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The hospitality industry in developed countries is under pressure due to labor shortages and it is likely more food and beverage operations will have to be automated in the future. This research investigates the public’s perceptions of the use of robots in food and beverage operations to learn about how the public perceives automation in food and beverage.

Data were collected from a survey disseminated online in 12 languages, resulting in a sample of 1,579 respondents. The data were analyzed using factor analysis and OLS regressions.

The data also reveal that generally positive attitudes toward the use of robots in tourism and hospitality is a strong indicator of positive attitudes toward the use of robots in an F&B setting. The data also illustrate that the public’s perception of appropriateness of the use of robots in F&B operations is positively related to robots’ perceived reliability, functionality and advantages compared to human employees.

The implications illustrate that the public seems to be generally accepting robots in food and beverage operations, even considering the public’s understanding and acceptance of the limitations of such technologies.

The research suggests that a critical element in terms of incorporating automation into future food and beverage operations is encouraging consumers to have generally positive attitudes toward the use of robots in hospitality and tourism industries.

This survey is based upon the data gathered in multiple countries to learn about how individuals perceive the use of robots in food and beverage operations, illustrating the attitudes that will assist or hinder the automation of this service industry.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the students’ perceptions of an on-campus foodservice operation at an identified historically black college and university (HBCU) and its effect on their satisfaction and dining frequency.

A survey of 685 students was conducted to collect data. Partial least squares based structural equation modeling is used to test the proposed structural model with SmartPLS 3.0.

Results confirm that quality of food, ambience, value for money, food and beverage options and service quality have a positively significant impact on students’ overall satisfaction with the on-campus foodservice operation and dining frequency. As such, all the hypotheses are supported.

These findings indicate that on-campus foodservice operators should focus on quality of food, ambience, value for money, food and beverage options and service quality to achieve student satisfaction. This in turn could positively impact the institution’s reputation, student retention and the marketability of the institution to future students.

This study would help on-campus foodservice operators to better understand the impact of the various elements of foodservice experience which will lead to students’ overall satisfaction and dining frequency, particularly in a HBCU setting.

The purpose of this study was to investigate restaurant clientele tipping behavior and its inspiration on foodservice empathy within two- and three-star hotels in Kisumu County, Kenya. This was with the objective of analyzing the tipping effect on restaurant food service quality with an emphasis on Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Barry's empathy as a key dimension of quality in accordance to the SERVQUAL model.

For the purpose of this study, food service empathy was investigated in relation to the influence of tipping on restaurant food service quality. Further, a census of all the two and three star-rated hotels within Kisumu County was carried out. The study applied descriptive research design in the investigation on the tipping behavior and its inspiration on foodservice empathy. Moreover, simple random sampling was employed in the selection of clients since it yielded a sample that is representative of the population. Additionally, the study employed the use of questionnaires for collection of data, which were coded, analyzed and presented in frequencies, tables and graphs.

The study findings reveal that there is a significant relationship between rewards upon perception of service and food service empathy but failed to find a significant relation between incentives for improved future service as well as the social norms and foodservice empathy. However, in general, the study established a significant relationship between tipping and foodservice empathy in the sampled hotels in Kenya. Thus, in summary, at 95% confidence level, the study concluded that there is a significant relationship between tipping and foodservice empathy.

This study was restricted on two and three-star hotels within Kisumu County in Kenya with a sample size of 384 respondents, which would otherwise limit the degree to which the findings were applied. Consequently, the study sought to collect data from restaurant clients although the access and, therefore, direct interaction were denied by some of the hotels. Further, this study employed a survey approach in the collection of data from restaurant clients in two and three-star hotels. Accordingly, there was minimal local and regional research literature available on the study topic.

Tipping in the context of the broad global service industry, including hospitality's restaurant food service, is as old as Roman times. However, tipping is practiced differently across the world with some countries practicing while other countries not practicing the act of tipping. For that reason, tipping is not regulated in some of the countries including Kenya and therefore the lack of policy. Nonetheless, tipping is perceived to be the genesis of food service failures as a result of discriminatory restaurant food service in addition to increasing costs of eating out. This study therefore sought to investigate restaurant tipping behavior and its inspiration on foodservice empathy. The study results might be applied in policy formulation in order to curb the negative effect of tipping on food service empathy.

Minimal studies have been instituted and published in the area of tipping and service quality relationship with an emphasis on each of Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry's dimensions of quality. This research survey, therefore, sought to collect data from restaurant clients in two and three-star hotels within Kisumu County in Kenya and therefore investigated restaurant clientele tipping behavior and its inspiration on food service empathy.

The main purpose of this study is to make a comparative evaluation of the impacts of previous outbreaks and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the tourism industry. COVID-19 appears to have disrupted all memorizations about epidemics ever seen. Nobody has anticipated that the outbreak in late December will spread rapidly across the world, be fatal and turn the world economy upside down. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, Ebola, Middle East respiratory syndrome and others caused limited losses in a limited geography, thus similar behaviors were expected at first in COVID-19. But it was not so. Today, people continue to lose their lives and experience economic difficulties. One of the most important distressed industries is undoubtedly tourism.

This study is a literature review. In this review, a comparative evaluation between the impact of previous outbreaks and COVID-19 on the tourism industry has been made based on statistics and previous research studies.

The information and figures obtained show that COVID-19 and previous outbreaks have such significant differences that cannot be compared. COVID-19 has been one of the worst to live in terms of spreading speed, the geography where it spreads, loss of lives and negative effects in the whole area.

It is noteworthy that COVID-19 is very severe in terms of death cases and also its impacts on the economy compared to other pandemics. It remains to be argued that COVID-19 can also be a reference in terms of possible new outbreaks in the future, and is an effective actor in determining future strategies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the robotic restaurant experience of travellers around the world and understand the components of robotic restaurant experience.

Travellers who had experienced a robotic restaurant were purposefully selected as a sample group for the study. As the robotic restaurants are limited around the world, multiple case study method has been chosen to gather richer data. A user-generated content technique which is a form of qualitative case study method has been benefited to gather data from travellers’ reviews.

The results reveal a model of components of robotic restaurant experience that include six main themes: attraction for kids, robotic system, memorable experience, ambience related attributes, food related attributes (economic value and gastronomic aspects) and deficiencies (in robotic system, in ambience related attributes and in food related attributes).

This paper is one of the first to investigate the robotic restaurant experience of travellers around the world. Moreover, it contributes to the research on restaurant experience and offers a model of components of the robotic restaurant experience.

The research and practice agree that social media are reshaping strategy and organization rules across industries. Nevertheless, how social media can become a source of competitive advantage remains under-investigated and there is no evidence about which capabilities and competencies can effectively and strategically exploit social media. By merging the literature on social media management and hospitality, the authors develop and test a theoretical framework that identifies the most relevant capabilities and competencies for using social media in the food service sector. The paper aims to map them and understand which ones are relevant according to different strategic choices of social media use.

The authors adopted a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews to managers or owners of 14 restaurants in a big city in Northern Italy.

The theoretical framework suggests that social media could be strategically used for different aims by relying on specific capabilities and competencies. The authors tested it and found that, though nowadays restaurant managers mainly focus on a narrow set of social media competencies linked to relational and marketing capabilities, some also rely on social media to promote organizational change and innovation.

The authors propose a theoretical framework and preliminary evidence on capabilities and competencies declined for the food service sector. The model considers different uses of social media and related capabilities and competencies by mapping them accordingly to their strategic use. The authors preliminarily validate our framework and highlight the competencies possessed by the restaurant managers of our sample and their alignment with the strategic use of social media.

Food and beverage (F&B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must diversify their markets and obtain predictable sources of revenues to withstand difficult and volatile periods such as the post-pandemic geopolitical scenario, recently burdened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the other hand, another strand of the literature suggests that public procurement could be considered a great source of income, enabling solid contracts, revenues and cash-flow stability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the role of public procurement, the adoption of e-commerce platforms and their interactions in affecting the exporting performances of SMEs operating in the F&B sector.

The study retrieves data from 2,186 Italian F&B manufacturing SMEs relying on Margò by Cribis database. Therefore, it conducts a structured equational model (SEM) to test the developed hypotheses empirically.

The findings reveal that digital selling platforms positively affect exports, whereas public procurement negatively affects F&B SMEs exports. Nonetheless, findings underline that the interaction between public procurement and the adoption of digital selling platforms dampens public procurement's negative effects on exports.

This study brings an original contribution to the F&B literature by conducting empirical research on an extensive sample of firms from one of the most influential countries in the F&B vertical, Italy, with officially registered data. More importantly, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study pioneers the investigation of the relationship between public procurement and e-commerce platforms in affecting F&B SMEs' export performances.

This study aims to shed light on the phenomenon of food waste generation by the food and beverage sector of hotels of Mauritius as well as examine the current status of food waste management.

The purpose of this study is to establish whether dynamic capabilities mediates the association between social capital and sustainable growth of full-service restaurants in Kampala, Uganda.

This study is cross-sectional and correlational in nature. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from 154 full-service restaurants in Kampala. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS.25) and Medgraph – Excel Version were used to conduct correlation, hierarchical regression and mediation analysis on the data in order to establish the mediating role of dynamic capabilities.

Study findings revealed that first, social capital and dynamic capabilities significantly predict sustainable growth of full-service restaurants, second, social capital is significantly associated with dynamic capabilities and third, dynamic capabilities significantly mediate social capital and sustainable growth of full-service restaurants.

The study confirmed that dynamic capabilities significantly mediate social capital and sustainable growth of full-service restaurants unlike the previous studies that focused on the direct association between the study variables in explicating sustainable growth.

Service managers increasingly strive to achieve sustainability through strategies centered on circularity. With a focus on saving, extending and (re)generating resources and their enclosing service systems, circularity can contribute to environmental, social and financial gains. Yet, the notion of circularity is surprisingly understudied in service research. This article seeks to provide an initial conceptual understanding of circular service management, introducing illustrative strategies and research priorities for circular service management. This paper provides a roadmap for scholars, practitioners and policymakers to develop a deeper understanding of the opportunities from adopting circular services.

The authors explore the concept of circular service management by drawing upon existing literature on sustainability, circularity and service research. Strategies of circular service management and research priorities emerge on the basis of industry best practice examples and research on sustainability challenges and opportunities.

Service researchers have largely ignored the concept and role of circularity for service businesses. Extant research on the topic nearly exclusively features in non-service journals and/or does not seek to advance service theory through circularity. This article argues that circular service management enables the implementation of service thinking in the pursuit of sustainability and outlines four types of circular service management strategies.

The authors introduce the concept of circular service management and highlight the role of service research for designing and managing circular systems and operations. This article also offers a research agenda connecting managerial challenges and opportunities with key service research priorities for circular service management. This provides a roadmap for scholars, practitioners and policymakers to develop a deeper understanding of pursuing circular services, thereby contributing to a more sustainable future.