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With the trend of adopting and studying artificial intelligence (AI) service robots at restaurants, the authors’ understanding of how customers perceive robots differently across restaurant segments remains limited. Therefore, building upon expectancy theory, this study aims to propose a trust-based mechanism to explain customers’ support for AI-based service robots.

For cross-segment validation, data were collected from online survey participants under the scenarios of experiencing AI service robots in luxury (n = 428), fine-dining (n = 420), casual (n = 409) and quick-service (n = 410) restaurant scenarios.

In all four segments, trust in technology increased willingness to accept AI service robots, which was then positively related to customers’ support for AI-based service robots. Meanwhile, customers’ AI performance expectancy mediated the relationship between trust in technology and willingness to accept AI service robots. On the other hand, at luxury, fine-dining and casual restaurants, males perceived a stronger positive relationship between trust in technology and AI performance expectancy. No generational differences were found in the four restaurant segments between trust in technology and AI performance expectancy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts in hospitality research to examine cross-segment validation of customers’ responses to AI-based service robots in the luxury, fine-dining, casual and quick-service restaurant segments.

Hospitality firms aim to increase their profits by implementing a variety of marketing activities, including using decoy pricing to provide alternative choices for consumers. Decoys are relatively higher-priced offerings that signal lower value than the other offerings in the consideration set. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of decoy pricing on consumer choices across various contexts in the foodservice and hotel industries.

Across the pilot and four main studies, the current research employs a sequential exploratory mixed-method design to investigate the influence of decoy pricing in the foodservice and lodging industries. The qualitative part of this research was based on two focus groups, followed by a pilot study and four main study experiments.

The results show that decoy pricing escalates consumers’ choices of more expensive product bundles in both restaurant and hotel cancellation policy contexts. However, decoy pricing does not increase the selection of more expensive hotel product bundles.

While decoy pricing has been utilized as an effective revenue maximization strategy for product placement in retail stores, less is known about how promotional advertisements with decoy offers influence hotel and restaurant customers to choose more costly options. Specifically, this is the first study that explores whether decoy pricing and product/service bundling can encourage customers to select more expensive offers in hotel and restaurant contexts, considering the types of hospitality bundles that may limit this effect.

This study aims to cross-validate the technology experience (TE) scale and examine the potential differences in consumer TE across three different sectors.

Across three separate studies, the TE scale and its psychometric properties and consequences were examined across three distinctive hospitality and tourism (H&T) sectors: accommodations (n = 640), food and beverage (n = 615) and tourism (n = 592).

The findings consistently show that TE is a second-order formative construct with nine dimensions. Furthermore, the factor structure of consumer TE is consistent across the focal sectors, enhancing the TE scale’s generalizability. While the dimensions consisting of TE were identical across the three sectors, the composites of TE were formed differently across the sectors, demonstrating the differences in consumers’ TE across the three sectors.

This research offers practical implications to the H&T industry regarding the different impacts of various TE dimensions on consumers’ overall experiences, thereby creating overall satisfaction and behavioral intentions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research was the first attempt to examine the differences in consumers’ TE across the sectors of the H&T industry. By identifying the different impacts of TE dimensions on consumers’ overall experience, this research provides theoretical and practical contributions by confirming the distinct characteristics of the sectors under the H&T industry.

Drawing on person–environment fit theory, this study aims to investigate how the relationships between service task types (i.e. utilitarian and hedonic service tasks) and perceived authenticity (i.e. service and brand authenticity) differ under different conditions of service providers (human employee vs service robot). This study further examines whether customers’ stereotypes toward service robots (competence vs warmth) moderate the relationship between service types and perceived authenticity.

Using a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design, Study 1 examines a casual restaurant, whereas Study 2 assesses a theme park restaurant. Analysis of covariance and PROCESS are used to analyze the data.

Both studies reveal that human service providers in hedonic services positively affect service and brand authenticity more than robotic employees. Additionally, the robot competence stereotype moderates the relationship between hedonic services, service and brand authenticity, whereas the robot warmth stereotype moderates the relationship between hedonic services and brand authenticity in Study 2.

Restaurant managers need to understand which functions and types of service outlets are best suited for service robots in different service contexts. Robot–environment fit should be considered when developers design and managers select robots for their restaurants.

This study blazes a new theoretical trail of service robot research to systematically propose customer experiences with different service types by drawing upon person–environment fit theory and examining the moderating role of customers’ stereotypes toward service robots.

The purpose of this study is to discover what attributes of casino buffet restaurants are the most important for customers’ willingness to pay (WTP).

Choice-based conjoint analysis was used in this study to test seven attributes: food, price/value, real price, service, atmosphere, the number of reviews and user-generated star ratings. Sawtooth Software was used to do the conjoint analysis, and a series of significance t-tests were run to determine the significance of each attribute on WTP with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

Based on a survey of 483 respondents who had visited a buffet at a casino within the last two years, this study found that food is ranked as the most significant attribute of a casino buffet restaurant, followed by real price and service quality.

Theoretically, this work is the first to the authors’ knowledge to apply the antecedents of behavioral intention to willingness-to-pay for niche restaurants. Practically, the results of this study will help casino buffet operators as they re-open after COVID-19. Future studies could collect data in the post-pandemic environment and examine WTP at casino buffets in different geographic locations.

This paper aims to examine the congruency effects of physically embodied robots in service encounters, which addressed a significant research gap concerning the synthesis of robot design elements (e.g., appearance and voice) and their service purposes.

Grounded in congruity theory and human-robot interaction literature, this study conducted a pretest and two experimental studies revealing the need to view robot design holistically and recognizing the pivotal role of congruity in shaping consumers’ service robot adoption. The moderating role of service purposes (utilitarian vs hedonic) was also investigated in terms of robot design and consumer reactions.

Consumers generally tend to favor robots with congruent designs, particularly for utilitarian service purposes. The serial mediation through perceived congruence and perceived intelligence explains such a favorite tendency.

This study advances service robot design research by highlighting the critical role of congruity in enhancing consumer engagement. It supports the use of comprehensive, congruent designs for services with utilitarian purposes and recommends adaptable designs for hedonic settings.

This study addressed the research gap by examining service robot design from a holistic perspective. The research findings highlight the importance of congruency effects in service robot design and deployment and provide valuable insights and guidelines to industry practitioners for optimal investment in service robots.

The main objective of this article is to visualize the structure and trends of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) between 1999 and 2023 through mapping and in-depth analysis. The aim is to analyze PEB, which has received considerable academic attention in recent years due to its key role in the conservation of the environment and the protection of local communities in tourist destinations. This paper provides an important summary of the recent research that has explored the role that tourists have in protecting the environment through PEB.

This study presents a visual analysis of 2005 scholarly articles between the years 1999 and 2023 related to PEB. Using the knowledge mapping based on VOSviewer it presents the current status of research, which includes the analysis of citation analysis, co-citation analysis, co-citation network and longitudinal analysis.

PEB is an emerging topic due to its relevance to protecting the environment in the context of travel. The citation and co-citation analysis show the relevance of the behavior of tourists with regard to protecting the environment. The co-word analysis highlights the current significance of research concerning green hotels and the destination image of environmentally responsible destinations.

This study sheds light on the current research progress of PEB in the context of tourism through a comprehensive analysis (citation, co-citation and co-word). In addition, we provide theories and factors that have been previously used to study PEB in the context of tourism. The findings contribute to a broad and diverse understanding of the concept of PEB, which can provide important insights for policymakers in formulating management strategies and policies aimed at reducing environmental impacts in destinations.

This paper aims to analyze brand loyalty and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) antecedents in restaurants: (1) utilitarian and hedonic benefits, (2) brand satisfaction and (3) brand love. It also provides valuable knowledge through the comparison between positive and negative restaurant experiences.

A survey was carried out of restaurant satisfied and dissatisfied consumers. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group analysis (MGA) were performed to examine the cause-and-effect relationship in both groups.

The results show the relevance of benefits, brand satisfaction and brand love as causes for brand loyalty and e-WOM. Also, these relationships are significantly stronger for dissatisfied consumers than for satisfied ones.

The outcome of the research provides new insights to develop a conceptual stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model of consumers’ restaurant behavior by drawing comparisons across satisfied and dissatisfied ones.

Despite the prevalence of luxury brand extension in the service industry, customers tend to be skeptical of the value of the extended brand. This study aims to investigate whether a parent luxury service brand significantly alters customers’ predicted quality, identity and attitude toward the extended brand.

This study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to examine the proposed hypotheses in a developing country.

The results show that the parent brand’s brand distinctiveness positively and significantly signals the identity and quality of the extended brand. The model also identifies the mediating effects of quality as it signals the relationship between customers’ perception of the parent brand and attitude toward the extended service brand. As expected, as the quality of the extended brand improves, so does attitude toward the extended hotel brand. By contrast, the perceived identity of the extended brand does not significantly increase support for a positive attitude toward the extended brand.

This study contributes to the existing consumer marketing literature by suggesting future research directions and brand extension strategies for luxury hotel brand companies in developing countries.

This study aims to use organizational fashion to underscore a novel phenomenon in which products, services and practices fade in and out of the tourism/hospitality setting within a specific time frame. Drawing from the fashion theoretical strands in organization research, this paper studies how fashion has been conceptualized, operationalized and then diffused among tourism/hospitality enterprises.

A qualitative case design was used. A total of 37 semistructured in-depth interviews with executives of innovative tourism/hospitality companies (e.g. restaurants, hotels, theme parks and travel agencies) were conducted. This paper focuses on the organizational fashion phenomenon in which organizational trendsetters with creative, “hot” products/services have emerged prominently in the marketplace.

This inquiry illustrates a social phenomenon concerning the organizational fashion setting process by integrating existing production practices among different organizational suppliers in the hospitality sector. Different cases in the study show that fashion consists of a series of hybrid, paradoxical processes. These include conceptualization (conventionalization vs novelty, and personalization vs conformity), operationalization (bundling vs unbundling, and learning vs relearning) and diffusion (framing vs co-framing, and adaptation vs alteration).

Throughout the three continuous processes, service design and identity development for consumption, as well as value creation and knowledge transformation for production, are carried out according to the decision of what is “hot” and what is “out” at a particular time. In essence, fashion helps to explain why hospitality institutions imitate specific innovations to take advantage of popular trends in the consumer market, as well as how such trends vanish eventually.

This research contributes the insight that organizations use fashion as a managerial initiative to translate their organizational goals and improvise nascent products and services. The fashion processes can be triggered by microlevel individual organizations and are spread through a series of social interactions to become macrolevel phenomena in a recurring manner.