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The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of customers’ perception of the integrated resort by focusing on brand-related variables, namely, brand reputation, brand experience, brand attitude, and behavioral intention. Integrated resorts have become popular in the tourism industry. However, despite the popularity of integrated resorts, little is known about how the integrated resort brand contributes to customer attitude.

A descriptive online survey was carried out with customers who had experience using the integrated resort. This study used the regression analysis and process macro to test hypothesized relationships among variables.

These results demonstrate that brand reputation increases customers’ perception of brand experience and brand attitude; brand experience, brand attitude and brand reputation affect behavioral intention toward the integrated resort brand; and brand experience and attitude plays a fully mediating role in the relationship between brand reputation and behavioral intention. These results suggest that customers’ perception associated with the integrated resort brand name is likely to generate a favorable experience and attitude, which, in turn, develops customers’ revisit intention.

A theoretical implication is that the pleasant brand experience and attitude emphasize the significance of the brand reputation in the formation of behavioral intention toward the integrated resort brand. Another theoretical implication is that integrated resort brand reputation might not be a strong indicator of the behavioral loyalty. It is worth conducting additional research on joint effects of brand reputation and customers’ type (e.g. recreational gamblers, problem gamblers, business travelers and family travelers).

The findings offer additional insights into managers on the integrated resort brand concept. This research provides opportunities for managers to identify rational/emotional linkages in differentiating, distinguishing and positioning integrated resort.

Although both brand experience and brand attitude have received past research attention, no researchers have studied them in an integrated resort setting. The main contribution of this research lies in testing the direct and indirect and fills a major gap in the integrated resort literature and research in stressing the need to consider about brand management.

This study aims to analyze the antecedents and consequences of customers’ actual and ideal self-congruence in the tourism and hospitality context. This research analyzes playfulness (e.g. creative- and enjoyment-based), self-congruence (e.g. actual and ideal self-congruence) and passion (e.g. harmonious and obsessive).

Data were collected from 350 integrated resort customers in the USA, and the hypotheses were examined using partial least square-structural equation modeling.

Findings suggest that creative-based playfulness significantly and positively influences the different types of customers’ self-congruence. Moreover, a fit between integrated resort brand and customers’ actual and ideal self leads to their harmonious and obsessive passion toward integrated resort brand.

In the integrated resort setting, customers’ attitude toward innovation served as the antecedent of self-congruence and passion. The proposed model can be used to other sectors, such as hotels, restaurants and casinos.

The present study contributes to integrated resort service providers through the provision of several insights into how they can manage integrated resort brands.

This study contributes to the service research and extends previous studies in several important ways. Although previous studies have focused on analyzing the effect of the playfulness of product on customers’ behavior, the current study moves a step further by assessing its relationship with dual types of image congruence and passion in the tourism and hospitality setting.

This study aims to apply the perspective of self-determination theory to investigate the effects of needs satisfaction on customers’ emotional bond and perceived fit with the integrated resort brand.

To provide empirical evidence, this study uses an online survey analyzed with structural equation modeling.

The results suggest how integrated resort experiences enhance the needs satisfaction for autonomy, competence and relatedness, and that customers are likely to have an attachment and compatibility with the brand. This study also documents that strong attachments and compatibility are predictive of behavioral intention.

This study provides a theoretical perspective through self-determination theory for explaining how needs satisfaction impacts customers’ brand-related attitude, which can be used to guide future studies. Insights from this research will be used to design and evaluate customers’ experience in tourism and hospitality industry.

Although the concept of needs satisfaction has studied on the employees’ behavior, a scarcity of research has been offered to explain customers’ behavior. Thus, this study makes a significant contribution to the hospitality and tourism research by testing the needs satisfaction as an antecedent of customers’ brand-related behavior.

This study aims to investigate ways in which hotel loyalty programs can be designed to enhance customer’s identification with a hotel brand and develop a sustainable customer-brand relationship.

The study adopted a cross-sectional design survey questionnaire for data collection and used structural equation modeling data analysis to test the conceptual model.

The three loyalty program experiences proposed (member-to-member similarity, memorable loyalty program experience and loyalty program social benefits) exerted significant positive effects on customer-brand identification (CBI), which, in turn, influences customer-brand relationship elements, including trust, commitment and switching resistance.

This study expands the scope of CBI literature, which previously focused substantially on brand level experiences, by being the first to explore a new set of CBI antecedents with a focus on loyalty program experiences. Furthermore, the current study’s findings delineate specific strategies to uphold the social and experiential aspects of loyalty programs that can develop sustainable customer-brand relationships.

Nation brand building is a complex task as it involves multiple stakeholders. In the context of globalisation, a strong nation brand has important implications not only for attracting foreign businesses and tourists but also for the brands originating from that country. This study examines the role of nation brand experience in enhancing a nation's global reputation.

The relationships between nation brand experience, nation brand love, nation brand loyalty and positive word of mouth (WOM) were examined by analysing 334 survey responses collected from foreign tourists in India. Structural equation analysis was carried out as part of the analysis.

The results confirmed that international visitors' sensory and affective nation brand experiences significantly enhance brand love for a nation, leading to national brand loyalty and positive WOM among them. The findings are expected to help practitioners understand consumer buying behavior related to nation brand and develop innovative strategies for improving brand values.

Understanding a developing nation brand experience and how it converts to brand loyalty through the mediation effect of nation brand love from the lens of foreign tourists is the novelty of this study.

In the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, organizations now are expected to serve customers who are highly conscious of safety and sanitation. Among others, the hospitality industry is significantly and negatively influenced by this pandemic. Given the unique characteristics of services, using advanced technology is not enough to create a memorable experience without physical interaction between service providers and customers. Thus, this study aims to define the “new normal” for service customers and to explore the “new service design” for the hotel industry.

As most of the Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on the tourism industry, this study focuses on one of the emerging tourism destinations in this region, Malaysia. The data is collected through in-depth interviews with 17 potential national and international tourists.

The results suggest that considering the “new normal” for customers, there is an immediate need for the hotel industry to revamp their service design by mainly practicing disinfection and sanitation activities, re-designing overall infrastructure and introducing promotional offers.

This study is novel in its kind as it provides useful guidelines for both practitioners and academicians/researchers. Under this crucial time, very few research is conducted specifically focusing on the hotel industry and tourists’ behaviors amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will provide in-depth knowledge about tourists’ expectations from the hotel services, especially in their own voices.

Marketing and branding literature has provided important insights into the context, environment and individual factors that shape customer brand experience. However, a holistic view on context and environmental influence on enhancing brand experience, specifically in the online social media network context, has not been considered. In addition, main focus of the previous research is on antecedent and consequence of brand experience rather strategy for enhancing brand experience. This paper aims to propose a contingency model for enhancing brand experience to provide a more holistic framework in the uncertain and complex nature of online social media network.

The proposed framework is based on previous literature that is identified and integrated to propose effectiveness of the contingent determinants on brand experience in different interactional circumstances.

The proposed framework implies that brand characteristics and interactive complexities of online social media networks cause contingency to the marketers or brands’ strategic attempt in delivering superior brand experience in online social media network context. These forces are as follows: online social media network characteristic (interactivity); brands’ co-creation characteristics (consumers’ and stakeholders’ participation); brand’s technical and operational competency (brands’ knowledge, ease of interactive platform); internal human resource characteristics (employees’ behaviour, brands culture, brands reputation); and customer interactive characteristics (customer demographic characteristics, customer motivation, customer attitude). These identified forces can be optimized to formulate strategies in the interactive medium for enhancing brand experience.

This paper proposes a contingency model as well as research propositions that need to be validated and confirmed empirically. While narrowing down the current identified gap in brand experience literature by proposing a novel perspective to the concept, this research broadens and deepens understanding of the concept of brand experiences, how it is linked to the context and contextual factors. This contingency framework elucidates the resources that marketers, practitioners can use to enhance, limit or maintain all the dimensions within brand experience.

A holistic view on context and environmental influence on enhancing brand experience, specifically in the online social media network context, has not been considered so far. Although literature demonstrates the positive outcome of brand experience, little attention has been paid to enhancing customer brand experience, specifically in the context of online social media networks with various complex forces acting and influencing the way customers experience a brand.

The growing numbers of Muslims visiting halal destinations motivated this study to explore halal destination attributes and revisit intention. This study aims to investigate how halal destination attributes affect destination attractiveness. Hence, it identifies the influence of halal destination attributes on perceived value, including functional and emotional value. It also verifies the effect of destination attractiveness on both functional value and emotional value. Finally, this framework verifies the effect of functional value and emotional value on revisit intention.

This study collects data from visitors who have visited a halal destination located in three cities of Central Java Province in the past two years (2019–2020) using purposive sampling methods. A total of 314 respondents participated in this study and the data are analyzed by using structural equation modeling.

The result showed that halal destination attributes positively and significantly impact destination attractiveness. Moreover, halal destination attributes positively and significantly affect both functional and emotional value. Destination attractiveness positively and significantly affects functional value, as well as emotional value. Concerning the effect of functional value and emotional value on revisit intention, only emotional value positively and significantly affects revisit intention while functional value does not.

This study contributes to city tourism by elucidating halal destination attributes based on the means-ends theory. The results of this study reported the importance of halal destination attributes and the role of halal destination attractiveness and emotional value in enhancing Muslim travelers’ revisit intention to halal destination.

Academic research on customer experience (CX) in the hospitality industry has recently experienced vast growth as managers have increasingly focused on delivering distinctive experiences to their guests. Despite the relevance of this topic, studies conducted in this area within the hotel context are scarce and dispersed. This paper aims to classify the main academic studies and to present a definition of hotel CX, a conceptual model, emerging trends and future research gaps.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was selected as the research methodology. Adapted from preferred reporting items of SLR and meta-analysis statements, this study entailed an in-depth review of 46 articles published in English between 2006 and 2021. The articles were compiled using keyword searches in Scopus and Web of Science.

This study facilitates an understanding of the hotel CX. The conceptual framework derived from the SLR includes the entire set of antecedents, consequences, mediators and moderators of this concept. The results also illustrate the topic’s academic evolution and expose major guidelines that can help determine areas for future research.

This study adds value to the hospitality research literature via SLR. The framework of CX in the hotel industry synthesizes the existing knowledge on this topic and identifies research gaps. The proposed framework allows for the improvement of future hotel CX studies.

The rapid development of Muslim travelers traveling to halal destinations stimulated this study to elucidate revisit intention based on the fundamental aspects of Muslim behavior, namely, Islamic belief and practice. First, the purpose of this study is to shed light on how Islamic belief affects the Islamic practice of Muslim travelers. Second, it verifies the effects of Islamic practice on halal destination attributes and destination attractiveness. Third, this study also identifies halal destination attributes that affect destination attractiveness, functional value and emotional value. Fourth, it further explores the effects of destination attractiveness on both functional value and emotional value. Finally, this study examines how both functional value and emotional value affect revisit intention.

The respondents of this study are Muslim travelers who visited one of the four favorite halal destinations in Indonesia from 2019 to 2020. Using purposive sampling methods, this study successfully collected responses from 317 respondents, and then the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results of this study demonstrate, first, Islamic belief positively and significantly affects Islamic practice. Second, Islamic practice positively and significantly impacts halal destination attributes and destination attractiveness. Third, halal destination attributes positively and significantly affect destination attractiveness, as well as both functional value and emotional value. Fourth, destination attractiveness positively and significantly impacts both functional value and emotional value. Finally, this study that found only emotional value positively and significantly impacts revisit intention, while functional value does not successfully increase revisit intention.

This study contributes to the crucial aspects of Muslim travelers’ behavior based on the fundamental of Islamic teaching include Islamic belief and practice. Moreover, this framework also contributes to the explain Muslim travelers revisit intention to halal destination using the means-ends theory.