Browsing by Author "Sharma, Abhinav"
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- 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.
- 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.
- The Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Passport on Air Travelers' Booking Decision and Companies' Financial ValueShin, Hakseung; Kang, Juhyun; Sharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis (SAGE, 2021-11-15)The ongoing debate about vaccine passport policies for dealing with COVID-19 has necessitated analyzing its effectiveness in the airline and tourism industry. This study was purposed to analyze how vaccine passports are evaluated by multiple stakeholders, such as airline investors and passengers for leisure/vacation purposes. The findings of the first study show that the implementation of vaccine passports is positively evaluated by airline investors. The results of the second study highlight the role of vaccine passports in reducing perceived health risks, which is integral to leisure travelers’ decision making. This study offers a theoretical lens to understand the value of vaccine passports and provides guidance for airline companies and tourism marketers in deciding whether to implement a vaccine passport policy.
- The impact of hotel CSR for strategic philanthropy on booking behavior and hotel performance during the COVID-19 pandemicShin, Hakseung; Sharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Kang, Juhyun (Elsevier, 2021-08-01)During the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, some hotels have engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to help overcome the crisis. Given that most existing research examines the impact of hotel CSR on a single stakeholder, how hotel CSR activities in a crisis are perceived by multiple stakeholders is unknown. Drawing on the concept of strategic philanthropy, this study examines the impact of hotel CSR activities during the pandemic, such as providing accommodations to healthcare workers, on hotel firms' market value and prospective hotel customers’ booking behavior. Adopting mixed-methods approach, this study finds negative impacts of hotel CSR for strategic philanthropy on firm market value and customer booking behavior. The study result indicates that the value of hotel CSR depends on the nature and environmental contexts of CSR. Specific theoretical and practical implications are provided.
- Performance effects of innovation in two-sided markets: The paradigmatic case of OTAsRaad, James; Sharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2023-02-01)Online Travel Agents (OTAs) play an important intermediary role in the two-sided travel distribution market. A critical factor that enhances a firm's competitive advantage is innovation. Yet, the analysis of innovation in the OTA context is scarce. The main objective of this article is to fill this gap and examine the effect of OTA innovations on firm performance. We analyze the effect of two-sided market specific innovations (same-side and cross-side) on performance and contribute to the literature by expanding the theoretical understanding of innovations. We find that producer-to-consumer innovations have a greater effect on OTA performance than producer-to-producer and consumer-to-consumer innovations. A fundamental managerial implication is that exchange management is an area to be enhanced when innovating in travel market distribution.
- A review of research into drivers of firm value through event studies in tourism and hospitality: Launching the Annals of Tourism Research curated collection on drivers of firm value through event studies in tourism and hospitalityNicolau, Juan Luis; Sharma, Abhinav (Pergamon-Elsevier, 2022-07-01)Management decision assessment is fundamental for the future development of the market value of tourism and hospitality businesses. This article conducts a review of the literature on the event study methodology applied to tourism and hospitality—wherein we identify trends and categorize the main topics analyzed; and seeks to stimulate the use of this methodology to examine the drivers of firm value by outlining its key advantages and providing a step-by-step practical guidance. The article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on drivers of firm value through event studies in tourism and hospitality. The Collection contains all past articles published in Annals of Tourism Research on the topic, and continues to grow as new articles are added.
- The Effect of Lodging Taxes on the Performance of US HotelsSharma, Abhinav; Perdue, Richard R.; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2020-11-16)The objective of this article is to analyze the impact of lodging taxes on the performance of US hotels by looking at the two key market segments involved. The empirical application conducted on a sample of more than 7,000 observations corresponding to more than 100 urban submarkets from 2013 to 2018 finds that lodging taxes have a more negative effect on hotel performance (RevPar) for group bookings than for transient bookings. As groups usually have greater flexibility regarding the location of events, they can more easily choose a different destination if a tax increase is observed. To prevent this possibility hotels may be more inclined to offer discounts to groups, thereby absorbing some of the tax increase. The results obtained have relevant managerial implications, which are discussed.
- The effect of movie and television placementsSharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Mas, Francisco J. (Elsevier, 2022-08-01)Brand integration has become an increasingly common marketing strategy employed by companies today. By incorporating branded content into various media formats, companies use placements as an advertising device intended to promote their products and services. However, although much of the extant literature has used behavioral methods to assess the effectiveness of brand promotions, there is only a modest body of academic work that has sought to quantify the impact of these placements on the financial performance of companies. This is especially true with regards to the travel and hospitality literature, despite the popularity of brands placements as a form of advertising across these industries. Using the event study methodology, this paper assesses the performance impacts resulting from travel and hospitality industry product placements in film and television.
- The Effect of Tangible Promotions on an Intangible EnvironmentSharma, Abhinav; Santa-Maria, Maria Jesus; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2023-12-29)Promotions are frequently deployed by firms in service intensive industries like tourism as a way to boost numbers like visitation and occupancy in times when excess capacity may be anticipated. While promotions may indeed augment revenues and other accounting measures commonly used by tourism firms to assess the success of marketing interventions, the impact of these sales tools on long-run finance-based indicators remains largely unexplored. Exploiting a rich dataset consisting of over 300 corporate level hotel promotions spanning nearly three decades, this study shows that promotions can be detrimental to long run performance of tourism firms. This erosion of the market value is particularly acute for promotions that involve tangible monetary components, such as price discounts. While this result supports the tenets of the hierarchy-of-effects theory and prospect theory, the observed effects of the tangible component of sales promotion entail an extension of these theoretical approaches to an intangible environment.
- The role of information and choice under uncertaintyNicolau, Juan Luis; Sharma, Abhinav (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022-10-26)This chapter presents a panoramic overview of the evolution of the paradigms that have informed travelers’ choice under uncertainty and the approaches the literature has followed to analyze decision in tourism economics. With this purpose, the chapter first outlines the foundational conceptual frameworks with their assumptions and expectations—stemming from the expected utility theory to prospect theory—to go on with the different main topics that the literature has tackled. From traditional issues such as pricing to modern topics such as online reviews, the versatility is remarkable. Future research lines are highlighted.
- The tourism effect of President Trump's participation on TwitterNicolau, Juan Luis; Sharma, Abhinav; Shin, Seunghun (Elsevier, 2020-12-01)This research analyzes the effect of President Donald J. Trump's participation on Twitter on the performance of the United States as a tourism destination as reflected in the market value of tourism the country's tourism industry. Based on the effects that brand associations have on brand image and brand knowledge, this research proposes a conceptual model whereby a destination's association with a public figure might lead this personality's participation in social media to have an effect—derived from the resulting social media sentiment—on consumers' destination's brand knowledge and, consequently, on the incoming flow of travelers to the destination and on the tourism market value. The empirical application carried out on the tweets that the President of the United States posted over more than 150,000 trading minutes shows that the participation of public personalities in social media can have repercussions on the market value of their country's tourism industry.
- Travel decision determinants during and after COVID-19: The role of tourist trust, travel constraints, and attitudinal factorsShin, Hakseung; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Kang, Juhyun; Sharma, Abhinav; Lee, Hoon (Elsevier, 2022-02-01)The COVID-19 pandemic has forced tourism practitioners to create efficient strategies to attract travelers. Using three theoretical frameworks, such as tourist trust (political, destination, and interactional trust), travel constraint (intrapersonal, interpersonal, and “social distancing” structural constraint), and extended theory of planned behavior (travel attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, perceived health risk, past travel experience), we develop a comprehensive framework to explain the impact of travel promoting, restricting, and attitudinal factors on travel decision during and after the pandemic. Data was obtained through an extensive survey conducted on 1451 Korean travelers and was analyzed using probabilistic choice models and count models. The results show the specific factors that determine travel decisions during the pandemic (whether to travel and frequency) and travel intention after the pandemic. This study provides important theoretical and practical insights into how to develop successful COVID-19 recovery strategies in the tourism industry.
- Travel fear and immunity certificates: a two-stakeholder perspectiveShin, Hakseung; Kang, Juhyun; Sharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Routledge, 2022-06-07)There is an urgent need in the travel industry to devise strategies that will help navigate the current pandemic as well as provide guidance on how to prepare for the next pandemic. Given health and wellbeing are regarded as important aspects of sustainable development, doing so would build long-term resilience in the travel and tourism industry. This study analyzes the relationships among travel fear, protection motivation, and destination visit intentions in the pandemic context. While previous studies have proposed psychological factors as antecedents of travel fear, this study contributes theoretically to the literature by proposing a conceptual model that allows us to test the way the policy of immunity certificates—which is a non-psychological factor of a risk-reduction strategy—influences travel fear and subsequent decision-making behaviors, where the construct “protection motivation” mediates the travel decision-making process. By adopting customer and investor stakeholder perspectives, this study shows that immunity certificates are effective not only in enhancing travel intentions but also in enhancing the market value of tourism companies. Given that the efficacy of policies is better assessed by multi-stakeholders, the methodological approach taken in the current study can help to better understand the value of COVID-19 measures and immunity certificate policies.
- Will your majesty marry me? The effect of royal weddings on the tourism industryRaad, James; Sharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2021-04-01)This article fills a void in the literature by investigating the impacts of royal weddings—arguably the grandest and the most iconic of public ceremonies involving royals—on destination-level brands. The direct and short-term effects of royal families and indeed the direct effect of seminal events involving the royals on destination-level accommodations and tourism service providers are more somewhat obvious. However, the more intriguing question and the one which we are more concerned with is: do royal weddings leave a more enduring legacy on the local tourism industry? The engagement announcement and the wedding date produce significant positive increases in the valuation of the home country’s tourism firms. Important managerial implications are derived in line with the long-term impact of unique events on tourism firms’ performance and the transference of brand knowledge from the destination to the companies is effective.