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Prior to developing addition programs in a convention a convention organizer wants to identify attendees’ willingness to participate in the program. One of the most important factors which lead to ...

This study aims to identify the role of seniors’ overseas travel motivations in terms of preferred attraction types and activities, socio-demographic features, and preferred travel-related features...

Combining conceptual perspectives from emerging research on COVID-19, safety-seeking motivations, and extremeness aversion in choice (i.e., compromise effects), we examine how and why the perceived threat of COVID-19 affects consumers’ choice and decision making in the hotel and restaurant domains. Across seven studies (two studies from secondary data sets and five experimental studies), we provide novel evidence that the perceived threat or threat salience of COVID-19 amplifies the general tendency to select compromise options, avoiding extreme ones, within a choice set. We highlight the role of safety-seeking motivations as the underlying mechanism in the relationship between perceived threat and extremeness aversion in choice. We further document a boundary condition that the extremeness aversion effect is stronger for leisure travelers than for business travelers.

Unplanned purchases, such as same-day bookings for hotel stays, are an emerging trend. However, few studies have examined unplanned purchases, particularly luxury hospitality and tourism purchases. This study compares consumers’ unplanned purchases of luxury goods and experiences. Four studies of luxury consumers in Hong Kong and the United States show that unplanned purchases of luxury experiences (vs. luxury goods) increase positive emotions and that the underlying mechanism is escapism. This study also shows that the price of luxury experiences enhances escapism whereas the price of luxury goods does not. This study contributes to the literature by challenging the universally negative view of unplanned luxury purchases. Luxury marketers should appeal to consumers’ sense of escapism to induce unplanned purchases of luxury experiences. Further, luxury marketers should maintain the monetary exclusivity of luxury experiences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected everyday life and business. To describe the impacts, 566 COVID-19-related articles were published between January 2020 and March 2022 in 18 hospitality and tourism journals. This study identifies the research streams, using content and bibliometric analyses. Content analysis and co-citation analysis revealed six research streams and four research clusters, respectively. A critical analysis was conducted to reflect the theoretical and practical implications and provide suggestions for future research directions. The identified research weaknesses include concerns relating to generalizability, sampling and measurement-related issues, online survey methods, failure to identify different stakeholders’ views on the adoption of new technologies, lack of practical coping scheme studies, lack of effort to adopt multidisciplinary theories, and little exploration of customers’ reactions to virtual events. Results of this study can help facilitate and consolidate the knowledge on the impacts of the pandemic and proactively prepare for future disease crises.

This research investigated perceived risks associated with central bank digital currency (CBDC) payment innovations and their effect on travelers’ adoption behavior, considering personal and product characteristics. This quantitative study determined that perceived risks, including financial, performance, privacy, psychological, and time risks, have an adverse effect on attitudes toward CBDC payment, which, in turn, affects the intention to adopt. In addition, this study underlined the moderating roles of consumer innovativeness, previous experience, structural assurance, and media encouragement in the link between perceived risk and attitude. The results advanced the understanding of travelers’ intention to use CBDC to pay for tourism products and services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the ecosystem of tourism businesses. This study aimed to assess the effect of the pandemic on consumers’ intentions to choose sharing economy products and services. A series of five experimental designs was conducted using online panel data. Consumers were found to be less likely to choose sharing economy products under pandemic conditions. During the pandemic, cleanliness is considered more important than location when people choose Airbnb accommodation. The results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the underlying psychological mechanisms that are driving consumers’ decisions in the current environment of market uncertainty, and offer evidence of the effects of the global health crisis on people’s decisions to use sharing economy products in the tourism industry.

Before understanding customers’ perceptions of hotel CSR, it is important to understand service providers’ responses to hotel CSR because they are the key person to implement the CSR strategy. Therefore, this study investigates the structural relationship among multidimensional CSR performance, attitude, emotions, and resultant behaviors as perceived by hotel employees. In addition, moderating role of employees’ positional levels in the proposed model is evaluated. The findings show that environmental, ethical, and financial/economic domains consisting of hotel CSR performance effectively explain the resultant behaviors that follow. However, social/philanthropic and legal domains do not have considerable effects. The positions held by hotel employees partially moderate the relationships between the proposed constructs. The results of this study add important insights to the existing literature and help hotel practitioners better understand how multidimensional CSR causes positive attitudes, emotions, and behaviors and how the structural model changes depending on the position levels. These results are achieved by using the newly developed hotel CSR measurement scale, which was made through careful and rigorous six-stage procedures.

This research investigated the role of price preciseness (rounded vs. precise) in perceiving deal attractiveness, purchase intention, and choice in travel decision-making. Two competing hypotheses (price association vs. fluency) were proposed. Across five empirical studies, we found that the perceived attractiveness of a price promotion deal, along with purchase intention and relative preference, were higher when the original price was presented in a rounded (vs. precise) format (Studies 1A, 1B, and 3). This finding supports the price association-based explanation rather than the fluency-based explanation. In addition, the results were replicated in a consequential choice setting (Study 2). We further demonstrated that the effect of the price rounding is stronger for those with high (vs. low) lay rationalism, suggesting its moderating role (Study 4). The empirical findings of the current research have theoretical implications for various fields, including the behavioral pricing of travel and tourism, and practical implications for practitioners.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jht-10.1177_10963480211012762 for Understanding the Dimensionality and Underlying Nature of Senior Overseas Travel Motivations by Felix Elvis Otoo, YooHee Hwang, Seongseop (Sam) Kim and Alastair M. Morrison in Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jht-10.1177_10963480211012762 for Understanding the Dimensionality and Underlying Nature of Senior Overseas Travel Motivations by Felix Elvis Otoo, YooHee Hwang, Seongseop (Sam) Kim and Alastair M. Morrison in Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research

This study investigates the relationship between the COVID‐19 threat and consumer evaluation of a product with authenticity appeals in advertisements. We propose that threatening situations like COVID‐19 motivate consumers to lower their uncertainty and increase their preference for products with authentic advertising messages. Because individuals react differently to threatening environments according to their early‐life experiences, commonly reflected in childhood socioeconomic status, we examined whether childhood socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between threat and consumer evaluation of authenticity in advertisements. First, secondary data from Google Trends provided empirical support for our predictions. In additional experimental studies, participants evaluated different target products in four studies that either manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) or measured (Studies 4 and 5) COVID‐19 threat. Our results provide converging evidence that consumers positively evaluate products with authentic advertising messages under the COVID‐19 threat. Consumers' motivation to lower their uncertainty underlies the effect of COVID‐19 threat on their evaluation of authentic messages (Study 3). This attempt to reduce uncertainty is more likely to occur for consumers with relatively higher childhood socioeconomic status (Studies 4 and 5). These findings suggest that using authenticity appeals during a pandemic could effectively reduce consumers' perceived uncertainty and generate positive consumer evaluations.

Despite its increased recognition among tourism planners and destination governments, a lacuna exists regarding the motivation of diaspora tourists travelling to a destination they regard as an ancestral homeland. Thus, in the current research, we seek to develop and validate a scale that measures the motivations of diaspora tourists. The result of a rigorous seven-stage scale development procedure generates a five-factor structure for diaspora tourists’ motivations. The scale is successfully verified through various reliability and validity tests. This multidimensional scale of diaspora tourist motivations contributes to our understanding of the nature of diaspora tourism.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of experiences with local food in Ghana on satisfaction, favorability and behavioral intention. Design/methodology/approach Unlike previous studies that have used multiple regression analysis or structural equation modeling, this study adopts impact-range performance analysis (IRPA) and impact asymmetry analysis (IAA). A total of 336 questionnaires were used in the data analyses. Findings Factor analysis generates five domains of experience of consuming local food. Socialization and boasting and experience with various menus and quality of food contribute most to explaining the three dependent variables. Originality/value This study has significant value because it extends the study of local food consumption experience to the understudied area of African food tourism, particularly Ghanaian food and tourists to Ghana.

Hotel industry started to adopt service robots, which are considered a future workforce. However, no attempt was conducted to examine the dimensionality of service quality of service robots. This p...

Local food is a motivation that drives international tourists to visit a certain destination and to enrich their experiential quality. Although considerable effort has been exerted in investigating the relationship between the importance of local food and satisfaction and future intentions, no study has explored gastronomical experience by using fuzzy set analysis. The present study aims to explore the influence of local food attributes on customer satisfaction and intentions to recommend through a fuzzy set analysis. This study uses empirical data from 1,376 international tourists visiting Hong Kong. Findings suggest that the attributes of local food and their influence on the intentions to recommend vary in accordance with the type of restaurants operating in Hong Kong. The results of this study shed practical implications, such as the development of different symbolic meanings of gastronomy and service for international diners at different restaurants. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

This study is a critical literature review of previous corporate social responsibility (CSR) papers in the hospitality and tourism industry. The purpose of this study is to identify the current gap...

This study assesses the benefits of hiking for visitors to the Jeju Olle Trail on Jeju Island in Korea, which has been designated as a World Heritage Site. Data were collected from a total of 318 tourists visiting the Jeju Olle Trail. The study focused on comparing the benefits sought by first-time visitors and those of repeat visitors. Analytical results found that first-time visitors and repeat visitors sought different benefits from their hiking experiences. First-time visitors sought to observe nature and interact with people. For first-time visitors, benefits that delighted them were buying unique souvenirs and enjoying educational experiences, whereas repeat visitors demonstrated a good assessment on interactions with new people and buying unique souvenirs.

This research examines a contextual trigger, namely, choice architecture, which induces pro-environmental behavior among travelers. In particular, we test whether decision modes (choice vs. rejection) affect travelers’ preference for a sustainable hotel over a less sustainable one, and if yes, how moral hypocrisy mediates the link between decision modes and preference. Results of a series of five experimental studies show that choice decision mode has increased travelers’ preference for a pro-environmental hotel, which is mediated by different types of information processing (elaborate vs. deliberative processing), thereby refuting the potential alternative explanations (i.e., mood) of the findings. This article contributes to the literature by introducing a critical factor, namely, choice architecture, which significantly affects travelers’ preferences for pro-environmental hotels. The implications of the findings are discussed for both practitioners and researchers.

This study aimed to identify variations of three types of perceived image including affective, cognitive, and overall image over three points in time and to test the efficacy of image in explaining satisfaction, knowledge, and attachment with a destination. Although previous studies used results collected through a cross-sectional survey, this study surveyed the same samples at three different times, that is before, during and after travel, to enrich our understanding of how image develops through the three key stages of a trip. The findings indicate there is significant variation in perceived image domains, extracted as a result of factor analysis, and overall image across time. To predict satisfaction, attachment, and knowledge, “vividness” of the affective image domains and “diverse tourism attraction” of the cognitive image domains showed significance on regression models. Interestingly, “developed tourism industry” was not reported being significant predictor in any model. The results suggest that future studies need to measure destination image over time in line with traveller’s movement.

Based on social exchange theory, this research seeks to establish the differences between festival stakeholder relations in terms of trust, control, dependence, and altruism. A total of 1105 participant surveys were collected at six festivals in Ghana across eight stakeholder groups including organizers, government authorities, visitors, volunteers, sponsors, and media. The results indicate that organizers have the highest level of trust for other stakeholders whereas media have the lowest. For other stakeholders trust levels are similar, suggesting that festival organizers capitalize on mutual stakeholder trust to broaden collaboration. Regarding dependence, volunteers showed the least level of dependence on other stakeholders, suggesting that organizers work to more deeply engage their volunteers to improve relationships. This multi-dimensional assessment of social exchange theory in the festival field contributes to our understanding of dynamics among festival stakeholders.

Airline and hotel employees are experiencing multiple forms of precariousness amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which have increased workers' distrust of their respective airline/hotel businesses and affected job performance and retention. This research builds and tests two sturdy theoretical frameworks to explain airline and hotel employees' job performance and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The frameworks, developed using a quantitative method, adequately account for employees' company attachment and job performance by using their perceived job insecurity, life satisfaction, and job satisfaction as the key antecedents; while employees' perceived job insecurity influences the formation of attachment to the company and job performance. The mediating nature of life and job satisfaction is also examined alongside the moderating role of two different industry types (airline versus hotel). The results show that the process of generating job performance differs between airline and hotel employee groups. The research implications and value are discussed.

The purpose of this research was to provide a comprehensive analysis of the hidden intellectual structure of hospitality research. This study combined Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and text-net analysis (TNA) as the topic modeling approach for 7,931 articles with approximately 290,000 references in seven top-tier hospitality journals from 1960 to 2019. A total of 10 specific research topics were identified, with their probability timelines, in hospitality research. The results showed that hospitality research is focused on the empirical testing of relationships rather than theory building. A stakeholder research approach was identified, which includes the perspectives of management, employees, and customers. These findings contribute by revealing the hidden pattern of intellectual structures and research trends in hospitality research and overcoming the weaknesses of traditional co-citation analysis. Also, the study provides evidence of a shift from narrow to diverse research topics, thereby offering useful implications for hospitality practitioners.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation markets. However, how the interplay between tourists and destination attributes has affected P2P accommodation consumption during the pandemic has not been investigated. To address this gap, this study first explored the spatially varying relationship between destination attributes and COVID-19-disrupted Airbnb performance change across Florida counties. Subsequently, we performed two experimental studies to examine whether trip purpose and the level of perceived threat affect Airbnb use intention. The results of the spatial analysis show that, depending on the type of destination attribute, Airbnb listings experienced different revenue losses across urban and rural areas. Additionally, results of experimental studies show that business tourists with a low perceived threat of COVID-19 are more willing to consume Airbnb listings than leisure tourists. This study contributes to ascertaining the destination and behavioral heterogeneity in pandemic-induced P2P accommodation consumption using spatial analytic and experimental studies.

This study examined the antecedents and consequences of rapport between customers and salespersons in the context of duty-free shops. Specifically, this study proposed six sub-dimensions of service-dominant orientation (i.e., relational, ethical, individuated, empowered, concerted, and developmental interactions). These dimensions have a positive influence on rapport. In addition, rapport is hypothesized to aid in the formation of customer satisfaction and brand preference, which in turn positively affects word-of-mouth communications. Data were collected from 649 Chinese shoppers who have purchased a product in a Korean duty-free shop. In addition, this study employed confirmatory factor analysis to check the adequacy of the measurement items and structural equation modeling to test 11 hypotheses. Data analysis results indicated that five sub-dimensions of service-dominant orientation, excluding individuated interaction, play an important role in the formation of rapport. Furthermore, rapport has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and brand preference, which in turn positively affects word-of-mouth communications. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for managers of duty-free stores into the most effective methods for managing their operations and providing an appropriate blend of products. Furthermore, this paper contributes to theoretical understanding in this area by improving the acceptability of a commonly believed shopper behavior model.

Graphical abstract Image 1, Highlights • The information presented and the design of health campaigns significantly influence perceived threats and irrational behaviors such as stockpiling intentions. • Childhood socioeconomic status of individuals has an impact on the effectiveness of these advertising strategies. • The results lead to definite practical implications for organizations and policy makers for increasing the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are becoming more prominent in the tourism industry. Nowadays, consumers are faced with multiple options involving both human and robot interactions. A series of experimental studies were implemented. Four experiments demonstrated that consumers had a more positive attitude toward robot-staffed (vs. human-staffed) hotels when COVID-19 was salient. The results were different from previous studies, which were conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the moderating role of perceived threat in consumers’ preference for robot-staffed hotels was significant, the respondents’ preference was attributed to the global health crisis. This research provides a number of theoretical and managerial implications by improving the understanding of technology acceptance during a health crisis.

The purpose of this research was to explore the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumers’ sustainable consumption behavior. It investigated whether the perceived threat of COVID-19 increased their intention to choose a sustainable hotel brand option. It examined whether environmental concern and the perceived value of patronizing a sustainable business mediated the relationship between the perceived threat of COVID-19 and sustainable behavioral intention. Five experimental studies indicated that the pandemic contributed to elevating sustainable behavioral intention. Environmental concern and the perceived value of patronizing a sustainable business played a mediating role in the relationship between the perceived threat of COVID-19 and sustainable behavioral intention. Another important outcome was that customers showed a preference for choosing a sustainable hotel brand over a non-sustainable brand, even when the price was higher.

This study explores how familiarity and attachment, along with cognitive and affective image explain destination loyalty across visitors with divergent degrees of frequency of visitation (low vs. high). Serbians (n = 401) who have previously visited Greece comprised the sample population for this study and were surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire. Findings reveal that overall familiarity shapes cognitive and affective destination image, while each image component uniquely explains destination loyalty (R2 = 0.51). Differences also exist in the magnitude of the relationships tested among the two groups. Implications for theory and practice, along with limitations and research directions, are discussed.

Purpose This study aims to examine the attribute-benefit-value-intention (ABVI) model of local food consumption as perceived by foreign tourists. The model was designed to test the structural relationships between local food attributes, perceived benefits, consumption value and behavioral intentions. Design/methodology/approach The structural relationships of foreign tourists’ perceptions of local food consumption were conceptualized, and hypotheses were proposed. The main survey was conducted using a large sample of 1,323 tourists in Hong Kong. Findings “Food quality”, “food novelty” and “restaurant quality” significantly affected “emotional” and “epistemic benefit”. “Emotional benefit” had a significant effect on “consumption value” and “behavioral intention”, while “epistemic benefit” only influenced “consumption value”. Practical implications Local food marketers and DMOs need to promote the product features that are relevant to tourists’ benefits. Restaurant marketers need to develop distinctive strategies for tourists from different national backgrounds. Originality/value This study proposed and empirically tested a new model of tourists’ local food consumption, including two benefits, consumption value and behavioral intention.

This study is to test whether consumption value theory can be applied to food tourism in a tourism destination. Despite its importance, few studies have explored the types of local food consumption value that tourists obtain in a destination. This study sought to develop and validate a scale of local food consumption value from a tourist perspective. As a result, a seven-factor structure was generated. The overall construct demonstrated satisfactory levels of reliability and validity. The value on their satisfaction with tasting local food, positive post-purchase intention, and food destination image varied by cultural region. Future research is expected to benefit from using the validated measurement to understand the unexplored aspects of tourists’ local food consumption.

This empirical study attempted to identify the role of TV drama celebrity in explaining audience involvement, perceived national image, and audience behavioral intention. Among many significant fin...

The sustenance and institutionalization of local festivals hinge on the extent to which various stakeholders work together effectively. While all stakeholder relationships matter in this respect, r...

As the global senior population expands, there is increasing scholarly interest in the intersection between tourism and the aging population. After nearly four decades of scholarly inquiry, there i...

Cinematic nostalgia can influence visitors in choosing destinations where particular films have been made or shot. Focusing on the case of Hong Kong this study investigated the incidence of nostalg...

This study assessed whether a celebrity writer endorsement affects festival brand equity and attachment to a festival destination. Subjects were non-residents who attended a local literary festival. Among celebrity attributes, expertise was revealed to be most related to brand equity and destination attachment. Additionally, loyalty to the festival was found to affect attachment to the festival destination, while festival brand awareness had a positive impact on festival brand loyalty. Results provide theoretical implications related to how celebrity endorsements influence destination brand, and festival community attachment. The results of this study also have practical implications related to how festival organizers can more efficiently promote visitation to the host destination. It is also believed results significantly contribute to understanding the efficacy of endorsements in an event context.

This research assesses the effects of choice alternatives on the travel destination decisions of travelers. The decoy effect involves the addition of a new inferior alternative into a choice set, thereby increasing the choice of an existing option. Meanwhile, the compromise effect involves the addition of a new alternative into a choice set that increases selection of an existing option with nonextreme attributes, and decreases selection of options with extreme attributes. In this study, a series of scenario-based experiments is performed to determine if the decoy and compromise effects influence travel destination decisions. Results show that the decoy effect is stronger in a choice (vs. rejection) task, whereas the compromise effect is stronger in a rejection (vs. choice) task when deciding travel destinations.

To explore popularly visited tourist locations, travel movement patterns, and movement points, this study collected samples of 321 Chinese tourists and 337 Japanese tourists who were visiting major...

Purpose This study aims to examine the extent of collaboration and networking between local festival stakeholders by focusing on the differences in how they evaluate themselves and other stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire directed toward different stakeholder groups involving 1,092 respondents was administered at six selected festivals in Ghana, West Africa. Findings In terms of self-evaluated collaboration and networking, the festival organizers considered themselves to have the highest risk, followed by the sponsors and vendors. However, when the stakeholders assessed each other, most agreed that they experienced higher risk when dealing with vendors. To reduce the risks of dealing with vendors, it is recommended that vendors be registered, accredited and allocated selling spaces before festivals begin. Practical implications It is helpful to understand the nature of decision power or different views of collaboration and networking among stakeholders. Further, this study offers insights to understand stakeholders’ motivations to participate in local festivals. Originality/value The combination of collaboration and networking between local festival stakeholders into a conceptual model allows the current findings to offer meaningful theoretical and practical implications.

Despite the importance of understanding food consumption value from tourists’ perspectives, few studies have explored how experiencing local food in a destination shapes tourists’ consumption value. This study explores the effect of tourists’ local food consumption value on their perceptions and behaviors. Tourists’ cultural background is used as a moderating variable. The findings show that tourists’ local food consumption value effectively explains tourists’ attitudes toward local food, food destination image, and behavioral intentions. In addition, the cultural background of tourists partially moderates the relationships between the proposed constructs. This study is the first empirical application of consumption value theory to the context of tourists’ local food experiences. It provides insights into appropriate marketing strategies for the restaurant and food tourism industries and offers practical suggestions to destination marketing organizations (DMOs) for using local food as a destination marketing tool.