What makes Airbnb likeable? Exploring the nexus between service attractiveness, country image, perceived authenticity and experience from a social exchange theory perspective within an emerging economy context

As a result of the growth of the notions of collaborative consumption and sharing economy in the tourism industry, this paper applies social exchange theory to investigate how the Airbnb platform influences the Airbnb experience and authenticity, which might lead consumers to like Airbnb and influence their behavioural patterns. By recruiting 466 tourists who had stayed in Airbnb accommodation in Istanbul, Turkey via travel-related Telegram, Twitter, travel blogs, and Facebook groups, this study revealed the importance of the platform and its features in enhancing service attractiveness, perceived authenticity and experience. Furthermore, the results revealed that visitors’ experiences have an influence on Airbnb likability, where Airbnb likability influences their intention to re-visit and to recommend. Significant implications for tourism planning, management and researchers are highlighted

A bibliometric investigation of service failure literature and a research agenda

Purpose - This research studies the citations made in service failure literature, and assesses the knowledge construction of this region of exploration to date. Design/methodology/approach - The bibliometric investigation assesses 416 service failure articles in business associated research. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is employed to uncover the scope of the scholarly impacts that have helped understand the nature of the service failure literature. The establishment of knowledge in the service failure literature is revealed by analysing co-citation data to identify significant topical impacts. Findings - The theoretical model combines five areas with significant propositions for the future improvement of service failure as an area of investigation. The most important research themes in-service failure literature are service failure, service failure communication, the recovery process, recovery offer and intention. Research limitations/implications - Potential research concentrating on the service failure literature could use search terms improved from the literature review, or use a comparable approach whereby a board of well-informed scholars approved the keywords used. Practical implications - This paper is beneficial for any reader who is interested in understanding the components of the perception of justice and recovery and how it improves repurchase intention. Originality/value - The study seeks to influence resource and recovery-based concepts and utilises the five supporting knowledge groups to suggest a plan for future research that fills existing gaps and offers the possibility of expanding and enhancing the service failure literature

PROMISING THE DREAM: changing destination image of London through the effect of website place

Drawing on theories of place identity and social identity, this study aims to fill a gap in place identity studies regarding the effect of a place website on the destination image of customers/visitors/tourists. The research addresses three questions: (1) what are the main impacts of tourists’ attitude on place identity and the place website, (2) what are the factors that influence destination image, and (3) what are the main impacts of a favorable destination image? The favorability of a destination image is reflected by the extent to which visitors positively regard that place website. Results reveal the importance of the destination image in enhancing the intention to revisit and recommend. Also, visitors’ satisfaction impacts on their intention to revisit and recommend the place. Significant implications for place managers and researchers are highlighted

Examining the influence of religiosity and consumer perceived value on brand sensuality, brand experience, consumer hedonism and repurchase intention: a study of consumers’ perception in the context of fashion retailing – the case of Turkey

This research explores how consumer religiosity influences brand sensuality, brand experience and consumer hedonism and how that, in turn, affects the repurchase intention of consumers. Building on environmental psychology theory and the Stimulus-Organism-Response model, the study shows that sensorial stimuli from atmospheric surroundings have an effect on individuals’ cognitive, affective and behavioural reactions which, consequently, determines whether individuals’ approach or avoid that atmosphere. While extensive contributions in the past literature have shown the influence of sensorial cues on individuals’ emotional and behavioural intentions, factors such as personality traits and cultural and socio-cultural influences, which affect individuals’ reactions to sensorial cues and, in turn, affect their behavioural responses, have attracted very little attention. The domain of this research had four key areas: (a) the various dimensions of brand sensuality (i.e. visual, audial, olfactory, haptic and social) are examined that can be used to influence consumers in the retail industry; (b) religiosity and its dimensions in the Turkish landscape are investigated; (c) the moderating effects of religiosity and consumer-perceived value on the relationships between sensorial cues (i.e. visual, audial, olfactory, haptic and social) and brand experience are examined; and (d) the relationship between the five brand sensuality elements and brand experience, consumer hedonism and repurchase intention are investigated. Drawing on the environmental psychology theory, to address the research questions, a mixed-method approach was utilised. In order to develop the research measurement scales, a thorough literature review was undertaken, followed by the qualitative study and then the quantitative study. The qualitative study was conducted to achieve an enhanced understanding of a research phenomenon that has drawn little attention so far. Moreover, during the qualitative study, the researcher identified possible new items from the respondents’ comments. The validity of the measurement scales was examined through the interviews and the focus groups. The qualitative study was conducted before the quantitative study, so it could be utilised as the basis of the main study. The quantitative data drawn from 410 questionnaires was examined by adopting Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS), utilising IBM SPSS Amos 21.0.0 for the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to assess the measurement model and hypothesised structural model. The main research contribution of this study is the construction of a model that explains the brand sensuality elements and the moderating effect of consumer religiosity and consumer-perceived value on the path of brand sensuality and brand experience, which lead consumers to have hedonic values and intention to repurchase. The results of this research show that audial, olfactory and haptic cues have a direct positive effect on the brand experience. The results additionally indicate that consumer religiosity moderates the relationships between olfactory cues and brand experience, and between social cues and brand experience. Additionally, the results indicate that consumer-perceived value moderates the relationship between haptic cues and brand experience and strengthens the relationship between haptic cues and brand experience. The SEM results also indicate that brand experience has a direct influence on hedonism and repurchase intention, while hedonism also influences repurchase intention. Based on the results, there are a plethora of implications that this study holds for managers who want to implement sensorial strategies into their marketing efforts. First and foremost, this study addressed the research gap in the literature and answered the question of how the overall effect of sensorial cues can be enhanced, and to what extent individual differences influence the relationship between sensorial cues and experience. The result of this study considered critical since with the fast-paced environment of competitive marketplaces, firms are actively seeking to appeal to consumers’ sensations in order to differentiate their offerings; brand sensuality is, therefore, gaining more and more importance since, once one or more senses has been evoked, it is difficult to eliminate them, thereby enabling a long-term brand experience. Therefore, this study provides an insight to policymakers, managers and brands on the impact of sensory marketing on consumer buying practices across cultures, including emerging economies. Additionally, by investigating religiosity and consumer perceived value as individual related variables on brand experience and brand sensuality, the results have a substantial importance for managers, designers, decision-makers, consultants, where they can blend sensorial inputs in the retail atmosphere by considering the influence of religiosity and consumer perceived value where it can provide a differentiation effect within this fiercely competitive environment

Service failure research in the hospitality and tourism industry: a synopsis of past, present and future dynamics from 2001 to 2020

Purpose - When service failure occurs, it leads to dissatisfaction, lack of trust and avoidance behaviour among customers, and it can also be seen as a threat to the survival of the business. This paper investigates the current and potential dynamics of service failure research within the tourism and hospitality area. Design/methodology/approach - By adopting qualitative, quantitative (citation and text mining) and science-mapping tools (descriptive, conceptual, and intellectual), we analyse 99 key papers on service failure in 18 major hospitality and tourism journals over a 20-year span. Findings - The research on service recovery strategies, recovery efforts, pre-, and post-failure, and post-recovery in the service encounter, and the impacts of justice on post-recovery and post-complaint behaviour are identified as the major streams of service failure research. While emotional labour, rumination, and satisfaction recovery were identified as emerging themes, service failure perceptions and social media were found as the developed and substantial trends. Practical implications - We present a comprehensive understanding of service failure research development in the hospitality and tourism industry. We propose three areas – circumstantial cues, interactional cues, and crisis management – that practitioners need to understand in order to minimise service failure during the service interaction. Originality – To the best of our knowledge, no prior bibliometric study has investigated the current and future dynamics of service failure in the hospitality and tourism industry and offered a research agenda based on this gap in the literature