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The purpose of this study is to explain the impact of innovation characteristics (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity and perceived risk) and individual differences (inertia, technology anxiety, need for interaction and previous experience) on customer intentions to adopt tablet-based menus in various restaurants settings.

An experimental design was used in this study to explore tablet-based menu acceptance intentions across three restaurant settings: quick-service, midscale and upscale. A total of 415 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three scenarios describing a dining experience. Each scenario placed participants in a restaurant setting where a tablet-based menu was a part of the guests’ dining experience.

The study results indicated that out of the four innovation characteristics, compatibility and relative advantage are strong predictors of adoption intention of tablet-based menus. Among customer individual differences, technology anxiety and need for interaction were not found to have a statistically significant impact on intentions to adopt tablet-based menus. It was also found that customers dining at quick-service and midscale restaurants are more likely to adopt tablet-based menus than customers dining at upscale restaurants.

Managers in quick-service and midscale restaurants may consider investing in tablet-based menus, as customers of these restaurant types demonstrate higher adoption intentions compared to the customers of upscale dining establishments. The results of this study suggest that upscale restaurants should plan carefully before switching to table-based menus.

The findings of this study may assist restaurant managers in recognizing the importance of customer acceptance of new technologies such as tablet-based menus, which will lead to informed decisions about implementing tablet-based menus in their establishments.

The aim of this paper is to determine the relative efficacy of an e-tablet menu over the traditional paper-based menu across the parameters of order information quality, menu usability, and ordering satisfaction using customer perceptions.

Two types of data were collected: customer perceptions using an instrument comprising academically underpinned constructs and observational data that involved ordering times, logs of any customization requests, and notes gathered from interactions with restaurant staff.

Findings indicate that e-tablet menus are significantly superior to the traditional paper-based menu across all parameters. Restaurateurs should be cognizant of customization options to significantly enhance order information quality, improve customer service and boost sales.

The findings support the idea that the use of technology does help to enhance the service experience, specifically the ordering experience for the customer.

Electronic tablets have the ability to transfer greater levels of information in an interactive manner thereby enhancing the role of the menu in the merchandising of a restaurant's offerings.

Although there is evidence of the importance of restaurant menus to the success of restaurants, little is known about the influence of the use of electronic menus on the ordering experience. This study provides findings that focus on the usability of menus and their impact on the ordering experience.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to review and critically evaluate robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) applications in the restaurant industry to educate professors, graduate students, and industry professionals.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter is a survey of applications of RAISA in restaurants. The chapter is based on the review of professional and peer-reviewed academic literature, and the industry insight section was prepared based on a 50-minute interview with Mr. Juan Higueros, Chief Operations Officer of Bear Robotics.

Findings: Various case studies presented in this chapter illustrate numerous possibilities for automation: from automating a specific function to complete automation of the front of the house (e.g., Eatsa) or back of the house (e.g., Spyce robotic kitchen). The restaurant industry has already adopted chatbots; voice-activated and biometric technologies; robots as hosts, food runners, chefs, and bartenders; tableside ordering; conveyors; and robotic food delivery.

Practical implications: The chapter presents professors and students with a detailed overview of RAISA in the restaurant industry that will be useful for educational and research purposes. Restaurant owners and managers may also benefit from reading this chapter as they will learn about the current state of technology and opportunities for RAISA implementation.

Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this chapter presents the first systematic and in-depth review of RAISA technologies in the restaurant industry.

The intense competition among restaurant brands made it difficult to retain and engage customers. Service innovation can play a vital role to serve this purpose, however, restaurant brands' efforts to bringing innovativeness may not yield desired results unless customers perceive them innovative. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the role of customer perceived innovativeness (CPRI) in enhancing brand love and evangelism among customers. This study compares these effects between fast-food and continental restaurants to offer deeper insights.

Data were collected from 303 customers of fast-food and continental restaurants through self-administered structured questionnaire. The reliability and validity were established through confirmatory factor analysis. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and multi-group SEM with MPlus.

The findings of this study reveal that menu, experiential and promotional innovativeness dimensions of CPRI positively influence brand love. The effects of CPRI dimensions transcend to brand evangelism dimensions, i.e. brand purchase intension, positive brand referrals and oppositional brand referrals via brand love. The multi-group analysis showed that continental restaurants' menu innovativeness strongly impacts brand love and evangelism while promotional innovativeness matters more in the context of fast-food restaurants.

This study helps restaurant managers in devising tailor made strategies for fast-food and continental restaurants by focusing on the relevant attributes to bring innovation.

This research is one of the pioneering studies to investigate the relationship of CPRI with brand evangelism through the mediating role of brand love. This study also marks an initial attempt to compare fast-food and continental restaurants in the context of CPRI.

The gastronomy industry is one of the industries in which consumers use technology most frequently, such as robotics, artificial intelligence and automation systems. Service robots are generally defined as online programs that can act independently or under the control of a human that can carry human characteristics such as speaking, understanding and acting. This study aims to examine and evaluate the studies on service robots in the gastronomy industry regarding quantity or quality, to understand the phenomenon more comprehensively, and to determine a holistic perspective. To this end, a qualitative research approach was adopted. Document technique was used to collect data within a systematic literature review framework, and the data were analysed by descriptive analysis. According to the findings, the papers on service robots in the gastronomy industry are still in their infancy, and these studies have increasingly gained speed in the last five years.

This study aims to compare the performance of self-service kiosks in a quick-service setting with the performance of cashiers. In particular, this study explores both internal responses and external responses between the two ordering methods with the moderating role of crowdedness.

This study develops a theoretical framework based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model. A 2 × 2 field experiment was conducted in a real quick-service outlet to collect data.

The results reveal that customers reported a better experience when using self-service kiosks compared to placing orders with cashiers. However, cashiers generated more revenue for the quick-service outlet than kiosks. Significant interaction effects were found for external responses. Customers spent more time placing orders with cashiers than with kiosks in less crowded periods, while cashiers generated more sales than kiosks during busier periods.

This study enriches the hospitality and tourism literature by applying the S-O-R framework in an experimental design incorporating both internal and external responses. The findings on the interaction between ordering methods and crowdedness on external responses provide practical insights for quick-service restaurant operators to find a balance between technology and human services.

自助服务机可否超越收银员? 以刺激 – 机制 – 反应 (SOR) 模型作为理论框架的点餐体验研究

本论文在快餐环境下比较自助服务机与收银员的业绩表现差异。具体而言, 本研究从内部和外部反映两方面探索了两种不同点餐方法以及就餐环境拥挤程度作为调节变量。

本研究借用刺激 – 机制 – 反应 (SOR) 模型作为理论框架, 以快餐店为环境进行了2x2 实验。

研究结果显示, 相比较餐饮收银员, 消费者对自助服务机更加较积极的顾客反应。但是餐厅收银员会产生相对较高的销售额。针对对外反应, 研究结果呈现显著的交互作用。 消费者在相对不拥挤的环境下更愿意花时间借助自助服务机点餐, 但是收银员比自助服务机在高峰时段更能产生较高销售额。

本研究借助SOR的理论框架用实验法来研究消费者内部和外部反应, 从而进一步充实了酒店和旅游文献。基于点餐方法和拥挤程度的交互作用, 本研究结果为快餐产业实现人工和科技的平衡提供了实践意义。

自助服务机 S-O-R 理论框架 快餐厅 拥挤程度 内部反应 外部反应

研究型论文

Experimental design has long been used by psychology and consumer behavior researchers to examine causal effects of interventions on human responses. However, it remains underutilized in hospitality and tourism research. Furthermore, problems in design, implementation, and report of results were identified in previous hospitality and tourism publications. It is imperative to equip hospitality and tourism experimenters with sophisticated and state-of-the-art knowledge about experimental design, and to draw their attention to some crucial, but easily neglected, issues in designing the experiment and writing the experimental research paper. Given these reasons, this book chapter discusses some key issues in experimental design and provides corresponding insights related to the sections of introduction, literature review, hypothesis, method, analysis, and results in an experimental research paper, while the uniqueness of hospitality and tourism is considered. It is expected that the chapter will be useful for hospitality and tourism researchers to plan, conduct, and report their experimental studies in the future.

This paper aims to systematically explore the experiences of restaurant patrons with quick response (QR) code menus during the pandemic to extract insights pertaining to the acceptance of technology adoption in service settings for the post-COVID era.

COVID-19 has enormously impacted consumer perceptions toward technology adoption in restaurants. Identifying these impacts requires qualitative inquiries because qualitative techniques, unlike quantitative methods, enable researchers to seek insights into the phenomenon without a predetermined stance. This study applied a qualitative research method. The qualitative data was obtained through in-depth interviews and a focus group. Thematic analysis was conducted.

This study identified perceived attributes of QR code technology by patrons: positive attributes such as easy to learn, quick and contactless; and negative attributes such as effortful and reliance on a smartphone. Also, the results distinguished perceived advantages of utilization of QR codes as restaurants’ menu: advantages such as hygienic, environmentally friendly due to no printing and contactless; and disadvantages such as poor menu design and lack of interaction.

This research presents patrons’ views on QR code menu utilization at restaurants under the pandemic conditions. Contradictory responses on the same features of technology reveal a lack of menu design in the utilization of QR codes. Restaurant practitioners can extract insights about how to better use technology like QR codes, cost-effective and environmentally friendly, in their operations in the postpandemic era.

This study included both deductive and inductive approaches. An inductive approach that progressed from theory to data was applied while forming interview questions. A deductive approach was used to inform theory with the findings of the data. The value of research derives from differentiating technology attributes (QR codes) and utilization domain (restaurant menu) in the realm of acceptance of technology in the consumer context.

This research examines the influence of consumer environmental consciousness and perception of menu information in the formation of restaurant image. The concepts of mindfulness and mindful consumption were used as the theoretical background for the study.

Using a quasi-experimental setting, data were collected from restaurant consumers dining at an upscale casual restaurant in the southeastern United States over a four-week time. Structural equation modeling, multi-group analysis and mediation analysis were used to test the hypothesized relationships between research constructs.

Results suggested that consumer environmental consciousness does not have a direct effect on the formation of restaurant image. However, consumer environmental consciousness influenced consumers' perception of menu information, and the perception of menu information consequently influences the restaurant image.

Foodservice industry increasingly interested in sustainability practices. Consumers want to know the connections between food and its impact on their health and the environment. Findings reveal that environmentally conscious consumers actively sought out menu information, and that once the information they were seeking was perceived, it significantly strengthened the perception of restaurant image.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research that investigated the environmental consciousness construct in a live restaurant context.

Although restauranteurs hope to incorporate offal or variety meat, in the menu as an attempt to reduce food waste, adopting these ingredients is still challenging due to customer rejections. This study aims to propose potential persuasive sales strategies based on customers’ different information sources to increase organ meat-based menu sales for restaurateurs.

In this research, a qualitative study was conducted to identify critical factors that show persuasive effects from external, interpersonal and experiential information sources. A total of 20 in-depth expert interviews with professional chefs and restauranteurs were conducted and key persuasive service tactics were analyzed.

From their experience of persuading customers to try unusual foods, insights about how to alleviate unfamiliar food aversion were obtained. The findings of this study showed that different persuasive sales tactics can be implemented to decrease customers’ aversion to offal and offcuts on menus.

The context of offal is meaningful theoretically because it sheds light on the literature gaps related to persuasive sales strategies for food products with a negative social stigma. Practically, the findings of this study explicitly address that offal usage in restaurants can not only encourage the culinary uniqueness of a restaurant but also contribute to the reduction of food waste by foodservice operations.

This research answers the calls for more research on sustainable food sources in hospitality literature by proposing offal as a potential alternative protein source. The findings of this study can further be used to improve customer acceptance of other sustainable but unfamiliar food items.