International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management最新文献

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore user engagement (UE) within the Metaverse (MV) environment, emphasising the crucial role of immersive experiences (IEs). This study aims to understand how IEs influence UE and the mediating effects of hedonic value (HV) and utilitarian value (UV) on this relationship. Additionally, the authors examine the moderating impacts of user perceptions (UPs) such as headset comfort, simulation sickness, prior knowledge and ease of use on the utilisation of the MV. This study seeks to elucidate the dynamics of virtual travel at a pre-experience stage, enhancing the comprehension of how digital platforms can revolutionise UE in travel and tourism.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a triangulation methodology to provide a thorough investigation into the factors influencing UE in the MV. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to frame the research context and identify relevant variables. To gather empirical data, 25 interviews were performed with active MV users, supplemented by a survey distributed to 118 participants. The data collected was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships between IEs, UPs, HV and UV and their combined effect on UE within the MV.

Findings

The findings from the SEM indicate that engaging in the MV leads to a positive IE, which significantly enhances UE. Additionally, it was discovered that HV and UV play a mediating role in strengthening the link between IEs and UE. Furthermore, UPs, including headset comfort, simulation sickness, prior knowledge and ease of use, are significant moderators in the relationship between IEs and MV usage. These insights provide a nuanced understanding of the variables that contribute to and enhance UE in virtual environments.

Originality/value

This research contributes original insights into the burgeoning field of digital tourism by focusing on the MV, a rapidly evolving platform. It addresses the gap in the existing literature by delineating the complex interplay between IEs, UPs and value constructs within the MV. By using a mixed-method approach and advanced statistical analysis, this study provides a comprehensive model of UE specific to virtual travel platforms. The findings are particularly valuable for developers and marketers in the hospitality and tourism sectors seeking to capitalise on digital transformation and enhance UE through immersive technologies.

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the experience design of the lifestyle communities in the hospitality and tourism industry. Specifically, this paper proposes a conceptual model that governs experience design in creating unique and memorable experiences for lifestyle communities.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on a critical analysis of emerging phenomena, related literature and researchers’ experiences and insights.

Findings

The lifestyle community is conceptualized as a group of people who share a specific interest, value or activity and the type of its existence can be classified as physical, virtual or hybrid. As the importance of experience design has been highlighted in the hospitality and tourism industry, the study provides the guest experience design framework of lifestyle communities that suggests an operationalization of experience design that touches shared values of customers within lifestyle communities.

Research limitations/implications

This study introduces a framework that highlights the role of experience design in the development of lifestyle communities, thereby enriching the emerging body of knowledge. Additionally, the research illustrates how lifestyle communities diverge from traditional hospitality business models by using distinctive positioning strategies.

Practical implications

This study provides practical implications on how to capture the growing number of customers represented by lifestyle communities in the future. A deep understanding of frameworks may be crucial to establishing the experience design of lifestyle communities to correspond to the future of the hospitality and tourism industry.

Originality/value

This study remarks an initial attempt to provide a critical reflection of a rising contemporary issue: experience design and lifestyle communities. Conceptualization through a profound reflection of the issue offers insights to define existing phenomena and suggestions to capture future opportunities and actual management. Furthermore, future research directions in hospitality and tourism are elucidated by the provided conceptual frameworks.

Purpose

The aims of this study are to explore how the experience of “visiting” a destination in a virtual reality (VR) technology environment influences destination image and visit intentions and to evaluate the moderating effects of the immersion level of the technology, destination familiarity and VR sickness.

Design/methodology/approach

An empirical study was conducted in a laboratory, using two types of immersive VR technologies. The data, collected through a personal survey of 144 participants, were analysed using PLS-SEM.

Findings

The results indicated that sense of presence is a crucial determinant of the user’s experience, which in turn contributed positively to destination image and visit intentions. VR sickness was observed to moderate the relationship between sense of presence and user experience, especially at low immersion levels. Destination familiarity did not influence the model’s relationships.

Practical implications

The findings lead us to propose that tourism destination managers: use immersive VR technologies in their marketing strategies; in these VR scenarios enhance the user’s sense of presence and experience and implement segmentation strategies.

Originality/value

This is one of the first works to empirically analyse how the customer’s experience of immersive technologies affects destination image and visit intentions. The study also evaluates three moderating effects: the effects of the level of immersion evoked by the technology, and destination familiarity, on the model’s relationships, and the effects of a negative aspect of the technology, VR sickness, on the relationship between sense of presence and the customer experience.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the importance of image data in hotel selection-recommendation using different types of cognitive features and to explore whether there are reinforcing effects among these cognitive features.

Design/methodology/approach

This study represents user-generated images “cognitive” in a knowledge graph through multidimensional (shallow, middle and deep) analysis. This approach highlights the clustering of hotel destination imagery.

Findings

This study develops a novel hotel selection-recommendation model based on image sentiment and attribute representation within the construction of a knowledge graph. Furthermore, the experimental results show an enhanced effect between different types of cognitive features and hotel selection-recommendation.

Practical implications

This study enhances hotel recommendation accuracy and user satisfaction by incorporating cognitive and emotional image attributes into knowledge graphs using advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques.

Social implications

This study advances the understanding of user-generated images’ impact on hotel selection, helping users make better decisions and enabling marketers to understand users’ preferences and trends.

Originality/value

This research is one of the first to propose a new method for exploring the cognitive dimensions of hotel image data. Furthermore, multi-dimensional cognitive features can effectively enhance the selection-recommendation process, and the authors have proposed a novel hotel selection-recommendation model.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the effects of workplace racial discrimination among Asian American (AA) employees in the restaurant industry and examines what kinds of employee coping responses can mitigate its detrimental effects on their work behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach, starting with a qualitative study using the critical incident technique followed by a quantitative between-subjects experiment to examine the impact of employee coping responses to racial discrimination on employee competence and work quality of life (WQOL).

Findings

The study reveals that customer-perpetrated racial discrimination is the most common form of racial discrimination that AA employees face in the restaurant industry. In addition, confrontation is the most effective coping strategy to increase employee’s self-competence. Also, the severity of discrimination moderates the effect of coping strategies on employee’s self-competence. Employees’ self-competence mediates the relationship between their response strategy against discrimination and their WQOL.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study suggest that confrontation is an effective coping strategy for targeted employees, compared to support-seeking or avoidance. Confrontation was perceived as competent, compared to other coping strategies, and in turn, enhanced WQOL.

Originality/value

This study expands the scope of racial discrimination research in the hospitality literature for the growing diversified hospitality workforce. In addition, this study provides practical insights into competent ways of coping with racial discrimination.

Purpose

This qualitative study aims to investigate the critical success factors (CSFs) driving the adoption of virtual reality (VR) in the hospitality industry, shedding light on key determinants for successful implementation.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on a diverse set of interviews conducted in Italy, Pakistan, the USA and Turkey, this study uses thematic analysis facilitated by NVivo 12 to comprehensively explore and identify the CSFs influencing VR adoption within the global hospitality industry.

Findings

This study identifies distinct CSFs at various phases of VR adoption in the hospitality industry. Preimplementation emphasizes budget planning and stakeholder engagement, implementation highlights safety training and feedback mechanisms and postimplementation underscores the importance of innovation, feedback utilization and maintenance for sustained success. These findings offer a strategic roadmap for VR integration in hospitality.

Practical implications

The study informs hospitality industry stakeholders of crucial success factors for VR adoption, thereby guiding strategic decision-making. Sustained VR integration success is ensured by emphasizing budget planning, stakeholder engagement, safety training, feedback mechanisms and postimplementation innovation.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this groundbreaking research is the first in-depth investigation into CSFs for the adoption of VR in the hospitality industry. This research advances our understanding of and provides fresh guidance for effective VR integration by revealing novel insights into the key variables at various deployment phases.

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of 360-degree virtual reality (VR) videos compared to traditional preview modes in shaping customer perceptions and behavioral intentions toward the hospitality service provider. Specifically, the study investigates how self-construal moderates this relationship, offering novel and nuanced understanding of the customer decision-making process in the hospitality sector.

Design/methodology/approach

Three experiments were carried out. Study 1 examined the impact of preview modes on customers’ behavioral intentions. Study 2 examined the psychological mechanism of mental imagery and being hooked in the relationship between preview modes and behavioral intentions. Study 3 examined the moderating role of self-construal in the relationship between preview modes and behavioral intentions.

Findings

The study findings revealed that 360-degree VR videos are more effective than traditional preview modes in determining customers’ behavioral intentions. Mental imagery and being hooked explain this relationship. Furthermore, customers with highly independent self-construal evaluate 360-degree VR videos more favorably, while those with highly interdependent self-construal evaluate traditional preview modes more positively.

Practical implications

The research indicates that adopting VR applications can offer competitive advantage for hospitality service providers. The study findings provide hospitality providers with insights to tailor their marketing strategies by selecting preview modes that align with the psychological profiles of the customers.

Originality/value

The originality of the study lies in its pioneering efforts to explore how self-construal shapes customer responses to different preview modes. Furthermore, this study reveals the importance of psychological constructs in understanding the impact of VR applications on customer behaviors.

Purpose

The Metaverse is rapidly reshaping the understanding of tourism, yet the public perception of this new domain remains largely uncharted empirically. This paper aims to build on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and diffusion of innovations theory (DIT) to fill this gap, offering crucial insights that could inform scholars and practitioners in both the tourism and technology sectors.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a big-data approach, the authors applied machine learning to scrape comments made by social media users on recent popular posts or videos related to tourism in the Metaverse from three prominent social media platforms. The cleaning process narrowed down 15,461 comments to 2,650, which were then analysed using thematic, emotion and sentiment analysis techniques.

Findings

The thematic analysis revealed that virtual tourism evokes a complex range of public beliefs. While many express awe and excitement toward its immersive capabilities, others remain sceptical about authenticity compared to physical travel. Additional themes show people draw comparisons to real-world tourism, discuss technology’s role and note educational value and novelty. However, some comments raise concerns about potential societal harms, exploitation and mental health impacts. Sentiment analysis found over half of the comments positive, though some were negative. Emotion analysis showed contentment, happiness and excitement as most frequent, though sadness, worry and loneliness also featured. Overall, perceptions of Metaverse tourism encompass enthusiasm yet substantial ambivalence.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to comprehensively analyse public discussions on Metaverse tourism. It takes TAM and Rogers’s DIT a step further and provides fresh insights into how these theories can be employed in the emerging field of Metaverse tourism. The themes revealed new conceptual insights into multidimensional factors shaping public beliefs about Metaverse tourism and thus informing scholarly research on virtual interaction and technology acceptance regarding Metaverse tourism. In addition, the results can help tourism providers, platforms and marketers address salient public beliefs and sentiments/attitudes in developing marketing offerings, experiences and communications. Over time, this analysis methodology can be used to track the evolving public perceptions of Metaverse tourism.

Purpose

Grounded on the X Reality framework and human–machine collaboration, this study aims to explore the potential of immersive augmentation through artificial intelligence (AI) service robots for promoting social inclusion in the hospitality industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Three experimental studies across diverse hospitality contexts examine the effects of immersive augmentation using inclusive-AI service robots compared to standard-AI robots. The studies also uncover the underlying process of perceived ethicality and the moderating role of customers’ familiarity with AI.

Findings

The results indicate that immersive augmentation through inclusive-AI service robots generates higher levels of supportive tipping behavior (Studies 1 and 3), superior buying intentions (Study 2) and an increased likelihood for customers to pay a premium price (Study 2). These effects are mediated by perceived ethicality (Studies 1–3). However, the impact of immersive augmentation for social inclusion is contingent upon customers’ familiarity with AI: customers with high familiarity with AI exhibit lower levels of supportive tipping behavior (Study 3).

Research limitations/implications

The findings emphasize the importance of perceived ethicality and customers’ familiarity with AI in determining the effectiveness of immersive augmentation for social inclusion in hospitality.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the potential of immersive augmentation using AI service robots for social inclusion in hospitality. It offers novel insights by highlighting the importance of perceived ethicality and customers’ familiarity with AI. The findings provide valuable guidance for hospitality managers seeking to leverage AI technology to foster social inclusion.