ABSTRACT
"A friend in need is a friend indeed” well elucidates international support amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a dual-process model of emotional appraisal, this mixed-methods research aims to investigate positive psychological responses to international support. Study 1 is a multilevel investigation of the relationships between perceived support, gratitude evoked, and change in attitude toward the benefactor countries. The moderating role of motivational relevance—the province-level prevalence of COVID-19—is also examined. Study 2 uses text mining to analyze online reviews retrieved from a social media platform. The results substantiate aid-induced gratitude and reciprocity manifested through travel intentions and unravel additional factors of motivational relevance—timing, type of support, political and cultural connotations, and comparative appraisals. Study 3 employs an experimental design to validate the causal relationships and reinforces the dual-appraisal mechanism. Managerial implications are provided for destination marketers and industry practitioners to leverage positive psychology for post-pandemic promotion.
ABSTRACT
This study attends to Generation Zers' volunteer tourism. It draws on self-determination and goal-setting theories to synthesize a model delineating how the interplay of internal and external environmental motivational factors reshapes green volunteering involvement amid the pandemic, leading to environmental goal attainment and persistent endeavors. The inquiry adopted an online survey-based design with data collected from 340 rising environmentalists. Results first suggest that environmental self-efficacy and social climate are positively related to green volunteering involvement, with environmental self-efficacy exhibiting a more profound effect. These relationships are also moderated by eudaimonic environmental pursuits in that the relationships remain stronger when volunteers pursue eudaimonia to a high degree. Furthermore, involvement is evident in fostering environmental goal attainment, leading to pro-environmental behaviors and advocacy. With the above findings taken together, this investigation sheds light on environmental goal attainment through volunteer tourism amid the COVID-19 turbulence. It brings to light a motivation–goal attainment–behavior model that deserves investigating.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThis research paper aims to explore Airbnb's online experience initiative, which has sparked a new wave of virtual tourism to improvise a large assortment of experiential activities through cyberspace. It works to answer questions pertinent to the type of virtual experiences tourists seek and how these experiences could fulfill tourist needs, thereby rendering favorable socio-mental outcomes through experiences encountered.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on travel experience and transformative tourism theoretical tenets, this qualitative inquiry used data collected from social media posts from virtual tourists.FindingsResults reveal four major themes of online experiences – hedonism, attention restoration, social relatedness and self-exaltation – that encompass 12 experiential categories. They further underscore four types of transformative mechanisms pinpointing hedonic well-being, environmental-mastery well-being, social well-being and eudaimonic well-being.Research limitations/implicationsResearch findings demonstrate how Airbnb exercised marketing agility during severe environmental plight;while expediting strategic initiatives that offer tourists and residents alike a means to reengage in leisure and travel activities at home. They also salvage the peer-to-peer community by turning accommodation hosts into online experience ambassadors.Originality/valueThe contribution of this inquiry lies in assessing virtual experiences and reconnecting how different cyber experiences can meet an array of tourist needs. This study further highlights the transformative virtual experience paradigm to lay the necessary theoretical foundation for future research on virtual transformative tourism. This research goes beyond the common understanding of transformative tourism that relies merely on corporeal encounters. From a practical point of view, this study brings light to a novel concept – sharing experience economy – that incorporates the nuances between sharing economy and experience economy.
ABSTRACT
The casino industry may have been stigmatized by its notorious image due to the negative consequences that gambling brings. Yet, they are at the forefront in combating the pandemic, taking a proactive stand to expedite corporate social responsibility (CSR) through a constellation of means in a timely manner. Moreover, the majority of research focuses on the long-term strategic CSR, leaving ad-hoc CSR initiatives that are responsive without previous planning underexplored. Proactive and prompt CSR efforts exerted by casino conglomerates hence offer researchers a case in better understanding this rarely researched area pertaining to just-in-time CSR amid a mega turbulence. Based on data collected from casino websites, social media, and other public media, we have organized their initiatives into themes germane to safeguarding their personnel and guests, giving encouragement to the society, contributing to financial charities as well as daily necessities and protective supplies, promoting safety and better quality of life during the pandemic, and more. These endeavors do make a real difference in saving lives as well as uniting the community to build up resilience to mitigate the aftermath of the crisis. These expedited CSR efforts render a new phenomenon that we refer as just-in-time CSR.
ABSTRACT
The present investigation takes a qualitative approach to explore Airbnb's Online Experience as a new virtual tourism initiative through the lens of attention restoration theory. Data were collected from tourist reviews at Airbnb's platform with an emphasis on touring services such as sightseeing and cultural immersion sessions. Our findings first point to a multitude of virtual tour experiences germane to deep immersion, authenticity, nostalgia, hedonism, past-present resonance, novelty, learning, social interaction, and escape. These stay-at-home virtual restorative experiences were infused by Airbnb's state-of-the-art platform with features such as a super host, storytelling, personalization, virtual connection, stay-at-home indulgence, and technology enablement, which ultimately transcend home as the center stage for virtual attention restoration under the COVID-19 new normal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic response is not only devastating nations and economies across the globe but it is also severely disrupting the event industry, with government and health authorities forcing many events to be postponed or cancelled. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prospective attendees' emotional responses to cancelled events. This study draws upon grief cycle theory to articulate different layers of the grief process in the event domain of inquiry. Design/methodology/approach: The National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament was selected as the research context. Taking user-generated messages from Twitter, this study first performed content analysis to organize lexical patterns into categories and higher-order themes based on the grief cycle. It also performed social network analyses using UCINET to illustrate how different grief phases are inter-related. Findings: Results not only point to attendees' self-expression manifested through a continuum of denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance but they also reveal a three-layer hierarchy of grief, namely, event-related, socio-politics-related and crisis-related. The network analysis further illustrates how grief phases are tied into a complex network of grief messages. Originality/value: This study advances the event literature by improving knowledge about attendees' emotional responses to cancelled events. It increases our understanding of the grieving process in the aftermath of COVID-19. The proposed triple grief cycle helps advance the literature by showcasing how voices from prospective attendees represent three pillars of grief hierarchy. The findings also underscore the emotional crisis of the COVID-19 aftermath. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
In the context of the health risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists' choices have shifted to reflect a subconscious psychological mechanism - the behavioral immune system - that facilitates human organisms to better identify plausible threats to ones' health through environment cues. This research draws upon this theoretical lens to assess tourists' pre-trip hotel evaluation in two 2 × 2 between-subject experiments. Experiment 1 (robot vs. human) tested the service provider's effect on hotel selection evaluation through the mediation of sense of control and the moderation of pandemic risk. Experiment 2 examined this chain of relationship through the moderation of hotel type. This research contributes to the literature by underscoring the pathogen-avoidance mechanism in tourist evaluation and the peril of robotization.
ABSTRACT
The present investigation takes a qualitative approach to explore Airbnb's Online Experience as a new virtual tourism initiative through the lens of attention restoration theory. Data were collected from tourist reviews at Airbnb's platform with an emphasis on touring services such as sightseeing and cultural immersion sessions. Our findings first point to a multitude of virtual tour experiences germane to deep immersion, authenticity, nostalgia, hedonism, past-present resonance, novelty, learning, social interaction, and escape. These stay-at-home virtual restorative experiences were infused by Airbnb's state-of-the-art platform with features such as a super host, storytelling, personalization, virtual connection, stay-at-home indulgence, and technology enablement, which ultimately transcend home as the center stage for virtual attention restoration under the COVID-19 new normal.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 outbreak has accelerated the development of service robots. However, service robots in some hotels have been put aside despite successful adoption. This study thus focuses on hotel employees' inhibited continuous usage intention by examining the challenges of benefiting from service robots. A robot usage resistance model (RURM) has been proposed based on the results. In this model, lack of authentic anthropomorphous features and low usability as technological characteristics could influence employees' cognitions toward service robots, while robot-related excessive workloads, techno-insecurity, and techno-uncertainty as psychological stimuli could trigger negative emotional arousal, which in turn fosters employee resistance to service robot continuous usage. This study offers a more solid conceptual investigation into employee resistance to service robot continuous usage, thus allowing the development of strategies to better reap the rewards of hotel service robot usage.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic aftermath has aggravated its traumatic effect to engender a mental health crisis. With increasingly worsened psychological wellbeing, it is the responsibility of tourism scholars and operators alike to explore how contemporary tourism offerings can enable individuals to rebuild hope and optimism through relishing tourism's restorative appeals amid rigid border lockdowns. However, it remains unclear whether tourists are able to restore themselves from staycation programs, since tourists have a tendency to favor a novel space, as opposed to a usual travel environment. To address this question, we relied upon a government-funded staycation campaign using a survey to assess a transformative process leading from travel motivation and restoration to fortifying psychological capital and wellbeing. Drawing on theories pertaining to attention restoration, psychological capital, and involvement, our findings unravel a travel transformative mechanism of staycation programs that build a linkage between travel motivation and favorable psychological outcomes amid adverse circumstances.
ABSTRACT
Purpose - The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic response is not only devastating nations and economies across the globe but it is also severely disrupting the event industry, with government and health authorities forcing many events to be postponed or cancelled. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prospective attendees' emotional responses to cancelled events. This study draws upon grief cycle theory to articulate different layers of the grief process in the event domain of inquiry. Design/methodology/approach - The National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament was selected as the research context. Taking user-generated messages from Twitter, this study first performed content analysis to organize lexical patterns into categories and higher-order themes based on the grief cycle. It also performed social network analyses using UCINET to illustrate how different grief phases are inter-related. Findings - Results not only point to attendees' self-expression manifested through a continuum of denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance but they also reveal a three-layer hierarchy of grief, namely, event-related, socio-politics-related and crisis-related. The network analysis further illustrates how grief phases are tied into a complex network of grief messages. Originality/value - This study advances the event literature by improving knowledge about attendees' emotional responses to cancelled events. It increases our understanding of the grieving process in the aftermath of COVID-19. The proposed triple grief cycle helps advance the literature by showcasing how voices from prospective attendees represent three pillars of grief hierarchy. The findings also underscore the emotional crisis of the COVID-19 aftermath.
ABSTRACT
This study marks an early attempt to evaluate staycation incentive programs initiated by local authorities. It aims to gauge the effectiveness of staycation programs in cultivating learning opportunities and restorative benefits with an emphasis on temporal positive psychological outcomes amid this continuing pandemic. Relying on a survey-based research design, we conducted a survey with 409 local tourists in Macau, where a recent staycation initiative has attained prominent success. We then undertook the structural equation modeling test using AMOS. Results show how short local excursions could still fortify one’s psychological capital with respect to ephemeral improvement in hope, confidence, optimism, and resilience in the face of extenuating circumstances. By synthesizing a path leading from COVID-related distress to fortification of a more prepared mental state for the new normal through the staycation’s experiential benefits, this study thus puts forth a mechanism that explains why tourists/residents engage in staycation programs, as well as illuminating the psychological values associated with such activities. By answering these questions, this research improvises a three-stage process that identifies pre-trip, during-trip, and post-trip mental encounters that improve participants’ psychological capabilities, even if only temporarily. The present inquiry sheds light on a new form of sustainability: mental (or psychological) sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Sustainable Tourism is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
ABSTRACT
While travel has long been resorted to as a pursuit for tourists’ well-being, this purpose has been brought into question by the sudden public health emergency of COVID-19, when many tourists found themselves unwelcome in a destination. This study aims to explore the psychological consequences of discriminative experiences through a survey with tourists from the epicenter in China. Building on social identity theory, a conceptual model is proposed to test how perceived discrimination during the pandemic could devastate travel-induced well-being through aroused anxious sentiment. In addition, response styles theory postulates that repetitive dwelling on negative thoughts will prolong the depressive process. The results reveal that worries over COVID-19 trigger ruminative responses to the depressive symptoms and exacerbate discrimination-induced anxiety, whereas active social media participation serves as a means of distraction to buffer the negative effects of psychological distress. The results provide a new perspective by which to view threats to travel-induced wellness, while informing tourism authorities of the buffering mechanisms during a crisis to reconcile tourist anxiety and rumination. This research contributes to sustainable tourism literature that seldom investigates the threats to well-being in public health emergencies, and it sheds light on responsible recovery of travel in the post-COVID world.
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This research note explores the evolutionary process of corporate crisis communication to understand how international hotel enterprises respond to the present pandemic. Corpus linguistics was used as a computer-aided approach in assessing a large collection of naturally occurring texts. Press releases from hotel corporations listed in Fortune 500 within the period of January to April 2020 were curated and built into three corpora. Lexical patterns that evolved over the course of the first quarter of 2020 reveal that the lodging industry did not fully prepare for the crisis until March, while management was still dwelling on their past achievements even in February 2020. The overall tone, pre-crisis, reflected top management's demonstration of success and performance, attributed to the CEOs themselves;while it completely changed during the crisis. This study draws upon crisis management and organizational communication streams of work to advance prevailing theoretical accounts of organizational crisis communication.
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This study investigates how US foodservice conglomerates have embarked on corporate social responsibility (CSR) measures to circumvent dire situations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the evolution of CSR practices from restaurant enterprises to rescue and salvage their stakeholders. By analyzing press releases from ten restaurant chains in three different crisis phases (incubation, acceleration, and climax) through corpus linguistics, we identify a CSR progression mechanism that coevolves with the aftermath of the crisis among their stakeholders. This study improvises the CSR- as-process view to highlight the time-variant dynamic nature of CSR development over the course of major disruption.
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How do guests feel during their stay at quarantine lodging? This study draws on terror management theory and social exclusion theory to synthesize a model that highlights guests' perceptions about their experience under enforced isolation. The model articulates guests' feeling of anxiety and loneliness, whereas quality of service presents warmth and care that activates an anxiety buffer mechanism that mitigates the effect of anxiety. In turn guests' level of anxiety is further explained by an interaction between their health status and the length of stay. Results point to a conduit for studying the dark side of hospitality, opening up research avenues that could help assess broader social behavioral changes during the global pandemic, while offering operators revelations for lodging management during a crisis.