Guest editorial

Mura and Sharif (2017) conducted a systematic literature review and used a qualitative narrative analysis approach to identify all empirical and non-empirical evidence that fits the pre-specified inclusion criteria to answer a particular research question or questions or to test their proposition(s) about the hospitality and tourism industry. 2.2 Phenomenological research design in hospitality and tourism studies Phenomenological research explains the “common meaning” of a concept of a phenomenon coming from many individuals with their own lived experiences (Creswell and Poth, 2016). (2021) also used a phenomenological approach to conceptualize consumers’ lifestyles and hotel experience to develop a scale with which to measure these two critical aspects of the field of hospitality and the tourism industry. Wijesinghe (2009) described the possible applications of expressive phenomenological design in hospitality and tourism studies to gain the real-life experiences of different stakeholders in the discipline of hospitality and tourism. 2.3 Participatory action research design in hospitality and tourism studies In the qualitative paradigm, Participatory Action Research is a study design in which researchers and participants collaboratively conduct research to drive particular changes that improve existing practices. (2019) used Participatory Action Research in their empirical study that proposed a six-dimensional framework for implementing internal branding in the hospitality and tourism industry. 2.4 Ethnography/netnography research design in hospitality and tourism studies Ethnography is the study of shared patterns of the behaviors, beliefs and languages of an entire culture-sharing group (Creswell and Poth, 2016), whereas, netnography is a portmanteau of “internet” and “ethnography” and is online cultural research commonly done in social-media groups or the sites where people of a specific community or group share their views, experiences, etc.