This study attempts to assess how tourists use smart tourism technologies at destinations and measure the effects of STT usage on overall travel experience and future revisit intention. Although STTs have received growing attention, little research has evaluated tourists’ experience with STTs available at various smart tourism destinations and potential consequences. Building on studies on online tourism information sources, this study develops a conceptual framework to test hypotheses related to STT experiences and consequences. Based on an online survey with travelers to top five US smart cities, this study classifies the most frequently used STTs and examines tourists’ overall experience and satisfaction with STTs as well as their revisit intention. Findings suggest that three attributes of STTs—informativeness, interactivity, and personalization—are the key factors affecting tourists’ experience, satisfaction, and revisit intentions. The level of perceived security/privacy moderates the relationships between three STT attributes and tourists’ memorable experience.

Purpose The hotel industry has witnessed an increasing number of service automation through service robots such as robot concierges. However, few studies have documented how to identify how hotel guests perceive a robot concierge for their service encounter. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of robot concierges on hotel guests’ attitudes and adoption intentions of robot concierges. Design/methodology/approach This study investigated the effects of robot concierges’ morphology and their level of interactivity with guests at different levels of hotel service on guests’ attitudes and their intentions to adopt robot concierges. To achieve the study’s objectives, this study conducted a 3 × 2 × 3 between-subjects factorial design experiment. Moreover, the survey asked questions about subjects’ preferences of their service encounters (e.g. human employees, robot concierges and/or no preference) and reasons for their selected preference. Findings The results demonstrated that the robot’s morphology significantly influenced guests’ attitudes toward robot concierges. In particular, the caricatured robot was the most preferred morphology of robot concierges. The findings showed that even if guests had favorable attitudes toward robot concierges, they preferred human employees to robot concierges because of humans’ sincere and genuine interactions. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by investigating the causal impacts of the morphology of robot concierges, level of interactivity and level of hotel service on guests’ attitudes toward robot concierges. The thematic analysis of service encounter preference provides an overview of the factors that guests expect for their service encounters in a hotel setting.

Due to COVID-19, universities have shifted to offer online learning for their students from traditional face-to-face learning. Despite various efforts made by university administrators for their students' online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, not much has been identified about how students perceived online learning and what factors affected their online learning engagement and outcomes. Examining students' motivation, self-efficacy, and anxiety as key factors for their online learning engagement and outcomes, this study conducted a self-administered online survey with college students in three countries: the U.S., South Korea, and Colombia. This study used SEM to test hypotheses and conducted a multi-group analysis to find differences among students. The findings indicated that students' self-efficacy and anxiety significantly impacted their online learning engagement, influencing online learning outcomes. Although students were highly engaged in online learning, their perceived online learning was not so effective and rigorous compared to faceto-face learning.

Purpose This study aims to identify travelers’ motivational factors to adopt augmented reality (AR) applications at tourism destinations. Furthermore, this study seeks to investigate the role of personal innovativeness as a moderator in the relationships between motivations and travelers’ behavioral outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Building upon two theories, cognitive evaluation theory and self-presentation theory, this study developed a conceptual framework to identify travelers’ inclination to use AR applications at tourism destinations. A sample size of 473 was collected through an online self-administered survey. Using partial least square (PLS) analysis, the proposed model was examined. To examine the moderating effect of personal innovativeness, a multi-group analysis was conducted with two groups: high-innovative and low-innovative. PLS method is used to test the study’s theoretical model. Findings Findings of this study indicate that both hedonic and utilitarian motivations significantly influenced travelers’ attitudes toward AR applications at tourism destinations. Self-presentation motivation appears to have a significantly positive impact on travelers’ attitudes toward AR applications only for the highly innovative group. Originality/value This study helps a better understanding of what motivates travelers to adopt AR applications at tourism destinations by integrating preeminent theories and applying them to the tourism context.

Purpose This study aims to present a novel examination of actor value formation (AVF) in the sharing economy by uncovering its key dimensions (i.e. information seeking, personal interaction and feedback) at each stage of Airbnb consumption. Using multi-source data, how the key dimensions of AVF affect consumers’ evaluative judgment capturing the key aspects of consumption experiences (i.e. communication quality, value for money and overall evaluations) was empirically tested. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a triangulated, multi-study approach to test and validate the hypotheses. In Study 1, the authors analyzed 586,778 online reviews through deductive and inductive approaches to determine how three AVF dimensions could be captured and examine these dimensions’ effects on consumers’ evaluative judgments. In Study 2, an online survey was adopted to improve the reliability and validity of findings. Findings This study identified positive and negative outcomes of AVF. The results also revealed which AVF dimensions significantly led to communication quality and value for money, which in turn influenced consumers’ overall evaluations. The findings further provided robust support for the mediating role of value for money as a mechanism in the relationships between AVF and overall evaluations across the two studies. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by empirically identifying the three key dimensions of AVF in each consumption stage and subsequently testing a conceptual model using different data, research methods and analytical techniques to cross-validate the results. The authors also extended the scope of AVF by integrating both positive and negative aspects in the context of Airbnb.