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Hospitality firms aim to increase their profits by implementing a variety of marketing activities, including using decoy pricing to provide alternative choices for consumers. Decoys are relatively higher-priced offerings that signal lower value than the other offerings in the consideration set. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of decoy pricing on consumer choices across various contexts in the foodservice and hotel industries.

Across the pilot and four main studies, the current research employs a sequential exploratory mixed-method design to investigate the influence of decoy pricing in the foodservice and lodging industries. The qualitative part of this research was based on two focus groups, followed by a pilot study and four main study experiments.

The results show that decoy pricing escalates consumers’ choices of more expensive product bundles in both restaurant and hotel cancellation policy contexts. However, decoy pricing does not increase the selection of more expensive hotel product bundles.

While decoy pricing has been utilized as an effective revenue maximization strategy for product placement in retail stores, less is known about how promotional advertisements with decoy offers influence hotel and restaurant customers to choose more costly options. Specifically, this is the first study that explores whether decoy pricing and product/service bundling can encourage customers to select more expensive offers in hotel and restaurant contexts, considering the types of hospitality bundles that may limit this effect.

This study aims to explore the attraction, influence and persuasive effect of advertising (with or without metaphor) across different types of hotels (luxury vs. budget hotels).

Two independent variables – namely, the hotel category (luxury versus budget) and the use of rhetorical figures (text with metaphors versus text without metaphors) – serve as the basis for the investigation. The research design is a 2 × 2 within-subjects construct based on eye-tracking methodology complemented by questionnaire-based data collection. Participants were engaged with hotel advertisements under four specific conditions, each reflecting a distinct combination of the two independent variables.

The findings reveal the augmented attention-grabbing prowess of advertisements that use metaphors compared to those that do not. Furthermore, the study findings reveal that the hotel category significantly influences the efficacy of advertising; advertisements promoting luxury hotels were found to stimulate superior impression recall, garner higher customer affinity and prompt a more potent intention to patronize the hotel. Finally, the study shows that neither congruent nor incongruent pairings of visual (budget or luxury hotel) and verbal elements (with or without metaphor) yield additional advertising benefits.

This research addresses the limited empirical guidance available for hotel operators at various levels regarding the design of advertisements incorporating rhetorical devices. It highlights the potential benefits of using figurative rhetoric, especially metaphors, in advertising for both budget and luxury hotels. The study reveals a notable correlation between hotel category, particularly luxury offerings, and customer attention, retention, preference and intention to visit. Furthermore, it encourages hotel operators, regardless of their hotel’s ranking, to incorporate metaphorical language into their advertising designs, underscoring the need for strategic integration in overall advertisement planning.

Using high-resolution online eye-tracking technology, this study innovatively examines the influence of hotel category and rhetorical devices on the effectiveness and attention-grabbing potential of advertisements. Through this approach, the study seeks to offer valuable managerial and advertising insights for those involved in hotel marketing.

This study aims to identify the causes of the academia-industry divide in hospitality marketing research in the form of the “Research Devaluation Map” and offers ideas for discussion points and suggestions for change.

The conceptualization of the Research Devaluation Map was developed at an invitational thought-leadership conference. The authors were asked to produce a forward looking, critical reflection of hospitality marketing scholarship. The authors generated a preliminary idea and developed a methodology for its implementation. They then proposed a framework that explicated the divide between hospitality marketing research and industry practice and a list of discussion points regarding possible solutions.

The issues currently challenging the hospitality research field are found to include the choice of research topics (the “what”), the methods used in research (the “how”) and the systemic factors that shape the academic culture (the “systemic”). These three factors lead to a mutual devaluation of the academic–industry relationship in hospitality marketing, causing a schism between research and industry practice.

The Research Devaluation Map serves as a springboard for future research studies, providing a framework for naming and operationalizing the antecedents and results of the divide between hospitality marketing research and practice.

This paper takes a holistic look at the gaps in current hospitality marketing research and puts forth a framework to explain the roots of these issues. While certain of these issues are known to both researchers and practitioners, the originality of this paper lies in the creation of the Research Devaluation Map that identifies the causes and results of the disconnect between research and practice.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of service recovery experiences on customer engagement in negative word-of-mouth (WOM) in the hotel industry and explore the psychological motives and mediating mechanisms driving consumer behavior.

A scenario-based experimental design on Qualtrics was used, with a pre-test (N = 200). The main study data were collected using Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform.

Findings reveal that negative service experiences lead to higher engagement in negative WOM compared to positive and satisfactory recovery service experiences. Even well-executed recovery efforts may not completely eliminate negative WOM. The mediating role of emotional responses is substantiated, as heightened negative service experiences result in more intense negative emotional responses, leading to increased engagement in negative WOM.

The study emphasizes the importance of service recovery strategies and the need for businesses to consistently strive for exceptional service quality. It also highlights the complexity of customer reactions to service experiences, suggesting that further research is needed to explore the factors that minimize negative WOM across various service contexts.

The study aims to investigate the consumers' behavioral intention toward green hotels. The tendency of individuals to afford green hotels is further escalating with progressing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic recurring waves. The increased worry of consumers toward health, hygiene and the climate is acquiring momentum and transforming how consumers traditionally perceive green hotels.

The study has recommended an integrated framework incorporating various research fields as attitude-behavior-context theory, theory of planned behavior (TPB) and moderating influences to study the associations among the antecedents of consumers' behavioral intention toward green hotels. The study comprised the participation of 536 respondents residing in the Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) of India. The data analysis strategy involved the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to test the proposed research framework.

The results and findings of the study indicated a significant influence of fear and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and environmental concern on green trust. The results also revealed the considerable impact of green trust on willingness to pay premium, attitude and subjective norms, which significantly influenced behavioral intention. The analysis also revealed the moderating influence of environmental concern in the relationship of green trust and behavioral intention.

The study has recommended significant theoretical. The theorists may use this research framework to analyze better the transforming consumer behavior trends toward green hotels in the ongoing fearful and uncertain COVID-19 pandemic scenario.

The study has recommended significant managerial implications. The industry practitioners may also utilize the framework to sustain the hotel business and bring new strategic insights into practice to combat the impact of the pandemic and simultaneously win consumers' trust in green hotels.

Although the researchers have previously emphasized consumers' intention toward green practices embraced by hotels, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the green hotel industry gained noticeable attention from researchers. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of literature providing insights on the behavioral dynamism of hotel customers' trust, attitude and willingness to pay for green hotels during the repetitive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will support the existing literature gap by enlightening the associations among the various antecedents of green hotels' behavioral intention, COVID-19 and environmental concern.