No abstract

Customers choosing Airbnb over a traditional hotel are looking for a different experience. Despite the popularity of Airbnb in China, little research has been devoted to examining customers’ perception and experience with this nascent form of accommodation. Through the lens of the expanded Experience Economy Model, and based on 7606 customer comments for 294 listed Airbnb accommodations in Hangzhou, China, this study explored eight aspects of customer experience—namely, entertainment, education, esthetics, escapism, interaction, home-feeling, tangible-sensorial and localness—regarding Airbnb experiences in China. Findings of this study suggested that although all eight aspects were present, there is in general a lack of entertainment and escapist experience in Airbnb accommodations in Hangzhou, suggesting meaningful directions that Airbnb accommodations need to work on. The study contributes to customer experience literature, particularly to the Experience Economy Model and also has important empirical significance.

No abstract

Integrating two theoretical frameworks, the product level theory and the experience economy model, this research analyzed and compared robotic technology applications and customer experiences in selected case robot restaurants in the United States and China. Guided by the product level theory, we first analyzed in which product/service levels were robots applied in each case restaurant in Study 1. Then in study 2, guided by the experience economy model, we further explored customers’ dining experiences and compared if customers’ experience differs due to variations in product/service levels that robot applied. The study first contributes to the product level theory by extending its application to the context of robotic restaurants. It also contributes to the experience economy literature, and in particularly, whether applications of robotic technologies at different product levels matter in customers’ dining experience. The study included case restaurants both from the United States and China, presenting findings with cultural implications. Given the challenges presented by COVID-19 and the industry is exploring alternative ways for service delivery and food production, such a study is particularly meaningful.

A micromachined resonator immersed in liquid provides valuable resonance parameters for determining the fluidic parameters. However, the liquid operating environment poses a challenge to maintaining a fine sensing performance, particularly through electrical characterization. This paper presents a piezoelectric micromachined cantilever with a stepped shape for liquid monitoring purposes. Multiple modes of the proposed cantilever are available with full electrical characterization for realizing self-actuated and self-sensing capabilities. The focus is on higher flexural resonances, which nonconventionally feature two-dimensional vibration modes. Modal analyses are conducted for the developed cantilever under flexural vibrations at different orders. Modeling explains not only the basic length-dominant mode but also higher modes that simultaneously depend on the length and width of the cantilever. This study determines that the analytical predictions for resonant frequency in liquid media exhibit good agreement with the experimental results. Furthermore, the experiments on cantilever resonators are performed in various test liquids, demonstrating that higher-order flexural modes allow for the decoupled measurements of density and viscosity. The measurement differences achieve 0.39% in density and 3.50% in viscosity, and the frequency instability is below 0.05‰. On the basis of these results, design guidelines for piezoelectric higher-mode resonators are proposed for liquid sensing.