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1 – 10 of over 3000Naeem Akhtar, Umar Iqbal Siddiqi, Muhammad Nadeem Akhtar, Muhammad Usman and Wasim Ahmad
This study aims to offer a conceptual framework that elaborates on how tourists’ perception of contradictory features in reviews’ factuality and comprehension – within a single…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to offer a conceptual framework that elaborates on how tourists’ perception of contradictory features in reviews’ factuality and comprehension – within a single hotel review and across multiple hotel reviews – trigger attitude ambivalence and psychological discomfort, which determine their behaviors – choice deferral and hotel booking intentions. It also investigates the moderating role of anticipated conflicting reactions (ACRs) through contradictory features on consumers’ attitude ambivalence.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a Chinese setting, researchers collected data from 524 inbound tourists who were the consumers of hotels in Beijing. The study used IBM Amos 23.0 to test measurement and structural models for the proposed relationships. It also used PROCESS macro 3.4 for the moderation analysis.
Findings
The findings reveal a positive association between contradictory features in reviews and the resulting ambivalence that affects consumers’ discomfort and leads to the decision to defer the choice of hotel. Conversely, consumers’ discomfort has a positive impact on the hotel booking intentions. ACRs have positive moderating effects on the associations between contradictory features and consumers’ attitude ambivalence.
Originality/value
By investigating the contradictory features in hotel reviews, this study extends the body of research on dual information processing (i.e. the heuristic–systematic model) and the literature on service management, psychological behaviors, travel intermediaries and hotel firms. Future research directions are recommended for tourism and hospitality researchers.
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Naeem Akhtar, Umar Iqbal Siddiqi, Wasim Ahmad, Muhammad Usman, Xianglan Chen and Tahir Islam
The present study unveils the service encounter barriers – interactional and instructional – faced by foreign consumers at food and beverage restaurants in China. It builds a…
Abstract
Purpose
The present study unveils the service encounter barriers – interactional and instructional – faced by foreign consumers at food and beverage restaurants in China. It builds a conceptual framework and examines (1) how service encounter barriers create situational abnormality, (2) how situational abnormality engenders foreign consumers' felt discomfort that influences their revisit intentions and (3) how expectations disconfirmation moderates situational abnormality.
Design/methodology/approach
Convenience sampling using the survey method was employed to collect data from 517 foreign consumers – who stay in Beijing (China) – at food and beverage restaurants. The study used IBM SPSS 25.0 and Amos Graphics 24.0 to analyze the data and interpret results.
Findings
Findings reveal that interactional and instructional barriers positively create situational abnormality, which ultimately leads to foreign consumers' felt discomfort and their negative revisit intentions. Expectations disconfirmation significantly aggravates situational abnormality as a moderator.
Research limitations/implications
This study investigates foreign consumers' behavior at food and beverage restaurants in China and cautions its generalizability. It suggests corroborating the foreign consumers' behavioral intentions in the context of other countries to generalize the findings and unleash other factors additive to comprehend their behavior in the wake of restaurant industry.
Originality/value
The extant literature has not examined the service encounter barriers faced by foreign consumers at food and beverage restaurants in China. The present study, responding to the previous calls, incorporated the service encounter barriers and their downstream effects on foreign consumers' behavioral responses. By doing so, it adds value to the domestic food and beverage restaurants and service firms in China, in particular, and paves the way to understand the interactional and instructional barriers in the global context, in general, by engaging the foreign consumers.
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Naeem Akhtar, Muhammad Nadeem Akhtar, Umar Iqbal Siddiqi, Muhammad Riaz and Weiqing Zhuang
The present study develops a conceptual model that shows how the manipulation attributes of word choice, sentence fluency, convention of meaning, and organization of sentence…
Abstract
Purpose
The present study develops a conceptual model that shows how the manipulation attributes of word choice, sentence fluency, convention of meaning, and organization of sentence structure in online hotel reviews are connected to linguistic errors, such as spelling and grammar and argument errors, how such errors intensify the likelihood that messages will be misunderstood, and how these misunderstandings affect customers' responses.
Design/methodology/approach
A structured questionnaire was employed to collect data from 591 inbound tourists in Beijing, China. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 25.0 and Amos Graphics 23.0. Descriptive analysis was performed to explain the sociodemographic characteristic of respondents. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine hypothesized relationships.
Findings
Results demonstrate that manipulation attributes increase linguistic errors, and two linguistic errors have profound positive effects on customers' understanding of meaning, which influence their responses in the form of negative online ratings and low purchase intentions.
Originality/value
The study's findings contribute to the literature on hospitality, linguistics, and consumer behavior, and have managerial implications for online review websites, online travel agents, and hotel management. Research limitations lead to suggestions for future research for hospitality scholars.
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Naeem Akhtar, Xianglan Chen, Umar Iqbal Siddiqi, Guojun Zeng and Tahir Islam
To address critical research gaps in the extant literature, the present study develops a model that links language constraints in hotel attributes—core and facilitating––with…
Abstract
Purpose
To address critical research gaps in the extant literature, the present study develops a model that links language constraints in hotel attributes—core and facilitating––with consumers' offendedness (CO) and examines the consequent behavioral intentions of an offended consumer. For this purpose, it investigates (1) the role of language constraints in core and facilitating attributes in shaping CO, (2) how CO relates to adverse behavioral outcomes and (3) the moderating role of attribution of service failure (ASF) between language constraints and CO.
Design/methodology/approach
The present research used convenience sampling and collected data from 398 inbound tourists in Beijing through a survey questionnaire. The study performs measurement and structural evaluation by employing Amos Graphics 24.0 and moderation analysis through IBM SPSS 25.0.
Findings
The study examines language constraints in China's hospitality context, which restricts its generalizability. However, it serves as a better approach to examine the tourists who visit other Western hotels in China and unveils the factors contributing to CO.
Research limitations/implications
The study examines language constraints in Chinese hotels, which restrict its generalizability. It serves as a better approach to examine the tourists who visit other Western hotels in China and unveils the factors contributing to CO.
Originality/value
Few studies validate communication barriers in service encounters in hotel services and apprehend related outcomes. The present study takes a unique initiative in the context of China and examines the role of language constraints in core and facilitating hotel attributes in service encounters at Chinese hotels. This study informs the Chinese hotel industry and international destination firms to understand the language constraints in service encounters to further their strategies to overcome threats and tap potential opportunities.
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Naeem Akhtar, Umar Iqbal Siddiqi, Tahir Islam and Justin Paul
The study aims to investigate how hotel booking attributes (i.e. perceived privacy, perceived certification and perceived assurance) engender consumers’ untrust and consequent…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate how hotel booking attributes (i.e. perceived privacy, perceived certification and perceived assurance) engender consumers’ untrust and consequent behavioral intentions (i.e. altruistic behavior and trusting intentions). It also unveils the role of hotel attributes performance as a moderator between hotel booking attributes and consumers’ untrust.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through an online platform by engaging 454 Chinese respondents. SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 24.0 (structural equation modeling) were used for data analysis and interpretation.
Findings
Results demonstrate that hotel booking attributes positively substantiate consumers’ untrust which, in turn, develops altruistic behavior and negative trusting intentions. Moreover, hotel attribute experience significantly moderates the relationships between perceived privacy, perceived certification and consumers’ untrust. Notably, hotel attribute performance insignificantly influences the association between perceived assurance and untrust.
Research limitations/implications
This study used the Chinese context and examined Chinese domestic travelers and the nonbranded hotel industry. Notwithstanding its limitations, the findings help hospitality and tourism firms, en bloc, to manage their review websites by explicitly disclosing policies regarding customers’ privacy and assurance, winning their trust through third-party certification and employing data scientists to develop algorithms to sieve fake information proactively.
Originality/value
This study develops an original conceptual framework by using the untrust model in this research. Our findings add to the research on consumer behavior, information processing, service management and trust and suggest practical implications for hospitality firms.
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Terrance Ancheary, Puneet Mehta and Anish Mondal
Dark tourism, a phenomenon encompassing visits to sites associated with death, suffering, and historical atrocities, has gained increasing scholarly attention in recent years…
Abstract
Dark tourism, a phenomenon encompassing visits to sites associated with death, suffering, and historical atrocities, has gained increasing scholarly attention in recent years. This chapter explores the concept's historical roots, motivations for engagement, and its transformative impact on heritage sites, culminating in a case study of the Malcha Mahal Haunted Heritage Walks in Delhi. Despite being abandoned for centuries, this historic site gained prominence with the occupation by the self-proclaimed royal family of Oudh in the 1980s. The introduction of the Haunted Heritage Walk by Delhi Tourism aimed to harness the dark tourism potential of this previously neglected monument. However, initial challenges such as deteriorating conditions and safety concerns necessitated collaborative efforts with government departments for conservation and site preparation. Interviews with visitors revealed diverse motivations for attendance, ranging from thrill-seeking to appreciation of the monument's historical significance. Since the walk's inception, conservation efforts have commenced, accompanied by landscaping initiatives and amenities for visitors. While the future conservation and tranquility of Malcha Mahal remain uncertain amid increasing tourist interest, its transformation into an alternative destination within Delhi underscores the potential of dark tourism to revitalize neglected heritage sites. Sustainable tourism planning is essential to preserve the monument's unique features and manage tourism while maintaining its integrity for future generations.
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Sanjeev K. Gupta, A. Azam and J. Akhtar
The purpose of this paper is to electrically examine the quality of thin thermally grown SiO2 with thickness variation, on Si‐face of 4H‐SiC <0001> (having 50 μm epitaxial layer…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to electrically examine the quality of thin thermally grown SiO2 with thickness variation, on Si‐face of 4H‐SiC <0001> (having 50 μm epitaxial layer) by current‐voltage (I‐V) and capacitance‐voltage (C‐V) methods.
Design/methodology/approach
Metal‐oxide‐silicon carbide (MOSiC) structures with varying oxide thickness have been fabricated on device grade 4H‐SiC substrate. Ni has been used for gate metal on thermally oxidized Si‐face and a composite layer of Ti‐Au has been used for Ohmic contact on the highly doped C‐face of the substrate. Each structure was diced and bonded on a TO‐8 header with a suitable wire bonding for further testing using in‐house developed LabVIEW‐based computer aided measurement setup.
Findings
The leakage current of fabricated structures shows an asymmetric behavior with the polarity of gate bias ( + V or −V at the anode). A strong relation of oxide thickness and temperature on effective barrier height at SiO2/4H‐SiC interface as well as on oxide charges have been established and reported in this paper.
Originality/value
The paper focuses on the development of 4H‐SiC based device technology in the fabrication of MOSiC‐based integrated structures.
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Optimisation of the discretising steps in the space and time domains has been studied for the evaluation of corresponding optimum value of over‐relaxation parameter in the…
Abstract
Optimisation of the discretising steps in the space and time domains has been studied for the evaluation of corresponding optimum value of over‐relaxation parameter in the numerical solution of transient heat flow equation using successive‐over‐relaxation method in the finite difference code. No closed form solutions are available for the optimisation of a complete set of involved parameters in such problems. The present work deals quantitatively with the need for a more generalised closed form relation involving discretising steps in the space and the time domains for an optimal over‐relaxation parameter. The maximum finite difference error and the number of iterations required to achieve a reasonable error tolerance in the functional value are the two criteria used to obtain an optimised set of parameters. The effect of deviation from the optimised values of any of the involved parameters has been shown over a model problem of one‐dimensional diamond‐IIa medium of 100 micrometer length and for a time duration of 1.24 micro‐seconds.
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Kulwant Singh, Sanjeev K. Gupta, Amir Azam and J. Akhtar
The purpose of this paper is to present a selective wet‐etching method of boron doped low‐pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) polysilicon film for the realization of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a selective wet‐etching method of boron doped low‐pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) polysilicon film for the realization of piezoresistors over the bulk micromachined diaphragm of (100) silicon with improved yield and uniformity.
Design/methodology/approach
The method introduces discretization of the LPCVD polysilicon film using prior etching for the grid thus dividing each chip on the entire wafer. The selective etching of polysilicon for realizing of piezoresistors is limited to each chip area with individual boundaries.
Findings
The method provides a uniform etching on the entire silicon wafer irrespective of its size and leads to economize the fabrication process in a batch production environment with improved yield.
Research limitations/implications
The method introduces one extra process step of photolithography and subsequent etching for discretizing the polysilicon film.
Practical implications
The method is useful to enhance yield while defining metal lines for contact purposes on fabricated electronic structures using microelectronics. Stress developed in LPCVD polysilicon can be removed using proposed approach of discretization of polysilicon film.
Originality/value
The work is an outcome of regular fabrication work using conventional approaches in an R&D environment. The proposed method replaces the costly reactive ion etching techniques with stable reproducibility and ease in its implementation.
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J. Akhtar, B.B. Dixit, B.D. Pant, V.P. Deshwal and B.C. Joshi
A MEMS process is described to control diaphragm thickness with an integrated provision for back to front alignment in the fabrication of a polysilicon piezoresistive pressure…
Abstract
A MEMS process is described to control diaphragm thickness with an integrated provision for back to front alignment in the fabrication of a polysilicon piezoresistive pressure sensor. The end point detection for the diaphragm etching is suitably incorporated in the process so that it is also used for the back‐to‐front alignment. The proposed process is cost‐effective and suitable for the batch fabrication of the pressure sensor.
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