Includes bibliographical references.

Is Your Food Organic? Examining the Role of Food Aesthetics in Restaurant Marketing -- The Effects of Employer Branding on Value Congruence and Brand Love -- When and why Language Assertiveness Affects Online Review Persuasion -- Immersive Digital Tourism: The Role of Multisensory Cues in Digital Museum Experiences -- Does Financial Development Raise Tourism Demand? A Cross-Country Panel Evidence -- Exploring Tourist Behavior in a Reused Heritage Site.

[Article Title: Is Your Food Organic? Examining the Role of Food Aesthetics in Restaurant Marketing/ Xi Yu and Stephanie Q. Liu, p.939-961]

Abstract: Many restaurants believe that an aesthetically pleasing food presentation can help attract customers and elevate their evaluations. Yet the effectiveness of expressive aesthetics and the psychological processes associated with its use are not well understood in hospitality research. This study adopts a consumer behavior lens to explore how expressive aesthetics affects consumers’ decision making about organic versus conventional food in the restaurant setting. Findings reveal that the expressive aesthetics strategy is effective when marketing conventional, nonorganic food; however, such a strategy decreases consumers’ purchase intentions when the food is described as organic. Furthermore, an investigation of the underlying psychological mechanism indicates that anticipated pleasure and food temptation serially mediate the impacts of expressive aesthetics and food type on purchase intention.

https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211067275

[Article Title: The Effects of Employer Branding on Value Congruence and Brand Love/ Yunsik Kim and Tiffany S. Legendre, p.962-987]

Abstract: This study examines the effect of employer brand on employees’ brand love by applying value congruence theory. A survey was conducted with employees of well-known hotel brands in South Korea. The results show that not all employer brand dimensions equally contribute to the formation of brand love. While economic, social, and development values positively influence brand love, interest value and application value did not affect brand love formation. Employees’ value congruence perceptions mediate this effect because employees could infer what values employers care about based on the benefits that a hotel brand offers. This study contributes to the literature by linking value congruence with employer branding and brand love. Based on our findings, hospitality managers can redesign all work activities and apply employer branding principles to reflect employment value to achieve employee’s brand love.

https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211062779

[Article Title: When and why Language Assertiveness Affects Online Review Persuasion/ Huiling Huang, Stephanie Q. Liu and Zhi Lu, p.988-1016]

Abstract: Recent research suggests that not only what is said (i.e., opinions) but also how it is said (i.e., language styles) can affect persuasion. Extending this stream of work, the current research aims to understand how language assertiveness affects online review persuasion. Study 1 explores consumers’ general perceptions of assertive versus nonassertive language and opinions about their relative persuasiveness in online reviews. Study 2 utilizes an experimental design to examine the congruency effects between language assertiveness and temporal distance on consumer responses. We find that online reviews containing assertive (vs. nonassertive) language engender higher perceived review helpfulness and more favorable attitudes toward the reviewed business for consumers whose travel time is in the distant future, whereas nonassertive (vs. assertive) language is more effective for consumers whose travel time is in the near future. Furthermore, mediation analysis results suggest that psychological comfort is the underlying mechanism explaining such effects.

https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480221074280

[Article Title: Immersive Digital Tourism: The Role of Multisensory Cues in Digital Museum Experiences/ Kexin Guo, Alei Fan, Xinran Lehto and Jonathon Day, p.1017-1039]

Abstract: Facilitated by emerging technologies, the immersive digital museum reflects disruptive innovation in today’s tourism experience and offers a multidimensional experience different from traditional museums. To better understand how visitors respond to this innovative form of digital tourism, the current research investigates visitor experiences at the digital museum and achieves a threefold goal. First, this research delineates a three-dimensional digital museum visitor experience, namely, joviality, personal escapism, and localness. Built on this experiential framework, the present research further affirms that visual and auditory cues are the most powerful multisensory cue combination in enhancing a holistic visitor experience at the digital museum. This study also finds that emotional state and sense of presence mediate the relations between the multisensory cues and visitors’ digital museum experiences. This research contributes to the conceptualization of a digital museum experience, and provides a foundation for the future research endeavor of the new generation of digital tourism.

https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211030319

[Article Title: Does Financial Development Raise Tourism Demand? A Cross-Country Panel Evidence/ Rupika Khanna and Chandan Sharma, p.1040-1069]

Abstract: This study examines the effects of bank and stock market development on three tourism demand indicators: number of tourist arrivals, expenditure to gross domestic product ratio, and expenditure per arrival. We analyze annual data spanning the period 1995-2018 for a sample of 207 countries. The theoretical contribution of this study is threefold: first, we assess a variety of financial development indicators; second, we employ cross-sectionally augmented distributed lags estimator that produces estimates robust to the dependence structure in the data; third, using data on a wide assortment of countries, we generalize the findings of several country-specific case studies. We observe that financial development affects both tourist arrivals and tourism expenditure positively. However, the gains in tourist arrivals are more significant relative to those in tourism expenditure. Furthermore, we find the responsiveness of tourism demand to financial development to vary with the income level.

https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211060789

[Article Title: Exploring Tourist Behavior in a Reused Heritage Site/ Yi-Ju Lee, I-Ying Isai and Te-Yi Chang, p.1070-1088]

Abstract: This study investigated the relationship among tourists’ perceived sustainability, aesthetic experience, and behavioral intention toward reused heritage buildings by employing stimulus–organism–response theory. There were 354 valid questionnaires collected from the Sputnik Lab in Tainan, Taiwan. A positive correlation was found between tourists’ perception of sustainability and aesthetic experience. When tourists perceived higher aesthetic experience, they also had stronger behavioral intention. Structural equation modeling analysis verified that the aesthetic experience of tourists had mediating effects between perceived sustainability and behavioral intention in the reused heritage space. The reuse of space should be attached significantly to the aesthetic display of space and service so as to promote such scenic spots and increase tourists’ intention to revisit through word of mouth.

https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211020089