Scholarly Works, Hospitality and Tourism Management

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10919/24339

Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 214

Decoding booking cancellations: Quantitative insights and theoretical advances in tourism behavior
Mir, Vicente Ramos; Tortella, Bartolome Deya; Leoni, Veronica; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2026-06-01)
This study investigates the determinants and timing of hotel booking cancellations through an integrative theoretical and empirical approach. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, transaction cost theory, prospect theory, and strategic decision-making, we offer a comprehensive framework that explains both why and when cancellations occur. Utilizing a unique dataset of over two million hotel bookings from Mallorca, Spain (2021–2024), we apply time-to-event modeling and a linear probability model to explore cancellation patterns. Our results show that cancellation behavior is determined by a complex interplay of refundability terms, booking window, consumer nationality, travel party composition, hotel characteristics, and pricing dynamics. Findings reveal a non-linear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between booking window and cancellation likelihood, and highlight strategic consumer behavior around penalty windows and rebooking opportunities. This study contributes to tourism literature by combining theoretical depth with large-scale observational data to explain temporal and behavioral nuances in booking cancellations.
Rivalry and market value: Extending event studies to competitive analysis in tourism firms
Shin, Hoyoung; Sharma, Abhinav; Santa-María, María Jesús; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2026-04-01)
The hospitality and tourism industry is characterized by oligopolistic market structures where firms' strategic actions have competitive implications. This study extends the application of the event study methodology to competitive analysis, examining how a subject hotel's promotional activity influences the market value of its rivals. While event studies in tourism research have primarily focused on firm-specific and industry-wide effects, limited attention has been given to competitive spillovers. With a sample of 441 competitive actions and 2,442 reactions we assess— in a two-dimensional framework—the role of firm size asymmetry and market perceptions of promotion success or failure. Our findings indicate that successful promotions generate positive spillovers for large rivals but no effect on small competitors. Conversely, failed promotions trigger market value reaction in rivals. These results provide new insights into competitive dynamics in tourism markets, demonstrating that firm size moderates the impact of promotional actions on rival firms' valuation.
Does asset-light strategy compromise information transparency in hotels?
Sheng, Hainan; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2026-04)
This study examines the impact of asset-light strategies on informed trading in the hotel industry, focusing on how intangible assets influence information asymmetry in financial markets. The empirical application uses a sample of 36,667 observations from U.S. hotel firms and analyzes whether the reliance on intangible resources increases the likelihood of informed trading in options markets. Findings suggest that asset-light models, characterized by reduced ownership of physical assets, increase information asymmetry because of the difficulty of valuing intangible assets, leading to greater opportunities for informed trading, particularly by sophisticated investors. The study contributes to the literature on resource-based view, signaling theory, and information asymmetry by emphasizing the transparency challenges hotels face in conveying the value of intangible assets. From these results, managers should adopt innovative signaling strategies to mitigate risks associated with information asymmetry and optimize their asset-light approach.
Crowding Out or Cashing In? The Divergent Effects of Public–private Partnerships on the Market Value of Restaurants
Catala-Perez, Daniel; Nicolau, Juan Luis (SAGE Publications, 2025-10-18)
This study examines the impact of a Public–private partnership on the market value of restaurant firms, revealing how a Public–private partnership in tourism promotion may yield uneven economic consequences across hospitality sub-sectors—a crowding-out effect for some restaurants and a cashing-in scenario for others. Using an event study methodology to analyze a paradigmatic Public–private partnership such as the Travel Promotion Act, we find significant negative abnormal returns for quick service and casual dining establishments, and positive abnormal returns for fine dining restaurants. These results underscore the role of economic spillover effects and crowding-out dynamics in restaurant performance. The study contributes to the theoretical understanding of how Public–private partnerships can act as market reconfiguration mechanisms, benefiting restaurants that cater to tourism-driven demand while disadvantaging those more reliant on local consumers. This perspective challenges the assumption that tourism promotion generates universal economic gains, highlighting the need for sector-specific strategies in policy design.
An Integrative Reference-Dependent Framework of Tourist Satisfaction: Gains, Losses, and Motivational Moderators of Behavioral Intentions
Jung, Hyojun; Nicolau, Juan Luis (SAGE Publications, 2025-10-16)
While satisfaction, motivation, revisit intention, and recommendation intention have been extensively studied in tourism research, existing models overlook the role of reference dependence in shaping tourist behavior. This study applies prospect theory and social comparison theory to analyze how satisfaction gains and losses influence behavioral intentions within a reference dependence framework, emphasizing the moderating role of travel motivations. Using a large-scale dataset of 106,504 foreign tourists visiting South Korea (2007–2023), findings reveal that the relationships between relative satisfaction and revisit and recommendation intentions are asymmetrical and reference-dependent, with reference points derived from travel motivations. Notably, loss aversion appears consistently across both revisit and recommendations intentions and certain travel motivations exhibit different degrees of loss aversion patterns. By integrating behavioral economics with motivational psychology, this study contributes to understanding how relative satisfaction, evaluated as gains and losses rather than absolute satisfaction levels, shows asymmetric associations across different motivations in relation to behavioral intentions.
GenAI in tourism: Who wins, who loses?
Jung, Hyojun; Sharma, Abhinav; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2026-06-01)
This study examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) adoption announcements affect firm value in the tourism industry, focusing on online travel agencies (OTAs), hotel companies, and major technology firms. Drawing on signaling theory, two-sided market theory, competitive dynamics, and disruption theory, we analyze GenAI-related announcements made between November 2022 and October 2024 using an event study methodology. The findings reveal that market responses vary depending on the source of the announcement and the type of firm affected. While GenAI announcements from OTAs and hotels generate negative spillover effects for other tourism firms, OTAs experience positive responses to their own and hotel announcements. In contrast, announcements from tech firms trigger negative reactions across OTAs and hotels, suggesting concerns about platform dependency and value displacement. These results highlight the strategic complexity of GenAI signaling and its implications for firm positioning in platform-based industries.
Sustainability, innovation, and competitive advantage in tourism: An event study of the Inflation Reduction Act
Poretti, Cédric; Blengini, Isabella; Nicolau, Juan Luis (SAGE Publications, 2025-12-22)
This study analyzes the impact of policy-induced changes on the market valuation of tourism and hospitality firms, focusing on green innovation and competitive advantage. Using a sample of publicly listed tourism and hospitality firms in the United States, and drawing on an integrated theoretical framework, we examine how policy shifts reshape competitive dynamics. More precisely, this paper analyzes how legislative events related to the Inflation Reduction Act affected firms’ market value fluctuations. The main results indicate that first-movers in green innovation initially benefited from policy uncertainty but faced competitive erosion once the approval of the new policy reduced entry barriers for competitors. These findings contribute to the strategic management and sustainability literature, highlighting the need for continuous innovation beyond regulatory incentives to sustain long-term differentiation.
Which message resonates with you? Unveiling effective framing strategies for regenerative tourism
Hajarrahmah, Dini; McGehee, Nancy G.; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Pandelaere, Mario (Elsevier, 2026-06-01)
This study examines the effectiveness of framing strategies—diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational—in marketing regenerative tourism, drawing on the framing perspective within social movement theory and the concept of frame resonance. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach, Study 1 features 23 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Destination Management Organization (DMO) leaders and regenerative practitioners. Participants report that positive messaging combined with clear calls to action resonate strongly with tourists. Study 2 employs a between-subjects online experiment with respondents from the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand to test these insights. Results reveal that framing strategies and frame resonance significantly influence tourists’ attitudes toward and intentions to participate in regenerative tourism. Theoretically, this research advances the application of framing strategies, frame resonance, and social movement theory in the context of regenerative tourism. Practically, it recommends that DMOs apply prognostic (solution-oriented) and motivational (call to action) framing that emphasizes experiential benefits and provides actionable steps to engage target audiences effectively.
All for one and one for all: The spillover effect of sports on tourism market value
Campayo-Sanchez, Fernando; Mas-Ruiz, Francisco Jose; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2025-07)
The literature on sports tourism shows the relationship between sports events and market value from different perspectives; however, the results of this study offer a new theoretical angle: the spillover effect of high-profile athletes on hotel market value. On the basis of the associative network memory theory, we argue that people create connections between athletes and the country where these athletes play, thereby enhancing the country's brand awareness and recognition. The empirical analysis, focused on renowned soccer signings and their effects on hotel chains, shows an increase in market value attributed to the announcements of the signings of these acclaimed athletes, giving rise to a spillover effect. The main theoretical implication derived from the alluded new theoretical angle of the spillover effect of high-profile soccer players on hotel market value.
When ChatGPT designs your trip: How GenAI adds a cognitive layer to smart tourism
Nicolau, Juan Luis (SAGE Publications, 2025-08-23)
This conceptual article explores how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), particularly tools such as ChatGPT, is transforming smart tourism by introducing a new cognitive layer into digital ecosystems. While traditional smart tourism systems have focused on data-driven optimization and automation, GenAI enables content creation, emotional simulation, and human-like interaction, which redefines how tourism experiences are imagined, delivered, and evaluated. This article proposes a research agenda organized around eight key tourism business domains (product, demand, consumer behavior, supply, disruptors, performance, ethics, and sustainability) and fifteen thematic topics, including authenticity, predictive intelligence, emotion-driven marketing, and labor transformation. Drawing on the literature, we illustrate how GenAI shifts the focus from personalization to co-creation, from information retrieval to immersive storytelling, and from reactive systems to predictive design. The study concludes with a call for interdisciplinary inquiry into the ethical, social, and experiential implications of GenAI in tourism.
Impact of smart door locks on traveler satisfaction on accommodation-sharing platform: An empirical investigation based on generalized random forests
Xu, Yukuan; Wu, Banggang; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Law, Rob; Xiang, Shuting (Elsevier, 2025-10)
When deciding on accommodation-sharing platforms, travelers face safety uncertainty because they need to trade or live with unverified strangers. Considering that accommodation-sharing platforms are introducing smart door locks to reduce safety uncertainty, this study contributes to the service-dominant logic framework by introducing uncertainty-mitigating factors that enhance satisfaction in an accommodation-sharing context. Using a dataset on a quasi-experimental design and applying generalized random forests, the results reveal that travelers’ satisfaction increases with room services with smart door locks. The positive effect decreases when room hosts have high credit scores or rooms use real pictures. This study contributes to the literature on uncertainty in the service-dominant logic framework and has methodological implications in using machine learning methods to identify causal relationships. Our findings also provide practical implications for accommodation-sharing platforms and hosts.
Identifying valuable reviews for review users: The value of tag systems on hotel booking platforms
Xu, Congyue; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Law, Rob; Liu, Xianwei (Elsevier, 2025-10)
In the era of big data, hotel booking platforms are inundated with an overwhelming volume of consumer reviews, which hinders review users from identifying valuable reviews. This study examines how review tags—a simple yet powerful heuristic—highlight valuable reviews and influence potential consumers and hotel managers. Using a dataset of 190,939 consumer reviews, we find that tagged reviews are more likely to be exerted more posting effort and receive more attention from review users. However, these relationships follow an inverted U curve, which suggests that the overuse of tags may counteract the intended benefits. We extend the theory of planned behavior by showing tags shape reviewers’ posting effort via attitudes and subjective norms, while dual-process theory reveals the heuristic role of tags for review users. Our findings provide insights for platforms to improve review systems and offer reviewers strategic ways to enhance their review's impact.
Promotional Framing and Firm Valuation in the Restaurant Industry: An Event Study
Sharma, Abhinav; Santa-Maria, Maria Jesus; Nicolau, Juan Luis; Line, Nathaniel (Sage, 2025-06-10)
Existing research has demonstrated that sales promotions result in unintended devaluations of firm value. However, this phenomenon remains unstudied in the restaurant industry, leaving restaurant companies with little guidance on how sales promotions affect their organization. This paper investigates the impact of sales promotions—and their framing—on firm value in the restaurant industry. Guided by prospect theory’s loss aversion principle, this study explores whether framing promotions as gains versus reduced losses leads to different outcomes. Using a sample of 1,165 promotion announcements, restaurant promotions were found to increase firm valuation, with reduced-loss framing being more effective. While much of the literature on framing effects has focused on individual decision-making processes, this research demonstrates their broader implications for firm performance and challenges the generalizability of the negative impact of sales promotions on firm value observed in other service industries—particularly hotels—contributing to a deeper understanding of promotional framing in the restaurant industry.
Special issue: marketing science applications in tourism and hospitality research
Nicolau, Juan Luis; Sharma, Abhinav; Ruiz-Moreno, Felipe (Routledge, 2025-06-13)
Senior spa-goers' potion: Brewing post-trip life satisfaction from the essence of motivations
Nicolau, Juan Luis; Lopez, Maria Carlos; Alen, Elisa; Vila, Trinidad Dominguez (Elsevier, 2025-10)
This study analyzes the effect of tourism-related life-enhancing motivations and tourism-related constraints on seniors’ life satisfaction after a visit to a spa. Drawing on expectancy-value, leisure constraints, and social comparison theories, the empirical application conducted in the thermal tourism context finds that tourism-related constraints have no effect on life satisfaction and that tourism-related life-enhancing motivations present a diversity of effects. While some motivations have no effect, others exert a positive effect in absolute terms (novelty) and in relative terms (relaxation and internal motivations) following a reference dependence pattern that is in line with prospect theory. Additionally, reference-dependent motivations present asymmetric effects from different angles: relaxation behaves according to the principles of loss aversion, while internal motivations show, nonetheless, reverse loss aversion. Theoretical frameworks related to motivation may benefit from recognizing the diverse effects of motivations on certain dimensions, such as life satisfaction.
The effect of job availability on hospitality and tourism industry performance
Sharma, Abhinav; McGinley, Sean; Dogru, Tarik; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2025-10)
This study analyzes the impact of job openings in the overall economy on the performance of hospitality and tourism firms. By using interlinkages theory, the results show that the availability of jobs in the overall economy negatively impacts hospitality and tourism. This effect is pronounced for the hotel and restaurant subsector, while absent for airlines. Apart from critical managerial implications, the main theoretical contribution of the results is the nuanced understanding of interlinkages within the tourism industry, revealing that economic factors such as job opportunities impact subsectors differently. This highlights the importance of considering sector-specific variables and interdependencies in interlinkages theory, rather than treating hospitality and tourism as a homogeneous whole.
The ideological recipe: CEO politics as the secret ingredient in boosting restaurant market value through promotions
Campayo-Sanchez, Fernando; Sharma, Abhinav; Kim, Yelim; Jung, Hyojun; Santa-María, María Jesús; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2025-07)
Based on upper echelons theory, the objective of this article is to analyze the influence of CEO political ideology on the effect of promotional activities on the market value of restaurants. Using a sample of 1061 promotional activities conducted by major U.S. restaurants between 1990 and 2022, the empirical application shows that not only do restaurants’ promotional activities result in an increase in their market value—contrary to the negative effects found in the literature—but those restaurants led by liberal CEOs (versus conservative CEOs) experience a greater increment in said market value. These results and the relationships among CEO's political ideology, promotional actions, and market value bring about several theoretical implications, integrating theories from political psychology into financial market theories.
A Cross-cultural Analysis of Attributes that Influence Customers’ Hotel Experience in Green Hotels
Bernard, Shaniel; Ho, Jo Ann; Dias, Alvaro; Zizka, Laura; Singal, Manisha (SAGE, 2025-08-10)
Although there is increasing awareness of hotels’ sustainability efforts, there are gaps in understanding both how and when green practices influence guest evaluations. To address this gap, this study applies the complexity theoretical framework and fsQCA to examine key attributes that influence guest experiences as reflected in online reviews of green hotels. In our study, emotions emerged as a critical attribute, surpassing the impact of sustainability measures. Results indicate specific combinations of hotel characteristics, such as ratings and sustainability practices as well as socio-cultural factors like collectivism and gender, drive positive and negative feedback in hotels. An intervention model for hotel managers to encourage proenvironmental behavior of guests is proposed based on their attribute grouping. Different strategies such as social norm messaging, co-creation with customers, and status signaling, will encourage guests to recognize and highlight sustainability practices in online reviews.
Survival of the fittest: Standardization by professional short-term rental hosts under severe uncertainty
Zhang, Huihui; Bianco, Simone; Zach, Florian J.; Xiang, Zheng (Elsevier, 2025-12)
Severe uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, forces organizations to adapt quickly to survive in the marketplace. This study examines how professional short-term rental hosts enhance unit resilience under market disruptions through standardization, and how this effect is moderated by business size. A survival analysis is conducted using 155,132 observations of Airbnb units operated by professional hosts in Hong Kong between April 2018 and March 2023. Results reveal positive effects of standardization, and the benefits are more pronounced for larger businesses. The findings further identify that the positive effects of standardization become stronger and less reliant on business size during COVID. In contrast, under market growth, the alignment between standardization and business size is more important, where functional standardization benefits larger businesses but may harm smaller ones. This research enriches tourism literature by emphasizing the strategic lens of professionalization. The findings also provide insights for practitioners, platform managers, and policymakers.
Deploying popular culture for international expansion: Effect of operational strategies on hotel firms’ performance
Kim, Yelim; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2025-12-01)
The global hospitality industry is increasingly linked with popular culture, yet its financial impact on hotel firms remains underexplored. This study examines how culturally symbolic events influence the market value of foreign hotel companies operating in the origin country of such culture. Drawing on associative memory theory, congruence theory, strategic flexibility theory, and dynamic capabilities theory, we analyze the effect of major South Korean cultural events on the market value of U.S. hotel companies operating in the South Korea. We find that popular culture events significantly boost hotel market value. Furthermore, franchised hotels outperform managed ones, suggesting that operational flexibility enhances responsiveness to cultural trends. These findings offer the first empirical evidence linking popular culture to foreign hotel firm performance and highlight the strategic importance of adaptable organizational models. The study contributes a novel cross-disciplinary framework and provides managerial insights for optimizing international expansion in culturally dynamic markets.

Browse

Recent Submissions