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Informed by the role and script theory, this paper aims to explore workforce and customer experiences related to service delivery under the sharing economy. The study is expedient as the sharing economy spreads its disruptive innovation across the hospitality industry.

This paper applies a qualitative approach, sourcing online data from virtual platforms.

The results indicate both positive and negative experiences for customers and the workforce, and the paper highlights the challenges of fragmented service delivery as a result of service delivery mediated through mobile applications.

Food delivery mediated through mobile applications is likely to expand as more households are lured by its convenience. This change has implications for both restaurants and the workforce.

Although a growing number of studies analyse the impact of the sharing economy on the hospitality industry, much of the focus has been on accommodation, and the impact and implications for the food-service segment has not been thoroughly investigated yet.

The Internet is redefining the way in which researchers and consumers can access information on hospitality products and experiences. For example, a growing number of online communities (e.g., http://Tripadvisor.com) offer consumers the opportunity to view and participate in various forums and reviews of hospitality experiences around the world. This has created a rich source of information which researchers can tap into, via Internet-based methodologies, to deepen current understanding of the modern hospitality consumer. Thus, the Internet has become a viable (virtual) fieldwork site for hospitality and other research. However, net-based methods have not been fully embraced in hospitality research. In particular, attention is drawn in this chapter to netnography (online ethnography), a novel, Internet-based research methodology, which has rarely been employed in hospitality research. Further, it is suggested, researchers can complement traditional research techniques with netnography to create more rigorous methodologies.

Most of the research on hospitality jobs has focused on the least enjoyable aspects of hospitality careers, while overlooking its “upside”. This paper aims to look at the “love” side of what could be described as a love‐hate relationship that hospitality managers share with their jobs.

The research used qualitative interviews with 83 hotel managers in 23 registered hotels belonging to the three‐ and four‐star categories in Zimbabwe.

The most liked attributes of hospitality management careers among Zimbabwean hotel managers were found to be: interacting with people from various countries, cultures, and lifestyles; working in a “nice” environment; perks; challenging work; stimulating work; glamour/prestige; the global nature of the industry and associated mobility; opportunities for networking with various groups of people; growth opportunities; dynamic and exciting nature of the industry; ability to apply individual creativity; and working with a diverse workforce.

The use of a Zimbabwean sample means that findings cannot be generalised for the worldwide hospitality industry.

The research rebalances the assessment of hospitality work by looking at the often overlooked “upside” aspects of hospitality careers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how tourists negotiate existential/experiential authenticity in cultural restaurant experiences as represented in their online reviews.

The paper uses netnography, a relatively novel web-based method, to examine the phenomenon of existential authenticity. Post-visit online reviews were analyzed to glean meanings and insights into tourists' lived experiences in Victoria Falls restaurants.

The analysis illustrates how the experience of existential authenticity is at the centre of tourist's recollections and more importantly, how it is a highly internalized, individual process. There is a strong suggestion in the tourists' reviews however that the totality of the experience is more important than its individual components; that a hedonistic search for “fun” characterizes the tourists' quest in tourism. Very little emphasis is placed on the authenticity of cultural objects, suggesting that existential authenticity may be more important in this context than objectivist authenticity.

First, the emphasis on the “total experience” highlights the importance of thinking beyond the food on the plate. Second, tourists' reference to having been “pleasantly surprised” should spur restaurateurs to indulge their creative abilities; to give tourists unexpected add-ons. Restaurants that are nonconformist, original, or unusual are likely to excite international travelers. Third, the importance of collective authenticity is well illustrated: tourists enjoy “sociality”. This means restaurant marketing collateral needs to reflect the social interaction concomitant to the experience. Finally, most tourists appreciate performative experiences, thus practitioners might need to offer more interactive rather than passive service consumption.

The study provides insights into a previously unresearched context using a nontraditional data collection method.