Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-11-30DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105360
Oksana Tokarchuk , Roberto Gabriele
{"title":"Placebo analysis for causal inference in tourism","authors":"Oksana Tokarchuk , Roberto Gabriele","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105360","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105360","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper proposes a structured framework for implementing placebo tests as diagnostic tools to assess the robustness of empirical analyses in tourism research. Building on the taxonomy of Eggers et al. (2024), we distinguish between treatment, outcome, and population placebos and translate these categories into a practical checklist that guides researchers from clarifying assumptions to designing suitable placebo scenarios. To illustrate the approach, we reconstruct and reanalyze the relationship between Blue Flag eco-labels and international tourism flows to Italian coastal provinces. The example does not aim to generate new substantive insights on eco-labels; rather, it demonstrates how placebo tests can be embedded within a transparent and systematic procedure to evaluate the credibility of estimated effects. By offering a step-by-step guide and an applied illustration, the paper encourages a more disciplined, transparent, and methodologically informed use of placebo tests in observational tourism research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105360"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145651527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-12-29DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105385
Yuting Fan, Xingyu Wang, Jingwen Yan, Deniz Kucukusta
{"title":"Too mindful to be bored? A dynamic lens on state mindfulness among hospitality frontline employees","authors":"Yuting Fan, Xingyu Wang, Jingwen Yan, Deniz Kucukusta","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Given the dynamic service environment, hospitality frontline employees require mindfulness to manage unpredictable customers’ demands. Departing from prior research that has primarily focused on trait mindfulness, this study draws on Conservation of Resources theory to elucidate how state mindfulness, as a crucial psychological resource, alleviates employee boredom experiences and work withdrawal. Moreover, this study introduces work meaningfulness into its investigation of state mindfulness and reveals that employees perceiving their work as less meaningful may derive more benefits from state mindfulness, as evidenced by the more obvious reduction in boredom observed following state mindfulness. Experience sampling data from 111 hotel employees over 10 workdays supported the hypotheses through multilevel regression analysis. By shifting the focus to the dynamic effects of mindfulness, this study advances the mindfulness literature and encourages hospitality managers to leverage state mindfulness to reduce employee boredom experiences and work withdrawal.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105385"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-11-28DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105357
Hyojun Jung , Abhinav Sharma , Juan Luis Nicolau
{"title":"GenAI in tourism: Who wins, who loses?","authors":"Hyojun Jung , Abhinav Sharma , Juan Luis Nicolau","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105357","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105357","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) adoption announcements affect firm value in the tourism industry, focusing on online travel agencies (OTAs), hotel companies, and major technology firms. Drawing on signaling theory, two-sided market theory, competitive dynamics, and disruption theory, we analyze GenAI-related announcements made between November 2022 and October 2024 using an event study methodology. The findings reveal that market responses vary depending on the source of the announcement and the type of firm affected. While GenAI announcements from OTAs and hotels generate negative spillover effects for other tourism firms, OTAs experience positive responses to their own and hotel announcements. In contrast, announcements from tech firms trigger negative reactions across OTAs and hotels, suggesting concerns about platform dependency and value displacement. These results highlight the strategic complexity of GenAI signaling and its implications for firm positioning in platform-based industries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105357"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145611690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105378
Jiajing Hu, Zinan Wang, Yan Liu
{"title":"When helping helps or hurts: Leadership responses to pro-customer deviance and their divergent effects on service innovation","authors":"Jiajing Hu, Zinan Wang, Yan Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105378","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105378","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pro-customer deviance (PCD), which refers to frontline employees' deliberate bending of rules to better serve customers, represents a central paradox in hospitality management. While such behavior enhances customer experience, it simultaneously challenges operational consistency and institutional control. This study examines how leaders' interpretations of PCD influence its transformation into service innovation. Drawing on paradox theory, attention-based view, and regulatory focus theory, we develop and test a dual-pathway model using matched survey data from 364 employee–leader dyads in Chinese hotels. Results reveal a double-edged effect: promotion-focused leaders perceive PCD as an opportunity for improvement and respond with paradoxical leadership behavior, fostering innovation; prevention-focused leaders, in contrast, view PCD as a threat and reinforce routines replication, constraining innovation. These findings clarify how leaders’ cognitive and motivational framing of paradoxical behaviors determines whether deviance becomes a catalyst or constraint for innovation. The study advances multilevel theorizing on bottom-up innovation and provides actionable guidance for balancing discretion and standardization in hospitality service systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105378"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145784425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-12-19DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105376
Qiuxia Chen , Xiaoting Huang , Shanshi Li
{"title":"Digital storytelling in VR museums: How interaction with museum treasures affects tourists’ responses?","authors":"Qiuxia Chen , Xiaoting Huang , Shanshi Li","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105376","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite the widespread use of virtual reality (VR) technology in museums, the impact of interacting with museum treasures in the virtual world on tourists' responses remains underexplored. Drawing on narrative transportation theory, this study adopts an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, combining an experiment with follow-up interviews. Study 1 recruited 128 participants and employed both self-report measures and physiological indicators (i.e., electrodermal activity) to examine how interactions with museum treasures influence narrative transportation, memorable tourism experiences, and subsequent engagement behaviors. Building on these findings, Study 2 conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 participants to provide deeper insights and contextualize the quantitative results. The study finds that interaction with museum treasures enhances tourists’ memorable experiences and engagement, mediated by emotional arousal and immersion and moderated by narrative format. This study advances narrative transportation theory by elucidating how the interplay between narrative format and artifact-human interaction shapes transportation and subsequent behavioral responses in virtual environments. Practical guidance for designing engaging digital experiences in cultural tourism settings are highlighted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105376"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145785797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-12-18DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105382
Gabrielle Lin , Xinyang Liu , Jason Li Chen
{"title":"A time-varying behavioral economic model for dynamic hotel demand analysis","authors":"Gabrielle Lin , Xinyang Liu , Jason Li Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105382","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105382","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study addresses the static limitations of current behavioral economic models by developing and empirically validating a novel time-varying behavioral economic model. Integrating a behavioral economic framework with nonlinear time-varying parameter estimation via a Bayesian approach, the model is empirically demonstrated through a hotel booking dataset. Results reveal significant heterogeneity in key behavioral characteristics (baseline demand and price sensitivity) across diverse customer segments (families vs. non-families, early vs. late bookers). Furthermore, these parameters evolve dynamically over time, exhibiting distinct seasonal patterns in price responsiveness, particularly in resort hotels. The proposed model provides a more granular understanding of consumer behavior, offering a robust tool for enhanced dynamic pricing, customer segmentation, and micro-targeted hotel management strategies in changing markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105382"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145785981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-03DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105388
Lingfei Deng , Chunhong Li , Qiang Ye
{"title":"Cool or poor: Assessing the effectiveness of GenAI-powered review summary feature on the OTA platform","authors":"Lingfei Deng , Chunhong Li , Qiang Ye","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite the growing adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in online travel agencies (OTAs), its impact on tourists' review behavior remains poorly understood. Within the information overload framework, this study offers a novel dual-path theoretical framework that integrates both generalized reciprocity and suppressed social loafing mechanisms. Using a multi-method design comprising a natural experiment with regression discontinuity design and controlled online experiments across three studies, we investigated how GenAI-powered review summaries shape tourists' review intention. Our findings reveal that exposure to GenAI summaries enhances review intention through generalized reciprocity. By alleviating information overload and reducing perceived processing effort, these summaries motivate tourists to reciprocate by composing their own reviews, thereby ''paying forward'' the benefits received, rather than triggering free-riding that would diminish review intention. These findings advance theoretical knowledge of information processing, GenAI's influence on tourists' decision-making, and tourists' review behavior, while providing actionable insights for OTAs and hospitality management.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105388"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-12-03DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105356
Mingya Qu , Yujie Fu , Dongsheng Chen , Yatao Zhang , Jigang Bao
{"title":"From impact to action: Enhancing international tourism resilience through counterfactual explanations","authors":"Mingya Qu , Yujie Fu , Dongsheng Chen , Yatao Zhang , Jigang Bao","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105356","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105356","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>COVID-19, as an unexpected global shock, had a profound impact on international tourism and created a unique testing ground for empirical research on external shocks. However, existing studies lack a systematic analysis of the heterogeneous impact of COVID-19 on tourism recovery patterns across countries, providing limited insights into the actionable strategies to enhance recovery. This study quantitatively assesses the impact of COVID-19 on international tourism demand across 53 countries and provides actionable advice for counterfactual scenarios through a three-stage analytical framework. The first stage revealed that resilience varies considerably between countries, with the recovery trajectories falling into three distinct categories: V-, U-, and W-shaped patterns. Conceptualizing resilience as a process involving the resistance, adaptation, and recovery phases, the second stage employs econometric modeling within the framework of regional economic resilience. It identifies key factors significantly influencing the recovery stage. Finally, the third stage employs an interpretable machine learning method, counterfactual explanations, to assess how changes in the important factors might improve recovery outcomes. These analyses provide a comprehensive, data-driven perspective for examining the heterogeneity and mechanisms of international tourism resilience across countries in the aftermath of COVID-19.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105356"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145684862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-11-21DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105344
Bob McKercher
{"title":"Seniors and the cessation of travel","authors":"Bob McKercher","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105344","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105344","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines why seniors might stop travelling. It is framed within lifespan development theory that posits that development is continuous and malleable throughout one's life, noted by a series of gains and losses. Losses are more prevalent as one ages, including the inevitable decision, forced or unforced, to stop travelling. Using a mixed method approach, the study determined that a broad array of reasons will influence the end of travel. Most seniors expect to continue to travel as long as they remain healthy. Ultimately, though, they will pass a threshold after which interest and/or ability will decline due to their own physical or cognitive decline, that of their spouse or travel partner, loss of independence and lower satisfaction. In the end, the diminished reward is not worth the effort involved in travelling. Interestingly, those who have stopped travelling rarely framed their decision as a function of constraints, and instead identified it as simply a reality of the aging process.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105344"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145555312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism ManagementPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2025-12-04DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105371
Yaya Song , Xiaoning Liang , Yaoqi Li , Lisa C. Wan
{"title":"Temporal effect in consumer coping with service failures","authors":"Yaya Song , Xiaoning Liang , Yaoqi Li , Lisa C. Wan","doi":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105371","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105371","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Existing research has largely overlooked how consumers' coping strategies vary dynamically depending on when service failures occur during the service process. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory, this study proposes that problem-focused coping strategy is prioritized when a failure occurs early in the process, but consumers tend to shift toward emotion-focused coping when the failure occurs at later stages. This temporal effect is mediated by consumers’ future time perspective and is moderated by their temporal perspective (linear vs. cyclical) and failure type (process vs. outcome). Evidence from one quasi-experiment and five laboratory experiments supports the proposed framework. This research advances understanding of temporal variation in coping responses to service failures and provides actionable insights for service managers seeking to tailor recovery strategies over time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48469,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Management","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 105371"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145684861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}