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This study evaluated risk perception as a critical factor influencing the intention to visit ethnic restaurants; in addition, the role of food safety information in reducing risk perception toward ethnic food was examined. Finally, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of protection motivation on risk perception.

A survey was performed with 506 respondents. Data analyses including descriptive statistics, simple linear regression structural equational modeling and an independent t-test were conducted.

The results highlighted the negative influence of risk perception toward ethnic food consumption on the intention to visit ethnic restaurants. The results indicated that providing food safety information on menus reduces risk perception. Protection motivation theory explained consumers’ risk perception toward ethnic food. In particular, vulnerability (the chance of occurrence), self-efficacy (certainty in one’s ability to carry out a recommended preventive behavior) and response-efficacy (belief that an individual can handle a threat effectively) affected consumers’ risk perception toward ethnic food.

The results provide effective strategies for reducing risk perception, such as a provision of food safety information on the ethnic menu or an open kitchen, which produces a safer food image for consumers.

A scarcity of research has been offered to explain the predictors influencing consumers’ risk perception toward ethnic food and the methods whereby risk perception can be reduced. Thus, this study makes an important contribution to the hospitality literature by exploring risk-perception-related variables.

This study aims to examine food tourists’ engagement in positive and negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) by considering the following questions: Do satisfied customers engage in advocacy, and do dissatisfied customers make the same effort to spread their negative experiences? Which restaurant experience attributes influence eWOM behavior? What demographic and psychographic characteristics contribute to advocacy?

Using data from an online survey of 456 consumers with restaurant experience in the tourism context, this study applied simultaneous Tobit estimation to examine the research hypotheses.

Engagement in negative eWOM because of poor experiences was stronger than engagement in positive eWOM because of positive experiences. Food taste was a critical attribute for both positive and negative eWOM. Authenticity was influential for positive eWOM only, and value was influential for negative eWOM only. Atmosphere, service and location were found to be insignificant, indicating that they are ‘indifferent’ factors for eWOM in the food tourism context. Female customers were more active in negative advocacy, while Generation Y customers were more active in positive advocacy. Food involvement was significantly related to both positive and negative eWOM.

The results of this study provide useful marketing and service insights for restaurant managers in the digitally connected world, enabling them to formulate services based on factors critical for restaurant eWOM in the tourism context.

To fill a gap in the current literature in the era of digital marketing, this study takes a comprehensive yet industry-specific perspective on eWOM engagement by examining demographic factors and the food involvement of consumers as well as restaurant experience attributes. By investigating both positive and negative eWOM, this study presents meaningful practical and theoretical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of research on customer experience management (CEM). The objectives are as follows. The paper first introduces the concepts involved in CEM by identifying definitions and dimensions of the customer experience. Second, the paper describes the evolution of CEM research from a theoretical perspective in generic businesses and then in the hospitality and tourism (H&T) sector. Third, the paper investigates the methodological approaches used in CEM research and addresses the challenges in measuring the customer experience. Fourth, this study addresses cultural issues in CEM research. The identification of gaps in CEM research in the general business and H&T sectors leads the authors to consider directions for future research. Managerial implications are also provided.

The paper takes the form of a review of the extant literature in the general businesses and the H&T industry.

Despite the emergence of CEM as a vital research area, a large portion of its studies remain conceptual, which indicates that further empirical investigations are necessary. Importantly, the uniquely experiential nature of H&T products/services calls for systematic, theory-driven research. The paper identifies future research topics, which include total customer experience, transcendent experience, transformational experience, authentic experience and the co-creation of experience. This study delineates potential methods and measurement scales that can be used in CEM research and some challenges in the development of future measurement scales of customer experience. Recognizing a lack of CEM research from a cultural perspective, this paper calls for future studies that consider cultural factors in the identification of the underlying reasons for various perceptions of experiences.

Companies need to take a holistically integrated approach to creating a memorable experience in which multidimensional value can be delivered through multiple, sequential stages of experience. The co-creation of experience can lead to a sustainable experience that can be life transforming or perspective transforming.

Acknowledging the importance of excellent CEM in the contemporary H&T industry, this paper provides a compilation of literature on CEM and offers a foundation for advancing future CEM research in the H&T industry.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of hotel overbooking and compensation practices on customers' perceptions of fairness and loyalty and examine the effects of customer gender, reservation time, membership status, length of stay, payer source, and reservation channel on perceived fairness toward overbooking.

The study utilized a scenario‐based survey on grocery shoppers to identify relationships between overbooking, fairness and loyalty.

The findings show that customers who perceive a hotel's overbooking and compensation practices to be unfair are less likely to be loyal to the hotel in the future. Women were more likely than men to perceive the practice of hotel overbooking as unfair. All other factors had no effect on customers' perceptions of fairness.

A longitudinal field study that collects response from real hotel guests being bumped should be considered for future studies about customers' reactions to the consequence of overbooking.

Considering the invisible cost of overbooking, it is important for hotels to consider additional compensation policies to help positively influence walked customers' perception of overbooking and thus their loyalty and ongoing patronage.

This is one of the first research papers looking at the invisible costs of overbooking in terms of customers' long‐term behavior by addressing questions of whom to walk and how to compensate the walked.

Recognizing that crowding in a restaurant waiting area forms a first impression of service and sets service expectations, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of crowding in the effective control of the waiting environment. The study seeks to examine the impact of crowding on customers' emotions and approach‐avoidance responses and to examine the mediating role of emotion and the moderating role of desired privacy in the relationship between crowding and approach‐avoidance responses.

Using real‐scale, interactive virtual reality (VR) technology that allows high‐fidelity representations of real environments, the authors created a navigable, photo‐realistic three‐dimensional model of a restaurant waiting area. Through an experimental study which manipulated crowding levels in the VR restaurant, they surveyed the subjects' responses toward crowding conditions.

The study found significant effects of crowding on emotions including arousal and dominance, but not pleasure, and on approach‐avoidance responses. The impact of crowding on approach‐avoidance responses was more direct than indirect, without having emotion as a mediator. It was also found that the desire for privacy as a psychological trait moderated the relationship between crowding and affiliation.

The findings of this study offer restaurant managers insights toward the effective management of the pre‐process service environment during the waiting state that minimizes the negative consequences of waiting/crowding. This study provides three courses of management actions that can make unavoidable crowding in the restaurant waiting situation more enjoyable and comfortable.

By using VR simulation, this study adds a new approach for crowding studies. Theoretically, this study broadened the scope of crowding studies by adding a potential mediating variable, emotions, and a moderating variable, desired privacy, in examining the relationship between crowding and approach‐avoidance responses. Also, by focusing on a restaurant waiting area, the authors were able to explore the pre‐process service expectations.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a key player in the food services and restaurants sector; thus, the aim of this work consists in studying the previous research on ICTs in food services and restaurants in the context of tourism and hospitality through a systematic literature review.

The systematic literature review is performed on full papers published in journals included in the Journal Citation Report of the WoS in the category of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. A total of 165 articles from 28 journals are analyzed, following different criteria, such as the research methods, perspectives, statistical techniques, geographical focus, topics, technologies, authors and universities.

The restaurant sector is more and more based on the creation of experiences and ICTs, through their multiple possibilities, can undoubtedly contribute to adding value to the simple meal and create and recreate experiences to attract and retain customers who are increasingly sophisticated and hooked on ICTs. ICTs are basic for managers taking decision at the highest level in food services and restaurants, so ICTs should not be seen as a technical tool but as an essential element for top management.

This paper examined articles from very well-known tourism and hospitality journals, leaving aside others as well as different publication formats such as books or papers presented at conferences.

A significant contribution made with this paper is the availability of a list of topics in the context of ICTs in food services and restaurants. These topics are classified into three areas (Consumers, Suppliers and Environment and Tendencies) that can serve as a future research framework. The paper also provides useful information to restaurant managers about ICTs, to researchers for their future projects and to academics for their courses.