Scholarly Works, Hospitality and Tourism Management

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Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 88

Hotels' COVID-19 innovation and performance
Sharma, 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.
Understanding the dynamics of the quality of airline service attributes: Satisfiers and dissatisfiers
Park, Sangwon; Lee, Jin-Soo; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2020-06-05)
This research aims to determine the relationship between the quality of airline service attributes and overall satisfaction. Although a number of relevant studies have reported a linear relationship (or symmetric effect) between the two concepts, this work suggests that attribute quality exerts heterogeneous effects on satisfaction or dissatisfaction. A total of 157,035 consumer data from online reviews have been analyzed to achieve the research objective. In accordance with Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman's (1959) two-factor theory, the findings of this research have determined that the quality of certain service attributes, such as cleanliness, food and beverages, and in-flight entertainment, affects the variations of positive ratings as a satisfier. Other airline service attributes, such as customer service and check-in and boarding, influence the deviations of negative ratings as a dissatisfier. Apart from airline attributes, the individual features and types of airline products have been estimated to improve the understanding of such relationships. In this regard, this study provides important implications to customer-centric marketing in an airline marketplace.
Identifying attributes of wineries that increase visitor satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Applying an aspect extraction approach to online reviews
Shin, Seunghun; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2022-08)
This study analyzes the satisfiers and dissatisfiers of wineries to identify potential asymmetric relationships between winery attributes and visitor satisfaction. By using aspect extraction and a regression approach, a sample of 9,376 reviews corresponding to 524 wineries in Spain, from February 2010 to April 2021, is examined; the main results being that asymmetric effects are found for different attributes. Among the identified six attributes, three (“Wine-related,” “Overall experience,” and “Staff service”) were identified as satisfiers and one (“Cost”) as a dissatisfier. An important theoretical contribution is the non-linear nature of the two- and three-factor theories on customer satisfaction in a winery context.
Asymmetric effects of extreme-moderate online reviews in the language-satisfaction relationship
Nicolau, 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.
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 hospitality
Nicolau, 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 Impact of Loss Aversion and Diminishing Sensitivity on Airline Revenue: Price Sensitivity in Cabin Classes
Nicolau, Juan Luis; Shin, Hakseung; Kim, Bora; O'Connell, John F. (Sage, 2022-05-11)
While most businesses actively adopt a data-driven approach for revenue management decisions, understanding how air travelers perceive and behave differently to pricing strategies is essential for yielding optimal financial outcomes. This study analyzes the loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity mechanisms of prospect theory in economy and business cabin classes. With rich longitudinal airfares, regression models and revenue data (15,868 observations from the top-10 aviation routes in the world) from 2014 to 2019, this study finds that lower-(higher-)than-expected airfares have a positive (negative) impact on revenue. When the effect of loss-coded and gain-coded tickets were compared, the extent to which passengers avoided losses (vs. welcomed gains) had a greater impact on revenue, supporting that loss aversion applies to the airline revenue, especially for business passengers. This study contributes to the further refinement of prospect theory by showing that the loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity mechanisms manifest differently in each cabin class.
Will your majesty marry me? The effect of royal weddings on the tourism industry
Raad, 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.
The search value model: Detecting abnormal searching behavior
Nicolau, Juan Luis; Kim, Hyoeun; Liu, Xianwei (Pergamon-Elsevier, 2021-04-20)
Editorial of the special issue on "Sports and Tourism: Economic Impacts"
Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2021-04-29)
Expanding our understanding of cruise visitors' expenditure at destinations: The role of spatial patterns, onshore visit choice and cruise category
Casado-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.
OFDI and inbound tourism: a perspective of reverse country-of-origin effect
Yu, Yiqing; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Liu, Xianwei; Chen, Zheshi (Routledge, 2021-04-05)
This study is to analyze the effect of the investor country’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on its inbound tourism from the investee country. Although overseas expansion is a prevalent strategy, this study fills a gap in the literature: inbound tourism as a potential spillover of OFDI remains unexplored. Accordingly, this research proposes a conceptual model based on the reverse country-of-origin effect and conducts an empirical application with data from 202 countries/regions. The main findings show that countries with a higher number of OFDIs tend to attract more inbound tourism from the investee countries. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
The impact of restaurant innovativeness on consumer loyalty: The mediating role of perceived quality
Kim, Eojina; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Tang, Liang (Sage, 2021-01-07)
Although hospitality industry has consistently invested resources in innovation, the path by which a brand’s innovativeness influences consumers’ loyalty remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to establish a research model that represents the relationships of customers’ perceived restaurant’s innovativeness at brand level, perceived quality, and levels of loyalty. Specifically, five subdimensions (differentiation, dynamic brand, innovativeness brand, new leader, and idea generator) measure restaurant’s innovativeness at brand level. Perceived quality consists of the food and service aspects. The result shows that among brand innovativeness, differentiation predicts better loyalty whereas dynamic brand, innovativeness brand, new leader, and idea generator are less effective, with mediating effects of food quality and service quality. This outcome potentially expands the theoretical foundation of brand innovativeness in the hospitality discipline, while providing a promising marketing approach that empowers patrons with brand innovativeness through differentiation.
Brand alliances and stock reactions
Mas, 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”.
The tourism effect of President Trump's participation on Twitter
Nicolau, 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.
Impact of the Menu Labeling Act upon the market value of foodservice firms
Kim, Eojina; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Sage, 2020-11-26)
The Menu Labeling Act (MLA), which requires restaurants to provide customers with nutritional information, has encountered implementation difficulties for more than 8 years, owing to the imposition of administrative costs on restaurant firms. By investigating the market value of 46 restaurant firms that publicly trade in the United States, this research analyzes the impact of MLA-related announcements on the market value of foodservice firms. Announcements associated with restrictions tend to reduce restaurant market value by 0.29% per day (market value is defined as the number of shares times the share price), whereas announcements related to flexibility increase such market value by 0.80%. The final guideline and compliance date announced by the Food and Drug Administration has provoked significant negative effects on restaurant market value. Meanwhile, the congress’ proposed opposition act has elicited great positive effects. This study provides important implications for policy makers and practitioners in the food service industry.
The Effect of Lodging Taxes on the Performance of US Hotels
Sharma, 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 role of information and choice under uncertainty
Nicolau, 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 saturation effect in hotel managerial response
Liu, Xianwei; Ye, Qiang; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Xu, Yukuan (Elsevier, 2022-04-01)
Hotel booking platforms widely adopt managerial response. The literature supports its positive effect on product/service evaluations, but the question of a potential saturation effect and its implications are yet to be analyzed. The present study fills this gap by empirically analyzing 4,888 hotels and over two million hotel reviews and finds that 1) managerial response enhances future ratings of hotels with low rating with a diminishing marginal utility, 2) the effect of managerial response on reducing rating fluctuation mainly works for hotels with high variance, and 3) the effectiveness of managerial response in enhancing the rating valence and reducing the rating variance of a hotel weakens when dealing with experienced consumers. These findings provide direct implications for hotel booking platforms and hotel managers.
Sustainability Communication in Hotels: The Role of Cognitive Linguistics
Bernard, Shaniel; Rahman, Imran; Douglas, Alecia (Sage, 2023-03-06)
Efficiently communicating sustainability initiatives is critical to generating positive attitudes and pro-environmental behavior in hotel consumers. However, research on the combined effect of various message factors to improve environmental message persuasiveness is scant. To fill this gap, two studies were conducted with a sample of onsite and online hotel guests to offer new insights into the combined effect of language design elements that identify connectives and prepositional phrases with message content as essential grounding components of persuasion. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of restriction-based language design on booking intention through nuanced mechanisms involving perceived environmental performance, perceived greenwashing, and environmental concern. This study contributes to the growing literature on sustainability marketing by examining the design and integration of linguistic tools that hospitality managers can use in their sustainability communication campaigns. Additional practical and theoretical implications are provided.
The effect of movie and television placements
Sharma, 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.

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