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There has recently been much interest in analysing the creation of personalised tourism services and studying their effect on organisations. However, there still needs to be more work in analysing their effect on happiness and the role that emotions play in these processes. This paper aims to analyse, in the context of personalised and innovative tourism services, which factors can encourage and improve managers' happiness.

A model of analysis is presented with five variables: tourism managers' happiness (TMH), innovative personalised tourism services, internal factors: emotions (IFE), organisational factors (OF) and personal factors (PF). Eight hypotheses are proposed and tested with a structural equation model.

The results allow the authors to affirm that personalised technological advances applied to tourism services not only contribute to improving the happiness of hotel managers but also in generating emotions that contribute to improving their attitude towards the company.

This scientific work has some limitations. Firstly, this study was carried out exclusively in Spain due to the relevance of this country in the international tourism sector, according to the World Tourism Organisation. The results achieved in this research should be contrasted with other studies in other territories. Secondly, the interviews and surveys were carried out at specific time intervals. It has not led to problems of significant bias in the variance of the standard method. Therefore, it is desirable to undertake longitudinal or cross-sectional studies for future research. Thirdly, it is interesting to develop theoretical models that include other psycho-directive or leadership style constructs to determine whether they holistically enhance the subjective well-being of hospitality managers. Moreover, other types of factors of a social or strategic nature can be considered, which can positively or negatively impact the analysed variables. Finally, future research can deepen the empirical analysis of the relationship between managerial competencies and digital innovation from the perspective of happiness management. These findings would contribute to a greater cognitive understanding of the implications of personalised and innovative tourism services on hotel establishments' happiness and economic benefits.

This paper shows the fundamental role of a happy leadership style in creating responsible, green and innovative environments in today's digital society. Furthermore, the happiness of tourism managers can contribute to the generation of high quality and excellent services that are in line with the principles of sustainable development.

Personalised technological advances applied to tourism services not only contribute to improving the happiness of hotel managers but also to generating emotions that contribute to improving their attitude towards the company. On the other hand, it has been observed that personalised and innovative tourism services generate positive effects at organisational, internal and personal levels. The following reflections are advanced: The development of internal factors such as the emotions of awe and gratitude or the generation of trust can enhance the happiness of tourism managers. The happiness of tourism business managers can be enhanced by developing OF such as smart-personalised tourism services and data protection. The happiness of tourism managers can be enhanced by the development of PF such as travellers' desires, expectations and needs, or other factors such as disposable income, health status or family situation.

This is the first empirical study that focuses on investigating how personalised and innovative tourism services affect managing happiness.

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.

This paper aims to recall the attention on a key challenge for customer relationship management related to the role of human agents in the management of the “switch point” for ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency in a customer-machine conversation.

This study contributes to the discussion about the firms’ approach to artificial intelligence (AI) in frontline interactions under the conceptual umbrella provided by knowledge management studies.

This paper provides a theoretical model for clarifying the role of human intelligence (HI) in AI-based frontline interactions by highlighting the relevance of the actors’ subjectivity in the dynamics and perceptions of customer-machine conversations.

An AI-HI complementarity matrix is proposed in spite of the still dominant replacement view.

Customer experience has become a vital premise in service theory and practice. Despite researchers' and managers' growing interest, the customer experience remains a complex and multidimensional concept that is challenging for service providers to understand. This study aims to graph the experience in its multidimensionality by categorizing and proposing matching practices for service marketing managers to channel and foster customer experiences in customer journeys.

To support the predominantly conceptual nature of the study, an abductive approach underpinned by the authors' vast experience in academia and practice, real-life autohermeneutic phenomenological experience tales and theory on customer experience and its management by providers is deployed to craft a model that addresses and highlights the multidimensionality of experience.

This study introduces the “GraphEx” (Graph Experience) hip-pocket model, which expresses customer experience in a simple yet multidimensional fashion and offers managerial practices to foster the customer's experience. The model contains three dimensions (valence, type of experience and visceral intensity) and five managerial practices (urgent patchwork, restoring, activating and stimulating desire, bolstering and safeguarding appreciation).

This study contributes to the service literature by creating granularity in the multidimensionality of customer experience. This study advances customer experience management in practice by providing service managers with novel possibilities for understanding and managing customer experiences intelligently. This can help service providers streamline and innovate customer experience strategies during customer journeys and foster customer loyalty.

This study aims to explore public coping strategies with government-imposed lockdown restrictions (i.e. forced compliance) due to a health crisis (i.e. COVID-19). This directly impacts the public's power, as they may feel alienated from their environment and from others. Consequently, this study explores the relationships between the public's power, quality of life and crisis-coping strategies. This is important to help governments understand public discourse surrounding perceived government health crisis communication, which aids effective policy development.

An online questionnaire distributed via Qualtrics received 371 responses from the South African public and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate the public's experience of powerlessness and resulting information-sharing, negative word-of-mouth and support-seeking as crisis coping strategies in response to government-imposed lockdown restrictions.

The public's perspective on health crisis communication used in this study sheds light on adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies that the public employs due to the alienation they feel during a health crisis with government-forced compliance. The findings add to the sparse research on crisis communication from the public perspective in a developing country context and provide insights for governments in developing health crisis communication strategies. The results give insight into developing policies related to community engagement and citizen participation during a pandemic.

The study of shame has a long tradition in intra- and inter-personal psychology. This paper aims to investigate whether consumers can experience brand shame after self-relevant consumption incidents. Specifically, this research proposes that consumers follow a complex shame-inducing process in the aftermath of unpleasant experiences involving their favorite brand. The moderating role of relational tie strength between consumers and their favorite brand existing prior to symbolic failures is examined.

A scenario-based, online survey (n = 660) among consumers who have recently experienced a self-relevant failure with their favorite brand was conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis ensured the reliability and validity of the measurement model. For testing the conceptual model, data was analyzed by means of a moderated mediation analysis. The proposed model was tested against, among others, common method bias and alternative models. The findings were cross-validated with a scenario-based online experiment (n = 1,616).

Results show that brand shame is a key mediator between customer dissatisfaction and brand anger when self-relevant, symbolic failures happen. Moreover, strong consumer-brand identification triggers brand-detrimental effects. It is shown to influence the connection between consumers’ inward- (i.e. brand shame) and resulting outward-directed (i.e. brand anger) negative emotions on brands, which lead to consumer vengeance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to introduce the concept of situational brand shame to the literature on favorite brands. Furthermore, it shows that consumer-brand identification moderates the direct and indirect (via brand shame) unfavorable effects of failure-induced dissatisfaction on brand anger. This research adds insights to the investigation of the “love-becomes-hate” effect arising after self-relevant failures involving consumers’ most preferred brand.

This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.

The research model was tested via structural equation modeling based on the empirical data collected from hotel employees in Antalya, Turkey.

The research findings suggest that emotional deprivation and social companionship have a significant impact on life satisfaction, that life satisfaction has a significant impact on positive and negative emotions, and that positive and negative emotions have the same impact on pathways and agencies.

The research findings should assist researchers and practitioners to understand the behaviors of hotel employees in continuous interaction and relationship with individuals to motivate them while providing more effective services.

Service research offering a view of both the dark and bright sides of smart technology remains scarce. This paper embraces a critical perspective and examines the conflicting outcomes of smart services on the customer experience (CX), with a specific focus on chatbots.

This study uses empirical research methods to examine a single case study where an online retail service provider implemented a chatbot for customer service. Using discourse analysis, we analysed 7,167 conversations between customers and the chatbot over a two-year period.

The analysis identifies seven general themes related to the effects of the chatbot on CX: interaction quality, information gathering, procedure literacy, task achievement, digital trust, shopping stress and shopping journey. We illuminate both positive (i.e. having a pleasant interaction, providing information, knowing procedures, improving tasks, increasing trust, reducing stress and completing the journey) and negative outcomes (i.e. having an unpleasant interaction, increasing confusion, ignoring procedures, worsening tasks, reducing trust, increasing stress and abandoning the journey).

The paper develops a comprehensive framework to offer a clearer view of chatbots as smart services in customer care. It delves into the conflicting effects of chatbots on CX by examining them through relational, cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions.

This study aims to examine the impact of the gameful experience on behavioural outcomes. Drawing from stimulus–organism–response theory, it proposes and tests a new model that investigates the relationship between the gameful experience, brand loyalty and intention to use gamified branded applications in the sports context. In addition, it explores the mediating role of customer–brand engagement (CBE) and the moderating role of self-image congruity (SIC).

A sample of 436 active users of sport-related branded gamified applications was used to test the model. Data was collected from online sports forums, brands’ Facebook communities and during sporting events.

Results indicate that the gameful experience positively and directly impacts behavioural intentions but does not directly influence brand loyalty. This relationship becomes partially significant when mediated by CBE. In addition, results show that users with high levels of SIC are more likely to continue using the gamified application, whereas users with low levels are more likely to engage with the brand.

This study expands the gamification literature in the sports sector by revealing the importance of the gameful experience in driving loyalty, behavioural intentions and CBE. It proposes a new model that sheds light on the emotional aspect of the interaction between a user and a gamified system and the importance of exploring the effects of moderators, such as SIC, in these relationships.

The user experience during the use of activities and services is a fundamental aspect for sports managers and can provide a competitive advantage. The purpose of this study was to identify the dimensions of experiential quality and the relationship of this construct with customer trust and customer satisfaction in achieving behavioral intention.

Using a convenience sampling technique, a total of 322 gym users in Turkey participated. A two-step approach was used to test both the model and the research hypotheses [confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM)].

The interaction quality, physical environmental quality, outcome quality and enjoyment quality were positively related to experiential quality. Similarly, the experimental quality was positively related to customer satisfaction and customer trust. Finally, customer satisfaction was related to behavioral intentions.

This study provides empirical evidence about the importance of experiential quality to gain a competitive advantage in the context of fitness centers.