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The study aims to delve into the influence of tourism on the happiness of city residents, grounded in the overarching concept of livability. It posits that prioritizing residents’ happiness is crucial for effectively addressing cities’ challenges in balancing development and distinctiveness. The study pursues three primary objectives: first, establishing a potential correlation between city tourism and residents’ happiness; second, examining the contributing factors to this correlation and third, identifying potential mediators that influence the connection between tourism development and residents’ happiness.

Using a quantitative single-case design and partial least square analysis, the study underscores the intricate nature of various tourism development components. It specifically explores the roles of cognitive flexibility and social comparison in shaping the relationship between city tourism and happiness.

The findings make a distinctive contribution by revealing that not all tourism domains contribute positively to happiness. Furthermore, it sheds light on how tourism development impacts the emotional and cognitive dimensions of happiness, emphasizing the adverse effects of inequality and feelings of insecurity.

The study acknowledges certain constraints, including its employment of a cross-sectional design, the issue of generalizability, potential sampling bias and the reliance on subjective measurements when evaluating constructs like happiness and satisfaction with life. Using self-reported data introduces susceptibility to social desirability bias and individual perceptual differences, potentially resulting in measurement inaccuracies. Nevertheless, despite these limitations, the study’s findings offer valuable insights that contribute to both theoretical advancement and the realm of urban management.

The findings elucidated through the mediation analyses conducted for hypotheses three to seven shed light on the significant roles played by mental adaptation and social comparison mechanisms in shaping individuals’ happiness. These insights substantially enhance our understanding of this field. Particularly, the dimensions of social and environmental impact within tourism appear to counterbalance the positive effects stemming from the economic and cultural aspects. This suggests a scenario where an excessive focus on tourism development could potentially undermine the overall livability of the city. These outcomes further indicate the necessity for proactive interventions by destination managers. Their efforts should be directed toward enhancing the environmental and social domains, aiming to reinvigorate the sense of community among residents, which appears to be gradually waning.

The outcomes of this study emphasize the utmost significance of prioritizing residents’ happiness above mere considerations of economic growth when formulating efficacious strategies for tourism. By concentrating on the happiness of the local population, a harmonious resonance is established with Sustainable Development Goal 11, which advocates for the creation of habitable cities founded upon the principle that “a city that is not good for its citizens is not good for tourists.” This alignment underscores the interconnected nature of residents’ happiness and the sustainable development of tourism. Moreover, residents’ happiness plays a pivotal role in addressing the challenge that cities face in harmonizing growth and their uniqueness, ensuring competitiveness and sustainability.

The research underscores the need for a people-oriented perspective in urban planning and tourism development initiatives. The study identifies diverse factors impacting residents’ happiness in city tourism, highlighting the complex interplay of environmental, cultural and socioeconomic elements. It emphasizes income’s role but underscores nonmaterial factors and individual preferences. Overall, the study offers timely and valuable insights into the intricate connection between tourism development, residents’ happiness, living conditions and human perception, guiding urban planners and stakeholders.

The study investigates how cultural festival attendees’ familiarity and involvement may influence their overall satisfaction and future behavioral intentions towards the festival.

A path analysis is used to test the proposed model. The Sobel test is performed to determine the mediating role of attendee satisfaction on future behavioral intentions.

Attendee familiarity positively and directly impacts attendee involvement. Attendee satisfaction mediates the relationship between involvement and intention to return to the festival. The findings did not demonstrate a relationship between attendee involvement and intention to recommend the cultural festival. Attendees’ intention to return to the festival positively and directly impacts intention to recommend the festival.

For repeat cultural festival attendees, satisfaction is influenced by festival familiarity and involvement. As attendees become more satisfied with their festival involvement, their decision to return to the festival increases. The mediation effect of satisfaction indicates that this should be a priority, as it fully mediates the relationships. However, this is not the case as it relates to the intentions to recommend the festival.

The study contributes to literature on the impact of familiarity and involvement on repeat attendee satisfaction levels and how these relationships influence attendees’ decisions to return or recommend the festival. It is one of the first studies that investigates actual behavior of festival attendees, specifically in the context of an African-American cultural festival.

This study aims to apply parasocial relationship theory to understand the hospitality brand-consumer relationship on social media. Aiming to examine brand-initiated mechanisms that drive relationship development, the study identified two sets of brand actions as antecedents, namely, content-related (utilitarian and hedonic benefits) and interaction-related factors (perceived interactivity and openness). This study also investigated the subsequent impacts of parasocial relationships on customer engagement behaviors and brand loyalty. As baby boomers are an important but understudied consumer cohort in social media marketing, this study empirically tested the proposed model for this specific group.

A survey was conducted electronically with baby boomer consumers from the USA. The partial least squares analysis was used to test the model validity for this consumer group.

The results of this study showed that content-related factors had significant effects on the parasocial relationship, which, in turn, significantly influenced customer engagement and brand loyalty.

This study responds to the recent calls from scholars on developing and expanding a nomological network of parasocial relationships to understand consumer-brand relationships in social media. By focusing on baby boomers, this study adds unique insights on understanding online relationships and engagement, specifically for this cohort. Future studies should expand the study by examining other generations, platform differences or using longitudinal methods.

This study informs hospitality marketers in the development and implementation of a successful Facebook relationship building campaign targeting baby boomers.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study known to have developed a coherent parasocial relationship model that combined content-related benefits, interaction-related factors, online engagement and brand loyalty. It also represents one of the few to examine how hospitality brands can build a parasocial relationship with baby boomers, an important but cohort, on social media and provide actionable insights to hospitality marketers for this generation.

This paper aims to review and discuss customer satisfaction and its application to the hospitality and tourism industries. This paper defines the concept and analyzes its importance to services in general and to hospitality/tourism services in particular. This paper is a revision and update of an article previously published by Pizam and Ellis (1999) on customer satisfaction measurements.

The most recent research on customer satisfaction measurements and scales is summarized and presented in the paper.

Following a discussion on the dimensions and attributes of satisfaction, the main methods of measuring satisfaction are listed, and cross-cultural issues that affect satisfaction are reviewed. Finally, the paper concludes with a comprehensive review of the current online tools and techniques available for measuring customer satisfaction.

This summary gives a good overview to researchers who require a comprehensive review of the available research measurements and scales for customer satisfaction.

For the past decade, a considerable amount of research has been conducted in customer satisfaction. Finding the appropriate measurements and scales for customer satisfaction can be time-consuming and confusing. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the best-known measurements and scales in customer satisfaction research. The paper also provides innovative online tools and techniques available for research.