Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research

Recent research on the use of robotics in hospitality and tourism has called attention to tourists’ post-adoption behavior, including value co-creation. Guided by the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, a mixed-method study was conducted to explore the antecedents and mechanisms of tourists’ value co-creation behavior with robots. Qualitative interviews revealed robots’ anthropomorphism and economic rewards as tourists’ key concerns regarding robot-provided services. Subsequently, partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to investigate how robot service attributes influenced tourist–robot co-creation, including participation and citizenship behaviors, and enhancing tourists’ experiences at tourist attractions. Findings indicated that three types of perceived experiential value fully mediated the relationships between robots’ degree of anthropomorphism and tourists’ value co-creation behavior, as well as between economic rewards and participation behavior. However, the relationship between economic rewards and citizenship behavior was partially mediated. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study empirically and comprehensively explores consumers’ ethical perceptions of autonomous service robots (ASRs) in hotels. Under the triangulation approach, this study has identified eight themes of consumer perceived ethical issues (privacy, security, safety, transparency, fairness, socialization, autonomy, and responsibility). Each theme can be explained from two dimensions: ethical issues arise during the interaction (i.e., ubiquitous surveillance, excessive data, unidentified risks, service disclosure, inaccessibility, dehumanization, selection of services, and service recovery), and ethical issues can be raised by the characteristics of ASRs (i.e., privacy infringement, malicious use, malfunctions, untrustworthiness, biased features, job replacement, inflexibility, and self-identified solutions). This study is the first to propose ethical issues of ASRs from two dimensions with different intelligence levels, and to highlight ethical issues during hotel service interactions. The findings contribute to ethics studies of service robots from consumers’ perspectives and offer managerial insights to reduce ethical concerns and enhance ASRs usage in hotels.

This study investigates the impact of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) on consumer travel intentions. While VR’s potential in treating post-travel depression is acknowledged, its influence on destination marketing remains understudied. Using mental imagery as a theoretical framework, the experiment involved 547 Taiwanese and international students who utilized domestic flights to satisfy their travel cravings. Comparing three nostalgic emotions previews (videos, 360 virtual tours, and VR), to examine varying degrees of immersion. The findings reveal that exposure to VR significantly enhances imagery and strengthens travel intentions among participants. Interestingly, VR’s influence on consumer nostalgic emotions and travel intention through imagery is unaffected by innovativeness, but, rather, is affected by the level of involvement experienced. The study carries implications for destination marketers, providing insights into the potential of immersive VR technology. By understanding its impact on travel intentions and leveraging nostalgic emotions, marketers can tailor strategies to specific consumer segments.

Although virtual tourism has recently been introduced in numerous areas, it is still regarded as a gimmick because whether this currently rising demand will last longer than a year remains unknown. Regarding virtual tourism’s main pillar—technology—and potential weakness—difficulty developing an intimate experience—the current study incorporates key elements of the technology acceptance model (TAM), the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model (UTAUT) and the attention, interest, desire, and action model (AIDA), to create a novel model focused on the need for intimacy. In addition to offering a theoretical foundation for future academics addressing a similar situation, the findings in this research have managerial implications, as the study recommends measures for reviving the tourism industry’s boom. These findings can therefore foster both the tourist industry and local governments; they highlight the necessity for local governments to use modern technologies to dispense tourism resources rationally.

As an emerging category of non-human influencers, virtual influencers (VIs) have received increasing attention on social media. While VIs generate high user engagement, the underlying factors that drive social media engagement are poorly understood. Informed by communication theory, this study aims to explore Instagram users’ perceptions of VIs and the key source and content factors that prompt user engagement in tourism contexts. An initial netnographic observation of Instagram posts was followed by five online focus group interviews using a photo elicitation technique. The results indicated that Instagram users had mixed feelings towards VIs; however, most were receptive to VI marketing provided that ethical concerns had been addressed. Key source and content factors that stimulate user engagement with VIs are integrated into a proposed framework. The findings will assist tourism practitioners and content creators to design VI marketing campaigns that incorporate and leverage important influencer and post-related features.

Despite the growing role of virtual influencers in the tourism and hospitality business, there is a lack of research on Gen Z travelers’ trust in Instagram marketplace and virtual influencers. Thus, this study applied trust transfer theory to explore how Gen Z travelers’ trust in Instagram marketplace transferred to trust in tour program sellers and purchase intentions. In addition, it examined influencer type (human vs. virtual) and post type (sponsored vs. non-sponsored) as potential moderators of this relationship. A mixed methods approach was adopted that comprised in-depth interviews with Gen Z travelers (Study 1) and three between-subjects experiments (Studies 2–4). Key findings revealed that the interaction effect of high (vs. low) trust in Instagram marketplace and sponsored (vs. non-sponsored) posts resulted in higher trust in sellers when a virtual influencer was deployed than when a human influencer was deployed. In addition, trust in sellers was found to play a significant mediating role in the relationship between Gen Z travelers’ trust in Instagram marketplace and purchase intentions. These findings are pioneering insights into the effects of virtual influencers on Instagram from a marketing perspective.

The effects of various coffee shop attributes on customer satisfaction and brand-related outcomes were investigated. In addition, the moderating role of different service providers (human barista vs. robot barista) was explored. This study found that coffee quality, employee service, physical environment, price, and location, positively affect customer satisfaction. In addition, customer satisfaction has a positive influence on brand attitude and brand identification which, in turn, positively affect brand loyalty. Lastly, the type of service providers played a moderating role in the relationship between (1) coffee quality and customer satisfaction and (2) price and customer satisfaction.

In the context of extensive smart developments in amusement parks, this study aimed to understand how different smart tourism technologies could be transferred into tourists’ expectations of smart tourism experiences. Drawing on the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology, this study established a House of Quality (HoQ) for smart developments by analyzing data from 20 interviews (10 tourists and 10 service providers) and 300 survey responses (250 tourists and 50 service providers). The results identified 14 smart tourism technologies in amusement parks, and revealed that they correlated in different ways with the four smart tourism experience attributes (accessibility, informativeness, interactivity, and personalization), thus laying a theoretical foundation for more comprehensive discussions of smart tourism design, and providing practical implications for staging the smart tourism experience in a better way.

Creating and delivering memorable experiences for tourists constitute the essence of tourism and tourism management. Technological developments, such as virtual reality (VR), enable tourists to achieve a more unique tourism experience by intensifying engagement and extending experience co-creation in an interactive and simulated environment. This study examines how VR influences the tourism experience and behavioral intentions associated with boundary conditions. Based on a survey in China, the results indicate significant positive relationships among VR presence, flow, tourism experience, and behavioral intentions. Novelty seeking moderates the relationship between VR enjoyment and flow. The findings of this study suggest that VR is a promising tool for tourism in the pre-travel stage.

Growing scientific attention to technology has led to new guidelines for comprehending consumers’ experiences with the technology. Understanding the relationship between technology and consumers is crucial for advancing thought as well as practice in this subject. This study aims to look at the origins, significant subjects, scientific advances, and future advancements in customer reactions to technological research. To accomplish this aim, we ran analysis in R with the visualization tools VOSviewer and Biblioshiny in order to conduct a bibliometric study. Employing the Boolean strategy, journal articles were obtained from the Scopus database up to August 17, 2022. This research looked at customer reactions to technology literature from various angles, including citations, journals, keywords, and geographies. Then, bibliographic coupling, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis were carried out. The analysis showed how customer reactions to technology literature have changed over the past 2 decades. This study provided insight into the role of technology adoption and COVID-19 in customer reactions to technology, and identified potential and constraints in this area.

This study investigates the influence of the desire for continuous learning, fear of missing out (FOMO), involvement, and enjoyment from the virtual travel experience (VTE), on museum visit intentions. The direct impacts of FOMO, consumer attitudes, and subjective norms on visit intentions were examined within a conceptual research model that combines the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and self-determination theory (SDT). Survey data obtained from 385 potential tourists were analyzed by PLS-SEM. Findings revealed that the desire for continuous learning positively influences FOMO, and involvement positively affects attitudes toward museum visits, which, in turn, increases visit intentions. Enjoyment from the VTE moderates the attitude–visit intentions relationship. This study has extended previous findings by proposing and empirically testing an original framework for examining behavioral intentions. It has shown the significant impact of the desire for continuous learning on FOMO, which operates as a self-regulatory feeling and increases museum visit intentions.

This research investigated perceived risks associated with central bank digital currency (CBDC) payment innovations and their effect on travelers’ adoption behavior, considering personal and product characteristics. This quantitative study determined that perceived risks, including financial, performance, privacy, psychological, and time risks, have an adverse effect on attitudes toward CBDC payment, which, in turn, affects the intention to adopt. In addition, this study underlined the moderating roles of consumer innovativeness, previous experience, structural assurance, and media encouragement in the link between perceived risk and attitude. The results advanced the understanding of travelers’ intention to use CBDC to pay for tourism products and services.