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The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of employees’ different disability types on lodging guests’ perceptions of service quality delivery and stereotyping. The study also explores the influence of consumer characteristics (i.e. gender, education, religiosity, generational identity and relationship to a person with a disability) on service delivery quality perceptions and stereotyping.

Using different types of disabilities, the study uses a controlled experiment, followed by a survey, to evaluate consumers’ perception of service quality delivery of a hotel front office staff member.

The results suggest that there are no significant differences in the perceptions of service quality delivery and stereotyping for service employees with disabilities with the exception of employees with a visual impairment. The study found that participants, who had a close friend or family member with a disability, expressed less stereotyping than those who did not have a close friend or family member with a disability.

Real service encounters can be used where participants might be more involved in the service process than in a controlled experiment setting.

The findings provide support to human resource management in strategically placing people with disabilities into front-line positions because they satisfactorily represent the image of the company and guests consider their service professional and reliable.

The study’s findings support that employers should tap into the under-utilized workforce of people with disabilities and avoid pre-existing stereotyping.

A major concern of hospitality companies making employment decisions about hiring people with disabilities is guests’ attitude. This is the first study in hospitality that examines service quality delivery of employees with different types of disability serve guests.

This research aims to investigate the impacts of misleading hotel website photos on consumers’ brand trust, emotional responses and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intention. The magnitude of these impacts in different contexts was examined.

This study employed a 2 (hotel segment: economy vs upscale) × 2 (expected product experience: hedonic vs utilitarian) scenario-based experimental design. A total of 240 consumers participated in this study.

The study results show that, in the case of misleading hotel website photos, brand trust was lower for the upscale hotel. Consumers experienced greater anger and regret in the upscale hotel situation and were most angry if they stayed at an upscale hotel for a hedonic purpose. The eWOM intention was higher in the upscale hotel situation. In addition, it was found that hotel physical environment was more important for female and married consumers.

A hypothetical brand name was used in this study. Therefore, brand attitude changes and the influences of brand loyalty on consumers’ responses to misleading website photos were not examined.

Upscale hotels and hotels that target leisure consumers need to make an effort to use truthful website photos and ensure that the physical environment is well maintained.

No prior research investigated the impact of misleading hotel website photos. This research fills this gap in the hospitality literature.

This exploratory study aims to investigate consumers' perceptions, attitudes, and purchase intention for restaurants that employ a significant amount of service staff with disabilities. The influences of consumers' characteristics and dining occasions on purchase intention were also examined.

The authors employed a single-factor (dining occasion) experimental design. A convenient sample was used and a total of 192 consumers participated in this study.

Consumers demonstrated a moderately positive purchase intention for a restaurant that employs a significant amount of service staff with disabilities; however, the purchase intention varied by dining occasions. The likelihood of choosing this type of restaurant was higher in a family/friends occasion than in business or romantic occasions.

This study employed a convenient sample and the findings might be limited to the casual dining restaurant context. Future research should examine the relationship between purchase intention and perceived social responsibility, restaurant image, or specific disabilities.

This study suggests that hiring a significant amount of service staff with disabilities might be a better strategy for restaurants that target family/friends gatherings. Meanwhile, managers need to be more strategic when they assign employees with disabilities to serve guests who are in a business or romantic dining situation.

This is the first study that empirically investigates consumers' perspectives on restaurant service staff with disabilities in the USA.

Marketing managers routinely use purchase intentions data to make strategic decisions concerning both new and existing products and the marketing programs that support them. Yet, the indication from empirical investigations regarding the link between respondents' stated intentions and their actual behavior is not as clear. Predicting which consumer will purchase an environmentally friendly product, the research remains split, particularly when it comes to perceived “trade‐offs” between the environmental benefits, quality, and cost. In this regard, previous research has fallen short in examining consumers' actual purchase behavior versus self‐reported purchase intentions. This paper seeks to address these issues.

This study measured consumer psychographics and expressed purchase intention to predict actual purchase behavior using an online survey and the Vickrey auction method.

The results show that respondents expressing a high intention to purchase environmentally friendly wines also reported strong attitudes and values toward the environment. However, the gap between stated willingness to pay and the actual price paid was wide.

The study was restricted to the investigation of one type of product. The model should be tested with a number of products that are purchased on a regular basis.

Given the wide disparity between stated willingness to pay and actual price paid for those expressing high purchase intentions, marketing should use caution when assessing this targeted group for new product launches and potential price changes.

This study assessed the same cohort using a survey and auction experiment to relate consumer values and purchase intentions with actual behavior.