Purpose The luxury segment of the hospitality industry has experienced substantial growth in the past decade. Unfortunately, the notion of perceived luxury values has received scant attention, and there is a lack of valid framework to capture consumers’ value perceptions in the context of luxury hospitality services. Using luxury restaurant as an example of luxury hospitality services, this paper aims to establish the structure of luxury hospitality values and their measures and to investigate the relationship between luxury hospitality values and purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach A survey questionnaire was developed to test the proposed luxury value framework. Confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical linear regression were used to test the hypotheses. Findings Four luxury restaurant value dimensions including functional value, hedonic value, symbolic/expressive value and financial value were identified. The study results further reveal that a consumer’s purchase intention is influenced primarily by hedonic value, followed by functional value and financial value. Interestingly, unlike in the context of luxury goods, the purchase of luxury restaurant services is not substantially influenced by symbolic/expressive value. Practical implications Hospitality firms catering to the affluent might use the luxury value framework to better understand what drives their customers’ purchase intentions, and use such knowledge to create new services or to improve current product offerings. In addition, luxury hospitality companies can use this luxury value framework to position their brands/products. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that empirically tests a luxury value framework in the luxury hospitality context and investigates the relationship between luxury hospitality values and purchase intentions.

Purpose -Considering the complexity of the airport industry service palette, it is important to identify which air travel factors are distractors and which factors are enhancers of passenger satisfaction. Building on Herzberg's two-factor motivation theory, this study aims to explore most frequently mentioned attributes of airport service quality and distinguish key drivers for passenger satisfaction/dissatisfaction in the airport context.Design/methodology/approach -A content analysis of 1,095 traveler comments posted between 2010 and 2013 on an airport review web site was performed in order to identify satisfiers/dissatisfiers. The web spider randomly selected consumer comments related to 33 popular destinations.Findings -The study results indicated key satisfiers in the airport context such as cleanliness and pleasant environment to spend time in. On the other side, security-check, confusing signage and poor dining offer are recognized as major dissatisfiers in the airport setting.Practical implications -The study findings provide insight on predominant satisfiers, dissastisfiers and performance factors of airport service quality from passengers' perspectives. Airport management teams may use the study results to renovate airport facility and improve service quality.Originality/value -To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to utilize the visual data mining techniques in examining airport users' experience. Visualization produced summaries of qualitative comments in the form of tag clouds, word networks, and word tree images that help discover the most emerging themes of travelers' complaints and compliments.

Despite the rapid growth of the luxury hospitality market, academic research has largely neglected the differences between luxury hospitality services and luxury goods, as well as the role of status seeking on luxury consumption. Relying on the status consumption and experience recommendation theories, the authors examine the combined effects of consumer characteristics (need for status) and product type (hospitality services vs. goods) on consumers' word-of-mouth intentions. The results suggest that parvenus, who are high in need for status, are more likely to talk about their luxury goods purchases than patricians, who are low in need for status. More interestingly, both parvenus and patricians indicate equally strong intentions to spread positive word of mouth on luxury hospitality purchases. This study also extends the experience recommendation theory and reveals that parvenus are less likely to choose luxury hospitality services than patricians to advance their happiness.In the past decade, the luxury segment of the hospitality industry has expanded at an unprecedented rate. According to a recent survey conducted by Yankelovich/ The Futures Company (2010), 83% of respondents indicate that they are willing to splurge by dining at luxury restaurants. Similarly, the luxury segment is leading the recovery of the lodging industry, generating $792.5 million in room revenue in the first half of 2011 (Chiem, 2011;DeLollis, 2010). Data from Smith Travel Research show that the luxury segment had the highest occupancy rate (77.7%) in the second quarter of 2013, followed by the upper upscale (76.4%)

Purpose-The aim of this paper is to summarize the celebrity endorsement literature to identify trends and challenges related to key research areas. Based on a critical review of existing literature, this paper presents several recommendations regarding potential future directions of celebrity endorsement research in hospitality and tourism. Design/methodology/approach-The paper presents a critical review of literature from both the general marketing and hospitality and tourism fields. Findings-Over the past decade, significant progress has been made in hospitality and tourism celebrity endorsement research, with several new constructs being revealed and tested. However, the extant findings are rather mixed and inconclusive because industry features have not been systematically examined and study contexts and samples have varied widely. To advance the hospitality and tourism celebrity endorsement research, an extended meaning transfer model with six propositions is proposed. Several areas for future research are also discussed. Practical implications-This paper offers up-to-date findings on celebrity endorsement to practitioners, and the proposed extended meaning transfer model can provide marketers useful guidelines on selecting appropriate endorsers for their products/brands. Originality/value-In previous studies, scholars mainly used one or more of the three types of celebrity endorser selection models and only examined specific antecedents of effective endorsement. To date, researchers have not yet conceptualized a modified model that captures the unique features of the hospitality and tourism industry and reconciles the mixed findings in the extant literature. This paper proposes an extended meaning transfer model to explain the endorser selection process, provides a good foundational understanding of the extant celebrity endorsement research and makes several recommendations regarding future research directions for hospitality and tourism scholars with implications for practitioners.