Browsing by Author "Nicolau, Juan Luis"
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- A Time-lagged Examination of Voluntary and Task-related Green Behavior in the Travel IndustryDhir, Amandeep; Talwar, Shalini; Raj, Sahil; Sampat, Brinda; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2024-02-09)With climate change continuing to threaten the earth’s ecosystems, the travel industry is under increased pressure to adopt green policies. The effective implementation of these policies is largely dependent on employee commitment, but research offering insights into employees’ green behavior in the travel industry is sparse. We addressed this gap using the value-belief-norm theory to conceptualize the drivers of employees’ task-related and voluntary green behaviors. We examined the impact of values (biospheric, altruistic, and egoistic), beliefs (the new environmental paradigm, awareness of consequences, and ascription of responsibility), and pro-environmental personal norms on these outcomes. Analyzing time-lagged data collected in three waves from 186 hotel employees, we found a positive sequential association of biospheric values with beliefs, norms, and green behaviors. From a theoretical viewpoint, our study grounds hotel employees’ green behaviors in a prosocial theory, thereby offering a relatively new yet pertinent explanation of these behaviors.
- Advance booking across channels: The effects on dynamic pricingBigne, Enrique; Nicolau, Juan Luis; William, Edu (Elsevier, 2021-10-01)This research analyzes the effects of advance booking and channel type on hotel rates. While this relationship has been addressed in the literature, most studies take a partial approach by focusing only on one distribution channel or one destination. This study fills this gap by analyzing the price dynamics for four channels and multiple destinations. The data set consists of 39,363 bookings for 1085 hotels over 27 consecutive months. We used two-stage least squares to solve potential endogeneity issues, and the results proved that distribution channel, hotel type and hotel size have an influence on the effect of advance booking on hotel rates. Critical managerial implications are discussed.
- Airbnb vs hotel? Customer selection behaviors in upward and downward COVID-19 trendsNicolau, Juan Luis; Sharma, Abhinav; Shin, Hakseung; Kang, Juhyun (Emerald, 2023-04-04)Purpose: To provide a dynamic view on accommodation choice behaviors during the pandemic, this study aims to examine the impact of recent trends on prospective travelers’ preferences for hotels and Airbnb. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a mixed methods approach that incorporates three independent studies (experimental analysis, online search pattern analysis and an econometric event study) to understand customer decision-making behaviors. Findings: The findings indicate that travelers prefer Airbnb entire flats/apartments to hotels when the pandemic is trending upward. This result externally validates travelers’ preference toward Airbnb during periods of high risk. Interestingly, when the trends go downward, however, the same behavioral pattern was not identified. Research limitations/implications: This study provides important empirical insights into how the evolution of health crises influence customer decision-making for hotels and Airbnb. Future research needs to consider the role of socio-demographic factors in accommodation selection behaviors and examine how travelers react to cleanliness levels between Airbnb and hotels. Originality/value: As one of initial studies that empirically examine Airbnb customers’ decision-making behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic’s trends, this study provides a dynamic view on how the evolution of the pandemic influences accommodation choice behaviors.
- Applying image recognition techniques to visual information mining in hospitality and tourismLiu, Xianwei; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Law, Rob; Li, Chunhong (Emerald, 2022-10-31)Purpose: This study aims to provide a critical reflection of the application of image recognition techniques in visual information mining in hospitality and tourism. Design/methodology/approach: This study begins by reviewing the progress of image recognition and advantages of convolutional neural network-based image recognition models. Next, this study explains and exemplifies the mechanisms and functions of two relevant image recognition applications: object recognition and facial recognition. This study concludes by providing theoretical and practical implications and potential directions for future research. Findings: After this study presents different potential applications and compares the use of image recognition with traditional manual methods, the main findings of this critical reflection revolve around the feasibility of the described techniques. Practical implications: Knowledge on how to extract valuable visual information from large-scale user-generated photos to infer the online behavior of consumers and service providers and its influence on purchase decisions and firm performance is crucial to business practices in hospitality and tourism. Originality/value: Visual information plays a crucial role in online travel agencies and peer-to-peer accommodation platforms from the side of sellers and buyers. However, extant studies relied heavily on traditional manual identification with small samples and subjective judgment. With the development of deep learning and computer vision techniques, current studies were able to extract various types of visual information from large-scale datasets with high accuracy and efficiency. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to offer an outlook of image recognition techniques for mining visual information in hospitality and tourism.
- Assessing the effects of interaction with attractions and types of visit on day trippers' satisfactionNicolau, Juan Luis; Casado-Diaz, Ana B.; Navarro-Ruiz, Sandra (Routledge, 2023-05-06)Day trippers are visitors spending only a few hours at the destination without staying overnight, and they represent a significant number of visitors in many destinations. However, some facets of the behaviour of this type of visitors remain under-researched topics. Accordingly, the present study analyzes day trippers’ satisfaction by focusing on a novel set of determinants related to their interaction with the tourist attractions visited (intradestination behaviour) in the context of cruises. The research was conducted in the city of Valencia (Spain). Through a combination of GPS tracking technologies and traditional surveys, this study considers the spatial patterns, tourist attractions visited, perceived experience, duration of the visit, and expenditures, to find that the effects of these determinants vary according to the type of visit: independent or guided. Moreover, for visit duration and expenditures, the study builds on prospect theory to propose an innovative approach by exploring inverted U-shaped effects which represents a theoretical advance with managerial implications for the destinations.
- Asymmetric effects of extreme-moderate online reviews in the language-satisfaction relationshipNicolau, Juan Luis; de Carlos Villamarín, Pablo; Alén, Elisa; González, Ana Pérez (Elsevier, 2022-08)The intercultural nature of tourism makes interpersonal communication a critical element that influences individuals’ experience and, in turn, their satisfaction. The existing research predominantly focuses on indirect communication (such as advertising). This study contributes to the literature by examining the effect of the reviews of language use on overall satisfaction and by looking into the dyad formed by the extreme vs. moderate character of the reviews and their sign (positive vs. negative). The analysis of 48,491 online reviews shows the effect of language use opinions on overall satisfaction, with extreme opinions having a more significant impact than moderate opinions. A more interesting and relevant impact is the departure from the well-established cognitive negativity bias characteristics of online reviews: extreme reviews have a symmetric impact on satisfaction, and moderate reviews present asymmetric effects. Both outcomes are a deviation from this cognitive bias, and relevant implications are derived.
- Brand alliances and stock reactionsMas, Francisco J.; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Calderon, Aurora (Routledge, 2021-05-18)Purpose: This paper examines the performance and risk of brand alliances by investigating the market value of brand alliances through the analysis of investors’ response, and look into the different reactions of the stock market to brand alliance-type in terms of co-branding and joint-promotion, as well as into the potential different effects in the contexts of B to B versus B to C. Brand alliances, whereby two or more brands are jointly presented to the consumer, have been investigated extensively. The importance of brand alliances is emphasized by two factors: (1) brands are considered critical elements in business-to-business marketing settings; and (2) firms use brand alliances due to the trading costs and investment necessary to buy brands, the increasingly higher costs of launching a new brand onto the market, the high failure rates in new brand launches and brand extensions, the competitive pressures around product launches and diffusion, and the limitations imposed on the extension of a brand by its own identity. Consequently, brand alliances have exploded over recent years. As indicated later, by accomplishing the purpose of this research we fill a gap in the literature as most of the research on brand alliances revolves around consumers’ perspective. Methodology/Approach: The methodology followed is based on the event study method. First, the event study estimates the excess returns of share prices generated by events that were unanticipated by the market. To this end, we estimate the market model and the subsequent abnormal returns. To examine the impact of the publication of a brand alliance announcement on the share prices of the company, we use the cumulative abnormal returns calculated over k days of the event window for 55 announcements. In the second step, we analyze the returns of the different brand alliances. In particular, the abnormal returns are used as dependent variable in a regression analysis, wherein the central explanatory variable is brand alliance type (co-branding vs joint promotion). Finally, the third stage of the methodology analyzes the change in the variance of returns between the periods before and after the brand alliance announcements. Findings: The results show that brand alliance announcements generate positive abnormal returns, which support the hypothesis that brand alliance announcements are positively related to company stock returns. In particular, we observe that the reactions to brand alliances are spread over the event window. In fact, the window (−5,+5) produces returns that stand at 1.6%, which is the greatest abnormal return over the five days around the publication date. The economic impact of a cumulative return of 1.6% in eleven days is tantamount to annual returns of 69.33%. Considering that the average market value of the sample is €17,494 million, it represents an increase of €279 million for the sample stocks on the period (−5,+5). The regression analysis shows that the coefficients of the variable “co-branding” are positive and significant, which supports the hypothesis that co-branding presents higher abnormal returns than joint promotion. However, no differential effect are found between B to B versus B to C paradigms. The results obtained present an increase in the variance of the share prices after the alliance announcement date, which supports the hypothesis that the variance of the company stock returns is positively associated to announcements of brand alliances. Research Implications: The key implication of the measurement of the market value of brand alliances is that research should be reoriented toward a better understanding of the role of marketing in the value creation of a company. Instead of just concentrating on marketing research into consumer behavior, more emphasis should be given to the core company processes that create shareholder value. Practical Implications: The managerial implications of the specific results obtained are the following: the result that companies increase their market value when they implement brand alliance strategies, leads to a better ken of the way alliance activities can be managed when dealing with other organizations. In this way, finding a partner to form a brand alliance with could be a useful objective in terms of firm performance. Moreover, the results show that co-branding presents higher abnormal returns than joint promotion, which suggests that co-branding is the most valuable strategic decision (or long-term decision) for companies, as it implies the simultaneous participation of two or more brands in a single product. In this way, deciding on whether a short- or long-term branding strategy is pursued turns to be fundamental. Originality/Value/Contribution of the paper: The literature has analyzed the consequences of brand alliance, which looks at each partner’s brand attitude after the alliance, the brand equity of the constituent brands after the alliance, and the impact of the allied brand on the evaluation of the host brand. These studies have focused on the area of consumer behavior; that is, by measuring consumers´ attitudes and evaluation. Still, the measurement of dimensions reflecting the other side of the relationship, i.e. the firm, via brand image and equity is critical. Nevertheless, the examination of the impact of brand alliances on the partner company performance and risk has received little attention, despite the fact that “brand perceptions of companies’ products spill over to investment decisions in the market for companies’ stock”.
- Competitors or Complements: A Meta-analysis of the Effect of Airbnb on Hotel PerformanceYang, Yang; Garcia, Marta Nieto; Viglia, Giampaolo; Nicolau, Juan Luis (2021-10-17)The rise of peer-to-peer accommodation has challenged the traditional hotel business model. A lingering question is the effect of Airbnb supply on hotel performance. By analyzing 466 estimates from 33 different studies, our results reveal that the negative effect of Airbnb supply on hotel performance is moderate. The meta-regression of effect size recognizes the significant effects of different factors on the strength of the negative effect. In particular, the negative effect is smaller for high-end (vs. low-end) hotels, and its magnitude is shrinking over time. Additionally, the detrimental effect is less pronounced for European (vs. Asian) hotels. The study also reports that negative effects are more common in research published in academic journals. The synthesis of the effects across existing studies contributes to a robust and comprehensive understanding of the impact of Airbnb supply on hotel performance.
- Customer Engagement and Value Co-Creation for Hospitality Open InnovationShin, Hakseung (Virginia Tech, 2020-04-08)While innovation has been a critical tool for the success of hospitality businesses, there has been little research concerning how hospitality service innovation is created. Focusing on knowledge development for service innovation, this dissertation examines hospitality open innovation processes by highlighting the critical role of customers as important external stakeholders for knowledge creation. More specifically, this research examines how hospitality brand community members engage in brand activities that co-create non-transactional knowledge value for open innovation. To achieve the research purpose, the dissertation consists of four independent studies. The design of the four studies followed a theory development process focusing on bibliometric analysis (Study 1), exploratory analysis (Study 2), empirical analysis (Study 3), and experimental analysis (Study 4). Study 1 conducted bibliometric co-citation analysis to examine the foundation and evolution of the service innovation research in both hospitality and tourism and service management literature. Study 2 examined how hospitality (hotel) customers engage in an online brand community and what types of value are co-created from their engagement behaviors. Study 3 empirically developed a multi-dimensional measure of customer engagement behaviors for co-creating non-transactional value. Lastly, Study 4 examined how hospitality online brand community members participate in open innovation behaviors as a result of customer empowerment and social recognition. Study 1 identified critical research opportunities for future hospitality and tourism research in terms of innovation creation, diffusion, and evaluation. Most importantly, open innovation via customer engagement was identified as a critical topic to understand hospitality innovation creation. In Study 2, customer engagement behaviors, motivations, and value co-creation were qualitatively analyzed in the context of an online hotel brand community. Using mixed-methods, including netnography analysis and qualitative written interviews, a conceptual framework of value co-creation via customer engagement was developed. Based on this framework, Study 3 developed a scale consisting of 15 items measuring customer engagement behaviors in terms of influential-experience value, C-to-B innovation value, relational value, and citizenship value. Lastly, Study 4 found a causal process that customer empowerment makes a positive impact on the intention of open innovation engagement and the creativity of ideas by mediating intrinsic motivation.
- Daily online review sentiment and hotel performanceNicolau, Juan Luis; Xiang, Zheng; Wang, Dan (Emerald, 2023-05-10)Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the links between daily review sentiment and the hotel performance measures of occupancy rate (OR), average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR). Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted review sentiment analyses in three moments (−1, −7 and −14 days) before arrival time using a data set of budget hotel performance and online reviews. The aim was to identify the effect of review sentiment in the budget hotel market on the three performance metrics. Findings: Daily sentiment positively affects ADR and negatively affects OR and RevPAR, but only up to a certain threshold, after which the trend reverses. Prices increase with the level of sentiment, and high prices lead to low OR and RevPAR only when the sentiment scores are low. When they are high, they are associated with low rates, which lead to high OR and RevPAR. Research limitations/implications: Daily review sentiment can be viewed as a valuable “barometer” indicating a hotel’s daily operational effectiveness. Daily sentiment can thus allow hotel managers to adjust their dynamic pricing strategies more accurately. Originality/value: This study identifies daily sentiment as an alternative predictor of hotel performance. In addition to the roles of valence and volume in the decision-making process, the authors found that daily review sentiment can be an “in-the-moment” factor with a high impact, encouraging consumers to complete their transactions. This study suggests that aggregated measures such as the total number of reviews and overall ratings of the hotel should not be the sole consideration in reputation management.
- A demand-driven analysis of tourist accommodation price: A quantile regression of room bookings [Summary]Nicolau, Juan Luis; Masiero, Lorenzo; Law, Rob (Virginia Tech, 2015-09)Tourist accommodation expenditure is a widely investigated topic as it represents a major contribution to the total tourist expenditure. The identification of the determinant factors is commonly based on supply-driven applications while little research has been made on important travel characteristics. This paper proposes a demand-driven analysis of tourist accommodation price by focusing on data generated from room bookings. The investigation focuses on modeling the relationship between key travel characteristics and the price paid to book the accommodation.
- Dual-Branded Hotels: Resource-based entry strategies in agglomerated marketsBianco, Simone; Singal, Manisha; Zach, Florian J.; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2023-04)Despite the growing importance of dual-branded hotels, research on this trend is lacking. This study investigates the effect of resource-based entry strategies for dual-branded hotels vis-à-vis incumbent market competition on performance. Using a hierarchical linear model, we found that best performance is achieved by dual-branded hotels that pursue a diversification strategy by entering the market with one brand above and one brand below the mode class of the market. Dual-branded hotels can thus achieve competitive advantage by exploiting superior financial resources and tourism destinations are able to gain monetary advantage from resources employed by dual-branded hotels. This study extends current research on dual-branded hotels by investigating entry strategies and contributes to the resource-based view literature by investigating dual-brands’ resource exploitation and resource spillovers in agglomerated markets.
- Editorial of the special issue on "Sports and Tourism: Economic Impacts"Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2021-04-29)
- The effect of innovation on hotel market value [Summary]Nicolau, Juan Luis; Santa-María, M.J. (Virginia Tech, 2013-03)The purpose of this article is to analyze the effect of hotel innovations on firm value. Specifically, this study fills a research gap in the previous literature by examining this effect through market value and by distinguishing the potentially different impacts of distinct innovation types: product, process, organization and marketing. This research contributes to consolidating the empirical evidence of hotel innovation and performance by analyzing whether distinct types of innovation lead to different levels of results. The findings show that innovations are perceived to have a positive impact on the future sales of the company: in a four-day period (0,+3), there is an increase in stock exchange returns of 1.53%. In terms of innovation types, process and marketing innovations are found to have a higher positive effect on hotel market value than product and organization innovations; which is explained by potential cost differences among innovations.
- Environmental certification and hotel market valueBernard, Shaniel; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2022-02-01)To counteract the negative publicity derived from environmental impacts and avoid potential “greenwashing” accusations, hotels resort to third-party entities to certify their commitment to the environment. The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of environmental certifications on hotels’ market value. To fill this gap in the literature, this empirical study detects all announcements of environmental awards ever made by major publicly traded hotels in the United States. The findings show that environmental certification has a positive effect on hotels’ market value (reducing the effects of the alluded negative publicity); that this positive effect is higher for first-time awards; and that a U-shaped effect exists for subsequent awards. Managerial implications for hotels’ engagement in environmental awards are described.
- Expanding our understanding of cruise visitors' expenditure at destinations: The role of spatial patterns, onshore visit choice and cruise categoryCasado-Diaz, Ana B.; Navarro-Ruiz, Sandra; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Ivars-Baidal, Josep (Elsevier, 2021-04-01)Cruise tourism is an important and growing source of visitors to destinations. To expand our knowledge of this phenomenon, this study incorporates three new drivers into the analysis of the expenditure patterns of cruise passengers at destinations, namely, spatial intra-destination behavior (single node, multiple node, or hinterland), onshore visit choice (independent or guided), and cruise category (standard, premium, luxury, or exclusive). The study uses quantile regression to unearth the intricacies of the proposed relationships and a dataset that combines GPS tracking technologies and traditional surveys. Results suggest that the mobility pattern, onshore visit choice, and time spent at a destination of cruise visitors have significant effects on their expenditures. However, these effects vary along with the level of expenditure, whereas cruise category does not exert a clear effect on expenditure. The implications for destination management organizations are also discussed.
- Explaining the willingness of consumers to bring their own reusable coffee cups under the condition of monetary incentivesNicolau, Juan Luis; Anna Stadlthanner, Katja; Andreu, Luisa; Font, Xavier (Elsevier, 2022-05)An increasing number of hospitality firms attempt to foster sustainable practices among their customers. Amongst these, incentives for customers to bring their own reusable products stand out. In this study, we first analyse whether consumers are willing to bring a reusable coffee cup (RCC) under the condition of a monetary incentive (qualitative decision) and the minimum discount required for individuals to be willing to use an RCC (quantitative decision). Second, we analyse the explanatory factors impacting these two decisions. Several factors are proposed to explain an individual's willingness to bring an RCC including their environmental knowledge and involvement, and personal restrictions for using an RCC. An empirical application, conducted on 1,371 individuals using a Heckit model, allows us to conduct a joint modelling and provide a novel methodological contribution to the study of the willingness, and barriers, of individuals towards the use of RCCs in the coffee shop industry.
- Face recognition of profile images on accommodation platformsLiu, Xianwei; Li, Chunhong; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Han, Meini (Routledge, 2022-08-13)Visual information plays a critical role on peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation platforms. Recent studies have found that attractive hosts possess advantages in alluring potential guests and charging high prices, highlighting the beauty premium effect from the perspective of hosts. Are attractive guests more likely to receive better service from their hosts, thus producing a beauty premium effect from the perspective of guests? To answer this undocumented research question, we collect data from Airbnb accommodations listed in Los Angeles, New York City, and Orlando in the US. By virtue of deep learning techniques, face recognition, and text-mining, our empirical results reveal a beauty premium effect from the perspective of guests that attractive guests are more satisfied with their accommodations and receive more interactions from hosts. These findings illustrate the application of face recognition in the context of P2P accommodation platforms and provide direct implications for the operation of accommodation platforms.
- Green and non-green outcomes of green human resource management (GHRM) in the tourism contextTandon, Anushree; Dhir, Amandeep; Madan, Poornima; Srivastava, Shalini; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2023-10)Globally, organizational espousal of green and sustainable operations has been critically facilitated by green human resource management (GHRM) initiatives, especially in the tourism and hospitality sector. This research is an effort to examine the nuances of employees' responses to GHRM and contribute to this field by examining how narcissism, an individual trait and boundary condition, influences GHRM's relationship with employees' green (voluntary and task-related practices) and non-green outcomes (task performance and job satisfaction). Our hypotheses, grounded in social identity and trait activation theories, were tested with data obtained through a time-lagged two-wave survey of 219 UK-based hotel employees via the Prolific Academic platform. Analysis revealed significant associations between GHRM and all employee outcomes. Narcissism was shown to have a significant moderating effect on GHRM's associations with both green and non-green (task performance) behaviors. Our results imply important understandings for the advancement of theoretical knowledge and practical implementation of GHRM.
- Hotels' COVID-19 innovation and performanceSharma, Abhinav; Shin, Hakseung; Santa-María, María Jesús; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Pergamon-Elsevier, 2021-02-25)To navigate the unchartered terrain that has resulted from the pandemic, there is a palpable need for hotels to re-assess current business practices, and quickly devise new and innovative strategies that safeguard the health and safety of guests as well as employees and, consequently, restore consumer confidence. The objective of this article is to assess the utility of these new innovations by looking at shareholders' perceptions. The empirical application shows that the innovations implemented are seen as effective, although differential effects exist among innovation types. The results could help hotels sustain and expand the innovative responses that work (among which product innovations stand out), and discontinue those that are less effective.