Cornell Hospitality Quarterly

With the widely used fixed-tier computerized pricing system (e.g., based on the best available rate or BAR), fenced discount rates are set and updated as a fixed percentage of the base rate such as the BAR. This intuitive computer-automated solution to a complex pricing issue is, however, theoretically suboptimal. The study demonstrates why the practice of using fixed-tier pricing is suboptimal, showing that this fixed-tier approach is inferior even when the initial set of fenced rates is optimal and even in the unlikely scenario of the various market segments’ demand curves shifting proportionally. As such, practitioners should avoid using a convenient fixed-tier pricing model (BAR-based or not) where only one pricing optimization is run and the rest of the fenced prices are calculated based on this optimized price using fixed percentages. Instead, a fenced-rate pricing system where individual segments are treated independently, and optimizations are run for each segment should be adopted.

While hospitality researchers have examined the impacts of user-generated content on customers, research regarding the impacts of employee reviews on job seekers’ application intentions is scarce. Yet, labor shortages in the hospitality industry have been amplified in recent years. The tight job market requires organizations to use aggressive and proactive recruitment strategies. As online employee reviews can attract both active and passive job seekers, organizations are increasingly advertising their jobs on these sites. This study draws on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and tests the boundary condition of work experience on the effects of overall star-ratings and employer awards on job seekers’ application intention. Through an experimental survey, this study sought to fill the gap regarding the impacts of employee-generated star-ratings and employer awards on job seekers’ application intentions. Both star-ratings and employer awards are positively related to organizational prestige. Hospitality work experience moderates the relationship between star-ratings and organizational prestige. The relationship is stronger for novice job seekers than for experienced job seekers. Organizational prestige, in turn, increases job seekers’ application intentions. Our findings extend the recruitment literature and highlight the potential usage of ELM as an explorative framework in hospitality recruitment research. The study also provides suggestions for hospitality employers to attract job seekers.

With the increasingly diverse workforce in the hospitality and tourism industry, it is imperative to identify strategies to reduce biases in the workplace. Across two studies, we examined the utility of providing individual-level positive individuating information as a strategy to combat customers’ stereotypes in service encounters. In Study 1, we explored the effectiveness of providing either positive stereotypical or counter-stereotypical individuating information to remediate negative perceptions toward older workers in an experimental vignette study using a hypothetical customer service encounter. In Study 2, we demonstrated the robustness of this technique with a group that has opposing stereotypes compared with older workers (Asian adults). Across these two studies, we found that providing positive counter-stereotypical individuating information most strongly affected customers’ satisfaction ratings of employees by boosting positive counter-stereotypical perceptions of both older and Asian targets. We discuss the implications of our study along with possible future research related to individual-level strategies to reduce workplace discrimination.

Built on the consumer socialization theory and generational cohort theory, this research examines the consumption phenomena of the sharing economy among young travelers. Specifically, the current study investigates Millennial and Generation Z travelers’ consumption intention for peer-to-peer accommodations—one of the most popular sharing economy business models. This study explores how consumption values impact young travelers’ choice of peer-to-peer accommodation and whether any similarities or differences exist across the two generational cohorts. The research findings suggest that, while utilitarian and hedonic values influence both young generations’ intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation, sustainability and social interaction values, as well as perceived social media exposure, play more important roles for Generation Z (vs. Millennials). Furthermore, young people’s needs for self-enhancement extends significant impacts on their value evaluations of the peer-to-peer accommodations, particularly for Millennials. These generational differences help industry practitioners better serve and market to the two market segments.

The aim of this study was to understand the impacts of changes in free-play (FP) award values on visitation frequency and gaming revenue. With costly and perpetual FP campaigns well established in many markets, a critical issue for operators centers on the potential consequences of walking back offer values, especially when nearby competitors do not. The results of experimentally manipulated FP offers suggested that widely held industry beliefs about their ability to influence visitation are equivocal. Additional outcomes related to the economic impact of FP awards across the experimental groups also questioned the sensitivity of loyalty club members to reductions in FP offers. Working from a common offer tier of 600 loyalty club members, subjects were randomly assigned to one of six groups, each comprised of 100 subjects. Daily group-level outcomes were produced by aggregating player performance data over a 191-day sample period, collected from the records of a tribal casino operating in a competitive repeater market. This longitudinal design allowed for the measurement of multiple levels of FP offers on visitation behavior and gaming value, over a meaningful duration. Our findings fill gaps in the literature related to the impacts of FP on visitation frequency and the ability to drive own-money wagering. Our results also add to literature within the domains of operant conditioning, goal gradient theory, and a growing stream of research on FP efficacy. There are also connections to the house money effect, reverse house money effect, and the endowment effect.

Studies have documented the existence of persistent performance differences across business units and firms in many industries and countries. Unfortunately, little is known about the causes of these performance differentials. Using property-level data from the lodging industry, this study documents the existence of large and persistent performance differentials across lodging units. These differences exist after controlling for the resources utilized for the production of the service as well as market conditions and hotel property characteristics and are most persistent for the highest and the lowest performers. Similar to studies that analyzed performance differences in other industries, our analysis leaves a large portion of the variation in performance differences unexplained. However, we do find that a small portion of these performance differences is positively related to the hotel property’s choice regarding chain size and hotel portfolio company scope, suggesting the possibility of benefits from scale economies and/or scope. Understanding how performance differences arise and persist requires a close look into less deterministic, quantifiable, and tangible factors such as managerial practices, decision-making processes, innovation, knowledge creation, the transfer of knowledge, the flow of information, compensation, and personnel policies, among others. In other words, there is much unexplained and yet to be discovered here, resulting in a ripe area for future research. Future research that links attributes of the industry’s demand, management controls, or technology to factors driving productivity may help explain, and perhaps enhance, the industry’s productivity growth.

Hotels are generally perceived as the riskiest type of commercial real estate (CRE) investment because hotel “leases” have relatively high turnover. Existing literature regarding CRE investment risk and return lacks investigation of hotels at the unit level—which is the level of analysis undertaken by existing and prospective hotel investors. Two major types of hotels are branded and independent ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the variability (risk) of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as occupancy rate, and revenues and profit of branded versus independent hotels. Using a large sample of performance data regarding over 4,000 U.S. hotel properties from 2000 to 2019, we examine the extent to which branding affects the volatility of KPIs. We find that brand-affiliated hotels have lower cash flow risk measured as lower volatilities of KPIs compared with independent ones. Furthermore, the level of volatility reduction of branded hotels is greater for profit than for revenue, and profit may be the most important KPI for hotel investors. The magnitude of volatility reduction also increases as the measurement window length (number of years) increases. We also study the long-term returns of branded versus independent hotels. This study contributes to the understanding regarding the relationships between investment risk of branded versus independent hotels, extends the literature regarding hotel investment, and provides hotel investors and analysts information regarding risk to aid decisions such as developing, purchasing, holding, or disposing of hotel assets.

Considerable research has demonstrated the positive effects of handwritten font styles on product attachment and word-of-mouth behavior. However, few studies examined whether these positive effects can be mitigated or even reversed. The purpose of this study is to fill this knowledge gap by identifying several boundary conditions (communal orientation, message type, and hotel type) for the positive effects of handwritten font styles. We conducted two quasi-experimental studies. In Study 1 (n = 125), the positive effect of handwritten font styles on attitude toward a hotel was not observed among individuals with a low communal orientation. In Study 2 (n = 245), the handwritten (vs. machine-written) font styles in the sustainability messages of a luxury hotel reduce warmth of the hotel. Hospitality managers should use handwritten font styles carefully depending on hotel type, message type, and customer characteristics.