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The purpose of this trends paper is to offer insights into the technological changes affecting our cities and urban tourism destinations, and to explore avenues for further research and practice in the context of smart tourism destinations.

The literature on smart cities and smart tourism destinations is analysed in view of delivering a research agenda for a new generation of “post-smart” tourism destinations, beyond existing paradigms in this field.

Smart tourism research to date is found to be lacking in terms of addressing emerging (“post-smart”) social issues increasingly faced by global tourism cities, such as growing inequalities between host communities and visitors, wellness (e.g. slow tourism and slow cities) and resilience and mental health (e.g. digital detox), among others.

A post-smart approach to tourism city management and marketing calls for rethinking of existing tourism and urban policies that address wider sustainability issues exemplified by the urban transitions debate as well as adopting a more holistic networked approach to smartness involving entire regions. This also calls for the development of a new research agenda in urban tourism through a new prism – the post-smart “wise” tourism destination.

A new tourism futures construct – the “wise” tourism destination – is posited. This is done within the context of a new (“post-smart”) generation of tourism cities. It is argued that “wise” tourism cities will require novel attributes and adopt a visionary strategic positioning well beyond today’s smart tourism destination paradigms. Additionally, a tentative research agenda for “wise” tourism cities is discussed.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of socially- responsible human resource management (SRHRM) on employee fears of external threats during the COVID-19 outbreak, based on social support and event system theories. COVID-19 caused sharp profit declines and bankruptcies of hotels, restaurants and travel agencies. In addition, employees faced threats to their health and job security. How to overcome employee anxieties and fears about the negative impacts of this crisis and promote psychological recovery is worthy of attention from researchers and practitioners. This research investigated the impacts of SRHRM on employee fears through organizational trust, with the COVID-19 pandemic playing a moderating role between SRHRM and employee fears.

The hypotheses were tested through multiple linear regression analysis based on a survey of 408 employees in hospitality and tourism firms in China. Qualitative data were also gathered through interviews with selected managers.

The results showed that SRHRM had a negative influence on employee fears of external threats by enhancing trust in their organizations. In addition, the strength of the COVID-19 pandemic positively moderated the effect of SRHRM on employee fears. When the pandemic strength was more robust, the negative effects of SRHRM on employee fears were more significant.

This research illustrated the contribution of SRHRM in overcoming employee fears of external threats in the context of COVID-19. It shed light on the organizational contribution of SRHRM to hospitality and tourism employee psychological recovery during the crisis.

This research explored strategic HRM by examining the effects of SRHRM on employee fears in the midst of a severe crisis, specifically COVID-19. The moderation effect of event strength and mediation effect of organizational trust were tested. It is of great value for hospitality and tourism firms to foster employee psychological recovery during a crisis such as COVID-19.

This study aims to investigate the consumer acceptance of robots in hotels before and after COVID-19, with a specific emphasis on whether COVID-19 had a significant effect on the acceptance of robots by hotel guests and whether guests had higher levels of acceptance of hotel robots since the initial COVID-19 outbreak was brought under control in China.

The sample for this research included Chinese hotel guests before and after COVID-19, with 247 responses obtained before its outbreak and a further 601 responses gathered after. Several hypotheses were developed and tested in a pseudo-experimental design.

The results showed that COVID-19 increased hotel guest acceptance of robots. After COVID-19, the perceived importance of the usefulness, social influence, attitude and value of robots increased, while the perceived importance of the ease of use and anthropomorphism of robots decreased. As a contactless service, the usefulness of robots was more valued by customers. This led customers to lower their requirements for the ease of use of robots. In addition, people were more concerned about the social influences on robot use.

Hotel guest attitudes and behavioral intentions toward robots and the services they can provide are changing. However, whether this change is purely ephemeral and motivated by a pragmatic stance triggered by COVID-19 remains to be established.

The hospitality industry is encouraged to create a new profile of guests in terms of their favorable or unfavorable disposition toward being served by robots. Hotels should consider the deployment of robots according to the demographic characteristics of customers (e.g. according to guest age levels).

This research demonstrated that major crises affect customer attitudes and behaviors toward new technologies. COVID-19 resulted in guests paying more attention to the advantages of services offered by hotel robots as a means of reducing the probability of contagion.

疫情前后酒店机器人非接触式服务的技术接受度对比研究

摘要

本研究调查了新冠疫情爆发前后酒店顾客对机器人接受程度的变化, 重点研究了新冠疫情是否对机器人的潜在接受程度有显著影响, 以及自疫情在中国得到控制以来, 顾客对酒店机器人的接受程度是否有所提高。

本研究的样本主要是新冠疫情爆发前后的中国酒店顾客, 在疫情爆发前收集了217份样本, 在疫情爆发后收集了601份样本。研究提出了若干假设, 并采用伪实验设计进行了检验。

结果显示, 新冠疫情的爆发提高了酒店顾客对机器人的潜在接受度。新冠疫情后, 机器人的有用性, 社会影响, 态度和价值的影响增加了, 而机器人的易用性和拟人化的影响降低了。由于机器人的无接触服务, 使得顾客更加关注有用性。这导致顾客对易用性的关注降低。此外, 顾客更加关注使用机器人的社会影响。

酒店顾客对机器人服务的态度和行为意图正在发生变化。然而, 这一变化是否是短暂的, 只是由新冠疫情驱动的, 仍有待确定。

我们鼓励酒店业根据客人对机器人的接受/不接受程度来创建一个新的客户档案。酒店也可以根据顾客的人口统计学特征（比如年龄）来部署机器人。

这项研究表明, 重大灾难会影响顾客对新技术的态度和行为。 COVID-19的爆发导致客人更加关注酒店机器人的服务优势（降低传染概率）。

Aceptación de la tecnología antes y después de la pandemia del COVID-19: Servicios ofrecidos por robots en hoteles

Resumen

Esta investigación analiza la aceptación por parte de clientes del uso de robots en hoteles antes y después del comienzo de la pandemia del COVID-19, prestando una atención especial a si dicha pandemia ha tenido un efecto significativo sobre los niveles de aceptación de robots por parte de clientes en hoteles en China a raíz de la pandemia del COVID-19.

La muestra de este estudio incluye clientes de hoteles en China encuestados antes y después del brote de COVID-19, con 247 cuestionarios recogidos antes del brote y otros 601 después del mismo. Este estudio incluye una serie de hipótesis puestas a prueba adoptando un diseño de investigación de carácter pseudo-experimental.

Los resultados de este estudio apuntan a que el brote de COVID en China conllevó un incremento en la proporción de los clientes de hoteles propensos a aceptar el uso de robots en este contexto. Después de la pandemia, hubo un incremento en la percepción de la importancia de su utilidad, influencia social, actitud y valor de los robots en este contexto, mientras que descendió la percepción de la importancia de la facilidad del use de robots y antropomorfismo descendió. Como servicio sin necesidad de contacto físico, la utilidad de los robots en hoteles fue más valorada por los clientes Esto produjo una disminución en los requisitos de los usuarios en lo referente a la facilidad del uso de robots en hoteles. Además, los participantes en esta encuesta se mostraron más propensos a valorar la influencia sobre la sociedad del uso de robots.

La actitud de clientes de hoteles y su aceptación del uso de robots en este contexto, así como los servicios que éstos proveen están cambiando rápidamente. No obstante, aún no se sabe con certeza hasta que punto estos cambios son meramente efímeros y motivados por una actitud pragmática hacia la crisis creada por la pandemia del COVID-19.

El sector de la hostelería debería intentar desarrollar un perfil de clientes nuevo en lo referente a su grado de aceptación de los robots como parte de los servicios ofrecidos. Los hoteles deberían considerar el uso de robots en los servicios ofrecidos dependiendo de las características demográficas de sus clientes (ejem. Nivel de estudios y formación).

Este estudio demuestra que las crisis de gran magnitud, como lo es la pandemia actual de COVID-19, pueden afectar las actitudes y comportamientos del consumidor en lo referente al uso de nuevas tecnologías. La pandemia del COVID-19 ha llevado a muchos clientes de hoteles a prestar una mayor atención a las ventajas de los servicios ofrecidos por robots como forma de reducir las posibilidades de contagio.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of hotel safety leadership on employee safety behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the mediation role of belief restoration and the moderation role of perceived risk between safety leadership and behavior were also investigated.

The COVID-19 outbreak served as the background for a questionnaire survey of 23 hotels in China with 1,594 valid responses being received. The statistical analysis techniques used were exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression.

The results showed that: hotel safety leadership positively affected employee safety behavior (compliance, participation and adaptation); belief restoration partially mediated the influence of safety leadership on safety behavior; and perceived risk negatively moderated the direct effect and the mediation effect of “safety leadership – belief restoration – safety behavior.”

The main limitation was that the questionnaires were collected with the same measurement system within a certain period of time (cross-sectional design). Then, future research should test and expand this conceptual model in different crises, business fields, theoretical orientation and cultural backgrounds.

Hotels should develop management strategies based on safety leadership and motivate and promote employee safety behavior from the four aspects of safety coaching, care, motivation and control.

This investigation expanded the research on the effectiveness of safety leadership and especially with respect to safety in the hospitality industry during a major global crisis. Also, the research conceptual model and variables contained therein are original contributions to the hospitality research literature.

This paper aims to examine critically the literature on transformational tourism and explore a research agenda for a post-COVID future.

A systematic review of the transformational tourism literature is performed over a 42-year period from 1978 to 2020.

Further research is required in terms of how transformative experiences should be calibrated and measured both in qualitative and quantitative terms, particularly from the perspective of how tourists are transformed by their experiences. Similarly, the nature and depth of these transformative processes remain poorly understood, particularly given the many different types of tourism associated with transformative experiences, which range from religious pilgrimages to backpacking and include several forms of ecotourism.

Future research directions for transformational tourism are discussed with regard to how COVID-19 will transform the dynamics of tourism and travel, including the role of new smart technologies in the creation of enhanced transformational experiences, and the changing expectations and perceptions of transformative travel in the post-COVID era. In addition, the researchers call for future studies on transformational tourism to explore the role of host communities in the delivery of meaningful visitor experiences.

Transformational tourism is an emerging body of research, which has attracted a growing level of interest among tourism scholars in recent years. However, to this date, a systematic review of published literature in this field has not been conducted yet in a holistic sense. This paper offers a framework for future research in this field.

Globalisation as a competitive marketing strategy can only offer a limited explanation for the behaviour of organisations. This is particularly applicable in the case of business and marketing strategies for small and medium‐sized organisations in the retail sector. Terms such as “localisation” have been coined by researchers but the concept is yet to receive a valid interpretation as a marketing strategy from the perspective of the small retailer. This paper seeks first, to understand how “localisation” impacts on the business practices and marketing strategy of small retailers in Spain and Scotland. Second, the results should help lessen the gap between the concepts of globalisation and the localisation.

This explorative, comparative qualitative paper explores business practices and marketing strategies by small retail business owners in Seville (Spain) and Perth (UK) and the role of localisation, using three key themes – place, people and promotion.

This paper suggests that place attractiveness, word‐of‐mouth customer‐to‐customer marketing, customer service beyond simple product advice, community embeddedness and informal but meaningful interpersonal relations between shop owner and customers are some of the key pillars of the “localisation” strategic marketing approach pursued by small retailers in Perth and Seville. This indicates a counterbalance to globalisation.

The pursuit of a deliberate localisation approach by small retailers may be key to their sustainable competitiveness in the knowledge that these elements would not be easily replicated by larger or global retailers.