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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between two dimensions of servicescape (i.e. substantive and communicative servicescape), health care travelers’ emotions, perceived value and word-of-mouth intentions. It also assesses the moderating effects of accommodation type (i.e. hotel and Airbnb) and interior design styles (i.e. traditional and modern) on the relationship between the two servicescape dimensions and travelers’ emotions.

Using a sample from a survey of 692 health care travelers who stayed at either a peer-to-peer accommodation (i.e. Airbnb) or a hotel, a multi-step structural equation model analysis tested the relationships among variables. It examined the moderating effects of accommodation type and interior design style.

The relationships between servicescape, emotions, perceived value and word-of-mouth were significant. Also, the two moderators affected how servicescape influenced the emotions of health care travelers. For Airbnb guests, communicative servicescape had a more substantial effect on enhancing their positive emotions than hotel guests. For health care travelers who stayed at an accommodation with a traditional interior design style, in addition to enhancing positive emotions of health care travelers, substantive servicescape significantly reduced their negative emotions.

The findings suggest the need for the lodging industry to examine how health care travelers perceive and experience their accommodations with unique interior design characteristics. Also, stakeholders in the lodging industry should leverage the aspects of substantive servicescape in terms of relevant interior design styles, which, in turn, influence health care travelers’ positive word-of-mouth intentions. Given the increase in medical mobility and demand for accommodations by those traveling to receive health care services, understanding the lodging environment and how it affects travelers in this segment is essential.

This research develops a comprehensive servicescape model with a focus on the communicative dimension. Moreover, this study significantly contributes to the hospitality literature regarding how the core experience and various interior design styles influence a rapidly growing segment of health care travelers. Health care travelers’ emotions are essential to consider given the propensity to experience stress related to travel situational health factors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine peer-to-peer sharing platform business models, their sources of competitive advantage, and the roles, motivations and behaviors of key actors in their ecosystems.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, tourism and hospitality, and strategy literature.

First, this paper defines key types of platform business models in the sharing economy anddescribes their characteristics. In particular, the authors propose the differentiation between sharing platforms of capacity-constrained vs capacity-unconstrained assets and advance five core properties of the former. Second, the authors contrast platform business models with their pipeline business model counterparts to understand the fundamental differences between them. One important conclusion is that platforms cater to vastly more heterogeneous assets and consumer needs and, therefore, require liquidity and analytics for high-quality matching. Third, the authors examine the competitive position of platforms and conclude that their widely taken “winner takes it all” assumption is not valid. Primary network effects are less important once a critical level of liquidity has been reached and may even turn negative if increased listings raise friction in the form of search costs. Once a critical level of liquidity has been reached, a platform’s competitive position depends on stakeholder trust and service provider and user loyalty. Fourth, the authors integrate and synthesize the literature on key platform stakeholders of platform businesses (i.e. users, service providers, and regulators) and their roles and motivations. Finally, directions for further research are advanced.

This paper helps platform owners, service providers and users understand better the implications of sharing platform business models and how to position themselves in such ecosystems.

This paper integrates the extant literature on sharing platforms, takes a novel approach in delineating their key properties and dimensions, and provides insights into the evolving and dynamic forms of sharing platforms including converging business models.

This paper aims to utilize a framework from classic sociology – Max Weber’s Typology of Rationality – to understand the motivations for social entrepreneurship in responsible tourism in India. The critical role of the social entrepreneur in effecting the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship has been largely under-recognized. The authors seek to explore, develop and enhance Weber’s theoretical arguments in the context of the tourism industry.

The authors used a constructivism paradigm and Seidman’s (2006) Three Interview Series technique to obtain the narratives of two social entrepreneurs in India. Data were analyzed using a hybrid thematic coding procedure.

Findings indicate that there exists a dynamic interplay between the formal and substantive rationalities that underlie the behavior of social entrepreneurs. The authors also discuss how entrepreneurs draw upon their formal and substantive repertoires to create their identities through the simultaneous processes of apposition (“Me”) and opposition (“Not Me”).

The findings provide an important recognition of the impact of formal and substantive rationalities on the conceptualization, implementation and manifestation of social enterprise for a variety of stakeholders.

This paper makes a significant contribution to understanding the why and the how of social entrepreneurship in responsible tourism. It provides a framework that can be widely applied to develop and enhance Weberian theory and further the understanding of the fundamental nature of human behavioral phenomena in tourism and beyond.

This article examines the new phenomenon of the convergence of platform and pipeline business models. It examines the potential synergies and challenges for platforms to add pipeline components and vice versa for pipeline businesses.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that synthesizes and integrates the literature from service, hospitality, and strategy, and supplements them with two illustrative mini-case studies.

While the extant literature typically focuses on the dichotomy between incumbent pipeline businesses that create value by controlling a linear series of activities and network effects-driven platforms, we differentiate between two types of platform business models (i.e. platforms with asset control and platforms with peer-provided assets). Further, we identify three common pathways of convergence; that is, pipelines moving towards (1) platforms with asset control and (2) those with peer-provided assets, and (3) platforms with peer-provided assets adopting defining business characteristics of pipelines. Furthermore, we contrast key characteristics of the three business models and examine potential synergies and challenges for business model convergence. Our findings suggest that convergence from pipelines to platforms with asset control seems to be a natural extension that offers many potential synergies and relatively minor challenges. In contrast, convergence from pipelines to platforms with peer-provided assets is likely to encounter more serious challenges and few synergies. Finally, the synergies and challenges of convergence from platforms with peer-provided assets to pipelines seem to be in between the other two in terms of synergies and challenges.

This article helps managers think through key considerations regarding potential synergies to develop and challenges to mitigate for embarking on convergence strategies between pipeline and platform business models.

This article is the first in the service, business model and strategy literature to identify, define, and conceptualize business model convergence between platforms with asset control, those with peer-provided assets and pipeline businesses. It is also the first to examine potential synergies and challenges these different paths of business model convergence may entail.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on key performance metrics of accommodation properties by elaborating on the roles of business models (i.e. franchised, chain-managed and independent hotels, and the sharing economy) and state-level restrictions in the US.

The pandemic is considered a variable interference against the average daily rate, occupancy and revenue per available room, which permits the examination of the before and after effects of the pandemic. The panel data model is used to examine the effect of the recent pandemic on the accommodation sector in the USA.

The results showed that chain-managed hotels were the most adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, while independent hotels were the least adversely impacted. Interestingly, and consistent with emerging consumer needs suggested by spatial distance theory, the pandemic does not have significant negative effects on Airbnb. The adverse impact of the pandemic on hotels was exacerbated in more restrictive states, while Airbnb remained immune to regulatory differences.

This study addresses the dearth of research on the types, roles and efficacy of business models in the accommodation industry and makes important theoretical contributions to the study of business model resilience in the accommodation industry, leveraging the resource-based theory of the firm and spatial distance theory.

The findings of this study make a significant contribution to the extant literature on the resilience of business models in the accommodation industry and have important implications for hotels, Airbnb owners, accommodation brands and destination and health policymakers. They demonstrate that a lower level of corporate control and greater flexibility in brand and operational standards allow for a more effective response to business disruptions such as a global pandemic.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a critical reflection on the role of hospitality in society. Specifically, this research criticizes contemporary conceptualizations of hospitality in academic research and practice and suggests a reconceptualized approach for capturing the full potential of hospitality to elicit transformative social change.

This paper is based on a critical analysis of hospitality research and practice as reflected in the extant literature. A typological approach to conceptualization is used to develop a framework that views hospitality from three distinct epistemological pathways.

Hospitality has largely been conceptualized as an industry- or a business-level context in which economic activity takes place, a pathway referred to as application. This paper offers the hospitality-oriented society of tomorrow (HOST) framework, which urges researchers and practitioners to explore two additional pathways – infusion and transformation – through which hospitality can contribute to society. The nonrecursive relationships between these three pathways and the five pillars of sustainable development espoused by the United Nations 2030 Agenda are proposed to form the basis of future inquiry into the role of hospitality in society.

The HOST model provides a framework whereby stakeholders within and outside of the traditional contours of the hospitality industry can benefit from a broader conceptualization and implementation of the hospitality phenomenon.

The paper offers a thought-provoking assessment of the fundamental tenets of hospitality as an academic discipline and social phenomenon. It offers a unique framework that should inform the evolution of hospitality research and practice if the discipline is to bolster its social significance.

This study aims to conduct a critical review of the research on the sharing economy to identify its key intellectual foundations and their evolution and offers thematic and methodological recommendations for future research to advance the domain.

A tri-method approach using bibliometric (co-citation) analysis, thematic content analysis and a quantitative systematic literature review was conducted on sharing economy research in hospitality and tourism journals, up to and including May 2020.

The findings from the three methods were coherent and provide a clear picture of the fact that while research on the sharing economy in hospitality and tourism has achieved significant depth, the breadth of the understanding of this area remains somewhat limited. Each of the three periods of research on the sharing economy identified in the study were marked by a focus on specific thematic areas, with largely Western-situated researchers demonstrating limited theoretical engagement and using a limited range of methods and perspectives (disciplinary, stakeholders and sectors) to examine these themes.

Recommendations for future thematic research opportunities are provided using a multi-level perspective. The present review does not include research that incorporates the impacts of COVID-19, which has significantly disrupted the hospitality and tourism industry and is the focus of current research in the field. However, the review represents the largest and most comprehensive assessment of the state of research on the sharing economy prior to COVID-19, and, as such, can serve as a valuable baseline for future reviews of sharing economy research during and after the pandemic.

In contrast with previous literature reviews, the present review is comprehensive in its scope, methodology and temporal coverage of sharing economy research. It also examines the evolution of research on the topic, enabling a more nuanced identification of gaps and future thematic and methodological research opportunities.

The study aims to examine how features that foster a sense of control, create positive distractions and provide access to social support influence patients’ well-being and, subsequently, their likelihood to choose hotel-like hospital rooms and their willingness to pay higher out-of-pocket expenses for such rooms. While there is increasing evidence to suggest the importance of the provision of hospitality in healthcare settings, research on these developments remains under-represented, particularly in the hospitality literature. In response, the present study builds on Ulrich’s (1991) theory of supportive design to examine patient responses to hotel-like features in a hospital room.

Using data from a survey of 406 patients, the authors used structural equation modeling to test the model.

Consistent with supportive design principles, the infusion of hotel-like features that foster a sense of control for patients, create positive distractions and provide access to social support was found to positively impact patients’ physical and mental well-being, which, in turn, increased their likelihood to choose a hospital room with hotel-like features and their willingness to pay for such rooms.

Findings attest to the need for healthcare providers to make the necessary investment in hotel-like features and to leverage the communicative power of these environmental cues. Social support in the form of hospitality-trained and certified healthcare staff was found to be the most important hotel-like feature, which also presents significant commercial opportunities for hospitality companies and professionals.

The study represents one of the first attempts to empirically develop a structured model to examine the infusion of hospitality into healthcare. It provides researchers with a theoretically supported framework for future inquiry into the domain. It also makes a significant contribution to advancing the research on patient well-being in healthcare settings and demonstrates the importance of hospitality to such endeavors.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of key decision-making attributes on consumers’ choice of accommodation among and between hotels and Airbnb.

The study used a choice-based conjoint approach using 21 key decision-making factors that impact consumers’ choice of accommodation across five segments ranging from economy to luxury. Latent class estimation was used to identify segments of respondents who tend to have similar preferences for accommodation.

The results showed the presence of a consistent pattern of decision-making across the five accommodation segments, culminating in a hierarchy of importance in accommodation choice. The 21 key decision-making attributes comprised three tiers in order of decreasing importance: quality and service, amenities, and accessibility and safety. Further, latent class analysis indicated the presence of a hotel group and an Airbnb group of customers, which allowed us to identify how both types of providers might maximize the value of their offers to encourage customer switch.

The accommodation landscape is extremely dynamic (particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds) and complex. The present study cannot capture all of its intricacies but provides an invaluable foundation for future research on the topic of consumer choice in an evolving and competitive accommodation market.

Extant research on accommodation choice has focused on hotels or Airbnb only. Moreover, research that has considered both types of accommodation simultaneously is limited in its conceptual and methodological scope. The present study synthesizes the fragmented literature on consumers’ accommodation choices and offers a holistic and coherent schematic – the hierarchy of importance in accommodation choice – that can be used by future researchers and practitioners alike.

This study aims to identify the causes of the academia-industry divide in hospitality marketing research in the form of the “Research Devaluation Map” and offers ideas for discussion points and suggestions for change.

The conceptualization of the Research Devaluation Map was developed at an invitational thought-leadership conference. The authors were asked to produce a forward looking, critical reflection of hospitality marketing scholarship. The authors generated a preliminary idea and developed a methodology for its implementation. They then proposed a framework that explicated the divide between hospitality marketing research and industry practice and a list of discussion points regarding possible solutions.

The issues currently challenging the hospitality research field are found to include the choice of research topics (the “what”), the methods used in research (the “how”) and the systemic factors that shape the academic culture (the “systemic”). These three factors lead to a mutual devaluation of the academic–industry relationship in hospitality marketing, causing a schism between research and industry practice.

The Research Devaluation Map serves as a springboard for future research studies, providing a framework for naming and operationalizing the antecedents and results of the divide between hospitality marketing research and practice.

This paper takes a holistic look at the gaps in current hospitality marketing research and puts forth a framework to explain the roots of these issues. While certain of these issues are known to both researchers and practitioners, the originality of this paper lies in the creation of the Research Devaluation Map that identifies the causes and results of the disconnect between research and practice.