Hospitality Administration and Management Commons^™

Motivations And Barriers In College Students For Coffee Consumption From Coffee Shops: A Podcast, Khushi Dave

Senior Theses

The book, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, highlights the globalization of coffee; it was first discovered in the mountainsides of modern—day Ethiopia and has since swept the globe. Historically used for religious, medicinal, and recreational purposes, people flocked to coffee houses for the taste of the brew. Now, this beloved bean is ever prevalent on college campuses, especially through foodservice locations. This paper explores the role of foodservice locations, specifically coffee shops, in coffee consumption among college students. Specifically, it will survey the reasons that college students want to buy coffee from …

Affective Risk Perceptions Toward Travel In A Covid Era: Policy And State Political Influences, Chloe Riley

Theses and Dissertations

This paper aims to analyze the influence of state political affiliation and policy on affective risk perceptions, in the context of COVID-19. The study of risk perceptions in the travel literature is important because it can help industry leaders predict tourist decision-making and ensure feelings of safety for travelers. The relevance of risk perceptions has become even more apparent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study analyzes three policies put into place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19: mask mandate, cancellation of public events, and school closures. Affective risk perceptions were measured by the Tourism Crisis Management Initiative’s …

Customers’ Acceptance Of Automated Hotel, Jianhong Feng

Theses and Dissertations

Hotels moved in the direction of intelligentization, network connection and sharing of travel modes in the 21^st century. Automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to promote significant changes to hospitality and tourism sectors. Hotels that take advantage of these technological advances would benefit from this new business model as they can differentiate themselves from competitors who fail to adopt these new innovations. In the traditional hotel industry, guests are not served by automated technologies. Nowadays, non-human based business-models and service innovations have become the latest business strategy choice in the hospitality and tourism industry, especially during the …

Effects Of Information Exposure, Emotions, And Self-Efficacy On Risk Perception And Travel Intention During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Chunsheng Jin

Theses and Dissertations

Living in the information age, people acquire knowledge from various sources. These resources can play key roles in individuals’ perceptions during disease outbreaks. Especially amid COVID-19, risk perceptions are critical in determining individuals’ behavioral intentions. Researchers have investigated risk perceptions related to numerous diseases (e.g., swine flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, the Zika virus, and Ebola). However, few tourism studies have focused on health risks. Different from the above-mentioned illnesses, the relatively new virus of COVID-19 could have unique effects on individuals’ risk perceptions and behavioral intentions; the disease has been spreading worldwide for more than …

Technology Experience: Measurement Development And Validation, Hyejo Hailey Shin

Theses and Dissertations

Think about yourself traveling to somewhere in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s repeatedly. What would be the most significant difference among those four periods? There would be many differences, including clearer sky and clean air. Imagine how you would plan your three-day vacation. You might need several travel guidebooks and travel agents to plan your trip if you were in the 1990s. In the 2020s, you just need to download some mobile apps to plan and even create organized travel itineraries. After arriving at the destination, how would you find the way to a tourism attraction? You just need …

Analysis Of The Relationship Between Covid-19 And Employee Satisfaction In Luxury Hotels, Renee Bawcom

Senior Theses

This paper investigates the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and employee satisfaction in luxury hotels. Through a review of the existing body of scholarly literature about factors affecting employee satisfaction, and new collection and analysis of data on the topic, the identification and evolution of factors affecting employee satisfaction was explored. In reference to companies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, luxury hotel employees’ levels of satisfaction were analyzed. The analysis concluded that the widespread changes made to the luxury hotel industry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic did not have a negative impact on employee satisfaction.

Positioning Customer Service Through Customer Journey Mapping In Service Consumption And Recovery, Dan Jin

Theses and Dissertations

Customer journey mapping is a marketing research tool that has increasingly captured marketers’ attention over the past decades by helping commercial businesses understand customers’ motivations and behaviors. Despite acknowledging the importance of customer experiences, previous literature has generally focused on the firm’s response (supply-side) to the customer. This often considers the service provider’s efforts in the production of goods and services using Goods-Dominant-Logic (GDL), and facilitation with the customer with Service-Dominant-Logic (SDL). However, supply-side logic has largely ignored the customer responses (demand-side) regarding the service operations that appear to be an important function in customer journey mapping. Customers’ demand-side logic …

Why Do Tourists Accept Lodging Through Accommodation Sharing Platforms? Model Development And Model Comparison, Ge Zhu

Theses and Dissertations

The P2P accommodation sharing market has emerged as a disruptive innovation as it has exponentially expanded globally, even though this market is still emerging and has not been used by most people. This study investigates why tourists accept the sharing platforms and how to promote this service. A literature review on innovation adoption models was conducted to select a proper theoretical framework to investigate travelers’ motivation for using Airbnb. According to model-evaluation principles and literature analysis, this self-efficacy-based value adoption model (SVM) was selected, which is derived from social cognitive theory’s reciprocal determination. Based on the SVM, an extended SVM …

The Impact Of Social Media Account Types On Travel Intention, Nuri Seo

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to explore and understand how social media account types (DMOs, friends, and other individuals) influence traveler destination perceptions (destination trust and destination attractiveness) and visit intention. The current study also investigates the impact of the likes option on social media account types, which influence traveler perceptions and visit intention. Previous research had not explored three social media account types: DMOs, friends, and individuals based on Source Credibility Theory and the impact of likes on traveler destination perceptions and visit intention. The experimental design was used to test the research model; an experiment with a …

The Impact Of Hotel Service Robot Appearance And Service Attributes On Customer Experience, Chuhan Thomsen

Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, an increasing discussion has taken place regarding the employment of hotel service robots. One critical issue is the impact service robots exhibit on customer experience. However, most of the existing studies focus on service robots’ technical functions or customer’s adoption behavior instead of customers’ psychological or attitudinal reactions toward the robot. Meanwhile, the emergence of humanoid robots has raised great attention from both researchers and industry practitioners. Humanlike features (e.g. facial expressions, emotions, and motions) inherently affect customer experience in a hotel environment. Nevertheless, limited literature exists in incorporating service robots’ anthropomorphism and service attributes into …

Analyzing Local Alcohol Vendor Inventory Management Strategy, Angelo J. Amore

Senior Theses

This paper attempts to analyze how local alcohol vendors maintain their inventory throughout the year in Columbia, attempting to manage factors such as the season, sporting events, and other public gatherings and events. The research question resulted in contacting over 30 local alcohol vendors in Columbia, to ask them questions regarding their strategy in alcohol inventory management. The responses to these questions were then used to organize the vendors into groups by whether or not they utilize a reorder point to purchase/brew alcohol, or if they utilize periodic ordering. The vendors were also asked to rank the seasons from most …

From The Pits To The People, William J. Robertson

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the current and future status of authentic barbeque in the State of South Carolina. It begins by introducing the topic, exploring the background of barbeque in the state, and then introduces the issues at hand – the importance of advertising the restaurants and the impending question of age of the restaurants’ owners, operators, and pitmasters. In the literature review, the issues are given background and the typical authentic barbeque restaurant is described. Five restaurants are examined in the methodology and research, selected due to their locations in each of the regions of South Carolina (Midlands, Lowcountry, Upstate, …

The Importance Of Twitter To Destination Marketing Organizations, Tatiana Allgeyer

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has experienced quick and expansive growth since its beginnings. While the initial users were individuals, social media has become a melting pot of businesses, brands, and celebrities all vying for engagement from followers in the hopes of increasing likes, engagement levels and sales.

Destination marketing organizations (DMO’s) have been slow to adopt social media platforms and integrate them into their marketing strategies. The goal of this study is to analyze what kinds of social media content produces the highest levels of engagement in order to make specific social media strategy recommendations to the Columbia DMO, Experience Columbia. An …

Measuring Long-Term Advertising Effects In The Tourism And Hospitality Industry, Rui Qi

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the intangible characteristics of the service product, the tourism and hospitality industry relies heavily on advertising. This dissertation is composed of three interrelated studies, with the overall purpose to investigate advertising effectiveness within the tourism and hospitality industry from a firm-level perspective. Longitudinal and time-series models were employed to analyze firm-level accounting, finance, and marketing data. Overall, results provided supports for the strategic value of advertising in the airline, hotel, and restaurant firms. The first study’s findings indicate that the economic benefits from advertising expenditures, unlike other expenses, do not expire in the current period. In addition, advertising …

Selling Rooms And Making Money In The Lodging Industry: Analyzing The Effects Of Revpar And Goppar Together, Thomas Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

Based on previous research, revenue management now focus on alternative benchmarks for assessing bottom-line performance. The advent of alternative benchmarks leads to increased analysis of the relationship between revenue and profitability within hotel management. This thesis builds on previous research of revenue and profitability with RevPAR and GOPPAR acting as proxies for revenue and profitability to determine the relationship between the two variables as well as identifying their roles and analysis within revenue management as revenue management maneuvers toward a more strategic outlook. Also, this thesis identifies whether affiliation (independent vs. chain-affiliated) and hotel service levels directly affect the correlation …

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Spanish Wines (And A Few Things You Did), John Phillips Wacker

Senior Theses

The Spanish wine scene is incredibly diverse, and an immense number of different wines are made in the country. Likewise, Spain is incredibly rich in culture, with a wide array of languages, histories, cultures, and cuisines found throughout the nation. The sheer number and variety of Spanish wines and the incredible variety of cultures found in Spain may be daunting to the uninitiated. Thus, a guide to Spanish wine and culture, which not only details the two but links them, as well, may prove very helpful to the Spanish wine newcomer or perhaps even a sommelier.

This thesis-guide was compiled …

Indah: The Unorthodox Rise Of A Columbian Staple, Will Helms

Senior Theses

Over the course of several weeks, I conducted a series of observations at Indah Coffee Co. in order to better understand its marketing and interaction with the neighborhood. After observing the coffee shop several times, I consulted outside sources, a process that is considered to be in the psychological realm of “grounded theory”, constantly comparing them to my own observations. After an interview with Indah’s owner, I began compiling my findings. The following paper is an outline of my findings, including the importance of the product in the coffee industry versus other industries, the power of successful grassroots marketing, and …

Building Consumer Place Loyalty And Brand Loyalty: An Assessment Of The Microbrewery Taproom Experience, Scott Taylor Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most successful industries of the last few decades in the U.S. is the craft beer industry. Past studies have suggested that the neolocalism movement, the growing desire of people to reconnect with local communities, is one of the main drivers for the success of this industry. Likewise, studies have suggested that individuals who visit microbrewery taprooms do so for various reasons. Although studies have discussed the importance of the neolocalism movement and the motivations behind visiting taprooms, it is still unclear how consumers’ perceptions of the microbrewery taproom experience influence behaviors such as attachment or loyalty.

The …

Social Influence On Consumers’ Online Review Behavior, Hengyun Li

Theses and Dissertations

Online reviews constitute an important source of word-of-mouth, which can affect consumers’ product choices as well as company sales and profitability. Therefore, understanding the factors underlying consumers’ online posting behavior is essential for business success and relevant knowledge development. This dissertation consists of three independent but closely related studies focusing on hotel and restaurant contexts. The objectives of this dissertation are to investigate how prior reviews and disconfirmation (i.e., the deviance between post-consumption evaluations and other consumers’ prior average review rating) may affect subsequent consumers’ online review-posting behavior in terms of their willingness to post online reviews, the review ratings …

An Analysis Of Perceptions Of Restaurant Authenticity At Food Tourism Destinations In The Southeastern U.S, Jamie A. Levitt

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive scale, containing multiple restaurant attributes and authenticity conceptualizations, to measure restaurant authenticity; to test a model examining the mediators and outcomes of restaurant authenticity at independent, full service Southern-style restaurants at food tourism destinations in the Southeastern U.S.; and to determine if the influences of restaurant authenticity differ between food tourists, general tourists, and locals.

A four-step approach adapted from Netemeyer et al. (2003) was used to develop the restaurant authenticity scale (RAS). Ultimately, the RAS contained six authenticity conceptualizations, 20 items and three dimensions: restaurant heritage and environment, food …

Motivation To Play Esports: Case Of League Of Legends, Yaoyao Sun

Theses and Dissertations

The population of playing electronic sports has increased recently, and the most popular one is League of Legends (LoL). As a multiplayer online battle arena video game, it’s not only a game, but also a competitive electronic sport. The purpose of this study was to assess the motivations of playing League of Legends and to relate them by genders, age groups and frequency groups. The final sample comprised 111 LoL players. The study categorized 12 items into three factors: achievement, socialization and immersion. Results indicated that achievement factors were stronger motives for men than women. For different age groups, there …

Wearing Your Ethics: Investigating Consumer Purchase Intention Of Ethically Produced Fashion Products, Hannah E. Weiner

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge that exists in the area of ethical production by examining factors that influence purchase intention of ethically produced fashion products. The findings of this study provide a further understanding of ethical production by providing answers to the objectives. These results will also provide insight to firms wanting to effectively convey pro-environmental efforts to consumers. The findings may also assist marketers in understanding the consumers’ attitudes toward ethical manufacturing practices and their motivations for wearing their ethics and purchasing ethically produced fashion products.

The theoretical framework of this …

Consumer Decision Making For Accommodations In The Shared Economy, Jeffery C. Kreeger

Theses and Dissertations

Although many components of the shared economy have existed over time, it has recently blossomed into a thriving business that facilitates sharing of assets and services with strangers by using applications on the Internet. Recently, a convergence of many factors favorable to the development of the shared economy occurred and has become a new way of doing business for many and has introduced a new business model. Many people are shifting their goals from owning assets to borrowing them. This is not only economically favorable, but it is also environmentally favorable for the planet. The Lodging Shared Economy (LSE) is …

Co-Creation Experience: Measurement Development And Influence On Value In Sharing Economy, Pei Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

Since its introduction, an increasing attention has been paid to the scholarly discussion of value co-creation. One of the most essential problems in value co-creation is the development of comprehensive conceptualizations and measurement scales of value co-creation. However, most existing scales concentrate on co-creation behavior instead of co-creation experience and the development of a valid and reliable measurement scale of co-creation experience has been regarded as a top research priority. Meanwhile, the emergence of shared experience in tourism and hospitality has raised great attention from both academics and industry practitioners. Tourist shared experience such as participating in peer-to-peer accommodation inherently …

An Examination Of Destination Choice Behavior Using Meme Maps, Images And Decision Making Styles, Hilmi Atahan Atadil

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the destination choice behavior of tourists by using meme maps, images and decision making styles. The current article-based dissertation entails three separate studies that utilized data collected from Chinese, Arab, Russian and German tourists. The first article included within this dissertation assesses the perceived importance of the attributes that form destination images based on general vacation experiences and opinions of tourists and compares the expected performance of destination attributes of Turkey in attracting tourists from its emerging markets (like China as well as Arab countries) using modified version of Importance-Performance Analysis.

The …

Memorable Dining Experiences: Formative Index And Model Development, Yang Cao

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study is to understand the nature of memorable dining experiences (MDE), to conceptualize MDE, to develop a formative index to measure MDE, and to test a conceptual model to examine the antecedents and outcomes of MDE. Developed primarily from strategic experiential modules and from the cognitive appraisal theory, this study proposed that MDE consists of five dimensions: affect, sensory, social, intellectual, and behavioral.

This study applied a mixed method approach using a sequential exploratory design. Specifically, the in-depth interviews and a detailed literature review were used to generate the research instrument, and then the online …

Theory Of Under-And Overinvestment: An Empirical Examination Of Value Creation And Destruction In Hospitality Firms, Tarik Dogru

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I study underinvestment and overinvestment theories by examining the value creation and destruction in hospitality firms in three separate but coherent and cohesive research papers. In the first study, I analyze the extent to which financial constraints (underinvestment) and corporate governance (overinvestment) affect hotel firms’ value around acquisition announcements. In addition to the traditional form of corporate structure (i.e., C-corporation), hotel firms extensively adopt the organizational forms of franchising and REIT, which might affect under- and overinvestment problems. Nonetheless, little is known whether capital investments create or reduce value for hotel-REITs and franchising hotel firms. The results …

Authenticity In The Country Music Industry, Alyssa Johnson

Senior Theses

When researching the country music industry, it is impossible to avoid certain words—authenticity, sincerity, tradition—as a country music consumer, I have personally noticed these themes appearing frequently. As a consumer, I have been confused by the images that I’ve observed in country music scholarship and journalism based on tradition or authenticity (or, more often, the lack thereof). There is serious reverence for certain people, places, and things in country music. The Grand Ole Opry, the “legends” of the industry, and Nashville itself are treated with the utmost respect because of the roles that they’ve played in the development of country …

An Investigation Of Mannequins’ Effect On Consumer Attitude And Intention, Hannah Shealy

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effect of mannequin type on consumers’ purchase decisions. Data was collected from a convenience sample of 165 respondents through an online survey to measure the variables of envisioning, consumer attitude toward the display, and purchase intention in their relationship to mannequin type. Hypothesis 1, 2, and 3 were confirmed, confirming the conceptual model and the overall investigation into whether mannequin type effects consumer purchase decisions. Mannequin type was found to have a significant effect on envisioning, and the relationships between envisioning and consumer attitude toward the display and between attitude and purchase intention were found to …

Media Effect On Resident Attitude Toward Hosting The Olympic Games: A Cross-National Study Between China And The Usa, Qiulin Lu

Theses and Dissertations

News media helped individuals think about and understand the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games, enabling them to clarify or construct their own opinions toward an Olympic bid. The purpose of this study was to explore to what extent the public opinion of hosting the Olympic Games was affected by the newspaper media content to which the public was exposed. Based on social exchange theory, social representation theory, and agenda setting theory, two research questions were proposed: (1) Do different news media contents about the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games lead to different attitudes among the local residents? (2) …