Purpose of stay and willingness to stay as dimensions to identify and evaluate hotel experiences

The market of experiences promises business opportunities to service-based sectors. However, company managers miss procedures for strategic decision-making. This paper presents a practical procedure to help managers to move into the experience business in the hospitality sector.Alcantara Alcover, E.; Artacho Ramírez, MÁ.; Martínez Guillamón, N.; Campos Soriano, N. (2013). Purpose of stay and willingness to stay as dimensions to identify and evaluate hotel experiences. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 33:357-365. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2012.10.006S3573653

It is all about the emotional state:Managing tourists’ experiences

When consuming tourism and leisure services tourists do not only expect professional services but also desire satisfying emotional experiences. To measure satisfaction with emotional experiences traditional service quality and satisfaction research is outdated because those models are based on cognitive components and neglect emotional aspects of customer satisfaction. This research investigates factors determining the service setting that enhance customers’ emotional reactions and lead to psychological states and behaviours. Referring to existing theories and empirical evidence in environmental psychology, a research model is developed explaining the relationship between different components of service settings influencing emotional states and satisfaction. Guests’ emotions are assessed during service consumption in hotel settings in order to investigate the importance of emotional states. The paper derives three main factors (leisure experience, hardware and human ware) significantly influencing emotional states of customers in high-quality hotels

The effect of context attractiveness on product attractiveness and product quality: the moderating role of product familiarity

Prior research has investigated a number of drivers of consumers perceived product attractiveness, such as a products shape and color. The context, in which a product is presented, has so far been largely neglected in examining consumers aesthetic appraisal of products. Drawing on social cognition theory, this research investigates how the attractiveness of the visual context (e.g., websites, advertisements) influences consumers perceptions of product attractiveness and product quality for familiar versus unfamiliar products. Results of two experimental studies show that consumers perceive unfamiliar products as more attractive and, consequently, of higher quality when products are placed in an attractive context than when they are placed in an unattractive context. No differences in consumers perceived product attractiveness and perceived product quality exist for familiar products. The findings extend our theoretical knowledge of product aesthetics and provide managers with insights into the effective communication of their offerings attractiveness.(VLID)455214