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Many tourism-related industries, such as hotels, use social media as a marketing tool for promotion and distribution. This paper aims to use a model that explores the impact of social media platform image (SMPI) on customers’ visit intention (VI) in a hotel context, using hotel image (HI), motivation (Mot) and anticipated service quality (ASQ) as mediators. The objectives of this study are then: to understand the interactions between the two brand images, to test the mediation effect of HI, Mot and ASQ and to investigate how this interaction contributes to customers’ VI to hotel.

This study used a convenience sampling method that targeted respondents who are willing to book a hotel using a social media platform such as Facebook and a hotel reservation website (Agoda, Airbnb, Booking.com, Hotels.com and Trivago) that have forums that allow customers to share their experiences. The survey was conducted through various social media platforms, with 349 responses being collected.

This study finds that SMPI contributes to Mot largely through HI, Mot partly mediates the relationship between HI and ASQ and Mot contributes to VI mostly through direct impact and a small part through ASQ. The findings also indicate that SMPI is less potent in terms of contributing to the later constructs if HI is low.

This research provides practical implications for marketers serving the hotel industry, and social media sites, and establishes the interrelationship between them. This research also offers insight to the hotel managers for using social media platforms to attract potential visitors because social media platforms in recent years have become significant contributors to customers’ decision-making process of booking and visiting a hotel.

This study provides results on how social media platforms can be caused to become a more effective hotel promotion channel.

Building upon previous research on country-of-origin. This study aims to investigate whether the effects of country-of-origin extend to the hotel industry, based on associative network and signaling theories.

Based on a self-administered survey with tourists in China, this paper investigates antecedents and outcomes of hotel brand image and the moderating role of a hotel’s brand origin.

Results reveal country, city and industry images positively influence hotel brand image. Hotel brand image then influences price perception, quality perception and overall satisfaction.

Country-of-operation image remains a relevant, powerful predictor of brand image; thus, hotels need to carefully manage country-of-operation image.

This paper incorporates and establishes the role of country-of-operation image on hotel brand image.

Creating memorable experiences for customers at the individual property is one of the primary goals in hotel management across all segments. Adopting the concept of the ingredient branding, this study aims to attempt to identify the effects of bathroom amenity brands on customers' attitudes toward the hotel brand image and their behavior intentions toward a hotel brand. Specifically, this study assesses the importance of bathroom amenities on customer experience. It also examines the effects of bathroom amenity and their sustainable practices on hotel brand image and behavior intentions. Lastly, it provides suggestions for hoteliers in selecting right and appealing bathroom amenities while enhancing customers' hotel experience.

This study employed a 3 (hotel service level: economy, midscale, vs luxury) × 2 (bathroom amenity brand: luxury vs general) × 2 (bathroom amenity packaging: bottle vs dispenser) between-subjects experimental design. A total of 557 useable surveys were obtained to test the study's hypotheses.

The results reveal that customers had a better hotel image when high-end brand bathroom amenities in a bottle were offered. Specifically, when economy hotels provided high-end brand bathroom amenities, customers had a better hotel image, which lead to strong return intentions. Typically, bathroom amenities in the bottle were perceived better than those in the dispenser when it came to the hotel image.

The findings of this study reconfirm that the level of hotel service, bathroom amenity brand and bathroom amenity packaging jointly affect hotels' overall image. Specifically, the generic bathroom amenity in the dispenser somewhat degrades the image of the hotel for economy hotels; however, the image of hotel is not significantly affected by the type of bathroom packaging when the hotel has luxury bathroom amenities. Thus, hotel management should pay more attention to selecting the bathroom amenity brand, which can offer more memorable experience for customers.

Little research has been documented on the effects of hotel bathroom amenity brands on customers' attitudes toward hotel brand image and their psychological behaviors in the hotel industry, lacking rigorous theoretical examinations. The current study provides several important contributions not only to the body of knowledge but to the hotel industry.

The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the multi-faceted dimensions of Chinese travellers’ image of boutique hotels with a large amount of online textual data from social media (53,427 reviews written from 2014 to 2018), reinforcing the value creation of user-generated content via social media.

With the aid of Python, a computer language, online textual reviews (53,427 reviews) of 86 high-end boutique hotels in seven cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Qingdao and Sanya) were collected from the top-ranked online travel agency in China, Ctrip.com. Then, the overall perceived image of boutique hotels was revealed with the aid of Python.

The results showed multiple dimensions of the image of boutique hotels. The overall image can be grouped into eight dimensions (room, service, food, environment, entertainment, location, price and value, and uniqueness). An affective image based on eight dimensions was further developed in the Chinese boutique hotel context. It appears that online data from social media are beneficial for hotel managers to learn travellers’ overall perceptions of boutique hotels and help put more effective management strategies in place in the hospitality industry.

The relationship between cognitive image and affective image should be further investigated in future research. Theoretical implications are discussed from both cognitive image and affective image perspectives in the boutique hotel context. Managerial implications are highlighted to help industry managers understand the travellers’ perceptions of the hotels, via online data from social media, and put more effective hotel strategies in hospitality industry.

By using textual online data from social media, this paper deconstructs both the cognitive image and the affective image of boutique hotels. The dimensions of the most frequently mentioned concepts related to the Chinese boutique hotel industry are profoundly deconstructed, as is the uniqueness of the image of boutique hotels. The work is valuable for promoting effective marketing strategies in the hotel industry.

This study aims to take boutique luxury hotels as its research subject to enrich the view on the self-positioned image of luxury hotels and simultaneously compare this image with the one perceived by customers. It also investigates whether a gap exists between the two images.

The best-rated boutique luxury hotel in Hong Kong is selected as the case hotel. Through the interpretation and discussion of high-frequency wordlists and semantic co-occurrence network charts, major topics in the hotel’s self-presented image and customers’ perceived image are identified accordingly.

Five dimensions (event making, exquisite food, excellent amenities and services, special function venue and promotion) used by hotels to form their boutique luxury image are recognised. Between hotels’ self-positioned image and customers’ perceived images, minor similarities such as the recognition of excellent amenities and services were confirmed but considerable differences were identified, indicating the ineffective marketing by the boutique luxury hotel despite its success in terms of ranking. Managerial suggestions on how to address the image discrepancy were proposed.

This study contributes insights into hotel image discrepancy among social media platforms in luxury hotel segments by adding the category of boutique luxury hotels. It also identifies the implications for enhancing the development of a hotel image to meet customers’ needs and expectations.

酒店的自我定位形象与顾客感知形象——以香港某精品豪华酒店为例

本研究试图以精品豪华酒店为研究对象, 丰富豪华酒店自我定位形象的视角, 同时将其与顾客感知的形象进行比较, 考察二者之间是否存在差距。

本文选取香港评分最佳的精品豪华酒店为案例酒店。通过对高频词表和语义共现网络图的解读和讨论, 识别出酒店自我呈现形象和顾客感知形象中的主要话题。

酒店利用五个维度（活动打造、精致的食物、优质的设施和服务、特殊的功能场所和促销）来塑造其精品豪华形象。在酒店的自我定位形象和顾客的感知形象之间, 发现了一些细微的相似之处, 如对优质设施和服务的认可, 但差异之处相当大, 表明尽管精品豪华酒店取得了优秀的排名, 但其营销效果不佳。本文提出了解决形象差异的管理建议。

本研究通过增加精品豪华酒店类别的案例, 有助于深入了解豪华酒店细分市场中社交媒体平台之间的酒店形象差异。本文还确定了促进酒店形象发展的影响, 以满足客户需求和期望。

Imagen auto-posicionada del hotel versus imagen percibida por los clientes: un estudio de caso de un hotel boutique de lujo en Hong Kong.

Este estudio se esfuerza por tomar a los hoteles boutique de lujo como tema de investigación para profundizar en el conocimiento sobre la imagen de los hoteles de lujo y compar el posicionamiento presentado por el hotel con el que perciben los clientes. También investiga si existe una brecha entre las dos imágenes.

Para el caso se selecciona el mejor hotel de lujo calificado en Hong Kong. A través de la interpretación y discusión de listas de palabras de alta frecuencia y gráficos de redes de coincidencia semántica se identifican los principales temas en la imagen presentada por el hotel y la imagen percibida de los clientes.

Se reconocen cinco dimensiones (creación de eventos, comida exquisita, excelentes comodidades y servicios, lugar de funciones especiales y promoción) utilizadas por los hoteles para formar su imagen de lujo boutique. Entre la imagen auto-posicionada de los hoteles y las imágenes percibidas por los clientes, se confirmaron pequeñas similitudes, como el reconocimiento de excelentes comodidades y servicios, pero se identificaron diferencias considerables, lo que indica la comercialización ineficaz del hotel boutique de lujo a pesar de su éxito en términos de clasificación. Se propusieron sugerencias gerenciales sobre cómo abordar la discrepancia de imagen.

Este estudio aporta información sobre la discrepancia de imagen del hotel entre las plataformas de redes sociales en los segmentos de hoteles de lujo al agregar la categoría de hoteles boutique de lujo. También identifica las implicaciones para mejorar el desarrollo de una imagen de hotel que satisfaga las necesidades y expectativas del cliente.

Loyalty of a firm’s customer has been recognised as the dominant factor in a business organization’s success. This study helps us extend our understanding of the relationship between customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, and image. This is of considerable interest to both practitioners and academics in the field of hospitality management. The objective of this research is to identify the factors of image and customer satisfaction that are positively related to customer loyalty in the hotel industry. Using data collected from chain hotels in New Zealand, the findings indicate that hotel image and customer satisfaction with the performance of housekeeping, reception, food and beverage, and price are positively correlated to customer loyalty.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between servicescape components, image and behavioral intentions within the framework of hotel businesses.

Relationships between specified variables were tested with structural equation modeling (SEM) using a sample of 410 hotel customers.

It was found that servicescape components had a positive effect on overall image, and overall image had the same effect on word-of-mouth (WOM) and re-visiting. It was also determined that overall image played a mediating role between servicescape and behavioral intention components. Overall, image played a partial mediating role between substantive staging of servicescape (SSoS) and WOM and a full mediating role among the other variables.

For a business to maintain a positive image perception, servicescape components must be positively perceived, as well. Therefore, managers who intend to present a positive business image should design servicescape components according to current trends or the fashion expectations of target consumers. This would by default increase the attractiveness of the business. Moreover, businesses can create unique concepts by designing and developing new servicescape components. This step can be beneficial, especially for hotel businesses wishing to establish a specific brand. In this regard, it is recommended that businesses employ an expert who can track and organize servicescape developments.

Although it has been found that there are specific relationships between servicescape, image and behavioral intentions, there has been a deficiency of empirical studies carried out within hotel industries. Furthermore, while SSoS has been investigated in the literature, communicative staging of servicescape (CSoS) has been neglected. In this regard, investigating the aforementioned relationships within the framework of the hotel industry contributes to the literature. Furthermore, in this study, an attempt has been made to stress the importance of servicescape, which is found to be essential for positive business image perception.

This study aims to propose a hierarchy of effects model to study three antecedents of green loyalty: green trust, green satisfaction and green overall image, and to examine the relationships between these variables. At present, environmental issues attract the attention of academics and professionals around the world. In the hospitality industry, this interest is even greater because of the considerable quantities of water and energy consumed by hotel companies and because of the environmental degradation that this industry can cause with unmanaged growth and development. For this reason, several authors have proposed incorporating the green loyalty construct as a key variable in tourism theory and practice.

To test the proposed model empirically, personal surveys of hotel customers were conducted in Spain using a structured questionnaire. A structural equations model was developed to test the research hypothesis.

The findings show that green overall image has positive direct effects on green trust, green satisfaction and green loyalty. At the same time, they reveal that both green trust and green satisfaction have positive effects on green loyalty. In addition, green trust has a positive influence on green satisfaction.

This research deals with the relationship between the variables of interest, without considering other antecedents and consequences. Thus, there is still a need to explore other mediating variables (e.g. willingness to pay more to stay in a green room, or commitment regarding environmental issues), as the explanatory power of this model could still be improved. In addition, given the role of green trust and green satisfaction as mediating variables of green overall image and green loyalty, this study recognizes the need for in-depth research into the enhancement of green trust and green satisfaction.

From a practical point of view, hoteliers and marketers working for a green hotel should develop a positive green overall image and enhance customers’ perceptions of green trust and green satisfaction. In particular, they should emphasize the importance of environmental issues to customers by promoting green campaigns. At the same time, hoteliers in a green context should create effective strategies to improve their hotel’s image.

Although existing research has investigated relevant aspects of customer trust, satisfaction, overall image and loyalty, these issues have not been discussed from a green marketing perspective. Apart from that, the main contribution of this paper is its exploration of the influence of green trust, green satisfaction and green overall image on green loyalty in a hospitality setting, following the framework of the hierarchy of effects model. By complementing previous studies on customer loyalty in the environmental context and exploring the relationships among these constructs, this study offers an assessment of how green marketing strategies in the hospitality industry increase green loyalty.

The aim of this paper is to understand the relationships between service quality and customer satisfaction and how they impact corporate image and customer loyalty.

Data were collected from several cities in Mauritius. The study sample included participants who stayed in various hotels in Mauritius; the participants were randomly approached and invited to participate in a survey on their respective hotel's services.

Corporate image is influenced both by service quality and customer satisfaction, which in turn influences customer loyalty. Thus, the key to customer loyalty appears to be the fostering of a favorable image of the hotel firm created by improving service quality and satisfying customers.

Given the difference in values and cultures among different countries, the findings need to be confirmed by further evidence from other countries. Future research should further investigate the impacts of service quality, customer satisfaction, corporate image, and behavior intentions on organizational performance measures such as profitability, extend the integrative framework and incorporate other variables.

This study clearly illustrates the importance of a long term focus on superior service delivery on a firm's image. Service quality and customer satisfaction should therefore aim to enhance a long term image of the firm in the customer's mind.

This research clearly adds new knowledge to the present body of hospitality literature and will assist managers by providing a practical approach to enhance customer loyalty.

This paper aims to examine the influence of a brand’s innovativeness and green image on customers’ sensory, affective, cognitive, relational and behavioral brand experience and, through that, on brand satisfaction.

To collect primary data, the study used a list of 1,754 e-mail addresses from a hotel in Norway. Of the invited respondents, 283 completed the questionnaire.

The study shows positive influences of perceived brand innovativeness and green image on the experience dimensions. The influences of the brand experience dimensions on brand satisfaction are mixed. The results indicate that the brand experience dimensions partially mediate the influences of perceived brand innovativeness and green image on brand satisfaction. The study also shows a positive influence of perceived brand innovativeness on perceived green image.

The paper highlights the importance of carefully managing brands’ innovativeness and green image to improve brand experiences and satisfaction with the hotel.

Few studies exist on hotel brand experience, and therefore, future studies should identify antecedents and consequences of hotel brand experience (King, 2017; Khan and Rahman, 2017). This paper examines the role of hotel brand experiences with an explicit focus on the antecedents of such experiences.