Families seek vacations as a means to improve family interaction and cohesion. Research on the effects of smartphones and other technology on the tourist experience has gained traction in recent years. Unfortunately, there still remains a void in understanding the role smartphones have on interaction and relationship dynamics during family vacations. Therefore, a qualitative research approach was employed to understand the extent to which smartphone usage influences the family vacation experience. The findings revealed that families relied on smartphones to foster a sense of family unity and retain a sense of individuality. Second, smartphones mediated families’ experience of a destination. Third, smartphones altered the traditional internalization and recollection process of family vacation memories.

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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.

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