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The purpose of this study is to investigate what people with different demographic characteristics such as age and gender expect from hotel room design and examine how design preferences affect purchase intent and desire to stay and word-of-mouth behavior.

The study was based on a quasi-experimental design conducted on 762 participants. The manipulations of room color and design style were prepared using the 3D modeling software, while age and gender were self-reported variables.

The results indicated that age and gender moderate the relationship between hotel guest satisfaction and room design style. Younger guests prefer contemporary design style, while older guests show equal satisfaction with traditional and contemporary styles. Male guests prefer rooms decorated in masculine colors, while women are equally satisfied with masculine or feminine color schemes.

This study was conducted as a hypothetical, computer-aided experimental scenario. A field experiment captured guests’ satisfaction with an experimental hotel room. A substantive cause–effect relationship between hotel room visual servicescape stimuli and satisfaction was established.

Identifying design style and color preferences of a hotel target market is paramount for investment payoff and further supports the customization of hotel services.

This is the first experimental study to manipulate color scheme and type of design in a hotel room and capture their effects on satisfaction and behavior of guests with different demographic characteristics.

The purpose of this study is to distinguish between two types of nostalgia, examine their effect on emotions and explore the relationships between nostalgic emotions evoked by past hotel experiences and consumers’ brand attachment and willingness-to-pay.

This study was based on a sequential explanatory mixed-method design. An online scenario-based experiment was complemented with online structured interviews.

The results indicate that both personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia evoke positive emotions (upbeat/elation and warm/tender). However, emotions evoked by personal nostalgia are less intense than those evoked by historical nostalgia. Positive emotions successfully predicted brand prominence and brand-self connection. Brand prominence, but not brand-self connection, was positively related to consumers’ willingness-to-pay.

The study’s findings suggest that hotel brands that focus on creating extraordinary memories, and brands with more historical themes, elicit more positive emotions among hotel customers. This, in turn, makes customers more likely to recall that hotel brand in the future and translates into higher willingness-to-pay.

This study is among the first to establish and test a conceptual model that connects nostalgia, nostalgic emotions, brand attachment and willingness-to-pay in the hotel industry context. As such, it is a rare attempt to explain the role of personal and historical nostalgia in hospitality research.

While innovative service systems may create substantial value for certain stakeholders, they often destroy value for others. This value paradox frequently leads to unsustainable service systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of multiple theories to pinpoint and explain these value paradoxes, build a framework allowing potentially more sustainable value configuration of service systems and develop an agenda for future research. The framework is illustrated with examples from the hospitality industry.

The paper draws on prevalent theories and approaches, including service-dominant logic, business modeling, transaction cost economics, stakeholder theory, configuration theory and set theory, to develop a value configuration framework.

In a service system, the configuration of resources and relationships between these resources (i.e. the set of value propositions for various stakeholders of the system) determines which stakeholders will gain and which will lose and to what extent. For that reason, insight into the range of possible service configurations – or business models – will help decision makers consider the effects on various stakeholders, and, where possible, set their priorities right and make their businesses more sustainable. The research produces a rich research agenda.

Examples from hospitality allow an in-depth examination of a range of dynamic configurational and technological innovations, but some idiosyncratic characteristics of the context may impede the wider applicability of the conceptual framework. Future research could complement this work by studying other service sectors.

The paper aims to provide decision makers in the service industry with a conceptual tool to explore, diagnose and, if needed, adjust the value configuration of their service operations. In practice, this tool may help explicate the service system configuration, thus helping managers determine their organizations’ desired positioning in terms of value creation and destruction, and to choose strategic directions by adapting configurations.

Legislation and regulations are being adapted to various new service configurations. This paper attempts to – at least conceptually – distinguish different service configurations, allowing policy makers to identify the value trade-offs between stakeholders, including society at large.

Previous research focused primarily on value creation by innovative services and business models. Value creation for one stakeholder, however, could lead to value destruction for another. Taking this paradox into consideration may result in more open service ecosystems that explicitly consider sustainability and value implications in multiple dimensions and for a broader group of stakeholders.

A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. The aim of this study is to examine dimensions of “Hobson’s choice” servicescape and their effect on affective responses and to understand how affective responses drive consumer decisions in “true choice” and “Hobson’s choice” servicescapes.

Two studies have been conducted. The first study used mixed methods approach (focus groups and online survey) to examine dimensions of “Hobson’s choice” servicescape. The second study used a scenario-based experimental design to compare the effect of enjoyment and anxiety on consumer decisions in “true choice” and “Hobson’s choice” servicescapes.

Study 1 results indicate that hedonic and utilitarian servicescape attributes have a different effect on contrasting emotional responses. This study reveals a positive relationship between consumer enjoyment and hedonic stimuli in Hobson’s choice servicescape. Furthermore, inadequate utilitarian servicescape dimensions cause consumer anxiety. Study 2 results indicate that enjoyment plays a more important role in consumer decision-making in true choice settings, whereas anxiety is more important in Hobson’s choice settings.

Hobson’s choice settings should focus on servicescape features that reduce anxiety and thus lead to affirmative consumer decisions. On the other hand, true choice settings should try to improve consumer enjoyment to create affirmative consumer decisions.

This is the first study to examine and compare drivers of consumer’s emotions and their effect on consumer decisions in Hobson’s choice and true choice servicescapes.

Advances in technology and in subsequent guest-related amenities have the potential to improve the guest experience and also increase both guestroom revenues and ancillary room revenues. Innovative technologies will be one of the prime differentiators of hotel companies in the twenty-first century. However, it is important for hoteliers to answer questions such as which technology amenities do their guests desire when choosing overnight accommodations? Further, what are the importance levels assigned by guests of these various technology amenities? This study aims to answer the question of how leisure travelers may differ or be similar to business travelers with regard to in-room technology amenities.

The target population of this study consisted of 2,500 US residents whose email addresses were randomly drawn from a national database company. A series of t-tests and ANOVA were conducted to answer the research questions.

High-speed internet access and guest device connectivity were perceived more important by business travelers than by leisure travelers.

Recognizing guests’ technology needs and answering those needs are important for hotel operators to remain competitive. While some segments perceive more value in certain technologies, for others it might be an indifferent amenity.

The amount of time guests spend in their rooms directly correlates to increased revenues from in-room dining, in-room amenities offered and, in general, all pay-for-use products and services such as the internet and movies. Therefore, with the right assortment and offering of technology amenities, hotels will increase their revenues from these ancillary revenues. Moreover, a hotel property with the right mixture of desired in-room amenities and services can charge higher rates for their guestroom sales.

The results of this study provide insights into the changing attitudes toward in-room entertainment technology that many hotel developers should take note of.

While a layman's theory supports the view that “a smile goes a long way,” the authors argue that “not all smiles are created equal” in the sense that the server's smiles need to be genuine and authentic, in particular when the customer has a relationship with the server. The purpose of this study is to test such hypotheses.

A 2 (display authenticity: authentic vs inauthentic) by 2 (state of service relationship: existing service relationship vs no service relationship) experiment was used to test the proposed hypotheses. In total, 768 surveys were distributed and 278 responses were received. Two-way ANOVA analyses were deployed.

Data collected from customers reveal that authentic smiles have a direct positive impact on customers' willingness to tip. Further, such an effect is even stronger when the customer has an existing relationship with the server.

Servers should receive appropriate training regarding “deep acting” techniques. The most important limitation is the use of written scenarios as stimuli.

Showing an authentic smile can be an effective tip-collecting strategy. Employees who are in contact with guests and customers should not only be instructed to provide service with a smile but should also be advised to make that smile appear authentic. Therefore, appropriate training of frontline employees, regarding authenticity of smiles, could be beneficial both for the company and for the employees themselves.

No research has been done investigating whether authentic smiles generate larger tips and if so, whether any boundary conditions exist for such effects.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationships between restaurant quality attributes and customer behavioral intentions.

An experimental design was chosen to provide a high level of internal validity. Three separate 3 × 2 factorial design experiments were conducted through 18 separate vignette scenarios for three levels of quality (below average, average and above average) of three common restaurant attributes (food, service and ambience) in two types of restaurants (quick service and upscale).

The results indicated that the type of restaurant moderated the relationship between restaurant service and ambience quality and customer behavioral intentions.

The results of this study suggest that management of quick-service and upscale restaurants should focus on food quality, but establish different resource allocation priorities with respect to service and ambience quality.

This study examined the linearity of the relationships between three common restaurant attributes (food, service and ambience) for three levels of quality (below average, average and above average) in two types of restaurants (quick service and upscale).

Considering the complexity of the airport industry service palette, it is important to identify which air travel factors are distractors and which factors are enhancers of passenger satisfaction. Building on Herzberg's two-factor motivation theory, this study aims to explore most frequently mentioned attributes of airport service quality and distinguish key drivers for passenger satisfaction/dissatisfaction in the airport context.

A content analysis of 1,095 traveler comments posted between 2010 and 2013 on an airport review web site was performed in order to identify satisfiers/dissatisfiers. The web spider randomly selected consumer comments related to 33 popular destinations.

The study results indicated key satisfiers in the airport context such as cleanliness and pleasant environment to spend time in. On the other side, security-check, confusing signage and poor dining offer are recognized as major dissatisfiers in the airport setting.

The study findings provide insight on predominant satisfiers, dissastisfiers and performance factors of airport service quality from passengers' perspectives. Airport management teams may use the study results to renovate airport facility and improve service quality.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to utilize the visual data mining techniques in examining airport users' experience. Visualization produced summaries of qualitative comments in the form of tag clouds, word networks, and word tree images that help discover the most emerging themes of travelers' complaints and compliments.