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This study aims to examine the effect of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance on hotel employees’ behavior, as reflected in their attitude and satisfaction. Understanding emp...

This article attempts to empirically test a model to explain the hypothesized relationships between important constructs such as emotional experience, personal involvement, destination image, destination satisfaction, and place attachment as antecedents of the future intentions of mature/senior diaspora tourists. The hypothesized relationships were explored using a sample of 419 mature/senior diaspora tourists visiting Ghana. A three-step process was used to explore, confirm and test the interrelationships between the constructs. The results showed that emotional experiences related to joy and love influenced personal involvement. While other hypothesized relationships were supported, unpleasantness and positive surprise did not have a direct effect on personal involvement. Future studies can apply this model to understand other types of tourism.

This research aims to conduct a cross cultural study of Mainland Chinese and the United States (U.S.) seniors’ personality traits and identify how they affect motivation, preferences, sociodemograp...

This study attempts to investigate basic emotions incorporated in online reviews of fine dining Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong and to investigate antecedents and consequences according to each ...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the perceptions by owners and staff working in causal full-service restaurants in Macao of their two major subcultures of customers: Hong Kong Chinese and Taiwan Chinese in terms of their dining behavior and preferences. Design/methodology/approach Face-to-face interviews with 36 service staff of casual dining restaurants in Macao were conducted through the purposive convenience sampling method. Thematic content analysis was conducted in the data analysis. Findings The results reveal that although the customers from the two Chinese subcultures have a similar appearance, use the same Chinese characters and share common cultural inheritances; their dining behavior and preferences are perceived as being different. Practical implications Practical implications are given on how to better design the products and services to meet each subgroup’s needs for enhancing customers’ experience and service quality in restaurant settings. Originality/value This study focuses on examining if there are any sub-cultural differences in food behaviors and preferences among Hong Kong and Taiwan visitors, who are the major tourist sources in the world market. It contributes to the scarce literature on intracultural dining variances of sub-groups within Chinese.

This research used three experimental studies to examine the effect of scarcity information on choosing a hotel room online. The studies also investigated the moderating role of the buyer’s childhood socioeconomic status (SES), using evolutionary perspectives and the life history theory. Our findings revealed that travelers showed a preference for a hotel room option if they were given information that the room was scarce. This preference was stronger for travelers who had low childhood SES and who were low in materialistic traits. The findings of this empirical research add academic value by adopting the roles of heretofore novel concepts, childhood SES and materialism, in understanding the effects of consumer information messaging. The findings also add to the understanding of how context in online websites substantially affects potential travelers’ decision making. Therefore, this research will provide helpful guidance for making online websites more user-friendly and effective in their promotions to potential customers.

This study aims to assess the level of casino tourism development as perceived by residents of the Grand Ho Tram Strip in Vietnam. This study is timely and crucial because the local government need...

This study aims to investigate the effects of local food attributes on tourists’ dining satisfaction and future intention in Hong Kong. In addition, the moderating effect of food culture difference...

This research aims to investigate residents’ perceptions of tourism development by exploring the sub-dimensions of impacts. The theoretical and practical implications of the four constructs are pre...

Robots and artificial intelligence represent a newly emerging trend in tourism and hospitality. However, studies examining how cultural perceptions influence tourists’ experiences interacting with service robots are lacking. In response to the industrial trend, the experiential components of robot-staffed hotels are assessed in this study. A qualitative approach is adopted to compare the semantic networks of Japanese and non-Japanese tourists’ online reviews, using 1,498 reviews from nine robot-staffed hotels in Japan. The results indicate that hotel guests’ interaction with robots is one of the main experiential components in robot-staffed hotels. The semantic network analysis results demonstrate noticeable differences, with Japanese reviews demonstrating more emotional responses to human-robot interaction and non-Japanese reviews valuing the functional and technical aspects of robot-provided services more.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

To provide an enhanced understanding of performing arts tourism in the Asian context, the present study investigates the motivations, intentions and performance preferences of a particular source market – Japan. Five primary motivations identified for this group when travelling to Korea to watch a theatre-based performance were: to relieve stress, to learn about Korean culture, to socialise, to enhance their life satisfaction, and curiosity. The various motivations were significantly different in the case of the following independent variables: socio-demographics, prior experiences of travel and of attending performances. Diverging results were reported from the respective analyses using the multinomial logit and BN regression models. The respondents who were most favourably disposed to attending a future theatre-based performance in Korea were (based on their future intentions), married, aged over 40, had prior experience of attending a Korean performance, had at least a college level education, preferred modern-style performances and were ready to pay an admission fee of US$40 or above.

Constructing a hierarchical value map, a psychological structure is explored to understand how religious tourists perceive the sites they visit in terms of site attributes, the benefits religious t...

This article explores consumer tendencies to opt for luxury or economy hotels by identifying their most and least important selection attributes. The researchers investigate how sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics influence traveler assessments of hotel attributes. In explaining consumer hotel selection preferences, the researchers used an unconditional method—best–worst scaling (BWS). Based on an analysis of responses from 397 luxury hotel customers and 351 economy hotel customers in the United States, it was found that the two groups perceive hotel attributes differently. Differentials were also identified on the basis of gender, income, and frequency of purchase. While acknowledging that the task is complex, there is an urgent need to identify the factors influencing hotel selection, because hoteliers need to attract new markets and also balance this by retaining existing patrons. The findings extend existing literature by applying BWS to the identification of hotel selection attributes.

The impacts of health crises on tourism demand vary according to the crises’ magnitude, causes, and recoverability. In some cases, the effects of these unexpected incidents have been severe. This study investigates the underlying stability of Hong Kong’s inbound tourism during three phases of health events. Data on 14 market sources for Hong Kong tourism are compared and the results discussed. Specific examinations suggest that travel from India, the U.S., the U.K., Indonesia, and the Philippines are, somewhat, less influenced by health crises in Hong Kong. Men, unmarried travelers, non-working vacationers, and repeat visitors display resilient tendencies. Expenditure tends to decrease during crises, although lengths of stay tend to increase. The inclusion of three types and phases of health crisis events and their effects on inbound travel markets suggest that the impacts of health crisis events differ according to the profile of health crisis. Implications and suggestions for future studies are ...

This research investigates the effect of mindfulness on pro-environmental hotel preference. The results of six studies demonstrate that both trait mindfulness and temporary states of mindfulness increase tourists' preferences for pro-environmental hotels. Further, we show that the effect of mindfulness on the preference for a pro-environmental hotel is due to a reduction in the influence of materialism. Mindful tourists are less materialistic, which makes them more likely to choose pro-environmental hotel options. Our study offers important insights regarding the role of mindfulness within tourists' preferences for environmentally friendly options.

A film contains an amalgamation of diverse features and provides audiences with a variety of reminiscent elements. Thus, this study aimed to identify the role of nostalgia in the involvement, familiarity, and behavioral intentions of potential film tourists. Thus, 610 respondents were selected to test a conceptual model explaining the role of nostalgia. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed. Results indicated that, to some extent, nostalgia is an influential concept in explaining film tourism. The efficacy to explain the effects of nostalgia on involvement, familiarity, and behavioral intention showed relatively different. In particular, reminiscence of mimicking and desire to buy brand products were the most significant predictors in explaining other constructs, whereas the influence of the contents of the story on behavioral involvement was not significant.

As today’s world is flattening, the landscape of tourist destinations is becoming similar. In turn, an increasing number of destinations are seeking to effectively promote themselves. For these rea...

It is important to understand customer dissatisfaction in order to maintain a sustainable business, given that the negative effects of customer dissatisfaction in service businesses may be even gre...

Previous literature has focused on luxury tourism or luxury shopping, revealing that luxury-driven attitudes comprised unveiled reasons such as materialism, a desire for social status and the need to conform with others. Different outlets play different roles in the enactment of shopping attitudes, but even this has been scarcely researched within the context of tourism. This research combines these three areas of research in order to assess how materialism, the desire for status or to conform with others enact tourists’ intentions of buying luxuries while on holiday, within different outlets. A sample of 314 tourists in Hong Kong was used to test eight hypotheses, by means of an ordered probit model. The study’s findings enlighten the social nature of luxury tourists’ shopping behaviours, a nature that depends not only on what they buy but also largely on where they buy.

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of a food tourism video clip created by a destination marketing organization on potential tourists’ perceptions of the destination’s food values, familiarity with the destination’s food, behavioral involvement with the destination’s food, and intention to visit the destination for food tourism. A number of important findings were generated. First, of the five food values, “global food” and “attractive food” significantly influenced the respondents’ familiarity with Hong Kong food. Second, for the Generation Y group, Hong Kong food values such as “global food”, “attractive food”, and “realistic restaurants” had strong effects on the viewers’ behavioral involvement with Hong Kong food, while no such relationship was found between food value and behavioral involvement with Hong Kong food among the non-Generation Y group. Third, comparison of two generation groups showed that “realistic restaurants” had significantly more influence on behavioral in...

This study attempts to develop a drama consumption model in the context of film tourism and empirically test it using the mainland Chinese audience of Korean television dramas (K-dramas). Celebrity and dramatized characters strongly influenced the emotional involvement and referential reflection of this audience, whereas the effects of filming location and backdrops were relatively weak in this respect. It is worth noting that the perceived values of K-dramas did not have a direct effect on behavioral intention to visit film tourism locations. Rather, they are expected to lead to film tourism through a process of psychological and emotional involvement with the dramas. Further studies can beneficially apply this model to measure media value, audience involvement, and intention in different social and geographical settings.

The current study sought to identify the role of nostalgia in film tourism, specifically in relation to the development of preferred film tourism products and activities for potential Korean film tourists visiting the shooting locations of Hong Kong films made from the 1970s to the late 1990s. The findings suggest that the concept of nostalgia in the context of film tourism is multidimensional and consists of five identified domains. Of these domains, “reminiscence of mimicking”, “memory of film backdrops”, and “memory of Hong Kong history and culture” were highly significant in explaining familiarity with film destinations and the intention to engage in nostalgia film tourism. Differences in characteristics of respondents’ profiles were categorized into clusters generated using extracted domains. Among the four extracted clusters, the high film nostalgia group (Cluster 2) and the low film nostalgia group (Cluster 3) showed completely different characteristics. These differences included preferred...

Diaspora tourism offers potential benefits for emerging African destinations that are rarely associated from traditional mass tourism - preserving historic sites, creating a sense of place and increasing awareness of the dark history of slavery, particularly amongst upcoming generations. Noting the importance of managing diaspora tourism effectively, this in-depth empirical investigation identifies whether the motives of diaspora tourists explain their evaluations of Ghana as a destination, satisfaction, place attachment, and future travel intentions. The study concludes that four of the five motivational dimensions have a significant influence on evaluations of the diaspora homeland destination, with escape being the exception. The study contributes to knowledge by providing a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of diaspora tourism.

This study was designed to identify the relationships between place attachment, residents’ perceptions of tourism effects, and their attitudes toward tourism developments in the context of film tourism destination. A main survey was conducted at seven representative TV drama/film production towns in Korea. Among various findings, both the local communities’ beliefs about local development through the construction of TV drama/film production towns and their attachment to the communities had a significant positive effect on support for the development of film tourism. In addition, beliefs about local development significantly contributed to explaining the level of local community support for the development of a film tourism destination. Local communities’ beliefs also positively and significantly affected attachment to these communities. Interestingly, perceived negative social and environmental effects of film tourism did not indicate statistical causal relationships with the local residents’ beli...

The performing arts are an integral part of the economies of many communities and often highlight the cultures of places visited. Because of this, studies on performing arts have been actively conducted in the arts management and marketing fields. Yet, little research has examined the benefits of the performing arts from a tourism perspective. Thus, the current study employed conjoint analysis in an attempt to identify the most preferred performing arts tourism products as perceived by Japanese tourists. Results revealed the most important determinant attributes Japanese tourists consider in purchasing a Korean performing arts product were ‘admission price’, followed by ‘type of theater’, ‘genre’, and ‘location of theater’. The most preferred performing arts tourism product was found to be the following: 5.517 (overall utility) = 1.081 (Korean pop music concert) + 2.233 (less than 5000 Yen) + 0.775 (downtown Seoul) + 1.428 (exclusive theater).

This study is involved with five objectives: understanding hospitality and tourism management (HTM) students' preferences, their characteristics for future HTM career, their motivations for choosing HTM as a major, their reasons for choosing or not choosing whether to work in the hospitality and tourism industry, and the important factors that they consider when making career decisions. The responses of HTM students living in three Asian countries where HTM programs are popular were compared. Taiwanese students exhibited the highest level of motivation to study HTM and the lowest level of willingness to work in a low position at the starting of their career among the three regional groups. In contrast, Hong Kong students indicated the lowest motivation to study HTM and the most negative responses regarding welfare or working conditions in the hospitality and tourism fields as reasons for not choosing to work in the industry. Korean students showed the highest expectation of international working opportunities and a flexible organization culture, and the highest level of willingness to work in a high position at their starting career point. All of the student groups indicated the importance of practical learning or interest in employment over scholastic pursuits or intellectual interest. The results of this study are useful for HTM education stakeholders, including potential students, HTM school staff and the HT industry.

Apart from economic factors, issues that may influence, bilateral tourist flows include shared histories, geopolitical factors, diplomatic relations, nationalism and domestic political issues. China and Japan provide an example of a bilateral tourism relationship that has been influenced by a range of factors beyond the usual economic factors of GDP, price and exchange rates. A recent history of invasion, occupation and attempts at reconciliation underlie contemporary diplomatic relations between these nations producing both fascination and mistrust. A detailed understanding of the full range of factors that may affect bilateral relations is necessary to understand bilateral tourism flows. This study identifies the effects of history, nationalism, occupation, socio-cultural factors and geopolitical factors on the flow of tourists between China and Japan.

Since the 1990s, the Asia-Pacific region’s world market share of international travelers has increased, as America’s and Europe’s shares have fallen. China (People’s Republic of China) has become the world’s biggest tourism source market with an overseas spend of US$292 billion in 2015, fueling opportunities for the region and beyond. Now, Asia Pacific outbound travel is extending past short-haul interregional travel to long-haul destinations, specifically Europe. To realize this potential, European destinations need a better understanding of the Chinese traveler; their perceptions of destinations, awareness, and loyalty. This study measures the brand equity of Switzerland and Austria as perceived by Hong Kong Chinese tourists. Structural equation modeling results indicate that destination brand image and associations significantly impact brand loyalty, whereas destination awareness does not, contrary to past interregional research findings. Understanding the influence of brand components on overall brand equity supports the efficacy of the brand equity model for interregional destinations.

Purpose This paper aims to gain insight into the preferences of US customers regarding Korean food, and to categorize these customers according to the reasons for their preferences. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted with a sample of customers in Korean restaurants in the USA. Findings Cluster 1 was a group whose members were attracted to Korean culture; Cluster 2 was a group whose members were passionate about Korean food; Cluster 3 was a group seeking healthy and exotic food; and Cluster 4 was a low-interest group. Each cluster had a different socio-demographic profile, favored a different Korean menu, identified different success factors for Korean restaurants, described different expectations and experiences of Korean restaurants and had different preferences regarding Korean food services. Practical implications Active promotion of Korean food and Korean culture may be appropriate for Cluster 1, while developing a healthy and exotic menu may attract Cluster 3. Maintaining Cluster 2 is deemed important, while a strategic approach is necessary to appeal to Cluster 4. Originality/value This study will contribute theoretically and practically to understanding food globalization, ethnic restaurants and segmentation by preference reasons.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyze online hotel reviews produced by customers to identify and compare factors known as satisfiers and dissatisfiers based on Herzberg’s two-factor theory. This approach was applied to compare full-service and limited-service hotels, which can show different levels of customer expectation. Design/methodology/approach A content analysis of 919 satisfaction- and dissatisfaction-indicating reviews of 100 hotels in both full-service and limited-service hotel segments in New York City on Trip Advisor was conducted. Findings Results show that satisfiers and dissatisfiers in full-service hotels were distinct, with the exception of two common service-related factors, namely, “staff and their attitude” and “service”. On the other hand, “staff and their attitude” and four room facilities-related factors, “room cleanliness/dirtiness”, “bed”, “bathroom” and “room size”, were revealed as common satisfiers and dissatisfiers in limited-service hotels. To fulfill customer satisfaction and resolve dissatisfaction in both full-service and limited-service hotels, satisfiers and dissatisfiers should be highlighted according to the hotel class; the most critical factor is “staff and their attitude”. Practical implications Analysis of online hotel reviews provides understanding of customers’ satisfiers and dissatisfiers, and the results are very useful to hotel management. Therefore, hotel operators should monitor electronic word-of-mouth, recognizing and acting upon previous and current customers’ satisfactory and unsatisfactory reactions. Originality/value As technologies such as social media develop, customers are increasingly sharing their satisfactory and unsatisfactory experiences on consumer-generated online review sites. These have become a major source of information not only for customers deciding on a hotel stay but also for hotel managers trying to understand their customers and competitors.

Since convention host cities in East Asia, such as Hong Kong, Beijing, and Seoul, are in competition, this study adopts the customer-based brand equity concept to compare their brand equity models. Among several important implications, destination image attributes affected the perceived quality in different ways in the three convention cities. This indicates that destination brand image can determine the assessment of a destination. Being that perceived quality does not affect overall brand equity indicates that it can be reinforced through loyalty rather than direct effects of assessment of overall brand equity.

This study aimed to determine whether, in accordance with socio-demographic and travel-related variables, there are differences in Japanese tourists’ preference, behavior, and perception of Hong Kong as a tourist destination. Diverse interesting results were revealed. Leisure group showed a higher preference than a non-leisure group for package tours, shopping, and participating in indoor activities. Male tourists showed more generosity in giving tips and a greater preference for shops with a “Quality Tourism Scheme” accreditation. A first-visit group showed the highest level of preference for shopping, spending more money than frequent-visitor groups. Hong Kong cultural and festival events were regarded as attractive tourist activities by one who had revisited Hong Kong three times or more even though the Japanese market is considered a tourist cohort that prefers shopping.