ABSTRACT While price framing is known to affect customers’ price perception, the impact of animated discount displays on their price perceptions and purchase intentions remains unclear. This study addresses this gap by examining how the animated (vs. static) discount display and its speeds affect hospitality consumers’ purchase intentions, uncovering the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions. We find that a sufficiently slow (vs. fast) discount display significantly enhances purchase intentions as well as choice behavior. The animated discount effect is mediated by perceived discount depth and curiosity, with the need for cognitive closure moderating these mediating paths. However, the positive effect of the animated discount display is weakened when scarcity messages are present. Practical insights on leveraging the animated discount display to boost consumption are offered.

ABSTRACT Chatbots have become an indispensable part of service interactions in the tourism and hospitality industry, yet they frequently trigger strong switching intentions among consumers. Based on cue consistency theory, we explored the effects of communication style and social perception on consumer switching intention, the underlying mechanism, and the boundary conditions. Through three experiments with multiple service scenario, such as restaurants, hotels, and travel services. We found that chatbots with a warm perception that adopt a social-oriented communication style and those with a competent perception that adopt a task-oriented communication style are more likely to reduce consumers’ switching intentions. The study also identified the mediating role of human-robot trust and the moderating influence of service type. These insights provide tourism and hospitality managers with guidance on how to strategically deploy chatbots to reduce consumers’ switching intentions.

ABSTRACT With the progression of artificial intelligence (AI), its anthropomorphism poured into user cognitive processes. However, the impact of AI anthropomorphism on user acceptance intention remains unclear with stress cognition and emotional closeness. This study investigates the dynamic influence of anthropomorphic AI robots on user acceptance intention with the cognitive appraisal theory and similarity–attraction perspective. Based on the four-wave multi-source survey with 305 samples from 14 AI hotels, the results at two intervals revealed that AI robot anthropomorphism exerted dual effects on user acceptance intention only in 1 month interval: the positive indirect effect of AI robot anthropomorphism on user acceptance intention listed through user sense of closeness and optimism with two intervals but the negative path through identity threat and resistance which is supported in 1-month interval and not established with half-month interval. These findings enrich the conflicting dynamics involved in human response to anthropomorphic AI robot over time.

ABSTRACT Service robots are increasingly applied in service industries, yet customer preference for such technologies remains unclear. Adopting a temporal perspective, this study explores customer preference for service robots versus human employees in the hotel context, one of the most prevalent settings for robot application. Three experiments confirm that customers prefer service robots at the start of a service than at the end while prefer human employees at the end of services than at the start. This temporal shift is explained by changes in customer consumption goals during a service. Moreover, task objectivity is found to strengthen the above-mentioned effects. This research offers a novel perspective on customer attitudes toward service robots and provides valuable insights for practitioners regarding the strategic deployment of service robots.

ABSTRACT As automation and robotics become increasingly prevalent in hospitality, service robots are taking on not only routine tasks but also critical roles in hotels’ inclusive service systems. While the benefits of inclusive services are well established, little is known about how customers respond when such services are delivered by robots rather than humans. This research investigates how the type of inclusive service provider (robot vs. human) influences customer citizenship behavior and the conditions that moderate this effect. Across three experiments and a field study, customers engaged in fewer citizenship behaviors when inclusive services were delivered by robots. Mediation analyses reveal that robot delivery increases perceived falsity, which in turn suppresses moral elevation. Importantly, this negative effect is substantially attenuated when AI provides high-quality interpretation. These findings advance understanding of inclusive service and customer citizenship behavior while offering actionable guidance for hotel managers integrating robots into inclusive service strategies.

ABSTRACT The advancement and application of smart technologies have become defining features of digital transformation in the hospitality sector. To investigate consumers’ evolving expectations, confirmation, and disconfirmation regarding human-technology interaction (HTI), as well as their associated innovation attributes, user-generated content (UGCs) and interview data were analyzed with text mining and content analysis. The results indicated predominantly positive satisfaction with smart services, particularly in terms of functional performance, aesthetic appeal, and interaction quality. However, service disruptions, equipment malfunctions, and unfriendly operations elicited notable frustration among consumers. Comparative analysis revealed that consumers prioritized efficiency in self-service technologies, personalization in smart rooms, and novelty in service robots. Longitudinal analysis confirmed a perceptual shift from novelty-seeking to necessity-driven adoption, accompanied by increasing expectations for emotional intelligence and experiential value. The research advances expectancy disconfirmation and innovation diffusion theories by uncovering the dynamic mechanisms underlying HTI, providing implications for sustainable innovation and experience co-creation within hospitality.

ABSTRACT The hospitality industry is rapidly integrating AI, yet research has mainly focused on employees’ negative or neutral responses to AI collaboration. Positive psychological elements, such as employee-AI collaborative identification, and their effects on service outcomes remain underexplored. Grounded in conservation of resources theory, we adopted a resource-based perspective to suggest such identification exerts dual influences on pro-customer rule breaking (PCRB), mediated by job-growth and self-growth mindsets and moderated by organizational AI readiness. Using a mixed-methods approach, including three experiments and a time-lagged survey, our results demonstrate that employee-AI collaborative identification fosters resource gain by cultivating job-growth mindset, which in turn promotes PCRB, while simultaneously causing resource depletion by diminishing self-growth mindset and thereby inhibiting PCRB. Moreover, organizational AI readiness amplifies the positive impacts of such identification on job-growth mindset while buffering its negative impacts on self-growth mindset. We discussed current research implications and future research avenues.

ABSTRACT This study was designed in order to identify the drivers and barriers that influence customer value co-creation behaviors in robot-assisted restaurants. The investigation included the underlying dimensions of restaurant innovativeness and motivated consumer innovativeness as drivers and functional barriers. A total of 412 diners who experienced new technologies, which included robot service, provided information for the data analyses. The symmetric and asymmetric analysis results suggested multiple paths that lead to customer participation and citizenship behaviors in robot-assisted restaurants. The results of this study revealed implications for new researchers and practitioners for enhanced human-robot co-creation deployment in regards to increasing customer value co-creation behaviors.

ABSTRACT This study investigates emotional labor’s influence on hotel employees’ emotional memory, focusing on their tolerance levels. We invited 603 participants interning at hotels to participate in a four-wave survey, which revealed two distinct groups: Emotional Labor Susceptibility (ELS) and Emotional Labor Resilience (ELR). From this cohort, we selected participants for a recognition task, comprising 52 subjects from the ELS group, 67 from the ELR group, and 40 from a control group of subjects in the same institution who had no prior hotel internship experience. Emotional pictures for the experiment were obtained from the Chinese Affective Picture System. We utilized a mixed experimental design featuring 3 (categories of emotional images: positive, neutral, negative) × 3 (groups of hotel employees: ELS, ELR, control group). The findings reveal that emotional labor differently impacts emotional memory among individuals with different emotional labor tolerances. Specifically, individuals with low emotional labor tolerance experience a decline in emotional memory, whereas no such decline is observed in individuals with high emotional labor tolerance.

ABSTRACT This study seeks to explore how Dark Triad of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism interact with consumers’ regulatory focus (prevention-focus and promotion-focus) to influence online consumer reviews in the hotel industry. We conducted an empirical analysis of 1,185,940 hotel reviews from TripAdvisor.com, utilizing the textual content of online reviews and employing Language Inquiry and Word Count analytical tools. The research reveals a multifaceted link between regulatory focus and Dark Triad in online reviews. The results showed that individuals with a promotion focus tend to give higher ratings than those with a prevention focus. Dark Triad significantly influences how regulatory focus impacts online reviews. This study initiates a new academic dialogue on the interaction between regulatory focus and Dark Triad traits within online consumer behavior studies. It provides practical guidance for the hotel industry to refine their management and response strategies by acknowledging the impact of consumer personality traits on online reviews.