In the past decade, the positive and memorable tourism experience (MTE) has merged as a critical concept in the hospitality and tourism field. Previous quantitative studies on MTE mainly focus on measurement development and the relationship between MTE and behavioral intention, and they lack the integration of MTE with other core marketing constructs such as satisfaction and affective commitment. Furthermore, storytelling is conceived as central to the tourist experience, but its relationship with MTE has not been empirically investigated. Within such a context, in this study we surveyed 400 tourists who recalled their most recent leisure travel, and empirically investigated the relationships among MTE, satisfaction, affective commitment, and storytelling behavior. The results show that MTE, compared to satisfaction, is a stronger predictor of affective commitment. Moreover, MTE is a more powerful antecedent of tourists' storytelling behavior than affective commitment. The study expanded the overall nomological network related to MTE, which is critical to advancing the experiential view of tourists' experience. It also generated insights for destination branding and marketing.

Customer loyalty has become a strategic goal to increase brand value and profitability. This study develops and tests a model of loyalty to understand the relative effects of loyalty program benefits (as positive barriers) and switching costs (as negative barriers) on emotional commitment and loyalty behaviors in the casino context. The findings showed that trust, perceived switching cost, and emotional commitment to the casino are more likely to influence relational or emotional outcomes such as word of mouth and voluntary partnership whereas the loyalty program is more likely to influence transactional outcomes such as repeat visitation and time spent in the casino. The emotional commitment served as a partial mediator in the model. The study has theoretical implications for understanding the loyalty process and practical implications for improving loyalty program effectiveness.

Taking the perspective of positive education, this study aims to examine the state of hospitality and tourism students' hope during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also investigates the role of academic program engagement efforts in imparting students' hope, their academic satisfaction, and loyalty intention to remain in hospitality and tourism as a major and career. The results show that student's engagement experience is positive despite the crisis. Engagement activities, especially from faculty and the overall campus environment, significantly instilled hope among students. Hope and academic satisfaction were two powerful predictors for student's major and career loyalty. The study results not only provide a timely snapshot on hospitality and tourism students' engagement experience, academic satisfaction, and loyalty intention during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also offers a hope-centered framework to guide academic programs on their engagement and student success efforts going forward.

COVID-19 greatly challenges the human health sector, and has resulted in a large amount of medical waste that poses various potential threats to the environment. In this study, we compiled relevant data released by official agencies and the media, and conducted data supplementation based on earlier studies to calculate the net value of medical waste produced in the Hubei Province due to COVID-19 with the help of a neural network model. Next, we reviewed the data related to the environmental impact of medical waste per unit and designed four scenarios to estimate the environmental impact of new medical waste generated during the pandemic. The results showed that a medical waste generation rate of 0.5 kg/bed/day due to COVID-19 resulted in a net increase of medical waste volume by about 3366.99 tons in the Hubei Province. In the four scenario assumptions, i.e., if the medical waste resulting from COVID-19 is completely incinerated, it will have a large impact on the air quality. If it is disposed by distillation sterilization, it will produce a large amount of wastewater and waste residue. Based on the results of the study, we propose three policy recommendations: strict control of medical wastewater discharge, reduction and transformation of the emitted acidic gases, and attention to the emission of metallic nickel in exhaust gas and chloride in soil. These policy recommendations provide a scientific basis for controlling medical waste pollution.

Ageism and age diversity are emerging challenges for the hospitality and tourism industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate hospitality students' willingness to work with older employees. The research results showed that students' willingness to work with older workers was significantly correlated with contact frequency and quality, and aging anxiety. Surprisingly, Asian students are less willing to work with older employees than American students. These findings indicate that hospitality students can have intergenerational issues at their workplace, regardless of their cultural backgrounds. Therefore, it highlights the need for hospitality and tourism programs to adopt pedagogical methods, including intergenerational service learning, to address the issue.