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This paper aims to introduce the psychological variable of “social distance” and use SEM to analyze the relationship between tourism service providers’ physical attractiveness (SPPA) and tourists’ perceptions of social distance, stereotypes and service quality.

The data collectors were instructed to convenience sampling tourists in Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort, the biggest resort in South China and 334 valid questionnaires were collected. This study used CFA to confirm the measurement model and to check the reliability and validity of the constructs. Using Mplus 7.0, SEM was performed to test the hypotheses of this study.

The study found that tourism SPPA can improve tourists’ stereotype perception by reducing the social distance between tourists and service providers, which ultimately improves service quality. This study also found that only warmth perception can significantly improve the service quality evaluation of tourists, with competence perception having no significant effect.

This study focused on the SPPA in tourism services, expanding the research on tourism service management and on the effect of physical attractiveness; enriched the stereotype content model and behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes map by clarifying the mediating role of social distance and stereotypes; found different roles played by the competence and warmth stereotype in the enhancement effect; helped find an insightful strategy to improve service quality by recruiting and training employees intentionally.

旅游服务人员的外貌吸引力与顾客服务质量评价：热情与能力同等重要吗？

本文的目的在于利用结构方程模型验证旅游服务人员的外貌吸引力、旅游者感知社会距离与服务质量感知之间的关系, 并为如何提升旅游服务质量提出建议。

研究使用方便抽样的方式在广州长隆旅游度假区共回收有效问卷334份。本文使用Mplus 7.0对研究模型进行了检验。

研究结果表明, 旅游服务人员的外貌吸引力可以通过拉近其与旅游者之间的社会距离, 从而能够提升旅游者对其的热情和能力刻板印象, 进而提升旅游者服务质量感知。本文还发现热情和能力刻板印象的重要性有所不同, 只有后者能够显著提升旅游者服务质量感知。

第一, 本研究从一线旅游服务人员的外貌吸引力因素视角, 推进了旅游服务管理和外貌刻板印象的相关研究。第二, 本文还通过厘清社会距离和刻板印象的中介作用, 丰富了SCM和BIAS map理论。第三, 本文发现了热情和能力刻板印象在提升服务质量感知过程中的不同作用。

关键词：外貌吸引力, 社会距离, 刻板印象, SCM, BIAS map, 服务质量

文章类型： 研究型论文

El atractivo físico de los prestadores de servicios turísticos y la evaluación de la calidad del servicio de los clientes: ¿qué es más importante, la calidez o las competencias?

El objetivo de este artículo es introducir la variable psicológica del “distanciamiento social” y utilizar un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales para analizar la relación entre el atractivo físico de los prestadores de servicios turísticos y la percepción de los turistas sobre el distanciamiento social, estereotipos y la calidad del servicio.

Los recopiladores de datos recibieron instrucciones de tomar muestras de turistas a conveniencia en el centro turístico de Guangzhou Chimelong, el centro turístico más grande del sur de China. Se recolectaron 334 cuestionarios válidos. Este estudio utilizó el AFC para confirmar el modelo de medición y verificar la confiabilidad y validez de los constructos. Para probar las hipótesis de este estudio, se elaboró un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales utilizando Mplus 7.0.

En este estudio se encontró que el atractivo físico de los prestadores de servicios turísticos puede mejorar los estereotipos de los turistas, reduciendo el distanciamiento social entre los turistas y los prestadores de servicios y a la vez, en última instancia, formar una mayor calidad del servicio. En este estudio también se encontró que, en dos estereotipos, la percepción de la calidez y de las competencias, solo el último puede mejorar significativamente la evaluación de la calidad del servicio por parte de los turistas. No existe una relación significativa entre la percepción de la calidez y la evaluación de la calidad del servicio.

En primer lugar, este estudio se enfocó en el atractivo físico del personal de primera línea que presta los servicios turísticos, ampliando la investigación a la gestión de los servicios de turismo y el efecto del atractivo físico. En segundo lugar, este estudio enriqueció el SMC y el mapa BIAS al aclarar el rol mediador del distanciamiento social y los estereotipos. En tercer lugar, en este estudio se encontraron los diferentes roles que juegan el estereotipo de las competencias y el de la calidez en la relación entre el atractivo físico y la calidad del servicio.

Atractivo físico, distanciamiento social, estereotipos, SMC, mapa BIAS, calidad del servicio

The high turnover rate among interns exacerbates the shortage of human resources in the hospitality industry. This study is based on previous concerns about the impact of occupational stigma and internship on turnover intention. This study aims to explore how the career adaptability of interns influences their perception of occupational stigma and occupational identity.

By using stratified sampling, semistructured interviews were conducted with 34 respondents who had academic and vocational education backgrounds. The data analysis was performed using the thematic analysis method.

This study demonstrates that a high level of career adaptability helps to reduce interns’ perception of occupational stigma and strengthen their occupational identity. Students from academic and vocational schools display different levels of career adaptability in terms of job matching and career promotion. In addition, the long-term influence on occupational identity is more significant from professional development potential compared to job adaptation.

This study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between occupational stigma and occupational identity from the perspective of career adaptability. Moreover, it highlights the importance of job adaption, matching, promotion and professional development in retaining talent within the hospitality industry.

This study innovatively focuses on job matching and career promotion for coping with occupational stigma. It also considers interns’ educational backgrounds, facilitating further understanding of occupational identity under the influence of stigma. A fresh perspective on talent adaptation and retention in the hospitality industry is provided.

实习生的高流动率加剧了酒店业人力资源的短缺。本研究在职业污名与实习对离职倾向影响的研究基础上, 主要探讨了实习生的职业适应如何影响其职业污名感知和职业认同。

研究采用分层抽样的方法, 对34名拥有学术和职业教育背景的受访者进行半结构访谈, 并采用主题分析法进行数据分析。

研究发现, 良好的职业适应有助于减少实习生的职业污名感知, 并增强其职业认同。学术学校和职业学校的学生在工作匹配和职业晋升方面表现出不同程度的职业适应。此外, 职业发展潜力对职业认同的影响比工作适应更加长远。

本研究从职业适应的角度对职业污名与职业认同之间的复杂关系提供了有价值的见解。此外, 它还强调了工作适应、匹配、晋升和专业发展在酒店业人才保留方面的重要性。

本研究创新地关注了职业匹配与职业晋升对应对职业污名和提升职业认同的影响。研究还考虑了实习生教育背景的差异性, 进一步深化对污名影响下的职业认同的理解, 为酒店行业的人才适应和保留提供了一个新的研究视角。

La elevada tasa de rotación entre los trabajadores en prácticas agrava la escasez de recursos humanos en el sector de la hostelería. Este estudio se basa en preocupaciones previas sobre el impacto del estigma ocupacional y las prácticas en la intención de rotación. Explora principalmente cómo influye la adaptabilidad profesional de los becarios en su percepción del estigma ocupacional y la identidad ocupacional.

Mediante un muestreo estratificado, se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a 34 encuestados con formación académica y profesional. El análisis de los datos se realizó mediante el método de análisis temático.

Este estudio demuestra que un alto nivel de adaptabilidad profesional contribuye a reducir la percepción de estigma ocupacional de los estudiantes en prácticas y a reforzar su identidad ocupacional. Los estudiantes de escuelas académicas y de formación profesional muestran diferentes niveles de adaptabilidad profesional en términos de adecuación al puesto de trabajo y promoción profesional. Además, la influencia a largo plazo sobre la identidad ocupacional es más significativa del potencial de desarrollo profesional en comparación con la adaptación laboral.

El estudio aporta información valiosa sobre la compleja relación entre el estigma ocupacional y la identidad ocupacional desde la perspectiva de la adaptabilidad profesional. Además, pone de relieve la importancia de la adaptación del puesto de trabajo, el emparejamiento, la promoción y el desarrollo profesional para retener el talento dentro de la industria de la hostelería.

Este estudio se centra de forma innovadora en la adecuación al puesto de trabajo y la promoción profesional para hacer frente al estigma laboral. También tiene en cuenta los antecedentes educativos de los becarios, lo que facilita una mayor comprensión de la identidad ocupacional bajo la influencia del estigma. Se aporta una nueva perspectiva sobre la adaptación y la retención del talento en la industria de la hostelería.

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study aims to investigate the relation of customer sexual harassment (CSH) and customer-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors (customer-oriented OCB), as well as the mediation of customer–employee exchange (CEX) and the moderation of hostile attribution bias.

The hypotheses were examined through a field study performed in six hotels in three Chinese cities and an experimental study.

The results revealed that CSH undermined the quality of CEX, leading employees to withdraw from customer-oriented OCB. Additionally, the hostile attribution bias of service employees reinforced the direct relationship between CSH and CEX and its indirect relationship with customer-oriented OCB via CEX.

The findings suggest that hospitality organizations should endeavor to reduce the occurrence of CSH, and that by valuing and encouraging the development of high-quality CEX, they can mitigate its detrimental effects. Special attention should also be paid to hospitality employees holding strong hostile attribution bias.

First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explore the influence of CSH on customer-oriented OCB among hotel employees. In addition, examining the effect of CSH from the social exchange perspective represents a new theoretical approach. The finding also contributes to the literature on CEX by identifying an important antecedent. Finally, by investigating hostile attribution bias as a moderator, this research provides insights into how individual differences moderate the destructive influence of CSH.

This paper aims to explore the physical attractiveness stereotype in service encounters. Specifically, this paper examines how physical attractiveness affects a customer’s response and whether a customer’s social interaction anxiety and the consumption situation moderate this relationship.

Three experiments were used to test hypotheses. Participants were subject to scenarios of varying levels of physical attractiveness (more vs less), social interaction anxiety (high vs low) and consumption situation (private vs public). Customer participation intention and citizenship behavior were measured along scales.

The results indicate that the physical attractiveness of service providers positively affects customer citizenship behavior, and customer participation intention mediates this relationship. However, the effect only exists for a customer with low social interaction anxiety or presents itself under public consumption conditions.

This work paints a more nuanced picture of missing links in the understanding of the influence of service providers’ physical attractiveness. It enriches the physical attractiveness stereotype literature by identifying the mediating role of customer participation intention while bounding the relationship within conditions related to a customer’s social interaction anxiety and the service consumption situation.

Management may alter the performance of service employees by considering the employee’s physical attractiveness and gauging customer social interaction anxiety while keeping in mind the consumption situation.

This study advances physical attractiveness stereotype research by examining its effect on customer participation intention and citizenship behavior in the service industry. Additionally, this study adds customer social interaction anxiety and consumption situation to the existing literature that addresses employee factors affecting customer behavior.

This paper aims to investigate the brand building behavior in the luxury hotel industry from the perspective of frontline employees. In particular, this study addresses the importance and relevance of supportive leadership, brand building behavior and customers’ perceived brand image in the hotel industry.

The research uses data from four luxury class (4 and 5 star) hotels in the Pearl River Delta of China. Contact with frontline employees yielded employee and customer data, with 243 of 369 employee questionnaires having one or more matches with 1,158 customer questionnaires. Hierarchical linear modeling was adopted to test the research model.

Luxury hotels benefit from managers who provide supportive leadership that encourages employee brand building behavior. In turn, employee brand building behavior influences customers’ positive perception of brand image.

Brand building behavior is a top-to-bottom process. Luxury hotels need to pay attention to internal brand building orientation, while managers should reinforce the organization’s cultural orientation and provide appropriate job skills training to improve employees’ willingness and ability to build the company’s brand.

Findings of this study contribute to the brand management literature and the hotel management literature by addressing important matters affecting the frontline employees’ brand building behavior.

Limited research has paid attention to the physical attractiveness stereotype in peer-to-peer sharing accommodation settings. Since the high-risk situations in sharing accommodations, this paper aims to exam whether beauty premium is still relevant in peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation.

The mixed method, including 2,506 secondary data analysis and two scenario experiments, is carried out to test the research framework.

The results show that both beauty premium and beauty penalty exist in the e-commerce context. Excessively high attractiveness and plain looking of hosts are likely to decrease consumers’ booking decision while moderately attractive hosts will stimulate more booking behaviors. Moreover, perceived trustworthiness mediates the effect of physical attractiveness on booking decision. Additionally, similarity between hosts and consumers plays a moderating role in the relationship between physical attractiveness and perceived trustworthiness.

This study reveals the physical attractiveness stereotype effects in P2P accommodation and carry implications to P2P platforms and hosts for providing moderately attractive profile photos, enhancing trustworthiness and similarity between hosts and consumers. Further studies can investigate the robustness of the findings as well as more possible reasons for its occurrence.

The research provides a clearer understanding of physical attractiveness stereotype effect in peer-to-peer sharing accommodation platforms. Besides, the linkage between physical attractiveness and perceived trustworthiness is dynamic; a high host – consumer similarity weakens the negative impact of both excessively high attractiveness and plain looking on consumers’ perceived trustworthiness.

This study aims to examine the effect of regional discrimination on tourists’ unethical behavior intention and the mediating role of tourist anger. Furthermore, the study examines whether the impact of regional discrimination on tourist anger is moderated by tourist self-efficacy.

Three scenario experiments were conducted to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicated an indirect effect of regional discrimination on tourists’ unethical behavior intention via tourist anger. In addition, the findings showed that tourist self-efficacy would weaken the relationship between regional discrimination and tourist anger.

This study reveals tourists’ emotional and behavioral reactions to regional discrimination. Further research can examine the influence of regional discrimination from other theoretical lens and field experiments are encouraged.

This study enriches current knowledge on regional discrimination by developing an integral framework to explore tourists’ reactions toward regional discrimination.

Frontline service employees are often subjected to customer mistreatment and considerable studies have tested outcomes of customer mistreatment. However, the importance of its antecedents is particularly underestimated. This meta-analytic paper aims to develop an overarching framework that identifies the antecedents of customer mistreatment as well as potential boundary conditions to account for observed variations reported in extant studies.

Comprehensive electronic and manual searches were performed to retrieve relevant studies on customer mistreatment, which yielded 125 articles, including 141 independent samples. Altogether, these studies included 40,151 participants. The data were analyzed through random-effect meta-analytic methods in R using the psychmeta package.

Three types of antecedents were identified. In particular, regarding employees’ demographic characteristics, age was found to be negatively correlated with customer mistreatment. Employees’ personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, positive affectivity, emotion regulation ability and self-efficacy were found to be negatively correlated with customer mistreatment, while neuroticism and negative affectivity were positively correlated with customer mistreatment. In terms of contextual factors, perceived social support and service climate were negatively related to customer mistreatment, whereas job demands were positively related to customer mistreatment. Moreover, the power distance culture and types of service industries moderated some relationships.

This meta-analytic research, drawing upon the perpetrator predation framework, proposed a new and comprehensive framework to explain why customer mistreatment occurs. It not only promoted the advancement of literature on customer mistreatment but also provided effective and targeted guidance for helping frontline service employees reduce such negative experience.

This study aims to examine the moderated mediation model among self-image congruity, self-brand connection, self-motivation and brand preference and validate that actual and ideal self-image congruity are two distinct constructs. As shown in the conceptual model, actual and ideal self-image congruity toward a brand have direct and indirect positive effects on brand preference through self-brand connection, whereas self-motivation moderates the effect of self-image congruity on self-brand connection.

Data collection was done through mall intercepts in six shopping malls in Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Huizhou in southern China. In total, 461 usable questionnaires were collected with 500 distributed copies. Confirmatory factor analysis using Mplus (v.7) was done to assess the measurement validity for each construct. PROCESS analysis for SPSS (v.19.0.0) was used for hypothesis testing.

Both actual and ideal self-image congruities present significant positive effects on brand preference through self-brand connection. The relationship between self-image congruity and the self-brand connection is also moderated by self-motivation.

This study fills an existing literature gap by distinguishing self-image and ideal self-image congruity as distinct constructs. Self-brand connection is posited as a new way to understand the mechanism of the self-image congruity effect on brand preference. Samples from several shopping malls in southern China are used to justify the important moderating role of self-motivation in consumers’ brand preferences.

Promoting interns’ organizational socialization has become an urgent concern for the hotel industry. Building on career construction theory, this study aims to use a time-lagged design to investigate the interrelationships among perceived organizational support (POS), psychological capital and organizational socialization and their consequent effects on interns’ intention to stay in the hotel industry.

Panel data were obtained in three waves from hotel interns from 21 upscale hotels located in 13 cities in China with a time lag of 10 weeks (N = 369). The structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

POS has a significantly positive effect on interns' psychological capital. Additionally, both POS and psychological capital contribute to the intention to stay in the hotel industry through the mediation of organizational socialization.

Hotels should communicate with interns more explicitly, provide assistance programs to alleviate uncertainty and reward interns on their excellent service performance to improve POS. Moreover, setting up psychological capital programs and empowering interns to be involved in task development is beneficial for enhancing psychological capital. Hotels should also consider mentoring as a socialization approach. Further, career planning and counseling programs should be provided for interns’ long-term hospitality career development.

A time-lagged research method is adopted to provide a new approach to improve interns’ intention to stay in the hotel industry from the interactionist perspective. This study enriches research about psychological capital, POS and organizational socialization.