sociological choice in tourism consumption. By operationalizing habitus as sociological choices tourists make in the realm of tourism consumption, this article proposes that oppositional choices tourists make in the realm of tourism consumption are produced and reproduced by and in conformity with their respective class habitus, structured by cultural capital. A questionnaire-based study of Western tourists in Indian setting, using factor analysis and regression analysis, identifies three categories of tourism consumption lifestyles shaped by habitus and capital composition. The "tourists" consume tourism as a mass cultural activity finding "virtue in the necessity"; the "travelers" (with middlebrow taste) rely on off-the-beaten-track "travel" experiences and "intellectualize" tourism; and the "virtuosos" (with highbrow aesthetic taste) consume luxury tourism services taking privilege in appreciating what they see and consume, often with authority and arrogance.
Studies to date on the effectiveness of compliment-based promotion by U.S. casinos have frequently found insignificant effect of such promotion on casino revenues. Yet complimentary offers remain the main marketing strategy practiced by the industry. The authors suspect that demand spillover exists among casinos in a market, which causes a spurious relationship. Thus, the current study examines the effects of compliment expenditures on casino demand after accounting for spatial spillover effects. Results of the spatial panel Durbin model analysis suggest that popular complimentary offers, such as rooms, food, and beverages, lead to fierce competition that can be harmful to the entire market. Contrarily, less-used travel reimbursement, bus programs, and free parking help attract new players to the market. Implications for the industry and suggestions for future research are provided with the findings of the study.
This research applied a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to explore the criteria required for the selection of an overseas travel intermediary (OTI) for group package tours (GPTs). Selecting an OTI is a complex decision for host travel agencies, especially the choice of evaluation criteria for GPTs. Therefore, this study adopts an AHP method and further integrates a fuzzy set theory into the assessment of the selection criteria. This work collected 20 selection criteria from literature reviews, focus group, and the Delphi technique. Criteria were categorized into four dimensions, namely service capabilities, payment conditions and cost, reputation, and interactive relationships. Twenty-two general managers from different travel agencies were asked to weigh up and rank the overall criteria by applying a fuzzy AHP. The results could provide travel agencies with objective and suitable criteria for the selection of OTIs for GPTs.
This study explores the nature of knowledge sharing in online travel communities by proposing three types of antecedents: individual, community, and affiliation. These antecedents generate the formation of community identification and its influence on ongoing knowledge contribution. In addition, this study examines the moderating role of a traveler’s interaction mode on the proposed sharing paradigm. The findings reveal the following: (a) community identification is positively influenced by a member’s travel involvement and community benefits, (b) strong identification strengthens a member’s sharing intentions, and (c) the postulated relationships differ based on a member’s interaction mode. In short, community identification for travelers’ intent on seeking information is almost solely influenced by community benefits, whereas travelers inclined to relationship building are primarily influenced by travel involvement. In terms of knowledge sharing, relationship builders shared more frequently and to a greater extent than information seekers.
Tourism image is a relevant issue that affects the way in which tourists make decisions regarding their choice of destination. However, there is a lack of studies focusing on emitted images and particularly on the fragmentation of emitted images in tourism destinations. This article proposes a conceptual framework to analyze emitted tourism destination image fragmentation patterns and explores these patterns in two urban destinations, Perpignan and Girona, with the purpose of finding out why they emerge, which are their relevant dimensions, and how these are interrelated. By analyzing the promotional brochures of these destinations the authors first identify the attributes of their induced images and, then, by means of a cluster analysis, determine the patterns of fragmentation of their emitted image. The results show that both destinations have a slightly different image fragmentation pattern in terms of image content, and a clearly different structural pattern of image fragmentation, as Perpignan has a more centralized pattern than Girona. This difference is reflected in the higher relevance of the local destination marketing organization in the case of Perpignan.
The decision about which dishes should appear on the menu is crucial to attracting customers and maximizing restaurant profitability. There is a paucity of empirical research on quantifying the effects of particular menu items on the efficiency of a restaurant. The present research used an innovative metafrontier-to-data-envelopment analysis method to aid decision making when distinguishing between desirable, improved, and undesirable menu items by efficiency measurements to increase a restaurant’s profitability. The metatechnology ratio obtained via the metafrontier approach compared the technology level in different meal periods. The results, based on real data gathered during 3 months from two same-brand units of a chain restaurant, show that the efficiency of the metafrontier-to-data-envelopment analysis method increased the profitability of the restaurants by more than 15% compared with the traditional menu-engineering method. The metatechnology ratios also identified that the skill level differed between the meal periods, which was because of the presence of different operators. Managerial and strategic implications for menu planners and future research are described.
This study integrates the environmental attitude–behavior theory and the upper echelons theory to examine hotel companies’ environmental behavior. This study hypothesizes that top managers’ environmental attitudes have a positive effect on perceived advantages of the environmental program, which in turn leads to hotel companies’ involvement in environmental management. An online survey brought responses from 206 top managers (e.g., general managers, owners, CEOs, presidents, etc.) in U.S. hotels. The contact information of the participating hotels was taken from the websites of 11 state lodging associations in the United States. The results of structural equation modeling indicate that top managers’ perceived advantages, derived from environmental management, mediate the proposed relationship. In other words, top managers’ environmental attitudes influence hotels’ environmental management activities through perceived benefits of the environmental program. Managerial implications are discussed based on the study results.
A large web-based survey found that (a) awareness of the 15% to 20% tipping norm partially mediates Black–White and Hispanic–White differences in restaurant tip size and (b) norm awareness predicts restaurant tip size for Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites alike. These findings replicate and extend previous research results reported by Lynn and suggest that race differences in tipping can be reduced by reducing race differences in awareness of the 15% to 20% restaurant tipping norm.
Although customer engagement (CE) has emerged as a widely used term in many industries, including tourism and hospitality, academic research lacks a clear conceptualization and rigorous measurement of the construct. This study develops and validates a 25-item CE scale that comprises five factors: identification, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction. The scale, developed from a survey of hotel and airline customers, demonstrated strong psychometric properties across multiple samples and showed CE to exert a positive significant influence on behavioral intention of loyalty for both hotel and airline customers. The scale offers a framework for future empirical research in this increasingly important area, and it provides a useful tool for tourism practitioners to collect insights into customer psychological and behavioral connections with their brands beyond the service consumption experience.
This study proposes and tests a structural model regarding the effects of cuisine experience and psychological well-being on hot springs tourists’ revisit intentions and examines the moderating effect that self-health perception has on the relationships between these constructs. A questionnaire was administered to 524 Taiwanese tourists at the Bei-Tou hot springs area. The results indicated that cuisine experience and psychological well-being influence hot springs tourists’ revisit intentions and only cuisine experience affects psychological well-being; however, the significance of these factors varied based on the self-health perception levels (high or low) of tourists in the sample. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Although many hospitality organizations strive to handle negative word of mouth (NWOM) online, limited research has attempted to understand the influence of NWOM on potential consumers’ buying behaviors in order to suggest the appropriate organizational response strategies to NWOM communication. In an attempt to bridge this gap, the authors identified the roles of consensus in NWOM communication and how organizational responses to NWOM affect the ways in which potential consumers evaluate service organizations—by making attributional judgments and forming attitude. The results show that consensus in online NWOM communication plays a pivotal role in influencing how potential consumers incorporate NWOM into their evaluations about the organization. Additionally, these NWOM consensus effects are contingent on organizational response strategies. Finally, the authors discuss theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and directions for future research.
The purposes of this study were to (a) identify optimal rapport-building behaviors for inducing patrons’ emotional attachment to a service provider in the luxury restaurant context, (b) investigate the moderating role of patrons’ motivational orientation in the emotional attachment formation process, and (c) examine the ways in which patrons’ emotional attachment induces dedicational behaviors in the luxury restaurant industry. Based on the existing theoretical backgrounds, five rapport-building behaviors and three dedicational behaviors were derived. The theoretical relationships between the proposed concepts were also developed via literature review, which resulted in the development of a conceptual model. The proposed conceptual model was empirically tested via structural equation modeling analysis using data collected from 379 luxury restaurant patrons. Based on data analysis, it was found that five types of rapport development behaviors are crucial factors in the formation of patrons’ emotional attachment. During the attachment development process, motivational orientation plays a moderating function. Furthermore, patrons’ emotional attachment toward service employees induces patrons’ dedicational behaviors. The critical theoretical/managerial implications of these findings are then discussed in the article.
This study assesses how well hospitality and tourism programs instill a sense of personal social responsibility among their students. Climate change is used as a representative example of a global environmental issue to measure attitudes of students who have taken subjects such as ethics, sustainability, social responsibility, impacts, sustainable planning, and environmental studies with students who have not taken subjects of this nature. The article compares the views of a sample of 2,436 students in 21 economies. The results reveal that the student cohort that took subjects on ethics, sustainability, and social responsibility were no more likely to express stronger environmental attitudes or change their environmental behaviors than the cohort that had not taken subjects of this nature. Surprisingly, counterintuitive results were revealed, whereby students who had taken subjects that incorporated aspects of personal social responsibility exhibited no greater tendency to accept personal responsibility. Instead, both groups were equally likely to transfer blame to an ethereal "other." The study concludes by suggesting that a major rethink of sustainability and social consciousness raising subjects is required.
It is widely recognized that tourism is becoming more and more international as a result of globalization, and since the 20th century, marketers have confronted increasingly multicultural marketplaces. This trend necessitates cross-cultural research in the hospitality and tourism area. The current study provides a state-of-art assessment of journal publications on cross-cultural tourist research. In this study, various aspects of cross-cultural tourist research are reviewed, addressing conceptual and methodological issues associated with the extant research. Existing studies are largely limited to English-speaking countries and data equivalence issues were not addressed properly, which may lead confounding explanations. It is suggested that future studies should be grounded in solid theoretical foundation and employ a more rigorous research design.
Travel agencies seeking to improve their product development performance increasingly engage in collaborative product development with their suppliers. From the perspective of collaboration, the independent travel agent has a future, provided it makes appropriate investment in technology and creates competitive differentiation. The research goals of this study were to investigate how market-focused strategic adaptation among the members of travel agent collaborations affects perceived market performance. Data were obtained via a mailed questionnaire survey of a sample of travel agencies. The model and the hypotheses were tested using a structural equation modeling approach. The findings of this study provide interesting insights for travel agencies interested in partner choice. Customer competence has emerged as an important asset in travel agent collaboration, which can be used to increase the productivities of knowledge works through the management of product and service innovation; different strategies are discussed in terms of different segments of customers within the collaboration.
Recent research conducted with humans demonstrated that red, relative to other achromatic or chromatic colors, led men to view women presented on a photograph as more attractive. The effect of color on behavior was tested in a tipping context. Eleven waitresses in five restaurants were instructed to wear the same tee shirt with different colors (black, white, red, blue, green, or yellow). The effect of color on tipping according to patron’s gender was measured. It was found that waitresses wearing red received more tips but only with male patrons. Waitresses color had no effect on female patrons’ tipping behavior. The relation between red and sexual attractiveness are used to explain the results. Managerial interests related with clothing appearance were discussed.
The relationship between price and postpurchase perceptions is an important topic in tourism and hospitality studies. However, little is known about how this relationship operates in an online context. Using 43,726 online reviews covering 774 star-rated hotels, this study empirically investigated the influence of price on customers’ perceptions of service quality and value. The results show that it has a positive impact on perceived quality but has a negative impact on perceived value. Price also has a more significant impact on perceived quality for higher-star, luxury hotels than lower-star, economy establishments. Additionally, it has a significant influence on perceived quality for business travelers but the equivalent value for leisure travelers is not significant.
Customers often behave in the context of a group, with different behavior occurring in this context to that which transpires in an individual context. However, customer complaining behavior (CCB), including voice, negative word of mouth, in addition to that transmitted electronically, and exit, in a group setting has not been studied previously. A service failure during a group celebration at a restaurant and the pattern of CCB that ensues is examined. This is based on customers’ level of responsibility in restaurant selection on behalf of the group, the presence of an unconditional service guarantee, and the perceived stability of the failure. Findings suggest that customers are more inclined to exit when they have participated to a greater degree in choice and that the presence of an unconditional guarantee interacts with participation to influence negative word of mouth intentions. Perceived failure stability had the greatest influence on CCB.
The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the perceived online control effects on consumers’ behavior in the travel industry. The article uses a laboratory experiment to investigate how perceived consumer navigational control affects consumer behavior. An online travel store of a fictitious company was developed as the experimental stimulus. The findings imply that perceived navigational control affects consumers’ levels of pleasure and trust during the online navigation. In turn, pleasure and trust affect consumers’ attitude toward the online store and satisfaction. Surprisingly, consumers’ attitude is not directly affected by their perception of the level of navigational control over the travel website. Finally, gender moderates the relationship between the perceived navigational control and consumers’ attitude toward the travel website. Managerial implications regarding the development of travel websites and research opportunities are discussed.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly in developing countries, are regarded as slow adopters of technology, especially e-commerce. Travel agents are a typical category of SMEs, experiencing changes in the travel market structure, caused by the use of e-commerce. E-Commerce adoption is a means of supporting agents’ future survival and competitiveness at a time when many are facing the threat of disintermediation from the global travel market. The investigation of e-commerce adoption by SMEs in developing countries represents an emerging area of research, with only a limited number of studies undertaken to date. This research aims to examine the perceived benefits of an advanced level e-commerce adoption by Egyptian travel agents. Structural equation modeling is used to categorize a set of perceived benefit factors for e-commerce adoption, and establish a relationship with the level of adoption. Results indicate that marketing and competition benefits, essential benefits that support strategy and development, and business efficiency benefits all positively contribute to decisions that lead to an advanced level of e-commerce being adopted.
The meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE) industry has evolved into a vital sector of business tourism. The vast majority of research to date has focused on the convention/meeting sector, with studies on convention site selection being especially prominent. In contrast, the exhibition sector and particularly, exhibition destination attractiveness, have received relatively little research attention. This study aims to address this research gap by examining, from the exhibitors’ perspective, key factors for an attractive and successful exhibition destination. Based on 616 survey responses from exhibitors collected at nine trade fairs in four cities in Mainland China, study findings highlighted the critical importance of two types of cluster effects—"host city leadership in the industry" and "host city/region as a source of exhibitors"—to an exhibition destination’s attractiveness for exhibitors. Accessibility, venue facilities, and the destination’s leisure and economic environment were considered less important. Implications of the study results are discussed and directions for future research provided.
Tourism research on topics such as happiness, quality of life of tourists, and tourist well-being has flourished in recent years. This literature clarifies the subjective value of tourist experiences, provides new directions for tourism branding and promotion, and opens doors to fresh research on the potential benefits of tourist experiences to mental health. Subjective well-being theory has been typically used by tourism researchers to help conceptualize and measure tourist happiness. In lay terms, this theory suggests that happiness is life satisfaction and pleasure; the theory is popular and useful but cannot explain tourist happiness. To craft a more complete picture of tourist happiness, a deeper qualitative appreciation of meaningful tourist experiences and special and engaging tourist moments is required. This brief critique highlights the problems of conceptualizing tourist happiness and suggests an alternative approach to the subjective well-being theory.
Information privacy is one of the major reasons that explains why many travelers are hesitant to provide personal information for online reservations. Despite the fact that most hotels provide privacy policy statements on their websites, little research has been done to examine how the format of these privacy statements affects customer trust. Based on the control/restricted theory and cognitive theory of multimedia learning, this study demonstrates how perceived control and learning can affect trust. Participants were shown validated privacy policy statements in a text format or a video format before they rated the trustworthiness of the hotel. The findings from 193 usable samples confirmed that the video was more effective in increasing trust and that it did so by increasing perceived control. The results suggest that hotel companies without a strong brand history can still establish customer trust by providing a well-located, well-executed, and easily understood online video privacy statement. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, and future research suggestions are provided.