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Following the increasing trend of artificial intelligence (AI) research in hospitality literature, this critical reflection paper aims to identify AI-assisted mindfulness as a critical yet under-investigated issue and to contribute feasible directions for future research.

The authors first conceptualize a framework explaining the effects of mindfulness design in AI interventions on improving human mindfulness. The authors then identify opportunities for interventions in AI-assisted mindfulness for the tourism, hospitality and events industries. Finally, the authors propose potential themes for AI-assisted mindfulness research.

This study contributes three major conceptual works. First, we conceptualize a framework of AI-assisted mindfulness, showcasing that the scope of AI-assisted mindfulness spans from AI interventions to state mindfulness and then to trait mindfulness. Second, the authors offer two approaches to strategic thinking, one from mindfulness (i.e. mindfulness-focused niche markets and activities) and one from AI applications (i.e. AI-facilitated devices and platforms), to identify opportunities for AI-assisted mindfulness interventions. Third, for both management- and marketing-oriented AI-assisted mindfulness research, the authors propose 18 themes.

This critical reflection paper offers directions for future knowledge creation in AI-assisted mindfulness in the tourism, hospitality and events industries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this critical reflection paper serves as the first in hospitality and tourism literature to systematically propose the research issue of AI-assisted mindfulness, offering directions and themes for future research.

This study aims to uncover marketing strategies to restore a positive image in times of pandemic crisis to bring tourists back to a popularly affected tourism city in China, Wuhan in Hubei Province. The paper argues that the process of restoring city image requires understanding the perceptions of Generation Z, a segment of the population who have a high propensity to travel after COVID-19.

This study employed a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore the perspectives of China’s Generation Z consumers of Wuhan’s future image to restart tourism. The data is collected through semi-structured interview of 29 respondents and analyzed with the initial, focused and theoretical coding process.

Start by narrowing the gap between projected and perceived image, the findings suggest that Generation Z could be pulled to visit Wuhan city through four core products such as dark tourism activities, special-interest leisure, heroism and storytelling.

The destination image restoration framework after health-related crisis is creatively proposed. It combines the analysis of crisis and urban characteristics from the perspective of the target audience (Generation Z) and provides specific strategies to restore the tourism city image from cognitive, affective and conative dimensions. Significantly, two novel characteristics of Generation Z (i.e. lighthearted and patriotic) emerge in addition to the typical features of this generational cohort. This study also found a high preference for a technologically oriented type of attraction that reverses the morbid COVID-19 memories into an entertainment tool.

This paper examines the changes in Macao's gaming public policy following the 2022 revision of the gaming law. The revision introduces more regulations on the gaming industry and highlights the gaming industry's contribution to economic diversification, anti-money laundering and national security. The paper analyzes the economic, cultural and political factors that motivated these changes and evaluates the effectiveness of the new gaming public policy.

This paper compares the different versions of Macao's gaming laws and the gaming laws of Nevada and New Jersey, using a qualitative approach to interpret the meanings behind the law text.

The paper reveals that Macao's gaming public policy has changed significantly. The revised policy focuses more on economic diversification than the growth of the gaming industry and imposes more responsibilities on the gaming operators. It predicts that Macao's gaming industry will face more difficulties in increasing its market share in the next decade.

The findings of this paper can help the Macao government assess its gaming public policy and other governments learn from the complex situation when developing their public policies.

The findings of this paper can enhance the understanding of Macao's gaming laws and the reality of Macao's gaming industry.

This paper is the first in academia to address Macao's new public policy toward gaming.

Drawing on person–environment fit theory, this study aims to investigate how the relationships between service task types (i.e. utilitarian and hedonic service tasks) and perceived authenticity (i.e. service and brand authenticity) differ under different conditions of service providers (human employee vs service robot). This study further examines whether customers’ stereotypes toward service robots (competence vs warmth) moderate the relationship between service types and perceived authenticity.

Using a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design, Study 1 examines a casual restaurant, whereas Study 2 assesses a theme park restaurant. Analysis of covariance and PROCESS are used to analyze the data.

Both studies reveal that human service providers in hedonic services positively affect service and brand authenticity more than robotic employees. Additionally, the robot competence stereotype moderates the relationship between hedonic services, service and brand authenticity, whereas the robot warmth stereotype moderates the relationship between hedonic services and brand authenticity in Study 2.

Restaurant managers need to understand which functions and types of service outlets are best suited for service robots in different service contexts. Robot–environment fit should be considered when developers design and managers select robots for their restaurants.

This study blazes a new theoretical trail of service robot research to systematically propose customer experiences with different service types by drawing upon person–environment fit theory and examining the moderating role of customers’ stereotypes toward service robots.

This study aimed to explore the spatial accessibility dynamics of urban parks and their driving forces from 1901 to 2010 in terms of the dynamic relationships between spatial morphology and road networks, taking Nanjing City as an example.

This study mapped and examined the spatiotemporal distribution of urban parks and road networks in four time points at Nanjing: the 1910s, 1930s, 1960s and 2010s, using the analysis methodology of spatial design network analysis, kernel density estimation and buffer analysis. Two approaches of spatial overlaying and data analysis were adopted to investigate the accessibility dynamics. The spatial overlaying compared the parks' layout and the road networks' core, subcore and noncore accessible areas; the data analysis clarified the average data on the city-wide and local scales of the road networks within the park buffer zone.

The analysis of the changing relationships between urban parks and the spatial morphology of road networks showed that the accessibility of urban parks has generally improved. This was influenced by six main factors: planning implementation, political policies, natural resources, historical heritage and cultural and economic levels.

The results provide a reference for achieving spatial equity, improving urban park accessibility and supporting sustainable urban park planning.

An increasing number of studies have explored the spatial accessibility of urban parks through the relationships between their spatial distribution and road networks. However, few studies have investigated the dynamic changes in accessibility over time. Discussing parks' accessibility over relatively long-time scales has practical, innovative and theoretical values; because it can reveal correlational laws and internal influences not apparent in short term and provide reference and implications for parks' spatial equity.

This study aims to use organizational fashion to underscore a novel phenomenon in which products, services and practices fade in and out of the tourism/hospitality setting within a specific time frame. Drawing from the fashion theoretical strands in organization research, this paper studies how fashion has been conceptualized, operationalized and then diffused among tourism/hospitality enterprises.

A qualitative case design was used. A total of 37 semistructured in-depth interviews with executives of innovative tourism/hospitality companies (e.g. restaurants, hotels, theme parks and travel agencies) were conducted. This paper focuses on the organizational fashion phenomenon in which organizational trendsetters with creative, “hot” products/services have emerged prominently in the marketplace.

This inquiry illustrates a social phenomenon concerning the organizational fashion setting process by integrating existing production practices among different organizational suppliers in the hospitality sector. Different cases in the study show that fashion consists of a series of hybrid, paradoxical processes. These include conceptualization (conventionalization vs novelty, and personalization vs conformity), operationalization (bundling vs unbundling, and learning vs relearning) and diffusion (framing vs co-framing, and adaptation vs alteration).

Throughout the three continuous processes, service design and identity development for consumption, as well as value creation and knowledge transformation for production, are carried out according to the decision of what is “hot” and what is “out” at a particular time. In essence, fashion helps to explain why hospitality institutions imitate specific innovations to take advantage of popular trends in the consumer market, as well as how such trends vanish eventually.

This research contributes the insight that organizations use fashion as a managerial initiative to translate their organizational goals and improvise nascent products and services. The fashion processes can be triggered by microlevel individual organizations and are spread through a series of social interactions to become macrolevel phenomena in a recurring manner.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how previous literature has analyzed the role of augmented reality and virtual reality in the field of tourism, distinguishing between studies focused on one technology or the other as both have characteristics that profoundly differentiate them.

This study carries out a critical review to assess and synthesize the literature on augmented reality and virtual reality in tourism. Literature searches are conducted using various keywords, resulting in a selection of 84 articles (19 on augmented reality and 65 on virtual reality) from 39 indexed journals.

The research findings demonstrate an increasing scholarly focus on exploring the application of virtual reality and augmented reality within the realm of tourism. These results highlight a noticeable progression in recent years with respect to different matters, such as methodologies, used theories or considered variables, among others. Based on these results, it is proposed a future research agenda that seeks to establish a cohesive framework and drive the development of both augmented reality and virtual reality research in tourism.

By conducting an individual and comparative review of the literature on the application of augmented reality and virtual reality in tourism, this research helps elucidate the specific lines of research for each technology while providing a better understanding of how each technology can be used to generate effective tourist experiences.

El objetivo de este artículo es investigar cómo la literatura previa ha analizado el papel de la realidad aumentada y la realidad virtual en el ámbito del turismo, distinguiendo entre estudios centrados en una u otra tecnología ya que ambas tienen características que las diferencian profundamente.

Este estudio realiza una revisión crítica para evaluar y sintetizar la literatura sobre realidad aumentada y realidad virtual en turismo. Se realizan búsquedas de literatura utilizando diversas palabras clave, que dan como resultado la selección de 84 artículos (19 sobre realidad aumentada y 65 sobre realidad virtual) procedentes de 39 revistas indexadas.

Los resultados de la investigación demuestran que existe un interés creciente en explorar la aplicación de la realidad virtual y la realidad aumentada en el ámbito del turismo. Asimismo, se pone de manifiesto una notable progresión en los últimos años con respecto a diferentes cuestiones, como las metodologías aplicadas, las teorías empleadas o las variables consideradas, entre otras. A partir de estos resultados, se propone una agenda de investigación futura que pretende establecer un marco cohesionado e impulsar el desarrollo de la investigación en el ámbito tanto de la realidad aumentada como de la realidad virtual en turismo.

Al realizar una revisión individual y comparativa de la literatura sobre la aplicación de la realidad aumentada y la realidad virtual en el turismo, esta investigación ayuda a esclarecer las líneas de investigación específicas de cada tecnología a la vez que proporciona una mejor comprensión de cómo cada tecnología puede ser utilizada para generar experiencias turísticas efectivas.

本文旨在研究以往的文献是如何分析增强现实和虚拟现实在旅游领域的作用的, 并对侧重于其中一种技术或另一种技术的研究加以区分, 因为这两种技术都有深刻区别于其他技术的特点。

本研究通过批判性综述来评估和归纳有关旅游业中增强现实和虚拟现实技术的文献。通过使用各种关键词进行文献检索, 从 39 种索引期刊中筛选出 84 篇文章（19 篇关于增强现实技术, 65 篇关于虚拟现实技术）。

研究结果表明, 学术界越来越重视探索虚拟现实和增强现实在旅游业中的应用。这些结果突显了近年来在方法论、采用的理论或考虑的变量等不同方面的明显进步。在这些成果的基础上, 提出了未来的研究议程, 旨在建立一个具有凝聚力的框架, 推动旅游业中增强现实和虚拟现实研究的发展。

本研究通过对增强现实和虚拟现实技术在旅游业中应用的文献进行单独和比较审查, 有助于阐明每种技术的具体研究方向, 同时让人们更好地了解如何使用每种技术来产生有效的旅游体验。

This secondary source case is based mainly on legislative documents (that tracked the initiation and progress of the Parental Rights in Education bill that later became an Act), corporate documents (published by The Walt Disney Company) and news articles from publications such as The New York Times and Bloomberg. All sources are cited in the case narrative and as end notes.

In April 2022, The Walt Disney Company and its CEO, Robert Chapek, were at the center of a controversy over the company’s opposition to the State of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill. The bill, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, prohibited instruction on sexual identity and gender orientation in the state’s elementary schools. The controversy stemmed from Disney’s initial non-reaction to the bill and its later strident opposition and call for its repeal. Chapek was pressured by negative media publicity and employee disgruntlement on the one hand and adverse economic consequences for opposing the bill by the state’s Governor, Ron DeSantis. Chapek and the Board had to respond to the political threats to Disney’s economic well-being while appeasing its employees and other stakeholders who wanted the company to be a corporate champion in diversity, equity and inclusion.

The case is best suited for advanced undergraduate or graduate leadership, strategic management and marketing courses. From a leadership and strategic management perspective, the case is well-suited for demonstrating the evolving expectations of leaders and corporate social responsibility, as well as the concepts of issue framing and nonmarket management. Instructors may also leverage the case in marketing courses (e.g. brand management), as CEO activism (i.e. messaging and practice) is one characteristic of brand activism (Animation Guild, 2022).

This study aims to establish a comprehensive satisfaction analysis framework by mining online restaurant reviews, which can not only accurately reveal consumer satisfaction but also identify factors leading to dissatisfaction and further quantify improvement opportunity levels.

Adopting deep learning, Cross-Bidirectional Encoder Representations Transformers (BERT) model is developed to measure customer satisfaction. Furthermore, opinion mining technique is used to extract consumers’ opinions and obtain dissatisfaction factors. Furthermore, the opportunity algorithm is introduced to quantify attributes’ improvement opportunity levels. A total of 19,133 online reviews of 31 restaurants in Universal Beijing Resort are crawled to validate the framework.

Results demonstrate the superiority of Cross-BERT model compared to existing models such as sentiment lexicon-based model and Naïve Bayes. More importantly, after effectively unveiling customer dissatisfaction factors (e.g. long queuing time and taste salty), “Dish taste,” “Waiters’ attitude” and “Decoration” are identified as the three secondary attributes with the greatest improvement opportunities.

The proposed framework helps managers, especially in the restaurant industry, accurately understand customer satisfaction and reasons behind dissatisfaction, thereby generating efficient countermeasures. Especially, the improvement opportunity levels also benefit practitioners in efficiently allocating limited business resources.

This work contributes to hospitality and tourism literature by developing a comprehensive customer satisfaction analysis framework in the big data era. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is among the first to introduce opportunity algorithm to quantify service improvement benefits. The proposed Cross-BERT model also advances the methodological literature on measuring customer satisfaction.

This study aims to progress scholarly understanding of the staycation phenomenon by examining customer segments and documenting local customers’ attribute preferences.

A stated choice experiment is used to examine customer preferences for staycation package attributes. Latent class discrete choice modeling is deployed to classify customers into market segments based on their preferences. The profile of each segment is enhanced by documenting customer characteristics and consumption styles.

Six prominent market segments are identified using a combination of sociodemographics, consumption styles and staycation attribute preferences. The findings draw on consumer experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic to generate theoretical insights into preferred staycation packages. Empirically, the estimation results from the research framework and choice experimental method demonstrate that staycation market segments exhibit distinct preference structures.

Practitioners and policymakers can incorporate the findings of this study in designing and/or assessing staycation packages. This can ensure differentiated products for defined segments that resonate within local communities through positive word of mouth, thus offering prospective spillovers to visiting friends and relatives.

This is a pioneering study on preference heterogeneity from the customer perspective, with a focus on staycation markets. The findings can encourage and assist hotel sector leaders to capitalize on local market developments to achieve a more resilient hospitality business model.