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This chapter explains the role and potential of colour and lighting as two important elements of the service atmosphere in tourism and hospitality service encounters. The chapter first explains the importance of colour and lighting in services from the perspective of customers’ sensory perceptions. Then, the chapter provides examples to demonstrate how psychological/neuro-marketing tools of Eye Tracker and Facial Recognition, Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Heart Rate (HR) can be used to understand the role of colour and lighting in customer satisfaction in tourism and hospitality service encounters. Based on this perspective, the study offers recommendations to design service environments in terms of colour and lighting.

This chapter explores the relationship between emotional design and customer experience. It begins with an introduction to the concept of emotional design, comprising behavioral, visceral, and reflective elements. Next, the nature of service experiences is examined, leading to a framework that classifies services according to their functional and experiential positions. Understanding customer goals allows this framework to be used to design customer experiences, in terms of the journey that customers take when consuming a service. The chapter then discusses the cognitive traits associated with designers and argues that they are well suited to understanding the customer journey and designing the prerequisites for the desired experience. Two different approaches to understanding and acting on customer requirements are explored – user centered and design driven.

It is commonly recognized in the UK Higher Education (HE) sector that the United States has dominated the practice of applying and articulating service-learning as a pedagogical approach for several decades (see Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Butin, 2003; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Furco & Billig, 2002; Morton & Troppe, 1996). The use of service-learning as a pedagogical approach is an emerging field in the UK, responding to strategic agendas such as national assessment of academic impact and the civic role of universities.

Delivering services that create memorable luxury accommodation experiences rely on frontline staff to engage guests on a sensory level rather than merely a functional one. This engagement includes cognitive, emotional, relational and behavioural. Hospitality and tourism industries are people-orientated – people are needed to serve people in order to create desired experiences – and it is very difficult to create satisfaction or to revisit intention in every interaction that takes place. It is this intangible characteristic of the industries, provisions and tangible cues that play an important part in enhancing the overall luxury accommodation experience. Guests are very clear as to what they expect from luxury accommodation experiences: they feel that they are paying for a service that should be personalised, and that staff should realise what they want and need. The human interaction component and the co-creation that occurs between staff and guests is an essential dimension of the industry. The influence of these interactions on guest experiences and the delivery of services will be explored in this chapter.

This paper draws on the experiences of project marketing and solution selling to improve the understanding of how to create superior value for customers. Project marketing and solution selling have both developed approaches to deal with complex marketing situations for a number of years now. The upstream mobilization of customer network actors and the downstream enlargement of the content and scope of the offering are the key features of these approaches.

This paper presents two case studies to focus attention on elements that are crucial to this twin-track approach. The downstream extension of the offering relies on services supporting the customer's action (SSC), which supplement traditional services that support the supplier's product (SSP). The upstream extension leads to an introduction to other types of services or elements of the offering – the services supporting the customer's network actors (SSCN).

Furthermore, the paper proposes a marketing process that takes the supplier's viewpoint, for whom the entire approach is a network mobilization, into account. This approach to the offering, which included SSP, SSC, and SSCN, is typical of a network strategy in which the supplier recruits and enrolls new actors to (re)model the buying center.

This marketing process is in tune with the latest developments of the service-dominant (S-D) logic, as it proposes a move from the value chain toward a value-creation network/constellation. Consequently, creating superior value for customer means mobilizing and servicing actors far beyond the boundaries of the buying center, supply chain, and customer solution net.

Service learning is a pedagogical approach that primarily focuses upon achieving student learning outcomes through meaningful community engagement. While service-learning pedagogies provide “service” to community, the view of community partners from a deficit-oriented perspective can render service learning ineffective and, at worst, potentially harmful to the community served. This chapter presents a course that uses food as a civic lens through which to engage community, instructors, and students in CRITICAL-SERVICE-LEARNING where systemic inequities that contribute to community needs are focused upon, community partners are co-creators of course design, outcomes to student learning and community benefits are equitably considered, and collective knowledge and experience of stakeholders is valued.

The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze the relationship between service innovation and experience creation in the context of spas, wellness and medical tourism. The objectives include providing an overview of service innovation theory and models and applying them to the spa, wellness and medical tourism sectors.

Primary research was undertaken with the purpose of identifying the most important elements in the experiences of spa and wellness guests and tourists. An online questionnaire was collected from 17 different types of spa and wellness facilities from 56 countries including all kinds of spa, wellness hotels, and retreats. Information given was based on three major demand segments: local customers, domestic tourists, and international tourists. A case study is also given of Pärnu hospital in Estonia, where innovative practices are being implemented to enhance the patient experience.

Findings suggested that some aspects of innovation (e.g., design and technology) are not as important as expected, but evidence-based treatments, medical services, and natural and local resources are.

The research gives important insights into customer preferences and current and future trends; however, the research only focused on operator rather than consumer perspectives. This would require further research.

The research findings provide useful information to operators who are trying to create innovative, unique, and competitive customer services.

Existing service innovation models are applied to new sectors (spa, wellness and medical tourism) and new insights are given into how these sectors can increase innovation and enhance customer experiences.

The purpose of this chapter is to share the structure and strategies that institutions can use to transform the experience of students learning at a distance. Details on how one of the largest educational systems in the United States, the State University of New York (SUNY), reshaped the student online learning experience via the “Open SUNY” model will be described. Specific strategies for infusing existing models of support with new ways of thinking will be explained.

In particular, this chapter will explore the infrastructure of the Open SUNY model of collaboration, the use of the Open SUNY Institutional Readiness approach for preparing colleges to deliver quality online programming, and the unique Open SUNY+ Signature Element program for assessing the quality of online programming and support structures.

This chapter will also highlight the efforts of one campus, SUNY Canton, to leverage Open SUNY and take its signature element on student engagement to the next level. A case study on Canton will show how the campus incorporated online students in all aspects of campus life to reduce student isolation. Specific online student engagement strategies will be provided.

The role of firm attributes as a source of competitive advantage has been discussed previously in the tourism marketing strategy field. Benchmarking, a recognized learning model, is recommended as a tool to identify and improve the competitiveness of a firm. The present study employs the importance–performance analysis (IPA) to benchmark five nature- and culture-based attractions in Northern Norway. Altogether, 701 respondents participated in the on-site survey, i.e., during their vacation experiences. The present study reveals several interesting and useful managerial insights and implications for the tourist attraction industry in general as well as for the individual tourist attraction firm measured. Consequently, this study contributes to management by integrating theory and empirical data to investigate whether benchmarking, as a company learning tool, may lead to improved performance. Based on the study results, the present work suggests strategies and potential improvements for the respective tourist attractions.