Open Access Publications
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Open access publications by faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in the Department of Hospitality And Sport Business Management.
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Item Hotels vs. Guest Satisfaction(International Journal of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism, 2023-06-06) Sposato, Emily; Kline, SherylIn order to be successful in the hotel industry, one must look for different ways to satisfy their guests and improve that guest experience. This is a challenge for many hotels, but one way to meet and even exceed the guest satisfaction is by using technology. Technology can change so much for guests during their stay, for it can make the possibility of guest satisfaction increase. Attempting to analyze whether a guest is satisfied with a hotel and their service is what hotels should do in order to keep their business successful, and that is where technology becomes important for hotels needing it for practically everything that is run, so using methods that are useful and satisfactory should be looked into. This technology aids this issue in personalizing the guests' experience, using revenue management to attract guests to your hotel property, allowing self-service technologies to get more attention, and making sure the technology is even better than what guests are used to in their homes. Looking into technology from a guest’s perspective and whether these different methods make their stay pleasurable comes into consideration to many hotels, for they are making attempts of these different methods. As hotels are attempting these methods in order to achieve this ultimate goal of receiving guest satisfaction, a deep understanding of whether these methods are doing justice for a hotel's success is important to analyze and look further into.Item Taking Vows to Save the Planet(International Journal of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism, 2023-06-06) Visser, Grace; Kline, SherylThe events industry has a large environmental impact and carbon footprint. All aspects of events and event planning have negative environmental consequences. From the single-use products used (decor, dinnerware, and others) to the transportation needed by vendors and guests, the events industry continues to contribute to climate change. However, events are not going to go away. People will always want to gather together and celebrate, but if events are not going to go away, there needs to be a way to make them more sustainable so that they can continue being part of life. I propose that in order to make events more environmentally friendly, people must find creative ways to eliminate single-use materials (decorating with secondhand materials, reusing one’s own decorations, incorporating vintage dishes and silverware), and to support environmental organizations when reducing the specific event’s carbon footprint is not feasible.Item How The Hotel Industry Can Navigate an Active Online Landscape(International Journal of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism, 2023-06-06) Meenakshi, Shruti; Kline, SherylThe emergence of online reviews located on platforms and social networks has presented opportunities and challenges for the hotel industry. Navigating this space to find trends and patterns in an array of reviews proves to be a tall task for the staff in charge of sorting through reviews, but one that businesses have put a lot of emphasis on, especially in a vocal online landscape that can submit descriptive reviews that can skew negative, misleading, or spread false information. There are different pieces in understanding the effects of the rising online landscape: the importance given to these reviews (Nwaogu et al., 2014), the expectations the consumer has in mind (Browning, 2013), deciphering the actual criticism from fallacies, the response from the online platforms toward inaccurate information, and the actions hotels are taking to improve service quality to craft a better experience for customers in the future (Browning, 2013). The industry is in the midst of an evolving industry with the rise of technology and increased expectations after the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many avenues, including AI, that hotels can take to politely address negative reviews, such as responding to the review directly, implementing strategies and improvements that will indirectly foster a more positive word of mouth online, or working these online platforms to find ways to uncover reviews that contain misleading or false information. Regardless, it is vital that the hotel address these issues that make staying there more appealing, instead of undermining them.Item Revenue Analytics: The Problem With Fixed-Tier Pricing(Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CHQ), 2023-02-08) Ma, Jing; Schwartz, ZviWith the widely used fixed-tier computerized pricing system (e.g., based on the best available rate or BAR), fenced discount rates are set and updated as a fixed percentage of the base rate such as the BAR. This intuitive computer-automated solution to a complex pricing issue is, however, theoretically suboptimal. The study demonstrates why the practice of using fixed-tier pricing is suboptimal, showing that this fixed-tier approach is inferior even when the initial set of fenced rates is optimal and even in the unlikely scenario of the various market segments’ demand curves shifting proportionally. As such, practitioners should avoid using a convenient fixed-tier pricing model (BAR-based or not) where only one pricing optimization is run and the rest of the fenced prices are calculated based on this optimized price using fixed percentages. Instead, a fenced-rate pricing system where individual segments are treated independently, and optimizations are run for each segment should be adopted.Item Customer Lifetime Value: A Data Science Approach for Hospitality Applications(International Journal of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism, 2022-11-04) Webb, Timothy; Cho, S. Ray; Legg, Mark P.Segmentation of databases based on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the cornerstone of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). To implement CRM strategies, the hospitality industry relies heavily on loyalty programs to track customer behavior. Despite the prevalence of loyalty programs, little attention has been given to CLV model formulation in hospitality. This paper reviews the extant literature discussing CLV modeling and formulates a model with hospitality-specific considerations. Based on the literature, a phased approach is proposed using cluster and Markov chain analyses, while incorporating a new metric based on a customer’s expected trip cycle to identify lost customers in the non-contractual setting. The model is empirically tested on casino loyalty data to demonstrate the viability and robustness of the approach for hospitality sectors.Item Customer pressure and restaurant employee green creative behavior: serial mediation effects of restaurant ethical standards and employee green passion(International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 2021-11-16) Cho, Meehee; Yoo, Joanne Jung-EunPurpose: Today’s consumers are aware of restaurants’ effects on the environment and pressure them to implement green practices. As restaurant success largely depends on how employees meet customer expectations, employee green creative behavior (EGCB) is critical. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how to enhance EGCB by integrating a comprehensive set of three-dimensional components: external, organizational and individual factors. Design/methodology/approach: Data analysis was conducted using responses from full-time employees in the US restaurant industry. The PROCESS macro was used to test the direct and indirect relationships between the study variables. A series of mediation analyzes were conducted to investigate the mediation effects of “restaurant ethical standards” and “employee green passion” on their relationships to “customer pressure” and EGCB. Findings: The results verified a direct effect of “customer pressure” on “restaurant ethical standards” and EGCB. The study also demonstrated positive direct relationships of “restaurant ethical standards” – “employee green passion” and “employee green passion” – EGCB. The result showed that “restaurant ethical standards” and “employee green passion” sequentially explained the partial impact of “customer pressure” on EGCB. Practical implications: The study recommends that restaurant managers acknowledge growing customer environmentalism and prepare to address their customers’ stricter green requirements. Restaurants need to review their ethical standards on a regular basis to meet rising customer pressure. The study also offers empirical evidence regarding the importance of selecting employees who are passionate about sustainability and empowering them to encourage their green creative behavior. Originality/value: Although past studies have introduced various determinants of employee creative behavior, they have mainly focused on organizational and individual-level factors but have ignored a critical external factor, which is customer pressure. The study addresses this research gap by investigating the interrelationships between customer pressure and EGCB through restaurant ethical standards (organizational-level) and employee green passion (individual-level).Item Growing the pie: an examination of coopetition benefits in the US lodging industry(International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 2021-11-16) Webb, Timothy; Beldona, Srikanth; Schwartz, Zvi; Bianco, SimonePurpose: Coopetition is the simultaneous cooperation and competition among firms operating in a specific market. It is particularly relevant in tourism where many competing suppliers (hotels in this case) contribute to the facilitation and delivery of the tourism product, i.e. the destination. By engaging in cooperative arrangements, firms can increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of the tourism product and subsequently demand for individual firms. This study aims to explore the three types of benefits derived from cooperative relationships in the context of the hotel industry, as well as the link between coopetition and market performance. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts several scales from prior research to survey 475 hotels in the USA. Specifically, respondents were asked to evaluate their performance with regard to the three benefits of coopetition. The responses were used to model the benefits of coopetition as a higher-order construct in a two-stage partial least squares model. In the second stage, the higher-order construct was linked to perceived hotel performance and the respondents’ RevPAR index. Findings: The results show that perceived benefits from coopetition are positively associated with hotel performance. Specifically, the model depicts positive links between the coopetition construct and the hotels’ perceived performance, as well as their RevPAR index. Interestingly, the results were not as strong for index performance and may be due to the relative nature of the measure. Research limitations/implications: This study supports the notion that coopetition alliances between hotels provide a viable avenue for performance growth. Specifically, managers should consider working together to allocate resources strategically to grow the pie. It is important that managers measure the benefits of cooperative relationships outside of competitive index scores as these metrics may be relative to the cooperative arrangement. Originality/value: The study is the first to investigate the three benefits of coopetition in the context of the hotel industry. Specifically, it is the first to establish a positive link between firm coopetition and perceived performance in the hotel industry at the firm level.Item Influencing Active Sport Tourists' Loyalty to Event and Destination(Event Management, 2021-05-19) Yoo, Joanne Jung-Eun; Newland, Brianna; Lee, WoojinThe value for an active sport tourist is directly embedded in the cocreation of his/her experience with the event and the destination. This study argues that individual travel resources enable an active sport tourist to create value with the event organization and, through flow-on tourism, the destination provider. The study explores the impact of the active sport tourists' travel resources on the cocreation of the event experience by testing whether they influence the event and/or the destination loyalty. Understanding these interrelationships is imperative, as the active sport tourists' loyalty can help achieve a competitive advantage for the event and the destination service providers. A survey of 649 active sport tourists was conducted. The results indicated that sport event attributes played a role in the creation of the active sport tourists' experiences through sharing and integrating of their travel resources. The findings also showed that the event loyalty of active sport tourists enhances their destination loyalty. The study suggests that destination marketers should exploit the sport event by bundling destination attributes that extend opportunities for cocreation that may lead to lengthened stays and more spending at the event destination.