International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management最新文献

Purpose

This paper aims to critically analyse the circular economy (CE) models adopted in hospitality and tourism to tackle societal challenges in the current Anthropocene era, exploring the driving values and sustainability approaches.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic literature review was carried out with an increasing level of analysis to delve more in-depth into the ability of the CE models to respond to current societal challenges. The review involved a stepwise analysis, starting with a thematic analysis of 151 papers to create a conceptual structure map of circular hospitality and tourism literature. Based on originality and representativeness, 22 papers were selected and analysed according to Hoffman and Jennings’ (2018; 2021) institutional approach to sustainability, which entails specific archetypes to address the Anthropocene society: market rules, technology fix and cultural re-enlightening.

Findings

The hospitality and tourism industry has made progress towards implementing CE models. However, CE models in market role and technology fix archetypes may fail to address the current challenges of the Anthropocene era. New culture-led approaches within the cultural re-enlightening archetype, such as the regenerative land practices, a-growth and place-making, and circular society, can foster a more radical shift towards strong sustainability.

Research limitations/implications

The paper highlights the urgent need for a cultural shift towards radical and strong sustainability, identifying future research directions. Policymakers have a crucial role in shaping sustainability practices consistent with an ecological culture centred on acknowledging planetary boundaries.

Originality/value

Despite the increasing interest in CE models, it is still debated how the hospitality and tourism industry can continue to thrive while avoiding harmful impacts on the environment and local communities. The study critically reflects on the current contribution of CE models towards strong sustainability in hospitality and tourism.

Purpose

Although existing literature emphasizes the significance of diversity and inclusion in management roles for employees, there is a notable absence of a standardized scale to assess employees’ perceptions of an inclusive climate, particularly in relation to practices that encourage acceptance of demographically diverse leaders. This study aims to bridge this gap by developing the perceived inclusion climate for leader diversity (PICLD) scale.

Design/methodology/approach

The scale development process was carried out in five phases which included: qualitative component (interviews); test for face validity; check for content validity; construct and criterion-related validity; and nomological network testing.

Findings

Following the first three phases of scale development, 12 measurement items were produced. Phase four results indicate that PICLD is distinct from both the intercultural group climate scale and diversity-oriented leadership scale, in which all three scales were found to be positively correlated with job satisfaction. Phase five results show that PICLD positively correlates with organizational justice. Organizational justice also mediates the relationship between PICLD and three employee outcomes (performance, engagement and turnover intention).

Practical implications

Organizations are encouraged to be open to suggestions made by managers from historically marginalized groups that motivate diverse leaders to voice their concerns to foster inclusionary climate perceptions among employees. Welcoming diverse managerial perspectives can dismantle systemic barriers, enabling marginalized leaders to thrive while fostering employees’ perceptions of an inclusionary workplace.

Originality/value

This study introduces the PICLD Scale to enhance comprehension of how policies supporting leader demographic diversity impact employee perceptions of inclusive climate. This research also contributes to the advancement of social exchange theory and literature on organizational justice, performance and engagement.

Purpose

Although virtual worlds, such as the Metaverse, can disrupt the hospitality sector, few empirical investigations have critically evaluated the scope and scale of this disruption from an industry perspective. This study aims to rectify this knowledge gap by exploring the opportunities and challenges of the Metaverse as seen by hospitality professionals.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a Delphi study conducted with UK-based senior hospitality industry practitioners experienced in designing and implementing digital innovations within their organisations.

Findings

The Metaverse is most likely to be adopted by hospitality organisations willing and able to take risks, such as large and/or chain-affiliated enterprises. The Metaverse will not replace traditional hospitality services but supplement and enhance them with new layers of service. The main applications are in the context of events and experiences. The Metaverse will also provide the “try before you buy” option, revealing the opportunities to design digital twins of physical businesses. Young and technology-savvy individuals are most likely to first adopt the Metaverse. The key challenges of the adoption are attributed to the technological unpreparedness of hospitality organisations; market immaturity; inflated customer expectations; a skills gap among hospitality employees; and regulatory issues. These challenges require the engagement of various stakeholders to create an operational and monitoring framework for hospitality organisations to embrace the Metaverse.

Practical implications

This study highlights how the Metaverse can disrupt the hospitality industry at the level of strategic planning and business operations.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first empirical investigations of the potential of the Metaverse from the viewpoint of hospitality industry practitioners.

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the congruency effects of physically embodied robots in service encounters, which addressed a significant research gap concerning the synthesis of robot design elements (e.g., appearance and voice) and their service purposes.

Design/methodology/approach

Grounded in congruity theory and human-robot interaction literature, this study conducted a pretest and two experimental studies revealing the need to view robot design holistically and recognizing the pivotal role of congruity in shaping consumers’ service robot adoption. The moderating role of service purposes (utilitarian vs hedonic) was also investigated in terms of robot design and consumer reactions.

Findings

Consumers generally tend to favor robots with congruent designs, particularly for utilitarian service purposes. The serial mediation through perceived congruence and perceived intelligence explains such a favorite tendency.

Practical implications

This study advances service robot design research by highlighting the critical role of congruity in enhancing consumer engagement. It supports the use of comprehensive, congruent designs for services with utilitarian purposes and recommends adaptable designs for hedonic settings.

Originality/value

This study addressed the research gap by examining service robot design from a holistic perspective. The research findings highlight the importance of congruency effects in service robot design and deployment and provide valuable insights and guidelines to industry practitioners for optimal investment in service robots.

Purpose

This research paper aims to explore the concerns and determinants of travelers’ behavior toward ChatGPT in the hospitality and tourism context. It also examines the weight of risk factors versus that of motivation and innovation characteristics influencing travelers’ approach behaviors toward ChatGPT.

Design/methodology/approach

A cumulative prospect theory was used to determine travelers’ responses to ChatGPT. This study, using a fuzzy-set qualitative approach, explored risk, motivation and innovation factors as determinants of approach behaviors for ChatGPT.

Findings

Findings revealed that risk, motivation and innovation factors were the key triggers of approach behaviors for ChatGPT. An intricate combination effect of the perceived risk, motivation and innovation characteristics was found, and the necessary predictors were determined.

Practical implications

The findings of this study will expand our current knowledge and offer practical insights for the development of ChatGPT in the hospitality and tourism sector.

Originality/value

This study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by providing a nuanced understanding of the intricate interplay between the various factors that shape customer behavior in the context of technology adoption in hospitality and tourism studies.

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the relationships between motives, skepticism and brands evaluations in the LGBT-friendly branding hotels context.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey is created and 278 LGBT participants are recruited through a consumer panels firm. The research model is tested through structural equation modeling.

Findings

Values-, stakeholder- and strategic-driven motives are negatively related to skepticism, while egoistic-driven motive is positively related to skepticism. Also, sexual orientation openness moderates the relationship between stakeholder-driven motives and skepticism. Finally, skepticism is negatively related to brands evaluations.

Research limitations/implications

The research findings are limited to the LGBT-friendly hotels. However, this research contributes to the CSR and LGBT consumer research by examining the relationships between the four motives and skepticism considering LGBT customers’ sexual orientation openness level.

Practical implications

Hotels should devote greater efforts to communicating that their LGBT-friendly branding efforts are genuine by acknowledging both the social benefits and the business interests.

Social implications

As more and more hotels promote themselves as LGBT-friendly brands, a key challenge is reducing skepticism by appropriately conveying their motives. This research sheds light on this critical issue.

Originality/value

Although existent research on LGBT-friendliness has established its importance; there is a lack of understanding as to how customers perceive LGBT-friendly branding hotels. This research examines the four motives of hotels presenting themselves as being LGBT-friendly and their relationships to skepticism.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore robot-phobia as a source of occupational stress among hospitality employees in the context of increasing robotization in the industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The study sampled 321 lodging employees and 308 food service employees in the USA. An online panel company recruited the participants and administered an online survey. The study used various analytical methods, including structural modeling, t-tests and multi-group analyses.

Findings

The study results reveal that hospitality workers experience robot-phobia regardless of their sector or position. Robot-phobia causes job insecurity and stress, which increases turnover intention. These negative outcomes are more pronounced for those who interact more frequently with robots.

Practical implications

The study findings suggest that hospitality workers fear being replaced by robots in the near future. Therefore, hospitality organizations should offer adequate training and education on the advantages and drawbacks of robots and establish a supportive and collaborative work environment that values human–robot interaction.

Originality/value

This study offers new insights regarding human–robot interaction from the employee perspective by introducing the concept of robot-phobia in the hospitality workplace. A comprehensive picture of how hospitality employees confront the increasing presence of robots is provided in this study.

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the management of experiences in hospitality and tourism (H&T). The paper investigates the evolution of experience research, while discussing the emerging challenges and opportunities for management.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a critical and reflective approach for providing future directions of experience research. Three major fields are identified to discuss advances, challenges and opportunities in experience research: conceptualization and dimensions of experiences; relational network for experience management; and theoretical and methodological approaches.

Findings

The paper proposes a mindset shift to guide experience research, but also to redirect and research thinking and managerial practices about the role of experiences in the economy and society. This proposed humanized perspective to experience research and management is deemed important given the contemporary socio-economic, environmental and technological challenges of the environment.

Research limitations/implications

This paper identifies a set of theoretical and managerial implications to help scholars and professionals alike to implement the humanized perspective to experience research. Implications relate to conceptualization, relational network and theoretical and methodological approaches in experience research.

Originality/value

This study critically assesses research challenges and opportunities around customer experience management (CEM) in H&T contexts. This reflective and critical look at customer experiences not only informs future research for advancing knowledge and practice but also proposes a mindset shift about the role and nature of CEM in the society and economy.

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the importance and performance of customer-facing technologies in luxury hotels. The study also assessed differences between and within the four generations in the importance-performance analysis (IPA).

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected using a Qualtrics panel of recent luxury hotel customers in the USA belonging to all four generations. The cross-generational IPA was conducted using t-tests and (ANAOVA).

Findings

The IPA matrix concentrated most technology items in either low importance – low performance or high importance – high performance quadrants. One-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between generations on the importance ratings of all technology items except wireless charging power solutions and on the performance ratings of all technology items. Furthermore, post hoc tests indicated that millennials rated luxury technology most favorably among the four cohorts, followed by generations Z, X and Baby Boomers. In addition, significant differences between the importance and performance of many technology items within each generational cohort were observed. Overall, Wi-Fi was unanimously ranked across generations as the most important technology among luxury guests, but it was the only one that scored lower in performance than importance.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study contribute to hospitality scholarship in two primary ways: the importance and performance of technology and generational differences. The results advance the understanding of the impact of generational factors on customer-facing technological adoptions in the luxury hotel sector.

Practical implications

Technologies that are pervasive in the home also become vital offerings for hotels. The more pervasive technology, the more a luxury hotel must work to ensure that it performs at optimal levels. Additionally, which technologies are most important to targeted generations are provided so practitioners may budget for their implementation.

Originality/value

This research is a pivotal step forward in unraveling the intricate interplay between generational factors and technological evaluations, providing a foundation for future research and practical applications in a rapidly evolving technological landscape in the hospitality industry.