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This study aims to critically review the emerging technological developments and digitalization efforts in the hospitality and tourism (HT) industry and discuss the implications of digitalization on various stakeholders (e.g. consumers, employees, companies and operators) with reference to value creation.

This paper is a conceptual, critical reflection paper. Thus, the study reflects the authors’ assessment and reflection of the current digitalization efforts in the HT industry with a particular interest in value creation.

The study suggests that digitalization is still in its infancy state in terms of adoption and value creation in the HT industry. Yet, there are various opportunities for all stakeholders to benefit from existing and emerging digitalization applications.

This study can be used by industry professionals and scholarly researchers as a reflection of past and current digitalization efforts in the HT industry. Moreover, the study offers directions regarding the future digitalization movement in the HT industry and how such a movement might create important value propositions for various stakeholders.

The study is uniquely positioned as a critical reflection paper on the digitalization effort of the HT industry and offers new practical insights regarding how digitalization could create value for industry stakeholders as it finds more application areas. In this regard, it differs from prior review studies that focused solely on the use of new and emerging technologies in HT operations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on key performance metrics of accommodation properties by elaborating on the roles of business models (i.e. franchised, chain-managed and independent hotels, and the sharing economy) and state-level restrictions in the US.

The pandemic is considered a variable interference against the average daily rate, occupancy and revenue per available room, which permits the examination of the before and after effects of the pandemic. The panel data model is used to examine the effect of the recent pandemic on the accommodation sector in the USA.

The results showed that chain-managed hotels were the most adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, while independent hotels were the least adversely impacted. Interestingly, and consistent with emerging consumer needs suggested by spatial distance theory, the pandemic does not have significant negative effects on Airbnb. The adverse impact of the pandemic on hotels was exacerbated in more restrictive states, while Airbnb remained immune to regulatory differences.

This study addresses the dearth of research on the types, roles and efficacy of business models in the accommodation industry and makes important theoretical contributions to the study of business model resilience in the accommodation industry, leveraging the resource-based theory of the firm and spatial distance theory.

The findings of this study make a significant contribution to the extant literature on the resilience of business models in the accommodation industry and have important implications for hotels, Airbnb owners, accommodation brands and destination and health policymakers. They demonstrate that a lower level of corporate control and greater flexibility in brand and operational standards allow for a more effective response to business disruptions such as a global pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explore blockchain technology and its potential implementation to hospitality and tourism firms’ wide range of business operations and transactions from a technological and functional point of view. This study’s central interest is to produce novel and rigorous in-depth-review analysis and foundations for a broad discussion and outlook on the potential applications of blockchain technology benefiting hospitality and tourism research, as well as the industry as a whole.

This study identifies and proposes several potential areas of the adoption and implementation of blockchain technology to the hospitality and tourism industry, including payment and cryptocurrencies, tracking and service customization, the disintermediation of hospitality and tourism, innovative loyalty programs, smart contracts, integrated property management systems, verified rating and review systems, collaborative initiatives and due diligence and smart tourism, each of which represents fertile avenues for future research.

This paper provides extensive critical discussions, reviews and answers to a fundamental question: “What critical functions of Blockchain mechanisms can be implemented to the existing core operational (i.e. booking and reservation systems, guest management, etc.) and business functions (i.e. loyalty/reward programs, agent transactions, etc.) of hospitality and tourism companies?”.

Future studies should specifically delve further into various angles of this “BizTech” environment based not only on business operations and competition but also on vendor and customer collaboration.

This study intends to serve as a guidance for future research, facilitate knowledge accumulation and create a new understanding and awareness in both practice and academia. One of the most important applications of blockchain in this industry would be that pertaining to direct booking, online reservation systems (i.e. airlines and online travel agencies) and check-in/out with digital identities. With industry-wide blockchain adoption, guests’ personal information can be digitally validated, saved and secured as previously established cryptographically secured codes verify one’s identity without disclosing essential personal information.

It is obvious that the hospitality and tourism industry needs urgent technological transformation, industrial innovations and new growth avenues such as the adoption of blockchain technology and systems to maintain its global market share in the future. Therefore, the implementation of blockchain systems can promote the formation of multi-center (i.e. guest operations and customer service), weakly intermediated (i.e. loyalty programs and/or review and rating systems) areas in this industry.

The purpose of this paper is to measure and observe stock market and investor reactions (benchmark adjusted cumulative abnormal returns (CARs)) to the announcement of Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood and related merger and acquisition (M&A) news and related activities over a two-year period.

Empirical models and quantifications were developed and tested through event study analysis to test the Marriot-Starwood M&A news and related activities and to observe the abnormal stock return patterns. Several data sources were employed including Factiva by Dow Jones, Wall Street Newspaper, CRSP/COMPUSTAT merged files, and ValueLine Research.

This paper provides financial insights and outcomes of pre-, during, and post-Marriot-Starwood merger. While equity returns to Starwood were mostly flat, Marriott experienced negative returns around the acquisition announcement and anytime a news article appears following the announcement. However, performance proxies showed that Marriott’s shareholders gained superior buy and hold returns following the acquisition in the long run.

Short-term event study methodology might be less than perfect in examining the stock returns to acquisitions. Therefore, future research is encouraged to test and observe Marriot-Starwood merger using longer time periods with predictive analysis to check the further usability of the results.

The study’s findings practically signal that overreaction in the short term is followed by a correction with an improvement in returns and sales performance of Marriot. In the majority of the acquisitions, integration process is not planned until after the acquisition announcement or the deal completion.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating the financial issues, challenges, and outcomes of the biggest merger in the history of the global lodging industry.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the extent to which hotel investments create jobs and, second, to compare whether investment in a particular hotel segment generates more or less jobs in the overall economy and in the tourism, leisure and hospitality industries.

The panel autoregressive distributed lag regression model was used to examine the effect of total hotel investments and hotel investments in economy-scale, midscale, luxury-scale and independent hotels on total employment and employment in the tourism, leisure and hospitality industries in the USA.

Hotel investments increase employment in both the overall economy and the tourism, leisure and hospitality industries. Midscale hotels make the highest contribution to employment in the overall economy. Economy-scale hotels make the highest contribution to employment in the overall tourism, leisure and hospitality industries.

The results support the postulations of growth pole theory. As hotel investment increases, not only does the hotel industry see gains in employment but also does related economic sectors see an increase. Midscale hotels have the greatest positive impact on local labor markets, which is consistent with the assertions of middle-out economics.

Community leaders should encourage the type of investment that benefits the broader area as much as possible by incentivizing the type of growth that is related to employment growth.

This study investigates the relations between hotel investment and employment from a theoretical and empirical perspective by providing objective claims inferred from statistical inferences.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the quality of corporate governance mechanisms and growth opportunities affect agency problems in hotel firms.

The effects of cash flows on investments and cash holdings were analyzed using three-stage least square analysis to determine the extent to which agency problems are due to the quality of corporate governance in hotel firms.

The findings showed that the effects of cash flows on investments and cash holdings were greater in well-governed hotel firms than in poorly governed hotel firms. These effects were also greater in low-growth hotel firms than in high-growth hotel firms. However, the results from a concurrent examination of the quality of corporate governance and growth opportunities showed that poorly governed hotel firms with low-growth opportunities are exposed to agency problems.

These results suggest that neither corporate governance mechanisms nor growth opportunities alone indicate agency problems. Theoretical implications are discussed within the realms of free cash flow theory and growth hypothesis.

High-growth hotel firms should retain all of their cash and cash flows to undertake value-increasing projects when they become available. Shareholders’ wealth is more likely to be maximized in high-growth firms regardless of the quality of corporate governance.

Although various aspects of corporate governance have been investigated in hospitality literature, previous studies did not examine the concurrent effects of corporate governance and growth opportunities on agency problems.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of key decision-making attributes on consumers’ choice of accommodation among and between hotels and Airbnb.

The study used a choice-based conjoint approach using 21 key decision-making factors that impact consumers’ choice of accommodation across five segments ranging from economy to luxury. Latent class estimation was used to identify segments of respondents who tend to have similar preferences for accommodation.

The results showed the presence of a consistent pattern of decision-making across the five accommodation segments, culminating in a hierarchy of importance in accommodation choice. The 21 key decision-making attributes comprised three tiers in order of decreasing importance: quality and service, amenities, and accessibility and safety. Further, latent class analysis indicated the presence of a hotel group and an Airbnb group of customers, which allowed us to identify how both types of providers might maximize the value of their offers to encourage customer switch.

The accommodation landscape is extremely dynamic (particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds) and complex. The present study cannot capture all of its intricacies but provides an invaluable foundation for future research on the topic of consumer choice in an evolving and competitive accommodation market.

Extant research on accommodation choice has focused on hotels or Airbnb only. Moreover, research that has considered both types of accommodation simultaneously is limited in its conceptual and methodological scope. The present study synthesizes the fragmented literature on consumers’ accommodation choices and offers a holistic and coherent schematic – the hierarchy of importance in accommodation choice – that can be used by future researchers and practitioners alike.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the extent to which under- and over-investment problems affect hotel firms’ value around the time when acquisitions are announced.

Hotel firms are classified based on their financial constraints (under-investment), corporate governance mechanisms (over-investment) and organizational structures. Multivariate analyses are conducted utilizing the panel ordinary least squares regression to examine the effects of financial constraints, corporate governance mechanisms and organizational structures on acquisition returns.

The results show that financial constraints have a larger effect on the firm value compared to the effect of corporate governance. Also, acquisitions are viewed as over-investments in poorly governed, franchising and hotel-real estate investment trust (REIT) firms.

The analyses are limited to gains from acquisitions in the hotel industry. Therefore, future studies may examine the effects of capital expenditures and cash holdings on hotel firm value.

Acquisitions could help financially constrained firms reduce informational asymmetries. Firms could expand through franchising when they are financially constrained. However, franchising firms should take restrictive actions to control managers from making acquisitions. The hotel-REIT organizational form does not seem to cause under-investment problems, and it functions as an additional corporate governance mechanism.

In addition to the C-corporation organizational structure, hotel firms extensively adopt REIT and expand through franchising, which might affect under- and over-investment problems. Nonetheless, little is known about whether capital investments create or reduce value for hotel firms. This study helps to explain how financial constraints, corporate governance mechanisms and organizational structures affect hotel firms’ value.

This paper advances a research agenda for service researchers at the intersection of healthcare and information technologies to improve access to quality healthcare at affordable prices. The article reviews key trends to provide an agenda for research focusing on strategies, governance and management of key service processes.

This paper synthesizes literature in information systems, service management, marketing and healthcare operations to suggest a research agenda. The authors draw on frameworks such as the interpretive model of technology, technology acceptance model, assemblage theories and Baumol's cost disease to develop their arguments.

The paper situates strategy-related service management questions that service providers and consumers face in the context of emerging healthcare and technology trends. It also derives implications for governance choices and questions related to that.

The paper discusses service management challenges and concludes with an agenda for future research that touches on governance and service management issues.

This paper provides implications for healthcare service providers and policymakers to understand new trends in healthcare delivery, technologies and facilities management to meet evolving customer needs.

This paper provides implications for managing healthcare services that touch on many social and societal concerns.

This conceptual paper provides background and review of the work at the intersections of information systems, marketing and healthcare operations to draw implications for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of platforms in diffusing data value across multiple stakeholders.

Seminal theoretical and managerial work has been critically examined in order to justify the need for improving/extending the contemporary understanding of the data value creation process.

The results suggest that existing frameworks and conceptualizations of reciprocal data value provide incomplete understanding of the role of platforms in data value diffusion.

This paper provides service researchers with a better understanding of the role of platforms in data value diffusion. Future research can develop and validate new frameworks that reflect the proposed extended/improved view of data value creation.

Service and hospitality managers will be able to more effectively manage the role of platforms in data value diffusion. Specifically, this paper proposes that, in order for data to become a source of competitive advantage, there must be a symbiotic relationship among all the stakeholders of the data ecosystem.

The authors discuss how data creates value for different stakeholders in the hospitality industry.