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This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the management of experiences in hospitality and tourism (H&T). The paper investigates the evolution of experience research, while discussing the emerging challenges and opportunities for management.

The study adopts a critical and reflective approach for providing future directions of experience research. Three major fields are identified to discuss advances, challenges and opportunities in experience research: conceptualization and dimensions of experiences; relational network for experience management; and theoretical and methodological approaches.

The paper proposes a mindset shift to guide experience research, but also to redirect and research thinking and managerial practices about the role of experiences in the economy and society. This proposed humanized perspective to experience research and management is deemed important given the contemporary socio-economic, environmental and technological challenges of the environment.

This paper identifies a set of theoretical and managerial implications to help scholars and professionals alike to implement the humanized perspective to experience research. Implications relate to conceptualization, relational network and theoretical and methodological approaches in experience research.

This study critically assesses research challenges and opportunities around customer experience management (CEM) in H&T contexts. This reflective and critical look at customer experiences not only informs future research for advancing knowledge and practice but also proposes a mindset shift about the role and nature of CEM in the society and economy.

This study aims to better understand tourists’ revisit intention from their perspectives of past and expected experience and to investigate whether the formation of revisit intention differs between tourists from different nationalities.

The sample consisted of 250 Indonesian tourists who have visited Australia and 275 Australian tourists who have visited Indonesia. The data were analysed by conducting structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis with group comparisons.

Indonesian tourists’ intention to revisit Australia was influenced by past feeling experience and expected experience, while Australian tourists’ intention to revisit Indonesia was influenced by past feeling and relating experiences and expected experience. Both samples differ significantly in terms of relations between experiences and revisit intention. The relationship between past thinking experience and revisit intention was positive for Indonesians but negative for Australians. The relationship between past relating and expected experience was positive for Australians but negative for Indonesians. In addition, the influence of expected experience on revisit intention was stronger for Australian than Indonesian tourists.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study, for the first time, enriches tourism literature in understanding revisit intention by investigating revisit intention in relation to both past and expected experiences, along with examining nationality differences in the revisit intention formation.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of destination marketing and media profiling to re-engage international tourists. However, potential crisis-induced nation brand (NB) deficits must be addressed to re-ignite tourism demand. The study examines the possible intervening effect of the contemporary NB in the international destination marketing and media-travel motives nexus.

A deductive quantitative study was undertaken with an online Amazon Mechanical Turk sample of n = 454 respondents. Hypotheses were tested using PROCESS Macro, Model 4.

The results show that the NB [people and negative events] had a practically significant partial mediating effect in the destination marketing – nature-cultural oriented travel motivation nexus.

New insights are provided via a practical model which facilitates the measurement of potential nuances in the influence of destination marketing and media profiling on leisure tourists' travel motives amid crises. The intervening effect implies that a better understanding of the NB as an indirect antecedent to travel motivation may result in more effective crisis communications and tourism recovery-oriented marketing.

The study is amongst the first to extend marketing and behavioural theory to explore the interplay between the marketing and media profile, a nation's brand and tourists' travel behaviour amid a crisis. The study addresses a discernible dearth of knowledge related to the influence of the NB on tourist behaviour from an emerging market perspective.

This study aims to elucidate the process and internal mechanism of place identity construction in traditional villages under the impact of tourism by taking Cuandixia village as a case. The research methods comprise participatory observation and in-depth interviews with the residents. The main results are as follows: the impact of tourism on traditional villages is mainly reflected in space reconstruction, livelihood change, social relations restructuring and culture change; under the impact of tourism, the representation of residents’ identity construction shows complexity, with positive and negative effects; and the place identity construction of residents affects their perception of and attitudes toward tourism. Moreover, self-esteem and self-efficacy principles play a key role in their perception of tourism. This study provides some reference for further investigation of the tourism development model and the mental mechanism of residents in traditional villages.

Virtual spaces, commonly referred to as the Metaverse, are predicted to disrupt consumption patterns in tourism, hospitality and events (THE) by shifting some user experiences to a virtual world. Scholarly investigations are necessitated to aid in an understanding of virtual spaces and the implications of their consumption for THE industries. This viewpoint outlines a provisional research agenda on virtual spaces.

To inform its arguments, this viewpoint draws upon academic and grey literature surrounding the emerging topic of the Metaverse in THE industries.

The research agenda should consider four perspectives representing different actors of THE value chain, i.e. developers/suppliers, THE business professionals, customers and policymakers. The research agenda should also incorporate the wider spillover effects of consumption of virtual spaces which may stretch well beyond THE industries.

This viewpoint outlines some research directions which may aid different actors of THE value chain alongside academics in better understanding the emerging phenomenon of virtual spaces and comprehend the opportunities and challenges associated with their uptake by THE industries.

Drawing on the theory of memory-dominant logic, this study aims to examine how the substantive staging of the servicescape, experience co-creation, experiential satisfaction and experience intensification affect experience memorability and hedonic well-being in the case of unmanned smart hotels.

An online survey was used, with the target respondents being hotel guests people aged 18 years and older who had been recent guests of the FlyZoo Hotel in Hangzhou, China. Data were collected online from 429 guests who had stayed in the hotel between April and June 2023. Data analysis was undertaken using structural equation modelling.

The results suggest that all the proposed four constructs are positive drivers of a memorable unmanned smart hotel experience. The relationship between the memorability of the hotel experience and hedonic well-being was found to be significant and positive.

Unmanned smart hotels should ensure that all smart technologies function effectively and dependably and offer highly personalised services to guests, allowing them to co-create their experiences. This will lead to the guest receiving a satisfying and memorable experience. To enable experience co-creation using smart technologies, unmanned smart hotels could provide short instructional videos for guests, as well as work closely with manufacturers and suppliers to ensure that smart technology systems are regularly updated.

This study investigates the antecedents and outcomes of a novel phenomenon and extends the concept of memorable tourism experiences to the context of unmanned smart hotels.

Although previous studies have examined the influence of celebrity involvement in behavioural intentions, the role of celebrity dimensions such as attraction, self-expression and centrality in influencing tourists’ intention in the context of developing countries such as Tanzania remains largely unaddressed. This study, therefore, examined the relationship between celebrity involvement and domestic tourists' intentions to visit tourist attractions, attitude being the mediating variable.

A questionnaire was self-administered on a convenient sample of 279 domestic tourists in the Tanzania’s four largest regions, namely, Dar es Salaam, Mbeya, Arusha and Mwanza. Employing a quantitative research approach, structural equation modelling was performed to test the cause-and-effect relationships between celebrity involvement and tourists’ intentions before testing the mediating role of attitude in such a relationship. Confirmatory factor analysis was also performed to test the measurement models.

Attraction emerged to be the main determinant of the celebrity dimension that significantly influenced domestic tourists’ travel intentions, whereas attitude partially mediates such a relationship. Moreover, Bongo Fleva musicians, particularly Diamond Platnumz, one of the leading celebrities in this genre, were found to influence most of the respondents’ travel intentions – he posted a picture on his Instagram account of him touring the Serengeti National Park.

The study focused on domestic tourists residing in four of the Mainland Tanzania’s largest regions, hence excluding those residing on the islands of Unguja and Pemba. Due to cultural differences, including the islands not only could unleash new perspectives on celebrity involvement dimensions but also could have introduced new determinants of travel intentions.

This study offers guidance to tourism businesses on designing their marketing campaigns that they should harness celebrity’s attractive qualities effectively. The focus should be directed not only towards linking destinations with celebrities but also on stimulating positive perception of those destinations, aligning with the attitudes of their followers.

The study has set out a new perspective for researchers, practitioners and tourism businesses to refine their promotional strategies and for academicians to gain a deeper understanding of visitor behavioural intention dynamics.

This study has proposed and verified that attraction is a dominant determinant compared to self-expression and centrality in explaining tourists’ travel intentions and attitudes, which play a significant role in explaining such a relationship. Although the study employed a modified theory of planned behaviour in a celebrity involvement study, the findings have broadened the understanding and its applicability in the context of a developing country.

The main objective of this research is to analyze satisfaction with tourist services linked to the concept of sustainability in the context of a visit to the so-called equestrian show. The equestrian show adds values from the cultures that passed through the city. Specifically, the study focuses on tourist loyalty based on satisfaction with tourist services, satisfaction with the equestrian show and its overall quality. The fieldwork has been conducted in Córdoba, Spain. There are few studies on the relationship between tourist services linked to the concepts of sustainability and loyalty from the perspective of equestrian show management, making this a novel contribution to research.

The methodology used is based on a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach.

To achieve the proposed objective, a structured questionnaire was used, and the results obtained confirm that satisfaction with tourist services linked to the concept of sustainability and the assessment of quality positively influence tourist loyalty. Consequently, they recommend returning to the destination and repeating the visit.

Heritage in Córdoba, Spain, is internationally recognized. Its uniqueness, with four world inscriptions along with the cultures that inhabited it, left a material heritage legacy in the city. Over time, this legacy has made it a magnet for visitors, making it essential to delve into its management and how concepts such as satisfaction with tourist services, combined with sustainability, impact the improvement of the visit.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the fast growth of online music festivals. This paper explores how festivalgoers' experience affects their satisfaction and drives their loyalty to re-attend online music festivals in China.

Based on an understanding of the music festival experience and the characteristics of live-streamed performances, this paper investigates five factors that affect festivalgoers' satisfaction and loyalty, namely the music experience, ambience experience, separation experience, social experience and novelty experience. The relationships between festivalgoers' experience, satisfaction and loyalty are also explored using structural equation modelling techniques.

The empirical results suggest that four of the above-mentioned five factors of the online music festival experience directly affect festivalgoers' satisfaction and loyalty. The online mode is a rapid adaptation of and preferred alternative to offline music festivals, whilst the creation of the experience, along with satisfaction with and loyalty to the online music festival, are determined by different factors compared to offline modes. Overall festival satisfaction positively enhances the relationship between festivalgoers' experience and loyalty to online music festivals.

This study offers a range of practical and managerial implications for organisers of online music festival, similar activities such as live-streaming concerts and stage performances and hybrid events.

This study explores a phenomenon that has evolved quickly since COVID-19 and will, potentially, have an ongoing and enduring impact on the music festival sector. It differentiates the understanding of festivalgoers' experience in online and offline modes, which is a new addition to the literature. It also enriches the theoretical understanding of the experience of, satisfaction with and loyalty to online music festivals.