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This study tests a holistic model covering the antecedents and consequences of service improvement within the context of the hospitality industry. Market orientation and brand orientation are considered among the antecedents of service improvement. Consequences of service improvement, on the other hand, are the sub-dimensions of hotel performance. Data were collected from 121 hotel managers via online questionnaire technique. The research model was tested with PLS-SEM method. Findings related to the direct effect hypotheses show that customer orientation has positive effects on brand orientation and service improvement. While competitor orientation affects brand orientation positively, it does not have a direct effect on service improvement. There is a positive relationship between brand orientation and service improvement. Service improvement enhances the customer performance of a hospitality enterprise while not having a direct effect on the economic performance of the enterprise. On the other hand, customer performance of a hotel increases the economic performance and economic performance enhances its financial performance. Hypotheses concerning the indirect effect indicate that competitor orientation affects service improvement behavior through brand orientation. Similarly, service improvement and economic performance relationship is mediated by customer performance, and customer orientation and economic performance relationship by brand orientation.

This study aims to generate future research directions by discovering how self-congruity theory has been applied in tourism research so far. The systematic literature review method was employed and 53 articles applying self-congruity theory published in 20 top-tier tourism journals between 1992-2019 were content analysed. Findings revealed that the most prominent journal in publishing self-congruity research was the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, most of the relevant articles followed a quantitative research design and utilized the new method of measuring self-congruity which obviates the discrepancy scores problem of the traditional method by measuring self-congruity directly, actual self-congruity was the most considered self-congruity dimension and the theory was investigated mostly with regards to destinations. Future directions for self-congruity researchers were generated according to these parameters.

Despite the interests on destination branding in general, there has been scarce investigations on destination personality which is described as the set of human characteristics associated with a destination. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived destination personality of Bodrum (a famous destination in Turkey) and the relationship among destination personality, selfcongruity and loyalty. In 8 to 14 August, 2011 time period, 252 respondents who were domestic tourists that visited Bodrum destination and stayed at the hotels in the destination were surveyed with the questionnaire form privately developed for the destination. 226 usable questionnaires were analyzed. 38 personality traits were tested and destination personality of Bodrum was measured. The findings of the study indicate that tourists ascribe personality characteristics to destinations and the perceived destination personality dimensions of Bodrum are dynamism, sincerity, competence and sophistication. The results also show that the most distinct dimension which has a positive impact on loyalty to destination is sincerity. In addition, ideal self-congruity has resulted as the most effective self-congruity measure on loyalty.

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