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This study aims to examine the language choices of outdoor signs and menus in addition to the functions of outdoor signs in restaurants in a Saudi tourist city, Abha. The primary focus is on identifying the extent to which outdoor signs accurately represent the language choices of restaurant menus.

The study developed a conceptual framework for the linguistic landscape (LL) of restaurants. It employed a quantitative approach to collect outdoor signs and menus of 75 sampled restaurants in Abha using online photos and a smartphone camera. Then it analyzed the frequency and percentage of language choices on outdoor signs and menus as well as the extent to which language choices of outdoor signs represent menus.

The findings indicate that more than half (58.66%) of the restaurants employ bilingual signage in both Arabic and English. Other languages like Spanish, French, Chinese and Turkish are sporadically used, with multilingualism observed only in isolated instances. The study also reveals that bi/multilingualism on outdoor signs primarily serves informational purposes, where more than one-third (36%) of the outdoor signs use languages other than Arabic to serve a symbolic function. Regarding menus, Arabic and English dominate, while Turkish appears on one menu. Spanish, French, and Chinese are absent from restaurant menus, indicating linguistic mismatch in terms of language choices.

This study contributes to LL studies of restaurants in tourist cities by showing language choices and functions of outdoor signs and their alignment with menus.

Recent studies of web‐site use indicate that people do not come to the web for an “experience”, they come for information. Yet, to date, web‐site design has been synonymous with the “look and feel” of a site overlooking the significance of a site’s information architecture. In this study, we assessed the effect of the information architecture of an academic web site: how information is categorised, labelled and presented, and how navigation and access are facilitated. Twenty‐four participants from six faculties attempted to answer typical questions often asked within an academic milieu. They were able to find the answers to just over half the questions successfully and, in subjective assessments, gave the site a failing grade. We address how the information architecture affected their ability to negotiate the site and, additionally, make recommendations for the key ingredients: information design, access tools, and navigational aids.

Place identity refers to the combination of physical setting, social interactions, emotions and associated meanings. This research paper aims to broaden knowledge about boutique concepts and to examine the role of advertisement types suited to generate a heightened sense of place for customers. The design and delivery of tangible and intangible components of the boutique service experience are investigated to better understand business-relevant customer outcomes.

An introductory qualitative study explores the key features and managerial relevance of the boutique appeal as a means to communicate personalization and a sense of place. Interviews with managers of a boutique catering service are conducted and thematically analyzed. A quantitative follow-up study examines the effect of the boutique appeal on hotel image, purchase intention and willingness to pay.

A boutique hotel appeal is more attractive to customers (compared to traditional luxury appeals) when it is advertised using visually engaging virtual tours because it augments customers’ sensation of place identity. The mediating psychological mechanism, place identity, represents the essential emotional component evoked by boutique concepts and its positive effect on managerially relevant customer outcomes.

This paper provides insight for the design and management of boutique concepts to better shape and predict consumer responses in various luxury hospitality industries. The process by which customers identify with the location where the service is provided, socialize with staff and attach meaning to these settings evokes a sense of place identity, a critical resource in the process of value co-creation.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) marketing has become ubiquitous in the hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of donation appeals containing warmth-focused versus competence-focused messages in hospitality CSR marketing. Moreover, we offer an innovative visual design strategy focusing on the typeface (handwritten vs machine-written) in donation appeals to encourage consumers’ donations and boost their brand loyalty.

This research used a 2 (message framing: warmth-focused vs competence-focused) × 2 (typeface: handwritten vs machine-written) between-subjects experimental design.

The findings suggest that donation appeals featuring warmth-focused messages combined with handwritten typeface and competence-focused messages combined with machine-written typeface can maximize donation intention and brand loyalty. Furthermore, results from the moderated mediation analyses indicate that brand trust is the psychological mechanism underlying these effects.

Hospitality managers should use typeface design, which is easy and inexpensive to manipulate, to enhance the effectiveness of CSR marketing. Specifically, for donation appeals featuring warmth-focused (competence-focused) messages, the handwritten (machine-written) typeface can boost consumers’ donation intention and brand loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to reveal the competitive advantage of typeface design in hospitality CSR marketing. This research sheds light on the congruency effects of message framing and typeface design in donation appeals on consumers’ donation intention and brand loyalty while using the contemporary context of The Coronavirus Disease 2019 to test the theory.

This study evaluated four different packages containing the hypertext facility for use in a browsing system at a museum. The browsing system envisaged would be on a medical or health topic and would be placed in the permanent exhibition area of the South African Medical Research Council at the South African Museum in Cape Town. The packages evaluated were Hyperties, Guide, KnowledgePro and CoNET. They all run on IBM‐compatible microcomputers. The Hyperties package was found to be the most suitable of the four for the application required. The comparative ease and speed with which a database can be created and the ease of use of a browsing system created with this package were the primary reasons for preferring this program. The experience gained in the study showed that the time which would be required to create the browsing system envisaged using Hyperties would not be excessive. Since the cost of the hardware required for the basic system is also not high, the proposed browsing system could be implemented cost effectively. The implementation of the browsing system did not form part of the study.

The blogging phenomenon has become a primary mode of mainstream communication for the Web 2.0 era. While previous studies found that campaign web sites did not realise two‐way communication ideals, the current study aims to investigate potential differences in communication patterns between campaign blogs and web sites during Taiwan's 2008 general election, with the aim of exploring whether the blogging phenomenon can improve the process of online political communication.

The study used a content analysis approach, the web style analysis method, which was designed specifically for analysing web content, and applied it to an online campaign context in a different political culture, using Taiwan's general election as a case study.

Results indicated that the themes of both campaign blogs and web sites focused on “attacking opponents” rather than focusing on political policies or information on particular issues. However, campaign blogs and web sites significantly differed in all other dimensions, including structural features, functions, interactivity and appeal strategies. Overall, in terms of the online democratic ideal, campaign blogs appeared to allow more democratic, broader, deeper and easier two‐way communication models between candidates and voters or among voters.

The current study focused on candidates' blogs and web sites and did not explore the other vast parts of the online political sphere, particularly independent or citizen‐based blogs, which play significant roles in the decentralised and participant‐networked public spheres.

The study illuminates the role of hyperlinks on campaign blogs. By providing a greater abundance of external links than campaign web sites, campaign blogs allowed more voters, especially younger ones, to share political information in a manner that is quite different from the traditional one‐way communication model. The paper also argues that interactivity measures should be incorporated into the web style analysis method.

As technology increasingly integrates into the restaurant industry, avatar servers present a promising avenue for promoting healthier dining habits. Grounded in the halo effect theory and social comparison theory, this study aims to delve into the influence of avatars' appearance, humor and persuasion on healthier choices and customer satisfaction.

This paper comprises three experimental studies. Study 1 manipulates avatar appearance (supermodel-looking vs normal-looking) to examine its effects on perceived attractiveness, warmth and relatability. These factors influence customer satisfaction and healthy food choices through the psychological mechanisms of social comparison and aspirational appeal. Studies 2 and 3 further refine this theoretical model by assessing the interplay of appearance with humor (presence vs absence) and persuasion (health-oriented vs beauty-oriented), respectively.

Results suggest that avatars resembling supermodels evoke stronger aspirational appeal and positive social comparison due to their attractiveness, thus bolstering healthier choices and customer satisfaction. Moreover, humor moderates the relationship between appearance and attractiveness, while persuasion moderates the effects of appearance on social comparison and aspirational appeal.

This research bridges the halo effect theory and social comparison theory, offering insights enriching the academic discourse on technology’s role in hospitality.

The findings provide actionable insights for managers, tech developers and health advocates.

Despite its significance, avatar design research in the hospitality sector has been overlooked. This study addresses this gap, offering a guideline for crafting attractive and persuasive avatars.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of visual information cues such as a heart icon vs the calories and fat content on the selection of healthy food in fast-food restaurants (FFRs).

An online survey design providing a fast-food menu was implemented to collect responses from the participants. The survey respondents were recruited from a large South-western university in the USA. The research model was tested using logistic regression.

Data analysis shows that visual information plays a significant role in healthy food selection in FFRs. The authors findings show that the heart icons have a statistically significant effect on food choices, while calories and fat content information did not affect the participants’ selections vs no information.

Dietary choices and obesity are a serious social concern. This study provides support for the effect of a heart icon symbol on food choice in fast-food selection. The implication is that labelling FFR menus with symbols such as our heart icon will have a positive impact on healthy food selection vs the more usual inclusion of calorie and fat information.

The interface between a user and the computer can often be vital in getting data in and out of it. The interface needs to allow for ease of input and ease of displaying data on the screen — not only results, but also screen layouts, forms, menus, help information and the like. Reading text on a computer screen can be very tiring and a good interface can provide increased legibility, readability and comprehension as well as feedback to the user. Basic design principles for the user interface formulated by Wadlow et al (1991) include the premise that the interface must be consistent — actions and objects should behave similarly across different contexts. In addition, the interface should be predictable — a system in which users can anticipate computer behaviour. Furthermore the interface should have features which put certain decisions in the hands of the users, so that s/he feels in control. Since much human computer interaction takes place in a visual frame then the computer system should be visually appealing. Users should also feel that they are dealing with ‘real’ objects — that what they are doing is really happening.

Destination management organizations deliver travel-related information through visitor guides to build destination awareness and attract potential tourists. Therefore, this research aims to investigate how people read such a guide, understand their attitudes and to provide recommendations on enhancing its design.

This research used eye-tracking technology in tandem with surveys and in-depth interviews. Eye-tracking technology uncovered the elements of a visitor guide that attracted particular attention, whereas surveys and interviews provided deeper insights into people’s attitudes toward them.

People do not spend attention equally on each page of a visitor guide. Instead, they look at the reference points (i.e. photo credits, photos, headings and bolded words) and then read the adjacent areas if the information triggers their interest. The characteristics of the attractive components of a visitor guide were discussed and suggestions on designing a more appealing guide were provided.

The triangulated approach not only generated objective and insightful results but also enhanced research validity. This exploratory sequential mixed method can usefully be applied to test other stimuli and assess attention.

To be deemed appealing, a visitor guide should avoid ads unrelated to the destination, include more photos, use the list format and bolded words, add stories or selected comments from social media and provide well-designed maps.

This research fills a gap in the literature by using a triangulated approach including eye-tracking, survey and interviews to examine a 68-page visitor guide. The concept of reference-point reading behavior is proposed. Practical implications are discussed to improve the design of a visitor guide.