Although the concept of branding has been applied extensively to products and services, tourism destination branding is a relatively recent phenomenon. In particular, destination branding remains narrowly defined to many practitioners in destination management organizations (DMOs) and is not well represented in the tourism literature. Consequently, this study has three goals. First, it attempts to review the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of branding as conveyed by leading authors in the marketing field. Second, it seeks to refine and enhance the definition of destination branding (acceptable to and understood by tourism destination managers) to more fully represent the complexities of the tourism product. Third, and most importantly, it seeks to improve our understanding of current destination branding practices among DMOs. The findings indicate that although DMO executives generally understand the concept of destination branding, respondents are implementing only selective aspects of this concept, particularly logo design and development.

The hotel industry continues to develop strategies for addressing consumer-generated online reviews, and particularly responding to poor reviews, which can have a damaging effect on a hotel’s reputation. To gain a greater understanding of the dynamics of poor reviews, this study analyzed 1,946 one-star reviews from ten popular online review websites, as well as 225 management responses from eighty-six Washington, D.C., hotels. A comprehensive complaint framework found that the most common complaints related to front desk staff, bathroom issues, room cleanliness, and guestroom noise issues. Complaints were also analyzed by hotel characteristics, including chain-scale segments, and reviewer characteristics, including purpose of travel and geographic location. Examining the reviews, highly rated hotels often respond to online complaints with appreciation, apologies, and explanations for what had gone wrong. Compensation adjustments are rarely mentioned by any hotel. The increasingly prominent role of social media necessitates that hotels use online reviews for market research and service recovery opportunities, regardless of whether they respond publicly.

This study examines hotel frontline employees' perceptions of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) activities at the hotel they currently work, and how their perceptions influence their level of Organizational Identification, an indicator of their relationship quality with the hotel. • Design/methodology/approach: This study uses 575 responses of hotel frontline employees in the U.S., collected through a national online survey. • Findings: Results show that hotel employees' perceptions of CSR activities encompass the host community, colleagues, and customers, beyond green practices. Moreover, their perceptions of CSR activities positively and significantly influence the level of Organizational Identification. • Research limitations/implications: The results of this exploratory study should not be generalized to all frontline employees in the U.S. hotel industry. Future studies should extend this study to examine potential relationships among other variables relevant to Organizational Identification, and in other hospitality industry contexts. Also, this study does not seek to question the merits of CSR per se, as it takes a managerial perspective to assist hoteliers' understanding of and decision-making on CSR. • Practical implications: As CSR activities often represent company values and norms, frontline employees' perceptions of them can influence how they identify with the company, which is an impetus for their attitudinal and behavioral support to help achieve the company's goals. Accordingly, CSR activities can be a critical tool in engaging frontline employees to achieve better performance and derive more meaning in their careers, and in attracting good quality employees. • Originality/value: This study is a first attempt to empirically examine how CSR activities can benefit hotel employees, based on various literatures on service-profitchain, CSR, and social identity theory.

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Online user-generated content in various social media websites, such as consumer experiences, user feedback, and product reviews, has increasingly become the primary information source for both consumers and businesses. In this study, we aim to look beyond the quantitative summary and unidimensional interpretation of online user reviews to provide a more comprehensive view of online user-generated content. Moreover, we would like to extend the current literature to the more customer-driven service industries, particularly the hotel industry. We obtain a unique and extensive dataset of online user reviews for hotels across various review sites and over long time periods. We use the sentiment analysis technique to decompose user reviews into different dimensions to measure hotel service quality and performance based on the SERVPERF model. Those dimensions are then incorporated into econometrics models to examine their effect in shaping users’ overall evaluation and content-generating behavior. The results suggest that different dimensions of user reviews have significantly different effects in forming user evaluation and driving content generation. This paper demonstrates the importance of using textual data to measure consumers’ relative preferences for service quality and evaluate service performance.

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Mobile devices, such as smartphones, are fast becoming the primary way for many travelers to access the Internet in search of travel-related information. While mobile devices provide travelers with ubiquitous access to the Internet, they also face limitations, such as small screens and slow loading times, which destination management organizations (DMOs) must consider when designing mobile websites. This study investigates the factors influencing the overall usability of mobile DMO websites. Based on a sample of U.S. travelers with mobile devices, findings indicate that design elements related to Ease of Use and Content contribute most significantly to the overall usability of mobile DMO websites. Also, travelers highly value mobile DMO websites that are well structured and organized, offer convenient services, and have an easy-to-understand appearance. Managerial implications and areas for further research are discussed.