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This paper aims to investigate the effect of hotel aesthetics as represented in online spaces (e.g. online travel agency website) in prospective guests’ evaluation of expected service quality and booking intentions, as well as the interplay between aesthetic and functional values as related to those outcomes.

A scenario-based experimental design is conducted with 203 Chinese respondents. A between-subject two-way multivariate analysis of covariance (high vs low aesthetic value; high vs low functional value), which also controlled for respondents’ individual tendency to appreciate beauty, is used.

Results show that high aesthetic value hotels are more likely to be booked and perceived as able to deliver better services in SERVQUAL dimensions of tangibles, reliability and assurance. There are no significant effects for responsiveness and empathy. Given the presence of the aesthetic effect, hotel functional value has no impact on the outcome variables.

Hotel managers are recommended to employ professional photographer-artists who are aware of the aesthetic value of hotels and can translate this value into information technology-mediated spaces. Such professionals should be able to create a composition that balances the elements of classic (e.g. symmetry vs asymmetry) and expressive (e.g. color) aesthetics.

This research brings out a number of insights from the product experience literature in the hospitality context and points to the limitations of the product visual attractiveness in engendering positive service quality evaluation.

Among the many studies relating to servicescapes, the emphasis has mainly been on the effect of specific environmental attributes on customer perceptions, emotions and behaviors. Many servicescape studies have not included visual servicescape aesthetics and the overall significance that visual aesthetics hold for a particular consumer in his or her relationship with the servicescape. Yet, servicescape appearance represents the central channel for the formation of consumer–product (e.g. servicescape) relationships. Limited studies have examined consumers’ visual servicescape aesthetics comprehension and appreciation (VSACA) or consumers’ relationship with a specific servicescape and how consumers evaluate a servicescape from a visual aesthetics perspective. This study aims to operationalize and measure VSACA and to examine the validity of a proposed comprehensive model that encompasses the direct effects of VSACA on perceived perceptual experience quality (PPEQ), pleasure and arousal; PPEQ, pleasure and arousal on satisfaction; satisfaction on willingness to pay more; and the mediation effects of PPEQ, pleasure and arousal on the relationship between VSACA and satisfaction.

This is an experimental design study with two treatments. Fictitious boutique hotel lobby and classic hotel lobby video clips were created with the appropriate manipulation of visual aesthetics attributes. A random sample of 600 individuals over the age of 18 was drawn from a nationwide (USA) list purchased from a third-party commercial list service. After preliminary analysis, about 12 per cent were eliminated because of unusable responses or missing data. The data from 550 participants were used in the final analyses – 218 males and 332 females. Participants were asked to view a video clip of a hotel lobby online. After viewing the video clip, subjects completed an online survey instrument. The hypothesized model was then tested using structural equation modeling.

Results of this study suggest that individuals’ VSACA directly influences their PPEQ, pleasure and arousal. PPEQ and pleasure also directly influence satisfaction and indirectly mediate the relationship between VSACA and satisfaction. Finally, satisfaction directly affects willingness to pay more. Additional new findings are also discussed in the paper.

This study is limited by focusing primarily on the individuals’ VSACA of a hotel lobby; non-visual components were not considered as part of the VSACA construct. Results should, therefore, be generalized to other similar settings with caution. Future research can integrate both visual and non-visual servicescape aesthetics comprehension and develop a new scale to measure them. Future research can also build on the support of the current proposed theoretical model by testing it in different service contexts and across different groups of participants.

This research provides evidence to hotel service providers that VSACA plays an important role in influencing consumers’ emotions, satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The results imply that understanding customers’ simultaneous cognitive-emotional processing of servicescape aesthetics is crucial. Hotel developers and managers can engage potential customers in the designing and planning of a servicescape by conducting focus group research prior to the actual implementation of the servicescape attributes and construction.

This study represents the first research to extend and investigate the concept of visual aesthetics comprehension in the context of the hotel lobby servicescape beyond just product goods. This study contributes to the services marketing literature by confirming the importance and powerful direct effects of VSACA on individuals’ PPEQ, pleasure, arousal and willingness to pay more. Moreover, PPEQ and pleasure mediate the relationship between VSACA and overall satisfaction.

Within the abundant and not always unanimous body or research on conceptual and methodological approaches to consumer value in services, there are two areas of relative consensus: the multidimensional nature of value (intra-variable approach) and the existence of causal relations with other constructs (inter-variable approach). This work aims to contribute additional knowledge in both areas, with a joint approach in a structural model tested for hospitality services.

The study proposes four scales of intrinsic values (entertainment, aesthetics, ethics and spirituality as relaxation), based on Holbrook’s (1999) value typology, and a casual model to be used to measure the relationships between these four values and overall perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty. The model is tested with PLS on a sample of 585 hotel guests on the island of Sardinia (Italy).

The psychometric properties of all four value scales, created ad hoc, are tested and approved. Results on the causal model show contrasted links on the intra-variable approach, entertainment, aesthetics and spirituality (measured as relaxation), are positive antecedents of perceived value, while the path ethics-overall value is not confirmed. The value–satisfaction–loyalty chain is fully confirmed, with strong linkages.

The authors acknowledge the use of a convenience sample, of mainly leisure tourists.

The implications for managers are derived on the need of considering extra drivers (intrinsic and therefore fully experiential) of satisfaction and loyalty.

Research on value has been qualified as not univocal and controversial. This study adds knowledge on the use of four less common value types (intrinsic ones) and sheds light on their nature as antecedents of the well-known value–satisfaction–loyalty chain.

The paper seeks to clarify the aesthetic and operational characteristics of UK boutique hotels so as to obtain a clearer definition of boutique hotels.

Since an official list of boutique hotels is not available, the study looked at 15 consortia recognised as operating bona fide boutique hotels by a few authoritative sources (e.g. Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the RAC). Web sites of each boutique hotel were scrutinised by content analysing vital operational characteristics and aesthetic features that were presented. A comparative analysis was then carried out with the findings and interviews obtained from four boutique hotel managers to establish the common characteristics of boutique hotels.

The paper describes the aesthetics and operational characteristics of UK boutique hotels, indicating what can be found in a boutique hotel. One of the many important findings of this study suggests that the majority of boutique hotels are not privately owned, contradicting previous studies.

The list of characteristics is not exhaustive, although the interest in UK boutique hotels is rather recent. The research method used in this study has not been used before, and it is therefore recommended that research on consumer perceptions of boutique hotels should help to augment and balance the findings of this study.

A meaningful and functional definition of boutique hotels will enable trade bodies and relevant associations to revise their grading systems, better serving the hotel industry, as well as business and leisure travellers.

This paper aims to give credibility to the sector so that not any hotel can claim to be boutique, as specific characteristics have to be fulfilled.

The purpose of this paper is to figure out the impacts of soft innovation in the city hotels in general, whereas the focus is on figuring out if there exists a difference in vitality on the components of soft innovation among the hotel categories, as 4 stars, 5 stars and boutique hotels in Izmir, Turkey.

The first part is related to a detailed literature review on the soft innovation components as color, sound, light, scent and decoration. Literature review is followed by a qualitative research where expert information on the research topic is collected. Judgmental sampling is used to identify experts’ views where in-depth semi-structured interviews are conducted with 12 hotel managers in Izmir city. The soft innovation hotel application areas taken into consideration are: lobby and reception, rooms, restaurant, bar and ballroom areas, meeting and congress halls, SPA and pools, gardens and landscape and other exterior hotel architecture.

The findings of the research reveal the sample hotel managers’ views as all the soft innovation applications are important for all city hotels regardless of their category, meaning that soft innovation may lead to better marketing results. Thus, according to hotel managers, soft innovation offerings have a potential for better customer satisfaction as positive feedback. However, the vitality degree among components changes according to the hotel’s category. For boutique hotels the most important component is found to be the decoration of the hotel, whereas for 4 stars hotels it is light and for 5 stars hotels it is scent.

The results of this study give relatively limited information because only managers’ point of view are shown. In the research, customers’ perceptions on soft innovation based interviews with the top management of the hotels studied takes place, indicating which may not be the case to reflect the real perception of customers. Therefore, for further researches, it is recommended for the other researches to take into consideration of customers’ point of views as well. Also, time limitation, sample size and application of only qualitative research may be stated as the limitations for this study. Quantitative research applies to customers on the same topic and problem statement is recommended for further studies related to city hotels’ soft innovation applications.

Motivation of this study is to understand how soft innovation can change hotels’ atmosphere and make it more attractive from the managers’ perceptions. According to hotel managers’ views, soft innovation applications may lead to higher customer satisfaction, but the level of investment among the components may change according to the city hotel’s category. Research implications indicate that hotel managers may optimize the effectiveness of their soft innovation efforts by taking into consideration their hotel type, application areas and innovation category as decoration, color, scent, sound and light. According to hotel managers, decoration-related soft innovation is more important to boutique hotels, lighting-related soft innovation is an effective investment for 4 stars hotels and scent-related soft innovation is a suitable investment for 5 stars hotels.

The originality of the study lies in the analysis of the components of soft innovation as a means for effective city hotel marketing and innovative management applications. Though it is a very suitable industry for implementation, improvement and development, there are limited studies on soft innovation applications in the hotel industry.

This empirical study uses the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to examine the interrelationships amongst hotel websites and app quality, flow, telepresence, user engagement and booking intentions.

Data from two different datasets, including users of hotel websites (N sample 1 = 257) and hotel mobile apps (N sample 2 = 292), were collected. Partial least squares (PLS-SEM) was used to test the research model.

Findings indicate that the quality of the hotel websites and mobile apps positively influences telepresence, flow and engagement. Telepresence and flow positively affect the users booking intentions for both the samples. However, for hotel website users, engagement has a no-significant effect on booking intentions. Finally, telepresence has a non-significant effect on flow, and flow has a non-significant effect on engagement for both the users of hotel websites and mobile apps.

This study uses two datasets to understand how hotel booking channel (hotel website and mobile app) quality leads to booking intentions by tapping into telepresence, flow and engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic nature of consumer value by proposing a causal model that shows the existence of sequentiality in value dimensions and in their influence on satisfaction and loyalty. The paper focuses on intrinsic dimensions of value (play, aesthetics, ethics and escapism), which are fully experiential, and therefore less studied in the literature.

The conceptual model proposed was empirically tested in tourist hotel accommodations. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire, analyzing the experiences of 285 hotel guests with structural equation modeling-partial least squares.

The results reveal that the reactive dimensions of value (aesthetics and escapism) influence the active ones (play and ethics), which in turn affect consumers’ satisfaction and loyalty.

This paper is exploratory and focuses on the intrinsic dimensions of value. Future research should consider the entire extrinsic/intrinsic value duality. This paper is based on a convenience sample consisting solely of hotel accommodation. Further studies based on a random sample and on other hospitality contexts would be required to generalize the results.

This paper can help hotel managers to understand the role and importance of each intrinsic dimension of value to successfully implement their relationship marketing strategies, defined by the chain value-satisfaction-loyalty.

This paper depicts the dynamic nature of value, with concatenated (and not simultaneous) effects of value dimensions on satisfaction and loyalty, which supports research in value co-creation.

People have unconscious motives which affects their decision-making and associated behavior. The paper describes a study using thematic apperception test (TAT) to measure how unconscious motives influence travelers' interpretations and preferences toward alternative tours and hotels. Using the TAT, the present study explores the relationships between three unconscious needs: (1) achievement, (2) affiliation, and (3) power and preferences for four package tours (adventure, culture, business, and escape tours) and for seven hotel identities (quality, familiarity, location, price, friendliness, food and beverage, and cleanliness and aesthetics). The present study conducts canonical correlation analyses to examine the relationships between unconscious needs and preferences for package tours and hotel identities using data from 467 university students. The study scores 2,438 stories according to the TAT manual to identify unconscious needs. The findings indicate that (1) people with a high need for affiliation prefer an experience based on cultural values and hotels that are conveniently located, (2) individuals with a high need for power indicate a preference for high prices and good value for their money, and (3) people with a high need for achievement prefer a travel experience with adventure as a motivation. The study findings are consistent with previous research of McClelland (1990), Wilson (2002), and Woodside et al. (2008) in exploring impacts of the unconscious levels of human need.

This paper aims to describe the detailed process of development of a reliable scale to measure customer perceptions of the upscale hotel servicescape that could then be used as a basis for intra- and inter-hotel comparisons and to examine relationships with other variables, such as emotions, satisfaction and loyalty.

A review of the existing service and hospitality literature provided a range of dimensions and attributes of the hotel servicescape, which were used as the basis for a Q-sort technique to determine the content adequacy of newly developed and existing items. Testing the emergent items was carried out through a questionnaire that was distributed at five luxury upscale hotels in London providing 612 fully valid responses, which, using a split sample, were subjected to both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to explore the dimensionality and reliability of the instrument.

Although the Q-sort suggested four key dimensions, the outcome of the factor analyses revealed five dimensions with high reliability – aesthetic quality, functionality, atmosphere, spaciousness and physiological conditions. “Aesthetic quality” appeared to be the most important factor, followed by “functionality”, “atmosphere”, “spaciousness” and “physiological conditions”.

As this study was conducted with customers of upscale luxury hotels in London, the resulting scales need to be further tested in other hotel segments and in other locations.

This study provides upscale hotel managers with an effective measurement tool, which will enable them to benchmark their operation and make improvements that could lead to a better impression and evaluation of their hotel. The scale has a variety of potential applications and can serve as a framework for further research in the hotel industry.

In spite of the wide interest in and importance of the servicescape in hotels, there are only a few studies dealing with this subject in the hotel context. This study provides a new tool for measuring customers’ perceptions.

Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the purpose of this paper was to posit an industry-wide technological intervention for hotel housekeeper safety and health through the advancement of wearable technology.

Using the task-technology fit (TTF) model and examples of successful safety and health applications of wearable technologies in the health-care and construction management industries, interventions and future research directions are presented to address workplace hazards experienced by hotel housekeepers.

The fit between a variety of hotel housekeeper user requirements, task demands and wearable functions are explored with justification for the use of wearable devices to improve safety and health-related outcomes.

A research agenda is proposed for the adoption and use of wearables in the hospitality industry with the intention to generate meaningful interventions beyond corporate wellness, and the mitigation of employee privacy concerns to enhance wearable adoption.

Given the importance of consumer safety and health assurance in a post-pandemic business environment, hospitality and tourism organizations should place greater emphasis on protecting front line employees who will be essential in regaining economic viability.

Theoretical and practical foci should move beyond a simplistic view of hospitality and tourism worker safety and health that generally centers on wellness initiatives and other baseline strategies, toward a more holistic view benefitting the hospitality industry.

Extant concerns about hotel housekeeper safety and health, in addition to new concerns and threats in a post-pandemic work environment, are largely understudied and worthy of investigation.