•While the sharing economy is hugely popular among entrepreneurs and consumers because of its lower costs and transaction fees, critics have begun to question the price advantage of the sharing ...economy following Uber’s sudden revenue loss. However, Airbnb’s triumphs in 2016 suggested that the sharing economy does not translate to a cheaper provision of goods or services. A factor beyond pricing advantages must be examined. In service management and marketing theories, the sharing economy is represented by service providers who offer an innovative experience for consumers. This service experience is co-created through the interactions of suppliers and consumers. This value co-creation echoes the concept of collaborative consumption. Therefore, this study broadens the scope of study on sharing economy and crafts the relations among value co-creation, customer experience, and pricing under the umbrella of the sharing economy business model.•Specifically, this study investigates the role of value co-creation in sharing economy with an examination of consumers’ willingness to pay premium prices. The objectives are (1) to determine the values that customers perceive through co-creation activities in a sharing economy and (2) to assess the various impacts of the co-created values on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for the sharing economy experiences in pre-/mid-/post-consumption stages.•This study discussed the value co-creation activities in the sharing economy business patterns in three distinct service stages—pre-consumption, mid-consumption, and post-consumption. Further, this study examined and compared the co-created values across three consumption stages by using multi-group structural equation modeling technique. Due to the nascent nature of sharing economy and value co-creation, the study findings generated many theoretical and practical implications.
The growing phenomenon of the sharing economy facilitates collaborative production and consumption, which highlights the concept of value co-creation. The current study aims to investigate the role of value co-creation in a sharing economy with an examination of consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price. Three types of functional, social, and emotional co-created values were explored through an online survey that focused on the pre-consumption, mid-consumption, and post-consumption stages. Four hundred and ninety-nine valid surveys were collected. The results showed that activities that involve functional and social values in the pre-consumption stage are stimulators of paying a premium price. In the mid-consumption stage, emotional value is also important for customers. However, in the post-consumption stage, only social-value-based activities are associated with willingness to pay a premium price.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions of service firms worldwide; therefore, they must be resilient during these uncertain economic times. This paper develops a new conceptual framework of ...resilience-building strategies for the service industry. This framework encompasses five major practical strategies and several sub-strategies that can help service firms to survive and thrive amid and post COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed strategies include market orientation, supply chain optimization, strategic corporate reorganization, innovation, and business model transformation. The successful implementation of each strategy depends on various factors, which are discussed in the study. In addition, four major resources, including financial, human, social, and technological capital, are reviewed as prerequisites for adopting the resilience-building strategies. This new framework contributes to the organizational resilience literature and provides practical implications for service firms to become resilient during and post COVID-19.
The current study aims to identify a customer value proposition (CVP) for the sharing economy business model and to compare the competitive advantages of CVPs in the sharing economy. Because of the ...novelty of the topic of CVPs in the context of the sharing economy, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach. First, a qualitative study is conducted to develop a scale and theoretical framework for a CVP in the sharing economy. Then, a quantitative approach is performed to test the scale and framework and compare CVPs and their competitive advantages. The qualitative study shows that four values reside in a CVP: economic, social, emotional, and technical. These values result in the development of a model CVP for the sharing economy. Moreover, the quantitative data collected from 1285 samples indicate that social and emotional values are assessed as more significant than technical and economic values in terms of customer repurchase intention with regard to services in the sharing economy. Furthermore, results show that social and emotional values play equal roles in motivating customers to revisit businesses in the sharing economy.
•In the sharing economy context, four dimensions of customer value are identified.•A model of Customer Vale Proposition (CVP) for the sharing economy is established.•A scale for CVPs is developed through a qualitative research.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the factors that influence hotel/motel employees’ helping behavior toward the victims of human trafficking.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a survey-based ...quantitative method, this study examines and compares two models of helping behavior based on egoism and altruism theories to measure the helping tendencies of lodging employees toward victims of human trafficking.
Findings
The study results show that perceived intrinsic rewards of helping and empathy with the victims are the major antecedents of employees’ likelihood to help the victims.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributed to the egoism school of thought and the Cost-Reward Model by showing that only perceived intrinsic rewards drive individuals’ intention to help in risky covert situations, such as human trafficking, while perceived extrinsic rewards may demotivate people to help in these situations.
Originality/value
Previous studies overlooked the role of the lodging industry in human trafficking. This study focuses on service employees as potential helpers of the victims as they notice in hotels/motels.
This study focuses on Americans' perceptions of and intentional behaviors toward Cuba as a medical tourism destination. Using a survey-based quantitative method, the study examined the effects of ...Cuba's country image and destination image as well as the perceived cost and quality of its medical tourism services on intention to visit Cuba. The results showed that country image and perceived quality of medical tourism services had the greatest positive influence on Americans' intention to travel to Cuba for medical purposes. The study also supported the positive effect of destination image and the negative effect of perceived costs of medical tourism services on intention to visit Cuba. Lastly, the study findings revealed that the better the country and destination image of Cuba, the lower the perceived cost and the higher the perceived quality of its medical tourism services would be.
•Examined the American's intention to visit Cuba as a medical tourism destination.•Country image and perceived quality of medical tourism had the greatest impact on the intention.•Destination image had a positive effect on the intention.•Perceived cost of medical tourism services negatively influenced the intention.•Contributed to the medical tourism literature and medical tourism marketing.
This study proposed and tested a theoretical framework that investigated the impacts of perceived benefits (i.e., perceived convenience and potential for savings) and perceived risks (i.e., physical ...risk, psychological risk, and performance risk) on patients’ perceived value of staying at medical hotels. In addition, the current study examined the influence of perceived value on patients’ intention to stay at medical hotels. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to test the study model by utilizing data comprised of 351 patients who stayed in a hospital overnight to receive a medical treatment. The results revealed that perceived convenience and potential for savings positively; performance risk and psychological risk negatively influenced perceived value. In addition, perceived value positively impacted intention to stay at medical hotels. The study findings offer valuable contributions to the hospitality, healthcare and medical tourism literature, and important practical implication for hotel and hospital operators.
•The Impacts of perceived benefits and risks on patients’ perceived value of staying at medical hotels were examined.•Perceived benefits including perceived convenience and potential for savings positively influenced perceived value.•Psychological risk and performance risk had a negative influence perceived value.•Perceived value positively impacted intention to stay at medical hotels.
•Examined occupational health issues in hospitality.•Identified key elements of barriers to successful employee wellness programs.•Suggested improvements for wellness initiatives in hospitality ...workplaces.
This study conducted a comprehensive review of work conditions and health risks/problems for various hospitality workers and summarized the various health and wellness promotion programs available in the workplace with the aim of identifying the key elements of successful employee wellness programs. In this review, physical health problems, such as musculoskeletal disorders, lung diseases, and dermatologic diseases, as well as mental health problems that are common among hospitality employees were discussed. In addition, different types of wellness programs that may help employees to overcome these health problems were included. In the next stage, interviews with hotel staff holding multiple positions were conducted to identify the most significant health challenges and assess their preference for various types of wellness initiatives. Using MAXQDA Pro, health-related categories and themes were extracted from the interviews. Participants believed that the lack of time, physical challenges and stress are the top three wellness challenges in the hospitality industry. In order to tackle the challenges, they stated that hospitality businesses should provide various wellness initiatives including healthy eating and weight management, smoking cessation, stress management, exercise programs, and fitbits or other wellness tracker devices.
This paper presents a critical review of prior research on theme parks. By critically reviewing 195 academic publications in major hospitality and tourism journals as well as other journals covering ...theme park-related disciplines, a total of 138 studies were included in the final analysis. The results propose a conceptual framework that delineates the concepts, theoretical foundations, and multi-relations among critical stakeholders within the theme park arena. The proposed framework indicates the links between the theoretical concept and industry practices and provides a holistic view for industry practitioners to understand the fundamental concepts and visitors' demands. Accordingly, this study provides a benchmark to help industry practitioners design their theme park products. Furthermore, the framework identifies vital mediators (social factor, technical factor, economic factor, environmental factor, and political factor) in theme park destinations, guiding macro policies to promote the local theme park industry. Given the fragmented understanding of theme park research's conceptualization and its emerging popularity in hospitality and tourism research, this paper provides valuable contributions to the knowledge base of theme park research.
This paper leverages natural language processing, spatial analysis, and statistical analysis to examine the relationship between restaurants’ safety violations and COVID-19 cases. We used ...location-based consumers’ complaints data during the early stage of business reopening in Florida, USA. First, statistical analysis was conducted to examine the correlation between restaurants’ safety violations and COVID-19 transmission. Second, a neural network-based deep learning model was developed to perform topic modeling based on consumers’ complaints. Third, spatial modeling of the complaints’ geographic distributions was performed to identify the hotspots of consumers’ complaints and COVID-19 cases. The results reveal a positive relationship between consumers’ complaints about restaurants’ safety violations and COVID-19 cases. In particular, consumers’ complaints about personal protection measures had the highest correlation with COVID-19 cases, followed by environmental safety measures. Our analytical methods and findings shed light on customers’ behavioral shifts and hospitality businesses’ adaptive practices during a pandemic.
•We leverage data analytical approaches to understand the relationship between restaurants’ safety violations and COVID-19 cases.•A positive relationship between restaurants’ safety violations and COVID-19 cases is confirmed.•Complaints about personal safety measures are most associated with the COVID-19 cases.•Consumers’ complaints and COVID-19 cases are distributed unevenly across Florida.
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