This research examines how consumers experience decision making for experiential products such as vacations. We combine data from 1) ethnographic interviews, 2) online community discussion forums, and 3) an introspective vacation-planning task to explore the experience of emotion in the decision process and to develop a new model of decision making that extends extant decision theories. We find that consumers experience a variety of positive emotions as they plan vacations, from facilitative feelings that guide the plan to fantasy feelings consumed for pleasure. Positive emotions are most evident in reaction to imagery and when the consumer's self identity is salient, and often precede more analytic information processing. Overall, this research offers a richer understanding of the emotional nature of consumer decision making for experiential products and services.

Purpose Purpose -To examine the leisure cruise service environment-the shipscape-and its effects on cruisers' emotions, meaning-making, and onboard behavior.Design/methodology/approach Design/methodology/approach -This paper uses qualitative data from 260 cruise customers that was mined from archived online discussion boards. Data were analyzed based on grounded theory and interpretive methods to derive an understanding of shipscape meanings and influences from the cruiser's perspective. Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations/implications -Given the exploratory research objective and interpretive methodology, generalizability beyond the cruise context is limited. However, research findings suggest not only that ambient shipscape conditions influence cruisers' pleasure, but also that ship layout, décor, size, facilities, and social factors influence the meanings cruisers attach to cruise brands and to the overall cruise experience.Originality/value Originality/value -This paper explores atmospheric effects on consumer behavior in a context as yet examined by tourism and hospitality scholars. The findings extend Bitner's (1992) servicescape framework and reveal novel atmospheric and social effects that influence cruise travelers' experience.

Marketing scholars have proposed that service employees play a primary role in delivering service quality. However, the question of how to motivate service employees to enhance service production has received little research attention. The authors address this gap by advocating a control mechanism first discussed in the economics literature—buyer monitoring. The authors focus on a pervasive form of buyer monitoring, voluntary tipping, and examine the effectiveness of this control mechanism as a means for improving service in two contexts: leisure cruises and restaurant dining. Despite a substantial interdisciplinary literature reporting a weak relationship between customers' perceptions of service and their tipping behavior, the results show that a policy of voluntary tipping has positive effects on the motivation and behavior of service workers and on customers' perceptions of the service those workers provide. These findings call attention to buyer monitoring as both a topic for academic research and a practical mechanism for motivating service employees. The findings also call into question trends away from tipping in service contexts, such as the cruise industry, and suggest that many service businesses for which tipping is not viable can benefit from alternative forms of buyer monitoring.

One of the pioneer firms in the leisure cruise industry embarked on a bold idea in 2000 to offer an unregimented experience unlike most cruises. Despite the appeal of the concept from a marketing perspective, the service innovation posed operational challenges, many of which continue to undermine the firm's competitive position. Using a multi-method empirical approach and interdisciplinary views that draw on research from marketing and operations management, the authors analyze this business case to identify challenges that service firms face when services are developed and managed from siloed functional perspectives. Based on their research findings and guided by the literature, the authors derive a service-systems model to aid service planning and management. The authors further highlight a new organizational form and function for services under the domain of service experience management that is positioned as a means to unify service operations and marketing for delivering on service promises. The authors offer direction for further research on service operations systems and service experience management.

T he most salient or peak aspect of a service experience often defines customer perceptions of the service. Across two studies, using the same novel form of a scenario-based experiment, we investigate the design of peak events in a service sequence by testing how anticipated and surprised peaks influence customer perceptions. Study 1 captures the immediate reactions of participants and Study 2 surveys participants a week later. In both studies, we find a main effect for the temporal peak placement, confirming the positive influence of a strong peak ending. When assessing the peak design strategies of surprise and anticipation, we find in Study 1 that surprise and anticipation moderate the temporal peak placement (e.g., early peak vs. late peak) on overall customer perceptions, with the surprise peak at the end of an experience yielding the strongest effect. In Study 2 we see that the remembered experience of a surprise peak positively affects customer perceptions compared to an anticipated peak regardless of the temporal placement of the peak. We also find that the infusion of a surprise peak ending has a lasting effect that amplifies the peak-end effect of remembered experiences. Drawing on these findings, we discuss the role of surprise, anticipation, and sequence effects in experience design strategy.

This research is motivated by an important but largely unexamined question: how do guest perceptions of service fairness influence loyalty in a lodging context? To address this question, this study presents a conceptual model of service fairness and loyalty and tests that model using data collected from 601 customers of six hotels in China. Results support a multidimensional view of service fairness that comprises three dimensions. Two of those dimensions, distributive justice (fair outcomes) and interactional justice (fair treatment by staff), have larger effects on customer loyalty than does the third dimension, procedural justice (fair processes and procedures). A key implication is that hotel managers should train their employees to understand that guests' evaluation of a service (and subsequent trust and loyalty) depends not only on specific service outcomes, but also on how guests feel they have been treated by employees.

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This paper examines whether restaurant reservations should be locked to specific tables at the time the reservation is made, or whether the reservations should be pooled and assigned to tables in real-time. In two motivating studies, we find that there is a lack of consensus in the restaurant industry on handling reservations. Contrary to what might be expected based on research that shows the benefits of resource pooling in other contexts, a survey of 425 restaurants indicated that over 80% lock reservations to tables. In two simulation studies, we determine that pooling reservations enables a 15-minute reduction in table turn times more than 15% of the time, which consequently increases service efficiency and enables a restaurant to serve more customers during peak periods. Pooling had the most consistent advantage with higher customer service levels, with larger restaurants, with customers who arrive late, and with larger variation in customer arrival time.